Adaptation
By: Kiamirei
~Obviously, I own nothing.
In the silence that filled the room as the Chinese pilot typed on the laptop, searching for yet more information, Duo finally gave up and turned to him.
"I'm telling you, Wufei, they know that something's wrong," the American said firmly.
"How?"
"I've been watching them! Haven't you noticed that they try to keep us guarded all the time? And some of the comments that the officers have been making suggest that they suspect us, not to mention the conversation I overheard!"
"Of course I noticed. But what conversation?"
"I told you last night!"
"I wasn't listening."
Duo glared at him.
"I said, I was passing by the control room, and I heard two people talking. One said, 'keep an eye on Maxwell and Chang. I don't like them; they're too good at what they do.'"
"That doesn't mean a thing. It's probably just spite, or jealousy. We still can't leave."
"Why not?" This was more than just annoying now; it was dangerous.
"Because we don't have all the information we set out to get."
"Who cares? The situation has become unstable, Wufei. If we don't get out now, we may not get out at all. Why can't you just let this go? Do you want us to die, too?"
Wufei looked down, biting his lip, his face somewhat flushed.
"I don't know, Maxwell. The only thing I'm sure of is that we need to complete this mission. If we back down, and OZ is able to actually use the Gundanium Alloy that the bases have been importing, we're done for. The only reason why we have a chance in this damn war anyway is because our mobile suits are stronger and faster than any of theirs. Take that away, and OZ will win."
"But if we don't get out soon, we may not be in any position to fight! Can't you get that through that thick skull of yours?"
Now the shorter pilot looked up, coal eyes narrowed angrily.
"Be quiet! The only reason you want to leave is because being here scares you! Can't you just be strong for once?"
"Fuck your stupid strength! It hasn't gotten you any farther than the rest of us, has it?"
"Damn you, idiot, this 'stupid strength' is what's going to save your life someday! God I wish Nataku were here, instead of you!"
"Fuck Nataku too! Everything you say is 'Nataku this!' 'Nataku that!' Get a life! Who was it, anyway? It sure as hell isn't your mobile suit you're talking about! Come on! Tell me! Was this great Nataku some relative? Or maybe your whore?"
Before Duo could even blink, the other boy had punched him hard in the face, and the American had to look up at Wufei from the floor, violet eyes dazed as his nose bled. A low growl was escaping from the Chinese pilot's throat, but he did not acknowledge it. Slowly, he got up off of the floor and went into the bathroom to stop the bleeding.
* * * *
Duo stayed in the bathroom for a long time, as Wufei sat outside on his bed. He had made an attempt to get back on the laptop, but could not concentrate. Not bothering to try to force himself any further, he turned it off; lack of concentration was a dangerous thing when trying to hack into OZ's records. Instead, he focused his mind on the situation. The Chinese boy knew that he should not have struck his ally; as soon as those orbs had looked up at him from the floor, pain and betrayal seeping into their expression, he was aware that what he had done was wrong. It had not served justice. Duo had been wrong to say such things about his wife, of course, but he had not really known how much the words would hurt, and he was too angry to even consider that possibility. Wufei never talked about her, after all. Punching his companion was childish, and weak. She would not have approved of his actions; instead of using force, the girl would simply have given a harmless verbal retort, or even ignored the offense.
Now that he was thinking about it, the boy realized that his companion was not entirely wrong. Their position really was getting dangerous, and he knew this. So why was he insisting they stay? He looked towards the door, hearing the knob turn, and stood up to face the other pilot.
"I…look, Wufei," Duo said, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It was rude of me, and immature. Nataku is obviously someone important to you, some one you respect, and I'm aware that you don't give that esteem to just anyone. I apologize for my actions. We'll stay."
Wufei looked at the floor. He felt bad, and Duo had been right before. Now it was time to swallow his pride and say as much.
"No, Duo. As offensive as your comment was, it was wrong of me to hit you. I treated you like an enemy, or an inferior, not an ally. I was immature. And…you're right about leaving. The longer we stay, the more dangerous it gets. What you know isn't all of it. There are reports about us expressing suspicion all over the base. Officers distrust us, which is why our jobs are loose and minimal. And once, when they thought we were both asleep, they had someone search our room. I…I don't know why I didn't tell you. I knew you were correct the first time you complained about not being safe."
Duo gave him a small smile.
"I know why."
"Huh?"
"I know why you kept quiet. And so do you, deep down. You feel guilty for botching that last mission. It eats at you, makes you feel like a failure, makes you feel weak. Aborting this mission is like admitting that we're incapable of doing our duty. But it's okay to leave, buddy. We can't win them all. The last mission was devastating; it's hard emotionally, and it resulted in a great reduction of our forces. Trowa's dead, Heero's mobile suit was nearly destroyed, and Quatre is weaponless, except for those idiotic little guns on Sandrock's head. But we can't let that stop us. There's still a war to fight."
The Chinese boy looked up at him contemplatively.
"Alright then, Duo. We'll leave tomorrow and get our Gundams."
"Sounds good. Then what?"
"Blow up this base, of course."
"I should have known. What else do we do when we're stressed?" Duo grinned.
* * * *
It was night, and Heero was washing the dishes after dinner, which had consisted of instant ramen and water. Not the healthiest meal, especially considering he had to be in top condition and Trowa was still recovering from self-detonation, but he did not care. After the last time the boy had been stuck helpless on the floor, he had begun to lift weights. They were extremely light –only three pounds- but pilot 03 found them hard to lift in succession. For about the millionth time it occurred to him that he was acting out of character. The boy was a liability; it was illogical for Heero to continue staying with him.
When he took the body from the remains of Heavyarms, he had not expected to find its pilot alive. His intentions in taking Trowa had been only to give what little honor he had to offer; pilot 03 had sacrificed his life to complete the mission, and it would be wrong to leave the corpse out on the battlefield. Had it been any of the others, though, he would not have done so. However, the boy had saved his life once, traveled around Europe with him while he was on his search for redemption, lent him the Gundam to battle Zechs in, and had even remodeled it so that he could use a beam weapon when he ran out of ammo or his arm got too tired to move the heavy controls; after all that it was only right to pay back that debt as best as he could.
It had been extremely shocking to look at the limp form in Wing Zero's hands and see the faint, shallow breathing that betrayed the presence of life. The only thing that had surprised him more was when Sally informed him that there was no brain damage. It was almost enough to make him consider believing in a God. Almost. But even though Trowa's mind was intact, they had still lost a pilot. It was true that perhaps the boy would be able to regain that ability, but there was no denying the fact that he had lost his legs, and as such would become a liability too dangerous to leave alive, should he engage in battle. If he ever got captured, there would be no plausible way to escape and find somewhere to hide. The loss was a shame, and it was also a shame that the emerald-eyed boy now had no purpose in life. In the depths of those emotionless orbs, he could see the desperation that was slowly growing there. He was the only one who could pick up on it, would have been the only one even if there had been others around; he and Trowa had always been that way, understanding each other's intentions and thoughts without having to speak.
But Heero refused to pity him. He was incapable of pitying him. Pity was an emotion, and therefore a hindrance, and therefore something that he did his best to eliminate. Besides, pilot 03 would only despise it if he did not get rid of that particular sentiment. It would be seen as an insult, even a betrayal. Keeping that in mind, the Japanese boy was determined act as he always did. They only difference between now and the way things had been before was that Trowa was incapable of piloting, and Heero had to help him with the most menial tasks, against both of their wills.
* * * *
Trowa sat on his bed, lifting weights. Sweating, he went about his task almost frantically. The controls to Heavyarms were much harder to move than these, he knew, and if he allowed himself to slack off, he could never get in its cockpit again. It would be a fate worse than death –dying was something he welcomed; being unable to pilot would be hell. After all, he was already going crazy because of the inaction he faced. For all his life, he'd had an identity, a role to immerse himself in. He'd been Nanashi, he'd been various soldiers throughout the years, and very recently, he'd been Trowa Barton. But now all his masks had been stripped away, torn from his hands, leaving him to look into the mirror in the morning to face only himself. And that scared him more than anything else ever could, because he had no idea who he was, or if he was anyone at all. He tended to think not. He'd stare at the image there, gazing into a single, lifeless eye of jade, the other one covered by a shock of brown hair. Most of his bruises had disappeared a few weeks ago, but he still had one on his cheekbone, and several on his arms. Pale skin was a constant reminder of the ghost he had almost become. What the glass did not show were the scars laid across his back, caused by pieces of his gundam that had cut him during self-destruction. And, of course, his arms had been left weak, nearly useless, which was what he was currently trying to remedy. Exhausted and unable to go any further, he dropped the weights. They rolled to the floor, and unexpected emptiness set in. It was welcome.
Emptiness was welcome because it was neither joy nor pain nor anger nor sorrow nor hope nor despair. It just was. It was silence, and detachment, and barrenness, and protection. No cares, no fears, no desires, no sensation. In emptiness, nothing mattered except for the identity that he had currently taken on, and completing the mission that required that character, and so he was not subject to wayward emotions that managed to escape past the barrier he had built in his mind. And if he did not have an identity at the moment, then it was okay, because the emptiness would embrace him, would continue to do so until and after the next mask came around. When he died, he hoped that emptiness would be waiting to claim him as its own. There would be no 'him,' just a complete loss of self that would not matter, which would be paradoxical in that it would give him a small amount of satisfaction to know that he was nothing and that he did not mind being nothing. Heero understood. Heero also understood that while he lived most of his life in this condition, there were moments of heavily guarded vulnerability, when all his masks fell away and the emptiness receded, and he was left seeing only his own character and what was left of that tattered thing that used to be his own soul, and when anything at all –a touch, a look, a smell, a sound, anything and everything- could hurt him, and usually did.
Well there you go, he told himself. If you ever need proof of your insanity, just tell someone about your little 'emptiness.' Not that you'll ever actually need proof. But that didn't matter because he was empty now. Nothing mattered. Not his arms, not the stumps that were the only remains of his legs, not the fact that Heavyarms was gone, not missions, and not the war.
One thing that he did realize, though, was that if this void was paradoxical in the satisfaction it gave, then it was also paradoxical in the dull ache it gave him inside.
* * * *
A few days had gone by, and by now, OZ had to have noticed their absence. Duo hoped that no one had notified anyone important about it, because it could look suspicious; two boys disappear and the base is destroyed by Gundam pilots shortly after that. A ten year old could follow the logic –Treize and Lady Une would certainly realize it. But had they really been under that much suspicion? Immediately he knew that yes, they had, and it would be foolish to think otherwise. However, it was unrealistic to assume that either Treize or Lady Une would have been notified. It was unrealistic to assume that the information had even circulated across the entire base. Also, did it really matter if their names were known? They had the skills to obtain any names they wanted, and their photos would be destroyed when the base went down.
As always, battle had an intoxicating effect on Duo. Reality receded, and his senses were assaulted from all sides, as he became the God of Death, responsible for sending OZ to the hell it belonged in. His ears pounded from the sounds of explosions and from screams –he could not tell whether they were the shrieks of soldiers dying under his beam scythe, or if they were his own- as his violet eyes sought out enemy after enemy. He squinted from the light of explosions as they tore through mobile suits and mobile dolls to get at the base and destroy it, plowing through scraps of metal that used to be weapons with people in them in his quest. Deathscythe's cockpit grew hot, and he was sweating, but it did not matter. This was where he belonged, not infiltrating. And so, while he sent person after person to their deaths, he felt his spirit lift, partly from the adrenaline rush and partly from the knowledge that he was in battle again. Things were getting back to normal.
Wufei fought this encounter methodically as he broke through a line of mobile suits to rip a gaping hole in the side of the base. While his mind was everywhere at once, thinking about a million things, his reflexes responded to only one train of thought: "See enemy. Kill enemy. See base. Destroy base." The metal surface of the building heated under the feet of his mobile suit as explosions racked the place while he killed anyone he saw, intent on destroying it and the Gundanium Alloy it was hiding. OZ could not be allowed to use such strong material for their weapons, or the war would inevitably be lost; he could be one of five pilots (he refused to accept Trowa's death even now) fighting against OZ and have a chance at winning while their weapons were exclusive. He could not be one of five pilots fighting against an OZ that possessed an army of Gundams and still expect to be victorious. What he was doing right now was important. And as he fought, he could not deny the sense of rightness that filled him; infiltration was acceptable enough, but open combat was much, much better.
