Part 1
a Gundam Wing Faerie Tale
by Krista Perry

Notes: 2+H, TWT (Timeline? What Timeline?), Alt. Universe, violence, lime, disturbing themes, less-than-pure language

~*~

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

                        - A bedtime nursery rhyme

~*~

        The winter night was damp, and bitter cold. Beneath a thick, soot-gray shroud of heavy, low-riding storm clouds, a rolling expanse of land stretched out in all directions, the long-dead grasses covered by a thin layer of slick, ice-crusted snow. No human presence was found on the plain, because this night the winds were merciless and howling; the clouds threatening to burst again at any moment with a torrent of frozen sleet. Anyone with sense had themselves tucked safely away within the few small, warm villages that dotted the rolling countryside.

        Consequently, no one was around to hear the voices within the wind -- one voice, hard and thorny, full of brittle laughter and mischief, the other quiet and calm as the deepest shadow of the new moon; each cold and dark and forbidding as the night itself.        

        - So, milady, after all this time, you have decided to return to the sunlit realms?

        - I always intended to return. But there are patterns to these things, and it amuses me to keep to them. The years have come full circle, and the veils between the worlds thin... Now is as good a time as any.

        - Indeed. What of the seal?

        - What of it?

        - It still stands.

        - Only barely. It has fallen into such disrepair over the centuries that it will be a small matter to shatter the rest of it.

        - I take it you have already conceived a plan?

        - The plan was always there from the beginning, my merry wanderer of the night. But you will help me, of course.

        - Of course. Ah, it has been so long! How surprised they will be to have us amongst them again!

        - It is the land I desire. The earth and the trees; the waters, and the breath of the wind; the fire of the stars. Not the inhabitants.

        - Ah, but the inhabitants always provide such delightful entertainment... You might change your mind once the seal is broken.

        - Perhaps... But rare is the mortal that can catch my fancy.

        - Rare, and unfortunate...

        - What say you, hobgoblin?

        - Nothing! Nothing but the mutterings of your most obedient fool, your majesty. But, look, in the sky. Heh, methinks something wicked this way comes...

        - Not so wicked as merely passing strange.

        - And wondrous. A great winged demon of dark metal, wielding green fire, that thinks itself invisible.

        - Yes. A marvelous man-made beast with a human heart... and arriving just as expected. Come, let us greet our deliverer together, my Goodfellow.

        - ... As you command, my queen.

        The voices, which spoke where none could hear them, said no more. As the wind blew, harsh and cold across the Salisbury Plain of England, the longest, darkest night of the year was drawing nigh.

~*~

        Duo Maxwell -- the sixteen year old young man known to many as Shinigami, the god of death, because of the swift, ruthless efficiency with which he decimated his enemies in battle -- was on his way to a mission. The mission was simple and straightforward; the kind of mission he liked best. It involved razing an OZ military base, with all its secrets, equipment, and unfortunate personnel, to the ground.

        He was also singing enthusiastically at the top of his lungs.

        "... Baby, you can drive my car;
        Yes, I'm gonna be a star...
        Baby, you can drive my car,
        and baby, I love yooooou....
        Beep beep, m-beep beep YEAHHH!"

        The internal speakers of Deathscythe Hell's cockpit throbbed the ancient Beatles tune with the bass beat cranked to the max. The pilot, strapped securely into his harness as he skillfully maneuvered his Gundam through heavy cloud cover and intense winds, still managed to gyrate in his seat in time to the music, head bobbing violently, long braid flapping, as he wailed alongside Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

        "...I got no car, and it's breakin' my heart,
        but I found a driver, and that's a start..."

        Duo was of the firm conviction that any mission where he was sent to blow up something on the British Isles had to be accompanied by Beatles music. It made him feel patriotic in a way, even though he was, technically, American. In his own eyes, though, he represented not only the Colonies, but whatever country he happened to be in, whatever it may have been before the Romerfeller Foundation took over everything. So today, as he flew over southern England on his way to obliterate an OZ base, he was British.

        He had been chosen for this mission because the target, which used to be an old English military base before the Romerfeller takeover, was on the vast, flat Salisbury Plain, with absolutely no cover. Trees were a rarity here, and the occasional rolling hill did little to disguise the approach of an enemy. Surprise attacks on this base were difficult, if not impossible. So, naturally, Deathscythe Hell, with its superior cloaking capabilities, was chosen to render it into a useless pile of slag.

        It was just as well that this was a solo mission, he thought, smirking. Heero couldn't stand the Beatles. Neither could Wufei, for that matter, though how anyone could not love the Fab Four was beyond him.

        "Beep beep, m-beep beep YEAHHH!"

        Quatre and Trowa both tolerated him and his mission theme music -- a habit he had picked up a few months ago -- in long-suffering silence. But he preferred violently vocal protests over stewing in silence any day, which made Heero and Wufei his mission partners of choice. Not that he ever really had a choice, since the Prof never took his personal preferences into account when assigning him a mission.

        Most of all, though, he preferred going solo altogether. That way, he could sing to his heart's content and not have to worry about annoying his friends to the point of there being unpleasant repercussions when they returned to the safehouse. Like one time, after a mission near Mexico City a few weeks ago, when he had played "La Cucaracha" full blast over the external speakers during an intense Leo battle. Heero had tied his braid to the bedpost that night, and had even invented his own super special Perfect Soldier knot for the occasion. Duo winced at the memory. His scalp hurt just to think about it. It had taken him over three hours to untie that knot...

        A pre-set alarm from a small left panel penetrated through the music to alert him that he was approaching his target. Duo briefly interrupted his singing jaunt to switch off the alarm, inspect the radar systems, and double-check the hyperjammers. Twenty kilometers and counting. Hyperjammers functioning at 102% efficiency, he noted with an approving nod. He took in all the systems and weapons readings in an instant, and, for just a moment, the deadly seriousness that he usually kept hidden under his maniacally cheerful mask, flickered in his blue-violet eyes.

        War was hell, Duo knew, on an all-too-personal level. The broken, bloody carcasses of everyone he had ever loved haunted both his waking and sleeping hours, their images lurking continually behind his eyes. A shattered church full of dead children. The cooling, tear-streaked skin of a young nun's face, her gentle eyes closed forever...

        And so he did what had to be done; fighting and killing, to end the fighting and killing. Pulling his small gold cross out from under his red t-shirt, he pressed it to his lips briefly, before dropping the chain back down his shirt. The metal was chill against his bare skin, like a cold flame over his heart. "Look out, OZ," Duo whispered, his smile turning grim and eager. "Shinigami is coming."

        Dipping just below the cloud cover, Duo caught his first real glimpse of the landscape, just as the next song started blaring through the speakers. Internal speakers only, of course. He didn't switch over to external until the surprise was sprung, and the attack was well underway. He grinned. This was one of his favorite songs, and he sang along with gusto.

        "Yeah, well, shake it up, baby, now --
        Shake it up, BA-BY!.."

        The night-shrouded landscape was flat. Boring. Kind of like Kansas, he thought, only without the corn fields. Nothing in the least bit interesting to look at. Wait... he could see the dim twinkle of lights from a small village just to the east... a few sparse trees, and the dark thread of a river cutting through the plain...

        "...TWIST and SHOUT!..."

        But that was all. And with the storm clouds, he was flying low enough that not even the base was visible yet on the horizon. Just as well. With Deathscythe's hyperjammers, they wouldn't know he was coming, unless they happened to look out a window -- not that they would be able to see much of anything this time of night. Still, Duo didn't believe there was such a thing as being too cautious, so he slipped his Gundam back into the safety of the cloud cover, just in case. No need to be reckless, especially since he wanted to get this mission over with, and get back to the safehouse as soon as possible.

        He had a special Christmas present for a certain blue-eyed, ex-OZ babe to finish making, after all.

        A lopsided grin tugged at his mouth. He couldn't wait to see Hilde again.

        It was strange, really. He wasn't sure exactly when he started having feelings beyond friendship for the girl. Maybe it was from that first moment, when she caught him infiltrating the lunar base, and nearly blew his head off...

        The memory of her glaring at him over the barrel of her gun surfaced in his mind.  Heh... Cute, smart, spunky, and damn good with a firearm. My type of girl for sure.

        "Come on, come on come on come on come on BABY, now!"

        Of course, it helped that she hadn't blown his head off, and had switched sides and saved his life instead, which suited him fine. It would have been difficult to pursue a romance with her if she remained an enemy out for his blood.

        Unfortunately, Hilde had quickly discovered how unhealthy it was to be branded an OZ traitor, and hanging out with Gundam Pilot 02 didn't do much to improve that situation. Consequently, she was currently laying low, maintaining her deceased uncle's scrapyard business on the L2 Colony. He, on the other hand, was several hundred thousand miles away on Earth, doing his best to sabotage OZ, before they completely destroyed the colonies' independence, and any chance he might have of returning to L2 and making some sort of real life for himself. A life that he hoped just might include Hilde on a more permanent basis...

        "Come on and work it on out -- Work it on out, OOOOOOO!"

        In the meantime, Hilde definitely didn't expect to see him in person for quite a while. He had made sure of that. Right before the mission, he had slipped away from the safehouse and had called her from a public vidphone. The whole brief conversation had been digustingly sappy. Hilde had done her best to coax him back for just a day or two, even going so far as to use her greatest weapon on him -- her wide, soulful, wounded-puppy eyes. He had almost faltered at that, but he was proud that he held firm in the face of such a devestating onslaught. And, while he hadn't exactly lied, he had led her to believe that his current mission was going to keep him from returning home for the holidays.

        Just thinking about how surprised Hilde was going to be when he showed up on her doorstep on Christmas Eve bearing gifts, Duo couldn't help but grin. He couldn't wait to see her again.

        "Yeah, well shake it up BABY, now!
        Shake it up --"

        Duo was fully immersed in the song, shaking his head back and forth so that his braid lashed side to side behind him, like the tail of a cat on the prowl, when a bright, unearthly blue light flashed just outside Deathscythe's hull amidst the clouds. The light was so blinding and so close that, even as he continued to belt out "BABY," Duo fully expected to be deafened by a crash of thunder in the next moment.

        Instead, John Lennon was interrupted in mid-word as the music abruptly cut out. The glow of the surrounding screens and instrument panels faded to darkness, and the muffled whine of Deathscythe's engines died instantly.

        There was no thunder.

        Duo suddenly found himself sitting in a pitch black cockpit, with nothing but the sound of his own loud singing trailing off into the absolute silence.

        He blinked, too stunned, for a moment, to comprehend what had just happened. He couldn't see a thing. Not even the red emergency lights were working.

        Deathscythe plummeted. Duo gasped as g-forces, that his Gundam usually protected him from with its force shielding, tugged him violently upward. Only his harness kept him from being flattened against the cockpit ceiling at the sudden free fall.

        "Oh shit," he said succinctly.

        This couldn't be happening. There were layers upon layers of safeguards to protect against this sort of thing. Gundams just didn't stop working and fall out of the sky for no reason. Especially not his Gundam.

        He worked the dead controls frantically, trying to coax a response -- any response -- from Deathscythe, with absolutely no results. The darkness and the silence were absolute, except for the sound of his suddenly too-rapid breathing. "Shit, shit, shit. Come on!"

        *Come on, baby, now.*

        Great. He liked the song, but he didn't want to die with it stuck in his head. He didn't want to die, period. "Come on, work! Don't do this to me!" Nothing. Snarling in frustration, he smacked a control panel with his fist, and heard it crack. "Work, dammit!"

        He couldn't even see the ground to know when he was going to hit. He was falling completely blind. The suspense was killing him, and he chuckled bitterly at the irony of the thought. If he was lucky, his harness would hold, and he wouldn't be splattered all over the inside of the cockpit. But, considering what just happened -- whatever the hell it had been -- he wasn't counting much on his luck.

        In the absence of music and the ever-present hum of engines, Duo could hear the wind outside, shrieking and howling around him. He figured the shock of the whole stupid situation must have addled his mind a bit, because he could swear that, amidst the wind, he could hear something laughing...

        Well, he thought, with a calm that belied the slightly hysterical fear he could feel lurking at the edges of his mind. Guess I'll never get the chance to tell Hilde that--

        There was a tremendous jolt, a roar, a tearing. Duo heard a terrible snapping sound, as if from a great distance. For one brief moment, pain filled his existence, flaring scarlet behind his eyes; pain so great that he couldn't even scream for the agony of it.

        Then all was dark.

~*~

        In a warm, well-lit pub on the outskirts of the small village of West Amesbury, a motley group of chaotically-dressed people held their drinks aloft, facing the window. A young man, with black and platinum blond-streaked hair, stood on his chair and counted rhythmically.

        "...Six-one-thousand, seven-one-thousand, eight-one-thousand, nine-one --"

        Outside in the distance, in the darkness, a thunderous rumble reverberated, booming across the countryside, so loud that the mugs hanging in a row over the bar rattled.

        The crowd cheered, clinked glasses, and drank heartily as the young man crowed, "Nine-one-thousand! That's what, nine kilometers? Bloody hell, from the sound of it, I'd wager the lightning struck a lot closer than that." His statement was met with various responses of assent or dissent from the pub's occupants, all in various degrees of soberness.

        Off in a less-noisy corner of the pub, a man in his early thirties, balding, but with a striking flame-red beard, sat down next to a young woman, who was staring intently out the window. He followed her gaze, then glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Her long, straight hair, he noticed, was died a purple so dark that it was almost black.

        "Ho, Sharon," he greeted, his gaze returning to the window that looked out across the bleak winter tableland.

        "Ho, Neville," she responded without looking at him.

        "That blue light," he said after a long moment. "It wasn't lightning."

        "Mm," she agreed, her gray eyes never straying from the window. "Nor was that crash thunder, I should think."

        "You think it might be the OZ troups doing maneuvers?"

        "Not bloody likely."

        Neville sighed heavily, and ran one hand through the sparse hair atop his head. "So, you've done a reading then?"

        Her nod was barely perceptible.

        "Did it say anything in particular?"

        Her face was carefully blank. "Just that bad things are coming." Her voice quieted to almost a whisper. "Very bad things."

        Neville swore under his breath. "My reading said the same thing. Damn. And just in time for Winter Solstice. I was hoping I was wrong."

        She snorted, glancing at him for the first time since he sat down. "You're never wrong, Neville. You're the Merlin, aren't you? The High Druid?"

        "There's always a first time."

        A wry half-smile curled one corner of her mouth. "Well, if you can be wrong, then maybe we're both wrong. Maybe it is just OZ, testing some new kind of weapon or something."

        Neville barked a short, humorless laugh. "Shit. Anything that makes OZ seem like a better alternative is bad, innit."

        Sharon's smile faded.

        Neville reached over with one arm and gave her a comforting squeeze. Sharon took it stoically. "Then again," he said, "it coulda been lightning, I suppose."

        "Sure," Sharon replied quietly. "Lightning."

        But it wasn't, she knew.

~*~

        - You missed, fool.

        The voice was, if possible, even more icy than the wind.

        - 'Twasn't my fault, milady. You shoot a bird from the sky, it drops like a stone. It's not supposed to keep flying on even as it falls, like this bloody great metal beast.

        - This beast is no mere starling, shot with an arrow, hobgoblin. A dragon, lanced through, will still glide beyond the mark before succumbing to the earth.

        - Ah...

        Understanding, and sudden fear, permeated that one word.

        - Because of your misstep, the seal remains unbroken.

        - I... I beg humble pardon, majesty. But please, hold your wrath, for there may yet be a way to salvage the situation.

        - ... Speak on.

        - The human heart of the metal beast still lives.

        - Not for long. The crash has snapped his neck like brittle timber, and he is dying quickly. Can you not feel his lifeblood slipping away?

        - Aye. But, even with the seal in place... is it not within your power to save him still?

        - ... I am not in the business of saving mortals, Puck.

        - If he lives, he may fly again.

        - ... Only to once more fall.

        - Ah, but this time, I will not miss. I swear, milady. You know I am not in the habit of making the same mistake twice.

        - ...Very well. But know this. If you fail again, I will send the ravens to pluck away your eyes, and the hounds to gnaw your flesh and lap your blood for a thousand years.

        - ... I will not fail, milady.

~*~

        Within Deathscythe's cockpit, a soft blue flame flared from the pitch darkness. The light illuminated a grisly scene. While the Gundam itself was relatively unscathed from its impact, its pilot was not so fortunate. The left shoulder harness had torn loose, and the boy dangled limply from the remaining strap, his right arm pulled from its socket, even as his head hung at a terrible, unnatural angle. A long, wickedly sharp shard of glass, from the one single vidscreen that had not survived the crash, pierced his side, and a great pool of blood was slowly spreading beneath him.

        The cool, bodiless voice that floated through small space was tinged with amazement -- the first emotion, other than anger or apathy, that it had expressed.

        - Why... the heart of the beast is just a boy.

        - Aye. Surprised was I as well.

        - Considering the lack of damage elsewhere, his injuries seem hardly accidental.

        - So I loosened the strap and broke the glass. I did not intend to miss, and it did not seem prudent to leave him alive to tell tales.

        The blue flame drifted closer, illuminating Duo's face. In the eerie, flickering light, his long hair, torn loose from the usual immaculate braid, hung like strands of spun silk around him. The thick black lashes of his closed eyes were a stark contrast to his deathly pale skin.

        - ...

        - ...Milady?

        - He... is beautiful. Even in near-death...

        - ... I suppose...

        - I wonder... what color his eyes are.

        - Perhaps you could find out, once you healed him.

        - You will keep a civil tongue in your head, hobgoblin, or I will rip it from you.

        - ... Deepest apologies, your majesty. Forgive my impudence. I am merely anxious for his life, for he is my second chance.

        - ... Indeed...

        Silence, but for the shallow, wet sound of Duo's fading breath.

        - ... Milady, I do not mean to rush, but he is almost gone --

        - Puck. I want him.

        - ... Pardon?

        - Next time, you will keep him alive. I want no harm to come to him.

        - ... As you wish, your majesty.

        With that, the blue flame drifted closer to the dying boy, until it hovered at his forehead. A single moment passed, before the flame erupted in a searing, blinding light that filled the tiny, bloodstained cockpit.

        And amidst the blinding light, the cool, dark voice spoke again, and there was a smile within the tone. The kind of cruel smile that chills the blood.

        - I have healed him. Now he is mine.

~*~

End of Chapter 1

On to Chapter 2

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