Only one part and an epilogue to go! Enjoy!
Part 14 of 15
Wufei looked at the other three pilots, worry and confusion apparent in his gaze. Nataku had dropped them off just outside the courtyard and it had taken them several minutes to cross the empty expanse in front of the castle door. Yet there had been no attack. No movement was to be seen at all, no guards, no sentries, nothing. If this was indeed where they had brought his priest, why was there no one trying to stop them? Was it a trap? Or was Heero's information wrong?
The only thing to do was to continue on. They were not going to leave without searching every inch of the building or finding Duo. But if he wasn't here? Wufei shook that thought away. He was here. He had to be here. This mission would not be a failure. It would *not*!
Slowly, cautiously, he pulled open the front door only to be almost thrown back from the amount of Chaos inside. Music was blasting through the open doorway. Underneath it was the almost unheard sound of alarm claxons. People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, strangely apropos since "The Funky Chicken" was playing through the intercoms.
The four pilots looked at each other and grinned, or at least as much as certain of them ever did. "Duo," came from four throats, almost in unison. The insanity going on in this castle was strangely comforting to the boys. To Heero, it explained why there had been no guards. To Trowa, it was a chaos that would make things easier as they traveled through the castle. Quatre was relieved that Duo was in good enough condition to cause this much mischief. Obviously the venom wasn't keeping him down too badly. For Wufei it was a sign of his love's faith in him, this had obviously been done to create confusion for their entrance. Duo hadn't doubted that they would come for him.
Wufei stopped them before they started to go in the doors. "Quatre, can you feel him?"
Quatre took a deep breath. He set all his concentration to one task, remembering Duo. He let all of his memories of the braided American run through his head, building up a picture, piece by piece. When he was sure he had the essence of his friend in mind and heart, he went searching. After several tense minutes he gasped, leaning against Trowa's strength as he shook from tiredness and the overload of emotions he had run into.
"I can't find him," he said softly, fearfully.
Wufei reached over and took his face into his hands. Quatre stilled as power, strength and even more memories and feelings took root in his soul. With steady determination, he searched again. His eyes flew open as he turned, stopped and pointed.
"There," he announced. "He's unconscious and hurting, but he's there."
Heero, Trowa and Wufei memorized the direction he was pointing. All three of them had a good enough sense of direction that they would always head back that way, no matter which way the corridors ran. Besides, if worse came to worse, they could always let Heero blast their way through on a straight line to the other pilot. He had certainly brought enough explosives to do the job.
As they moved through the building, they noticed that Duo's distraction was working all too well. Even when they were seen, no one took the time to notice they were enemies. As "The Freddy" started playing, the pilots headed through a large ballroom that was in the way. Their luck didn't hold.
In the control room a young demon was working, desperately trying to figure out what had been done to the console. He knew that if he didn't fix it, Thanatos would have his hide. Literally. Skinning was a favorite punishment of the God of Painful Death. The worst thing about it was that it would take weeks to regrow, and it would be sensitive for ages.
Looking around for inspiration as to what to do next, the technician's eyes were caught by movement on the monitor. He idly wondered who was in the ballroom, since the party had been completely broken up three or four songs ago. His eyes widened as he saw the guns in the hands of the humans. They weren't dressed as guards, nor were they anyone he recognized. This information raced through his mind as he tried to decide what to do. If he bothered the god and it turned out to be nothing, he would *beg* for just the skinning. However, if they really were intruders, than maybe Thanatos would be pleased with him.
That thought was enough to decide him. He took another look at the four almost out of the ballroom and took off running. Luckily, he knew where his god was supposed to be. He was panting as he pulled up in front of Thanatos.
"Thanatos-sama! There are intruders in the castle!" he barked out as soon as he got his breath back.
"Intruders?" Thanatos growled.
"Hai, sir," he answered curtly. "Four boys with guns. Two had brown hair, one was a blond, and the other had black hair. They were going through the ballroom two minutes ago. I'm not sure where they're headed."
"Shinigami!" Thanatos hissed. "That sanctimonious son of a bastardized god dares to come into my home! He is probably responsible for this mess as well." He turned to a group of guards that had been assembling. "Come with me."
He strode off immediately, leaving the guards and demon tech scrambling to catch up to him.
Quatre stopped suddenly, his hand reaching for his heart. "He knows," he gasped fearfully.
The other pilots didn't need any more information than they received from Quatre's tone of voice to know exactly whom he was talking about. Without hesitating or wasting time on conversation they started running in the direction of their injured pilot. It was too late to worry about stealth; all that mattered was getting to Duo before Thanatos could hurt him anymore.
Heero looked at the wall coming towards them. He pulled a microbomb out and threw a glance at Wufei. "Will this work here?" he asked calmly.
"Only one way to find out," was the only answer Wufei could give as he and the others threw themselves down next to the walls.
Heero threw the small bomb down the corridor and himself to the floor. The explosion was almost drowned out by the music still pulsing in the background and the pilots were through the hole in the wall before the dust had finished settling.
After passing through several rooms and corridors, sometimes through blowing up the walls and sometimes just bashing down the doors, Quatre stopped to reorient. Again he required Wufei's help to filter out the miscellaneous emotions he encountered. Luckily, Duo was much closer this time and he unerringly pointed out a direction. Another of Heero's microbombs and they were on their way.
"Wait!" Quatre screamed out as Heero got ready to demolish another wall.
Heero turned to look at the blond, his eyebrows raised in question.
"He's there," Quatre answered the unspoken question. "But I'm not sure how close he is to the wall. He's still unconscious, so he wouldn't be able to get out of the way."
Wing's pilot nodded his understanding as he reached for another of his supplies, this time pulling out an explosive putty similar to C-4. In the hands of an expert, which Heero most certainly was, it could take out exactly what was required without massive destruction and leaving closeby parts of the structure virtually untouched.
Less than a minute later there was a nice hole in the wall, just large enough for the slender pilots to enter comfortably.
Wufei stepped through first. Every beat of his heart was screaming at him to go to the still figure on the bed, but he ignored it. His instincts were yelling louder, warning of danger coming closer. He headed towards the door even as it was slammed open. He had to trust the other pilots to do as they had planned. However, he knew that there could be no better backup in all the worlds or planes as the three boys at his back now. After all, this was a mission, and they had never failed a mission yet. This certainly was not going to be their first.
As if rehearsed a thousand times, the pilots seamlessly took their places, Trowa heading to the bed and its occupant with Quatre standing guard over the two; Heero placing himself so he could watch Wufei's back while keeping an eye on Quatre and the others. They were ready to do whatever was necessary but knew that it would eventually come down to Wufei. That idea didn't worry them at all.
Trowa blocked out everything around him. He trusted Quatre completely and knew that the blond pilot would handle any threat coming at him. His only job was to get to Duo and get him healed. Nothing else mattered. Wufei would take care of Thanatos, Heero and Quatre would take care of his minions, he would take care of Duo. That's the way the mission had been scripted, there was no need to change it now.
Within seconds he was standing by the bed. If he didn't know that it was impossible, he would believe that the braided pilot was already dead. Pain and exhaustion had pulled all the color from his skin, leaving him a pale ghost of himself, especially against the black sheets. His exhaustion and over exertion had left him in an almost coma like state, and it was hard to tell just by looking that he was still alive. Never had he seen the laughing one so still.
Trowa shook off his fanciful thoughts. With steady hands he pulled out the two vials, carefully he lay the golden one to the side as he uncorked the antidote. He raised his friend off the bed and held him upright while trying to get the vial to the unconscious boys lips. As quickly as possible he poured the antidote, then forced Duo's mouth closed until he swallowed. He reached for the second vial than decided to wait a minute or so and give the antidote time to work. Still holding Duo upright, he looked around to see how the others were doing.
Heero and Quatre were taking down guards with an almost inhuman precision. Every shot they made was a headshot and the guards disappeared as they were killed, not being so considerate as to leave their bodies as obstacles for the other guards. Quatre's thoughts were consumed with making sure his friends were safe, and killing without pain. Pain, especially this close, would only strengthen Thanatos.
Heero was fully attuned to the mission. His job was to take down the guards before they could harm the almost defenseless duo of Trowa and Duo or interfere in the fight with Wufei. To that end he had to take down the enemies as quickly as possible, which meant instant death shots. Distantly the thought crossed his mind that these guards knew nothing of fighting together or handling armed assailants. Obviously the only thing they usually had to worry about was tracking down an escaped prisoner or two, not deal with two highly trained and highly motivated Gundam pilots.
Wufei's attention was almost fully on his opponent. His katana whispered through the air to block the moves of Thanatos' scythe. Briefly he found time to be thankful that having an opponent such as Khushrenada had forced him to keep up on his weapon's fighting. Thanatos had obviously not trained too exhaustively, but he had a large advantage in reach as well as an almost unlimited supply of energy from the pain of the mortals not dying on Earth and its colonies. Shinigami's own reserves were much larger than those of the minor god he was facing, but unfortunately they were not being renewed at nearly the same rate as that of the godling in front of him.
Trowa decided enough time had passed and turned back to his assignment. Still cradling Duo in his arm, he raised the healing potion up. This time there was no need to hold the other teen's mouth closed. From the first taste of it on his tongue, Duo seemed to almost try to suck the potion from the tube. Trowa's visible eye widened as he watched color return to the pale cheeks in front of him. Within seconds of draining the vial Duo's violet eyes drifted open and focused on his face. Scant moments later Duo was sitting up on his own and looking around for his friends' positions.
"How are you feeling?" Trowa broke his silence to ask. Not that he truly had to ask, Duo's glowing countenance seemed to scream good health, but he couldn't quite forget the pale wreck he'd been less than a minute ago.
Duo grinned back at him, putting all fears to rest with that one gesture. "I'm great!" he answered easily. "Feel like a new man! What's been going on since skull head there took me? And how come no one's dancing? This is a great song man!" With that he started bouncing on the bed and moving his hands to the motions of YMCA
Trowa grinned widely. Duo was definitely back.
Duo's eyes widened. "You do know how to smile! Who would have believed it? I need to tell the others right now." He bounced off the bed and started towards the others, automatically taking the gun that Trowa handed him.
He stopped suddenly almost causing the taller pilot to crash into his back. Duo's eyes narrowed as he stared at his boyfriend. "What's wrong with Fei-chan? He's moving awfully slow." He watched the battle closely for another moment moving around to get a better perspective. "There's definitely something wrong, it's like skull head's stronger than him, but that's impossible, he's Shinigami."
"Duo! You're okay!" Quatre called out.
Duo suddenly noticed he had moved next to the blond pilot without realizing it. "Hey Quat! Yeah, I'm fine, but what's up with Wufei, do you know?"
Quatre nodded even as he turned his attention back to the guards he was fighting. "I think it's because no one's dying in the mortal world, so Shinigami-sama isn't getting any power from that, while lots of people are hurting and Thanatos is still getting power from that."
"What about these guys?" Duo asked, taking a couple of shots himself.
"It's either because they're already dead or because they belong to Thanatos, I'm not really sure."
"So *give* their deaths to Shinigami," Duo answered immediately. "*Dedicate* their deaths to him, maybe that'll give him extra power."
"How am I suppose to do that?" Quatre was confused.
"Just call out his name or something every time you shoot. It wouldn't hurt to try would it?"
"Guess not," Quatre shrugged.
"Hey, he said I was his high priest, right? Trust me," Duo smirked. He headed off to tell Heero what they were going to do.
"Is it just me, or are those the two most frightening words in the English language?" Quatre asked Trowa who had stayed with him.
"They are when it's Duo saying them," Trowa answered solemnly, before taking a shot of his own, murmuring "For Shinigami-sama," as the man died.