Kel

1/?

Shift. Swing. Screech. Boom.

Shift. Swing. Screech. Boom.

Shift. Swing. Screech. Boom.

//It becomes mechanical after a time,// mused the braided boy as he performed another bout of swings and booms. Shift to avoid the blight of an on coming missile. Swing the scythe to cut through the metal of an offending Leo, spawning a loud, almost intolerable ‘screech’ of the protesting metal. The ‘boom’, of course, is self-explanatory.

Shift. Swing. Screech. Boom.

Shift. Swing. Screech. Boom.

//Damn,// he thought additionally. //I’m starting a pattern. Better change up a bit before Hee-chan notices...//

“Duo.”

//Too late,// the boy called Duo thought miserably. If his hands were free, he would smack himself in the forehead and groan. He didn’t know if he should be flattered that Heero kept a close eye on him or exasperated that the Japanese boy made it his business to know Duo’s business. Possibly both flattered and annoyed.

“Ha~ai, Hee-chan?” called the beautiful braided boy, pausing mid-slice for an instant before starting his rhythm once more. No good waiting for his Japanese koi to finish what he said. That kind of foolishness would positively get him ‘dispatched’. Permanently.

“You’re starting a pattern.” Duh. Heero Yuy, the proclaimer of the obvious. Good thing Duo kept his mouth shut on that one. He didn’t particularly crave to hear the Wing pilot say his favorite phrase of ‘omae o korosu’.

“I noticed,” he replied instead, grunting when a Leo got a lucky shot in. Why that son of a gun! Duo smirked cheekily and swung his scythe in a broad arch. The Leo, of course, went ‘boom’, like the rest of the mobile suits he had totaled that day. “Hah! That’s what you get for messin’ with Shinigami, pal!” Oh, he was _so_ getting into this...

“Patterns will get you killed,” warned the Wing pilot brusquely as he opened fire on a group of clustered suits.

Duo sighed, waving with flourish even when he knew the Wing pilot couldn’t see him. “Yare, yare.” Really! His koi had absolutely nil to worry about. He had everything under control.

That’s when it occurred.

“H-heero?...”

Heero Yuy frowned at the unease that was most defiantly in his partner and lover’s voice. With little thought the Japanese pilot finished off the last Leo, finally capable of turning his observation to his clearly distressed koi. Duo was calling all of their names, as if he couldn’t see Quatre’s Sandrock beside him, or Wufei’s Shenlong three yards behind Trowa, who was standing beside Heero’s Wing. Heero himself was right in front of the stationary Deathscythe.

“Duo,” said the pilot stonily. “Is there something wrong?” He may have been proficient in keeping the worry before his inquiry, but his concern was prominent during said inquiry.

“Heero?” Duo sounded out of breathe, and the signal Heero was admitting from his comm wasn’t exactly as secure as it should have been. Heero’s frown deepened as he seemed to get Quatre’s own question of worry just as clear as in battle. Was Duo’s communicator damaged?

“Heero?!” Duo was beginning to panic after his third call. Everything was so black... he couldn’t even see the controls that he KNEW where in front of him. They had to be... he felt them. But... he couldn’t move them! No matter how much he pushed and pulled, he couldn’t get them to budge! “Quatre?! Trowa?! Wufei?!” he nearly hollered into the comm, his voice cracking slightly. Static. “I-I can’t see!”

There was... wind? No, there shouldn’t be a breeze... couldn’t have been... but he HEARD it! He heard the wind... No, it wasn’t the wind... it was... it was...

“What...” It was a voice... one voice that sounded like many voices talking at the same time. It was... telling him something... “What’s coming?” he whispered hoarsely, his throat feeling oddly dry. “I don’t understand. What’s coming?!” But the voice didn’t answer. It just parroted what it had been saying. ‘They’re coming, they’re coming’ over and over and over, always in a recurring sequence. “Who’s coming?!”

“Who’s coming?!”

“Heero,” Quatre murmured over the intercom, sounding strangely eery, “something isn’t right. It’s like... there’s something else in Deathscythe other than Duo.”

Wufei could be heard snorting over the comm. “It sounds to me like Maxwell is going stir-crazy.”

“No,” Quatre said firmly. “There is SOMETHING choking Duo’s comm waves. Turn up your comm as much as you can and stay perfectly quiet. Focus everything on the connection with Duo.”

Heero did just what Quatre told him, even going as far as holding his breath to determine who or what his koi was talking to. But he didn’t hear anything but... was that wind? No, it couldn’t be. It must have been static; Deathscythe, like all of their Gundams, was air-tight. There was no possible way wind could blow through the cockpit like the gundanium was nothing.

“It sounds like... wind,” Trowa affirmed curtly, voicing what Heero had first suspected.

“Hai. That’s what I hear too,” Wufei added with a touch of unease in his tone. “But... I hear the wind SAYING something.”

“They’re coming...” Heero started at his own scrutiny. That’s what the wind said. ‘They’re coming’...

That’s when it started. Deathscythe suddenly jerked to attention, it’s glowing green scythe held rigidly in own balled, metal hand. A greenish glow spread from the Gundams strange green eyes, covering its head and moving down its metal framed body. Once thoroughly covered in the green light, it began to expand and twist, catching each of the four other Gundams in tentacle-like wisps. The greenish radiance became brighter and brighter until finally the brilliant glow became too sharp to see through...

And when the glow died, where once stood five massive weapons of havoc stood nothing but the wreckage of what used to be an Oz establishment... and the eery flowing of a stray gust of cool air.

End

C&C welcome at Kel_741