Disclaimer: Don't own. No money made here.
Warning: Contains violence, swearing, and yaoi.
Chapter 13Quatre stared at her, shock blooming painfully through his heart like a thorny vine. Lady Une really did look different, and it wasn't just her physical appearance. He looked into her face and saw someone else looking back at him through her eyes. Someone merciless.
"My beautiful Colonel, how good of you to join us," Orth said. He reached over and pulled her hand to his lips.
Une did not look charmed by his actions; in fact she looked disdainful, like she was looking at a particularly revolting spider. Useful for keeping the fly population down, but not something you'd want close to you. She pulled away as soon as was polite to do so.
"Orth," she greeted coldly. There was a world of scorn conveyed in that one world. He had no military title. He was a civilian. It was clear to Quatre that she looked down on him for that.
"Lady Une?!" Came Duo's astonished voice. "Why are you doing your hair like the Swiss Miss Lady?"
Une glared at the wounded boy. "Why didn't you shoot to kill, Orth? It's the only way to get that one to shut up."
The blonde thought it prudent to interrupt before the man could answer. "Why Lady Une? Why would you betray the peace that so many died for? The peace that Trieze Kushrenada sacrificed himself for?"
The woman had her gun out and pointed at Quatre in seconds. "Don't you dare say his name in conjunction with peace! How can we live without battle? People are only really alive when they have a chance at death, in peace they atrophy, their instincts for survival shriveling like their muscles. I'm only living when I continue to follow the great General's ideals. His were the ideals of war, where only the strong survive!"
Quatre could almost hear the click as the pieces fell into place in his head. I'm only living when I continue to follow the great Generals ideals. Trowa told me about this! It's Une's other personality, the one that's a soldier to her core!
The blonde looked at Orth. "What did you do to her?" He asked softly.
Everett smirked. "It's a funny thing, really. My greatest and most useful ally came from an accident. When Lady Une found out that W.E. was going to be financing the Preventers she got suspicious. She caused a great deal of trouble for me with her superiors, she almost had them convinced to not except my donations. So I had my men bring her here so that we could have a little 'chat'. She was terribly obstinate about the whole thing, and so I had her injected with the Red Formula. After all, there was no reason to waste a good bullet when we were in need of test subjects anyway."
He smiled slightly, ruefully. "But on her the drug had some unforeseen affects. It seems that to someone with Une's, oh how do I say this delicately, um . . . mental history, the Red Formula has different consequences. Instead of upping aggression levels and sending her into a killing rage, it drew out her dormant, dangerous, personality. It split her aggressive side from her weak compassionate side. She swings from one personality to the other, and the Une that's the Lady is completely unaware of what the Colonel does in her absence."
"And soon we will find a way to rid me of the Lady completely," Une reminded him forcefully.
"Yes of course," Orth said. "We will have to do more experiments on others who have had multiple personality disorder. It could vary a great deal from patient to patient because the mind is such a complex tool. Maybe some would be affected differently. It will be fascinating to find out."
"Yes, yes," Une didn't appear to have too much patience with Orth's psychological interests. She again held her gun pointed at Quatre as she spoke to her partner. "Enough of this. I realize that you're enjoying rubbing your accomplishments into young Master Winner's face, but if there's one thing I've learned, you don't leave Gundam pilots alive. They have a tendency to win against impossible odds. This is too important for me to take that risk."
"Watch closely 02," she called to Duo, "your friend is about to die."
The blonde glimpsed movement from behind her, from the glass covered observation room.
She took a step forward, and started to pull the trigger.
But the next bullet to be fired did not come from Une's weapon. It came from Heero Yuy, who shot the gun out of her hand. There was a brief moment of stillness, as everyone watched the blasted weapon spin to the floor.
Then chaos erupted.
Heero had come to help him, and he had brought Red Thorn along. Quatre processed what had happened in about three-fifths of a second. Then he dove forward and slammed into Orth. They went down hard, in a tangle of pummeling limbs as the blonde took out his rage on the man. Bullets rained down from above, onto the lab security guards. Mia leaped down, and with Heero laying cover fire, grabbed Carly and pulled the girl out of range of stray projectiles. Duo rolled toward the wall, bullet wound and all, and retrieved his own weapon, joining the firefight.
Quatre slammed his sister's fiancé's head into the floor. The man went limp. Before he could finish him off, Colonel Une tackled him. They went skidding across the floor, and the blonde was hard pressed to fight her off. Nearly every blow the woman tried to land on him was meant to be lethal, some he even recognized as having been taught to her by Trowa or Wufei. She also seemed to have the same pain tolerance that the other subjects of the Red Formula experiment had possessed, making it difficult to take her out of the fight with out killing her. And Quatre was damned if he was going to do that.
If the drug had affected her differently, than there was a chance she could be saved.
"Lady Une! Listen to me! You have to fight this!" He caught her hands before they could close around his throat. "You have a responsibility to protect peace! You're a Preventer!" There had to be something that would trigger the change from one personality to another. Trowa had said that the simplest phrases had sometimes made her switch during the war. Talking about Trieze hadn't helped, but . . . "Une! You have a responsibility to make the world a better place for Trieze's daughter. You have to be a mother to Marameia!"
She went limp suddenly, and then lifted her head to look at him. "Marameia." She blinked and looked down at him. "Quatre? What's going on? How did I get here?" She looked up, puzzled, to see the terrorists mopping up the rest of the guards. Her eyes widened. "That's Red Thorn!"
And then the shit really hit the fan.
"Freeze!" An unknown voice barked out. "This is the Preventers! Lay down your weapons and no one will be harmed!" Quatre looked up to see a large contingency of uniformed agents spreading out. Included in their number were Sally, Trowa, and Wufei.
"It's the corporations puppet's!" Someone from Red Thorn screamed out, Quatre thought it was Byers. "We can't let them take us!" Shots were suddenly fired from both sides. The blonde cursed and pulled Une with him under a table.
"Stop firing! Preventers, stop firing now!" Sally screamed. Heero and Mia were making similar demands on Red Thorn.
Quatre peaked out from under the table as the stream of bullets began to taper off. He happened to glance toward one of the north doors.
In all the confusion Everett Orth was escaping.
"Like hell!" The blonde hissed, and launched himself after the bastard, bruises and lacerations ignored.
"Quatre!" He heard Heero yell after him as he cleared the doorway.
But he wasn't going to stop. Orth was not getting away.
The man was fast, the blonde had to give him that, and sure-footed too. Quatre slipped and nearly fell in a pool of blood decorating the floor, but he managed to catch himself just in time, losing precious seconds. Orth was almost to the elevator, and Quatre smiled grimly. He reached into his pocket and pressed the detonator to the bomb he had planted inside the wiring, diving to the floor at the same moment.
The elevator doors exploded outwards, catching the fleeing man and knocking him to the floor. Shards of debris speckled the hallway. The ex-pilot jumped to his feet and headed to Orth before the noise from the bomb had finished ringing in his ears. That proved to be a mistake.
Another of Orth's security guards jumped him and sent him to the floor again. Quatre hadn't heard him come up. They tussled, and then finally the blonde managed to pinch a bundle of nerves in the man's neck that made him go limp. He made a move to get up but something hard suddenly hit him in the back of the head.
Quatre blinked fuzzily, coming to after only about ten seconds of unconsciousness. Orth was holding him, his hand pulling Quatre's left sleeve up and away from the skin of his arm.
He still had the dose of Red Formula from the lab.
He plunged the needle through the skin.
Notes: Okay short chapter I know, but I wanted to end it there. What can I say, I like cliffhangers. (GreenLady runs to hide under desk from outraged readers).
There was a clue to Une being the unknowing traitor in chapter ten. It was kind of a blink-and-you-miss-it-deal. Anybody know what it was? (You'll probably come up with better clues then the one I actually put in there. Maybe I'll be able to sound smarter than I actually am).
Kasra, thanks! For the life of me I couldn't remember what Une's rank was in Oz, and then you were kind enough to hand me the answer. Thanks to all of you that praised my action scenes, especially my "action-critic." I love you guys!
Two chapters to go!