Krista Fisk wrote:

An attempt at writing a fic in 500 words or less.

*sigh*  Maybe next time....

Incarnation
a Gumdam Wing fanfic
by Krista Fisk
(1,074 words)

~*~


     Duo dressed in red for the mission. Everything he wore was
dark, deep red, from his velvet vest and tailed coat, to his trim
slacks, to his silk shirt with the fall of lace at his throat and
cuffs, right down to the ribbon that tied off the end of his
braid.

     Everything red... except the stark bone-white ivory mask
that covered the upper part of his face.

     When he first showed me his getup, I frowned. "That's a
disguise?"

     He rolled his eyes at me. "*Costume,* Heero. The party is a
masquerade."

     Hardly comforting. "I can see your braid, your eyes....
Anyone familiar with your wanted posters -- which includes most
of the guest list -- will recognize you in a second."

     "Maybe," he said, "but anyone who might recognize me also
knows that I'm just a poor L2 street rat -- one who's only known
starvation and disease and war. 

And he looks THAT pretty?


I'm the last person they'd expect

to be able to infiltrate high society." He flashed his signature
lopsided grin, but his eyes were hard, and glinting like chips of
ice behind the bone mask. "Trust me, Heero. There are times to
skulk in shadows, and times when the best hiding place is right
in plain sight. This fancy OZ shindig definitely qualifies as the
latter."

     I snorted. "Where did you learn *that* little nugget of
espionage wisdom?"

     "Edgar Allen Poe," he said with a wink, as he began to
practice palming his knives.

     I watched his hands like a hawk, but he was so quick, the
knives seemed to just appear and disappear into thin air. Best
pickpocket in all of L2, he had once boasted. Watching sharp
steel seemingly vanish between his fingers, I believed him. 

     "Edgar who?" I asked.

     He laughed. "I *knew* you hacked your American Lit grade.
Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Purloined Letter... among other things.
Look it up, genius."

I never quite bought the theory that spies wouldn't look for a missing 
letter among the target's correspondence.  At least these guys are going 
to a party and have an excuse to have their guard lowered.

     So I did.

     If nothing else, reading Poe gave me insight into Duo's
unique flair for the dramatic; not to mention his biting, dark
sense of humor.

     Especially now, as I holstered my .45 and stepped over the
fallen bodies of the seven soldiers unfortunate enough to get
stuck with security room detail, while the rest of the
aristocratic military-bent-on-world-domination indulged in music
and dance and drink in the Romerfeller Estate Ballroom, two
floors below. 

It's nice for once to see a Gundam Wing fic that's prepared to include a 
  little explanation of who these guys are and who the other side is.

     But then he grinned that lopsided grin that never quite
reached the spark in his eyes. "'And Darkness and Decay and the
Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.'"

The Poe reference earlier is a nice set up for that.


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