Treize stepped out of his personal jet in a huff. Despite knowing that he should have seen it coming, he was still furious with the state he had found his private mountain cabin in, courtesy of a cluster of braided idiots. What was even worse, they had managed to get him the mother of all tickets, a towing charge, and an impound fee. To top it off, his poor Ferrari absolutely reeked. He had to pay colossal fees to have the car scrubbed down to get rid of the smell. He was honestly afraid to ask what had been found on the front seat that had merited a change in upholstery.
Trying to hide his irritation, he walked away from the plane towards the private limo that would take him to the base in Madrid where Zechs was waiting for him. The new prototype mobile suit was ready to be tested and the blond had specifically requested that he be there for the first flight.
In all honesty, he did not want to be anywhere near the base. With the knowledge that important information and a one-of-a-kind prototype were being held here, he feared for his safety and sanity. He had no doubt that the Maxwells would be paying the base a visit. He just didn't know when they would do it or how badly the base would be traumatized by their antics. Treize paled as a new thought struck him. If they came here, it wouldn't be for their jollies like on the other base. This time, they would mean business.
Steeling his nerves, he calmly climbed out of his limo when the car came to a stop. Zechs was already waiting for him, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and throwing nervous glances around. He looked as though he expected a herd of Maxwells to run him down like a stampede of rabid lemmings. Seeing Treize, he scurried over, fishing a sheet of paper out of his pocket as he all but sprinted towards the general.
"What is it?" Treize asked the moment he was within hearing distance. Zechs looked like he was about to explode.
"A choir arrived at the international airport this morning," he stammered. "The names listed, in order of boarding, were Shin Hiruma, Ian Newman, Ivan Gray, Alex Mueller, Ignatius Shaw, Brian Richmond, Oberon Taigas, Hayden Everett, and Rusty Stevens."
"And?" Treize asked slowly. The names sounded strange, especially with the rarity of a couple of them, but he couldn't see what had Zechs so upset.
"The initials spell out 'Shinigami's brothers.' They're already here and they're taunting us."
Treize felt his tongue turn to ash. He swallowed twice.
"Who all have you alerted about this?" he asked.
"The entire base knows that they're in the area. We've moved all of the blueprints to a new location, which I won't say aloud since I don't trust them not to have already bugged the base. Unfortunately, we can't so easily hide the prototype, so I've moved most of security to protect it."
Treize nodded stiffly. "Send orders to everyone on base that they're to attempt to capture one of the Maxwell boys. If we have one of them in our custody, perhaps we can keep the others under control."
"Yes sir," Zechs said quickly. He turned and walked quickly back towards the way he had come from, already barking out orders.
Drawing a deep breath, Treize forced himself to keep his lunch down. There were nine of them on the plane that had given themselves away and no way to know exactly how many more that had hidden their names. He was certain that a tenth Maxwell had to be bringing in Deathscythe Hell. The number ten rang in his mind and he frowned. Ten Ares had been stolen from the last Oz base that they had raided and now it looked as though there were ten people arriving in Spain. He let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding. At least he knew how many of them there were, now. Before, he had only been able to guess. He honestly didn't believe that there could be more than a few dozen of them, no matter what information they had found hacking into the L2 databanks.
Treize's eyes moved to rest on the large hanger where the prototype was being stored and he frowned. Ten Maxwells were more than enough to do just about anything they wanted. Silently, he began to pray as he walked indoors.
* * *
Heero glanced to his side, frowning slightly. Naturally, one Maxwell had to fly Deathscythe Hell in case it was needed, but of the two remaining, only one was still with them. When asked which Maxwell he was, the American had almost died laughing, only pausing long enough to ask if they needed to get nametags. He had finally admitted that both Darren and Deut had taken a plane to get to Spain.
Derrick, noticing the frown being directed at him yet again, only grinned, wriggled his eyebrows and wondered silently how anyone could be so dense. He had never actually said his name when Heero had asked, but the Japanese pilot had automatically assumed that he was Duo since he had told him Darren and Deut were on the flight into Madrid. He had neglected, however, to say that he had been on that flight as well under the name Shin Hiruma.
Currently, the two of them were casually watching security move around from their safe vantage point of the shadows. They had been thwarted in moving so far from the tight formation of the guards. Unable to sneak in immediately, they waited patiently for a distraction. The other three pilots hadn't yet arrived at the base, busy hiding their Gundams in strategic locations so they could get to them to escape. This had proved more challenging with the intensive security, so they were over an hour late. Knowing this, Heero was counting on Deut or Darren to do something. Derrick knew that the distraction would only come when Dante managed to sneak inside.
Derrick cursed silently, shifting uncomfortably when he noticed that one leg had fallen asleep. Even though he was both weaker and slower than most of his siblings, he was also one of the most dangerous when he wanted to be. Darren hadn't started calling him a pyromaniac for nothing. Raging fires and deafening explosions followed in his wake. Had he been the first to enter the base this time, half of it could have already been destroyed and the other half in flames had he desired. And had they made him angry in the process, he could have turned the entire area into a pile of ashes in the matter of a few minutes. Unfortunately, those were not his orders. Normally, he wouldn't have been so anxious to get in, blow something up and get out, but tonight was different. Something was wrong, but he didn't know what it was and it made him nervous.
He hunkered down further into the shadows and silently thanked the others for not sending Demitri into the base first. While physically the absolute weakest and slowest of the group by mass lengths, he was by far the most dangerous when he was angry. He had been trained differently than the others under a more intensive program. Like all of the Maxwells, he was a berserker, but unlike the others, no one ever survived his rampages. Had he been sent in alone, he could have destroyed the base and everyone inside within a few minutes of getting angry. Luckily, he was almost impossible to force into a berserker rage, even when his life was in danger.
Derrick glanced at the passing soldiers again, a frown appearing on his face. What was taking the others so long? They had been in there long enough for Dante to have done some serious damage. He was about to ignore his own safety and enter to check on his brothers when the diversion finally appeared.
The distraction came so suddenly that Heero actually jumped slightly before noticing that Derrick was already running full tilt towards the base, almost invisible in his black outfit. The fact that all of the power on the base had suddenly gone out, taking with it the floodlights, had helped greatly. Cursing, he sprinted after the American and slipped into one of the emergency exits just behind him. Heero glanced around, wondering how long the lights were going to remain out. Someone had blown a circuit somewhere, but the problem would be located and fixed almost immediately.
The hiss of a silencer from a very large gun barely reached Heero's ears before Derrick darted forward down the hallway. Heero glanced disinterestedly at the body he passed. Within a few seconds, he caught up with Derrick and the two began sprinting in earnest to get to the innermost areas of the base before anyone could stop them. They knew that Zechs had moved the hardcopy of the blueprints, and fortunately for the blond, they didn't know where the sheets were hidden.
A shadow flashed in front of them, flipping itself into the relative safety of a nearby doorframe. A gun flashed towards them. Both Heero and Derrick reciprocated, the former opening fire immediately. Derrick threw his arm out to the side, pushing Heero off of his feet and fouling his aim. He immediately rolled to his feet, carefully holding his shot this time. The shadow emerged from the door, sheathing his gun.
"What are you doing here?" Dante hissed. "You're supposed to be in the south wing." He glanced at Heero for a moment before proceeding to ignore the Japanese man.
"The south wing was guarded too heavily. We had to enter from the north. Besides, you're supposed to be hacking the mainframe," Derrick retorted hotly. "Why the hell are you wandering the halls?"
"The mainframe had an accident," Dante chuckled, grinning bemusedly and fingering his gun. Derrick snorted.
"My ass it did," he growled, shaking his head.
"There were a lot of problems other than the mainframe, by the way," he added.
Derrick spat on the ground and scowled. Other problems entailed all of his siblings running freely across base, the plan forgotten. Something had gone wrong, probably due to the unexpected security. They had had to abandon formation.
"Fine. Whatever," he muttered. "Have fun wandering the halls. Just watch out for friendly fire."
Dante smirked, saluted and vanished abruptly into the darkness of the base. Heero watched him go silently, frowning to himself.
"You should have told me that Darren was wandering around," he accused darkly. Derrick shrugged.
"You expected anything less? You want us to sit on our butts and miss out on all the fun while you run around like a maniac? I think not, Hee-chan."
Shaking his head wearily at the Maxwell insanity, Heero started off again towards his destination. The blueprints weren't anywhere they knew of, but he was certain that they wouldn't be anywhere nice. That would probably entail passing through at least four top-secret areas, all of which would be heavily guarded, and at least two runs through open areas between buildings. If they stayed within the grounds of the base, they could sneak up on the soldiers easier, but unfortunately, they had to go through many more people this way. Derrick had been insistent, however, that they stay inside after seeing the security patrolling the southern area of the base.
Heero took the lead, not surprised when Derrick slipped directly behind him. He had seen that stunt before from the American pilots. Hiding behind someone allowed them to jump out at people who didn't know they were there. It was extremely effective, provided that whoever was in lead didn't get shot first.
Another corner found him face to face with another figure in black, braid hanging over one shoulder. Heero redirected the gun he had reflexively pulled, sticking his gun in the waist of his spandex short at the same time as the American slipped a similar gun into some hidden sheathe.
"It's just you, Deut," he said softly. Violet eyes blinked at him. "If you're headed the way we came from, just watch out for Darren."
"Um, thanks," the American whispered. Derrick was almost beside himself, turning purple in his efforts not to laugh aloud. The look on David's face was hilarious.
David scowled at him in passing and disappeared before Heero could get a good look at him. After all, he was much more muscular than Deut. Had the lights not been out, Heero would have seen it immediately. As it was, he was amazed he hadn't been caught by the normally astute pilot. Derrick made a mental note to stay in front and ward off anyone else he encountered for awhile.
Tapping Heero on the shoulder and pointing behind him, he took the lead with the Japanese pilot reluctantly following him. The game of hide-and-seek they had going was looking harder by the moment.
* * *
Deut jumped into the shadows as two figures sprinted past her. She carefully kept her eyes on the blond and the brunette as they slipped past, wondering idly if she should join them. She decided against it. Derrick was with Heero, so one of them was already accounted for. She couldn't be seen if she wanted to keep their numbers hidden. No telling how many of them had already been seen by wandering pilots.
Sighing in frustration at the difficulties their future joke was already causing them, she decided to follow the two, just in case they needed help. If she was careful, they would never even know she was there. Patting her pocket to reassure herself that her gun was still there, she fell in behind the two unsuspecting pilots.
* * *
David rounded another corner, pulling his gun on Daniel before realizing who he was looking at. Seeing his brother, he snorted loudly and continued on his way. He had already run into Heero and Derrick ten minutes ago, and Dante not two minutes after that. The increased security had forced them to abandon their original plans and run freely through the base looking for things to mess up for Oz. Unfortunately, the small number of unmanned halls was distressingly few, leaving them struggling not to interfere with each other or be seen by the other pilots.
Someone moved in one of the rooms he passed and David reflexively flattened himself to the wall, gun in hand. Peeking into the room, he relaxed and continued on his path to find a way to get to the prototype mobile suit. Wufei had been inside, hacking a small computer for all he was worth, looking for information on the prototype and the blueprints. Only the emergency power on the base allowed him to work the computer, the lights and almost every other system deemed too nonessential to merit a backup supply of power. In the shadows not far from him, both Duo and Dustin had been leaning casually against the wall, unnoticed by Wufei. They had probably been following him for some time now without his knowledge, but then again, they were incredibly good at hiding in plain view. David had only been able to see them since he was so familiar with all of their tricks.
Three sets of footsteps approached him and he dove into a small office to hide. Two of them were soft, made by people who were trained to be silent. The third set was imperceptible to any normal person. Even he could barely hear it. He relaxed immediately and grinned to himself. Only one person could remain that quiet. Sure enough, a moment later saw Trowa and Quatre passing by him, Deut a few paces behind them, unnoticed. At the distance of ten feet, she'd be able to hide before they could turn around. She was incredibly fast. She peeked into the office as she passed, winking at him and grinning.
David snorted and slunk back into the hall. Now that he knew where the other pilots were, it was safe for him to run. Hunkering down low to the ground, he began a smooth lope, covering more distance in a few seconds than he had been able to since had arrived on base. Not worried about encountering anyone, he could move at his own pace.
He glanced sideways when two shadows leapt out of nowhere from opposite directions and fell in beside him, knowing that if he was running, he had either found something, needed help, or knew where the other pilots were. Darren was grinning way too happily on his right, making David worry about what he had just done. He had come from the direction of the soldier's quarters.
"Glued all of the furniture three halls down to the ceiling," he said quietly. David rolled his eyes. Donovan snorted. It held absolutely no tactical advantage, but it had obviously done wonders in the area of amusing the madman.
Hearing the snort from his side, David glanced at the skinnier scientist. In his hand, he held… something. It was a long cylinder of glass with a secondary cylinder inside, the twin layers protecting something that he obviously didn't want to handle. David was certain that he didn't want to know what was in it but was afraid that he was going to find out anyways.
Something was bothering him, however, and he quickly stopped thinking of the small tube. Something was very wrong and his mind insisted that he figure out what and fix it immediately. His mind rolled over a few times and he ran a quick tally in his head. He frowned, not getting the number he wanted.
"Have either of you seen Demitri?" They shook their heads.
"Neither have I," a nasal voice said from behind them. David glanced back at Dante, but kept running. He knew that the hanger was this way and the other pilots were behind them. It was safe to cluster at the moment.
"We'll call him in a minute," Donovan panted, pulling his gun and taking out a few stray soldiers.
They were almost to the door leading to the outside run. David had already switched buildings several times trying to avoid security, but now there was no way to hide their tracks. Around the next corner was the beginning of the final stretch. Granted, it was the least well known on base, and most lightly guarded, but there were still a fair number of guards.
David spun around the final corner with his gun out at the same time as the three others with him. The vision that met their eyes had them scattering frantically, weapons and dignity abandoned. Three of them vanished almost immediately into vents and a convenient door, leaving Donovan standing alone in the middle of the hall to face what they had found. He would have run too, but he was slower than the other three and probably couldn't have managed to hide before being seen.
Heero glared at him sharply. He hadn't turned quickly enough to see anyone else before they had managed to hide, but he had heard them. Behind him, Derrick was grinning sheepishly. Despite the fact that he was slower than Heero, Derrick had seen all of them. He was used to his brothers running around like a pack of stampeding rhinos and had suspected that they would show up at the worst possible time.
"Um, hi?" Donovan offered.
Heero grunted in reply and started to turn back towards tinkering with the door. The electricity was still off and without it none of the electronically monitored doors would open. He had begun fiddling with the control panel again when something seemed to catch his attention. He turned back to Donovan warily.
"What is that?" he asked stiffly.
"Nothing important," Donovan said, glancing at the small cylinder in his hand. The guilty expression on his face gave him away. Heero scowled.
"You didn't," Derrick said stiffly.
"Not yet," he muttered. "I was only going to do it on the way out."
"What is that?" Heero repeated angrily.
"It's not dangerous!" Donovan protested. Heero's gaze flickered over the double glass layering and his expression turned darker. "Well, it isn't. It's just going to make life at Oz interesting for awhile." When Heero reached for it, he jerked it away. "I wouldn't play with it if I were you."
Heero grunted again and turned back to the door. Donovan glanced at the ventilation shaft Dante had stuffed himself into and leapt into it while Heero was distracted. Dante smirked at him as he arrived, pushing past his brother and dropping lightly into the hall. Derrick watched the exchange with a bemused expression.
Brushing the dust off of his back priest's outfit, Dante moved in closer to peer at what Heero was doing. Frowning, he reached past the Japanese pilot and pulled out some of the wires in the wall. Heero glared at him and tried to shove him out of the way, but the American had already cut and crossed six different wires. With an almighty hiss, the door swung open. Heero glowered. Dante smirked. Derrick had to fight to keep from laughing his ass off. The indignant expression on Heero's face was priceless. After tinkering with the door for several minutes and being unable to make it open, Dante had done it in a matter of seconds. The indignant look turned suspicious. Dante shrugged.
"I was trained in electronics," he said passively. Heero scowled.
"Where is it?" he hissed.
"Where is what?"
"That thing you were holding," Heero snapped. Derrick, unseen by the Japanese pilot, froze and blanched.
"It's somewhere safe," Dante said, placing his hand on a bulge in his pocket. Heero glared at his pocket, but grunted and disappeared out the door. Seeing him disappear into the night, shooting everyone in his path with a silenced gun, Dante reached into the pocket he had been fiddling with and pulled out his gun. The two of them ran after Heero, taking out as many soldiers as he did.
Running out into the open area towards the hanger, Dante immediately noticed the shadowed forms of Duo, Dustin and Duet following the other three pilots as they ran for the hanger as well. He sucked in a pained breath and tore back inside at the same time Duo did. Too many of them were visible and none of the pilots had gone after the blueprints. Granted, no one knew where the documents were, but someone should at least be looking for them.
Falling to rest against a wall, Dante patiently waited for Duo to catch up. Normally, Duo was much faster than him, but he was still limping slightly and now had to struggle to keep up. His ankle would have been healed by now had he not been running around on it constantly, but as was expected of anyone possessing Maxwell genes, he couldn't hold still for more than a few seconds.
Duo stumbled to a halt beside him, panting loudly. Dante glanced at him passively before remembering something. He frowned.
"Have you seen Demitri?"
Duo shook his head. "Not since we got here. Why?"
Grunting, Dante pulled out their communicator, pushed a short sequence of buttons and waited. And waited. No answer was forthcoming from the other end. He tried a slightly different combination of numbers, needing Demitri only to push any key on the thing to indicate he was still safe. Nothing.
"Shit."
To Be Continued…
I'm back! *mad cackle* I finally got my computer up and running again. Stupid oversized paperweight crashed. *kicks computer several times while swearing loudly at it* It was responsible for the massive delay. Gomen! Oh, and I still love commentary, by the way.
