A/N: Here we go again with the apologies and excuses why this is so late. I'm really sorry!! *bows* I was moving, I really was! The computer I usually write fanfics on is also currently out of commission until I find the cord that leads from the monitor to the computer.
Peach: Sorry it's so late. We have no excuses good enough, only our actions can forgive. We're truly, very sorry.
MS: Please enjoy, minna-san!
"Shar! Commander Shar! Where are you? It's me, Duo!" Duo called into the office as he dropped down from the shaft. "We've come to help you!" Heero landed beside Duo and gave a small snort.
"Looks like she was way ahead of you, Duo. Already ditched this place." He smirked as if he knew it all along.
Duo growled. "Don't even say such a thing. Shar's a good person, she wouldn't do something like that." He began to search around the big room, while Heero headed to check outside the room.
"It's locked." He said, surprised.
"What?"
"It's locked." Heero repeated. "They've locked this door. They knew if she could get out, she would help you, so they locked her in here. Their own commander.... The boundaries of their lack of loyalty have never ceased to amaze and disgust me."
"Heero! Heero, I found her!"
***
"The fire's massive!! We need to control it before it grows any larger!" Quatre called out.
"It's spreading to these houses, to all over. We need a plan, and fast!" Wufei called back. The three pilots stared at the growing flames that spread across the town from the Ox base miles away.
"How did it ever get this far so quickly?" Quatre questioned. "The base is far away from this town, there's no way this could happen."
"That's because this fire didn't come from the Oz base." Trowa replied. "Somebody set these two fires separately."
"How do we know this, Barton?" Wufei questioned.
"Look," Trowa pointed to the land between the city and the base. "There is no scorched ground there. This was all planned."
"We'll go suspect hunting after we extinguish this blaze. Wufei, you need to go to the water tower. Be careful not to spill any water, but I want you to rip the holder off and spread the water on the worst parts of the fire."
"There is no way that'll even cover half the city! What'll we do about the rest!?"
"We have that covered, just GO!" Quatre screamed, and no sooner, Wufei had blasted off to the tower.
Trowa looked edgily to the remaining pilot. "....What are you going to—"
Quatre suddenly accelerated off. "Just follow me!" He yelled to his stunned companion behind him. "We're gonna make some rain."
***
Duo partially lifted an unconscious body from the floor of the office desk. "She's passed out; it must be from all this smoke." Heero ran over, and patted her cheek gently. "Shar! Wake up!" Duo shook the still the commander slightly.
"Wha...?" Shar said, stirring. "What...How...You've escaped, Duo. I should have known. And you," She looked at Heero with soft eyes. "You must be the one. You're Heero Yuy." She smiled.
Heero looked dumbfounded at her. "Please do not tell me, Maxwell," He whispered into Duo's ear. "That you gave a detailed analysis of the team, complete with picture and thumbprint identity?"
Duo chuckled lightly. "Capable of making a joke? I would never have thought. No, no, Shar's amazing, she can find out anything." He looked worriedly at her. "Hang on, we can get you out of here, just wait."
Duo began to lift the body, unable to succeed because of his own weakened body. "No, no. You can't take me, Duo, you must leave now while you can. I'd only slow you down anyway, and I...I can't leave this place."
Duo gave a sharp intake of breath. "No, don't talk like that, we'll be fine. We're going to get out of here, and you're coming with us. You hate this place, you hate your job. You can live with us, you can live a good life. Please, don't—"
Shar cut him off. "No, Duo. You know the truth, you know I can't do this. I may hate this place, I may hate this job, but I'm tied here. I can't leave. I've been bound to die as an Oz commander since I was born."
Duo's eyes grew wide and teary. "I'm not leaving without you!!" His tears of grief fell to the floor, the pain and misery subsiding inside them burning determinedly. "Don't talk like this, you know you can always start over. It's never too late to turn over a new leaf, you know that." A giant blast echoed in the hall. Heero nudged Duo to let him know that they were running out of time.
"Get out of here, now!" Shar yelled to them. "This place is a deathtrap! You need to leave now, before it's too late." Duo looked at her, tears welling in his violet eyes. "Duo, it's too late for me, but you still have your whole life ahead of you. You can become the person you want to be. It's too late for me, I have to accept that, and so do you."
Duo hugged her closely. Heero placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder to comfort him. "We need to go, Duo." He said softly.
Duo sobbed into Shar, pleading. "Don't go, please don't leave me. I need you, we all do. Please, please, come on, everything's be okay...!"
A large explosion echoed again, and a flame wall began to circle around the room. "Duo, we need to leave. Now." Heero said sternly, and grasped his shoulder firmly. "Alone."
***
"Dammit!" Quatre shouted, and fired his gun in the air. "I want you to make it rain!" The weather control center employees looked frightened.
"Why are you doing this!?" One of them questioned. "Please don't shoot!"
Quatre's face remained set. Trowa, beside him, pointed his gun towards the employees. "Make it rain, make it now, and make it heavy!"
"Uh, um, sir, we uh," One stumbling employee said cautiously. "We uh, put the i-i-immediate order for th-the rain, sir, it'll be just a-a minute, about, s-sir...." He stooped and shook intensely.
Quatre turned to the man, and lowered his gun slightly. "Good." Quatre turned to Trowa and whispered very quietly. "I'm going to leave and make sure things go alright outside, see if Wufei needs any help. You stay here and make sure they don't stop the rain, or try to pull anything stupid. Does this sound good?"
Trowa gave a smile. "I never knew you could be so commanding. It's...nice."
Quatre raised his soft blue eyes to him, and smiled kindly. He clutched his gun with two hands and made to leave. "I'm going to be back, don't cause any trouble." He said, raising his voice loudly. "My companion here shall stay and supervise you. I don't want to have to give anyone of you hard workers difficulty, so be good little people, and don't do anything."
He dashed out the door while Trowa raised his gun threateningly. "You heard him!"
***
"Leaving can be the hardest part of having a friend, sometimes. Your love for the friendship you share shall always be something treasured in both of your hearts, and even if you are in different worlds, you shall always be together," Heero touched Duo's shirt at his heart, barely using any pressure. "in here."
Duo stared at the ground, crying hard. "Duo," Shar said, raising her arm to his cheek. "I love you, I always will. You have opened up another part of my heart, and given me joy. I will never forget you, even after I'm gone. Now, you must leave me, this is my last request of you. Please go, now." She stared at the ceiling. "I can finally see you again, Helen...." Closing her eyes and smiling, she pulled away from Duo.
Heero bent down and picked up Duo onto his back. "Wait, Heero," Shar said to Heero, touching his arm softly. "Take care of this boy, with love and kindness. He cares very much for you. Get him out of here safely." Duo, who had been too busy stifling his sobs, did not hear.
And with those final words, Heero burst out of the room in a flash. Yes, ma'am....I'll take loving care of him for the rest of our lives. He glanced at the sorrowful Duo, whose head was face down on his shoulder. "You going to be okay, love?"
Duo gasped and looked at Heero. "Wha...??" He smiled, and another sob burst from him. "Yes.... Yes, I'm going to be just fine." He snuggled closer to Heero, his exhaustion taking over his whole body.
Heero knew as warmth inside him flared, that he had finally met his match.
***
"Wufei!" Quatre called. "How's everything going?" He surveyed the mess around him. Fire still spewed from every corner, but the very worst blazing flames had been put out.
"Well, it's hard work out here. You can't just dump this water on the houses because it'd wipe the houses away completely, you can't land the gundam because you'd squish something, and you can't fly too low because the gas jets will scorch anything, causing more fires. You are truly testing my patience here, Winner."
Quatre smiled. "You're such a good person, Wufei, you really are."
"That's great," Wufei grumbled, embarrassed. "How did your mission go? What did you do, anyway? And where's Barton?"
Quatre chuckled. "Well, I must say what I did classified as something that I would never imagine doing myself. I'm still shocked I thought of it." A light rain began to fall, becoming thicker by the second.
Wufei looked to the sky. "You can't have.... Did you bust the weather control?" Just the idea spread a look of utter bewilderment across his face, and he nodded his head slowly.
"Well, Trowa and I went into the control center and requested a heavy rain." Wufei stared at Quatre, disbelieving.
"They don't just change the weather for people who walk nicely in there and "request" some rain!"
"Um, I did have a gun, a-and well, shot it a couple of time. I may have also said some obscene things, but everyone did comply."
Wufei just stared on, mouth hanging slightly open. "You are insane, Winner. I know that you probably threatened to blow some guys head off, while secretly saying your forgiveness prayers under your breath."
Quatre looked ashamed. "Only once, Wufei. And the guy was really tough and everything...."
Wufei snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh god, Winner, I cannot believe...."
"Quatre! Quatre, come in!" A fuzzy voice entered Sandrock, and Quatre recognized it instantly as Trowa's. He linked in Wufei to the call immediately.
"What, Trowa? What's wrong?"
"Everything here is fine, but you need to stop chit chatting, and find those people who started the fire! I have reason to believe they're Oz workers, ones that have been there awhile. I followed their work on the fire and noticed an old technique that began years ago. Destroying the town because of the supposed Oz workplace fire will mean the people in charge will be killed, most likely, for the mistake. That means they aren't high in authority, or else they'd get in trouble themselves.
"Another thing is that they have some goal in mind—they're going to probably try to resurrect a giant Oz base, where they'd be commander. They'll take this damaged city land into their own hands and build the bigger, better base over it. The persons who started the fire will then become in charge of it after some lame lie about how they tried to save it or something. This trick has been attempted before, but the choice of their location was too pitiful. After the land burned, it disrupted the earth so that cracks appeared and destroyed the land completely. No use could even be made of that land, but this one will be okay after the burn.
"Since this trick was played awhile ago and failed, it was too risky to attempt it again so soon. That would mean that the person who did this might have scars from fire damage or something, and that they have been with Oz for awhile. They used to work at a site labeled 'disbanded' now, and they had to be close to the top officers in order to know when the right time to plan these things was. We need to find this person before they can do this again!"
A new voice appeared over their gundam speakers, giving a small laugh. "You have become careless, gundam pilots. It's become easy to catch onto your entire conversation while none of you noticed I hacked into your systems." The three pilots gasped at the new voice. Quatre's eyes grew wide, but turned into glared determination.
"Who is this!?"
Their video screens flashed a moment, and Heero's face came into view. "Don't get sloppy on me."
Quatre sighed heavily and clutched his heart. "Most people say 'hello' when they meet with friends, Heero."
"Hmm, I must admit, we have been too sloppy in our work...." Wufei commented.
"Heero, where's Duo?" Trowa said, trying to bring the group back onto the subject at hand.
"He's here with me, in my gundam. We've just left the Oz base."
Duo's head appeared next to Heero's, brushing the pilot's hair lightly with his arm as he pressed foreword. "Hey guys, long time no see." The other pilots smiled at him appreciatively. "Listen here, I think I know the guy you want. He was the commander's gopher, did everything she wanted. Nasty little man, he was. He's been there for ages upon ages, and he has a crooked leg, so he can't run fast. He's been through the mill, that one."
"Um, Duo," Quatre said timidly. "Although you may know what he looks like, and you did give us quite a description, we still have no clue where to find him."
Duo gave a wicked smirk. "Oh, you leave that to me, boys." He turned off the communicator. "Heero, get up. I need to pilot wing."
Heero scoffed. "I don't think so. Wing is way different from Deathsythe, and either way, you're too tired to do much of anything right now. If you need to, you can just point the way to this guy or something."
"Heero! I'm the only one who can do this! I may be tired, and I may feel weak, but when I need to be a soldier, I am. Do not think that I shall be lacking in my efforts as long as my mission is still in play. A true gundam pilot needs to learn to adjust to anything that comes their way, and this includes pain, differences, and feelings. We are a team, Heero. We help each other out in times when they need it. You've helped the team, and me so now it's my turn to prove myself worthy of being a gundam. You're going to have to believe in me to accomplish this mission."
Heero gazed at Duo, then got up. "You're right. But as a team and a friend, I want you to be careful and wary of your breaking points."
Duo took the pilot seat and nodded determinedly. "Right. You had better buckle up, Heero, 'cause it's going to be a bumpy ride." The gundam propelled off into the night sky, spinning and turning to break the wind. It flew lower to the ground, searching the ground for its victim.
"Duo, are you sure you should be looking around here? It would seem too obvious, wouldn't it?" Heero questioned as they flew toward the outskirts of the city.
"Don't you get it yet? If he posed as a frantic citizen on the edge of town, nobody would suspect a thing of it. He can watch for his signal from his companions that'll let him know it's time to go, and anyone watching will just think he's fleeing from the city."
"No kidding...." Heero said amazed. "I cannot believe I didn't think of that.... You know, Duo, your mind of tracking skills is unbelievable. How did you learn it all?"
Duo laughed and leaned closer to the screen, staring outside at the ground for his prey. "Comes in handy when you're sneaking around a ship or building. You'll know where to hide perfectly while keeping an eye on the guards and personnel. How do you think I got so far onto the doc's ship?"
"Incredible. Don't know what we'd do without you. Guess we'd be lost while the enemy would be gone!" He laughed at his joke, and Duo smiled inwardly at the compliment, then pointed at a seemingly crazed man on the city borders.
"Shinigami's coming to get you, now way out now. Thank your lucky stars you've been saved until now, but you always know that in the end, a star always burns out. Welcome to Hell, my friend." He landed the gundam to the ground not far from the city. "Heero, you go after that man, you know which one he is now, right?" Heero nodded. "I'm going to tell the rest of the gang where we are and contact whoever else we need to. I'll meet you down there in a few. Hurry, and don't let him get away!"
Heero grabbed a radio and ran out of the cockpit, checking to make sure his gun was still there.
"Quatre! Trowa, Wufei! We've got the guy and we're bringing him in! I'm at the north end of the city boundaries, loca—Quatre? Wufei? Trowa? Are you guys there? Answer me!!"
"Dammit, Duo, get over to the south end of town, now!" Trowa's voice rang out. "They sent a fake to your location to lure us all over there! They're bringing out mobile suits to the other two. The fire starters are over here, and they're going to escape if you don't stop them!"
MS: So? Exciting enough for you? I've already started on the next chapter , so I'm not going to say when it's gonna come out, because when I do, it's always ridiculously late. Hope you enjoyed the fun of it all, and thanks for being patient.
Peach: This story is coming to a close, sadly. It's getting near the end! It's probably only going to have around 11 chapters or so, she thinks. But I'm not going to confirm that, because nobody can trust her.
MS: (Thanks to ultamiteseto from neopets here :) ) *raises arm and runs around the room* YAY! *Then does the happy bandit dance* Wow, I'm having too much fun torturing these guys.... ^_^
