Author's Note: I don't own Gundam Wing, if you happened to miss all my
other disclaimers.
~ Skeletons in the Closet ~
Part 12
By Zero's Wings
Taskforce Jormungand
Four of the Gundam pilots, auspiciously lacking the commanding presence of Heero Yuy, were being slowly surrounded by nightmarish enemies. A stern male voice crackled in over the group's loudspeakers. "Taskforce Jormungand has surrounded the target."
Quatre noticed now that their hulls did not shine like the slick, ebon wings of a scarab. That was what he had seen, beetle-like and seemingly imbued with mystical strength and cunning. But these suits were different, and he may not have recognized them, except for their lashing appendages. These suits were painted the frosted white color of an eggshell. They appeared seamless and just-formed, almost innocent before they would embrace you with their brutal tendrils.
Quatre decided to take command in the absence of Heero. He had gained respect and self-confidence as the leader of the Gundam troops, but that was before he had Trowa to rely on. Now, with wavering motivation and distracting emotional attachments, his leadership was left unfocused and unsure. It didn't help that Heero had removed the ZERØ system from Sandrock almost two years ago.
"Listen up," Quatre said with as much authority as he could muster. "The suits haven't advanced enough for close range combat, so we still have a chance. We'll need a suppressing fire with your strongest long-range weapons. Before they can react, we'll combine our plasma thrust and launch ourselves out of the fray." He sat nervously, waiting for a response. "Does that sound good?" he asked, unsure, still waiting for approval.
"Sounds great to me, Quat!" Trowa's soothing voice relaxed him considerably.
"No problems." Wufei's bland confirmation was more than enough.
"Yeah! Lets bust a few rounds in these muthas!" Duo's cheer gave Quatre a giddy, cocky attitude that almost convinced him that they could pull it off. Almost.
"Let's do it!" Quatre yelled.
*****
Heero drifted through the clouds on a pair of metal wings. He felt the sun embracing him from far above, blessing him with golden warmth. He was free; ZERØ had liberated his soul. Relena's voice was so distant to him now; her cries to accept her love and compassion were muted and remote. He was becoming less human, but it felt so good, it felt so right.
Heero was genuinely excited by the approaching conflict. Life and death were things that he distributed equally, and one did not take priority over the other. He honestly wouldn't have minded dying at that very moment, even though he had assured himself that was no god, and no life after death.
Far below, as remote as Relena's plea, were the sounds of a battle. A losing battle. His friends were dying, but somehow he didn't mind. Zero told him that he had no enemies, so there was nothing to become excited about. Heero embraced the light that filled his cockpit, thanking the sun for its warmth. However, what he thought to be the light of the sun was actually the golden aura of the ZERØ system.
Heero was at peace, but it was not meant to be.
*****
Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and Wufei huddled together in their Taurus suits, their rifles blazing. Star-shaped muzzle flashes burst from each gun. Tons of spent shell casings spewed from the rifles and rained down upon the decrepit landscape. The white beetle suits advanced and were cut to pieces, bits of arms and legs flying through the air. White-yellow sparks sprayed from armless sockets like blood. The frenzied chatter of the rifles was punctuated by the occasional explosion. Buildings crumbled, rocks exploded in the white heat, and a few abandoned cars were swept up into a balletic tornado of debris.
For Quatre and the others, the situation was growing desperate. For every one of the demonic suits that they were able to take down, five more came from behind to take its place. They were never given an opening, and the enemy suits had closed the distance for a close range melee. The Taurus suits were quickly torn up and mangled by whirring saw blades and lashing chains. The structural integrity of each suit was being threatened.
"Let's get the hell out of here!" Duo yelled. One of the monstrous suits had actually gotten up on its back and was tearing into his main engine.
"Agreed!" Trowa yelled. "Everyone fire your main thrusters on the count of three!" Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and Wufei all dropped their rifles and engaged their rear jets, counting down together.
".3." The enemy suits took advantage of their lowered defenses, impaling the Tauruses with needle-like bores and attempting to drill straight into their cockpits.
".2." The whirring drills reverberated in each of the pilot's ears. They could hear the armor of their suits cracking.
".1." The drills broke through. A bulkhead to Quatre's left disappeared, and shrapnel missed his forehead by inches. Wufei's main viewer blew apart, and a rush of sharp glass cascaded over his face. One crooked shard slipped into the white flesh on the underside of his right eye. He would never see through that eye again.
"Go!" Trowa and Quatre screamed, releasing and igniting their plasma fuel. Duo ignited his an instant later, and Wufei's ignited an instant after that.
The beetle-like suits of Taskforce Jormungand had advanced too quickly, and had not considered a defensive position. More than half of them were vaporized instantly as they met a tidal wave of superheated plasma. The rest were simply knocked back by the shock wave, and their appendages melted away in the heat wave. They hit the ground as nothing more than the dismembered torsos of mobile suits. The pilots inside had been cooked by the hot metal armor that was supposed to have protected them.
The Tauruses managed to drift along for about a quarter mile before it became apparent that there engines had been irreparably damaged. Duo's engine had been particularly chewed up, and he was the first to start to lose altitude.
"Duo, eject!" Quatre yelled, as he saw dense plumes of black smoke trailing behind the suit. In the next instant, Duo's Taurus collided with the glass face of an office building, causing thousands of window panes to explode into glistening fragments. The building shot by the other Tauruses, and Quatre caught only a brief glimpse in his rearview mirror of Duo's mangled suit stuck in the side of the building. In the next moment, he realized how close he had drifted toward the speeding turf. He quickly hit his air brakes and tried to pull up in vain, but it was too late. One of his wing- tipped shoulder blades caught a light post in a vacant parking lot, and he crashed along the ground, his Taurus spinning and dragging itself end over end in a boneless pile.
Trowa felt a dull buzzing somewhere behind his eyes, and assumed he had died in his collision with a series of trailers. Slowly though, he was able to differentiate between light and dark. He felt shadows pass over him erratically, flashing dark, light, dark, light, like the beating copper wings of a dragonfly against a night sky. Eventually, his vision returned completely. Trowa was lying on the floor of his cockpit. His main viewer had shattered and the armor had been stripped away, exposing him to the open air. The dancing shadow he had seen was a wispy brown cloud of dust twisting in the sunlight. He struggled out of the cramped mobile suit and dropped to the ground.
Trowa stood up in the massive trench that his suit had dug through the pavement. His piloting chair had been thrown from the cockpit, and was lying on the ground in several crumpled pieces. He sighed slowly; doubting anyone else survived their crash. Am I alone again? he wondered.
Trowa walked past abandoned buildings and mountains of rubble, feeling very small outside his mobile suit. The place was silent, even the call of vultures or the buzzing of insects was absent. This place must've been a testing ground for those suits, Trowa thought. There's absolutely no sign of life anywhere. He shuddered as he thought of those great mechanical insects tearing a crowded city down to dust.
Trowa trudged on, clumsy from fatigue, for an indiscernible length of time. He passed more ruined buildings, more debris, and so on. The dilapidation of his surroundings was becoming monotonous. Just as Trowa was considering falling down and lying there until he joined his friends, he was blinded by a glaring metal surface. To his joy, it was the sun, reflecting off the armor of another Taurus suit. As he came closer, shielding his eyes from the intense rays, his smile faded and his face fell. It was only the arm of a former mobile suit. The Taurus's arm had been savagely ripped off at the elbow joint. Thick black wires and circuitry trailed out behind it, drooling sparks. Trowa felt like screaming in frustration, but he opened his mouth and no sound came.
It was a lucky thing that Trowa did not choose that moment to scream out loud, because he would've missed the faintest sound of someone coughing up dust beneath a rubble pile. Trowa heard it and rushed for the nearest pile of wreckage. He rabidly pulled away hunks of metal and chucked them behind him blindly. All that mattered was the person underneath, the world could be ending behind him and he wouldn't have looked away from the pile for an instant. Please let it be Quatre, he pleaded. Please let him be alive.
Trowa got to the bottom of the pile and there was Duo staring at him, his violet eyes as big as saucers. Trowa's lean, frenzied expression was quickly covered, replaced by his usual expression.
"I can always count on you for a warm welcome, Tro." Duo smirked then feebly lifted a hand so Trowa could pull him out of the ruined heap.
"A welcome from what?" Trowa asked, his voice flat and unwavering.
"Back from the dead, I guess." Duo eyed the hacked-off metal appendage on the ground. He turned back and cam face-to-face with a completely different Trowa, and intensely emotional person who was obviously in considerable pain. "What's wrong he said, bringing Trowa's chin up with a gloved hand.
"Sorry," Trowa said, his lower lip quivering. "I.I was kinda hoping you were Quatre," he confessed. His voice was unlike anything that Duo had heard escape those cold lips.
"Trowa," he said in a rare serious moment, "It's cool. I understand."
Trowa and Duo walked on, bracing each other periodically to keep from heat exhaustion. As the sky started to turn a pastel orange, Trowa stopped in his tracks. He raised his head up and delicately sniffed the air. "There's something burning."
"Probably just some old tires," Duo said wearily.
"No, it's more like a chemical smell. Probably a flare."
"Holy shit, that could be the others!" Duo exclaimed.
Trowa nodded. "Let's go."
End part 12
Taskforce Jormungand
Four of the Gundam pilots, auspiciously lacking the commanding presence of Heero Yuy, were being slowly surrounded by nightmarish enemies. A stern male voice crackled in over the group's loudspeakers. "Taskforce Jormungand has surrounded the target."
Quatre noticed now that their hulls did not shine like the slick, ebon wings of a scarab. That was what he had seen, beetle-like and seemingly imbued with mystical strength and cunning. But these suits were different, and he may not have recognized them, except for their lashing appendages. These suits were painted the frosted white color of an eggshell. They appeared seamless and just-formed, almost innocent before they would embrace you with their brutal tendrils.
Quatre decided to take command in the absence of Heero. He had gained respect and self-confidence as the leader of the Gundam troops, but that was before he had Trowa to rely on. Now, with wavering motivation and distracting emotional attachments, his leadership was left unfocused and unsure. It didn't help that Heero had removed the ZERØ system from Sandrock almost two years ago.
"Listen up," Quatre said with as much authority as he could muster. "The suits haven't advanced enough for close range combat, so we still have a chance. We'll need a suppressing fire with your strongest long-range weapons. Before they can react, we'll combine our plasma thrust and launch ourselves out of the fray." He sat nervously, waiting for a response. "Does that sound good?" he asked, unsure, still waiting for approval.
"Sounds great to me, Quat!" Trowa's soothing voice relaxed him considerably.
"No problems." Wufei's bland confirmation was more than enough.
"Yeah! Lets bust a few rounds in these muthas!" Duo's cheer gave Quatre a giddy, cocky attitude that almost convinced him that they could pull it off. Almost.
"Let's do it!" Quatre yelled.
*****
Heero drifted through the clouds on a pair of metal wings. He felt the sun embracing him from far above, blessing him with golden warmth. He was free; ZERØ had liberated his soul. Relena's voice was so distant to him now; her cries to accept her love and compassion were muted and remote. He was becoming less human, but it felt so good, it felt so right.
Heero was genuinely excited by the approaching conflict. Life and death were things that he distributed equally, and one did not take priority over the other. He honestly wouldn't have minded dying at that very moment, even though he had assured himself that was no god, and no life after death.
Far below, as remote as Relena's plea, were the sounds of a battle. A losing battle. His friends were dying, but somehow he didn't mind. Zero told him that he had no enemies, so there was nothing to become excited about. Heero embraced the light that filled his cockpit, thanking the sun for its warmth. However, what he thought to be the light of the sun was actually the golden aura of the ZERØ system.
Heero was at peace, but it was not meant to be.
*****
Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and Wufei huddled together in their Taurus suits, their rifles blazing. Star-shaped muzzle flashes burst from each gun. Tons of spent shell casings spewed from the rifles and rained down upon the decrepit landscape. The white beetle suits advanced and were cut to pieces, bits of arms and legs flying through the air. White-yellow sparks sprayed from armless sockets like blood. The frenzied chatter of the rifles was punctuated by the occasional explosion. Buildings crumbled, rocks exploded in the white heat, and a few abandoned cars were swept up into a balletic tornado of debris.
For Quatre and the others, the situation was growing desperate. For every one of the demonic suits that they were able to take down, five more came from behind to take its place. They were never given an opening, and the enemy suits had closed the distance for a close range melee. The Taurus suits were quickly torn up and mangled by whirring saw blades and lashing chains. The structural integrity of each suit was being threatened.
"Let's get the hell out of here!" Duo yelled. One of the monstrous suits had actually gotten up on its back and was tearing into his main engine.
"Agreed!" Trowa yelled. "Everyone fire your main thrusters on the count of three!" Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and Wufei all dropped their rifles and engaged their rear jets, counting down together.
".3." The enemy suits took advantage of their lowered defenses, impaling the Tauruses with needle-like bores and attempting to drill straight into their cockpits.
".2." The whirring drills reverberated in each of the pilot's ears. They could hear the armor of their suits cracking.
".1." The drills broke through. A bulkhead to Quatre's left disappeared, and shrapnel missed his forehead by inches. Wufei's main viewer blew apart, and a rush of sharp glass cascaded over his face. One crooked shard slipped into the white flesh on the underside of his right eye. He would never see through that eye again.
"Go!" Trowa and Quatre screamed, releasing and igniting their plasma fuel. Duo ignited his an instant later, and Wufei's ignited an instant after that.
The beetle-like suits of Taskforce Jormungand had advanced too quickly, and had not considered a defensive position. More than half of them were vaporized instantly as they met a tidal wave of superheated plasma. The rest were simply knocked back by the shock wave, and their appendages melted away in the heat wave. They hit the ground as nothing more than the dismembered torsos of mobile suits. The pilots inside had been cooked by the hot metal armor that was supposed to have protected them.
The Tauruses managed to drift along for about a quarter mile before it became apparent that there engines had been irreparably damaged. Duo's engine had been particularly chewed up, and he was the first to start to lose altitude.
"Duo, eject!" Quatre yelled, as he saw dense plumes of black smoke trailing behind the suit. In the next instant, Duo's Taurus collided with the glass face of an office building, causing thousands of window panes to explode into glistening fragments. The building shot by the other Tauruses, and Quatre caught only a brief glimpse in his rearview mirror of Duo's mangled suit stuck in the side of the building. In the next moment, he realized how close he had drifted toward the speeding turf. He quickly hit his air brakes and tried to pull up in vain, but it was too late. One of his wing- tipped shoulder blades caught a light post in a vacant parking lot, and he crashed along the ground, his Taurus spinning and dragging itself end over end in a boneless pile.
Trowa felt a dull buzzing somewhere behind his eyes, and assumed he had died in his collision with a series of trailers. Slowly though, he was able to differentiate between light and dark. He felt shadows pass over him erratically, flashing dark, light, dark, light, like the beating copper wings of a dragonfly against a night sky. Eventually, his vision returned completely. Trowa was lying on the floor of his cockpit. His main viewer had shattered and the armor had been stripped away, exposing him to the open air. The dancing shadow he had seen was a wispy brown cloud of dust twisting in the sunlight. He struggled out of the cramped mobile suit and dropped to the ground.
Trowa stood up in the massive trench that his suit had dug through the pavement. His piloting chair had been thrown from the cockpit, and was lying on the ground in several crumpled pieces. He sighed slowly; doubting anyone else survived their crash. Am I alone again? he wondered.
Trowa walked past abandoned buildings and mountains of rubble, feeling very small outside his mobile suit. The place was silent, even the call of vultures or the buzzing of insects was absent. This place must've been a testing ground for those suits, Trowa thought. There's absolutely no sign of life anywhere. He shuddered as he thought of those great mechanical insects tearing a crowded city down to dust.
Trowa trudged on, clumsy from fatigue, for an indiscernible length of time. He passed more ruined buildings, more debris, and so on. The dilapidation of his surroundings was becoming monotonous. Just as Trowa was considering falling down and lying there until he joined his friends, he was blinded by a glaring metal surface. To his joy, it was the sun, reflecting off the armor of another Taurus suit. As he came closer, shielding his eyes from the intense rays, his smile faded and his face fell. It was only the arm of a former mobile suit. The Taurus's arm had been savagely ripped off at the elbow joint. Thick black wires and circuitry trailed out behind it, drooling sparks. Trowa felt like screaming in frustration, but he opened his mouth and no sound came.
It was a lucky thing that Trowa did not choose that moment to scream out loud, because he would've missed the faintest sound of someone coughing up dust beneath a rubble pile. Trowa heard it and rushed for the nearest pile of wreckage. He rabidly pulled away hunks of metal and chucked them behind him blindly. All that mattered was the person underneath, the world could be ending behind him and he wouldn't have looked away from the pile for an instant. Please let it be Quatre, he pleaded. Please let him be alive.
Trowa got to the bottom of the pile and there was Duo staring at him, his violet eyes as big as saucers. Trowa's lean, frenzied expression was quickly covered, replaced by his usual expression.
"I can always count on you for a warm welcome, Tro." Duo smirked then feebly lifted a hand so Trowa could pull him out of the ruined heap.
"A welcome from what?" Trowa asked, his voice flat and unwavering.
"Back from the dead, I guess." Duo eyed the hacked-off metal appendage on the ground. He turned back and cam face-to-face with a completely different Trowa, and intensely emotional person who was obviously in considerable pain. "What's wrong he said, bringing Trowa's chin up with a gloved hand.
"Sorry," Trowa said, his lower lip quivering. "I.I was kinda hoping you were Quatre," he confessed. His voice was unlike anything that Duo had heard escape those cold lips.
"Trowa," he said in a rare serious moment, "It's cool. I understand."
Trowa and Duo walked on, bracing each other periodically to keep from heat exhaustion. As the sky started to turn a pastel orange, Trowa stopped in his tracks. He raised his head up and delicately sniffed the air. "There's something burning."
"Probably just some old tires," Duo said wearily.
"No, it's more like a chemical smell. Probably a flare."
"Holy shit, that could be the others!" Duo exclaimed.
Trowa nodded. "Let's go."
End part 12