A/N: Shorter but better than nothing. Comments are appreciated, and in response to a question, I guess the other pilots COULD potentially help... I just find it harder to write the other characters. Duo and Heero are the most real in my mind, and the show does spend a great deal of time developing them versus the others...

Well mainly time developing Heero, but since Maxwell talks so much it more than makes up for the eps. he's excluded from...

In short, I apologize to Trowa, Quatre and Wufei, etc. for the fact that they just don't inspire me to prose.

Sorry, guys. You're just too silent, angsty or blond for my liking. Ah well.

-shäl-tn

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Eleven: Used

How could I have been so stupid!

Heero's hands tightened painfully against wing's controls, his knuckles white as his nails dug into the worn rubber of the holds. Of course it was a trap, and had he not been so... distracted by other events, he would have seen it coming.

They shouldn't have even gone on this mission.

It had only been a matter of time before the quiet surveillance operation had turned into a desperate struggle; they'd been surrounded by enemy mobile suits and too far away from one another when it had happened to even back each other up.

But now there was only the battle, the slashing, dirty, tiring rampage of metal against metal, and the relentless rumble of blasting weapons against the harsh intake of each breath. He was loosing ground.

Heero knew this, but he couldn't accept it. He had to keep moving, just for another few seconds, another minute, another hour...

Every minute was another step backwards, another enemy suit felled only to be replaced by another. Each step a loss, but each step was closer to Duo. Hopefully the other pilot was thinking the same thing, eventually they would be back to back...

Hopefully the other pilot was still alive.

He had long ago turned off the comlink for the mission, and the radar was too full of blips to confirm or deny the presence of another gundam, there were just too many suits on the field. The radar only showed a concentration centre to the rear that he hoped was a still-fighting Duo.

There was no time to check in, every movement given was for the fight, and he wouldn't risk breaking Duo's concentration with the intrusion. He'd have to take care of himself.

It was all so repetitive at this point: one trap after another, setbacks, new systems, unstable fighting... Almost enough mishap to make someone paranoid, as if there was a pattern...

Caught in mid-thought, Heero's thin body was slammed sideways into the hard console on his right, the restraint belts barely keeping him from smashing his head open on the machinery. The enemy mobile suits hadn't come this close before - why now?

A red warning light blinked above him.

He was out of ammo. Artillery fire was disabled, there was nothing left to keep the suits from making the battle up close and personal.

He dropped the rifle and housed the machine guns, opening a side compartment on his Gundam's side. Wing grasped the butt of the beam saber, its green ray buzzing to light, glowing brightly in the dim of the retreating sun. Shadows lay long against the valley as the daylight faded away, and his attackers took a moment before moving, most likely assessing the new weapon's capabilities and adjusting their view screens to accommodate for the changing light.

Heero used the few seconds to glance across the wasteland of charred suits and half-burnt trees. In the distance he could see the fast-moving stream of a green scythe.

Blasting Wing's engines backwards, he quickly pushed his way in that direction, gaining a few hundred metres before the fray pressed back into him, closer than before, and more insistent, as if grown stronger with the dark.

In the growing dim the scythe cast eerie shadows across the moving pulse of the enemy suits, and the blasts and sparks of the battle seemed more insistent and violent in their strobe-ing bursts of light. As the sun dipped behind the far-away peaks at the edge of the valley a bright yellow streak approached from the rear, and Duo nearly spun to meet this new attacker before realizing it was Wing, blasting closer, but only gaining a part of the distance between the two gundams.

With a razor sharp grin showing a the edges of barred teeth Duo braced himself, spinning Deathscythe quickly in a semi-circle before jumping backwards towards the other gundam, hoping the abrupt change in movement would buy him the few seconds he needed to close the distance.

The round motion of the scythe as he moved cut a messy swath through the approaching mobile suits, and they halted their forward movement in surprise, caught off guard as the Gundam took to the air.

Taking his chances with the landing, Duo piloted the jump as close to Heero's position as he dare before coming down and resuming the fight as he fell.

It was not the most graceful movement, half-crushing a few unsuspecting suits while trying to fight a position into the enemy from above, and Duo struggled, pushing his already tiring limits... If he could only last another second more, maybe he could get to Wing, together they might have a chance; the enemy's numbers couldn't be unlimited...

But there were so many enemies.

Hands clasped tightly against the controls, they were beginning to shake with the force with which he grasped the handholds, sweat plastered his bangs to his forehead, and his breathing was beginning to come in fatiqued gasps, but all this he ignored, eyes narrowed, teeth pressed tightly together, lost in the rythmn of each stroke, each blow received and given... Duo knew he couldn't possibly keep this up, but at the same time he didn't see any way he could possibly stop.

Within sight of each other, had they only a chance to turn around, but still too far to be of any help, neither pilot noticed that as the fighting reached its peak intensity and they in unison, tired, that the enemy forces, though coming at them with quicker motions and greater force, was decreasing in number, as the majority of the units slowly left the field.

There was no way to notice this with all their available attention focused on the task at hand, just as there was no way they could have noticed the nearly instant retreat of all the mobile suits just as both Gundams stalled for a vital second, their view screens going from black night light battle to blaring, vivid, yellow.

In a hidden room, on a colony where this kind of thing went unnoticed, two scientists involuntarily leaned in towards the wall of screens displaying live feeds of the battle alongside two biometric data readouts labeled 01 and 02.

TBC

I think I'll call Chapter 12 "Zero Hour"... seems appropriate.