The Grief of Mr. Gun (Me, NN1, and FF.)

[nintendonut1]

But muted energy or not, Gantz couldn't hide his smell.

Courage had been shivering slightly; he never really liked thunderstorms much. But suddenly, he perked up, catching a familiar scent nearby.

"Hmm?" Double D glanced up, noticing Courage's behavior. He glanced in the general direction were the dog was pointing, and saw a shadow through the doorway.

Not sensing any threat, he smiled and turned back to his book, respecting whatever reason their host had for waiting. "...I'd imagine he's closer than we all think."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Yui looked down. "I guess." He sighed and looked down. "I don't think he'll go too far away when we have company."

The doll was still rather depressed, as it was. It had not been a good couple of days for him.

[gantzgun74]

Gantz wanted to believe that Double Dee didn't really know he was there, but given the circumstances, he knew that was a false hope. "Well... No sense running from it forever..."

'Get it together Gantz! You've done this before, just keep your cool, and you'll be fine.'

-------------------------

Otto became aware of the scent as well, as well as the sudden rising energy... "So... ..." He turned to the door. "You've been here all along have you?"

Wally and Helga looked to him confused...

At least before Gantz walked into the room, giving them a shamefaced grin. "Sorry to keep you waiting... It's just, I needed a second to catch my breath." Moving to the third couch in the room, he took a seat, lowering his head. "Forgive me... I was never really a natural born Socialite."

Of course, Tarosuke could care less. "Whatever." Bookmarking his place in the 'Art of War' book, he looked to the boy giving him a small look. "So... ... ..." He suddenly felt a little like a fifth wheel in thic conversation, but he kept right on. "You're friends here told me a little about you. Gantz right?"

The boy nodded. "Yes. I am Gantz. Gantz van Drake. Or Mr. Gun, to some." Noticing the odd look on Tarosuke's face, he flushed slightly. "What? I thought it sounded cool."

[nintendonut1]

"All nicknames aside..." Double D cleared his throat, closing his own book. "I can understand your nervousness, but there's really no need. We're all friends, here to trade information, that's all."

Glancing over at Yui, he decided to let the being be. Deciding to begin the discussion, he continued. "As I explained to Tarosuke, we first learned about you, Gantz, from Him. Care to elaborate your relation to him? ...and to the one he holds hostage?"

[gantzgun74]

It was only then that the group ever saw that smile on Gantz's face disappear, right before them... He lowered his head, before standing up... ... ... ... ...

"Her... Her name is Rosaline..." He sighed deeply, as he walked over towards the fire and started warming himself. "She and I... We're as close as close can be, and we..." There was a small sound that came from the boy after that... It almost sounded like a sniffle. "I guess you could say we were an item, but, the thing is... We never looked at it that way..." He shook off the stares that were coming from the others. "I'm... I'm sorry... I know I'm not making much sense, but at least I'm trying." He sighed again. "We were close, closer then we ever thought we were. Together, she and I made an awesome team. You should've seen us in our hay-day..." He choked down a sob. "Back in Ivalice."

"Ivalice?" Came a confused Otto's retort.

"It... It's a group of continents native to the world I come from. The continents of Ivalice are well known in that world, for being the only place of it's kind." He seemed to have warmed himself up enough, as he looked over the mantle of the fireplace. "It was sort of a medieval place, still going through it's time of modernization. Some towns replaced adobe huts with skyscrapers, and through the air, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a bunch of airships, or flying machines, flying through the skies at a time." It was revealed that a picture frame was sitting on top of the mantle, perfectly preserved. "In that country, I was the leader of a clan. Clan's are groups of people who work and travel together, them against anything the world had to throw out... The name of my clan was Clan Highwind."

'Highwind?' That caught Wally's attention quickly. 'Where have I heard that name before?'

It was more then apparent this subject had Tarosuke's full attention now; he leaned forward, his chin leaning against his fist. "Sounds like you had quite the life..." Gantz only nodded some more. "What more can you tell us about this Rosaline though? That's the first I've heard of this."

Shaking his head, the boy continued. "R-Rosaline... She was perfection... Well maybe not exactly but close." He pulled the picture off the mantle and took a long look at it. "We were as close as close can be; we were constantly teased about it too, I remember. We always denied it though, I mean, we were just good friends..." A love-struck, sad smile appeared, "But... I always knew, that deep inside, I loved her with everything I have, and I knew the feeling was mutual." With his back turned it would've been hard to see...

But the gang saw a small drop of water land on the ground... And it didn't come from a leaking roof. "We had it all; I was a few days away from finally throwing away the denial, letting everyone know, even if they already did."

A growl appeared suddenly... ... ...

And everyone felt a spike of energy flow through the room. Gantz's frustration was being shown from a big energy spike.

"Then THEY came... Armor as black as night, and numbers even greater as Dalmasca's imperial army, the Dark Insects came. We fought them with everything we had; I had even enlisted the help of a few friends from my second home in Toon Town to help..." The energy spike grew even more furious, and this time it was much more noticeable. Tarosuke practically jumped in surprise, when he felt energy levels beyond anything he had ever seen. And for those that couldn't feel energy, like Courage and Helga, they were aware of the fireplace fire suddenly becoming much more intense. "But it didn't work! They were everywhere!! I was forced to watch them destroy Ivalice as we tried vainly to get rid of them... And then..."

CRACK----...

The boy must've been gripping so hard, he was cracking the glass in the picture frame...

"They took her away from me..."

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....................................................................................................... Slowly the fire started to calm down, and the energy spikes disappeared... All that was left was Gantz, on his knees, shaking gently as little droplets of water hit the floor.

"She... She meant everything to me... And they took her away..."

Pitying looks were passed to the poor young man...

"Him..." Otto's mind was in overdrive, trying to straighten out the facts. "Him was behind the attack on Ivalice... Wasn't he?"

The group barely saw a nod come from the poor young man, and that was all the response needed.

[nintendonut1]

Clan Highwind... Double D recognized the name too. He had heard it before; apparently more people were linked to Gantz than he initially thought. But he didn't inturrupt, becoming enraptured in the story.

A serenity came to him as Gantz described Rosaline... it certainly fit the breif moment they saw her. With a soft spot for love stories, Double D couldn't help but smile.

But then... he first noticed the spike of energy. It was sharp, hot... angry, enraged, hateful... Double D made his cringe as subtle as possible, not wanting to draw attention to himself, but the spike was beginning to metaphorically drill into his head and actually hurt.

Courage jumped at the raging fire, curling up to Helga in fear. He noticed Double D doubling over, clutching his head, apparently in pain...

...but it was over quickly. When all glances turned to Gantz upon the floor, everyone grew dreadfully quiet.

Trying to shake off his lingering headache, Double D was the last to look up, and upon seeing Gantz, he stumbled to his feet and approached. "G...Gantz..." Still dizzy, he dropped to his knees and weakly threw his arms aroung Gantz, trying so very hard to bring comfort to the grief-stricken young man despite his own discomfort. He couldn't stop his tears; Gantz's emotions were heavily effecting him. "I-I'm... so.. s-s-sorry...!"

(As an angel, being able to read auras, if one's emotions are strong enough, they have an impact on him to a certain degree. Kind of like an empath. And Double D's emotional enough as it is, so I'd imagine a tiny breakdown, if nothing else. XD)

[gantzgun74]

All was silent a moment... ... ...

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Gantz-san..." Helga sniffled mournfully, holding Courage for comfort.

It looked as if Tarosuke and Otto had something to say, they kept it to themselves. Gantz needed to calm down before he could actually say anything. As it turned out, Gantz was thankful for Double Dee's gesture. He wasn't, however, didn't stay tearful for long. He had already been crying over it for a long while. "Th-thanks Double Dee..." He slowly pushed Double Dee's hands away and pushed himself up, grabbing the picture all the while. Noticing Double Dee seemed to have trouble (Given he was weakened a little earlier) The boy helped the angel up to his feet. "Don't... Don't worry about me... I'll be fine."

Of course, he wasn't; but he wasn't about to let anyone else cry for him, he was stronger then that. Sighing, he continued. "Anyways... I guess I know what you're going to ask me next... What's my history with Him?" He shook his head, "Well, that's just it; there isn't any... But that doesn't mean there isn't anything between me and that Crossdressing demon." Shaking my head, I look away. "You see... Far back as I can remember, whenever I traveled around, acting like a hero, there was always these psychopaths there to push me to my limits. The first one was Cad Bane, a Bounty Hunter from the far reaches of space, I never actually beat him. I don't know just why he's stopped chasing me, but I know he's still out there somewhere. The others will go unnamed due to personal reasons..."

Sighing, he went on. "Him is just the most recent in a long line of psycho's. But I have to say, that whoever hired him, picked a winner this time."

After he said this, Wally looked at Gantz with a confused look. "Sounds to me like someone's got some vendetta against you." Tilting his head, a curious look appeared. "Do you ever have help in dealing with these guys?"

... ... ... ... ... .. .... ... ... One could tell an ashamed look was in Gantz's eyes before he put on a pair of sunglasses, to hide it, before anyone could get a second look. "I... I don't wanna talk about it."

[nintendonut1]

Weakly, Double D was helped to his feet, gradually retaining his balance. "Th...thank you..."

He continued to listen, eyes ever cast downward. And when Gantz had answered Wally's question, he had by then recovered.

"...well... that doesn't mean you can't have any help now," he replied firmly. "As far as I'm concerned, he's a danger to us as well. He's a being of chaos, after all." He faced Otto. "He's likely to try and ensnare us as well for his own devices; he already tried it with you before."

[gantzgun74]

Nodding at the comment, Otto definately knew this to be true. "Yeah, sides, we need to stick together to take this freak down."

"I'm... I'm sorry..."

The group turned to Gantz, whom had sit back down on the couch, and shook his head. "I... ... I can't ask you to do this."

After a moments silence, Otto glared at Gantz, "And why can't you?" He asked with curiosity. "Come on, pray tell; why SHOULDN'T I join you in taking down the demon that made a fool out of me?!"

Gantz raised his head and glared back at Otto. "It's simple... Him is MY problem. He's MY problem, and I'm not about to let anyone else suffer for it."

"You are such an idiot..."

That voice was relatively new considering it was a female voice, and it was much to mature sounding to come out of Helga's mouth. Turning, everyone saw a new girl at the door, giving them an impatient look.

"M-Misty..." Came Gantz's gulp. "H-how much did you overhear?"

Misty stomped into the room giving the boy a deadly glare. "Enough." She was growling as she stomped over to him. "So THAT'S why you had formed that pact with Soul Calibur... And I'll bet you weren't seperated from Nutcase and the others..." Her growling had turned slightly feral. "From what I heard, I'll bet you LEFT them because you were too SELFISH to ask for their help!!"

The boy winced, and lowered his head; looking close to tears.

[nintendonut1]

"But...!"

Double D jumped at the new voice, turning sharply. Wisely, he backed off as she approached Gantz. She was angry, he could feel it, but not at the same degree as Gantz was before, and she didn't feel as much of a threat.

The room quickly grew silent.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Yui looked up at Misty. "Misty, please..." he said. His voice was low. He hadn't known the whole situation before now, so he'd been keeping quiet, but he didn't want a fight to break out now.

[gantzgun74]

Misty continued to look down on Gantz, glaring daggers at the poor lad. "M-Misty... You... You don't understand-"

"Oh, I understand all right!!" She stomped as she said this, possibly frightening Courage, since it felt like the house shook from it. "You lied to me Gantz. You said, as soon as we meet with these guys, we'd go out and find Nutcase and the others. That wasn't true was it? You never PLANNED to go find them."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

"(Sniffle.) Y-yes... That was the idea..." Gantz sniffled out.

Fuming at the prospect, Misty seemed more then a little agitated. "I KNEW IT... You lied to me... You LIED TO ME you little @#%$#@$!!!!"

Otto was quickly out of his seat. "HEY!!! That was WAY out of line!!!" He took Misty's arm. "Now why don't you just take a seat, so we can talk about this like rational human bei-"

"OH DON'T YOU DARE, START WITH ME OTTO!!!!!!!" Misty yanked her arm out of Otto's grip and proceeded to chew him out. "Do you have ANY IDEA how worried I was about you?!? I had circled the ENTIRE ISLAND THREE TIMES looking for your sorry @$$!! And suddenly you just land right on my LAP?!?! YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF GALL TO WORRY ME LIKE THAT, and then just POP UP from out of nowhere!!!!!! TRUST ME, the talking-to I'm giving to Gantz will be NOTHING compared to the beating I'm going to give you!!!"

A hard gulp caught everyone's attention. "M-Misty... There's something you need to know..."

This easily caught Misty's flaring temperamental attention. "WHAT IS IT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

"DAMMIT, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU LADY?!?!? FROM THE WAY YOUR TALKING, ONE WOULD THINK WE'VE MET BEFORE, BUT I'VE NEVER ONCE SEEN YOU BEFORE IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A wince crossed Gantz's face...

While Misty turned back to the boy, looking even more furious.

"WHAT'S WITH THE AMNESIA ACT, ALL OF A SUDDEN?!?!?!?!?!?!? DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I'M THAT DENSE YOU LITTLE GNAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

"OBVIOUSLY YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!!! I'VE NEVER MET YOU IN MY LIFE AND YET YOUR TREATING ME LIKE I WRONGED YOU SOMEHOW!!!! I DON'T CARE IF YOUR A GIRL, YOU'VE GOT A FOUL ENOUGH ATTITUDE THAT IT WON'T BOTHER ME IF I KICK YOUR @$$!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY, YOU @#$%@$#%!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND STOP PRETENDING YOU DON'T KNOW ME, IT'S NOT HELPING YOU WITH ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I'M TELLING THE HONEST TRUTH, YOU CRAZY TART!!!!!!!!!! AND IF YOU THINK YOU CAN KICK MY BUTT, YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"OH YEAH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

WHAAAAAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thankfully a club collided with Misty's head before she could punch Otto's lights out. "MISTY!!!!!!!!!!! GET A GRIP ON YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The blow had failed to knock Misty out, as she rubbed her head, looking pained, giving Gantz a death glare. "WHY YOU-?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

"THAT ISN'T THE OTTO, YOU KNOW MISTY!!!!!!"

Confusion became apparent when he said this.

[nintendonut1]

Courage yelped, hiding in Helga's arms, as the conflict continued.

"Stop it, stop it! Both of you!!" Futilely, Double D tried to get in between the two, but was quickly knocked aside. With all the anger spiking through the room, he found it difficult to get back on his feet, clutching at his head again.

Still, he looked up at Gantz's last statement, in his share of confusion.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

If anyone had turned Yui's way during the whole arguement, they would have noticed the crippled doll had stood up, and in his hand was a large gold key, and there was a considerable amount of heat coming off of it. He had seriously just considered getting violent at that moment, something he rarely did.

"Please! Everyone calm down!" Yui called.

[gantzgun74]

Silence reigned on the scene itself, as Misty, Otto, Wally, Helga, and pretty much everybody else gave him a confused look. Misty looked between Gantz and Otto, seeming unable to know what to think. When at last she found her voice again, she turned back to Gantz. "What... What are you talking about..?"

... ... ... ... Gantz heaved a long hard sigh. "Listen... Misty..." After a second he turned to the others, wondering how he should word this... The answer came. "Misty. Think of it like this..." He walked over to Otto, whom looked at the boy with a raised eyebrow. "Think of it as there are multiple versions of Otto all over the Multiverse. One could be Wolverine (X-Men) in one world, one could be Demitri (Dark Stalkers), in the other." Staring at the boy long and hard, Misty could suddenly tell this boy wasn't lying. "But for the sake of arguement, let's just stick with the two we know now."

At this point, Otto was staring at Gantz with a look of disbelief. Was this kid saying there was more then one of him?

"This Otto was created to be a much more... Original Otto then the one we know. In a sense, he is the Otto we know, but in another sense he is not. What seperates the two is two things; History and memory. Aside from that the two would be complete equals. While this Otto was born in Arcadia Valley, a world in my own design, the Otto we know comes from Antheum, a world from Musashi Samurai Legend." Patting Otto on the shoulder, he sighed once more. "So there's more then one Otto. Just try to look at it that way."

Surprise crossed the faces of every last face in the room. "Are... Are you saying that there are a thousand different Otto's?? In several worlds?" Wally was at a loss as he said this.

The sunglasses wearing young man shook his head. "Not just Otto, Wally. EVERYONE does. Everyone has multiple versions of themselves that span the universe. Along with the Otto from Antheum, there is also a Wally from Antheum too. They are both best friends just like you two are." He shrugged, motioning to Double Dee. "Why, this Double Dee right here is merely another version created from the original, created by a fangirl whom calls herself the 'Lady of all Things Dorky'. I believe I have yet to meet her, but she calls herself NN1."

Elsewhere a gargantuan crack forms on the 4th Wall.

"Do you understand?"

Wally took this in a second, trying to imagine that he was not one individual, but rather thousands, maybe millions of people all over the Multi-verse, each acted like him, but had seperate stories, seperate memories, seperate-... "Uwaaaah..." Wally groaned as he held his head. "Brain Pain..."

A shake of the head came from Gantz, "Just don't think about it too har-GKT!!!"

Gantz never had time to finish that sentence before Misty brought herself back into attention, having recovered from the explanation that Gantz gave. She had grabbed Gantz by the collar and was looking at him flatly. "Well that's all fine and dandy, but if THAT... COPY, isn't Otto." She pointed at Otto, whom huffed in insult. "Then where is OUR Otto?!?"

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A sniffle was heard, causing Misty to look extremely concerned...

Gantz was crying beneath his sunglasses. "He's... He's dead, Misty... He died... Trying to protect me... Him and our Wally both..."

... ... ... ... To say, Shock was apparent by every last face in the room, would honestly? Be a GIGANTIC understatement.

Misty dropped Gantz, whom landed on his feet...

Misty didn't however...

On her knees, her arms being the only thing holding her off the floor, she looked down blankly. She just couldn't believe it...

They were dead..?