Yay! More updating! ^_^ Okay. You can thank my creative writing teacher for this chapter. We get almost a whole hour and a half to write!! *swoons* I'm in heaven. Anywho…this means that all the chapters should start coming at much more regular intervals now. So fear no more! There shall be no more 3 month long waits! Now, onto the story!! ^_^
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Behind you, Trowa!" Heero heard Quatre gasp out over the intercom. They were in dire straits. Had it really only been six hours since Heero had last seen Duo slipping out of the window? It had. But it felt like six years. Everything had seemed to be going fine until the first wave of mobile suits hit. They had paired up, using the combined shields as a barrier and just started firing. The Gundam pilots had tried to return fire, but it bounced right off the shields. Then they had decided to try and beat them up close. Heero had managed to knock down some shields and had one cornered. He went for the back of the knee, wondering if it was going to work. The beam saber had hit the knee, buckling the mobile suit, but causing no explosion. The files had been fakes. Heero had jammed his sword into the back of the suit's neck in frustration and suddenly it had begun to glow and without warning the mobile suit had exploded in a burst of orange fire. The explosion had knocked Wing Zero back a little, but there had been no serious damage.
"Quatre, Trowa! Heero here!"
"Heero, what was that explosion? You okay?" Heero could hear the concern in Quatre's voice.
"I'm fine. Listen, don't go for the back of the knee. Bad information. Go for the back of the neck. Takes them out with one hit." The pilots had confirmed the information by adding two more flaming mobile suits to their count. Things had started to look up. They might just win after all. But then everything had taken a nosedive.
Apparently the other mobile suit pilots didn't like the idea of being blown up. They went right back to the pairs, not letting the other pilots get in between them. 'If only we had Deathsythe or Altlong,' Heero thought. They needed a gundam with a long reach weapon such as the scythe or trident. They needed to knock those shields away and Quatre's glaives weren't cutting it.
"Trowa!" Heero heard Quatre's shout before he saw the reason for it, but it was already too late. In a desperate attempt to take down a Gundam, and injured pilot had latched onto Heavyarms, pinning down the blade Trowa used as a backup. They then self-detonated, taking Trowa down with them. Heavyarms was lurched forward, the left leg torn off at the knee, and fell to the ground. It didn't get back up again.
"Trowa! Trowa, are you okay?" Quatre sounded nearly hysterical. Trowa had to be alive. He just had to be.
"I'm here Quatre. I'm okay. Main controls aren't working. Left leg malfunctioning. I don't think Heavyarms will be walking off this battlefield."
"Can you get out?" Heero asked. He didn't want Trowa staying on the battlefield. It would be too dangerous.
"If someone could possibly roll me over, then I could open the door. Otherwise, looks like I'll be leaving when you do."
Heero cursed to himself. This was bad. Trowa was down. Quatre and Heero had both sustained damage, and the mobile suits just kept coming. Glancing around, Heero just barely had time to shout a warning when three laser blasts all pelted Sandrock. Quatre was down. Heero raised his buster rifle as the mobile suits closed in. If he was going to go down, at least he would go fighting.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Duo was in bad shape. He was worried to death. He had been waiting around all day in a total daze, running all the possible outcomes of the mission through his head. The good outcomes never stayed with him long. They were muscled out of the way by the ones ending with Wing Zero in a flaming ball of scrap metal. He really didn't like that one. Finally, he just decided he was going to be done worrying about it.
He ambled into the cafeteria, intent on getting food and not making direct eye contact with any of his classmates. I was his first time eating lunch outside of his room since the "accident" and people might get curious. Making his way through the line, he settled on a bowl of rice and a soda. He was too nervous to be hungry. He glanced around the room, spotting Wufei at a table, and made his way over. Pulling out a chair, he plopped himself into one of the empty seats. Wufei gave him a look of indignation, like he'd just intruded on a private party. He smiled at Wufei across the table, eliciting a grunt from him as he turned his attentions back to his food.
Duo decided that he didn't feel like prying a conversation from Wufei's lips, and instead concentrated on eating his lunch. He poked at the rice with a chopstick, wondering if Heero and the others would be there to eat lunch with him tomorrow. He glanced down at his watch, noting that it was now 12:30. He'd have to be back in class in half an hour. He looked around the cafeteria at all the boys and girls, sitting around talking. Their biggest worry was probably about an upcoming math test. How he wished that were his biggest problem. But no. His biggest worry was that enemy mobile suits might blow up his best friends.
"Excuse me, boys and girls," the intercom system rasped throughout the lunchroom.
'Great,' thought Duo. 'Just what we need. Old man ramblings.' Duo went back to trying to eat as the principal continued.
We have just received word that a little over four hours ago, a base about 40 miles from here was attacked by Gundam 01, Gundam 03, and Gundam 04." Duo's head snapped up, his eyes locking with Wufei's. They starred at each other, both ready to bolt incase it turned out their cover was blown.
'Act natural,' Duo thought. 'Just act natural. We're in a school full of kids whose parents are OZ soldiers. Don't do anything unusual.' He tried to breath in long, full breaths but they ended up sounding like hiccups as the principal continued.
"The battled continued on with very few casualties and at approximately 11:30, Gundam 03 fell with massive damage." A cheer went up around the room as Duo squeezed his chopstick so hard it broke in half.
"A few minutes later Gundam 04 went down, taken out by several simultaneous laser beam hits." Another cheer, another chopstick. "Finally, Gundam 01 was ambushed by mobile suits, causing it to fall under a barrage of close range fire." The cheer this time was immense, and Duo's ears rang as black spots danced across his vision. But it wasn't over yet.
"After the attack, the Gundams were secured and the pilots were captured with only minor injuries. They will be held for questioning and then executed."
"FUCK!" Duo shouted, forgetting his surroundings completely. Heads turned and stared at him, wondering why he would say something like that. Wufei's eyes had a murderous look in them and Duo wished he could sink into the floor.
"I…mean…uh…shit! They didn't get the other two!" Duo pathetically tried to cover, but it seemed he said enough because the cafeteria erupted into more cheers and people turned away from him.
He slowly stood, willing his legs to move and his eyes to see straight. Depositing his uneaten lunch in the trash, he made his was back to his room. 'Heero'scapturedHeero'scapturedHeero'scapturedHeero'scapturedHeero'scaptured Heero'scaptured,' just kept running through his mind as he finally reached his door, but it took him three tries to get the key out of his pocket and two more to unlock the door.
When he opened the door, he was startled to find Wufei sitting on his bed. "How did you…when did you…forget it. What do we do?" Duo starred at Wufei, pleading for an answer.
"Nothing," Wufei answered. "We do absolutely nothing until we hear otherwise. We cannot risk blowing our cover by suddenly disappearing." Wufei scowled at Duo. "Which is another thing, Maxwell. You need to learn to better control your emotion. Your thoughtless outburst could have cost us much more than an odd look."
Duo's face began to grow red. He didn't need to be reprimanded. "I've got my emotions perfectly in check, Chang. Please forgive me for being upset about the plight of our comrades. It was totally uncalled for." The sarcasm was so think in Duo's voice that he wanted to check to be sure it hadn't solidified.
Wufei was taken aback. He hadn't been prepared for the sting in Duo's reply. "Listen Maxwell, there is no need for you to become upset with me. This was not my doing." He starred at Duo, trying to keep his anger under control.
Both boys jumped suddenly; startled by the beeping of Heero's laptop telling them they had an incoming mission.
Duo leapt across the room, knocking Wufei away in his race to get to the desk. He slammed himself into the chair and wrenched open the computer, quickly punching in the code for his mailbox. There it was, the letter sent by Professor G. Duo opened it and read what was written as his face contorted into an ugly mask of anger. He pushed himself away from the desk, allowing Wufei to read the mission parameters. His eyes skimmed over the letter as he read it out loud.
"02 and 05 are to leave for the OZ base immediately. Once there, they must finish the mission left undone by 01, 03, and 04. Then deal with the other pilots. Do not attempt to rescue more than one pilot. Should you be captured, silence yourselves."
Wufei backed up, disgusted. He could not believe what he had just read. How were he and Duo supposed to decide which of their friends lived or died? He glanced over at Duo, seeing him lying face down on his bed.
"What do we do, Wu?" he asked, his voice sounding like a little child lost in the woods.
"I don't know," Wufei said as he sat on Heero's bed across from Duo. How could they have all made such a mess of things? He hung his head in frustration. They couldn't just sit there and do nothing.
Wufei stood up, kicking the bed Duo was laying on. "Get up," he commanded. "We have a mission to do."
Duo stared at Wufei, open-mouthed. What was he thinking? How could he go through with a mission like this, if you could even call it that? Duo himself thought of it more as a murder.
"Don't stare at me like that, Maxwell. I just don't think we should keep our comrade's waiting at an OZ base while we fight with our inner morals. We're going to have a hard enough time escaping with three hostages. If we go now, we'll be able to have the surprise of a night attack."
Duo glanced up. Had Wufei said three hostages? Duo could hardly believe his ears. Wufei wasn't one to easily turn against mission orders. That is, unless it went against his sense of justice. He smiled to himself. Leave it to Wufei to do something like this.
Leaping off the bed, Duo made a grab for the door handle. "I'll get ready here. You go back to your room and we'll meet in the woods in half an hour."
"Wait, Duo," Wufei said, trying to calm the boy. "We need a plan first. We can't just run in, guns drawn, and start shooting everybody in sight." Sighing, he continued. "You're going to have to go in Deathsythe."
Duo nodded, mentally kicking himself for his ambition. They needed a plan before they barged into a fully operational OZ base. It wouldn't do the other guys any good if he and Wufei were also captured.
"You're right," Duo said, formulating a plan in his mind. "They already know what I look like, and it would be too dangerous for me to go back in. I'll create the diversion, drawing most of the soldiers to their suits. You run in and grab the guys." Heading for the desk, Duo rummaged around in the drawer, finding the layout of the base he had gotten from the file tap.
"Take this," Duo added as he thrust the map at Wufei. "As you can see, there are prisoner holding cells in three different wings, and chances are they are going to have one in each. Once you get someone out, have him go to one wing while you go to another, to speed things up."
"Gotcha," Wufei said as he made his way to the door. "I'll see you in half an hour." Nodding, Duo shut the door and turned around to lean on it.
The full weight of what they were going to do came crashing down on him. Wufei was going to walk into one of the most heavily guarded bases they had ever encountered and come out with three prisoners while Duo single handedly fought off a horde of mobile suits that had already taken down three Gundams. A nervous laughter started to swell in his throat and Duo knew that if he started laughing he would be able to stop.
A pounding on the door startled Duo out of his thoughts, causing him to leap forward. Reaching down, he opened the door and found himself staring into Wufei's onyx eyes.
"There's been a change in plans," Wufei said as he grabbed Duo's arm and began to force him out of the room. "There's something you should see."
"Wufei, what happened? Did something happen at the base? Where are we going? We don't have that much time and…" Duo broke off his sentence as Wufei stopped in front of his own room and opened the door.
Sitting on the bed, looking a little haggard but none the worse for wear, was Quatre. Running into the room, Duo seized his friend, giving him a bone-crushing hug.
"It's good to see you too, Duo, but this hurts. Could you let go a little?" Quatre laughed as his friend's enthusiastic greeting. He winced as Duo ruffled his hair.
"What's wrong, Quatre?" Duo asked, instantly concerned.
"Oh, it's nothing," Quatre replied. "I just hit my head on the console when Sandrock went down. It's not serious." Quatre reached up and pulled back his corn straw bangs. Underneath was a cut that ran from just above his right eye to the hairline by his right temple. The cut was shallow, only bleeding a little now.
"We need to get that dressed," Wufei said, grabbing his first aid kit from under his bed. Putting some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, he swiftly cleaned the wound, killing any infection that might have accumulated.
"What happened out there, Quatre?" Duo asked, suddenly becoming somber.
Seeing the pain in his friend's eyes, Quatre sighed. He didn't have good news. "Just how much do you guys know?" he asked, not wanting to have to tell them things they already knew.
"We hardly know anything at all. The principle came on over the intercom and told us the base had been attacked and that you guys had been having a rough time of it." Wufei stopped as he saw Quatre's eyes darkening. Continuing, he said, "He told us that Trowa went down first, after sustaining massive damage. Then, after taking three simultaneous beam hits, Sandrock went down. Finally, Heero went down in the ambush," Wufei looked at Duo for conformation.
"Yeah," Duo piped in. "They said that the pilots were captured and were going to be executed after they were questioned."
Quatre was silent for several moments, running everything over in his mind. Just as Duo and Wufei had begun to worry, he spoke. "We were terribly outnumbered, and the suits were strong. Too strong. Heero was the first one to figure out that a hit to the back of the neck took them out. Once we figured that out, things started to look up. Trowa and I each got a few kills in, but mainly it was a slash and run fight. Once a suit was down, we didn't worry about it after that. That was Trowa's mistake." Quatre gulped, like he was just now trying to swallow the news, and went on. "A suit we had thought was down latched on to Heavyarms while he was fighting. In an attempt to bring it down, the pilot self-detonated and ripped off the gundam's left leg. It was like a moral booster for the OZ troops, because after that they came at us with a vengeance.
"Heero and I tried as best we could, but three shots, one to the head and two to the back, were all Sandrock could take. The communications link was the first thing to short out, so I wasn't able to tell Heero I was okay, or ask him what was going on.
"I knew that it would be bad news if we were captured. Seeing Wing Zero go down, I started to analyze my options. Just as I was contemplating self-destruction, I remembered my escape hatch." He looked up, knowing he was getting odd looks from Duo and Wufei.
He sighed again. "Back when Sandrock was being built, the Maguanacs were very concerned with my safety. Before it was finished, they asked the scientist* to install an escape hatch that exited form the back, just to add one more option other than self-detonation. I'm the only one who had one and I've never used it before now. Frankly, I greatly dislike even the thought of it. It feels like cheating." Hanging his head, he thought of his friends, captured because they weren't coddled like he was.
Duo squeezed his friend's shoulder. "Hey," he said. "If it wasn't for that escape hatch, you would be in one of those OZ prisons right now. Instead, you're here with us. I don't think that's such a bad thing."
Looking up at Duo, Quatre saw the wisdom in his friend's words. He just hated the fact that he was pampered because of his status.
"Anyway," Quatre said, wading through the uncomfortable silence that had befallen the room, "I managed to get out of Sandrock and made my way to the woods surrounding the base. I spotted a path and followed it, hoping I'd eventually come to the highway. But what I found was even better. Chained to a tree was an all black motorcycle with a helmet slung over the handle bars with "Shinigami" written across the front."
"My baby!" Duo raced to the window, peered out, and started jumping up and down. "You found my baby! I had hoped those damn OZ bastards hadn't tried to use her. That would have been an insult to her honor." Duo stared out lovingly at his bike.
"Yeah," Quatre said. "I'm just glad you gave me a spare key. It would have been a bitch to hotwire. But yeah, that's how I got here."
"OZ obviously knows you've escaped, but they probably don't want the public to know they messed up," Wufei muttered. "Well, this makes things a whole lot easier. Now it's two rescuing two instead of one rescuing three."
"What about Duo?" the blonde boy wondered. Surely Duo could have helped with the rescue somehow.
"Distraction," Duo clarified. "They already know my face. Too risky for me to go back inside. Deathsythe and me get to have some fun with the mobile suits." Giggling nervously, Duo saw Quatre's face go a shade paler. "Come on, Q. I'll be fine. I'm Shinigami! They can't take down the God of Death." He realized that his words sounded forced and that his voice quivered ever so slightly. He hated getting nervous, especially at a time like this, when a cool head was so important.
"Why don't you come help me get ready for this mission and I can fill you in on the fighting techniques and styles of the mobile suits?" suggested Quatre, wanting a chance to calm the obviously frightened American.
"Yeah, sure, sounds great," Duo said half-heartedly. "You gonna be okay by yourself, Wu?" he asked, not wanting to be rude.
"Yes, Duo. I will be fine. Why don't we meet at your truck in forty-five minutes?" They all agreed and parted ways, to begin preparing for one of their most important, and dangerous, missions yet.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
*I can't actually remember Quatre's scientist's name for the life of me, and I was waaayyyy to lazy to look it up. So yeah. Sorry bout that.
I'm also really sorry about how long this chapter took. I had, like, the WORST case of writers block ever! I didn't mean for this to take so long. The next one should be up much, much quicker. *maybe ^_^;; * Oh yeah, and REVIEW! If you took the time to read it, what's another 2 minutes to type up your feelings on it? It'll mean a lot to me! Really! Please? HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?? GET BACK HERE!