The Hazards of Magic I
A Gundam W - Ruin Explorers Fusion
By Sefilin
Duo watched the blast from Wing Zero's gun head towards the fragment of Libra still heading for Earth. It expanded as it left the barrel, the golden blast of energy beginning to burn through the piece of scrap metal that was beginning to fall through the atmosphere.
But it wasn't enough, the fragment, once the blast had passed through, was still big enough to pose a threat to Earth's climate, threatening an ice age or holocaust that would make the current war look like nothing.
As Wing continued to fall through the atmosphere ahead of Libra, Duo sighed. There he goes, trying to self-destruct again. But there were things that could still be done, though most people probably thought otherwise. After all, if Heero and Wing Zero couldn't do it, who could?
A light touch to his thrusters and Duo was heading towards the falling fragment, cackling madly and half-hysterically. He hadn't wanted it to come to this; it was too embarrassing. But with the fate of the world and all that at stake, he supposed he could deal with a little embarrassment.
So, as he drew ever closer to the fragment, he tuned out the worried queries from Quatre and began to cast the only spell he knew was fully capable of spreading Libra into atoms across the atmosphere. His tongue twisted with strange words, familiar from a lifetime of study, though unused for a long time.
And as the final word was spoken, Libra began to glow then it disappeared in a blast of harmless light and Duo was straining to see his monitors from where he sat in the middle of his seat.
A sweatdrop appeared on his head as he realised he'd forgotten to organise things so his Shinigami would land itself safely; somewhere he could sit until he'd worked out how to get his hands on those pills...
With a flick of a tiny chipmunk's tail, Duo scrambled to the edge of his seat, looking up at the controls across the chasm that separated them. This was so not good, he chittered to himself before realising what he was doing and clamping his mouth shut.
He heard Quatre's voice loudly in the cockpit, yelling for him, warning him that if he didn't pull out of his current trajectory, he'd end up burning up on entry. He could hear the shock in the blonde's voice, and not just from his current situation. Quatre obviously wanted to know what had just happened.
Yeah, he thought to himself, and, though I'd avoid telling you what happened, if at all possible, I would change course, if I could.
If he got out of this, he was really and truly going to kill Professor G for accidentally casting this damn curse on him. Why the Professor had decided he wanted the pilot of Deathscythe to learn magic, he had no idea, but he'd gotten into more trouble through that than anything. And when Professor G had decided to learn magic as well and use him to practice on...
It was a good thing he had teeth he could grind in this form.
Uncaring of the spell he'd chosen to cast first, without any training, the Professor had sent it flying at Duo and from then on, every time he dared cast any magic, he'd end up like this; a chipmunk!
His own teacher had managed to create something to reverse the effects, but, not expecting to have to cast magic in the middle of a battle, he'd left the pills back on the Peacemillion, sitting on a shelf in the bathroom cabinet.
The heat of re-entry began to make itself known and Duo grabbed his tail, fanning it in front of his face and had resigned himself to being barbequed when a loud clang was heard and the Gundam began to turn, pulling back enough for the worst of the strain to be taken off Deathscythe.
"Duo?" Heero's voice sounded from the speakers in the cockpit, sounding more concerned than he'd ever heard before.
He considered answering, but Heero would likely think it static, so he curled up on the seat until Heero had landed, placing Shinigami gently on the ground. Then he waited impatiently for Heero to open the door.
Eventually, he did, and Duo grinned, as well as a chipmunk could grin, up at Heero, who was looking baffled by the cockpit's emptiness. Then his eyes fell on the tiny chipmunk sitting on the seat, wearing a priest's costume and a braid, smiling winsomely up at him with violet eyes.
He blinked and stared.
He blinked again.
"Duo...?" the question came tentatively.
Duo nodded, blushing, and began to wave his arms around as he tried to explain.
Heero didn't stick around to hear though, as soon as Duo had started talking, with his high chipmunk's voice, the Japanese pilot had fallen backwards out of the cockpit in a dead faint.
It was Duo's turn to blink.
He huffed impatiently and, planting his hands on tiny chipmunk hips, he began tapping his foot, tail twitching behind him.
And he waited for Heero to recover.
He waited a long time.
The Hazards of Magic II
A Gundam W - Ruin Explorers Fusion
By Sefilin
Heero moaned slightly as he came to, finding himself lying on the open hatch of a Gundam that looked quite a bit like Deathscythe Hell. What he was doing there, he failed to recall, and his imagination seemed to have shorted, since it wasn't currently supplying him with possibilities.
A vague sense of uneasiness accompanied his attempts to bring about clarity of mind, and he had a sneaking suspicion he didn't want to know why he was where he was. That was the problem with not remembering - you could never tell for sure whether things would be better off knowing or not. It would be much so easier if you remembered, so you could tell whether you wanted to.
Heero paused.
Wait a minute... did that even make sense?
He ran it through his mind again and came to the conclusion that he'd been spending far too much time with Duo lately.
Which thought had the unhappy effect of bringing everything back. The fight, the attempt at the destruction of Libra by himself, then the actual destruction of Libra by... something coming from Duo's Gundam. The strange silence on the braided baka's part and him catching the other Gundam and setting it down, climbing up to see what was wrong then...
He had a vague impression of a disgustingly cute critter sitting on Duo's seat, wearing a costume and braid just like Duo's. But that couldn't be right. Where would Duo have gotten a chipmunk from at such a time, why would he dress it up like himself and why try to make Heero think it was him? He knew it wasn't April's Fools Day since that dreadful period had passed by while they were still on the Peacemillion.
Then it occurred to Heero that he hadn't moved since waking up, that he was just lying there, staring up at Deathscythe Hell's head silhouetted against the sky. And he noticed that the sky was much darker than it had been, which meant he'd been out for a good few hours.
It was just like Duo to waste his time like that.
He wondered briefly what was happening back up in space, whether Relena and the other pilots were okay. They must be wondering what was happening too, especially after the stunt Duo pulled.
How had he managed to hide that powerful a weapon from the rest of them? Heero knew it hadn't been there when he'd stolen those parts off it right back at the beginning of the war and he'd been over the blueprints of the upgraded Gundam, just in case he had to fly it sometime...
So what was it?
And why hadn't Duo told them?
A frustrated growl emerged from his throat and drew his attention back to his current position, still lying... flat on his... back... staring up... at... the...sky...
"Damn!" he yelled, jumping to his feet, frustrated with himself.
A strange, yet eerily familiar, sound broke into his thoughts and he turned in the direction of the open hatch of the Gundam, his eyes falling automatically to the - almost - empty seat.
He blinked once, twice, then a third time as he watched the tiny, still disgustingly cute, critter on the seat chitter at him. The braid jumped around, tangling itself up in the tiny striped tail that emerged from the tiny black pants.
This couldn't be happening, he thought to himself, choosing to ignore the thing waving it's arms wildly at him, sounding suspiciously annoyed. So he ignored it and began looking around for any sign of Duo.
He leaned into the cockpit, placing his hand on the seat to balance himself and bent towards the control panels, having decided to playback the last mission log to figure out what had happened. His fingers were busy on the console when he was rudely interrupted.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, lifting smarting fingers to his mouth and glaring down at the culprit, who waved a tiny chipmunk fist at him and danced (?) about on the seat, grinning. Did chipmunks grin?
"Look, you little... chipmunk... leave me alone, okay, I'm trying to do something here."
The chipmunk placed his paws on his hips and began chittering loudly, pointing to itself then gesturing around the cockpit, grabbing a hold of it's braid and holding it out to show Heero. Then it glared at him with big chipmunk eyes and Heero found himself on the verge of crying.
Somehow he knew what it was trying to say, had known all along, but did that mean he had to acknowledge the truth? He didn't want this to be happening, he wasn't trained to deal with a situation where most of the laws of physics had been turned upside down.
Still, he had to say it, what with the fascination of the grisly and all that inbuilt through centuries of human conditioning and entertainment.
"Duo?" it came out horribly weak and shaky, and was on the verge of being a whisper, but at least he'd got it out.
The little priestly chipmunk nodded decisively and gestured from himself to Heero, somehow conveying that he wanted to be lifted up.
Tentatively, Heero held out his hand and flexed it convulsively as Duo-chipmunk scampered onto it, causing the strangest sensation to run through his palm and up his arm.
It tickled.
Heero's nose wrinkled at the feeling and he sneezed.
Duo-chipmunk rewarded him with a tiny tap on his thumb, which he had grabbed hold of to keep from falling off. Then he looked up at Heero and gestured towards Wing Zero.
Unwilling to disobey this strange creature hanging onto his thumb, Heero obediently made his way to his own Gundam and powered up, heading for Peacemillion where Duo-chipmunk had directed him to go by jumping up and down on one spot of the space-map he'd bought up on one of his monitors.
Then they were in space and Heero was glad that Quatre, and the other's would be on the Peacemillion 'cause he didn't think he could take much more of this.
~Owari~
The Hazards of Magic III
A Gundam W - Ruin Explorers Fusion
By Sefilin
The sole blonde Gundam pilot - since Epyon wasn't really considered one, (though, really, he thought it should be, given the similarities) and it and its pilot were dead anyway - was waiting impatiently for Wing Zero to land. He had been waiting for quite some time, having been unable to get in touch with Heero for a number of hours - though the call had gone through to Wing - and he wanted to know what had happened to Duo. Both because he wanted to know what had happened, along with everyone else, but also because there was no one else on the entire Peacemillion who really knew how to party. Some of the technicians admittedly came close, but Duo had every talent required for a real celebration and Quatre had decided a long time ago that he wouldn't attend the End-of-War parties without him.
His train of thought ground briefly to a halt then picked up, having gained an extra passenger.
Duo, he recalled, had mentioned something about Hirde having a similar capacity for fun as he himself did, but he'd checked on her a short while ago and she was still rather unconscious, which put a bit of a damper on things.
So he was really hoping Duo would get back soon.
He hopped from foot to foot as Wing Zero powered down. Surely it didn't normally take this long for the scary - at least it was meant to be scary, though Deathscythe and Epyon were really the only mobile suits that did sinister well, due to colouring or something (maybe the scythe and whip?) - glow to it's eyes.
There was a delay between the final cooling, the final vibrations - which were rather more pronounced than usual due to the damage Wing had sustained - and the opening of the hatch, revealing a short, skinny Japanese pilot. Quatre tilted his head to one side as he mused again how unflattering the spandex and tank top were, it made him look far more emaciated than necessary. Still, maybe it would help if he ended up captured, people feeling sorry for him and... but for it to be really effective, he'd need to adjust his attitude a little.
Somehow, while his thoughts were caught up in the merits and demerits of Heero's customary outfit, Quatre had managed to move across to stand by the foot of the giant mech. The movement itself, though, didn't impinge upon his consciousness, as more than the vague and fading sensations within his body. Which was rather strange, given he was far more aware of his body currently since it was geared for celebration - dancing, drinking, laughing - all of them were rather dependant on the body.
Then Heero was stalking towards him and Quatre just managed to refrain from throwing himself at the other boy and demanding to know where Duo was. Heero wasn't, after all, very well known for his touchie-feelie-ness or his tolerance towards glomping.
It was not, therefore, surprising at all, that he found himself surprised - well, shocked really - when the Japanese pilot was the one to throw himself forwards instead.
AAaaaaAAaaaaAAaaaaAAaaAAaaaAaaaaah...
His head tossed around by Heero's shaking of his body - pretty thoroughly, too - Quatre almost swore he could hear birds chirping. His hands moved slowly upwards as he gathered his wits as well as he could and grabbed Heero's wrists and stopped the shaking. For some reason though he could still hear the bird chirping - wait a minute - it actually sounded more like...
His gaze locked onto the tiny chipmunk standing on Heero's shoulder, holding onto his hair with one tiny paw to keep from falling and waving the other wildly at Quatre with the other.
He blinked.
"Quatre! You've got to save me from him!" Heero began, almost yelling as he grabbed Quatre's shoulders again, threatening another shaking.
Quatre couldn't help but notice the totally unbalanced, crazed look in the blue eyes - as opposed to the mostly unbalanced look that usually resided there, and had from the moment they'd met, and before. It had scared him and he'd been extra polite to the Japanese pilot ever since - but this...
"Uh," he replied, not really knowing what else to do.
For some reason Heero took it as an agreement to help and wrapped a hand around the chipmunk, tugging it until it's hold on his hair broke and shoved it across to Quatre, who held his hand out to take it automatically. He looked down at the tiny creature on the palm of his hand, noticed it bore a passing resemblance to Duo, and smiled sweetly, "Kawaii."
He looked back up to ask where Heero had got the critter from just in time to see the Japanese pilot leaving the hangar in what looked to be a panicked dash. Quatre watched him disappear then looked back down at the chipmunk who was waving a tiny fist in the direction the other pilot had gone.
He smiled.
Definitely kawaii.
"You have to be Duo's, right?"
He wasn't really expecting an answer, so when the chipmunk shook his head emphatically and pointed to itself, he wasn't sure what to think.
"Um..."
The chipmunk began to wander round on his palm, seemingly drawing letters onto its surface. Only by concentrating fully on the chipmunk's motions could he resist curling his fingers into his palm.
I...
The first letter.
A...
The second.
M...
Third.
D...
U...
O...
Fourth, fifth and sixth.
So, that would make it...Iamduo? What sort of word was that?
Quatre puzzled over this for a few moments, broke off to wonder briefly at the intelligence of this little creature, then went back to deciphering the words meaning.
Then suddenly his eyebrows contracted as it distinguished itself into three words instead of one 'I am Duo' and everything clicked in to place.
"D-Duo?"
The chipmunk nodded happily.
Panic welled and Quatre ran quickly through a list of possible locations before taking off, ignoring the squeak from Duo-chipmunk as his hand closed around him a little more tightly than was comfortable.
He crashed into the room he'd chosen and sighed gratefully at its occupants. He jumped forwards and thrust Duo-chipmunk towards one of them.
"Trowa! You're good with animals...here!"
And he left, knowing Trowa could handle this better than anyone, and besides, he had some partying to do.
~Owari~
The Hazards of Magic IV
A Gundam W - Ruin Explorers Fusion
By Sefilin
Wufei sat, brooding and muttering to himself in the corner of the room that had been taken over by the Gundam pilots before the final battle. A final battle that was very much on the Chinese boys mind as he contemplated Treize's sacrifice and the very strange happenings afterwards.
Fancy the great Heero Yuy not quite being able to save the day, it was unheard of, inconceivable, but was, quite clearly what had actually happened. After all their hard work blowing up OZ bases and dealing with Duo Maxwell, everything looked like it was going to hell in a basket. Then something had happened that had saved them after all, and of all the unfair things to happen in his life, what happened then had to be the worst.
Maxwell had somehow managed to be the one to save the world. The clown, the baka, the braided, loudmouthed, obnoxious, irritating, annoying, manic American. It was humiliating, as one of the Gundam pilots to have to live under that cloud and he was seriously considering running away to hide before everyone heard and Maxwell became even more insufferable than usual - an almost impossible feat, but one he was absolutely sure Maxwell would manage just to spite him.
Just then, he was saved from beginning to mutter about the American's gall at disappearing after the fact and postponing Wufei's obligatory congratulations so that he had to hang around for longer than he wanted to and brood - which he enjoyed, though not when it was about the braided baka. Quatre scrambled into the room, almost colliding with Trowa in his haste to give the taller pilot something. Then the blonde was gone after a hastily muttered sentence.
Wondering what the Arab's problem was, he looked at Trowa who was gazing at a small furry creature in his hand. Was that what Quatre had given him, and if so why? Wufei had a hard time understanding his fellow pilots and, though Maxwell was by far the worst, Quatre and Yuy had a habit of making him uneasy also. Yuy and his insufferable snickering on the battlefield... and him meant to be the perfect soldier, too.
A soft chittering broke into his mental rant and he noticed that the thing on Trowa's hand was busy moving around and chattering almost as much as Maxwell did. Wufei congratulated himself on the aptness of his comparison and continued to watch the spectacle of a creature dancing about Trowa's hand.
Then Trowa nodded, "Sure, Duo."
And he walked out.
Completely baffled by that last comment, Wufei decided to follow and trailed Trowa down the corridor and into the next where their current quarters were situated.
Instead of walking through the door with '03' pasted on it though, he went to '02', taking out a few thin tools to open it. A quiet chittering could be heard, and as Wufei moved a little closer, he could see the creature - which he now saw was a chipmunk wearing an outfit very much like Maxwell's, something that made him wonder how much damage had been done to Quatre by the ZERO system - pointing out the tools to be used.
Trowa went with the suggestions and had the door open in very short order.
Wufei followed them into the surprisingly clean room, and Wufei wondered if they were actually in Maxwell's room until he remembered that they hadn't really had the time to make themselves comfortable yet. Trowa and his furry friend bypassed the main room, not even pausing next to the bunk, but moving through to the tiny bathroom.
The pilot of Heavyarms opened the cabinet above the sink and raised his other hand so the chipmunk could see and took the indicated bottle off the shelf. He set the chipmunk down on the rim of the sink and unscrewed the cap, tapping a single blue pill into his palm. He held it out and the chipmunk scampered onto his hand, grabbed it and began munching away.
A flash of light later and Duo was standing next to Trowa.
"Thanks, man," he said to Trowa who shrugged and turned to leave.
"No problem, Duo."
Wufei stood in the doorway, obstructing Trowa's exit, trying to figure out what just happened. If he didn't know better, he would almost be inclined to say that the chipmunk just turned into Maxwell. But that couldn't be right. Surely it couldn't be right. Could it?
He replayed the scene in his head once more and came to the same conclusion. No, indeed, he hadn't seen a chipmunk turn into Duo; it was merely his mind playing tricks on him. He must have knocked his head and acquired a small case of concussion during that last battle without noticing it. That had to be it.
"Wufei," Trowa's quiet voice called him back to the present and he realised he was standing in the taller pilots way.
He moved aside and Trowa took a step forwards.
"Hey, either of you guys know if the mad scientists survived?"
Trowa glanced back over his shoulder to answer, "They didn't."
At the same time Wufei demanded to know why he wanted to know.
"I'm going to kill him if he's not already dead," Duo chirped cheerfully, bouncing out of the bathroom after Trowa. "But I suppose if he's dead I won't be able to. In which case, I hope he rots in hell for all eternity and crows pick at his eyeballs and worms make a home in his nostrils. I think that would be fitting, don't you?"
And much to Wufei's surprise, Trowa nodded, "Seems fair if he left you with that." A hand waved at the cabinet that held the bottle of pills.
"Exactly," Duo grinned, pleased that someone agreed with him and drifted out of the room.
It was about then that Wufei's mind finally reached the inevitable conclusion, that the chipmunk had, in fact, turned into Duo. Unable to deal with it, Wufei dropped onto Duo's bunk and, his last thought before he drifted into darkness was that he just knew things were going to be worse after Maxwell's saving of the world.
He just hadn't quite realised exactly how much worse. And unfortunately, now he did.
===Owari===
The last of these little ficlets ^_^ Duo's changed back and the Prof's not around for revenge to be exacted, so...