Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, and other people who aren't me. I make no money off of this little endeavor.
Warnings: Same as usual: yaoi, violence, and sexual situations. If you don't like it or are too young (physically or mentally) please, don't read it!
Chapter 5"Which way?"
Quatre paused and consulted the blank screen of the communicator secured to his wrist. It only took a few seconds for a picture to form. "Right," the blonde said briskly, suiting actions to words and leading the way into the new corridor. Wufei followed with a great deal more caution, dark eyes peeled for traps.
They had been doing this for nearly ten minutes, each aware with the delay that time was running out for Duo. The cameras bolted to the walls tracked their progress, and every time they reached a fork in the path, Quatre would look at the now much less gory communicator and wait for their mysterious enemy to give directions. Consequently, the two ex-pilots found themselves heading deeper and deeper into the core of the Emerald Sphere Resort, a place where no one but maintenance workers dared to tread. The guests were kept on the earth-like surface, but if any were to ever wander down where Wufei and Quatre walked, they would see a very different place. Here the trappings of nature had been ruthlessly kept away. The underground of the resort was a maze of long metal corridors; bisecting each other frequently and creating a man made skeleton. It was creepy and sterile-feeling, reminding Quatre unpleasantly of the labs underneath the now dead Everett Orth's house.
At the next pause for directions Wufei took point. Quatre glared at his back but said nothing, deciding it wasn't worth getting in a fight over. At least not quite yet. Instead the blonde fixed his eyes on the dark knife hilt poking out of the top of Wufei's white shirt. Heero and Trowa had fit them with what weaponry they had before leaving. For a group supposedly on vacation, (and one who had gone through airport security) there had been quite a bit. Heero's gun and Wufei's daggers weren't much of a surprise; those two would go armed to their own funerals.
But Trowa's collection of low-grade explosives had been something of a shock.
When questioned, the tall boy had muttered something about Duo and toilet seats, and then brilliantly changed the subject by asking Quatre why he had a knife made out of gundanium when he was yelling at them for bringing weapons on vacation.
Not wanting to explain about sentimental value and Sandrock, the blonde had let the subject drop.
They rounded a corner, and Wufei's shoulders suddenly tensed. Quatre looked up ahead to see what had caught his attention.
They appeared to have reached a dead end. A seamless metal wall blocked any further progress. "Now what?" Wufei muttered irritably. He turned and glared directly into the surveillance camera secured in the top corner and raised his voice, addressing whoever was watching. "Is this supposed to be funny?"
Nothing happened for several tense moments. Then, with a soft noise, the supposedly seamless wall slid to the side. Quatre looked at the newly revealed room with raised eyebrows. "Excellent craftsmanship," he murmured softly, regarding the sliding mechanical door appreciatively.
Wufei snorted. "A well-built maze makes an even better trap for unwary rats."
Ignoring him, Quatre brushed past Wufei into the exposed room. It was obviously a control room of some sort; button embedded panels lined the walls, and a foot-long patch of wires burst weed-like from one of them. The blonde regarded the wires with a practiced eye; chances were good that they were connected to the Resort's main computer system.
On the far side of this new room, another door whirred open. The message was clear; the gundam pilots were to head through it into a new passageway. Quatre glanced back at Wufei, lifting his head slightly to the camera above them. Then, without another glance for his teammate, the blonde stepped forward for the new door.
A hand shot out, gripping Quatre's forearm harshly. "What do you think you're doing?"
"What does it look like?" The blonde said, voice dripping with irritation.
"It could be a trap."
"We have to take that chance. Duo only has a little over 2 hours left."
"You're not going through that door first," Wufei said coldly, releasing the grip on his arm and starting to move past Quatre.
The blonde replaced the Chinese boy's hold with one of his own. "Why the hell not?"
Wufei looked down coldly at the pale hand on his arm. "Don't be stupid."
Bluish-green eyes narrowed. "Stupid? I can take care of myself, Wufei. Against you, or anyone else."
For a second there was silence from the other boy. Then, a sudden blur of motion and Quatre found his grip broken as Wufei sent him skidding across the floor on his butt, only stopping when his back collided with the patch of computer wires and the more solid wall behind them. He let out a soft grunt of surprise at the impact.
There was a pause, and then Quatre's hands moved, untangling him from the wires and looking up from the floor to glare at Wufei, who was now looming over him. "Don't push me Quatre. You can't win."
Their gazes locked. Real angry simmered in the depths of the blonde's aquamarine eyes, and a brief look of uncertainty crossed the Chinese pilot's features before they stilled back into stolid disapproval. Quatre ducked his head, and when he glanced up again his expression was completely different. His eyes were too wide, and they flinched back slightly from Wufei's glare, avoiding contact.
He looked thoroughly cowed.
Wufei continued to stare down at him, and then he held out his hand. "Come on, we can't waste time."
The blonde ignored the proffered help, instead pushing his arms back into the wires, using the wall behind them to lever himself up. Getting to his feet, he gestured toward the door for the Chinese boy to precede him, still not making eye contact.
Wufei stared at him, resisting the urge to glance up at the camera. Finally he headed through the door, arms loosely held at his sides in preparation for whatever might jump out at them. Nothing happened, and they continued along their directed path.
Soon, they came to a long, suspended steel bridge. Both boys studied it carefully. It was thin, the criss-crossed metal only about two feet wide. A flimsy appearing railing adorned the sides, the only thing between the crosser and the dark abysses that plunged down sharply to either side. Wufei turned and looked at Quatre. "I'll go across first," he said curtly.
The blonde turned to him sharply. "What if it isn't stable?"
"I'll find out. It might not hold the weight of two," Wufei said coolly, moving forward to step onto the bridge. Quatre's hand twitched at his side, an unconscious reaction as he fought the urge to grab the other boy's arm and physically keep him from continuing. Aware of their unseen watcher, he successfully managed to remain still.
Wufei's foot tested the edge of the bridge, then, after it held, he cautiously shifted his other foot onto it and began to walk across. He moved slowly and carefully, ears peeled for the slightest warning creak that the construct wasn't up to holding the weight of one slight young man. So far everything seemed fine, and Quatre began to relax, eyes briefly leaving the figure on the bridge to scan their surroundings for trouble.
Then he felt it. Someone was darkly, wickedly, amused. The blonde's gaze snapped back to the bridge and Wufei, who had made it to the center. He knew something was about to happen, and opened his mouth to scream a warning.
Too little, much too late.
There was a loud squealing noise, and the bridge just sort of parted, swinging to the side with a whir of gears, and causing Wufei to grab onto the flimsy banisters for dear life. Quatre could only watch in horror as the bridge, doing a complete one-eighty, crashed into the entrance at the other side. Wufei lost his grip on the railing and was sent sailing through the air to impact with the wall of the new corridor. He slid limply to the floor.
"Wufei!" Quatre screamed, sparing a minute to thank Allah that he hadn't fallen down into the pit. But as it was, he was lying awfully still on the other side . . .
A loud groan drifted across the expanse that separated them, and Quatre nearly sagged in relief to see his teammate lever himself off the floor. "Are you okay?" The blonde shouted across the gulf.
Wufei got to his feet slowly, favoring his right arm. "I'll be fine," he said quietly, then repeated it a little louder so that Quatre could hear him. He wobbled over to his half of the broken bridge and looked down at it. "Someone did that on purpose. No way would the bridge have fallen like this if it had collapsed naturally. I would have been at the bottom of that pit right now."
Quatre resisted the urge to shout "no duh!" Instead he just nodded. "Now where are we supposed to go?"
An answer was provided. Quatre started in alarm as he heard a noise behind him. Another door that had supposedly been nothing but a wall had swooshed open. The blonde studied it for a second, than glanced over at Wufei.
Who was glaring at him.
"Don't even think about it Quatre. If you give me some time, I should be able to get back across, or maybe find another way over to you."
Quatre shook his head. "We don't have any excess time Wufei. I'm going."
"No you are not!"
Blonde eyebrows rose. "What are you going to do stop me? You're all the way over there."
Wufei swore, and Quatre smiled. "Hurry up and get across Wufei. I'll see you when you catch up." He turned and headed through the new door, ignoring the curses that followed after him.
Elsewhere, a shadowy figure stared thoughtfully at a monitor. Delicately pressing several buttons, he followed the progress of the solitary blonde on the screen. Thin lips curved into a slight, amused smile as the watcher turned his attention to another monitor, where an irritated Chinese boy shouted obscenities across a bridgeless pit. He stared thoughtfully for a second, and then fingers danced over keys quickly, opening doors on Wufei's side of the complex, laying out the angry boy's path. Once he calmed down, the boy would find that he only had one direction to go.
The watcher's small smirk grew as it turned to a third monitor. Here, a young man with a long chestnut braid splashed through waist-high water. He reached one of the walls, and began running his hands over it desperately. It was useless; he had already been over that side four times, but apparently it wasn't in this one's nature to give up gracefully. The man drummed his fingers against his chair, humming softly under his breath.
Things were falling into place nicely.
Right again. Lifting his eyes from the transmitter, Quatre turned and faced the seemingly solid wall. But by now the blonde was accustomed to the changeable face of the maze (a maze with Duo as the cheese), and so he merely waited patiently, eyebrows raised in clear expectation at the camera. Soon, the metal-gray wall parted into a doorway.
But this time, Quatre hesitated. He raised the gun in his right hand to cover the doorway, while his left rose up absently to rub at his chest. His empathy was picking up things from the enemy again. He could sense the disturbing emotion of anticipatory glee associated with this new room.
Quatre moved forward cautiously, stopping in the door. That way, if it tried to close on him, he could either jump back or ahead. He scanned the suspiciously featureless room carefully, than turned his head so that he could study the door mechanism. Frowning thoughtfully, and not satisfied with a visual inspection, the blonde ran his hands along the frame. His eyes widened in sudden understanding. So that's it.
No longer hesitating, Quatre calmly walked forward, his footsteps echoing ominously. He wasn't surprised when he heard the door slam tightly behind him. But, aware of being watched, he whirled around as if startled. There wasn't another exit; the blonde was trapped. He knew he was taking a risk, but if he was right . . .
The room was eerily calm, but Quatre wasn't fooled. The hateful presence in the back of his mind was still eagerly anticipating something.
A slight sound, and the blonde's head turned, staring without surprise at the tiny holes that had appeared in the wall. A cloudy white gas leaked out with a slight hissing noise.
Quatre staggered, falling to his knees as he got a whiff of the gas, the gun clattering from his suddenly nerveless fingers. His head spun dizzyingly, and a voice in his head, one that sounded strangely similar to a certain Chinese pilot he knew, swore angrily and called him a fool. Sorry Wufei, he thought, just before blacking out, calculated risk.
Notes: And now for some massive feedback response. Skip it if you'd like, it's just another chance for me to run off at the mouth.
Diane: "Big Bad," huh? Clearly I'm not the only one who watches Buffy. And have I told you lately how much I adore your reviews?
Mookie: I love Quatre and Duo's relationship too. I've recently developed quite a thing for them together, even if it's not "together," together.
AngeloftheDesert: *Blinks* Horrible Frying Pan of Unspeakable Doom? Well, um, I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Laurel-Crowned: How are they going to find Duo? *Whistles innocently and walks away*
Mistal: Dark Angel of the Abyss: Thanks, I really appreciate the offer, but doubt I'll be needing any actual French. I'm glad you're enjoying this.
CJ: Faulty stuff, huh? Is this frustration enough for ya?
Fabi-chan: I didn't stop writing, see? And the next chapter won't take as long to get out, Boy Scout's honor. (Don't ask).
KNW: Glad you think it works.
