Author's Note: The action continues and this time it's the final battle. That's right, it's the final showdown. Who's going to come out on top? Read and find out! Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing
Warning: slight language, death, violence
We Meet Again
Duo's footsteps sounded like thunder to the braided one. It went against everything he was taught to do but now was not the time for secrecy. He needed to move as fast as possible and find that last rocket.
So many lives were in the balance and Duo knew of no one else who was in the position to do so. He didn't know where the others were; they could be anywhere. Hell, they may have already found the rocket for all he knew but it was better to be sure that it had been found and disabled.
He wasn't going to take that chance.
Up to the upper levels he went, barely pausing as he quickly scanned whatever room he came across, his sharp eyes always seeking but never finding that last missile. He was a patient person, contrary to popular belief but right now his patience was beginning to wear thin. He didn't have time to be running about like this!
Coming into a large observation room, Duo finally found the object of his search. It stood at the opposite end, pointed straight out of one of the large glass windows which was wide open, letting in the cool morning breeze.
Adrenaline still pumping through his body, Duo checked the room for any possible enemy combatant, finding not a single one, before making his way to the final rocket, getting ready to disable it and put an end to this once and for all.
"If this isn't a big surprise," a voice from behind spoke, the braided one already recognizing it and gritting his teeth. "If I didn't know better, I'd say we were both still on L2."
Slowly turning around, Duo glared at General Katsaris who was leveling an M-16 straight at him, a smug smirk on the General's face.
"Fancy meeting you in this place," Duo drawled.
Chuckling, Katsaris replied, "Indeed. It does seem familiar. Though, I am curious. How did you get out of that room? I'm dieing to know."
"Trade secrets," Duo answered, oddly recalling giving Quatre the same answer a while back.
"Fair enough," Katsaris said, his hard blue eyes boring into the braided one. "I can't let you touch that rocket. It has a special place that it needs to go and I am going to make damn sure that it gets there."
"And I can't let that happen," Duo shot back. "I can't let you massacre an entire city of people just on a whim. That's not what I fought for and it's damn not sure what I killed for."
Katsaris let out a laugh. "Damn, boy. You do not know how much you sounded like me when I was your age," the General commented. "I felt the same way for quite some time until I discovered something that changed everything. Peace is ugly; it's just like War. While War is chaotic, it gives importance and purpose to the few that have none while Peace is just a more ordered chaos that seeks a status quo, refusing to give those that need it a chance to succeed. This order that you're trying to protect will betray you someday, just like it betrayed me. We're the same you and I, exactly the same. We're only tools that the bureaucrats use when they need us and then toss us away like trash when they don't. There is no place in their world for soldiers like us."
"I'll admit, you're right," Duo said. "However, there is one thing that makes both of us different from each other. I can still change this world. I know I can and I hope I am able to do that."
"Hope? Pah, you have hope?" Katsaris scoffed. "Hope will get you nowhere boy. It's meaningless!"
"Sometimes, it's all we have," Duo spoke softly, remembering the days of his childhood when he didn't even had a morsel of food in his stomach.
"Well, it maybe something you have," Katsaris said, "but this is what I have." Extending an arm out and holding out for all the world to see was something that made Duo pale.
It was an orb of VX, resting happily in the stretched out palm of the General. One wrong move and the General would drop it, killing both of them.
"Only fools have hope," Katsaris casually said. "I've already taken the antidote. I can drop this baby whenever I want. Tell me, you're not immune to this, are you?"
Duo was jittery. How the hell was he going to get out of this one? "Put it down Katsaris," Duo said. "Lets fight this out like men. Right here, right now. Winner gets to live, the loser doesn't. Agreed?"
Katsaris seemed to examine him, his eyes narrowing, taking in everything that was Duo. Nodding, the General smirked. "Alright, boy. You want a fight? You can have it." The General tossed his gun away from him but he put the orb of VX in his shirt pocket. Damn it. Duo couldn't risk breaking that thing. The last thing the General removed from his person was a communicator, which bounced onto the floor next to the discarded gun.
Duo copied the General's actions, tossing his own borrowed gun away and fell into a stance, waiting for Katsaris to make the first move.
And move he did. The General went for a head-on approach, swinging a fist at the braided one, a blow which Duo ducked easily. Duo kicked a foot into Katsaris' gut but was caught off guard as the General grabbed his leg and spun around once before throwing Duo to one of the walls in the room. Duo landed just before his hair began to graze against the metal wall. He felt the air rush out of him on impact and he sucked in as much as he could before he had to move and dodge Katsaris' next blow.
Rolling on the ground, he barely dodged the heavy foot stomp that landed just where his head had been. Scrambling to his feet, Duo picked up speed before delivering a dropkick to Katsaris' gut. The General stumbled back but seemed no worse for wear. Duo swore mentally. This was not working. Okay, he needed a new strategy. Well, there was only one that he could think of.
As Katsaris lunged at him, he twisted and grabbed one of the General's arms and pulled down as hard as he could, flipping the larger man onto the floor. With lightning quick reflexes and blurring hand motions, Duo had stabbed the General in the shoulder with one of the few knives that were still on his person before leaping back and still in possession of the blade.
Katsaris snarled in pain as he gripped his wounded shoulder, getting back to his feet. Glaring at the braided one, he reached into the pocket where he was placed the VX orb only to grasp nothing.
"Looking for this?" Duo drawled, holding the small, green orb in his hand. Once again, the L2 native's pick-pocketing skills had come in handy.
Katsaris' eyes widened in shock then narrowed in anger. Snarling in rage, he reached to his side and pulled out his trump card: a grenade. His large hand took hold of the pin but he didn't pull it out.
"Now what do we have here?" Katsaris said. "Go ahead, break that ball. I'll live but you won't. Now this grenade here will blow you to pieces as well. So what will you do?"
Duo didn't think; he acted quickly. He ran over to the rocket, causing Katsaris to pause. If he threw the grenade now, he'd risk taking out the last rocket as well. However, Katsaris noticed his discarded gun and decided to end this. Smirking wickedly, he dashed towards the gun, Duo's eyes widening at what the General was up to. There wasn't much time.
Making sure that the green orb was secured on the rocket, Duo pumped his legs as he used his superior speed to meet up with the General. Just as the man was bending down in his dash to pick up the discarded weapon, Duo reached him and brought his foot up into Katsaris' mouth, kicking some of his teeth out in the process. Not pausing for anything, he grabbed Katsaris by the hair and a shoulder, threw himself backwards on his back, and planted his foot into Katsaris' gut. With all the strength he could muster, he pushed up and sent the General flying through the air to pass by the rocket just barely and land right in front of the open window.
Getting to his feet, he closed the distance between him and the recovering General in seconds just as the General was starting to get back onto his feet. Not holding back anything, Duo rammed the pommel of his knife into Katsaris' forehead, causing him to stumble back to the open window and almost fall out. However, Katsaris' hands latched onto the edges of the open window, catching himself before he could fall out.
Only this saved him when Duo used his smaller body to ram into Katsaris in an attempt to push him out. With that unsuccessful, Duo improvised, taking a hold of another grenade that Katsaris had on his person and activating it before slamming it into the open knife wound in Katsaris' shoulder.
Katsaris still retained his hold even as he yelled out in pain and as a last resort, Duo smashed his palm into Katsaris' jaw, cutting off the yell and proving to be the final blow as Katsaris lost his grip. Duo barely managed to catch himself and push himself back as the General fell.
A few seconds later, the braided one heard an explosion just outside.
So long General.
As he shut the large window, Duo noticed the small ball of VX slipped out and begin to fall to the floor. Scrambling, Duo managed to catch it just in time before it could land on the hard, metal floor.
Now that was a close one.
Without giving himself a chance for rest, Duo immediately set to work on the rocket, removing the deadly canister within and setting it down gently. Now…now it was over with. He definitely needed a vacation after all this.
"So…beautiful…"
Every muscle in Duo's body tensed up at the sound of that voice. Slowly, Duo turned his head towards the source of the voice.
There in the hatchway stood a bloodied Heero Yuy.
Aw man! He did not need this right now!
"What are you doing here Yuy?" Duo demanded coldly but his words seemed not to affect the Perfect Soldier.
Like a predator stalking prey, Heero began to slowly close the distance between them, his Prussian eyes not leaving Duo once. "I came here to see you," the Perfect Soldier spoke. "I came to prove to you that we are meant to be. Now…and forever…"
What the hell? Was he still fixated on him?
"Heero," Duo began, "no matter what you may think, there will be nothing between us. Ever. There never was and there never will be."
"I'll change that," Heero answered. "I can make there be something between us. We just have to work at it and we'll find it."
It was now that Duo was able to get a good look into Heero's eyes. Heero had lost it, completely. After all this time, Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier, had lost his mind, for good. He wasn't listening to reason anymore, or at least logical reason.
An insane Heero Yuy was infinitely times more dangerous than any threat Katsaris might have been.
His fingers clutched onto the VX orb he still had in his hand as he began to take a few steps away from the insane man. He wasn't going to try and talk Heero out of this. Even when he had been reasonably sane, though being a Gundam pilot meant that sanity had left a long time ago, Heero had been single-minded and focused on his objectives and nothing could or would stop him.
Without warning, Heero closed the gap between Duo and grabbed hold of the braided one tightly. Duo struggled and squirmed to get out but Heero just seemed to tighten his hold on him.
The next thing Duo knew, Heero's chapped lips were pressed against his in a hungry kiss. Heero's tongue forced its way into Duo's mouth and Duo couldn't help but gag. He used his own tongue to combat this unwanted intruder only to make Heero more emboldened. However, it did cause Heero to loosen his hold on Duo, enough so that Duo could possibly break out.
Breaking away and panting hard, Heero's Prussian eyes bored into him and Duo began to notice the blood that was slowly leaking from a few bullet wounds. Just perfect, now he had Heero's blood all over him. Not cool.
"Delicious," Heero murmured.
Finally having enough, Duo used whatever strength he still had to break Heero's physical hold on him.
"Eat this!" Duo hissed as he shoved the orb of VX into Heero's mouth and delivering a punch to Heero's jaw immediately. The sound of breaking glass could be heard as Duo managed to push away from Heero and put as much distance between him and the Japanese man as possible.
He wasn't able to get far as Heero spewed out the viscous liquid that had resided in the orb and released not only that but the poisonous gas as well. Duo's eyes widened as he searched his body frantically.
His hands closed over a cylindrical object and he pulled it out, revealing it to be the syringe with the extendable needle. Recalling the instructions regarding the instrument, he didn't hesitate as he pressed down on one end of the syringe, the long needle shooting out and ready for use.
Time was running increasingly short and Duo only took a couple seconds to position the needle over his heart before he stabbed it in and pressed down on the stopper, injecting the serum within into his heart.
He clenched and curled up into the fetal position, the sharp pain he was receiving immense. Shakily, he managed to pull the needle out before collapsing bonelessly on where he laid.
His head turned slowly and he saw the convulsing body of Heero Yuy. It seemed not even the Perfect Soldier was completely immune to every poison and nerve agent out there. He would be dead within the hour, if not in the next few minutes. A sad fate indeed but Heero had made his bed and now he would have to sleep in it, even if it was the last thing he did.
Removing his eyes from his dieing ex-comrade, his eyes strayed around before landing on the communicator that Katsaris had tossed away earlier. Exhausted, Duo pulled himself over to the device and took hold of it. Changing the radio frequency, he tried every channel he could use to try and keep not only his friends but his lovers from this room. Only one had the antidote. The other didn't.
Who is this?
At last, he was able to get a response but he didn't recognize the voice though. Oh well, he had to take the chance. "This is Agent Duo Maxwell," he spoke.
He heard sounds of commotion on the other end and he wondered what was going on. When he heard a new voice, he couldn't help but feel a wave of relief.
What's your status, Maxwell?
It was Une. He'd never thought he'd see the day where he would be glad to hear that voice.
"All clear," he reported. "All rockets have been disabled and Katsaris is on a one way trip to hell."
He heard the sounds of applause and celebration on the other end. Damn it, did they have to be so loud? However, he needed to say more and he could only hope that Une could hear him.
"Une? Une! Listen to me! I'm in the observation deck of the ship and some VX got out. I need you to tell the others to get off the ship right now. I've taken the antidote so I think I'll be fine for a bit. Just hurry and get your ass over here, please."
I understand Duo.
"And Une? The moment I get back, I'm going on a vacation, okay? I'm getting too old for this shit."
Keep talking to me Duo. We're coming as fast as possible.
Sighing, Duo continued to babble, no matter how meaningless or mundane the topic may have been. On the other end, he heard the sounds of activity and Une doing what Une did best: ordering people.
And for the first time since this crap began, he felt as if things were going to be okay.