Even when he closed his eyes it wouldn't go away. The image of the people he was leaving behind, the image of the people he was betraying, none of it would go away. With each beat of his heart he saw a face, sometimes just the face of someone he'd seen in passing while grabbing a sandwich at a corner shop, sometimes someone he knew well and who was likely going to die.
And each time he saw a face he knew it was his fault that it would happen. It was all his fault because he hadn't been good enough. He should have fought straight through to the bitter end and died fighting to protect those people, but he couldn't.
Quatre opened his eyes finally to see where he even was. He hadn't been piloting SandRock at all- rather he had keyed his navigation system with an appropriate lag time to Trowa's HeavyArms Gundam. Trowa had, ultimately, been the one to save them all.
That's not entirely true; Quatre thought to himself, looking hid half-faded reflection in one of the flatscreens. Duo was more than instrumental in our mere survival…
This was true. The moment the execution order came into effect Duo had sent his Gundam into a tight spin and toward his comrades. Taking advantage of the heavier armor on the 'wings' of his Gundam which gave the DeathScythe its crucifix shape he shielded both of his friends from the majority of the missiles and bullets sent at them.
His Gundam suffered from it, of course- a number of small perforations appeared in the armor making the suit look more like a servant of "The God of Death" than ever.
The armor was not all that died in that attack- while the wings shielded the upper torso and 'thighs' of all three Gundams it failed to protect the lower part of the Gundams' legs. DeathScythe, taking the brunt of the damage buckled as its right 'foot' blew away and the suit fell to its knees.
Sensing the hopelessness of the situation and their inability to do anything to further their cause Trowa acted. Though encumbered by the guns on either hand he managed to lift both Gundams up and slowly lift them into the air.
Fire from the enemy lanced toward the escaping pilots, but at they resumed control of their own mobile suits each pilot began to successfully dodge the majority of the attacks, though several rounds hit home and opened slight breaches in the cockpits.
Even wrapped in his armored cloak Duo was no safer than either of his friends.
Wufei was their savior. In a torrent of fire he blasted from a nearby building, both Dragons extended and the cannons that arched over Ntaku's head firing non-stop.
Faced with four fleeing mobile suits that had yet to kill anyone and were, at the moment, really incapable of causing much more damage and an enemy with an arsenal of both ranged and close-combat weapons who was fighting to kill the enemy chose to defend against the latter and was slaughtered for it.
And now we're here, the Arabic youth thought, for the umpteenth time. Glancing at the screen displaying what his Gundam 'saw' he had a brief glimpse of the ocean before his suit turned to follow HeavyArms and that suit filled his vision.
For at least another twenty minutes they flew over the vast Pacific Ocean until Trowa finally halted their progress.
"Where are we?" Duo asked groggily, having been woken up by his inertia pushing his body against the straps of his restraining harness in the middle of a rather odd dream.
"Maybe I'm still not fully awake yet, but that definitely seems like water directly below us."
"It is," replied Trowa.
Upon his failure to produce any more information Duo spoke, "So why exactly are we…" the American tapped a few buttons on his keyboard to figure out his location, "seventeen point five six kilometers off of the coast of Japan?"
"Because," replied Trowa, "We need allies if we're going to continue what will soon be an elaborate campaign."
"…And we get allies out of 'Middle of Nowhere, Japan' how exactly?"
"By doing this." With a flick of his hand Trowa disengaged all three suits' propulsion thrusters and dumped them into the water from roughly two hundred feet. The splash was tremendous, sending water flying into the air at least fifty feet and ripping a few scraps of armor from weaker parts of the Gundams, though without the devastating effects Wing Zero had experienced.
"Trowa… What are you doing, Trowa?" Duo asked, his voice more than a little on edge from the fall, and equally suspicious of Trowa having turned double agent once more.
"Relax. In-"
"Relax? How the hell do you expect me to collapse after I just fell into the ocean from a bazillion feet up in a Gundam that's going to start leaking water in soon!"
"Because," Trowa replied, "Someone will be along in a few minutes. I chose to drop us here because we're very near to water detectors. The Japanese have had issues with storms brewing quickly in this general area due to warm currents contacting the cooler waters of the Pacific. The result is often a powerful, slow-moving storm. Someone will be along to check and see what caused this within the hour."
"Trowa, your logic is faulty. Think- if there's a tidal wave coming how many people are going to head to the exact spot where it started brewing?"
"Lots of them," came the reply. "The sensors are accurate, yes, but other things are capable of setting the sensors off. Larger marine mammals are supposed to be sent away by high-pitched sounds, which are supposed to annoy them, but the devices that produce these sounds could have broken without their knowledge. In addition to this the currents make this area make it a very popular location for cargo haulers. If-"
"If one of them explodes it could set off a sensor and the Japanese Coast Guard would come to pick up survivors or contain an oil spill or whatever's leaking out. Got ya."
"So now we wait," Quatre said, feeling that he was stating the obvious.
"Yes," Trowa said with a slight nod of his head, "Now we wait."
A/N: Nobody new died in this chapter… That's because I haven't gotten to my troops chapter, nor my Wufei chapter, nor my continued Zechs chapter. Rest assured, my loyal follower(s), more shall die in the storm that has occurred/is still occurring. As always, R&R.