[OPEN! Anytime after Trojan Horse] Running Solo

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

It hadn't been long after the end of the Ohm encounter that Duo, troubled by the ever-increasing spots in his memory, had vanished into a self-imposed exile between his cockpit and around the City. Eventually, he stopped showing up much of anywhere- at least as his recognizable self.

The braid remained but both it and he himself had lost a handful of feet and years, and even more of his memory now. Gundams? Only a faint suggestion of that word remained in his memory from his time on Stacy. Sure, he knew mobile suits well enough still. But he hated seeing him, so whenever he did go to the hangar, it was usually to skulk about as unseen as he could manage to, glaring at the towering structures. It seems people couldn't just leave them alone and put their weapons down here, either. He could just picture the concerned look on old Father Maxwell's wrinkled face if he saw all the weapons they had lined up here.

When he wasn't searching for places to swipe food– which he was finding to be even more scarce than it'd been on V-08744– he came to find his favorite pasttime was exploring the impressive structures he came across within the city. He'd only ever seen a few books about the Earth and any of its architecture or structures between his short schooling experience and the church, but he thought the places he'd found here took the cake to anything he'd ever looked at in a book.

Still, he was starting to get lonely. He missed Father Maxwell and Sister Helen. He could get by without the roof over his head and the food on the table that he'd come to enjoy in the past few months, but nothing could substitute being in good company. It was inevitable, he might think in a particularly solitary and objective moment, that he started slipping up in his sneaking about, if it meant that he wouldn't be alone for a little while.

[ooc; Feel free to bump into 8 year old Duo however you like! Replies will be from solo_duo!]

Comments

[encourage]

Kids aren't a terribly unusual sight, let alone by now. Sakura was stretching her arm as she made her way back to the Atori Tea House when she caught sight of a small form moving in the area. She hesitated, wondering who in particular this could be. Someone she knew? Someone new? Not pod new, but new to her. A figment of her imagination? A spirit? A creation?

All the kinds of possibilities she once would have left off her roster of things to consider.

In the end, she decided it didn't matter what. Calling out was just that -- an act of speaking. She'd rather speak than move on, remaining quiet. "Hey there!" she called out. "What did you think of that sunrise we just had?"

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

Duo froze up as he heard a voice call out- was it calling him? He seriously doubted anyone else was in the area, but maybe it would be better safe than sorry to assume it was him being called. It sounded like a girl's voice, but he figured it'd be better not to assume it was friendly, either.

After a moment of wavering back and forth over whether to hide, run, or return the greeting, he cautiously peeked his head out from behind a jagged rock he'd been hidden behind. He noted that Sakura registered as familiar to him (oh.. he'd met her once or twice when he was here, hadn't he?), but his memories proved fractured.

"Sakura.. right?" His young voice might not have been quite as familiar anymore, but the small braid that hung on his shoulder still might have been.

[encourage]

Aah, so she wouldn't be holding a conversation with the humid air. She smiled reflexively as someone peered around their hiding rock. They weren't immediately recognizable, which was unsurprising. What was surprising in turn was that he was recognizable after a short while.

Recognizing her helped her make a jump of logic between one brown haired, braided young man she'd met back when she'd first pod-popped, and the younger, more hesitant kid she was seeing now. "That's right," she said, smile softening. "And you... you're Duo?"

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

After a long moment, Duo hopped around the rock, kicking a small stone aside with his toe as he meandered forward. He dropped his pout and his stare down at the ground.

"Um. Yeah..." He frowned a little. He didn't like his name or his reputation to precede him. "I wasn't doin' anything. ...Whaddaya want?"

[encourage]

I wasn't doin' anything. Yet he expected she'd think otherwise, possibly because he had been. Most probably because he had been accused of such before at his age -- times other than those he may have been actually 'doing something.'

She smiled. "To say hello. Maybe talk a little, if you want." She rolled her shoulders, hearing something pop in the process. "Have you been spending a lot of time looking around the city?"

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. I never seen any buildings like all these. They don't really letcha build anything this nifty on a colony, I guess," he nodded. "Then again I don't think I've seen anything like this in the Earth pictures, either! I guess, maybe they come from other places..." He wasn't so sure what 'other' might entail, but he'd seen and remembered plenty of people that weren't human here, so he figured he'd roll with the idea that the stuff in the ship wasn't human either.

"..Whatcha wanna talk about?" He shuffled unsurely, looking like he'd be ready to dart away at any time.

[encourage]

"Other worlds, and other civilizations. The variety's amazing... there's some wonderful, beautiful architecture out there." Overwhelming in some ways, especially among the skyscrapers, but till beautiful in its way. Some of the taller skyscrapers even appeared to be organic, which had been an interesting discovery.

"Oh, I don't know. Pretty much anything, except for the stuff they serve in the mess hall. That's almost never worth talking about," she said, grimacing. "If you can avoid it."

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"Maybe. I think it's mostly just just rich folk who got too much time on their hands." He motioned to a tower looming in the distance. "Babel, yanno?"

"That mush stuff, right?" Duo made a face. "I don't trust food that's free. It's like rat bait." He turned his eyes down. "Poisoned. To weed us out. Less expensive than th' bombs. Though I guess they didn't have to do that anymore after th' virus wiped most o' us out."

Glancing up again, he hopped up on a broken up section of brick wall, kicking his legs. "But it's a tough stroke, findin' stuff to swipe here, so if ya say it's safe, maybe I'll take another poke at it."

[encourage]

"I don't, actually," she confessed. The word had no meaning to her, if context told her something about it. Maybe it was a place, on his world.

She made a face of her own, then shook her head, settling into a smile. "The mush stuff," she said, "Can definitely stand a little improvement. It's safe enough, if not tasteful. The ship has to keep us healthy, not stimulated."

So he'd been surviving through theft. Not an uncommon reality on her home world, but somewhat bizarre on this ship. He must not recognize the person who'd been calling for him when the last pod pop had started integrating with the crew. "How do you feel about instant ramen? I'd offer a full meal, but something tells me you wouldn't be as comfortable waiting around for that. Am I wrong?" She watches him, hands at ease with fingers intertwined behind her back.

[nobel-berserker.livejournal.com]

Allenby was running in the city. Specifically she was trying to run on the walls. She'd been able to achieve a grasshopper-like rebound from one building to another in the alleys, but so far attempting a continuous run had resulted in a swift reunion with the ground. Occasionally chin-first.

She was just about to make another attempt when she spotted the kid--wait--wait. Okay, there was no mistaking the braid. "No way!" she exclaimed. "Duo?!"

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

Duo had been darting in and out of alleyways, looking for trashcans that he might be able to dig through for scraps, but wasn't having much luck- it looking like most of these alleys were abandoned, with no trashcans to be seen. That was bad- that meant that with so few lived-in areas, he wouldn't have much cover for the places where he did try to dig through.

He hadn't expected to hear his name being called, and the voice wasn't familiar at first. He almost bolted, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder to spot the source of the voice- he had already started a sprint when he stopped himself, realizing he recognized Allenby somehow, in the back of his mind.

Instead, he stood a few feet away from where he'd started to run, staring at Allenby unsurely, though he looked ready to run again. "You're..." He frowned, trying to wrack his spotty memory.

[nobel-berserker.livejournal.com]

"Allenby Beardsley." Geez... was this that thing she'd been hearing about, people turning into kids? The poor boy--no, guy looked confused out of his skull and ready to bolt. "I'm one of the Gundam pilots here, part of Blade Squadron."

Did he not remember? If he was smaller, it stood to reason that his brain'd shrunk too. Maybe stuff had been--squeezed out, or something--how were they gonna fix this? "Uh, we're friends," she added, hoping it would help.

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

Gundam... The word had meant something to him, to his lost memories- he knew that much. It was those peculiar mobile suits he'd seen in this colony's hangar, right? He frowned. Even though his memory told him he'd been piloting them himself, he still didn't feel right about it- about fighting.

"Yeah, I guess I remember ya. You made that beam emitter down on the merchant place, right?"

[nobel-berserker.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that's right!" Allenby said. "XaXing or however ya pronounce it. Got a lot of stuff there, actually." She put a hand on her hip, wondering what to do next. Just keep going, probably.

"So what all do you remember? You know where you are here, right?"

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"I.. I dunno." Duo kicked a nearby chunk of rubble as he stared at the ground. "I remember stuff... But it don't all make sense." He refused to look up, apparently uncomfortable with the state of his memory- and talking about it.

"It's like, I remember doin' stuff here, but don't remember why... Why I'd do it, or anythin' like that, yanno? Like pilotin' those stupid mobile suits." He made a face as he finally glanced up again. "The killin' machines."

[nobel-berserker.livejournal.com]

"Hey, they're not--" Allenby began. No, of course they would seem like that to someone from a place where world wars had still been raging. "I mean, they don't have to be, even though a lotta people do use them for that."

She plopped herself down on a concrete block. The kids that Allenby'd known best on Earth had been Hoi and Ming, the boy and girl living on the houseboat where Domon had been staying. They were about the age that Duo was now, but there was a world of difference between them. He seemed so unhappy.

"When I talked to you about your Gundam, you said you used it for peace. But I guess it must be hard to keep things straight when you're head's smaller like that, huh?" She reached out and tapped his scalp a couple of times. "Don't worry about it so much."

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that's a nice thought, but it's prolly a pipe dream," Duo huffed.

Leaning against a ruined wall, his frown deepened. "Real funny," he sarcastically quipped as he swatted her hand away. "Anyway, I don't pilot anything. I don't know why I did before, but I sure never would!" He still wasn't sure what to think of the strange memories that he had- that he'd been older, somehow- so he'd been trying to ignore it. But he knew he couldn't ignore it for much longer.

"I mean, I guess I'd use it like that if I did pilot one, but I don't wanna have anything to do with those things. All they do is kill people. An' I'm not gonna do that!" He huffed. "Shinigami works just fine all on his own, he don't need my help."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Hmm, a little kid running around the City. It was getting hard to tell the adults from the actual children with the clock's effects affecting the crew. Zouichi was making his way back to the Inn, Alan in tow, wondering if Eva would still be around to pop in on, and then--

"Hey, be careful if you're going to run around here. Some of the buildings aren't exactly structurally sound."

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"Huh?"

Duo stopped in his tracks, whipping around to look in the direction of the voice that addressed him. Knitting his brows, he couldn't attach a name to the face he saw. Was it someone he'd forgotten? It was frustrating for him, not knowing anymore what was missing from his memory.

With a posture that suggested he might bolt, he hesitated before answering. "I know how to climb broken stuff just fine, thanks! 'sides, the rubble ain't all that bad, it all seems like it's been here awhile, after all."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"A rubble-climbing expert, huh? You know, if the Chancellor heard you saying that, I bet he'd have a fi-- Alan!"

Abruptly, the brightly colored bird (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56712133@N04/5669471968/in/photostream) perched on Zouichi's shoulder took off, landing on a ledge near Duo and peering over it at him with beady little eyes full of undisguised curiosity. He'd never seen anyone with a braid before!

Alan gave Duo a brief greeting chirp.

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"Woah!" Duo started away from the bird for a moment, if only because he was wary of being attacked.

After a few moments, he took a step closer to Alan, peering carefully. "The heck kind of bird is this?" He asked, in a tone of amazement and curiosity that rivaled the bird's. "Some kinda parrot? I've never seen one before!"

Glancing past Alan back to Zouichi, Duo shrugged. "Anyway, I bet I know way more 'bout climbing on rubble than any.. Chancellor, or whatever. What's he know, anyway?"

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"'Kind of bird is this?!" the bird says from his perch, following up by a few random-sounding clicking noises.

"I was told he's a kind of conure. So yes, basically a parrot." Oh, well; it doesn't look to Zouichi like Alan's planning on going anywhere. Might as well let him satisfy his curiosity.

"About climbing on rubble? Probably not much. But the Chancellor's parental concern seems to extend quite some distance outside his immediate family, at least from the contents of his channel posts. I think another girl almost got herself hurt not too long ago."

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

Duo shot a grumpy face at the bird. "Quit mimickin' me!" He drew a little closer, though, not shaken from his curiosity. "You said Alan, right? Funny name for a bird, I think." He drew a hand out carefully towards him, ready to snap away if he were to be pecked at.

"People get hurt a lot. Anyway... what's in it for that guy, to care about a bunch'a kids he doesn't got any connection to?" Duo found it hard to believe someone in a position of power would give a hoot.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Alan gave another little chirp, then hopped neatly down from his perch, attempting to land on Duo's wrist.

"I don't know what's in it for him, but he's a father, and all his children were adopted. So I guess you could say he didn't have a 'connection' to any of them." Zouichi raised an eyebrow. "You're awfully cynical."

[solo-duo.livejournal.com]

"Ah..!" Duo flinched slightly, arm wobbling as Alan landed on it, then becoming stock-still with a nervous grimace.

"Huh. You don't meet too many adults like that, 's all. I mean, Father Maxwell took us in, but it's his job, yanno? So what's in it for that guy?" Duo gave a tiny, matter-of-fact shrug. "That's just how it is."

After a momentary unsure glance at Alan, he gave Zouichi a worried look. "..He's not gonna peck or anythin', right?"