Title: The Forsaken
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: 1=2, maybe some others if I feel like it
Rating: PG-13
Stuff: Fantasy AU, fluff, sap, language, adventure, WoW nerdiness
Disclaimer: I own Gundam Wing action figures? Warcraft and its lore belongs to Blizzard Entertainment. Both things are being played with out of fangirl love.

Thanks to danse and Natea for the once over. Despite the fact this is part of Natea's birthday present, I still needed her to fill me in on the Alliance history they don't teach us on Horde, so thanks for that also =P

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Part XV
As Dead As Leaves

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"So that was the way of it," murmured Heero, still lying flat on the bed in Thelsamar, staring up at the dwarven ceiling overhead. His eyes stung a little bit, but his mouth was drawn into a tight line of ambivalence as he assessed what he'd just learned. He didn't deny Duo the anger he felt at the discovery that Treize had banished his entire platoon to a curse of undead servitude, but similarly, was unable to ignore his own resentment at being so abruptly abandoned. At the time, it had made him feel unimportant and tossed aside, which, the longer he'd lived with it, had only manifested until such despair had rooted itself too deeply in his heart to be easily cut away. Forgiving Duo would be easy enough: it would be dislodging that pain dealt with for so long that would prove difficult. With casual indifference, he sat up and asked blandly, "Well, then? Did you grasp the revenge you sought?"

"Not even obliterating the Lich King would bring my brother back from his hellish grave. My time with the Scarlets proved that," Duo said grimly from the spot he'd assumed on the edge of the bed. His skeletal and fleshy hands were pressed together between his knees as he stared down at the floor. "In the end, we accomplished nothing, damned to the same fate as all who seek to end Treize's rein over the dead. Even selling my soul for the same kind of power wasn't enough.... Nothing is ever enough...."

Heero didn't move, barely even turning his head to glance at the undead warlock who had once been the most important person in the world to him. He didn't care to hear anything about the Scarlet Onslaught or even how Duo had met his ultimate end; he just wanted some time to think. In the five years since he'd last seen Duo, he'd given him up for dead. Never did he imagine he would meet the acolyte again, and never, ever like this.

Letting out an ironic chuckle, Duo murmured, "Heh, I guess no matter how hard you try to force the hand of fate, fate still wins out in the end." He glanced over his shoulder, his eye sockets flickering a bit more softly than usual and then dimming to mere embers at Heero's unresponsiveness. The torn flesh around his mouth contorted into a frown and he muttered, "Or maybe I am just fortune's fool."

Abruptly, Heero sat up, inspired to comment at last. "You know, all this time, I had so much I've wanted to say to you - things that, without you there, weren't much worth saying at all," he said, his stiff posture reminiscent of the stubborn rogue that had crash landed in the Sepulcher than the youthful Dalaran scholar Duo used to know. "And yet, now that I am met with your ghost, it is as if I am completely without poetry."

Duo reached out for Heero, but his skeletal fingers only brushed empty air as Heero withdrew, turning away to glare at the other side of the room with a very pensive scowl scratched across his face. His shoulders drooping, Duo let out a heavy sigh: "Heero, I'm sorry," he pleaded as his hand dropped limply to his side. It was strange, but Duo thought he felt a stirring in his chest that he hadn't known since he'd died. "Forsooth, in the name of everything I've done, I offer a thousand apologies." Then he whispered softly, "You're the only one I ever wanted, Heero. But, you have to understand, even when I resented his ways, Solo was still my only brother...."

But as he watched Heero's silent, almost nonexistent reaction to his pleas, it was with painful clarity that Duo then realized that Heero had been left just as dead as he for the past five years. He wished there was a way he could prove to Heero that his intentions were no different beyond the grave than they had been when they had breathed together, though he supposed it was stupid hoping that Heero would have thought otherwise. With a low growl, he blindly reached out to pound the nearby wall with the butt of his fist, frustrated that death had forever dried the tears he longed to shed. Not that it even mattered if Heero wouldn't so much as look at him.

Heero, however, had long since fallen to another plane of reality, staring at nothing, and yet seeing everything so clearly. The room was twinged with a hazy green that seemed to sharpen his vision as a familiar whisper - the very one that had whispered into his ear when they'd left Menethil Harbour - hissed vibrantly in his ear: 'Aren't you tired of starting somewhere new over and over again? It only cracks your heart more and more....' Heero let out a small gurgle of agreement, and the voice continued pulsating throughout his brain. 'Why allow him to shape your reality? Crush him the way he crushed you, and let him know what real despair is....'

At this, Heero sucked in a sharp breath, a dangerous smirk beginning to twist away his frown. Slowly turning around to face Duo, Heero's lips pulled back to reveal an unfamiliar sharpness in his canine teeth, his eyelids unveiling red irises that burned with unnatural fury. "I will always be alone," he growled in a voice that echoed with a fel timbre; "That is how you left me, and that is how I will stay!" With that, he suddenly leapt for Duo, teeth bared like he meant to sink them into Duo's throat.

It didn't take long for Duo to realize that the Epyon demon had managed to latch onto the turbulent emotions their unexpected reunion had awakened in Heero. He dove for the floor, narrowly avoiding Heero as he careened into the oaken headboard. Blindly groping for his staff, Duo watched as Heero mindlessly shook off his collision and repositioned himself at the edge of the mattress, poised to make another leap for Duo. The warlock was barely able to swing his staff around to bar Heero's attack, the wooden pole the only barrier between Duo's face and Heero's snapping teeth. With a mighty shove, Duo hurled Heero off, sending the rogue flying into a chest of drawers on the other side of the room. Heero landed awkwardly on the ground, slumped against the furniture piece in a mess of painfully twisted limbs. But any pain he might have felt at such an impact seemed not to matter to him, for he was soon clambering to his feet again, panting hard and even more enraged than before. Pulling down an axe that had been hanging on the nearby wall, Heero grasped the weapon in both hands, getting a feel for it as he prepared to charge again. His demonic eyes made him look not at all like himself, a curling black aura that resembled an ifrit hovering in the air above him, influencing his mindless onslaught.

The very sight of the monster was enough to bring Duo to his wit's end, ready to fight fire with fire. The Epyon demon was a creation of the Burning Legion's dark overlord, but Duo's own power was also cut from the same mold, a discipline he had traded his old elemental magic for after realizing that it would never be enough to stand up to the Lich King. Learning how to command demons of his own might have been unorthodox - even hypocritical - under the banner of the Scarlet Onslaught, but their zealous obsession with obliterating Treize far outweighed any moral code they may have once adhered to, and it was with ease that a number of Scarlet priests and mages fell to this dark study. And unsurprisingly, it was none other than Duo who had forged the path for the rest, using the talent that had earned him the mark of the Kirin Tor to become one of the most deadly warlocks of the Onslaught. "Forgive me, sweet prince," Duo whispered before he began muttering the spell that would summon his own fel warrior from the dark chaos that birthed the Burning Legion.

Soon, a black portal of nothingness had opened up beside Duo, and out from its depths stepped a tall, horned figure that carried a broadsword and wore blood red armour. Steeling himself, Duo pointed at Heero and gave the command, "Subdue him." Almost instantly, the fel guard started lumbering towards Heero, who was practically frothing at the mouth for a fight.

No sooner had their weapons met with a violent clang did the door of the room suddenly burst open, revealing a trio of confused and riled dwarves demanding to know what was going on. "I told ye not ta trust the likes o' that ghoul!" one of them shouted as they all pushed into the room, their faction allegiance immediately leading them to assume that it was Duo who had instigated the mayhem. They started to rush towards Heero's side, and it was only a fierce yelp from Duo that saved their necks from the bite of Heero's madly swinging axe.

"You must have a death wish!" Duo hissed as the dwarves fell back, trembling a bit. They stared at Duo, aghast, almost as if they were unsure that assisting an undead Horde loyalist was much better than being killed. But the more they saw, the reality of the situation became all the more apparent, and it was with reluctance that each of them unsheathed blades and axes of their own.

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As another desert fly whizzed by Trowa's face, he instinctively slapped it against his cheek, too irate to even notice the sting of his fingers against his skin. After three hours of waiting alone by moonlight at the mouth of the Badlands, Trowa was starting to wonder what had become of Heero and Duo. He had expected to beat them to the end of the loch easily, but he hadn't thought they would be so far behind, and the longer he loitered, the less he liked it.

"Knew those dwarves would be trouble," he grumbled to Heavypaw, frowning back at the huge loch behind him. He rocked back and forth on his heels, hating that he already had sand between his toes before even setting foot in the barren desert that would make up the next leg of the journey. He shook one foot, though it did nothing for the discomfort in his boots, glowering at the loch once again. "If we have to go back," he continued for Heavypaw's benefit, "it will only be so I can kill the pair of them myself."

Heavypaw let out a monstrous yawn, which was completely unhelpful to Trowa. The elf turned his discontented stare to his pet, but the animal barely took notice. Groaning, Trowa rolled his eyes and turned back towards Loch Modan. "Why do I suffer fools so easily?" he demanded of the sky, his hands upturned claws of frustration. Angrily he kicked a small rock by his foot, and though he managed to send it aloft, the pain that shot through his big toe was far more noticeable. Reluctant as he was to admit it, he knew he wouldn't sleep well if he went on his way knowing that he had left his best friend to fend off dwarves with only his silly human pet to aid him. Even more reluctantly still, he worried what that priest would do if he found out about it. With another long sigh, he started to trudge back towards the loch, Heavypaw trotting obediently at his heels.

As he neared the hills that cradled Thelsamar, he heard shouting long before he actually laid eyes on the town itself. Now more than certain that there was an altercation of some kind going on, he picked up his pace, sprinting down into the gully with his bow at the ready. His eyes darted around, searching for Duo or Heero, but the streets were empty even as the sound of commotion became more and more prevalent. The paradox of his surroundings was more than enough to put the blood elf on edge, and he didn't like it one bit.

Suddenly, a pair of dwarves burst out of a nearby building, hurrying right by Trowa as if they didn't even see him, despite his height. Trowa tracked them with narrowed eyes, turning around as they rushed towards another building further up the street. "Hey. Hey!" he shouted after them, nocking an arrow and aiming for their backs. "You there! Dwarves! Stop!"

The two dwarves, a male and a female, skidded to a halt, turning around with restlessness that seemed to have more to do with urgency than fear. Amazingly enough, the female didn't even wait to hear what Trowa had to say, despite the arrow that he had directed at her chest. Instead, she asked, "Are ye here t'elp us wif th' demon wot possessed our guest?" She looked him up and down, obviously thorough enough to note that Trowa wore the colours of Silvermoon and not Stormwind despite the fact that it seemed completely irrelevant to her. "Ye best be," she went on. "I kin tell ye that he'll be killin' all o' us a' this rate."

She then quickly turned around and continued on her way, while the male dwarf lingered long enough to add, "She be speakin' th' truth, lad." He pointed back towards the building they had just left, directing Trowa to it: "That way if'n your bow be ready," he said before hurrying after his female companion.

Trowa lowered his bow as the scurried off, an ironic smirk quirking his lips. 'Lad?' he thought with a snort; 'I have certainly lived four times over what they ever will.' Shaking himself of such distractions, he turned his attention back to the building the dwarves had indicated and started for it, absently noting that it was the village inn. Yells and the skirmish of battle echoed from deep inside the building, which burrowed straight into the rock of the hills, and he quickly followed the sounds to the top of the stairwell in the back.

"Ready, friend?" he asked Heavypaw as he padded up to Trowa's side, tensed for action. Sensing the lion's eagerness, Trowa nodded and took a running leap over the edge of the stairs, dropping into a low crouch when he hit the floor, while Heavypaw darted around the angular flights to meet his master at the bottom. Then they both charged forward, instinctively attracted to the vigor of battle straight ahead.

By the time Duo had noticed his presence with a surprised gasp of his name, Trowa had already assessed the situation and taken action, throwing his bow to the side to launch himself headlong into Heero. He tackled the possessed rogue to the ground, knocking the axe out of his hand and the breath from his lungs. The dwarves that had been trying to fend Heero off tried to rush in to back Trowa up, but the elf sharply ordered them back as he gripped Heero harshly by the throat. "You're making all our lives difficult," Trowa growled as Heero tried to fight back despite the tightening fingers around his neck.

"Trowa, you're going to kill him!" Duo shouted from the other side of the room. His fel guard demon loitered beside him, erect and unmoving as a statue as it awaited its master's next command. Wringing his hands as he was wont to do when aggravated, Duo snapped, "I thought I told you that it wouldn't do for anyone if he turns up dead!"

"I remember," Trowa bit out, though he didn't relent his hold on Heero's neck. "But this nonsense will cease right now!" Turning his attention back to Heero, who was still struggling against him, Trowa redirected the sentiment: "Do you hear me in there, human? You will desist!" He lifted Heero's head just enough to crack it against the floor, hoping to dislodge the demon's grip on Heero's mind. "I know it is difficult to ignore the whispers, but for the love of the Sunwell, you must do as I say!"

The dwarves watched with almost shellshocked horror as Trowa continued to scream at Heero's blank face. But as he lingered, the demonic aura began to envelope both of them, and then Heero's lips began to move, though the voice that escaped his mouth was strange to all of them. "Why do you resissst the chaos, Prince of the Sssunbender clan?" it hissed at Trowa, whose grip on Heero's throat slowly loosened at the sound of it. "Leave me be, and together, we can fight on behalf of the desspair of your people...."

It was the mesmerized expression on Trowa's face that finally compelled Duo to take a stand, Slamming the butt of his staff against the stone floor, he shouted, "Trowa, don't listen to it! That's exactly what it told Heero, and look where it got him!" Knowing his words weren't going to be enough, Duo cast his staff aside and marched right up to Heero and Trowa, appearing behind the latter to cuff him in a tight head lock. "If you lay another finger on him, I swear to Elune, Trowa, I will break your damned neck."

Trowa seemed to not hear Duo or even be cognizant of the arms wrapped dangerously around his neck, threatening to squeeze. Rather, he was transfixed on the demonic, red eyes glowing in Heero's skull, almost as if they were luring him. He suddenly had no interest in Heero whatsoever, too consumed by the promising offer the demon had just laid out for him. The Sin'dorei were so desperate as it was, the prospect of aid - even from the most undesirable of sources - was tempting to the prince of the nearly extinct race. Or so the demon was leading Trowa to believe. Dully, Trowa's hands slipped from Heero's throat, aching to latch onto another: specifically that of the one whose arms were now fastened around his own.

"If I knew you were going to be so meddlesome, I would have left you behind!" Duo growled, tightening his hold around Trowa's neck as the elf started to stir. His voice dropping into a low growl, he said, "Don't think I'm above killing you, Trowa Sunbender: you're toeing a dangerous line with the caustic way you toss Heero about, and I don't like it." He suddenly jabbed a bony knee into Trowa's back, cracking his spine over it as he yanked back on the elf's head. The onlooking dwarves had stepped far back, taking in the scene in a trance that somewhat mirrored Trowa's. They were almost unable to believe that a Forsaken warlock would quarrel with a blood elf over the wellbeing of a human. Such a thing was almost more surreal than the presence of a demon.

As all this was going on, Heero watched with the eyes of a somnambulist. He was vaguely aware of Trowa trying to choke him and that he and Duo were now grappling with each other, though he wasn't quite sure what had initiated the fight. Somewhere, beneath the crushing sadness that had overwhelmed him, a little piece of him knew exactly what was going on, though try as he might to shout that he was in there, no one seemed to hear. He felt as though he was being stretched, his heightened emotions ebbing in and out of him like an erratic breath. But the more he struggled, the more he simply lashed out: his flailing legs threatening to buck both Trowa and Duo onto their backs, his punches raining down forcefully upon whatever he could reach. He was frustrated and terribly frightened by the lack of control, but such negative emotions only egged the demon inside further on. With Trowa and Duo busy trying to choke the life out of each other, it left Heero plenty of freedom to shakily clamber to his feet, panting heavily as he instinctively threw himself into the chaos without even a care or moment's hesitation.

"Back, I say!" Trowa roared, throwing Heero off just as the possessed rogue was about to sink his teeth into his shoulder. But disengaging Heero's attack wasn't enough for Trowa, who quickly turned his back on Duo to refocus his rage on Heero. Pulling a small dagger from the inside of one sleeve, he charged at Heero, blade poised for attack. He barely managed to get more than a few steps in, because no sooner had he made his intent clear did Duo snatch him by the hood of his cloak and yank him flat onto his back. Once Trowa managed to recapture the air in his lungs, he used his first breath to gasp up at Duo, "You've either lost your mind in death, or you truly are cursed! It is as if you would have me fed to the dogs before that troublesome human!" Dragging himself to his knees in a most ungraceful and un-elf-like fashion, he jabbed a finger at Heero and hissed accusingly, "What duty is it that puts that cur above your greatest friend?"

Duo aggressively swiped his hand across Trowa's chest, grabbing a handful of Trowa's tabard to haul him to his feet and lock his burning stare with Trowa's unimpressed one: "It is not duty that compels me," he said tightly before letting his passion get the better of him. He then exploded helplessly, "T'is only him that would make me do as I do."

As these words left his lips, from the corner of his eye, Duo barely caught a glimpse of Heero faltering behind Trowa. Suddenly, he let out a grisly roar, throwing his head back like he was trying to banish the demon from his person, and amazingly enough, the haunting obeyed. The fog of the demon's presence lifted from his face and evaporated into nothingness, leaving Heero to grasp desperately for something to lean on lest he collapse to the floor. Chest heaving, he clawed his tunic in search of the heart he didn't believe was still beating, all the while sucking in enormous gulps of air and staring at nothing.

It was one of the dwarves who thought to break the awkward tension that still lingered in the destroyed bedroom. With a hardly subtle cough, he stepped towards Heero, asking, "Lad, be ye yerself again?"

But Heero, still panting harshly, only stared back at the dwarf as if he didn't understand the words. Trowa narrowed his eyes at the dwarf before shooting Duo a dark stare and abrasively knocking Duo's loosened fingers from his clothing. Without a word, he whistled for Heavypaw and snatched up his bow, marching back towards the stairs with a disgruntled air no one but him understood. Duo frowned after him and then let it go, returning his attention to Heero, who seemed more in need of him than Trowa anyway.

However, Heero didn't seem to share the same mind as Duo. As Duo tried to reach out for him, Heero bit out abrasively, "Leave me alone!"

The dwarves scattered at Heero's command almost immediately, leaving Heero and Duo alone once more. At first Duo thought Heero was still shaken from his recent encounter with the demon but for the look in his eye that was sodden with uncertainty and distrust. He wanted to believe that the wounded expression on Heero's face might have been a sign that the demon was still there, though he knew that the truth of it was because of him. A sharp pain thumped in his chest: he didn't want to let it bother him, yet he still thought he might explode. Hoarsely, he breathed, "Heero, why do you turn me away?"

The corners of Heero's mouth were weighted with malcontent. "If you have to ask, then you'll never know," he said coldly, furrowing his brows angrily.

"Heero," Duo rasped, suddenly more aware of his fate's burden than ever before. "Please, you have to believe that my word is true - that I never meant to leave you alone."

"That doesn't change the fact that you did," Heero retorted carelessly, leaning heavily against the foot of the bed as he continued to fight for a solid breath. "You stepping out of the shadows and back into my world after five years doesn't make me any less so, either. The hole you bore into my soul will leave me forever a misfit whether you're here or not, dead or alive."

After feeling nothing since the day he'd died, the dizzying sensations overwhelming Duo at these harsh realities were almost too much for him to bear. He wanted to sit down, but rather made a show of picking up his staff so he could lean upon it instead. "I've given all I can," he murmured, a masochistic reminder of everything he'd fought so long for. "I've given all I can and all been for naught." He paused for a moment, silently entreating Heero to trust him the way he once did, crestfallen to find that worn out darkness was all that remained for him in the rogue.

"You stretch your words like rubber," Heero said flatly. "Your promise to help free me from this demon's curse is worth no more than your promise to love me. With such hollow vows, I might as well save what little of my self still remains on my own."

"You learned to trust me from nothing before," Duo returned, disheartened by the barricade that now loomed between them. "Why does only a memory shatter all that you have come to know of me?"

"You did this to yourself," said Heero with a glare flashing in his dark blue eyes could have seared flesh. "You and no one else."

With a huff that sagged his bent frame even more, Duo persisted, "But I want to make it right!"

But Heero's only answer was to snap, "What the hell are you still doing here? You don't belong here." He added almost inaudibly, "Not anymore."

It pained Duo to think that he had been the one to break Heero so, and it was with a heavy heart that he finally turned away from the rogue. If only there were a way to make his words sound as sincere to Heero as they were to Duo, but he knew the hope was futile. Unable to even glance back at Heero, Duo whispered in parting: "Whatever makes you happy, my prince: whatever you want."

Drifting like a spectre, Duo aimlessly stumbled out of the room and back up the stairs to the inn's lobby. There was a dwarf sitting behind the front desk as if everything was normal, which Duo secretly resented with a hateful passion that was so intense, he nearly gave into the impulse to set the unaware dwarf aflame. It was only with the greatest of self-control that he managed to walk out to the street without upsetting the delicate armistice that still lay, unspoken, with the dwarves of this town. He was unsurprised to find that Trowa had long since ventured on without them, and it was only then that he was truly struck with the gravity of how alone he was.

So alone, that he'd managed to lose even himself.

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