A/N: No ownership here. Sorry. Just some adventures and danger and angst and all that jazz.

Enjoy!

"Rashid says he and the Maganacs will be on L2 in three or four hours," Trowa said, not looking up. "He's also mad, mostly at Quatre. Probably a little at me, too."

"He can't possibly blame you for what's happened," Dr Quest said kindly.

"He doesn't. But Rashid and the Maganacs would do anything to protect Quatre. Anything. Even my life is expendable if it came down to it. Of course, they wouldn't risk me because it would hurt Quatre. But Rashid feels like he failed and because I promised to help him, I'm part of the reason for his failure."

"Three or four hours to wait plus another hour to get back is a long time," Race said. "What can we do in the meantime?"

"We rest," Wufei said, coming back into the cabin having docked the New Jersey. "Barton, is the usual place ready for us?"

"Quatre arranged everything before we left, including food and supplies," he said, and his voice was almost dead it was so flat and still.

"You expect us to sleep when our friends are back there?" Jessie demanded.

"A soldier sleeps when he can, Ponchita," Race said gently. "And since it's near to dawn according to our internal clocks, we need to take advantage of it. We can't help them if we aren't rested."

"That's true," Benton conceded. "If we attempt to sleep until your friends arrive, we'll have the ride back to that place to make a plan." Benton looked at the Preventers agent. "Wufei? Something is bothering you."

"There's no point in speculation. We have enough to do," he brushed off the man and made to exit the shuttle.

"Wufei," Trowa's voice stopped him. "It won't happen again."

"It better not, Barton," he replied without turning around. "None of us would survive it this time."

And without another word he made his way to the hangar to exchange some quick words with Howard before waiting impatiently for the others to catch up.

"Trowa?" Jessie asked. But he shook his head.

"Not now. Later. If it matters. Come on." He refused to meet anyone's eyes and followed where Wufei had gone.

"Sometimes I think these guys couldn't find a straight answer with both hands and a flashlight," Race grumbled. "And I hate it as much as anybody, but they're right. We need to rest so we can go after the others. We'll get them back," and he tried to smile encouragingly. But Race didn't actually know if he was trying to comfort his daughter, his closest friend, or himself, and it fell rather flat.

"It'll be all right," Dr Quest said unexpectedly.

"What makes you say that?" Jessie turned to him. She had Bandit in her arms and was holding him a little tightly. He was perceptive enough to know something was wrong and licked her chin comfortingly.

"Those young men are remarkable. They survived the Eve wars. Jonny and Hadji are remarkable too. Between them, they'll take care of each other. One terrorist isn't going to be enough to beat them."

"Let's hope you're right," Race said.

But something in the back of his mind was not so sure.

-==OOO==-

Jonny was brave, and he knew that, but there was no denying the apprehension he felt when the pair of goons all but threw him into the seat that had done so much damage to Heero. He fought them, and they strapped him to it with thick, wide straps that pinned his arms and legs and chest in place.

"Let me go!" he demanded. He knew it probably wouldn't do much, but it was worth a try.

No one answered him. A moment later, he felt the helmet lowered onto his head and sucked in a breath in quick fear.

And let it out in a scream.

The images flew before him as the program crawled around in his mind like spiders poured inside his skull. Battles, deaths, fires, repulsive and gory and so real he could taste the blood on his tongue. The images shifted and showed him his family, but twisted horribly. His father with his head mostly removed, dangling by wet bits of flesh from his neck. Jessie, a rocket-launcher in her hands as she blew up the high school they attended together, watching their teachers and friends burn in the explosion. Hadji, eagerly licking blood from the cheek of a dead child while the knife in his hands was red and sticky with it. Race burning in a fire that ate the flesh from his bones.

There were so many ways of achieving these things. So many paths to destruction and fire and death. The system prowled around within him, and he felt as though his hands should want to move to the controls, but somehow he was frozen. All he could do was scream. Rage's voice, indistinct, sounded far away.

Then the images faded, but Jonny kept screaming. His mind was awash in blood. His soul buried in suffering. And when he opened his eyes, all he could see was Death itself.

-==OOO==-

"They're coming," Quatre warned. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet while they'd speculated on how to escape, but now he rose and moved to the door.

"Cat, what...?" Duo began.

"Quatre!" Heero flashed to his feet in alarm at the sad, regretful expression on the blond's face. He started forward, but the door opened violently.

"You! You're the one he wanted," said a guard, roughly gripping Quatre by the collar.

"I know," he said resignedly.

Duo began to charge the door with speed, Heero at his elbow, but one of the armed men threw a body at them and they caught it, losing the moment. Even as fast as he was, Heero still couldn't drop Jonny quick enough to reach the door before Quatre had disappeared behind it.

"Kuso!" he pounded the wall with his fist.

"Jonny! Jonny, can you hear me?" Hadji asked, carefully him over.

"Ha...Hadji?"

"I'm here, my friend. You are safe." Hadji was horrified by the tears that tracked down Jonny's face and the trembling of his body. The irrepressible Jonny Quest, brought so low. It was unthinkable.

"It...I can't..." he turned away. Hadji tightened his arms about him and held on. If he had been an empath like Quatre he knew he could have eased Jonny's suffering. Instead he simply tried to be the comfort he knew his brother needed. Jonny buried his face in Hadji's arm and shuddered for a few minutes before he started to gulp in a more steady breath.

"Let it go, Jonny," Hadji said softly. "Your mind will help you. Forget the images that haunt you. Let them go from you, that you be whole once more."

"I...okay, Hadj," he gulped. "Sorry."

"Do not apologize. What you have been through, it breaks every man. You have survived and your mind is your own. That is enough." He held onto Jonny and rubbed circles on his back until the worst of the shaking seemed to end. Jonny was not all right, not by a long shot, but he would not get any worse, not with Hadji there to drive away whatever he could.

"Heero, what is Quatre doing?" Duo asked, turning away from them. "It's like he wanted them to grab him.

"He did. I should have realized sooner."

"Why?"

"Because Quatre thinks he can beat the ZERO System," Heero said, pounding the wall again. "He realized that ZERO is hooked into this whole base, every part of it. If he can take control of it, he'll be able to stop Rage."

"Can he actually do that?" Hadji asked. "I mean, what it did to you and Jonny..."

"If anybody can, it's Cat," Duo hung his head. "ZERO scared me so bad I nearly lost it, and Heero learned to use it eventually, but Cat actually beat the system. He got so good with it he didn't need it anymore."

"I could use ZERO and keep myself sane," Heero added. "Quatre mastered it."

"So maybe we just need to trust him," Hadji said.

"Maybe."

But Heero turned to the door and stared at it as if he could break it with just his will. And if he had thought it would have helped, he would have tried. But he knew interfering in Quatre's plan now might be more dangerous than what Quatre intended to do, so he tried to wait.

But he would not wait for long.

-==OOO==-

"So far, so good," Quatre thought to himself. He put up a token resistance, but ultimately he allowed himself to be led back to the ZERO cockpit.

As they strapped him in, he fought the instinct to panic. Yes, this was a ZERO System that was probably worse than the one he'd known, but Heero had helped him prove he could handle it in the war and he hadn't been afraid of it since. He was in control now. This time he had a very clear idea of who his enemy was and who his allies were, and he wouldn't lose that. ZERO couldn't make him forget the people he loved this time. If he could hold on just long enough, he could force ZERO to help him save the others and put an end to Rage's plan. It was worth the risk. It was worth more than his own life to keep Rage from raining down the destruction he planned.

The helmet came down and Quatre braced himself.

The initial incursion of the system was bad, worse than the first had been years ago by a thousand times. But Quatre had steadied himself and he had come with an idea of what to expect. ZERO painted horrific pictures of death and betrayal and depravity, but Quatre had a worse one in his own memory, and that allowed him to maintain his balance. What could ZERO threaten that was more awful than the memory of shooting Trowa, after all?

Heero had always talked to ZERO, as if it could hear him. Quatre hadn't usually, but this time he guessed it might help, so he focused his thoughts at it instead.

"Your parameters are designed to ensure total victory and bring it about in the best way possible for all variables," he fought to make clear. "Mine is the mind that will choose the definition of total victory. And I have made my choice."

Like a window opening, ZERO abruptly reset and became more like the program Quatre remembered as he reworked the system's operations with his own will. He could see everything. He could see the perfect angles of attack against all the colony clusters and the cities of the Earth. He could see the assets and strategies of Ezekiel Rage and his followers. And he could also see their weaknesses and the gaps in their defenses.

"I have made my choice," Quatre doubled his concentration. "Now I'm going to act."

Knowing he would only have moments before his actions might be noticed and the terrorists would put a stop to it, Quatre initiated a series of cascading programs, each coded to the previous, the whole plan crystal clear in his mind. He would release his friends and ensure that they had a ready escape. Then he would disarm all the weapons and lock down the dangerous substances on the base. He could even lock down portions of the complex, trapping Rage and his men in a cage of their own creation. It was simple. Easy, even.

Quatre had just finished setting in place the first process to help his friends and arrange for their transport when a pain shot through him. What was it? Impossible to tell – there was no pain in the pure logic of strategy. Irrelevant, then. He was just beginning to communicate his intentions to his friends via the comm system, also easily, effortlessly hacked into by ZERO, when something changed.

A hot hand fell on the back of his neck and Quatre's mind unraveled.

-==OOO==-

They had only barely opened the doors to what appeared to be a series of bedrooms after halfheartedly consuming some food when the plate in Trowa's hands slipped from his grip and shattered even as he wavered.

"Trowa!" Jessie started to move, but Race was quicker. He caught the young man around the waist as Trowa sank suddenly the floor.

"What's wrong?" Dr Quest rushed over.

"It's...it's Quatre..." Trowa gasped.

Quatre had long since learned to shield, and whenever there was danger of any sort he always instinctively called upon those shields, as the bond between them was never louder than when one of them was afraid or hurt. Trowa had been feeling only trickles of things from Quatre from the moment they'd separated in spite of the distance – a shock of fear here, a wash of relief there, a stab of determination – but now it was as though Quatre's shields had been totally washed away and his innate powers overwhelmed and amplified.

Trowa slammed his eyes shut, knowing they were streaming with tears. Somewhere Quatre was crying. Somewhere Quatre was in pain. Somewhere Quatre was being inundated by rage and hate and fury and he was being destroyed under the onslaught. And deep beneath all of it, Quatre was utterly terrified. Not for himself, though he couldn't help but know that his heart would not emerge from that hate unscathed; no, he was afraid to his bones for the people he loved.

Quatre's soul was screaming in agony.

Trowa could only echo it.

"NOOO!"

"Move!" came a new voice. Wufei appeared and roughly pushed himself into the circle that had gathered. "Barton! Barton, you've got to listen to me!"

"What's happening?" Race asked.

"His bond with Winner. He's experiencing the echoes of whatever Winner is feeling." Wufei didn't even look up, instead tightening his grasp on Trowa's shoulders.

Given that Trowa was boneless in Race's arms, clutching his chest and screaming, crying tears that couldn't come fast enough, that preexisting amount of worry escalated into an all-out panic for Benton, Race, and Jessie. If Quatre was suffering so terribly, what could that mean for the others? And what did this mean for Quatre himself?

"Trowa," and Wufei's voice was masterfully calm. "You have to block him. You can't be pulled in or we'll lose you and you won't be able to help him. Trowa, do you hear me?"

The screaming cut off for an instant and Trowa's chest hitched as he managed a nod and bit his jaws down on the shout that was trying to break from him.

"Good. I need you to breathe. Breath in with me. Come on. That's it. Now let it out. Slowly. Good." Wufei leaned in closer until their foreheads almost touched. His words took on a cadence not totally unlike one that a hypnotist might use to bring about a trance. "Focus on being here. Focus on my voice and on your breathing. Let your mind be guided. Now, I know you don't want to, but you have to do this. Trowa, you have to step inside Heavyarms."

Trowa's breath came out of him in a whoosh as though he'd been punched.

"I know. But it's the only way. Trowa, you have to trust me. Close yourself in Heavyarms. You won't be alone, I'll be right here."

Wufei spoke evenly and firmly as he talked him through the process, knowing that sympathy would only make what he was asking Trowa to do harder. To take your mind and enclose it in the form of something that had defined you, something you used to commit terrible crimes and put at risk your own humanity, it was not an easy thing. But Wufei also knew that he had to help Trowa shield completely and rapidly or risk having whatever else Quatre was about to experience leak over as well. Wufei needed the remaining pilot functional if they were going to rescue the others, and he didn't have time to teach Trowa the nuances of building and holding a barrier against empathic input; he needed something that Trowa could use instinctively. It was the quickest and readiest shield he could think of that would work on an untrained mind.

Trowa took a deep breath and forced his thoughts to obey Wufei's orders. He visualized Heavyarms, every panel, every wire. He had known that Gundam better than anything, could name every component and bullet-casing of it. He saw the hatch in the chest open, saw the cool darkness within, and balked. But Quatre was screaming and he had to do whatever it would take to be able to save him.

Heavyarms. You helped me protect my friends before. Please lend me your strength once more.

Without another thought, Trowa envisioned himself entering the cockpit and closing the hatch.

Unlike with the real Gundam, he wasn't in a seat surrounded by screens and instrument panels that dealt death. Instead it was just dark and cool and surprisingly empty. He could still feel Quatre's suffering somewhere, but it was deeply muted, as though being transmitted from far away on a weak signal. The familiarity of Heavyarms settled around him.

"Okay, Barton. I need you to open your eyes. You need to keep your emotions locked in Heavyarms until this is over. But you have to come back now."

Wufei watched carefully as Trowa's eyes slowly opened. As soon as Trowa had accepted his solution, he'd calmed almost completely, but it was eerie. The green eyes that met his were fogged as though he were drugged. It reminded Wufei of when he'd encountered a Trowa with no memories. The soul was still there, but it was not in his eyes. The Chinese agent would have regretted having to essentially force Trowa to cut himself off from his emotions and his true self, but there was no other choice and regretting that which was necessary was foolish at best and dangerous at the moment.

"Can you think clearly now?" he asked.

"Yes," Trowa nodded. His voice was strangely stilted. Then, "Thank you, Wufei."

"Given what you've just experienced, I think this means we have to rescue them now, rather than waiting for backup. The Maganacs won't be here soon enough, it seems."

"We'll do whatever you say," Race said firmly. "We're coming with you."

"Yes, you are. We might need more hands," Wufei nodded. "Come on. The ship should be refueled."

And they hastily scooped up the packs and flight-suits they'd let fall less than an hour prior and ran for the hangar.

-==OOO==-

"Heero?" Duo asked. The Japanese young man had gripped his chest in a motion that was all too familiar – Quatre did it whenever his space heart was in pain.

"It's Quatre. Something's gone wrong. He was okay and now..."

But the next moment, the door opened. Duo, ready for the worst and tired of being in this cell and unable to help, prepared to attack, but there was no one there.

"It's Quatre," Jonny said, his voice almost steady and yet really not. "It has to be."

"Then let's go get him." Duo started down the corridor in the correct direction, but the comm on his wrist began to emit a beeping pattern.

"Wait."

Heero listened to the beeps, his face growing darker and more granite-like as the seconds passed. When the sequence repeated, he slammed a fist into the wall. Duo looked pale.

"Code?" Hadji asked.

"Yeah," Duo said. "It's Cat. He said he had gotten us a way off this rock, and he was getting ready to take down the whole thing, but it cut off and..."

"And now he's been compromised," Heero said tightly. "I can feel it."

"It has to be Rage," Hadji said. "Quatre said he couldn't defend against him and it caused a great imbalance in his shields after even a few moments of exposure."

"So we've got one Cat, who can control the ZERO System completely, and plugged into Rage's crazy? Not good," Duo growled.

"Come on," Heero said, turning and moving the other way down the corridor.

"But where are we going?" Hadji asked.

"Quatre set up a way for us to escape before he was compromised. We'll only have a little time before Rage and ZERO force him to eliminate that option. The four of us can't fight Rage and ZERO and however many missiles Quatre now has at his disposal. We'll be lucky to get out alive at all. He can cut off the air to this corridor or this level any time he wants."

"But he wouldn't!" Jonny protested, a little wildly. "He's your friend."

"Our Quatre's not in control anymore," Heero snapped and the bitterness was thick in his voice. "And I'm not enough to call him out of ZERO. If I was, I'd have done it by now."

It was the only confession they would ever get that Heero's heart was screaming as badly as the fury in his eyes.

"Trowa," Duo breathed. "Trowa can pull him out."

"So we must leave Quatre here and regroup with the others so that we might launch a proper offensive against ZERO and Rage and release Quatre at the same time," Hadji summed it up.

"Exactly. So move. Quatre's last conscious desire was to get us to safety. We cannot let him down."

"Hey, Heero," Duo said cautiously as they followed the map Quatre had sent to their comms. It seemed to lead to another little-used hangar that had a working craft in it of some kind.

"Hn."

"I wasn't there, but I know the deal. Do you think...?"

"That's why we need Trowa," Heero replied.

"What is it?" Hadji asked. The ex-pilots exchanged an intense look, but Heero raised one shoulder and Duo nodded, a decision having been reached. The braided pilot began to explain as they moved swiftly along the route Quatre had communicated.

"During the Eve wars, before Cat got ZERO under control, he did a lot of bad things. Made the rest of us look like innocents for a while. He almost killed Trowa. He would have done it, too, except that Trowa's too stubborn to die. Quatre won the war by leading us because he was better than ZERO in the end. And he still is. But if ZERO is using Cat and not the other way around, there's no telling what he'll do this time. He can beat us all, just like he did in the game on the Strataquest, if he tries."

They walked in silence after that. The hangar they located proved to be more of a maintenance outpost, but it did have a small craft more useful for moving around the outside of the mining complex than getting to a colony. Still, it was better than nothing, and small enough that ZERO might not recognize it as a threat.

"Can you fly this heap of garbage?" Jonny asked as they climbed aboard.

"Fly, yeah," Duo said. "Assuming she flies at all."

"I'll pilot," Heero said. "Get back there and keep it together."

Duo nodded and moved to dig into the parts of the engines he could reach from inside, pulling out wires and fitting parts back together. Jonny pitched in – he was no engineer, but he knew his way around the basics, and he saw the logic in wanting to help to make their escape go faster. And anything to focus on was better than giving himself the time to think and remember.

"Heero," Hadji said gently, staying out of the pilot's way but not backing down from the glare levied at him as he followed him towards the pilot's seat, "is this really right? To leave him here?"

"We have no choice. I can't shut down this version of ZERO. We'll need Dr Quest for that. And I can't get through to Quatre. We need Trowa for that. We have to fight the right fight with the right weapons."

"You don't know that you can't reach him," Hadji pointed out. "Quatre's empathy works better with touch. We could go back there and..."

"And what? The four of us hold off Rage and all his men while the complex itself tries to kill us so I can get to him?" Now legitimate fury was radiating off him. "I'm a soldier. If I wanted to die, I'd try it. If Rage weren't manipulating Quatre's emotions, it might even work."

He turned blazing eyes on Hadji.

"Why can't you just accept that this is more than we can do alone? We have no choice but to go get help."

"I can and do accept it, Heero," Hadji said gently. "It is you who does not."

"Sit down and stay quiet or I will kill you," Heero's eyes blazed with all the truth he could not admit that Hadji had spoken.

But Hadji knew his work was done. He took a seat and turned his thoughts towards the one they were leaving to torment and pain.

"Please be strong, my friend. You have much to live for and much waiting for your return. I will do my best to hold together the pieces of those you love, but I cannot do it for long. Only you know how to be what they need. Please do not lose yourself, for none of us know how to find you if you go beyond our reach." He closed his eyes and offered a prayer to whatever or whoever in the universe might be listening.

"May your god protect you until your friends can take up that duty once more."