Dangerous Game
By the time they reached the cluster of rooms, Dorothy had stopped laughing and was focused on the task at hand. Quatre took a set of lockpicks from one of his pockets and went to work at the cover that sealed the security panel for the door. He had the codes memorized, but getting to the keypad to punch them in was the hard part. It took a couple minutes, but the two were soon inside the first room. It was devoid of chemical weapons, as was the second room. In the third, however, they found about a dozen average-sized crates containing canisters marked "biohazard". Inspecting the fourth room, they found a few more. Looking at the crates sitting in the middle of the room, Dorothy noticed they were all stamped with a small logo.
"G. Tarelli? I think I've heard of him. Isn't he one of those stereotypical mobster-types?"
"Yes, I think you're right. Apparently, someone killed his brother, whether on purpose or by accident, and he's planning to use these to get his revenge."
"Seriously? What kind of a nut is this guy?"
"I wouldn't say I'm a nut."
Quatre and Dorothy hadn't noticed the figure that had walked up behind them.
"Well, well. I come to check on my little science geek and what do I find? A couple of cute blondes nosin' around in my business."
Tarelli stood about twelve feet away from them with his gun pointed at the two Preventers. Another five feet behind him was the door. Quatre's brow wrinkled as he looked over the situation in his mind.
*Damn. What do we do now? We can't risk using guns in here and mine's not loaded anyway. He's too far away for any hand to hand fighting so where does that leave us? Hmmm...those boxes on the sides of the room might give us some cover, but how do we distract him?*
There wasn't much they could do, but Quatre developed an idea and hoped Dorothy would play along.
"Mister Tarelli, I take it. I think you had better get your facts straight. Dorothy is not cute."
"Huh? What do you mean I'm not cute?"
Quatre looked over at Dorothy, who was either playing along really well or was genuinely confused.
"Well, you're not."
"Of course I am! How could I not be cute?"
"You're just...not."
"I am to."
"Are not."
"Am to."
"Are not."
Tarelli quickly grew tired of this and fired a shot at the ceiling. As Quatre had hoped, Dorothy used the distraction and her quick reflexes to reach for her gun and fire a few quick shots while she and Quatre ran to opposite sides of the room, ducking behind the boxes there. One of Dorothy's bullets hit Tarelli in the knee. He fell to the ground screaming in pain and firing his gun randomly into the air until the clip was emptied. The last shot he fired hit one of the crates. All three looked on in horror as a yellow cloud hissed out of the punctured canister. While Tarelli could barely crawl, Quatre and Dorothy sprinted for the door. Tarelli was locked inside to face his death when Dorothy slammed the door closed to prevent the gas from escaping.
"Damn! That moron hit the crates! What do we do now? I don't think this door was meant to contain something like this."
Quatre's mind raced and he thought back to the plan he had come up with back at Preventer headquarters. He made a decision to follow through with it and calmly checked his pockets.
"Here, take this radio. I want you to get out of the building as fast as you can and contact Lady Une. I think I know a way to stop the gas from spreading."
Quatre pulled out several small remote mines and a detonator from one of his many pockets.
"What are you planning?"
"The gas lines on this floor collect in the maintenance room nearby. If they explode, they'll take the whole floor and the chemicals with them."
"That should work, but what's the range on that remote?"
"In a building like this the range is going to be reduced, but I should be fine."
"No. No way. It's much too dangerous. There has to be another way."
"Well, this is all I can think of at the moment and we really don't have time to come up with something else. Now please go. I'll be fine, I promise you. Please trust me on this."
The look in his eyes was the same as the one she had seen on Libra years ago. He wasn't concerned for himself. He was concerned about everyone except himself. When he got like this, there was no talking him out of it.
"You know I trust you."
Dorothy hesitated for a moment before starting toward the stairwell. She stopped a few feet away and turned back to him.
"You'd better not die on me."
With one last look, she tore down the stairs at break-neck speed. Quatre smiled and rushed down the hall, loading his gun on the way. He didn't bother with the lock on the maintenance room, opting instead for a bullet through the handle. Inside was a maze of pipes and wires lining the walls and ceiling. Fortunately, the gas pipes were color-coded yellow and marked as such. He attached the mines directly to the pipes and threw a couple down the hall for good measure. The whole process took under two minutes.
*Dorothy should be out by now. Let's hope this works.*
Quatre tightened his grip on the detonator and with his now loaded gun, he shot out the window at the end of the hall. He was on the second floor, but he hardly had a choice. Quatre sucked in a deep breath and sprinted toward the window. As he jumped through it, he pressed the detonator button. The initial explosions were relatively limited in their damage, but the secondary explosion if the gas pipes was enough to tear the entire top half of the building clear off. Quatre, meanwhile, hit the ground hard, bouncing and rolling to a stop at a safe distance from the building.
Upon hearing the explosions, Dorothy quickly ended her radio conversation with Lady Une, almost cutting her off. She stood in awe of the flaming wreckage before setting off in search of Quatre. Running to the opposite side of the building she found him lying spread-eagle on his back in some long grass, staring up at the starry sky above. She kneeled next to him and spoke in a calm, almost conversational tone.
"Anything broken?"
Quatre moved his eyes to look at her.
"Well, no. I don't think so, but I am going to have more than a few bruises."
Dorothy stifled a laugh as Quatre slowly and awkwardly lifted himself to a sitting position. The two sat and stared a the burning building for a moment.
"So did you get ahold of Lady Une?"
"Yes. She wasn't very happy with me. I told her about what we found and about your plan as well. She said she would dispatch a clean-up crew to take care of the details and tie up any loose ends."
"Well, that's good. At least we don't have to do it."
"Right. Um, I'm sorry I lied to you last night. I should have told you."
Quatre waved his hand dismissively.
"No apology necessary. You did what you had to do. You didn't know if you could trust me. I understand."
"But I do trust you. It's just that this whole mission really messed up my head. I started doubting the things I shouldn't have."
"Oh, I see."
Dorothy hesitated a moment before asking her next question.
"You didn't mean what you said back there, did you?"
"When?"
"In the storage room...when you said I wasn't cute."
Quatre's face turned a light shade of pink as he groped for an answer.
"Uh, well...yes and no."
"Huh?"
"Well, I wouldn't say you're cute. More like...well...beautiful."
"Oh..."
By this time, both Quatre and Dorothy were blushing furiously. A long, awkward silence passed.
"So, are you insured for this kind of thing?"
Quatre couldn't help but laugh.
"I think so. If not, I think the business profits should be able to cover it."
Another moment of silence.
"Well, dear Mister Winner-"
"Dorothy, I thought I asked you to call me Quatre."
"Alright then, Quatre. What do we do now. Lady Une said we don't have to report back for another twelve hours."
Quatre pondered that for a moment. The flight wouldn't take very long, so they could probably get some rest in the town down the road. But there was something more immediate that needed to be taken care of.
"Are you hungry? I now this great place where we can get a free dinner..."
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Gundam Wing. It is copyrighted by people who have a lot more money than I do. This was written for fun and for the fans of the series. The storyline is mine, the characters, other than HeeroWZero originals, are not.
NOTES: Well, that's it. What did you think? Too cheesy? It got a little fluffy there at the end...sorry 'bout that. Oh well. This makes three complete fics now! Yay! Now I can get back to work on my prequel to the first one I wrote. I promise I'm working on it! Please don't hurt me!
Comments and criticisms are welcome. Please send them to HeeroWZero@hotmail.com and be sure to include your name so I can get back to you. Thanks for reading!