Warning(s): Relena-bashing and shounen-ai are overarching themes, one more apparent then the other. The real blatant ones are mild violence, not-so-mild language, the G-boys and their Gundams out of character, oddness, and a dash of craziness too.
Disclaimer: The rights and so on for Gundam Wing are the property of the people who own it. Kind of vague, I know but at least I don't claim ownership. This is an even numbered chapter; I always seem to have problems thinking up disclaimers for the even ones…or is it the odd ones? Whatever, this is still very fun to write so I hope that you're enjoying it too.
Parabola of Mystery
Chapter Twelve
"So you bailed?" Heero queried as he heard Duo come to his conclusion. It was quite a long, detailed account that involved pirates and cowboys chasing him through the forest before the…intermission for their mission even started. No one bought it.
They were currently holed up ten miles outside of the Coward's base. You would think that after being attacked by five Gundams they would have beefed up security but there hadn't been more then one Leo unit sent out since the attack ended and they didn't tend to go outside of a five mile track. Thus the boys were perfectly safe and free to talk in person while Trowa and Wufei tired to figure out how to pitch the EZ-tent. You would also think that one of the five would have experience in putting up tents but life was full of little surprises.
"It's supposed to go like this…you hold that Barton…and I hit this little button."
Trowa was sprawled over two ends a shoulder's width apart. He looked like he was trying to keep a plastic sheet from flying away. Wufei rolled out another section and took one last look at the directions before he hit the little green button. Quatre turned as there was an audible 'pop' and all that could be seen was Wufei's head and one of Trowa's legs at an impossible angle.
"No. I guess that wasn't right…you need to tie it to a tree?"
Heero predictably ignored them, "great work, Duo. You should have just handed them your Gundam the moment you came onto the battlefield, save them the trouble."
Duo pointed to Wing, looking shiny and new as it loomed over them.
"You didn't even use your damn Gundam! Don't complain to me about not doing anything in battle. You could have just stayed here and saved the fuel."
"Hey, no need to be ugly. I just wanted to make a stand about my rights," Wing said.
"What rights? You're a talking hunk of Gundanium. I think that you have a long way to go till you can assert your rights. What are you going to start a picket and Vulcan campaign?" Duo asked.
"You're supposed to be the fun one."
"Near death-experiences will sometimes do this to me. Besides, my hair looks terrible…all my supplies are in Deathscythe," Duo complained as he took his braid in hand and sighed at its ragged condition.
"We really need to stop talking about the battle and plan out what we're going to do next," Quatre said distractedly.
He was a little busy watching the progress of the other two while they still tried to pitch the tent. Now they had four ends stretched as far as they could reach. They were each tied by separate ropes to the far off trunks of large oaks. Wufei squinted at the instructions and hesitantly pressed the button again. The trees strained under the weight and the tethers snapped, smothering them with the plastic tent.
"…Stupid men."
"Don't comment unless you're willing to contribute, Nataku," Wufei said as he unraveled himself from the tent.
"I think it's deliciously evil how the constructors of the directions made them so hard to follow. It truly proves that all global conglomerates are pure evil! Mwhahah." Sandrock said.
"I don't think that a tent supplier really counts as a conglomerate…and would you stop that damn laughing?" Nataku asked.
"What are we going to do?" Duo asked as he stretched out on the grass, trying to forget his hair for the moment.
"It's as simple as infiltrating. Since they're expecting us, I would gather that they would be really surprised to find us in there. They're collective IQ is probably still below fifty," Heero stated.
"You guys go assassinate. I'll go in and get my Gundam," Duo added.
"I bet they have all sorts of security measures in place," said Quatre as he managed to get his attention back to the conversation he was trying to be involved in.
"I'm trained in stealth operations, remember?" Duo asked winningly.
"One tends to forget once they've actually met you," Wufei said from across the clearing.
"You guys have a good time. I'll stay here and watch the tent," Wing said.
"No you don't you're going to battle if I have to go in and start cutting wires," his pilot threatened.
"Damn you."
"I'm sure that Zero will find some way to slack off anyway," Nataku laughed.
Wufei nodded toward her as he and Trowa tried a new tactic. He couldn't speak as he had the paper in-between his teeth while he and Trowa wrapped the tent around a tree. He pressed the button and they were both thrown thirty feet backward.
Tired of watching them struggle, Quatre got to his feet and dug out the instructions from the pathetic tent. He glanced down at them and held up his small flashlight.
"Uh what have you been reading? It's pretty simple."
Wufei leapt down from the tree behind Quatre and ran a hand over his shiny, solid hair just to be sure. He grabbed the directions out of the blonde pilot's hands and squinted at them again.
"I suppose I should wear my damn glasses every once in awhile."
"I repeat my earlier statement: stupid men."
"It's a one step tent. All you have to do is lay it out and then press the button…"
Trowa detangled the tent from itself and did as Quatre instructed before hitting the green button. The tent slowly rose and the pointed ends dug into the soft ground. Soon it was a large tent with more then enough room to suit all five of them. Wufei crumpled the white paper up and threw it over his shoulder as he joined Heero and Duo by the fire. Well, it wasn't a 'fire' as much as it was just a large light that they had substituted for a fire. Either way it was hot and gave off a lot of light. The biggest danger came from staring directly at it; the shine could cause premature blindness.
"Maxwell will go in and get his Gundam but how is he going to get it out?" Wufei asked.
"Good question Wuffie," Duo replied.
Wufei threw a mysterious scrap of machinery onto his stomach. Duo coughed and rolled out from under it. He sat up, rubbing his midsection but Wufei's personal mission still remained unaccomplished as he still smiled.
"I'll need someone else to help me haul him out if he's not responsive. When I was in there he spoke…"
"Unfortunately"
"But no matter what I did the power wouldn't come on. I have a pretty good idea of where he hit so I wouldn't expect Deathscythe to be able to move around till I've had a chance to repair him."
"Hmm I say we leave him like that. You can always make a new Gundam. We can even still call him Death-shit."
"Please don't try and help me," Duo said sweetly toward Wufei's Gundam.
"But I'm just too eager to assist you." She replied with just as much venom.
"Stop it!" Quatre chided.
"We move as soon as you're ready. The element of surprise is all we have when taking present circumstances into account. I REFUSE to fail this mission," Heero's head turned as he said his last sentence. Wing scoffed.
"Real big threat there. I REFUSE to be a tool. Gundams are forever! We deserve rights too!"
"I will only consent to that if we can have an evil bureaucracy under an even eviler dictatorship! Mwhahaha our seal and emblem will be me blowing up a colony of adorable bunnies!"
"Fuck-ing idiots."
"Wait…if we're moving out ASAP then why did they put up the tent?" Duo asked.
Wufei let that sink in before he clenched his fists and looked directly at the 'fire' in his anger.
"Oh shit, my eyes!"
Trowa shrugged. "Something to do, I guess."
"Let's go before any more of us lose our minds."
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They all got back, or retreated depending on how you look at it, into their Gundams. Their scrapped-together-at-the-last-minute plan revolved around Quatre assisting Duo in getting his Gundam out while the other three moved in to assassinate Scar and fulfill the actual mission. Thus it was a bit of a mystery as to why he decided to ride in Nataku's hand.
"I keep telling you, Wing is likely to get me blown up while he stands in the middle of battle without lifting a finger, Trowa is just too rocky, and Sandrock is a complete psycho. I'm sad to say that the safest place to be is with Nataku."
"Just keep making points, Maxwell," she replied.
They left the tent where it was.
There was no need for decoys as it was so dark and the base had so little lighting that the massive Gundams were entirely unnoticed by the pathetic number of Guards outside the base. There was a visible hangar in the back but there was a narrow walkway to get in so the Gundams had to go in single-file. Nataku went first.
"You're doing this on purpose," Duo said.
"Hey if the enemy comes suddenly then I get first pick and I'll be able to get rid of you. Two for one."
"And you're supposed to be the one trained in stealth! Have you forgotten that we're supposed to be infiltrating, going unnoticed?" Wufei hissed.
"Poignant observation."
The hangar was barely filled, only two Aries and three baffling Cancer were in residence with no human guards in sight. It all seemed like some elaborate trap…but the three of them knew better.
Duo leapt off Nataku's hand and brought out his gun as he rounded the corner of the iron walkway toward the large door that led to the rest of the complex. He shook his head and waited for the others to disembark from their Gundams.
"This is just sad. It's even worse that we were technically sent back by these goons," Wufei commented as he took a good look around.
"I will never admit defeat. I blame Deathscythe."
"There's that too. If you're going to stay here and actually be of use then you can't say…ANYTHING," Heero explained as he faced the four Gundams.
"…Fine you bastard. I'll keep my womanly banter to myself."
"Mwah! I promise nothing!"
"You're seriously insecure. First I go to all the trouble of bringing you here and now you make more demands of me? Get real...is what I would say but since being quiet would allow me the least amount of effort…or activity. Sure."
"…"
"Leave them to find out the hard way," Wufei said. Heero and Trowa fell into step behind him and they were off toward the interior of the base soon afterward. Quatre and Duo hung around while the braided pilot dug something out of his hair.
"I stuck a tracer on Death before I left so it'll be easier to find him."
"Good. Then all we have to do is figure out how to get Sandrock to him."
Duo glanced at the small screen imbedded in his tracking device. "He shouldn't be too far away. I guess we should head in and look for some sort of lab or large room. I guess they're trying to take him apart."
"The talking should be enough to get them to stop," Quatre said lightly.
"No. I told him that we were playing a game. He couldn't say anything until I came back or I'll take away his BoBo."
"What?"
Duo smiled and led the way out of the mobile suit hangar.
"His BoBo. It's just a motor I got off an old blender but I added a head and ears with mismatched parts from other things…"
"When did you have time to do that?"
"Well when you stay up all night because you had too much coffee and then were threatened within an inch of your life to be quiet after dancing for two hours straight you tend to run out of things to do."
They trailed off as they could hear shouts and gunfire from the corridors in front of them. Duo smiled.
"The freaks can go ahead and take care of the Cowards for us. I hate being a decoy."
Quatre smiled indulgently. "I'm sure they don't think of you like that."
Duo pushed open one of the sets of double doors to make sure they weren't going to stumble upon his Gundam. It was still a little ways off on the radar but you could never be too sure…it was a really small screen.
"Heh I heard them talking just the other day about how they would send me in first. I think the direct quote was 'Duo can be the bait'."
Quatre sighed.
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The more physically inclined of the five had an easy time moving through the ranks of surprised Cowards as they went toward the center rise in the building. The most amusing was the one man who was eating a jelly donut at the time. He was so surprised to see teenagers in their midst that he squeezed the pastry, causing the jelly to spew out on the other side.
As they expected, the soldiers of the former fringe OZ unit were ill prepared for their coming so soon after the initial attack. They only received sparse resistance and as a result most of the men and women were merely knocked unconscious and locked into rooms so they were more out of the way. So much for stealth.
They estimated that Scar would be waiting in the highest room in the most central part of the building and therefore the place with the worst access from any corner of reference. Not only were they right, it had a private entrance. The trio crept up the last flight of stairs and Trowa kicked the door open as the other two rolled in.
The desk was sparse but there was a one-way window that took up one entire wall and looked over the wonderfully scenic parking lot located in the back. The office chair was turned away but they could sense movement the moment they entered.
Perhaps to further create tension, the chair remained where it was, without turning or moving in the slightest. The three easily walked up and stood just behind the desk but it still remained still. Wufei scowled (you know it was coming) and he reached out to impatiently turn the chair around.
The sight that met their eyes was not of a man or even of a woman. There was definitely something in the chair though. It was a stuffed, cartoonish lion sitting on about three tons of plastic explosives. There was a little sign pinned right about its head that read 'Gotcha'.
A wire had been twisted leading from the lion all the way down to a smaller bomb set on the bottom of the chair. As the three took this odd sight in, the light in the plush animal's hands went from green to flickering red.
Thanks for reading, more on the way.