Greetings! =^_^= For your reading enjoyment today, here's an idea that came to me during rush hour--I swear, I get my best ideas in a car, dunno why, maybe it's the diesel fumes in town...but I digress. Shounen-ai 1x2, angst and suffering ahead. Rated R for language and mild gore.
A.N. All, I repeat, ALL of the text in italics, excepting single words in other people's dialogue, but including the dream/memory sequence, are Heero's thoughts. =^_~= Didja get all that? Good.
Disclaimer #1: I don't own GW...*cries*...but if I DID own it, things would be SO different, but then again if "ifs and buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all weigh 300 pounds, so there. =P
Disclaimer #2: I was an English major, so when I write, I write wordy. You have been warned. =P
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A hundred feet...two hundred...five hundred feet below ground, and still they climbed, skittering along on the damp rocks, and gasping for air. The steep passage was barely wide enough for one person, forcing all five members of the team to proceed single file. There were no sources of light in the naturally-formed cavern, save for the tiny halogen lamps held to the boys' army fatigues on tightly-buckled shoulder straps. The logic behind choosing the shoulder-mounted flashlights instead of the traditional miner's helmet became painfully idiodic when the second boy in line bumped his head on a sharp rock. "OW! Dammit!" he yelped, clutching his head with both hands. "You didn't want a helmet messing up your hair," the team leader called back over his shoulder, in a slightly mocking tone. The injured one stuck his tongue out impishly at the sarcastic one, while he smoothed his bangs and assessed the status of his braid. "If you'll care to remember, Hee-chan, the rest of you all picked the same light I picked, so don't get snarky about it." "Hn." Picking his way delicately down the stony passage, Heero thought he heard two sets of tiny snickers following just behind. Duo and Quatre were having a nice little giggle in the middle of a mission. How lovely. "I humbly suggest you keep your minds on the trail if you don't wish to incur further injury," someone called from behind the group. Wufei. At last, the voice of reason, Heero thought. Trowa, as usual, was silent. Seven hundred feet, perhaps more, and still they climbed, further and further down into the belly of the Earth. **********Above ground, two hulking figures in dark clothes enjoyed a beer-soaked conversation in the mid-day sun. "So what were the details of the 'mission', anyway?" the larger of the two asked, miming little quotation marks. The smaller one chuckled and sat back in his lawn chair, swatting at one of the giant mosquitos that inhabited the jungle. "Search and destroy, Burt," he replied between swigs of lager. "Search and destroy." Burt just sat there with a blank look and swatted at a few killer mosquitos of his own. "Louch, you never let me in on anything!" Louch smiled. "That's 'cause I'm the brains of this operation, and we may be friends, but I'm not about to let a musclebound meathead mess this up for me." His expression turned cold as he wrapped a calloused hand tightly around the neck of his beer bottle. "I've waited too long for this...I can't let anything screw it up now." "So you don't trust me enough to explain it to me?" Burt sounded more annoyed than disappointed. He'd lived with a reputation for having more brawn than brains for a long time, and he was getting used to it somewhat, but the fact that his so-called friend wouldn't confide in him didn't make it easier. Guilt got the better of Louch at the sight of Burt's forlorn face. He sighed and tossed the burly ex-soldier a fresh beer. "Alright, I'll tell you." **********Heero stepped into a smallish cavern just big enough that they could all stand together, and waited for the others to catch up. He took a neatly folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, opened it, and looked back and forth between the paper and his surroundings, scowling. Such a badly drawn map...impossible to tell exactly where we are along the route. Gradually the others filed in, Duo first, then Quatre and Trowa close together, and finally Wufei, who insisted on looking anxiously over his shoulder every ten paces. He seemed oddly distracted...disturbed, even. Perhaps he isn't fond of small, dark spaces, Heero thought with a tiny grin. He turned his attention to the task at hand. "Quatre, there are no markings on the map that indicate the location of this cavern. Can you tell us how far down we are?" "Sure, Heero," the blond boy answered, taking off his backpack and setting it on the ground. He shuffled around in the pack, searching for something, while the others caught their breath and got a good look at each other. The pilots were clad in identical army fatigues and steel-toed boots, with olive green packs filled with supplies and explosives strapped to their backs, and a semi-practical rectangular halogen lantern mounted on the fronts of their right shoulders. Quatre and Wufei each wore a black cap with a small, short-range radio transmitter sewn into the brim. After the long, difficult trek down through the dank cave, each of them was evenly coated in a dark, sticky film of dirt and sweat, giving them the appearance of five lost coal miners. Duo snuck up behind Heero and punched him playfully in the arm. "Not too shabby in here, but you gotta do somethin' about the décor!" Heero ignored his pitiful attempt to distract him from his work. "Have you got it?" Crouched on his heels, Quatre was fiddling with a nondescript electronic device, his brow knit with concentration. "Almost..." He studied it intently, twisting knobs and tapping buttons while his companions stared at the bleak, forbidding walls. The device made the same curious buzzing noise several times, and each time it did, Quatre's frown grew by degrees. "...Oh no..." he moaned, slapping the side of the black box with the palm of his hand. "What?" Heero was standing directly over him now. Quatre looked up helplessly. "I...I don't understand...this was working fine on the surface! I know, because I checked everything before we left..." He turned the device off with a sigh and stood. "I don't know how far down we are, Heero. I'm sorry." Trowa ran a hand down the damp rock wall, then rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully. "Maybe the moisture got to it," he said. "Maybe these rocks are magnetic," Wufei added. Quatre shook his head desperately. "It's supposed to be waterproof--" "It doesn't matter," Heero interrupted. "We know it's ahead of us, and the map doesn't show too many sharp turns. We keep going." And with that, he turned, glanced at the map, put it away, and took off down the next leg of their route. One by one, his team followed, Quatre first, Wufei last. **********Louch took another long gulp of his beer and settled in to look more closely at their surroundings. If one stopped to look, it was really quite a pretty place, as dense jungles go. As the sun slipped further towards the horizon, light began to stream through the rainforest canopy like a waterfall made of honey. He leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him. "It's like this," he began. "They received word that there was a secret enemy base buried deep underground, under this very spot. You remember? Where I sent you earlier?" Burt nodded enthusiastically. "Well, see, the specs on this place were so phenominal...massive military encampment, armed to the teeth with missiles and bombs and what-have-you, and most likely a huge hanger full of newly-minted mobile suits, hell, they can't let a thing like that slide by, can they?" Louch emptied the bottle and tossed it over his shoulder into a clump of tropical ferns, wiping his crooked hairpin mouth on his sleeve. "So their mission, of course, is to blow the place up." Burt looked confused. "But I thought I--" "You did a great job, I'm sure." The smaller man was mean sometimes, but he knew when to flatter a person. He let an evil smile take over his scarred, chiseled features. "They've really gotta get some better security on their computer systems. Planting that message was way too easy." A flash of understanding burst in on Burt's vacant stare. "Oh, so they think they're going to blow up the base, and instead we're--" "We're gonna get to them first," Louch cut him off, once again. A long pause followed. "Hey, Looooch?" "Yeah?" "What do we wanna blow up a military base for?" Seconds later, Louch whacked Burt upside the head good and hard. "Idiot! Am I sittin' here talkin' to a sack of potatoes!? There IS no base! I made it up!!" he shouted, thumping himself in the chest with two thick fingers. "...shit, Burt, they should've discharged you on the grounds of being a flaming moron!" Louch leaned back heavily and reached down between their chairs for the cooler; this time, instead of retrieving another beer, he brought out a little silver box. It was just large enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and it sported a green light, and a red button. He ran his thumb over the red button, caressing it like a lucky rabbit's foot. "Time's running out, Gundam pilots," he whispered to the sultry mid-afternoon air. "Today the 83rd platoon pays back an old debt." **********After another hundred feet or so of steep, narrow and rocky travel, the route levelled off considerably. It appeared as if the team had hit bottom, and all that remained was to navigate the tunnels that led into the base. The trail was uncommonly smooth, probably cut with lasers, though it was difficult to tell how recently it had been done. Now there wasn't even the exictement of slipping on wet, jagged rocks and possibly breaking an arm to keep those with short attention spans entertained. It was such a dull march that Duo began skipping down the tunnel just to alleviate the boredom. After a sharp poke in the ribs and an admonishment from Trowa, he stopped, but he got bored again and switched to the Bunny Hop after only a few minutes. A stiff yank of his braid was necessary to make him walk normally the rest of the way. Heero looked back and gave Duo a disapproving look before moving ahead into a large chamber with a high ceiling. They poured into the cavern, grateful for something new to look at. The room was large and irregularly-shaped, and the ground was uneven again. Stalagmites and stalactites decorated the floor and ceiling, and the sound of dripping water echoed loudly. Wufei looked around and scowled. "The passage we were just in was manufactured better than this. I would have expected conditions to keep improving as we got closer to the target." "Maybe we're lost," Quatre mused. Heero shook his head. "There was no other way to turn once we hit the man-made tunnel." He walked slowly to the other side of the room and studied the far wall as well as the floor for signs of a secret passage. The expedition leader grunted in annoyance when the light dimmed suddenly. He turned to see Trowa tapping the front of his shoulder lantern, which had gone out. After a moment or two of fruitless tapping, Duo moved forward to help him. "I think the battery's dead already," Trowa growled. "Duo, these things are junk. We should've taken the miner's helmets." "Hey, the batteries on the helmets are smaller than these are, and these lights were on sale at Roy's Army Surplus! I got you guys a bargain if you didn't but know it." Duo levered off the outer casing of the light and tried to jerryrig it back to life, without success. Turning back to the wall, Heero made an executive decision. "Quatre and Wufei, turn your lights off to save the batteries. We'll still need light to get back out of here." They complied. "Duo, bring your light over here and take a look at that wall." He pointed Duo to a spot somewhere to his right, and the other three busied themselves, carefully extracting explosives from their backpacks in the dark. Heero moved further and further down the left hand side of the back wall. There's something...a dark patch over there...could just be a recess in the wall...could be another passage. He made his way closer to the darkest corner of the cavern. **********"So let's double-check one last time," Louch suggested. "You climbed down as far as you could go down the back tunnel, the larger one...'cause we all know you're a tall drink of water," he said, slapping Burt in the gut. "You blasted out a smooth tunnel and hooked it up with the little scrawny passage that comes back up here..." "Yeah, and then I set the explosives in the ceiling with that sticky stuff." Burt wasn't one of the greatest technical minds of the colonial age, but he could get the job done. "Right, and you set the trigger way in the back, in that little hollow in the wall?" "Uh huh." "And you plugged up the big tunnel so they couldn't find it?" "Uh huh." "You're a treasure, Burt. Good job." Louch smirked at how easily his partner was appeased. "You know, you're not as gormless as you look sometimes." Satisfied that all was in place, he went back to lovingly running his fingers over the red button. "Louch?" "Yeah?" "Shouldn't we get out of here if things are gonna start blowing up?" Louch looked exasperated. "Noooo...it's not just gonna blow up on it's own, that what this nifty little gizmo is for," he snapped, holding up the little silver box. "And we're plenty far enough away, I've already figured that out. All we'll feel is a slight tremor." "Then what was that trigger thing I put in the wall for?" Burt's eyebrows threatened to fly right off his face. "The trigger just sends a signal to this box, and the green light starts blinking. That's how I'll know the pilots are too far down to get out in time. Then..." he said, almost drooling at the thought, "...then I get to press this and bury the little fuckers alive." **********"Heero, I've been over and over this wall eight times, there's nothing here!" Duo whined. "There doesn't seem to be anything, anywere," Trowa added, gracefully avoiding the jagged rocks sticking up from the floor as he surveyed the cavern. Quatre and Wufei had joined in the search for clues as well, leaving their packs and the explosives on the driest piece of ground they could find. There seemed to be no exit to the room, save the way they came. It was far too cold to be anywhere near the massive power source the base was supposed to require; in fact, the more they explored, the more they all thought there must be something wrong with the information they had been given. Heero, however, was undaunted. It MUST be here. A lever, a switch, a pressure plate... His fingers played deftly over the wall's surface, probing for anything that might make the wall give way and reveal the true path. Tired of walking around half-blind in the dim light, Quatre leaned against a random wall and watched Heero work. His eyes followed the intricate path of his halogen lamp, left and right, up and down, bobbing and swerving as he searched. Heero was once again in the darkened alcove he had searched twenty minutes ago. It had turned out to be a dead end, but stubbornness forced him to give it a closer inspection. As he stepped farther into the alcove, a strange sight caught Quatre's eye and made him go cold. A bright red dot appeared on Heero's boot. Quatre plastered himself against the wall and fought hard not to start hyperventilating. "H-Heero?" he choked in a half-whisper. Heero swiveled his head around, puzzled at Quatre's tone. "Hn?" He could only barely see the Arabian pilot's outline, trembling and pointing down at the ground Heero was standing on. "There's s-something on your ankle..." he whispered, half not wanting to guess what it was. Annoyed, Heero vaguely wondered if Quatre had seen a giant spider on his foot or something. Preparing to shake the pest off and continue working, he looked down. There was a shiny red spot, no more than a centimetre across, glowing on the side of his foot. He saw faint flecks of red hanging in the air an inch or two off the ground, illuminating a thin line of red dust. It was a laser, the kind one finds in a grocery store check-out, emanating from a tiny fixture attached to the wall directly to his left. By now, the other three were all looking at him, wondering what was so fascinating about the ground over there. Heero whipped his head around to the right and examined the same spot on the opposite wall. There was a reflector plate mounted even with the laser emitter. And he had just broken the path of the beam. Heero's eyes widened. **********Topside, sweltering and completely out of booze, sat the two ex-OZ soldiers, like unholy sentinels guarding the entrance of the cave. Louch was ready to fall asleep; hours had passed since the Gundam pilots had disappeared into the crevice, and he had spent the last forty minutes (at least) staring at the green light on his custom-made detonator. If something didn't happen soon, he would fall asleep. Panic shook him awake. Had they discovered the trap? Were they on their way back up the passage? Or worse, had they found the larger tunnel and snuck up behind them while they were drinking? Louch was just about to spin around in his chair, expecting to see pistols aimed at his head, when the green light flickered. He stared at the light, incredulous; had he imagined it? He watched for another five seconds to be certain. It was blinking. The rabbits had stepped into the snare at last. "Burt! Burt! Look!" he shouted, slapping his partner in the arm and pointing at the green light. "Time for the big bang, Burt!" They jumped out of their chairs and stood side by side facing the cave. Louch shouted ceremoniously, so the entire jungle could hear. "Ground Unit G-9, 83rd platoon, OZ Mobile Suit Forces...ah-tennnnnnn-SHUN!" Both men snapped to attention. "Acting Commander Luciano Baretti, Leo Division, pilot second class...detonatorrrrrrrrrr.....READY!" Both men saluted. Louch smiled and pressed the red button. "See you in hell." |
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=*_*= ...well, THAT wasn't very nice of him. Obviously something's GOT to be done about this...*gets to work on Chapter 2* Oh, and by the way, while you're waiting for the next chapter, why not be a doll and read my *other* stories! Go on, you know you want to...hehehe =^_~=
