Author's Note: You're all in for a special treat; to date this is the longest chapter I have ever made for any story that I have written. And guess what, it's all action-packed so for those of you hoping for any kind of romance, don't you remember my warning back in Both Sides of the Tracks? There'll be as much romance in here as a Jerry Bruckheimer movie so give up on it. Now, let's get back to all the senseless destruction. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Warning: language, graphic violence, death

Everyday Combat

Kyle shook his head in dismay as he watched Risk and Curtis get the tables turned on them. He had lost track of all the others when they had first entered the circus grounds, much to his shame, and it had only been luck that he had stumbled upon this.

Once again he shook his head. And he had been having a good time too, what with stealing everything he could get his fingers on from wallets and purses to those little gaudy stuffed toys and a set of keys that he had no recollection of taking. Guess he had to do something to save his comrades' butts, huh? But what could he do? He didn't like fighting, not at all, especially if he was taking part as well. If he hadn't been so talented with his own powers, he thought grimly, he would have been called a failure and probably terminated. He knew that piece of information because he had eavesdropped on the boss man with the weird eyes once and hadn't done it since.

If there was one thing that he was, it was crafty. Making sure that no one could see him, literally in this case, he summoned up his own power and eyed the twisting of the light waves before him critically. What to do, what to do… Hmm, what if he tried this…no…or how about…no, that doesn't work either…

Glancing up as he saw Curtis land only a few feet from him, rolling out of the way just as a very sharp object planted itself into the ground where he had lain just previously. He wasn't surprised by his fellow not seeing him since he was refracting the light waves around him to create a cloak of invisibility on himself. Wait a minute…oh, that sounded like a good idea!

Manipulating the light waves before him, a see-through form began to take shape.

---

Duo was still in his blind rage, not caring about anything around him so long as he got a hold of the two assholes he was fighting and tore them apart. Speeding up their lifeforce was too light a punishment for these two. No, he had them on the ropes; he was going to show them all why exactly nobody messed with him.

He made no taunts, did not gloat, hell, he didn't even commentate on what he was doing or making bad puns. Maybe that was why he seemed so eerie to the other two boys.

Catching a blur from the corner of his eye, he readied a barrage and let loose. The blur was managing to dodge them all but then the guy's luck ran out and he was impaled with a large, thick metal bar/pipe that Duo had picked up somewhere, he couldn't remember. However, getting a good look at his victim, he paled and all blind fury in his body drained out in an instant.

"S-s-solo?" he gasped, his powers weakening and lowering him back to the ground. He stumbled towards the taller blond who was barely standing, clutching the metal bar that was sticking right through him. Those pained green eyes pierced Duo's heart and caused him untold emotional pain.

"Why Kid?" Solo coughed, his legs buckling beneath him. "How could you…?"

"Oh no," Duo uttered, his horror growing with every second. "Please no…"

And then suddenly, Solo seemed to wisp away and the metal bar clattered to the ground. Staring dumbly at that, he was unaware of the running footsteps heading straight towards him. What he was aware of was a fist catching him in the back and carrying him a few feet before he went flying straight into the funhouse. He crashed through the thin wall and straight through a mirror before coming to a direct stop.

He laid there stunned for a couple seconds, pushing himself up with his elbows and glancing around to determine where he was. From the light that was being emitted from the hole in the wall, he could see himself in the many mirrors and he grimaced at seeing a gash on his forehead, blood streaming down from the wound and onto his face.

What the fuck had just happened?

Pressing the fingers of one hand onto his closed eyelids, he wiped away any blood or small particles of debris that may have settled there and opened up again only to stare in horror once more. Reflected in every single mirror were the two assholes he was fighting, the speed demon and the teleporter. Each reflection was in a walking motion but no matter where he looked, he couldn't see where the real McCoys were.

Getting to his feet, calling on his powers as he did so, he froze again as he saw the visage of Solo again, the metal bar still sticking through his body, his mouth opening and closing as if he was speaking but no audible words could be heard. Fearful and not understanding what was going on, Duo shot a blast of frozen time, mirrors shattering in the blast's wake and light reflecting off the individual shards, bestowing on the braided one sights of unspeakable horrors that made the boy begin to question his sanity.

He tried to block it all but he just seemed to make it worse. The visions he saw were nightmarish and his instincts to get out of there were incredibly overpowering but the problem remained how he was going to do that. It seemed as if everything around him was closing in on him, threatening to crush him; his mind couldn't take it anymore!

He had to get out of there, he couldn't breathe properly, it was all becoming too much. Forming a dome of time around him, he blasted it all, destroying the entire funhouse and everything inside of it apart. Words could not describe how great it was to see the night sky again nor could they even touch on the subject of the ground…moving quickly…towards him…as if he was…falling?

Wait—

One painful moment later…

Okay…so he hadn't been hallucinating. That annoying laugh that he was beginning to associate with the teleporter was also another clue that all was right in his head. Apparently, that bastard had grabbed a hold of him and teleported him high up above the ground and let go, letting gravity do the rest. That was so fucking lame…

"Let's finish this thing," he heard the teleporter say, most likely talking to the speedster. "Run him over a few times and knock him unconscious. It'll be easier to drag his carcass back."

Duo only lifted his head in response to glare at the teleporter before turning his head away to see the speeding boy that was closing in on him and was about to make contact in just a few seconds.

Crap.

That's when things got strange. What Duo didn't see was that a root a bit a ways from him had sprouted out of the ground and had grown out about half a foot of so, getting directly in the way of the quickster. The Quickster in question didn't see it either and was completely taken off guard as he tripped over the root, which amazingly didn't give way or anything like that. With his tremendous momentum backing him, the speedster zoomed over Duo's body without laying a foot on him and continued to go straight ahead, causing the teleporter to yelp and duck out of the way.

What Duo did see was not as subtle as the root. Breaking through the ground, what could only be described as large branches, all of which had very pointy ends, the bushel of death currently right in the middle of the speedster's uncontrollable trajectory.

Duo watched in morbid awe as the speedster's body was impaled on the branches, the wooden limbs themselves going straight through the body, blood dripping from the unnaturally sharp ends.

"Shit!" the teleporter cried out in disgust, looking a bit pale as he stared at the bloody mess. Looks like he had a low tolerance for blood…either that or maybe it was the metallic scent that had filled the air coming directly from the speedster's body.

Whipping his head around, the teleporter searched the nearby area until his eyes landed on the still form of a specific unibanged young man who had an aura of indifference about him as he stared back.

Duo blinked stupidly at that. Was that…Trowa? But what was he doing here and why was he staring the teleporting guy down? Didn't he have any sense of self-survival?

"You did that to him, didn't you?!" the teleporter snarled at Trowa, flecks of spit shooting out of his mouth. "You're dead!"

The teleporter warped away but not far as he stopped to grab one of Duo's fallen weapons from earlier and warped again. Meanwhile, a long root shot out of the ground and for some reason one of its sides was incredibly sharp. Trowa grabbed it and plucked it out of the earth easily, his waist twisting as he swung the sharp edged root like a sword. And wouldn't you know it, as if he had predicted it, the teleporter was just arriving in a flash of white just behind Trowa but the unibanged youth's makeshift weapon was still swinging away right into the teleporter's neck, decapitating him.

The teleporter's head flew away, heading towards a game stall that sported a few basketball hoops. The head fell into the basket, twisting around in the net before falling and rolling down towards the forgotten group of basketballs laid. As for the rest of the teleporter's body, it had simply collapsed down to Trowa's feet, the person in question planting his sword-root back into the ground where it was swallowed up by the earth as if it hadn't been there before.

Getting back up to his feet, Duo stared at Trowa silently for a few seconds before demanding, "What the fuck?!"

"Do you really think now is the time for that kind of question?" Trowa replied, oddly dispassionate. "We're not out of the clear yet, that is if we are both on the same side."

Blinking owlishly, the aggressive side of Duo's personality gathered his wits and said, "No, we're on the same side, no need to be getting on me for anything…"

"Good," said Trowa, "because I can sense one more person watching us."

---

From where he stood, Kyle stared in shock as he witnessed the deaths of Risk and Curtis. He had been so shocked by it that he had missed everything that was being said by the traitor and the interloper, that is until the interloper stated that someone was watching them.

"Where?" the braided boy had demanded, his head turning from side to side, trying to find him. Pausing, he asked suspiciously, "And how would you know that?"

The interloper in reply smirked and said, "I can sense him. The earth is telling me he's close by. In fact…" Trailing off, he turned towards the invisible Kyle and pointed straight at him. "…he's right there."

Well, shit.

---

"Bullsssshhhhit," the drunken wind master muttered aloud. "Thisssshhhh issssshhhh BULLSSSSSHHHHHHIT!"

Watching the boy, Heero had picked up one of the water guns from a gaming booth that the wind master had shredded, the one that required a few competitors to blast a spray of water onto a target and fill up a balloon until it popped. He held it up by the nozzle, wielding it like a club as he slowly closed the distance between himself and the drunk. Sweat beaded up on his forehead as he fervently prayed for the guy not to notice him. By now, the drunk was holding an empty bottle that he kept drinking from despite not getting anything from it.

He must have been drunker than hell or something to not notice that.

The wind master paused, bending down to pick up an abandoned stuffed animal. "What's thissshhh?" he slurred, staring absentmindedly at the gaudy toy. Wind gathered around the stuffed toy and tore it apart for the wind master's further inspection, the drunk tossing the toy's remains without a care when nothing else came up from it.

Taking the opportunity, Heero quickened his steps until he was right behind him, and lifted up the empty spray gun before bringing it down with as much force as he could muster.

Now, Heero wasn't the most experienced person when it came to alcohol and alcohol drinkers. Many drinkers developed strong tolerances from drinking, their inhibitions lowering until they weren't there anymore. Sometimes, being drunk could null any pain one might experience. Unfortunately for Heero, that seemed to be the case as the wind master didn't collapse into a boneless pile at his feet. Instead, he stood there, lifting a hand up to feel his head, turning around to stare at Heero blankly.

"Ooowwww," he slurred.

With that, he lifted his arms straight up, dropping his empty bottle onto the ground in doing so. Wind came in from everywhere, gathering together to form two large hands that grabbed a hold of the first thing they could: the Ferris wheel. With ease, the airy hands pulled up and tore the large wheel out of its holdings, the large object now being held up high off the ground, its target being nothing other than Heero.

Dropping his useless water gun, Heero just said, "Fuck this," and ran for his life.

---

It did not matter where you were; anybody in the nearby area who could use their eyes could see the unanchored Ferris wheel hovering just about the circus and carnival grounds like some sort of UFO. Only upon closer inspection could a person see the transparent hands holding it up, ready to throw it at a second's notice.

Which was precisely what happened.

The hands shifted their grips on the wheel and began shoving it forwards towards the circus. When it hit, only chaos could be the result.

Exploding from the earth itself, tearing apart the large tent that was the Big Top came hundreds if not thousands of roots and branches, all of them aimed at the falling wheel. With a lurch, the organic defense met up with the metal and steel bars that made up the wheel and took hold of it on one end, wrapping around the metal bars, stopping its dire progression downwards.

From where he stood, Jason stared upwards at the sight, his mind too fuzzed with alcohol to make out what was happening. Because of that, he was not particularly concerned with the ground beneath his feet buckled and vine-like branches broke through the soil, wrapping themselves around his body, encasing him in a wooden tomb. These branches thickened and continued straight up into the sky and caught hold of the unsupported side of the wheel that had begun to tilt downward and threaten the circus below it.

Steadying it, the Ferris wheel hung above all those still on the circus grounds like a metallic specter in the night sky.

---

"That should do," Trowa commented as he eyed his handiwork. It had been so long since he had done anything of this magnitude but the old burning rush had come back as well and he was enjoying every second of it. But it was more to it than just doing that. Sure, he would have been able to see the Ferris wheel and all but it had been the plants themselves that had warned him of who was doing it and how he was acting. Even though he had never seen the person yet, he allowed the plants to take care of him nonetheless. It wouldn't due to just let the fellow wander about causing mischief.

Now back to other matters.

"You can come on out," he called aloud. "It's no use hiding; we know you're there."

Nothing. Then again, he kinda expected that. From what he had been told by the plants, this guy didn't seem like the fighting type. He had stood by and done nothing, even when he, Trowa, had killed those other two. Well, he supposed there was only one thing to do then.

"Hey Duo," he called out to the braided one. "He's over by the dart throwing booth. Think you can scare him out?"

Glancing at said booth and back towards him, Duo gave him a questioning look. Trowa just nodded at him and waited. Shrugging, Duo launched one of those strange, invisible blasts of his straight towards the booth. The spectator of theirs dropped his own invisibility for a few seconds as he shielded himself from the darts and debris that shot out from the stall's remains, cloaking himself once more as soon as he could.

A few seconds later, the guy dropped his cover again, this time coming out with his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. "Don't shoot," the redhead called out to them. "I don't want to fight any of you. I'm not like the others."

Trowa just raised his only visible eyebrow skeptically. "So I suppose you aren't responsible for any of this huh?"

"That's right," the redhead answered, nodding his head vigorously.

"Not even the animals?" Trowa pressed, recalling the recent memories of the tortured beasts.

"Not even this one," the redhead replied, a nightmarish, snarling creature springing out of nowhere. It was monstrous and grotesque, like a gigantic, mutated frog with spikes growing out of its body, small tentacles waving about its body like worms, and razor sharp teeth dripping with an acidic drool.

Despite the grotesque sight, Trowa could only roll his eyes at this. The plants were telling him that nothing was there and the stoic earth only confirmed it so he calmly strolled forward and went straight through the illusion, marching straight towards the shocked redhead and grabbing him by the collar of his strange, black outfit.

"Nice try," he deadpanned.

Then the redhead with the goatee's eyes widened and flashed, a bright light momentarily blinding the unibanged youth. He let go of the redhead and rubbed his stinging eyes. He never saw it coming, literally.

A very hard punch decked him but before he could find himself on the ground another blow came into his ribs soon followed by a foot embedding itself into his stomach harshly. He was spun around, whether his body was spinning or flipping was debatable but what felt like a chop on his neck sent what felt like little electrical bolts throughout his body, making him crumple to a curling form on the forgiving ground that had soften to prevent more harm from coming to him.

"Why'd you have to do that?" the redhead sighed as Trowa's vision began to slowly return to him. "I didn't want to fight you but you left me no choice. Why do you people always have to do things the hard way?"

Before Trowa could do anything, though, a foot slammed into his stomach then moved away only to kick him in the head, further stunning him, preventing him from calling out for help from nature's plant life. In fact, the screaming coming from said plants was beginning to distract him. That was his one big weakness; he could never truly block out the noise that he could hear from the wildlife and right now, that was doing him in as the redhead's foot kept retracting and stomping into and kicking him again and again.

Meanwhile, Duo had taken an initiative and was racing towards them, his right hand being held close to his chest, the fingers pressed side to side against one another. He dodged to his left, then to his right as the redhead sent illusion after illusion at him, trying to keep him from coming to Trowa's aid. To speed himself up, he performed the little trick he had done against the lightning brats and created a conveyer belt of time that he ran atop, quickly closing the distance and cutting straight through the illusions.

When he was mere feet away, he thrusted his right hand forwards like it was a knife. However, Kyle twisted around and intercepted him, using a hand chop to hit the attack away at the last minute. Unable to do anything else, Duo felt the redhead's knee slam into his gut, followed by the fluid motion of the redhead slamming his palm into his forehead, forcing the braided one to stumble back.

Even though Kyle was a pacifist at heart didn't mean just because he didn't like fighting that he didn't know how to fight. Back at the labs, when they were trying to "cure" him of his deficiency, they had trained him extensively in the martial arts to try and give birth to some bloodlust hidden within him. However, all it had served to do was make him skilled in fighting but not any closer to forsaking his pacifist beliefs.

Duo, though, did not know any of this and did not care. Before the redhead in front of him could do anything, either to him or to Trowa, he had charged in again, using a barrier of time as a shield that slammed into the guy and forced him back and away from the prone Trowa. Taking his wall down, Duo ready to lay another blow on the other was cut off as the redhead chopped Duo's arms away and jabbed his stomach multiple times and then twirling his body around to land a roundhouse kick on Duo, his foot connecting with a shoulder and sending a stab of pain into the braided one's torso.

Before Duo could even cry out though, the redhead had already grabbed his arm, his own body twisting and pulling upwards, taking Duo up over his shoulder and falling flat to the ground. Regaining his breath quickly, Duo reformed his transparent blade of time, his fingers smashed together and thumb pressing into the side of his hand with all of its worth. Even before the redhead had released his arm, Duo had thrusted his hand upwards, the hand stopping in midair just millimeters from the redhead's body, the redhead himself freezing in his tracks, his eyes bulging as if something had pierced his body, his veins popping out from under his skin which was changing into a purplish-blue color.

As Trowa watched, inexplicably, the redhead's body aged, thinning and wrinkling, hair graying and falling off the redhead's head before his body caved in and exploded into dust in the next second and Trowa found himself coughing as he got a lungful of it.

"Pussy," a crimson eyed Duo muttered, ignoring the aborted glare Trowa threw at him.

---

"Cool," Solo murmured in awe, eyes trained on the sight of the Ferris wheel of doom being held up in the air by large tree branches or some shit like that. He was fully aware that that Yun guy was also staring because who wouldn't? It was a giant fucking Ferris wheel being held up in air only to be stopped by some plantlife with a mind of its own.

What he wasn't aware of was that Yun recovered first from his awe and swung a serpentine tentacle at the distracted blond, nailing him with ease. Solo found his face had reunited with the ground for a good second before he took control of his body again and flipped onto his feet, glaring daggers at Yun.

"That wasn't nice," he growled, echoing a certain homosexual's last words.

"Neither is this," Yun retorted as he brought up an acid covered tentacle close to Catherine's throat but not quite touching it. The knife wielder's eyes were bulging out in fright but she didn't vocalize it, Solo had to give her props for that.

"Are you a man or a coward?" Solo taunted, hoping to anger his opponent so that he would willingly let go of the only girl he respected.

"Neither," Yun shrugged. "I'm a sadist."

"That explains a lot," Solo said quietly to himself. "Why don't ya let her go and fight me man ta man, huh?"

"Why should I?" Yun asked, honestly curious.

"'Cause I can fight back and she can't," Solo stated, bracing himself.

"Good point," Yun acknowledged, nodding his head in agreement. Without giving it another thought, Yun shoved Catherine away and launched himself at Solo, his tentacles carrying him all the way.

With a speed Solo wouldn't have credited him with, Yun collided into Solo and pushed him back, carrying him into a surprisingly untouched stall that shattered into splitters upon contact with his body. Using his strength, Solo shoved the other boy back and rolled to a side, just missing being hit by an acidic tentacle that slammed down into the wooden wreckage where he had just been. Solo continued rolling, a tentacle slamming into the ground seconds after he passed it, until he got back onto his feet, a broken two-by-four in hand that he tried to use as a weapon. Instead, a tentacle wrapped around an end while another broke it in two, acidic fumes smoking from the jagged edges.

Letting go of what was left of the piece of wood, Solo jumped out of the way of another tentacle, flipping his body in an attempt to copy the circus acrobats he had seen the night before, landing next to a spotlight that had been used previously to advertise the circus' presence. Grabbing it, Solo picked the thing up, shining a direct beam of light straight at Yun and proceeded to use the spotlight as a battling ram.

Shading his eyes with a tentacle, Yun stopped the makeshift ram's procession with two tentacles gripping onto opposite sides while another angled itself in front of the spotlight and shot a stream of acid that ate through the glass, bulbs, and circuitry within. Solo shifted his body so that he was barely able to miss the acidic stream that ate a hole through the spotlight. Increasing pressure, Yun shoved the spotlight forward, pushing Solo away as he lost his grip and then tore it in half, throwing each piece at the blond. Solo took the opportunity to punch at both halves, sending them straight back at Yun who batted each one away with the slap of a tentacle and charged straight at him again.

This time, Solo took an initiative and charged back at the other, crashing through tentacles that sought to either stop or slow him down and managing to get a solid punch on Yun's face. Yun recovered quickly and sent a punch of his own out and caught Solo in his neck. Needless to say, Solo was not affected by the blow but before Solo could reciprocate, he found out that when throwing a frenzy of hand-to-hand blows, Yun was much quicker on the draw, no sexual innuendo intended. Yun jabbed at him and uppercutted his chin a few times, all of which had slight to no effect on the blond, and finishing by planting his hands on Solo's broad shoulders and headbutting him. Now that last one kinda made him a bit dizzy and had to have been the strongest of Yun's combat skills thus far, his tentacles being the exception, but Solo got his wits together and returned the favor, headbutting Yun back and causing the guy to stumble back, clutching his forehead in agony. Not willing to let him off so easily, Solo aimed and landed a kick into Yun's gut, which, if not for those tentacles holding him up, would have flattened the guy.

Seeming to have had enough of that, Yun slammed two tentacles on both sides of Solo's head with enough force daze the blond soon followed up by another tentacle imitating an uppercut and send Solo back into, ironically, the wreckage of the booth he had crashed into at the start of the fight. But Solo was back on his feet and charging at Yun, his head lowered like a bull's. He rammed into Yun, said body grabbing him with one hand on his shoulder while the other had a fistful of hair, and carried him back into a nearby stall and broke through that and into the adjacent stall behind it, continuing across a stretch of open ground and right into another stall.

Yun let himself fall onto his back, his tentacles becoming lax to accomplish this but he took Solo with him. Pushing with his legs, he used Solo's momentum against him to send him flying into a carnival ride called "Twister," one that had many seats attached to large metal girders that spun around in a circle, the seats spinning in smaller circles along the way. Solo crashed back first through the large girder, tearing through it like it was nothing but paper, continuing straight into the center rotating axis to which all four, now three, girders were attached to. He only dented this larger metal girder and found gravity taking hold of him again, pulling him back to the uncomfortable ground. As he had been thrown, Solo had felt something tear from his head and when he frantically search it once he recovered, he couldn't tell much about it until he looked back of at Yun and saw a handful of long, blond hair in it.

Oh no he didn't.

Glancing at his handful of hair, Yun just shrugged and smirked at the blond. "Oopsy."

Solo's sight turned red, his eyes radiating an intense amber light.

With a murderous cry that promised nothing more than absolute pain and suffering, Solo charged at Yun, his fist clenched so tightly that they would have broken the skin on his palms and blood would have been trickling from small self-inflicted wounds had he been a normal person. Yun's smirk only grew and his tentacles shot out, this time wrapping around Solo's arms, legs, and torso tightly, restraining the blond tightly, acid beginning to eat at the blond's clothes.

Shaking his head in mock-sorrow, Yun said, "Poor boy," and stuck an acid covered tentacle onto Solo's face, acid secreting onto Solo by the gallon.