Been wondering about those two thugs in the jeep? You'll hear their side of the story today... =^_~= Some new players will be joining us on the playing field as well. Shounen-ai 1x2, angst and suffering ahead. Rated R for language and mild gore.

A.N. All, I repeat, ALL of the text in italics, excepting single words in other people's dialogue, but including the dream/memory sequence, are Heero's thoughts. =^_~= Didja get all that? Good.

Disclaimer #1: I don't own GW...*cries*...but if I DID own it, things would be SO different, but then again if "ifs and buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all weigh 300 pounds, so there. =P

Disclaimer #2: I was an English major, so when I write, I write wordy. You have been warned. =P

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Climbing back up the crevice was difficult enough with the lights on. It was damn near impossible in the dark, but every bruise and scrape Duo received helped drag his mind further away from Heero. Stubborn brat.

As he got closer to the top, it wasn't getting any brighter as he expected, but something else that was odd made him pick up speed. The air smelled a great deal fresher, and he swore he could detect the perfume of tropical flowers. Finally, without warning, he spotted a steel-toed boot and almost gasped for joy.

Wufei and Trowa were seated casually on the rocks; behind them was a hole in the barricade, not much more than a half-metre across...just about the size of a Sandrock pilot.

"He got out?" Duo exclaimed with glee.

"And we're taking a breather," Trowa said, finishing off one of the delightful dried fruit bars.

Duo grinned widely. "Awesome!" He bounced up the rest of the way and stuck his head through the opening, inhaling deeply. The air was like wine, sweet and cool on his face, soothing his nose and throat with clean, fresh moisture. It was beautiful outside. It was also dark. Duo realized with dismay that night had fallen.

He sat back next to the other two pilots. They didn't seem as happy, somehow. "Is there...anything else?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at their lack of enthusiasm.

"We sent Quatre out first to find the jeep," Wufei said, dragging a tired arm across his forehead. "We both thought he needed the fresh air more than we did."

There was something else...something less than good. "And?" Duo prodded.

"And the jeep's gone," Wufei finished.

Duo blinked. "Whaddaya mean, 'gone'?"

Trowa snorted in disgust. "Those cowards who set the explosives must've taken it. There can't have been anyone else around for a hundred miles." He shook his head. "How's Heero?"

"Mad as hell."

"Good," Wufei said, genuinely pleased. "If he's putting energy into his anger, perhaps he's not ready to give up yet."

Rearranging a few chunks of rock, Duo sat down sullenly. "I'm not so sure about that...I had to take his gun away before I came up here."

Two pairs of eyes widened dramatically. "He wouldn't..." Trowa stammered.

"I dunno...but I'm not taking any chances."

After that, they sat quietly together, suddenly unable to enjoy the fresh air. Rustling was heard outside, heralding Quatre's return. The blond boy crawled back inside easily, clearly having benefited from his time outside the cave. He looked straight at Duo, saw no trace of his trademark smile, and sat down next to him. "Heero's angry, isn't he?"

Duo nodded. Quatre looked expectantly at the others. "You guys want some fresh air? It'd do you both good..."

Wufei let a slight trace of a smile slip past his defenses. He was used to this. Wordlessly, he and Trowa got up and squeezed through the hole in the wall, shoving aside rocks as needed to make themselves fit.

Quatre switched his lantern off to save the battery. What seemed like an eternity passed before either of them spoke. "He's getting weaker," Quatre whispered.

"I know."

"He puts so much energy into supressing his emotions...that's how I can tell he's weakening, because they're starting to seep through the cracks." Quatre wrung his pale hands together. "He's getting tired."

"He wasn't too weak to tell me to get lost," Duo observed bitterly.

Quatre looked hurt, as if the remark had been aimed at him. "He didn't mean it..."

Duo looked up with surprise. "Hey...if you can tune into that all the way up here," he said, turning to face the other boy, "then you must know if he...you'd know what he feels about...about me," he finished uncomfortably.

"No, I couldn't!" Quatre gasped, shaking his head. "I can't...pry like that, I don't want to. Even if I could pick up on something so...personal...I couldn't tell you, it wouldn't be right."

"Come on, level with me here. Can't you even tell me if we're feeling the same thing?" Duo took hold of Quatre's arm firmly. "What do I feel? Tell me."

The tiny amount of light coming from the outside world was all but gone, but Quatre felt his friend's pleading expression etched into his mind nonetheless. "You...you care for him...very deeply."

"And he doesn't give a rat's ass about me, right?"

"Duo, please, there's so many horrible things going on inside him right now, it's like a huge black monster pounding him into the dust. He doesn't need this aggravation, so just leave it. For me? Please?"

Duo let go of his arm and stared at the opposite wall. "Oh, but I think he does need it, if he wants to live."

Even in the dark, Duo knew the gentle-spirited Arabian was crying by now. His voice was no more than a frail whisper. "He doesn't."

Half-prepared for the truth, but still not willing to accept it, Duo set his jaw and nudged Quatre towards the hole in the rubble. "Go on, get some more air, you've been working hard."

"What about you?" Quatre asked, rising weakly.

"I'll work on widening this out a little," Duo replied, kicking at the pile of rubble around the opening. "You need to get out of here. Walk around. Organize something. Get the guys to start poking around for food and water out there."

Quatre didn't like leaving Duo alone the way he was feeling, but he complied, squeezing back through the gap in the rocks and disappearing as easily as he had come. Slowly and with conviction, Duo began picking apart the barricade stone by stone with his bare hands.

***********

By 9:00pm, the only thing still open in the village was the bar. The grand total of structures that were actually brick buildings instead of straw huts belonging to the natives was two; the building that wasn't the bar housed the post office, radio room, and souvenir stand, all in the space of about 200 square feet. The bar, however, could seat about 80 people quite comfortably. Nobody usually came to the jungle outpost unless they were botanists, zoologists, or middle-aged jetsetters on safari with more money than brains. At least the safaris paid for the gas-powered generator that kept the beer cold. It was important to keep priorities straight in this village.

The bar itself was full of friendly local sorts, relaxing after a long, hot day in the fields. Besides the bartender, there were only four people in the bar who were most definitely not farmers. Sitting at a table, disposing of the rest of their cash until their ride came for them in the morning, were Louch and Burt. Their singular good luck from the afternoon had spilled over into evening, as they had managed to pick up two gorgeous ladies at the bar.

Louch carried another round of drinks to the table and sat down next to his new 'friend'. Her name was Lulu, and she was a goddess. She was slender, statuesque, a bit taller than Louch, and despite the stately, almost military air about her, she simply oozed femininity. Lulu wore denim cut-offs and a green halter top that were practical for the weather, and also flaunted her curves mercilessly. She was constantly brushing her long black bangs out of her face as she chatted, but the rest of her hair was quite short.

"So what are you boys celebrating?" Lulu asked in a husky alto voice.

"Why my good lady," Louch purred through a cloud of alcohol. "We are celebrating a great triumph for the memory of the 83rd platoon. Today we have claimed victory against our worst enemies, in the names of all our fallen brethren." He let out a tiny belch.

"That sounds fascinating," the other woman chirped, smiling at her companion. "And so brave..." She scooted her chair closer to the thugs, completely enthralled. Burt grinned stupidly.

The woman next to Burt was an absolute dream. Her eyes sparkled mysteriously, and she had soft, honey blonde hair gathered into two lovely twists that hung gracefully in front of her shoulders, framing her face. There was a hint of the east in her features, and the barest touch of red lip gloss made her resemble a proud Pharoah wearing a golden headdress. Her name was Sal.

Burt blushed as Sal leaned in closer, letting her low-buttoned khaki shirt fall away from her throat. "Won't you tell us about it?" she pleaded.

Flustered, Burt looked over at Louch as if asking permission to speak. Louch looked undecided until Lulu brushed his leg with her foot, smiling coyly. "Why not start with your platoon? You were talking like it's gone...are you all retired soldiers?"

Louch looked at his pint of lager sadly, but he adored talking about his old army days. "We were stationed in New Mexico, ground troops and an air squadron. I was a Leo pilot." He paused for a sip of beer and let his eyes go wistfully out of focus. "There was a convoy coming through by train...weapons mostly, top-secret stuff. They called in six platoons to see it across the state, numbers 80 to 85. An awful lot for a puny shipment like that, I thought.

"It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the bigwigs were expecting trouble. Well, when the shipment was about halfway through, we got trouble." The girls were listening intently now, absorbed by the storyteller. He drained his glass and set it aside.

"About an hour after sunset, they came for us. Five mobile suits unlike anything we'd ever seen before. Sure, we'd all heard the rumours, that if you saw one of these babies, you wouldn't make it out alive, but it was just locker room talk, y'know? Well, I can tell you, not one of us was laughing when those...things came shooting across the horizon.

"83rd platoon was on guard past midpoint on the route, and the train was just coming into radio range...then we found out all those horror stories about the new suits...about the Gundams...were totally true."

Lulu and Sal looked at each other briefly; the men didn't notice.

"They had everything, the speed, the weapons, the tracking systems, damn things manoevered like mountain goats on land and even better in the air. The 'powers that be' had information on these suits, into that could've helped us in battle, but they never bothered coughing it up...and we never found out why. But heck, even if we'd studied them weeks ahead, it wouldn't have mattered...we outnumbered them dozens of times over, and they still had us outgunned!

"All five just started slicing through our unit. One Gundam had a flamethrower on it's arm that took out my whole left flank in one blow. Another had these curved thermal blades that could chop through a suit like it was warm butter...the third had firepower like a dozen of us Leos rolled into one. They just blew away half the platoon, made it look easy.

"The last two...oh, you could tell these were serious badass machines with equally badass pilots. Never saw anything move like these two did, never will again. One of 'em had a thermal weapon that turned a half dozen suits into coleslaw in about two seconds, and the other had this unbelievable rifle...belonged on an aircraft carrier, if you ask me, the recoil must've been brutal! Anyway, what got me about these two was the way they worked around each other...the way they fought, covered each other's backs...it was like watching two suits controlled by one mind. I hardly had time to blink before most of our platoon was dead. It was pitch black out and then all of a sudden there were so many Leos on fire, you could see for miles by the light they gave off. And those two...those two were next to each other the whole time. It felt like they were talkin' it over, laughing to each other, like 'See that last one I got? Betcha can't get two of 'em in one one go!'

"That burned me...that really burned seeing those Gundams just standing around acting all proud of themselves while our whole unit went up in flames...we had to pay them back."

Lulu wasn't smiling anymore. "Who's we?"

"Me an' Burt here," Louch said, pointing to the half-drunk techinician. "He wasn't even supposed to be in the battle; he was my primary tech and he sorta...got himself stuck between a coolant tank and a hydraulic conduit inside my suit. Never knew he was in there until I powered down after the battle. Ain't that right, Burt? Too many donuts, eh?" He smirked and clapped Burt on the shoulder.

The primary technicial smiled back. "Yeah, donuts."

"What about the shipment? Did it make it through?" Sal asked.

"Nope," Louch replied. "Gundams stole it. Stole the whole thing. I saw them do it. They just up and ran with the weapons and everything. After they murdered our platoon, of course. Me and Burt were the only two that survived." He tightened his grip on the edge of the table. "Then fuckin' OZ wouldn't even reassign us to another unit, they just handed us our walking papers...'Oh, sorry you almost got barbequed by the Gundams, shit happens, have a nice life!' Makes you sick sometimes..."

Lulu seemed deep in thought over something Louch had just said; Sal picked up the conversation where it had been dropped in the middle of the table.

"So what about this great victory today? I'll bet it was exciting! What did you do?" Sal leaned over even further, exposing a bit of lace under her shirt, aiming more in Louch's direction. She fiddled absentmindedly with the next button down.

His eye quickly caught by the shameless acts of flirtation, Louch was propelled into a tirade about the day's events. "Before I was a pilot, I was a computer specialist with a team on recon in this area. We found all kinds of underground tunnels and mapped them for weeks, but they never got used for anything."

Louch leaned forward, eyes dancing. "I learned enough about hacking systems while I was here that I could plant a fake message in almost any network anywhere. Burt has some friends in the back-water intelligence racket, and between the two of us, we found out where those Gundam pilots were, after all this time."

Sal and Lulu paled and looked at each other while the ex-soldier rambled. "I sent them a fake invitation to a 'destroy-the-hidden-enemy-base' party, and they actually bought it! They came here with enough explosives to level a small town, and they went right where I told them to go...into this little, tiny cave I arranged for them with only one way out. They totally fell for it!"

Lulu swallowed. "And how was the party?" she asked flatly.

Burt and Louch looked at each other like they'd won the lottery. "They had a blast!!" Both men burst into peals of laughter, not noticing that their companions, Sal in particular, wore expressions of dread and fear.

Pulling herself together, Lulu nodded at Sal and turned her attention to the ringleader. "Oooh, sounds dangerous...take me there..." she moaned, licking her lips at Louch.

"Wha...? Babe, you don't wanna go back there, trust me. It's no place for a lady, besides that, it's hours from here."

Lulu pulled her chair closer to his, playing it real cagey. "You know what excites me more than anything? Dangerous men like you," she whispered, putting a graceful hand on his knee. "That's why I'm here, you know...only dangerous people come here..."

Louch shivered perceptibly as Lulu slid her hand up his thigh. Across the way, Sal had swung her jodphur boots up on the table and was treating Burt to a splendid view of her legs, fingering the cuff of her khaki shorts seductively.

By now the bartender didn't know what to think. He'd seen prostitutes in his bar before, but none as forward as these seemed to be. Nor had he ever seen two women con two men into buying them drinks and then not bother to drink them, preferring instead to do a virtual striptease in full view of the other patrons. Despite being good for business, he wished they'd just go and get it over with.

The hungry fire in Lulu's eyes intensified. "I'll bet you've got a thousand stories to tell, about the war, about you...fighting, guns, sex, death...if only we could go someplace where we could hear them all," she said longingly.

"Actually, Lu," Sal interrupted from behind her half-buttoned blouse, "there is that hut we rented from the safari company, and it's much too big for just the two of us..." She smiled at Burt, his eyes wide with anticipation.

Louch was grinning like a madmad at his date, shivering and drooling as he imagined what their wedding invitations would look like. 'You are cordially invited to witness the marriage of Lou and Lulu.' Sweet.

Few words passed between them as they left the bar; most of the other patrons were glad to see them go.

Lulu and Sal led the inebriated men to a small hut on the edge of the village, quite a distance from the others. They entered first, looking coyly over their shoulders, and moved away from the door. Louch and Burt congratulated each other warmly, saluted, and followed them in, their eyes glazed over with lust.

The men had high expectations of what they were about to receive, but were sorely disappointed when all they got for their trouble were identical roundhouse kicks to the head. They fell to the ground, unconscious.

Sally Po raised an eyebrow at Lucrezia Noin. "....'Lulu'?"

"What? I thought it sounded cute!"


~~~~~~~~~~

So, it's "Sal and Lulu" to the rescue is it? Ah-ah-ahhh, it's not going to be THAT simple! =@_@= Is what Louch said about the Gundams true? You'll find out soon enough... =^_~=