Intruder - Part Thirty-eight
Welcoming party...
The enemy base came into view as the five Gundams flew into range.
They watched, as it seemed to come alive, with all the moving suits around it.
As they flew closer still, they saw the full extent of their opponent's weaponry.
~ Not just a few Taurus' then, huh? ~
'Why do the bad guys always seem to think big is best?'
The enemies were getting larger as they went farther, closer to them.
It seemed to be the calm before the storm.
~ It's my turn to fly...~ Duo fired the reactors, and then crossed his fingers for luck.
~ Father, you'd better be watching over me tonight. ~
He grabbed the joystick, and flung it forward, propelling himself into the raging battle.
Heero had powered up the beam cannon. Small yellow sparks clustered around the end of the barrel. He pulled the trigger, to devastating effect. It disintegrated five dolls in one.
"Right on target."
Trowa recalled a conversation he'd had once with Katherine.
("But why, Trowa? Why must you fight?"
"I fight for peace,"
"Peace! Peace is nothing but a pacifist's dream!")
'Keep the dream alive.'
~ It's our turn to fly Nataku. ~
'Got to prove ourselves tonight, Sandrock.'
A message appeared on the screen, that only 04 could see. It read:
'To us, you already have.'
He smiled. ~ Trowa. ~
Suddenly they all were in the middle of the fray.
"Let's do this together!" He yelled, and threw himself directly into the fight.
"Hi-yaaAH!!" Wufei shouted as he simultaneously sliced his trident through two Taurus, and crushed another with the left Dragon Fang. The unfortunate in his grip exploded with a satisfying boom. He smiled with elation and flew on to catch his next prey. The group of Virgo never saw him coming.
Behind him, Heero surprised himself when he laughed aloud, as another three dolls blew apart, and fell victim to his saber, the deadly green beam that flew before him.
Thrust and parry through any of the spiky black and purple or pale suits that obstructed him from his newly selected target - the satellite base.
Trowa, much to his surprise, found he still had plenty of bullets with which to hail the Virgo's. The clunky pale bulk of them were an obvious and easy target, and he held the trigger lightly, so as not to get too carried away with it. There was no telling what could happen later in the battle...
Quatre found himself in the center of a large group, having dived in through a newly made gap in the defenses, he was slightly outnumbered. Strangely, he felt no fear, although he wouldn't have minded having the double beam cannon of the Wing Zero.
~ Well, you can't have it all. ~ He thought, and clamped the closest enemy with his twin heat blades, and crushed it easily. He felt nothing for these mindless dolls. Had it been a Leo or Aeries, with a human pilot, it wouldn't have stopped him, but he hated the immense loss of life that those wars provided. Fortunately this was a private fight, and no one but themselves and their enemy knew of its existence. He hoped it could stay that way. If they were spotted, it could be passed off as another sector clearing activity.
"RraaaAAHHH!!" Duo yelled as he flung himself to one side of the cockpit. The resulting move was that the entire Gundam spun around, catching four out of five Virgos with his scythe. One however had somehow escaped destruction and dodged his beam.
"Going somewhere? I don't THINK so!" The buster shield detached itself from the Deathscythe's arm, and shot off after the lone doll, which was backing off for a long-range attack. Too slow. It made a spectacular firework as the fuel and stored energy suddenly left it, through fresh holes carved by the blade of the shield. It detonated.
"That's more like it."
He held up 02's forearm, somewhat resembling a hawker, as the shield returned. Then looking around, he found himself in a bare patch.
*Humph. *
To his right, there was a large cloud of dolls, but who was in the center he couldn't see. He went over to give a helping hand. Or rather, scythe.
Wufei, having destroyed eleven Taurus/Virgo dolls, was getting bored. He didn't like to fight a weak enemy; it left him feeling empty and cheated afterwards. Unfortunately this meant that sometimes he'd get a little carried away, and put himself in impossible positions. This, although he didn't always recognize it, was in fact his own weakness. One of such moments was now. He was surrounded by several opponent suits, each of which kept dropping in on him from bad angles, and he was taking a few hits - but only because he didn't know where to start from. Then the answer was ahead of him, as there was a flash of green, and three blew up at once.
"Hey, Wufei! Quit hogging' all the fun!"
He spiraled away from the Deathscythe, which appeared, from the smoke and flames, to carve away an equal number behind him. They disappeared as soon as the spearhead passed them. The third arm of Altron flipped back, vertically, to catch another one, which had been above his head. The gun went off, and the Taurus was thrown into a new orbit.
"Nice moves!" Duo grinned on the screen.
The far left of Wufei's mouth curled up ever so slightly, and he nodded.
He looked around, and waved to 02 to follow.
Trowa was using his short-blade - he must have run out of bullets.
Quatre was sweating. He took a deep breath as he wiped his brow and looked around. He'd just cleared another group that had ambushed him from behind, but he'd copied their tactics by using the cloak, then re-appeared behind them.
What he saw worried him a bit. Although there were many bits of Taurus and Virgo floating around, there were still more whole ones than there were wrecks.
"How many of these guys are there Sandrock?"
The scanner beeped. Apparently there was a lone one behind him. Checking for the others proved that they were all still in battle with the dolls, so who was behind?
He made sure that his companions were on top of things, then slipped off under stealth to check the single suit.
A Wing Zero had just performed a dizzying 360 slash on his surrounding foes, and was rewarded by being temporarily blinded by the smoke. Luckily for Heero, his scanner was still operational, and he shot to the left as a tackling Virgo came flying at him.
The result was the same as sidestepping a football player; it went shooting past.
Heero however wasn't content to let it go, so he lashed out and managed to get a grip on its retreating ankle. He had notice that the HeavyArms was down to using his blade, so decided to give him a new missile - the unfortunate Virgo.
After swinging it around, and catching another extra on its axis, the Virgo was catapulted into the queue of Taurus around 03, and shunted them all into each other.
This blew up the front two, and left the others damaged and disorientated.
Trowa, never one to let good opportunities pass by, thrust his blade through the remaining trio, in up to his shoulder. They erupted in a hail of ash, smoke and white hot metal. Heero smiled again, as he watched in the rear view, already into his next fight.
Trowa had indeed used all his shots, and was now calmly carving his way through the opposition's ranks. He destroyed another two and found he had a single Virgo left in front of him - about to fire. There was only one thing for it. He fired all the thrusters at once and shot above it, then flew back down and stabbed it through the middle. The reverberation of the explosion shook back roughly through his arm.
Group cleared he looked around. There were still plenty to go around, and the others were fighting fiercely. Wing Zero had found another gang, and Altron and Deathscythe were working together, cleaving through rows of dolls at a time.
~ One of those beam weapons would be useful. ~
He was contemplating this, and he found himself looking for Quatre.
But Gundam Sandrock was nowhere to be seen. He checked all views, which revealed three Taurus attacking from behind. He sliced two with his knife and smashed the other with his fist. Looking around again proved fruitless, as there was still no sign.
He opened his mouth to ask for his position, then saw the scanner reading. 04 was on the opposite side of the satellite. He started to make his way around, through the crowd of debris and dolls.
"On left!" Duo said, seeing the incoming enemy.
The reflection of flames on Gundanium proved that Wufei had neutralized the danger.
"On yours!" he replied.
Duo spun round to find another pale Virgo. It went up in smoke as it disappeared behind the end of the single blade of his beam scythe.
"No problem."
The space around them was now empty, apart from all the floating scrap metal.
"Next?"
"Next." He agreed.
They flew on.
'Who's hiding round here then Sandrock? What do you think?'
Quatre passed the corner, and blinked in surprise.
"HeavyArms?" he murmured. "04 to 03, what are you doing?"
"Coming to you Quatre. What have you found?"
'You, apparently...' he said to no one.
Sandrock came out from behind the satellite and caught HeavyArms' attention. It turned towards him, and as he watched, the Gundam's eyes glowed red.
"Uh, Trowa?"
"What?"
"What are you do-Whoa! " Quatre sprang away and activated stealth as he was fired on.
He stared at the culprit. The Gundam HeavyArms, with beam gattling gun.
"Quatre! Quatre what's going on?" Trowa asked over the vid screen in the cockpit.
"You just fired on me!" Quatre gasped in disbelief.
"I wouldn't, you know I wouldn't."
"I didn't think you would. But-"
"I can't. I'm out of shots." He said, matter-of-factly.
"Seeing is believing, Trowa."
"Not recently it isn't."
"Are you telling me there's a full size Intruder out here?!? No way!"
"It could be a projection."
"Like in Heero's room?"
"Something like that." He nodded.
"But it looked real Trowa, really real."
"Where is it now?"
"I can't see it - there! It's over there!" He saw it clearly, it looked very solid.
"Transmit through your camera, I'll be there in a bit."
"Transferring data link."
"..." Trowa said nothing as he sat looking at himself on screen.
~ This is going too far. ~
Altron and Deathscythe had met up with Wing Zero, and the three of them were causing massive destruction in the adversary's fleet. In fact they had practically wiped out the whole of the remainder in the last few minutes. Those long-range guns were very useful.
"Well, that weren't so bad." Duo glanced about. "Hey, where's Trowa an' Quatre?"
"They were - over there."
"Maybe they've penetrated the base." Heero suggested.
"They would have told us."
"Well we'll just have t' find out then won't we? 02 to 03 and 4, what are your positions?"
"Duo? Are you guys all together?" Quatre's voice sounded a bit apprehensive.
"Yeah, why? You got trouble?"
"You could say that. We're on scanner, get over here, quickly please."
"We're coming, right now."
All three Gundams simultaneously fired their reactors, and shot off towards the others.
"What's the problem?" Heero asked eager to solve the situation.
"I'll transmit via my camera, ok?"
"Sure."
"Yes."
Wufei nodded.
The screen view of Quatre was replaced with an image of Sandrock's feet.
"This is me, right?"
"Yes."
"Ookay. Quatre, pal, remind me to give ya a camera when we get back, alright?"
"And this is Trowa, right?"
"Right."
"Mmm."
"Yeah."
"And this is our 'problem'..."
The camera swung away from the view of HeavyArms, and showed plenty stars and black of space. Then it stopped, and went down a bit. To show - HeavyArms.
Heero and Wufei made no reply.
Duo smirked. "Hey Quatre? You did that one already."
Quatre didn't answer, but talked to Trowa instead.
"Trowa, can you-?"
"Yes."
The others watched their screens as a second HeavyArms appeared in the picture.
"Ah."
*Humph. *
"Can you get his attention now, please?"
Trowa's HeavyArms, the one closest, grabbed a piece of metal that happened to be floating past, and screwed it up into a ball. He then threw in at his double.
It was a good shot; it bounced off the head. Had sound echoed in space, it would have 'donged' loudly, but it didn't. However it proved one thing.
"It's solid."
The reflection of the red and orange suit faded out, and was replaced by a white and blue one, with a beam cannon.
"Whoa."
"What the?"
Wufei's eyebrow climbed his forehead once again.
The camera's view was of Wing Zero.
"But Heero's right here, with me an' Chang."
"And you." Said Heero.
He was right. They'd arrived on the spot of the video transmission. Quatre cut it, and they all looked out of their view ports.
"Trowa! Shift your butt NOW!"
As he did, the others looked at the reasoning behind this. The Wing Zero's gun was starting to glow with the yellow sparks centering on the double barrel of the gun.
They waited for the massive blast, but there was none. The cannon didn't shoot.
As soon as they decided that it wasn't going to fire, Wufei dived in to attack it.
"Raaaaahhhhhhh!"
The Altron Gundam shot from their side as he tackled the enemy Wing Zero.
Distressingly, the white faded to gray, and finally to the black, of the Deathscythe.
"HEY!" Duo shouted. "No fair!"
"It seems to switch to its attackers least likely target." Heero said, watching closely.
Wufei's mind reeled, telling him, begging him to stop - Deathscythe was a friend.
But his instincts scream to go - the Deathscythe, his companion, was safely behind him.
He brought up the trident over his head with both hands, and was about to slash it down, straight through the center of the traitor Deathscythe, when it hailed him in a shower of bullets from it's beam gattling gun.
He was forced back and shielded himself with his left arm shield.
The constant rhythm of fire rattled and bounced off the shield, shaking it thoroughly.
The tightly wrapped strip of shirt held, but he didn't know for how long.
He swung the spear downwards heavily with his right hand gripping tightly.
To his surprise, it stopped, its swing broken by contact with the enemy's arm, holding his attack, and forcing it off.
~ Finally, a strong opponent! ~
He kicked it in the body, pushing it away, which made it back off a little.
The Altron was the upgrade of the Shenlong, which had been made to take a skilled martial artist as a pilot. He now showed a few of these skills, as he attacked the Deathscythe again, with renewed vigor.
"Hey Chang! D' y' wanna hand down there?" Duo asked.
Truthfully he knew he wouldn't, but he couldn't stand to see his Gundam get such a thrashing, and he felt that if he went down, then it would revert to it's true form, or at least look like on of the others' instead.
He flew down, but didn't attack. Wufei would obviously want to take care of this opponent on his own, it wasn't often that a pilot such as he got what he was looking for - a worthy or in this case perhaps, a stronger adversary.
He was right on one count, on noticing the Deathscythe behind Altron, the shape-shifting Gundam switched to Duo's weakest target - Sandrock.
"Hey Quatre, you've got a fan down here." He called back.
Wufei was too into the fight to think about the reasons behind its chosen swap.
To him, it was a bad move, as he would fight any of them, now the call of his conscience was silent, he'd convinced himself that whatever form it took, he would destroy it.
Quatre watched as 05 pounded away on the mirror of him below them. He found himself wondering what the most effective persona would be for Wufei. He decided either Heero's Wing Zero, or Meiran's Tallgeese. What he didn't think of was what it'd shift to after what happened next.
"Ok, let's all get down there, it'll confuse it, it's only a machine."
"Yeah, one hell of a messed up PC."
All five true Gundams and the other one were now in the newly designated fight area.
On 'seeing' Trowa come down from the ridge, it blasted past an enraged Chang in his Altron, and went directly for 03, changing to the exact copy of it as it flew past.
"Trowa! INCOMING!"
He blocked it with his shield as it crash tackled him, but kept going, smashing him against the rock wall of the asteroid, which formed the base's foundations.
"TROWA!" Quatre yelled, fearing injury.
"Nnaaagh..."
On the fuzzy screens before them, Trowa's head slumped forwards.
"TROWAAAHH!" Quatre shouted again, and forced his joystick horizontal.
Sandrock rushed forwards to his fallen ally, eyes hard, staring at the foe.
Duo went to go too, put Heero blocked his way with the arm of Wing Zero.
"Wait."
Trowa's face looked up at them from the fuzzy screen. He had a cut across his forehead, and a bruise was growing on his cheek. His garbled message was heard by all.
"Tha...z a stron...t, don'...ink?" he smiled faintly, and his eyes sparkled.
"Damn sure it was." Duo smiled.
Heero looked at him questioningly.
"He said it 'was a strong hit, don't you think?'"
Heero frowned, knew what he said. After all, he could lip-read, as Duo should well know.
Quatre beamed, physically glowing with relief.
Trowa reached to the right-hand side of his screen, and adjusted the buttons there. The result was that the white spots of 'snow' faded from his camera, and then he fixed the vocal com-link.
When he looked back out of the view port, his eyes widened in surprise.
"Behind you!"
Welcoming party...
The enemy base came into view as the five Gundams flew into range.
They watched, as it seemed to come alive, with all the moving suits around it.
As they flew closer still, they saw the full extent of their opponent's weaponry.
~ Not just a few Taurus' then, huh? ~
'Why do the bad guys always seem to think big is best?'
The enemies were getting larger as they went farther, closer to them.
It seemed to be the calm before the storm.
~ It's my turn to fly...~ Duo fired the reactors, and then crossed his fingers for luck.
~ Father, you'd better be watching over me tonight. ~
He grabbed the joystick, and flung it forward, propelling himself into the raging battle.
Heero had powered up the beam cannon. Small yellow sparks clustered around the end of the barrel. He pulled the trigger, to devastating effect. It disintegrated five dolls in one.
"Right on target."
Trowa recalled a conversation he'd had once with Katherine.
("But why, Trowa? Why must you fight?"
"I fight for peace,"
"Peace! Peace is nothing but a pacifist's dream!")
'Keep the dream alive.'
~ It's our turn to fly Nataku. ~
'Got to prove ourselves tonight, Sandrock.'
A message appeared on the screen, that only 04 could see. It read:
'To us, you already have.'
He smiled. ~ Trowa. ~
Suddenly they all were in the middle of the fray.
"Let's do this together!" He yelled, and threw himself directly into the fight.
"Hi-yaaAH!!" Wufei shouted as he simultaneously sliced his trident through two Taurus, and crushed another with the left Dragon Fang. The unfortunate in his grip exploded with a satisfying boom. He smiled with elation and flew on to catch his next prey. The group of Virgo never saw him coming.
Behind him, Heero surprised himself when he laughed aloud, as another three dolls blew apart, and fell victim to his saber, the deadly green beam that flew before him.
Thrust and parry through any of the spiky black and purple or pale suits that obstructed him from his newly selected target - the satellite base.
Trowa, much to his surprise, found he still had plenty of bullets with which to hail the Virgo's. The clunky pale bulk of them were an obvious and easy target, and he held the trigger lightly, so as not to get too carried away with it. There was no telling what could happen later in the battle...
Quatre found himself in the center of a large group, having dived in through a newly made gap in the defenses, he was slightly outnumbered. Strangely, he felt no fear, although he wouldn't have minded having the double beam cannon of the Wing Zero.
~ Well, you can't have it all. ~ He thought, and clamped the closest enemy with his twin heat blades, and crushed it easily. He felt nothing for these mindless dolls. Had it been a Leo or Aeries, with a human pilot, it wouldn't have stopped him, but he hated the immense loss of life that those wars provided. Fortunately this was a private fight, and no one but themselves and their enemy knew of its existence. He hoped it could stay that way. If they were spotted, it could be passed off as another sector clearing activity.
"RraaaAAHHH!!" Duo yelled as he flung himself to one side of the cockpit. The resulting move was that the entire Gundam spun around, catching four out of five Virgos with his scythe. One however had somehow escaped destruction and dodged his beam.
"Going somewhere? I don't THINK so!" The buster shield detached itself from the Deathscythe's arm, and shot off after the lone doll, which was backing off for a long-range attack. Too slow. It made a spectacular firework as the fuel and stored energy suddenly left it, through fresh holes carved by the blade of the shield. It detonated.
"That's more like it."
He held up 02's forearm, somewhat resembling a hawker, as the shield returned. Then looking around, he found himself in a bare patch.
*Humph. *
To his right, there was a large cloud of dolls, but who was in the center he couldn't see. He went over to give a helping hand. Or rather, scythe.
Wufei, having destroyed eleven Taurus/Virgo dolls, was getting bored. He didn't like to fight a weak enemy; it left him feeling empty and cheated afterwards. Unfortunately this meant that sometimes he'd get a little carried away, and put himself in impossible positions. This, although he didn't always recognize it, was in fact his own weakness. One of such moments was now. He was surrounded by several opponent suits, each of which kept dropping in on him from bad angles, and he was taking a few hits - but only because he didn't know where to start from. Then the answer was ahead of him, as there was a flash of green, and three blew up at once.
"Hey, Wufei! Quit hogging' all the fun!"
He spiraled away from the Deathscythe, which appeared, from the smoke and flames, to carve away an equal number behind him. They disappeared as soon as the spearhead passed them. The third arm of Altron flipped back, vertically, to catch another one, which had been above his head. The gun went off, and the Taurus was thrown into a new orbit.
"Nice moves!" Duo grinned on the screen.
The far left of Wufei's mouth curled up ever so slightly, and he nodded.
He looked around, and waved to 02 to follow.
Trowa was using his short-blade - he must have run out of bullets.
Quatre was sweating. He took a deep breath as he wiped his brow and looked around. He'd just cleared another group that had ambushed him from behind, but he'd copied their tactics by using the cloak, then re-appeared behind them.
What he saw worried him a bit. Although there were many bits of Taurus and Virgo floating around, there were still more whole ones than there were wrecks.
"How many of these guys are there Sandrock?"
The scanner beeped. Apparently there was a lone one behind him. Checking for the others proved that they were all still in battle with the dolls, so who was behind?
He made sure that his companions were on top of things, then slipped off under stealth to check the single suit.
A Wing Zero had just performed a dizzying 360 slash on his surrounding foes, and was rewarded by being temporarily blinded by the smoke. Luckily for Heero, his scanner was still operational, and he shot to the left as a tackling Virgo came flying at him.
The result was the same as sidestepping a football player; it went shooting past.
Heero however wasn't content to let it go, so he lashed out and managed to get a grip on its retreating ankle. He had notice that the HeavyArms was down to using his blade, so decided to give him a new missile - the unfortunate Virgo.
After swinging it around, and catching another extra on its axis, the Virgo was catapulted into the queue of Taurus around 03, and shunted them all into each other.
This blew up the front two, and left the others damaged and disorientated.
Trowa, never one to let good opportunities pass by, thrust his blade through the remaining trio, in up to his shoulder. They erupted in a hail of ash, smoke and white hot metal. Heero smiled again, as he watched in the rear view, already into his next fight.
Trowa had indeed used all his shots, and was now calmly carving his way through the opposition's ranks. He destroyed another two and found he had a single Virgo left in front of him - about to fire. There was only one thing for it. He fired all the thrusters at once and shot above it, then flew back down and stabbed it through the middle. The reverberation of the explosion shook back roughly through his arm.
Group cleared he looked around. There were still plenty to go around, and the others were fighting fiercely. Wing Zero had found another gang, and Altron and Deathscythe were working together, cleaving through rows of dolls at a time.
~ One of those beam weapons would be useful. ~
He was contemplating this, and he found himself looking for Quatre.
But Gundam Sandrock was nowhere to be seen. He checked all views, which revealed three Taurus attacking from behind. He sliced two with his knife and smashed the other with his fist. Looking around again proved fruitless, as there was still no sign.
He opened his mouth to ask for his position, then saw the scanner reading. 04 was on the opposite side of the satellite. He started to make his way around, through the crowd of debris and dolls.
"On left!" Duo said, seeing the incoming enemy.
The reflection of flames on Gundanium proved that Wufei had neutralized the danger.
"On yours!" he replied.
Duo spun round to find another pale Virgo. It went up in smoke as it disappeared behind the end of the single blade of his beam scythe.
"No problem."
The space around them was now empty, apart from all the floating scrap metal.
"Next?"
"Next." He agreed.
They flew on.
'Who's hiding round here then Sandrock? What do you think?'
Quatre passed the corner, and blinked in surprise.
"HeavyArms?" he murmured. "04 to 03, what are you doing?"
"Coming to you Quatre. What have you found?"
'You, apparently...' he said to no one.
Sandrock came out from behind the satellite and caught HeavyArms' attention. It turned towards him, and as he watched, the Gundam's eyes glowed red.
"Uh, Trowa?"
"What?"
"What are you do-Whoa! " Quatre sprang away and activated stealth as he was fired on.
He stared at the culprit. The Gundam HeavyArms, with beam gattling gun.
"Quatre! Quatre what's going on?" Trowa asked over the vid screen in the cockpit.
"You just fired on me!" Quatre gasped in disbelief.
"I wouldn't, you know I wouldn't."
"I didn't think you would. But-"
"I can't. I'm out of shots." He said, matter-of-factly.
"Seeing is believing, Trowa."
"Not recently it isn't."
"Are you telling me there's a full size Intruder out here?!? No way!"
"It could be a projection."
"Like in Heero's room?"
"Something like that." He nodded.
"But it looked real Trowa, really real."
"Where is it now?"
"I can't see it - there! It's over there!" He saw it clearly, it looked very solid.
"Transmit through your camera, I'll be there in a bit."
"Transferring data link."
"..." Trowa said nothing as he sat looking at himself on screen.
~ This is going too far. ~
Altron and Deathscythe had met up with Wing Zero, and the three of them were causing massive destruction in the adversary's fleet. In fact they had practically wiped out the whole of the remainder in the last few minutes. Those long-range guns were very useful.
"Well, that weren't so bad." Duo glanced about. "Hey, where's Trowa an' Quatre?"
"They were - over there."
"Maybe they've penetrated the base." Heero suggested.
"They would have told us."
"Well we'll just have t' find out then won't we? 02 to 03 and 4, what are your positions?"
"Duo? Are you guys all together?" Quatre's voice sounded a bit apprehensive.
"Yeah, why? You got trouble?"
"You could say that. We're on scanner, get over here, quickly please."
"We're coming, right now."
All three Gundams simultaneously fired their reactors, and shot off towards the others.
"What's the problem?" Heero asked eager to solve the situation.
"I'll transmit via my camera, ok?"
"Sure."
"Yes."
Wufei nodded.
The screen view of Quatre was replaced with an image of Sandrock's feet.
"This is me, right?"
"Yes."
"Ookay. Quatre, pal, remind me to give ya a camera when we get back, alright?"
"And this is Trowa, right?"
"Right."
"Mmm."
"Yeah."
"And this is our 'problem'..."
The camera swung away from the view of HeavyArms, and showed plenty stars and black of space. Then it stopped, and went down a bit. To show - HeavyArms.
Heero and Wufei made no reply.
Duo smirked. "Hey Quatre? You did that one already."
Quatre didn't answer, but talked to Trowa instead.
"Trowa, can you-?"
"Yes."
The others watched their screens as a second HeavyArms appeared in the picture.
"Ah."
*Humph. *
"Can you get his attention now, please?"
Trowa's HeavyArms, the one closest, grabbed a piece of metal that happened to be floating past, and screwed it up into a ball. He then threw in at his double.
It was a good shot; it bounced off the head. Had sound echoed in space, it would have 'donged' loudly, but it didn't. However it proved one thing.
"It's solid."
The reflection of the red and orange suit faded out, and was replaced by a white and blue one, with a beam cannon.
"Whoa."
"What the?"
Wufei's eyebrow climbed his forehead once again.
The camera's view was of Wing Zero.
"But Heero's right here, with me an' Chang."
"And you." Said Heero.
He was right. They'd arrived on the spot of the video transmission. Quatre cut it, and they all looked out of their view ports.
"Trowa! Shift your butt NOW!"
As he did, the others looked at the reasoning behind this. The Wing Zero's gun was starting to glow with the yellow sparks centering on the double barrel of the gun.
They waited for the massive blast, but there was none. The cannon didn't shoot.
As soon as they decided that it wasn't going to fire, Wufei dived in to attack it.
"Raaaaahhhhhhh!"
The Altron Gundam shot from their side as he tackled the enemy Wing Zero.
Distressingly, the white faded to gray, and finally to the black, of the Deathscythe.
"HEY!" Duo shouted. "No fair!"
"It seems to switch to its attackers least likely target." Heero said, watching closely.
Wufei's mind reeled, telling him, begging him to stop - Deathscythe was a friend.
But his instincts scream to go - the Deathscythe, his companion, was safely behind him.
He brought up the trident over his head with both hands, and was about to slash it down, straight through the center of the traitor Deathscythe, when it hailed him in a shower of bullets from it's beam gattling gun.
He was forced back and shielded himself with his left arm shield.
The constant rhythm of fire rattled and bounced off the shield, shaking it thoroughly.
The tightly wrapped strip of shirt held, but he didn't know for how long.
He swung the spear downwards heavily with his right hand gripping tightly.
To his surprise, it stopped, its swing broken by contact with the enemy's arm, holding his attack, and forcing it off.
~ Finally, a strong opponent! ~
He kicked it in the body, pushing it away, which made it back off a little.
The Altron was the upgrade of the Shenlong, which had been made to take a skilled martial artist as a pilot. He now showed a few of these skills, as he attacked the Deathscythe again, with renewed vigor.
"Hey Chang! D' y' wanna hand down there?" Duo asked.
Truthfully he knew he wouldn't, but he couldn't stand to see his Gundam get such a thrashing, and he felt that if he went down, then it would revert to it's true form, or at least look like on of the others' instead.
He flew down, but didn't attack. Wufei would obviously want to take care of this opponent on his own, it wasn't often that a pilot such as he got what he was looking for - a worthy or in this case perhaps, a stronger adversary.
He was right on one count, on noticing the Deathscythe behind Altron, the shape-shifting Gundam switched to Duo's weakest target - Sandrock.
"Hey Quatre, you've got a fan down here." He called back.
Wufei was too into the fight to think about the reasons behind its chosen swap.
To him, it was a bad move, as he would fight any of them, now the call of his conscience was silent, he'd convinced himself that whatever form it took, he would destroy it.
Quatre watched as 05 pounded away on the mirror of him below them. He found himself wondering what the most effective persona would be for Wufei. He decided either Heero's Wing Zero, or Meiran's Tallgeese. What he didn't think of was what it'd shift to after what happened next.
"Ok, let's all get down there, it'll confuse it, it's only a machine."
"Yeah, one hell of a messed up PC."
All five true Gundams and the other one were now in the newly designated fight area.
On 'seeing' Trowa come down from the ridge, it blasted past an enraged Chang in his Altron, and went directly for 03, changing to the exact copy of it as it flew past.
"Trowa! INCOMING!"
He blocked it with his shield as it crash tackled him, but kept going, smashing him against the rock wall of the asteroid, which formed the base's foundations.
"TROWA!" Quatre yelled, fearing injury.
"Nnaaagh..."
On the fuzzy screens before them, Trowa's head slumped forwards.
"TROWAAAHH!" Quatre shouted again, and forced his joystick horizontal.
Sandrock rushed forwards to his fallen ally, eyes hard, staring at the foe.
Duo went to go too, put Heero blocked his way with the arm of Wing Zero.
"Wait."
Trowa's face looked up at them from the fuzzy screen. He had a cut across his forehead, and a bruise was growing on his cheek. His garbled message was heard by all.
"Tha...z a stron...t, don'...ink?" he smiled faintly, and his eyes sparkled.
"Damn sure it was." Duo smiled.
Heero looked at him questioningly.
"He said it 'was a strong hit, don't you think?'"
Heero frowned, knew what he said. After all, he could lip-read, as Duo should well know.
Quatre beamed, physically glowing with relief.
Trowa reached to the right-hand side of his screen, and adjusted the buttons there. The result was that the white spots of 'snow' faded from his camera, and then he fixed the vocal com-link.
When he looked back out of the view port, his eyes widened in surprise.
"Behind you!"