You asked for it and here it is! I hope you guys like it. It's a little slow in the beginning but it gets better.

Dedicated to Shadow of a Rose

Virus

By GW-Imp

1. The Infection

          Wufei Chang whipped out his Gundam's retractable dragon arm violently, trying to destroy the enemy mobile suit attacking him. He landed a direct hit and the enemy mobile suit exploded before his very eyes. A voice that he usually found incredibly annoying screamed a welcome warning through his intercom.

          "Wufei, behind you!" Wufei spun his Gundam quickly and attacked. The coward's mobile suit was sent flying off course. He watched as the Gundam of the person who had warned him sliced the enemy mobile suit in half with its jet-black scythe.

          "Well you're welcome." Duo said after finishing off the enemy. Wufei fired a myriad of bullets towards Duo's Gundam. Duo veered out of the way just as Wufei had expected. The bullets shredded the Leo that had snuck up behind Duo.

          "And now you're welcome." Wufei smirked. A new voice wafted through the intercom.

          "Everyone keep your eyes open; we're drifting into an asteroid belt." Wufei smiled, thinking to himself, 'That's got to be the most I've ever heard Heero say.' Wufei was thrown forward as a particularly large asteroid collided with his Gundam. If not for his restraints, he would have flown right out of the cockpit. Wufei struggled to get clear of the free-wheeling rocks but there were too many.

          "I need some help over here!" Wufei snarled through the intercom. Wufei was jolted backward as another mini comet sliced through Nataku's main thrusters. He swore under his breath and began flipping switches on the control panel in an effort to reroute the energy of the main thrusters to the secondary ones. A large shadow filled the cockpit. Wufei glanced up to see an asteroid headed straight for him. He hit the eject button but the ejector was jammed.

          "This is gonna be bad." Wufei mumbled to himself as he braced for impact. The asteroid made contact, piercing the hull and shattering the front sensory screen through which Wufei steered Nataku and directed its weapons. The whole cockpit began to shake wildly and Wufei became sure that he was going to get whiplash. The asteroid split in two and the halves scraped past the Gundam. But even after the asteroid was no longer blocking his view, Wufei still couldn't see out of the cockpit. He stared hard at the side sensory screens and realized that there was some sort of thick residue spread over the outside of the cockpit. As he was wondering what it was, it slowly started to disappear. Wufei figured that the forward momentum of his Gundam was pushing it backwards. When the substance had almost completely gone, Wufei could see that the front wall was cracked and dented severely and on the verge of being sucked into space. Wufei tried to reach out to his partners via the intercom.

          "My hull is damaged and losing integrity fast!" he reported.

          "How long do you think it'll hold?" Heero asked.

          "From the way it looks, I would say about two to three minutes."

          "Don't worry, Wufei!" A different voice cried. The picture on Wufei's intercom vid-screen changed from that of a messy-haired Japanese boy to that of a blonde Arabian. "I'm really close to you. I can help you out!"

          "Well I'm not going anywhere. My main thrusters are down and I haven't been able to reroute the power." Wufei sat anxiously awaiting Quatre's arrival. His foot began to feel cold. He glanced at it but could see nothing due to the lack of light. He bounced in his chair as yet another asteroid rammed into Nataku. He watched the cracks in the cockpit's walls spread further. Wufei was wondering what was keeping Quatre when he noticed the cold had moved into more of his leg. 'Why am I cold? Isn't this stupid suit insolated?' He considered the possibility of his space suit having been torn. If it had been torn, that meant he was losing both heat and oxygen.

          "Quatre, would you hurry up?! I think I've got a leak in my suit." Wufei barked.

          "I'm closing in on your position right now." Quatre assured him. Now Wufei's waist was cold, but his leg wasn't. It was as if the cold was moving along his body. He glanced down at himself once more before remembering that his helmet had flashlights on it. The right one was busted but the left one was still in tact and he clicked it on. He wasn't positive, but he thought that he saw something slide around his waist to his back. A loud rumbling sound caused him to jerk his head up. The screen and wall in front of him were trembling from the mounting pressure. He saw Sandrock clearing away asteroid debris and moving in his direction. A chill ran up Wufei's spine, not from fear, but from something else.

          "It's about t – AAAH!" A sickening splat sounded as thick, dark green slime slammed into the visor of Wufei's helmet. It slid up to the corners of Wufei's visor. Wufei tried desperately to scrape it off with his hands, but nothing even came off on his gloves. He watched in horror as the goop oozed around the visor and into his suit. Soon all of the disgusting fluid was inside of the suit and numbing Wufei's entire body. Not thinking about the consequences, Wufei started to unfasten his helmet.

          "Wufei, don't take off your helmet!" Quatre cried. "You won't be able to breathe!" But Wufei already couldn't breathe. He could feel the substance engulfing his body and it had reached his throat. He clutched at his neck in vain, not being able to get at the foreign material because of the space suit that was supposed to be protecting him. He gasped for air, his mouth wide open. The freezing liquid climbed up his chin and jutted out, rising to his eyes. With a shrill screech it dove into his mouth. Wufei screamed –

          He tossed about in the bed, writhing in fear. His friends rushed to his side to calm him.

          "Wufei, calm down! Calm down, you're okay now! We're back on Earth!" Quatre told him. Wufei ceased his violent thrashing and screaming. He blinked, trying to recognize his surroundings. He was in his room back at the safehouse. He frowned in pain; for some reason the light was hurting his eyes. Badly.

          "What happened?" he demanded, sitting up.

          "Your Gundam was hit by an asteroid, remember? We think that may have been what knocked you unconscious. I was able to get you out of the asteroid belt before you got seriously hurt, but I can't say the same for your Gundam." Quatre informed him.

          "What about that…stuff?"

          "What stuff?"

          "That…stuff. It got inside of my suit."

          "We checked your suit because you said you thought it had a leak, but we didn't find anything strange inside of it. We didn't find any leaks, either."

          "It got in through my helmet. Did you check my helmet?"

          "Yes, but there wasn't anything inside of it either. Are you sure that something got into your suit?"

          "No." was what he said, but he thought, 'But I'm sure I feel sick.' "Toilet…" he mumbled. His co-pilots exchanged glances.

          "I'm not helpin' him use the bathroom." Duo stated matter-of-factly.

          "I think I'm gonna - ." Wufei leaned over and emptied his stomach before he could finish the sentence. Unfortunately, Quatre didn't have much time to move.

          "Great." he grumbled, exiting the room to try to clean himself off. After throwing up, Wufei felt better so he decided to ask more about what had happened.

          "Did we win?" he inquired. Heero and Trowa simply nodded while Duo let out a loud whoop. "Good." Wufei said with a satisfied nod. "So how badly was Nataku damaged?"

          "You probably won't be able to use it for a while." Duo told him, being pretty much the resident mechanic. "The main thrusters weren't just damaged, they were sliced clean off! Those'll have to be replaced. The front of the cockpit went right after you blacked out, so that'll have to be welded closed or something. Your ejector is jammed, the hull is full of holes and the dragon arm is clogged with space rocks. Other than that, it's holding up." Wufei frowned again upon hearing this. 'It could've been worse.' he reminded himself. He noticed the other pilots staring at him as he was drifting into his own thoughts.

          "What?" he demanded sharply.

          "You're not gonna say anything about injustice?" Duo asked in disbelief.

          "Oh…uh, sure…injustice. Whatever." he said and returned to his thoughts. Normally Wufei would have been more worried about his Gundam than anything else but at that moment he was more interested in figuring out whether or not that strange substance had been real – and if it had, what it had done to him. Wufei found himself losing focus as he got deeper into his thoughts. He was feeling…pain. His head was throbbing. He groaned and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb.

          "You okay, Wu-man?" Duo asked carefully, not wanting to be snapped at again.

          "My head…it's the light…" Wufei moaned. Heero seemed to know what was wrong with Wufei.

          "Light can be painful after a blow to the head." he said with no noticeable feeling.

          "Oh." Duo said.

          "I want to be alone right now." Wufei told the others, still massaging his head. "Turn the light off when you leave." The three boys stood and left Wufei to his thoughts and musings. Wufei laid back down on his bed, the brief moment of normalcy gone, and wondered what exactly had happened to him out in space. Then after a while, he got up to meditate on the floor of his room, but could only light a few of the candles. A wave of fear passed over him as he remembered how the substance he'd seen seemed to be afraid of the light coming from his flashlight. 'Am I afraid of light?' he wondered, hoping the answer was no.

*Hope you liked it! Please, no flames. And that means you, Gelfling!* ^_~