Or they could have killed him. These rebels had shown that they weren't adverse to killing the Gundam pilots. However, Trowa pushed that thought out of his mind. He wouldn't let himself believe it.
****
Quatre felt that just marching into his estate and asking what was going on would not be the wisest of decisions. He had to move carefully. They would be expecting him to come back. Quatre decided that first he would find Rashid and the other Maguanacs. He was certain that he could trust them, even when he couldn't trust his own family.
Quatre shook his head. It just wasn't right.
He walked through the streets that surrounded his estate. He hoped that the Maguanacs weren't being kept inside. That would make things difficult. Quatre looked up when he heard gunfire coming from a few blocks down. That wasn't a sound you heard that much anymore.
He ran the several blocks that it took to get to where he had heard the noise.
"Master Quatre!"
Quatre smiled when he heard that voice. It was Rashid! He looked at the scene in front of him. There seemed to be an all-out battle in the middle of the street. It was the Maguanacs against...well...Quatre didn't quite know who the others were.
Rashid ran over to him. "It's dangerous for you to be here, Master Quatre."
"I came to help." Quatre looked at the fight. "What's going on?"
Rashid didn't have time to answer as somebody shot at them. Rashid grabbed Quatre's shirt and pushed him to the ground.
"Maybe I'll explain later. All you need to know is that they are the enemy."
Quatre nodded. "Right."
It had been a while since Quatre had had to fight, but instinct proved to be strong. Quatre scooped up a gun from a fallen fighter and aimed at the enemy. He tried to stay out of hand-to-hand combat, as he wasn't very good at it. However, in such a close fight as this one was, it was hard to stay out of that type of fighting. Quatre had been unlucky enough to pick up a gun that was near empty on ammo. An enemy charged him, and Quatre raised the gun, slamming it into his face.
"Master Quatre!" Auda yelled and tossed a rifle to him.
"Thanks!' Quatre said quickly, holding the rifle out against the enemies in front of him. He moved slowly to put his back against the wall of the building so that no enemy could sneak up on him from behind.
The Maguanacs were clearly outnumbered by the enemies, but things seemed to be evening out as the Maguanacs had the upper hand in terms of skill.
Quatre paused in his fight. He didn't like this battle being right in the middle of the civilian street. The Maguanacs must not have been given a choice, though.
Amid the fighting people, Quatre saw one of the unnamed enemies raising his gun at him. Quatre instinctively pulled his rifle up and pulled the trigger, but he was rewarded only with a faint clicking noise. He was out of ammo already. He ducked down just as he heard the shot. The bullet hit the wall just above Quatre's head.
Great, he needed a weapon. All of the Maguanacs were busy, and there didn't seem to be a gun in sight. The man shot at Quatre again, but Quatre rolled on the ground, back still to the wall. However, he'd been distracted by the first man and hadn't seen the other fighter until he'd stopped rolling and was right in front of him. The other person took a shot, barely grazing Quatre's arm. Quatre kicked the man's legs out from under him and punched him in the stomach, enough to knock the wind out of him.
Quatre reached for the man's gun but stopped when he felt cold metal against his head. He looked up at the first soldier who he'd forgotten about while fighting the second.
"Master Quatre!" He heard one of the Maguanacs yell.
Then the soldier just fell. He kind of crumpled to the ground, dropping the gun. Quatre looked up from the fallen soldier.
"Trowa?"
Trowa knelt down in front of him. Quatre kept an eye over Trowa's shoulder to make sure nobody was targeting them. "Quatre, can you stand?"
"Yeah. Just got my arm a little." Quatre took Trowa's outstretched hand and stood up. "Um...hi." Quatre smiled as Trowa released his hand. It had been a while.
"Master Quatre, are you alright?" Rashid had walked over and was standing next to Trowa.
Quatre looked around. The battle seemed to be over. Finally. He nodded. "I'm fine." He looked up at Rashid, "But what's going on?"
"Come, Master Quatre. We'll tell you everything that happened while you were away."
****
Trowa was very relieved to have found Quatre alive. It hadn't been that hard finding him. Trowa just followed the gunshots, and had seemed to have come in the nick of time. He crossed his arms as he leaned back against the wall and just stared at the younger pilot who was sitting at the table with Rashid. Quatre looked older now. Trowa wondered if he'd aged that much in the past year.
"It was almost like she'd had it planned, Master Quatre. As soon as you left, she let the rebels in and they took over. We didn't know what her intentions were until she sent the message out." Auda explained to Quatre.
Quatre stared hard into his cup. "I have to talk to her."
Poor Quatre. Trowa knew that he must be taking this very hard.
"No, Master Quatre! It's too dangerous! They'd kill you on sight. You're a threat to them." Rashid said.
"I know. But she is my sister, and I have to talk to her. I have to make her see that we can't fight now." Quatre paused. "Besides, I am the real head of the Winner estate."
"Perhaps," Trowa spoke up. "If somebody went with him as protection. I think his sister might actually be willing to hear him out."
"Then I'll go with you!" Auda raised his hand.
"No. You Maguanacs need to stay here and out of trouble. This isn't your fight." Quatre shook his head. Then he looked over at Trowa. "Trowa can come with me."
Some of the Maguanacs were about to protest, but Rashid spoke up. "Very well, Master Quatre. You need to get some rest now. You can try talking to her tomorrow, though I don't know how much good it will do."
"Thank you, Rashid." Quatre smiled. "Thank you all."
"Quatre, I have a room at a hotel not far from here. It would be best if you stayed separate from the Maguanacs so that you both will be harder to target." Trowa said.
Quatre nodded and stood up. "Sounds good."
It was a short walk to the hotel, and neither one of them talked much. Trowa hadn't quite heard all the details as to what had happened, but he gathered that Quatre had left for Earth when Heero'd been attacked. He would have to tell Quatre all he knew when they got to the hotel room. His leg was still a bit hurt, but he could walk now without a noticeable limp. However, he'd have to be careful with it while fighting.
They stopped by a small store on the way to pick up some gauze and antibiotic cream for Quatre's arm. Then they made it back to the hotel.
"Go ahead and sit down. I'll take care of your wound." Trowa said while closing and locking the door. They'd have to take turns sitting guard to make sure nobody tried to attack them overnight. Trowa hoped that they would think that Quatre'd stayed with the Maguanacs.
He turned around. Quatre had taken off his vest and was unbuttoning his shirt. "So where have you been, Trowa? Everybody was looking for you."
Trowa came over and sat down next to him, helping him get the shirt off without hurting his arm any more. "I've been doing a lot of travelling in the last couple days." He hadn't really done anything. He'd just been chasing rumours.
Trowa washed the wound, then wrapped some gauze around it. It was going to be stiff, which wasn't good. It was Quatre's right arm, and that might be a handicap if they had to fight later.
When he was done, Trowa looked up at Quatre and was surprised to see that he was looking back at Trowa and blushing. Trowa reached out and brushed Quatre's bangs away from his eyes, causing Quatre to blush even more, if that were even possible.
Trowa smiled, "It's good to see you again, Quatre."
****
Wufei finished his first cursory inspection of the area. Security was very light. In fact, he'd been able to wander into the launch site without any problem. That was actually somewhat worrisome as it meant that this rebellion had spread so far and gotten so large, they weren't worried about anybody trying to stop them. A crowd had already gathered, being kept away from the actual site by some construction tape and a bunch of rebels who were on crowd-control duty.
There were 5 shuttles waiting to launch. All of them were passenger shuttles, however Wufei knew that the rebels had at least 3 battle ships in a hanger, ready to go to Earth with the shuttles. And without any defenses, the Earth wouldn't stand a chance.
5 shuttles to carry the important members of the rebellion. Duo would presumably be going with them on those shuttles. How Duo had ever gotten caught up in this, Wufei would never know.
They had their plan. They wouldn't be able to stop the launch of the battleships. That was left up to Noin. Their job was simply to keep the shuttles from leaving the ground and to get Duo out of there. They had planned to put Hilde in a safe place and to get her after this was all over, but the girl had insisted on helping. Sally never did know when to say "no". Wufei just hoped she wouldn't get in the way.
He checked his watch. One hour to launch. One hour to keep this rebellion from getting off the ground. This was going to be tough.
"How are things looking?" Sally came up behind Wufei. Wufei used to be bothered by the fact that she could just walk up behind him unnoticed, but now he'd gotten used to it. She was a soldier, too.
"Alright. They seem pretty confident in themselves."
"They have reason to be. They got this far, haven't they?"
Wufei ignored the comment. "Where's that girl?"
"I'm here."
Wufei turned around to face Hilde. She looked slightly annoyed with him. Wufei wasn't a big teamplayer. He'd gotten used to working with Sally in the past year. In fact, he had a hard time imagining working without her. However, he still liked to fight alone, and this girl was just, in his mind, extra baggage.
"Do you have everything set for us, Wufei?" Sally asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
Wufei nodded, "Of course."
"Good. Which one?"
Wufei nodded to the shuttle furthest from the crowd. They were under orders to try to limit casualties. Wufei just hoped that that wasn't the shuttle that Duo was going to be heading toward.
****
Noin had grown accustomed to acting casually within the rebellion. She'd been a part of it for a little under a month and had made several connections. It was hard to get too far up, as the rebellion was segmented throughout the L2 area, many cells having no contact with each other. Noin had managed to earn the trust of many of the more important members of her cell.
She felt almost sorry that she'd have to betray them now.
She really could understand what they were fighting for. They were fighting for their home, which, Noin must admit, was falling apart. But Noin didn't want any more bloodshed. That's why she would fight in this one.
The rebels had been given use of 4 hangers to store the battleships in. Many people on L2 were sympathetic to the rebellion and helped with some small things. That's how the battleships had been built. None of them had a weapon as massive as the late Libra's or Barge's, but they were still capable war ships and could easily take over Earth.
Noin pushed herself off from the floor, allowing the low gravity to float her towards the ship. She had less than one hour before the big event, and she had only one more bomb to plant. Security was lax, so she hadn't had much trouble with the other 3 bombs.
She entered through a cargo hatch. They were packing massive amounts of guns and ammo, plus explosives. Noin knew that they had been working on this for a long time. Nobody thought much of her going through the cargo bay with her pack. There were enough people milling around that one more person didn't stand out.
Noin exited the cargo bay and went into the actual ship. For the bomb to be effective, it had to be planted near the main power source. Otherwise they might only succeed in blowing out a portion of the ship. She wanted it completely destroyed.
She found a good spot to plant the bomb. Looking around to make sure nobody was watching, she quickly set it up and timed it to go off at the scheduled time. She checked her watch. 30 minutes. She had to get out of there.
****
Duo had no idea what was going to happen. He hadn't seen Noin again after their first meeting, and nobody else bothered to inform him of anything. All he knew was that the rebellion was going to Earth and that he was going with them. Duo really hated being used like this.
He allowed himself to slouch down in the back seat of the car. He had a guy beside him to make sure Duo didn't throw himself out or anything. The man seemed to want to grab Duo and drag him back up, but he didn't.
They finally arrived at their destination, and Duo obediently waited for them to open his door. Wouldn't do any good fighting them now. He had to wait until Noin did...whatever Noin was going to do. Duo assumed Heero was in on this, too.
Duo hadn't been sure what he was expecting, but he was sure that it wasn't a large crowd gathered around 5 space shuttles. They were going to Earth in those?
The rebels led him over to a makeshift podium where a rather dignified looking man was standing with a microphone. Oh no. Another rally. Duo had nearly lost it at the last one.
"People of L2, today marks the day of our freedom!" The man raised a fist. Geez, how corny could you get?
The crowd erupted in cheers, and it took all of Duo's willpower not to yank the microphone away from the guy and give his own little speech to the crowd.
****
Wufei looked down at his watch. 5 minutes. The speaker had been drolling on for about 3 minutes or so now. He'd be wrapping up soon, and they'd be entering the shuttles. Unfortunately for them, the bomb was set to go off about...now.
****
Duo was taken by surprise when one of the shuttles in the back exploded. The crowd screamed and people started running away. Duo tried not to smile. That had to be Heero's work. Loud and flashy. The rebels were momentarily distracted, and Duo took advantage of that. He elbowed his guard in the stomach and grabbed the gun out of his hands. Jumping off the podium, Duo rolled on the ground and came up shooting at whatever rebel he could see.
He allowed himself to forget about the bomb in his apartment. Noin had said not to worry about it, and he trusted her.
****
"Hey! You!" Noin stopped her slow walk. She'd successfully planted the last bomb and was safely out of range. She knew that the shuttle should already have exploded, and the bombs in the ships were scheduled to go in about 5 minutes. Noin turned around, ready to draw her gun.
It was another rebel, and he already had his gun out and aimed at her.
"You left something behind," he said, throwing down the bits and pieces of one of her bombs. "Don't worry. We found the other 3, too. The ships are safe."
Well, that wasn't good. Noin frowned while she reached for her own gun. She knew the man would see it, so she dodged to the left as a bullet whizzed past her. By then, her gun was out and she had shot the man.
Knowing that the shot had been fatal, she walked over to look at the remains of the bomb. No help for it. That couldn't be put together again. She'd have to contact Sally somehow.
****
It was crazy. Sally watched the civilians and made sure they were all running the right way. The rebels seemed to be at a loss of what to do, and Duo had disappeared. Sally had her gun out and was walking quickly towards the rest of the shuttles. She knew the more important members would have already been inside the shuttles, though they would have evacuated. That meant that they'd all be crowded together, making them an easy target.
Sally noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see Duo going gung ho on the rebels. He hadn't seemed to notice the person behind him, though, and Sally shot at the attacker. Duo looked up.
"Sally?" He seemed surprised.
She jogged over to him. "Duo. It's been a while." She looked around for any more potential threats.
"Where's Heero?" He asked.
"Heero? I don't know. Why?"
"He isn't with you?"
Sally shook her head. "Come on, we have work to do."
****
Wufei felt like taking the gun away from Hilde. She was a little overenthusiastic about all this. Wufei calmly surveyed the scene. They'd have to be careful about who they fought as the rebels didn't have uniforms. Civilians could easily be mistaken for rebels.
He looked at his watch. The battleships should have exploded by now, but he hadn't heard any word about it. Something must have gone wrong, which meant...
"Come on," he said to Hilde while walking away from the battle.
"What?" Hilde lowered her gun.
"New plan. We need to destroy the battleships."
"How?"
Wufei allowed himself a small smile, "We'll find a way."
****
No good. The ships were about to launch. The shuttles might be grounded, but the battleships were going to go as planned. And there wasn't a damned thing that Noin could do.
Noin had boarded one of the battleships again. Bad communication within the rebellion meant that not many people knew about the bombs, so she hadn't had any trouble. But now she was at a loss. She'd have to do what she could from the inside.
She turned her head as she noticed the hallway monitors snap on. There was a communication coming through.
There was a man wearing a blue uniform that Noin didn't recognize. Standing behind him and off to the side, also in uniform was...Dorothy? What was she doing here?
The man spoke. "Attention L2 rebels: We are part of the Pax organization, dedicated to keeping the peace at all costs. We have 6 battleships at this colony, and are prepared to attack if you launch any of your ships. We will not allow you to start a war."
****
The battle in the colony had some to a stop. Everybody was staring at the large screen.
"Who the hell are they?" One of the rebels yelled.
The Pax leader continued. "We ask that you surrender yourselves and your weapons now. We will await your response."
Wufei didn't like this. Something didn't feel right about this Pax organization. Keep the peace "at all costs"? That left a lot of wiggle room.
"Wufei!" Wufei turned to see Sally running up behind him, Duo close behind her. "Time to leave."
Wufei nodded.
"Hey, Hilde!" Duo smiled and yelled at the girl. She fell back to run alongside him.
"Duo!"
Wufei ignored them. "Where are we going?"
"Things have just gotten a bit more complicated. We need to regroup. We're heading to Earth."
Back to Earth. And leaving these two forces to fight it out.
****
Dorothy held her hands clasped behind her back. She was somehow reminded of her time on Libra with Mr. Milliardo. Like then, she was now the 2nd in command of the organization. And, like then, she'd been a part of a rather large force.
Shortly after the Mariemaia incident, she'd found a small group of people who were willing to keep peace, even if it meant using some rather...unpleasant methods. Dorothy agreed with what they were doing and joined.
"Sir, the rebels aren't replying," one of the officers said to Powell, the leader.
"That's because they're afraid. They don't know what to do," Powell smiled.
"Sir! There are 2 battleships launching from L4!"
"L4?" Dorothy said.
A trick. The ships on L2 might have been the main force, but it hadn't been the only force. They'd overlooked it.
"They're heading for Earth," The officer needlessly reported.
Of course they were heading for Earth.
"Sir, the rebels are launching the L2 battleships."
Powell nodded, "So they want a fight. That's fine. We'll fight."
****
Heero quietly entered the hospital room. Relena looked like she was just asleep, but Heero knew that she wouldn't be waking up any time soon. He didn't know what he had expected to do once he got back here. He knew that he couldn't do anything to help her. Heero may be able to do all sorts of things in battle, but he was powerless when it came to stuff like this.
Heero guessed that he just wanted to see her before he went off to fight. He needed to reaffirm what he was going to be fighting and killing for. Relena was peace. It seemed morbidly fitting that, at this moment when the world was in the beginning turmoils of war, Relena would be in this position.
"Now is where we'll part."
Heero didn't have to turn around. He knew that Zechs was behind him. In fact, he'd expected it.
"Can't say I'm too upset over it," Heero said. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to be part of the defense force that is going to meet the ships from L2."
Heero had heard all about the battle. He'd been able to see it on the news on the flight over.
"Fine. Then I'll meet the ones from L4."
"Anything to keep away from me?" Zechs chuckled.
Heero didn't reply. Zechs walked over to the bed to stand beside Heero. He looked down at his sister, not saying a word. Then he turned and left.
Heero stayed for a few minutes. Then he leaned over and whispered, "I'm fighting for you, again, Relena."