Chapter 12: the Veterans vs. the Rookies

Heiran frowned as he checked up on his pilots, and noticed their distressed expressions. "What's going on?"

"Luxembourg must have caved! All of a sudden, they just started attacking us as though they didn't care what happened to these suits or themselves!" Caden said shakily.

"Humph. Those damn fools… I told them to wait until we had dealt substantial damage to the Sandrock and Tallgeese III." He grumbled to himself in annoyance.

"Sir? What should we do?" Andrew asked worriedly as an explosion flashed behind his head.

"It's still three on two. I want all of their suits as badly damaged as they can be. We're not keeping these three, remember?"

The three reluctantly nodded as they vanished, only to be replaced with Kareem, Steven and Michael.

"What's wrong?" Steven asked.

"Be on standby. They're close to the warehouse and Luxembourg gave them permission to fight. It seems as though our backs are against the wall. If things get worse, I'll tell you to enter the battle. I highly doubt they'll fight seriously. They want to keep all of those machines in good condition, or try to."

"We understand sir." Kareem answered with a nod before the three images vanished, replaced with security footage of what was happening outside the warehouse, although Heiran was treated to mostly screens of dirt clouds and smoke from the fight on those ones, and there was the one screen devoted to the talks between Relena and the officials from Luxembourg.

He frowned when he noticed the room was empty. The talks were over far too soon for his liking. He had given those Luxembourg idiots explicit instructions and had warned them of the consequences if they hadn't followed them.

The damn woman is a more capable negotiator than I had expected… However, that doesn't change a thing. With those five down, and Mr. Yuy in no physical shape to pilot, Relena will fall.

He chuckled coldly as he turned the screen from the empty meeting room to one of the other security cameras on the warehouse and watched the clouds of dirt and smoke generated by the five suits' furious fighting, occasionally being treated to scenes of the battle before the screen turned to dust clouds again.


Quatre muttered curses of frustration under his breath as the Sandrock dodged another attack from the Altron's flamethrowers. Because of them, the surrounding forest seemed like a wildfire that had been burning for weeks, limiting their fighting field.

Despite being given the attack orders, Quatre and Milliardo were still having trouble defeating the other three suits without resorting to their most damaging strategies.

"I'm going to have to apologise to Wufei when we return. We can't afford to take any more damage than we already have, and we can't afford to let them keep those machines any longer." Quatre admitted with a grim expression.

Milliardo's face in the screen on his side display frowned. "So it's time we actually get serious?"

Quatre nodded. "We have no choice. The Heavyarms doesn't seem to be running out of ammunition anytime soon, and whoever is piloting the Altron is being pretty conservative with the flamethrowers. They'll drag this out until all of our suits are out of commission."

"I have a feeling that was their plan." Milliardo said wryly as the Tallgeese III dodged a barrage from the Heavyarms.

"It looks as though the Deathscythe Hell's scythe shaft is sturdier than Noin and the others thought, despite that single activation of the heat rod. We've put a lot of pressure on it and it still hasn't broken."

Quatre frowned worriedly as the Deathscythe Hell charged at the Sandrock. "I really hate having to resort to this, but maybe it will help to weaken the shaft…" He said more to himself than to Milliardo.

He hit a control and a few moments later, the Heat Shotels began to glow red with heat waves shimmering around them.

With swift movement only seen in veteran pilots who knew their machines well, Quatre's hands flew across the various controls and the Sandrock responded, quickly blocking the Deathscythe Hell's charge with the heated blades.

Quatre cringed as the impact caused the Sandrock's cockpit to shudder violently, causing the straps holding him in to rub deeper into his already bruised shoulders.

Against the titanium mass-produced mobile suits, there had been no concern about using the heat coils embedded in the blades, but against Gundanium there was a great deal of concern needed. They were a double-edge sword: making slicing through enemy suits easier by weakening the metal around them, but it also weakened the metal of the blades, which always made Quatre hesitant to use them for long periods of time against strong enemies.

The Sandrock threw back the Deathscythe Hell, which fell to the ground with a crash.

"It seems as though that surprised him." Milliardo said in surprise as the Tallgeese III's heat rod lashed out at the Heavyarms, preventing it from attacking the Sandrock, who fired the Vulcan guns mounted on its head to force the Altron to back off as it tried to attack the Tallgeese III from behind.

"Should we try to push them? We still have the edge when it comes to their lack of knowledge about what lurks in the computer systems of those three."

Milliardo flashed a grin of amusement as he thought of their reactions before it faded into a frown of concern. "Despite our piloting experience, it is still three high-grade suits against two. If we were facing mass-produced suits, there would be no problem. Unfortunately, they seem to have learned those three quite well. It'll be hard to push them to the point that the ZERO System thinks that it's needed."

"Not to mention we don't have any long range suits with us. Are you certain you can't use the dobergun?" He asked worriedly.

"I can only fire it once on my own power, Quatre. It has to be a last resort measure. Maybe I should use it to destroy the warehouse before we're faced with whatever's hiding in there."

Quatre shook his head. "We don't know if the dobergun will be able to fully destroy what's in there. You'd have to get close in order to deal it a significant enough blow for it to be no longer our concern."

"That's true… until that time comes keep trying."

Quatre nodded in agreement as the two suits attacked the three Gundams in enemy hands.


Andrew frowned when he heard Caden curse as the Tallgeese III's beam sabre managed to damage part of the Altron's left hip joint before the beam trident turned it away. He wanted to warn Caden not to take them too lightly, which he seemed to do even when they began fighting back, but he was fighting for his life.

The Sandrock seemed to be putting pressure on him for some reason. The sudden activation of the Heat Shotels' heating coils had taken him by surprise, which he paid dearly for, but he quickly got over it.

Unfortunately, that little moment was all it took for the Sandrock to force him onto the defensive. Not even the Heavyarms' attempts to break them apart with gunfire seemed to stop the Sandrock's advances.

Even Caden was suddenly having more trouble with the Tallgeese III than they had expected. He was grateful when Heiran's face appeared on the side screen, although he was forced to see him only from the corner of his eye. The battle was taking up a fair bit of his concentration, and he knew it wouldn't end well for him if he let it slip as the Sandrock slashed at him, forcing him to block it with the Deathscythe Hell's scythe shaft.

"What is happening?"

"They're definitely better than us, sir… any time we accidentally give them an inch, they're over it like it was a huge gap. Even with three suits to their two, it's harder than we expected." He admitted quickly before Caden could answer.

He ignored Caden's scowl even though he was technically the leader of their group. He knew Caden would have lied to please Heiran, and they may have found themselves in a situation where they were dead and the warehouse was destroyed.

Caden had probably been made leader simply because of his eagerness to dispose of Relena, and that worried Andrew.

Heiran frowned in anger, but his voice was calm when he spoke. "That's fine… I didn't expect them to get serious, but it appears as though they have. I never expected you to be able to keep on par with them for very long. However…"

Andrew tried to hide a cringe behind a mask of concentration as the Deathscythe Hell managed to swing its beam scythe and force the Sandrock back a few steps, but the Sandrock charged again as though the beam scythe made no difference.

He hated whenever Heiran changed his mind in the midst of an operation.

Heero was supposed to have been killed after the Wing Zero was securely in their custody, but that suddenly changed because Heiran wanted to torture Relena a bit longer. That decision would become the first of many to their carefully laid plans, and it was the first to come back and bite them in the ass.

He braced himself for the new changes as Heiran began to speak again.

"Overwhelm them and destroy them. Do not allow them to leave Luxembourg alive." He said icily.

Caden, Yamato and Andrew wore mirrored expressions of shock, before Caden nodded warily. "So you mean to bring out Kareem, Michael and Steven?" He asked with a hint of irritation.

Heiran shrugged. "That is for me to decide. Corral those two, if you can, and bring them down." He said with a more casual tone, but there was still an icy bite to it.

They nodded reluctantly as he vanished and began to try and bring the Sandrock and the Tallgeese III together.

Andrew frowned in worry as something began to feel off, but he dismissed it, thinking it was the stress of a real combat situation getting to him. However, he knew the battle wasn't going to go as easy as Heiran seemed to think it would, but he couldn't figure out why.

The Sandrock and the Tallgeese III seemed to realize what was happening, and refused to be corralled despite their best efforts.

He was beginning to get frustrated with the older pilots' apparent ability to outsmart the younger pilots, however, since he had thrown his lot in with Heiran he had no choice but to obey the man.


Author's Notes: Sorry for the short chapter this time. Not much I can really say about this chapter. I may go back at some point and see if I can beef it up somehow or completely revamp it, but for now it stays the way it is.