With time the child draws in, this whipping boy done wrong
Deprived of all his thoughts the young man struggles on and on
He's known a vow unto his own
That never from this day his will they'll take away
-Lyrics to 'The Unforgiven' performed by Metallica
Crimson Ties Part 81
Ice-and-snow-covered peaks rose up from the frozen ground in the dozens upon dozens. The tallest of those crests rose to the heavens at nearly the length of a football field while the shortest was no taller than the knees of the visitors standing by.
Varied in their shapes from clean curves to jagged-edged pieces that resembled lightning bolts, the cold tentacles surrounded what looked to be little more than a perfectly round ring that stretched for over a mile in the middle of the otherwise flat terrain.
Hidden far from any sign of life, the striking sight would have baffled anyone as to how such a beautiful collection of icicles came to appear in the middle of nowhere... and shooting up from the ground at that as opposed to having dripped down from a source of water.
But there was nothing lovely about the scene where Duo was concerned. His widened violet-and-silver eyes able to see beyond the snow and ice that encased those fingers, he was able to see perfectly clearly that they were the remains of metal that had been frozen over for years now.
Those twisted, warped extensions had been shredded apart from their original shapes as though they had been little more than paper. And given the great circumference of the circle they wrapped, it was a more than fair assumption that they had likely formed a great dome to protect what was now buried under feet of a white and silver blanket.
It was a terrifying sight.
The 'how' and 'why' behind the destruction of the structure didn't matter in the slightest. It was the simple fact that it had been, and in a violent way, that did.
A howl rose along with the wind that blew past the bundled lot standing before the remains of the base to play with at the faux fur around their sealed off hoods and their scarves. Though he didn't feel the cold that came with the gust, Maxwell shivered... and then he couldn't stop as he continued to stare in disbelief at the shambled 'fangs' that jutted up from the ground.
Solo had been responsible for this. There was no question of that. And while the hybrid likely found a way beyond the means of his own power to escape, he still managed to take down a small city all on his own to be able to walk the world to begin his reign of terror on livings and Vampires alike.
Just when he felt himself shake so violently that he thought his knees would give out, the braided Companion felt his Vampire hold him fast and close in strong arms. "Duo?" Heero called urgently, voice dripping with concern as he brushed the sides of his pale face to get through. He breathed in a deep sigh of relief when violet-and-silver finally blinked and shifted to meet his gaze.
"Hey. I'm right here," the Original soothed softly, tightening his hold to have his words resonate. Nodding shallowly, the Reformer steadied himself.
Against the cold that he also could not feel, Wufei shoved his gloved hands into the pockets of his brown coat as he looked over to his cousin standing at his right. "I see what had you so troubled," the scaly Infected commented in little more than a breath, his own fears finally subsiding enough so that he could find his voice to use it.
Releasing a sigh, Trowa nodded without looking away from the covered debris. A few feet away, Zechs and Noin were heavily leaning against each other as if to keep their footing.
"I... I can't believe that any creature could have done this much destruction," Relena stammered as she finally blinked her enlarged blue-and-gold eyes. Her gaze scanned the large ring. Shivering, she whispered, "There wouldn't have been any survivors amongst the scientists stationed here."
Quatre shook his head, subconsciously shifting up close against the Councilwoman to comfort her as well as himself in that horrific discovery. The scarf that was covering his mouth and nose shifted when he swallowed roughly.
There was much to be said in how even the normally talkative scientist was rendered into a stunned silence. In many ways, it was Winner's reaction that only made the reality of what they were staring at set in for his friends.
Releasing a deep breath out of the familiar comfort that came from it, Treize shook his head to come out of his stupor.
Slowly bringing the palms of his hands together, he send his power forth to send a direct, focused beam of sunlight down onto the crater. Before the lot's eyes, the snow and ice melted away rapidly until what they covered was revealed and dried under the warmth of the intensified rays.
Now freed of their icy encasement, the dripping metallic 'arms' that rose overhead looked all the more like foreboding claws warding off anyone who dared to draw so close to what they were surrounding. Given the nasty shape of what had once been a fully functioning lab and living arrangement for the men and women who worked there, that warning was well-founded.
Deep down inside the darkened earth, the shapes of rooms and strewn about items from medical equipment to shreds of clothing could be made out. For the most part, most of the walled off sections were in remarkable shape considering the damage brought to them. Even the hallways that linked them were standing.
But it did appeared from the rungs embedded into the sides of the crater along with the pieces of metal sticking out that there were once floors above them had been completely ripped away in the blast... or whatever it was that had taken the impressive facility out.
From the top of the ring, it was like staring down into a round, metallic mouth with sharp teeth that poked out, similar to a Venus Flytrap's luring, open jaw.
"Looks cozy down there," Anna giggled nervously in an attempt to break the stricken silence. Biting her lip when no one else moved, she shrugged, "Well, standing around like this is getting us nowhere fast." That said, she picked one of the more intack rooms across from her. With a deep breath, she ran for the ledge and leapt. Descending fast, she made a graceful landing atop a pile of debris.
The feeling of unease returned to the Irish Infected as she carefully navigated herself through the dampened remnants of life that had once existed. Once she walked beyond where a door should have been in her way, she found the solid metal floor and made a couple experimental bounces. When there was not so much as a little give beneath her, she breathed a soft sigh of relief.
Peering up at the anxious faces that were waiting from the edge of the ring, Anna lowered the hood of her coat and called, "Other than minding what you're stepping on, it's stable down here." Her nose crunched at her first real deep breath through her nose. "Just don't breathe in too deeply if you can help it," she suggested. "The smell is pretty rancid now that things are warming up."
"Good thing for the scarf. I could go without the extra layers now, but I'm not losing this," Quatre's voice mumbled from behind the protective fabric. Relena smirked and moved quickly to scoop the surprised scientist onto her back at the same time that Duo climbed onto Heero's. In a blink, the whole of searching party was airborne and landing around the redheaded Vampire.
As he looked to his left and then his right down the long hallway of blasted out doors and a ripped off ceiling, Treize removed his hood and stated, "We should split up into teams of two so that we can cover as much ground as possible. Any and everything that we can use to teach us more about Solo needs to be spared and brought along with us."
In the complete control of the Preventers Commander that he was, he ordered to the mind-readers, "Noin and Wufei, keep as close to the rest of us as you can so as to be able to pick up on our thoughts. Should there be a need to alert us if anyone is in trouble, we'll need your ability to hear them." Lucrezia and Chang nodded firmly. Locking onto Trowa, the Councilman said, "Barton, you're with me to even up the pairs."
Content with their plans, the group split up in their respective teams- the Yuys heading to the northern quadrant while Trowa, Quatre the Khushrenada clan moved south.
Walking close beside his Vampire, Duo peered inside each every room that they stopped at to scan.
After the second space that was rendered empty of anything useful amidst the rubble, he muttered under his breath, "I wonder if there's anything in this whole damned place that's in one piece enough to be useful to us now." Lowering a thick board of warped wood that he'd lifted to check what was beneath, he frowned deeply, "Everything in here is pretty shredded."
Easily snapping away the half of a wall that broke off the next space, Heero replied, "You would be surprised the miracles that Wufei can perform if we were lucky enough to find any piece of electronics. He's incredible at restoring data so long as there is something for him to work with. And maybe there could be vials of materials that might have been preserved in the snow and ice."
Blinking, Maxwell admitted, "Never thought about that. If there's even a drop of blood from Solo to be found, Quatre would love to get his hands on it to see what he can gather from that."
Suddenly, the grim surroundings were a little easier for him to forget now that there was something specific to search for.
It made it easier to brush aside the fast that they were scavenging through the remains of the livings that had met their end. Picking up the pace in his sifting, the hybrid was able to keep up better with his lover as they moved from room to room.
Further down the corridor, Wufei and Anna had to work together to slam their weight and strength against a barricaded door. When they managed to knock the debris blocking their way aside, they peered inside through the crack only to freeze with sharp gasps and wide eyes.
Inside, there were colorful blankets, cracked toys and childrens books that were burnt at the edges to make it known that the space had once been a large nursery. It was too large to have only been intended for Duo and Solo... but it had served as a daycare for the little ones of the staff stationed at the lab.
Considering how large the facility was with as many rooms as it had, it only made sense that whole families would have been uprooted so that they could stay together. What was already a grim situation was only brought to a much more profound level of devastation now that the casualties included young innocents.
Anna reeled back out into the hallway with a breathed, "My God." Swallowing roughly, Wufei pulled the door closed behind him and moved to his visibly shaken lover's side to rub her arm.
Her eyes stinging with tears, the redhead sniffled as she lowered the hand that was covering her mouth. Meeting her husband's gaze, she whispered, "We can't let Duo see that. He's having a hard enough time with this as it is."
The scaly Vampire gave a quick nod as he replied, "Agreed." Quickly turning on his heels, he raised his right hand up to make the debris both behind and in front of the door gather and pile through Lady Une's telekinesis.
When the barricades were just short of where the roof had been ripped off, he stopped and sighed, "There. I think that'll give Heero enough of a hint to ward him off of using his Superman strength to get inside."
Satisfied with his work, Anna nodded shallowly and swallowed past the lump that had formed in her throat. Try as she might, she couldn't get the mental images of the children that had once lived here being incinerated.
A stray tear had just begun to roll down her cheek when Chang returned to gather her up in a fierce embrace. Closing her gold-and-blue eyes, she returned the hug and buried the side of her face against his shoulder as the last tremors ran their course through her body.
Only a brief moment later, when the Irish immortal was steady enough to pull back, Wufei ran his scaly fingers down the side of her face to gently brush away the stray tear as he asked softly, "Holding up okay, love?"
"Yea. Thank you," the redhead smiled sadly as she leaned into his touch. Strong as her Chosen may have seemed on the outside, she knew that he was equally shaken by their disturbing discovery and needed their closeness every bit as much as she did.
With a rough swallow, she leaned in and pressed a sound kiss against his lips before she asked, "And you?" The corner of his mouth curling up at her ever present gift of reading him, Chang nodded gave the end of her nose a soft peck in appreciation.
Shaking off the last of her unpleasant thoughts, Anna grinned, "Let's get a move on then. I very much look forward to getting far from this cursed place as soon as possible."
Wufei snorted and mumbled, "Couldn't agree with you more there." Their hands linking, the couple resumed their search by moving deeper down the long corridor.
At the other end of the base, Noin growled lowly to herself in frustration as she straightened herself from her crouch. "I wish that something could have been left behind that I could actually track," she sighed deeply while Zechs stepped out into the hallway to join her.
Meeting her husband's gaze, she shook her head, "Between the awful smells in this place that are confusing anything helpful that I could sniff and the horrid shape of the debris that's covered any trails, I may as well be walking around blind."
"Don't let that frustrate you," Merquise urged as he pulled her close against his side and looped an arm around her shoulders. "So tracking just won't work in this situation. We'll just have to get lucky by digging a little deeper is all." With a quick squeeze, he added, "I know that our current surroundings are not helping our moods in this search, but something will-"
The sound of Relena's distant scream cut Zechs off. His arm falling away from Noin as they stiffened at the sound, the wide-eyed Vampires charged off to where the sound originated- many halls and corners from where they had been.
When they found their sister inside a rubble-filled corridor she was in Quatre's arms as they stared in horror at a skeletal arm that was poking out of the bottom of a pile that they had begun to clear away to access the door that it blocked.
Its bony hand's fingers open and stretching along the floor, the appendage had been preserved in the freezing temperatures so well that much of its now gray flesh was still intact.
Whether or not the arm remained attached to a body that was still covered was obviously not Relena's concern when she came across it. Trembling, the blonde Infected looked to her siblings and stammered, "I-I was not expecting that." Even as terrified as she remained, her timbre remained steady in her self-defense.
"That's was the quickest a girl's every jumped into my arms," Winner's muffled voice spoke up, the awe in it matching what was in his widened eyes.
Even though his mouth and nose were covered, the rise in his cheeks told well of the wide smile he was wearing beneath his scarf as he laughed, "Actually, that's the first time a girl's ever jumped into my arms." Their heads falling back, Zechs and Relena let out a harmonized ring of laughter.
Suddenly aware that the young scientist was holding her, Relena blinked in surprise when she looked back to him. Giggling nervously, she unhooked her arms that were looped around his neck. With a deep sigh, she whispered a sincere, "Thank you for protecting me, Quatre."
Before her brother and sister recovered enough to give her grief over it, she moved in fast to kiss the living's protected cheek.
Her smile growing as the skin that was visible reddened with a blush, she winked, "And I very much appreciate your acknowledging me as a girl as opposed to just a Vampire or an Infected." Well-knowing the significance behind that, the living grinned widely and bowed his head.
Very carefully shifting the debris away that was blocking the door frame without revealing what else was beneath it, Zechs and Noin were able to clear a path into the room. The first to set foot inside, Merquise's eyes grew with a sharp gasp that was echoed by his Chosen.
Along the ground, there were partially covered bodies lying haphazardly. Hands, legs, torsos and some heads were out in plain sight. A few of the upturned faces that were as much skeleton as they were bone had their mouths open as in screams that were forever silenced.
"Stay out there, you two,," the Speaker informed over his shoulder just when he saw his sister begin to appear in the entrance. Wincing when he unconsciously took a deep breath that carried the strong scent of the warming, old flesh, he frowned deeply, "You don't want to see or smell any of this."
Relena was gone as quickly as she appeared and replied from the other side of the wall, "You don't need to tell me twice."
Exchanging a glance with her husband, Noin sighed deeply and moved with him so that they could begin sifting through the remains. Now that the initial shock of the bodies had passed, they were able to make note what room they were actually standing in.
The Councilwoman scanned the space and thought aloud, "This room isn't just the biggest we've seen because walls have been blown out. "Raising a hand to point down the long stretch that was open to them, she stated, "There's no sign that there was ever a single barrier that had been used to block it off."
Zechs lowered himself into a low crouch by one of the more exposed corpses. Pushing aside a mesh of clear cords to have a better look at the torso, he froze. "Quatre?" he called without looking away from the charred material that clearly had once been a white lab coat. The revealed arm was cradling a clipboard to the body's sunken chest.
"We may need you in here after all. We may have found something," the Speaker informed. Shooting up to straighten himself, he found Lucrezia staring down in surprise at his findings as he suggested, "You should tell Treize and Trowa to get here as soon as they can."
Not needing to be told twice, Noin nodded and opened her mind to seek out the thoughts of her fellow teammates.
* * * * * *
Four hours later...
"We don't have many more rooms to cover before we run back into our brothers," Anna frowned deeply as she crawled on the ground, sifting through the contents within a toppled over dresser.
Now that she and her partner were beginning to recognize corridors, it was only a matter of time before they reunited with Heero and Duo to conclude their scan of the northern part of the underground city.
So far, they did not have a lot to speak for as far as items that they had deemed good enough to investigate. Their backpacks were very light considering how long they had been searching through the remains of Solo's captors.
A sudden unease settling over her when she moved to the last drawer, the redhead paid little attention to the undergarments inside as she mumbled, "Is it foolish of me to feel weird about going through someone's personal items like this when they've been long dead and could care less about their possessions? After all, this has been the only way we've been able to sniff out a few of the diaries and medical logs that we've packed away."
From his corner of the room as he pushed aside the mattress that was half-hanging off its frame, Wufei turned back to face her and smiled, "Actually, I think it's a very sweet and considerate thing of you to be concerned about-" Cutting himself off mid-sentence, the scaly Infected's back went rigid and his gold-flecked, onyx eyes grew. "Heero and Duo have something," he announced in a breath.
Completely forgetting the drawer she was looking through, Anna stood and replied, "Lead the way." In a blink, her husband was off in a blur of himself and she shot after him to stay on his heels.
Navigating through the whirl of corridors and rooms without pause, Chang followed the sound of his brothers' thoughts to pinpoint their location until he spotted the lone door frame that he was looking for amidst a long corridor of rooms. When he reached the entrance, he stopped and waited only a moment for his wife to materialize at his side.
Her head of red curls shaking in wonder, the Irish Vampire followed her spouse into the room as she giggled, "That's a pretty incredible trick, love. Nice how thoughts carry as far as they do to make it easy for you to follow them-" Anything further that she had intended to say was stopped with a sharp gasp at the same moment that the scaly Infected froze with her.
Their surroundings were much like any other personal living space. Much of the debris had been cleared away to reveal the single bed, dresser, chairs and other furnishings that made up the smaller arrangement. And standing by what was clearly once a desk were Heero and Duo... crouched over the remains of a body that had utterly been torn apart.
Yuy appeared to by what was left of the skull, its bony jaw forever locked open wide, while Duo was at the other end... the pelvis and legs separated and spread over the ground a couple of feet away.
First to come out of his surprise, Wufei swallowed roughly and stepped forward to have a closer examination of the corpse while his brothers looked up to watch. Bending down at the middle of the two halves, he frowned deeply, "They weren't torn apart like this from the blast. The bodies we've run into were in far better condition."
"We figured the same," Heero nodded firmly, his brow creased in concern. "Something... or someone else was responsible for tearing them apart like this." Unable to find his voice, Duo ducked his braided head in his knowing that there was a very good likelihood it was 'someone' as opposed to 'something'.
If it truly had been Solo that literally tore this man into pieces... it was too terrifying a thought to really consider at that moment.
Shuddering, Anna turned away from the sight as she muttered, "Ok. This place has officially given me the creeps." Carefully stepping over the littered floor, she moved for the cracked door to find a gold-plated name tag. Taking it up, she read aloud, "Instructor H. Wonder what kind of 'instructing' he was responsible for when he was alive."
Finally coming to life at that, Maxwell shot to his feet and moved for the toppled over desk. "There might be a way we can find that out," he replied. Very gingerly, he lifted the damaged laptop that he and his lover had found.
Holding the wire-exposed device that had been stripped of its screen out to his brother-in-law, the hybrid said, "We weren't sure if this was something that you could restore, but it's the best piece of electronics we've come across this whole search."
A wide smile spreading across his face, Chang accepted the computer as he rose to his feet. Turning the device in his hands, he deemed aloud, "Oh, I have been able to work with far worse than this. I'm sure that the circuity and memory cards are in good enough shape for me to pull whatever they had stored from them." Gesturing to the strewn CDs and their cases on the floor, he suggested, "We better grab as many of those as we can, too."
For the first time since their arrival at the base, Duo was finally able to grin in relief. Disturbing as it was to have to be faced with the devastation that was left in his brother's wake, he felt a great deal better knowing that they may very well have found a gem amidst the ruin that could very well help them understand Solo better.
Together, the family worked quickly to pack and secure as much of the instructor's works as they could until their duffle bags were nearly full, quite the contrast to how things had started off for them.
By the time they were finished scavenging through the room, Noin had passed on the announcement through Chang's thoughts that Treize was calling everyone back so that they could prepare to return home. Not one argument was about to be raised by any member of the team, as they all looked forward to putting the terrible sights and smells behind them.
Once again standing at the ledge of the ring, the Preventers' Commander folded his hands and cast the intense beam of light away by clouding the skies, the heavens then began to drop heavy snow. At the change of the weather, Wufei used his own gift to make the dome tentacles tremble until they collapsed into the hole below as the earth shifted to forever seal away the tomb of remains.
Arms and hands linked as the team formed a circle. Eyes closing, Trowa sent his ability forward and the team vanished from the cold Arctic wasteland without so much as a glance back.
TBC...
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