Chapter Nineteen: Fire
Hiroki sat with a firm scowl as Nowaki drove the jeep to the outskirts of the primary FMA base, their headquarters settled in a valley surrounded by cliffs and mountains. It had taken them two days to fly here, and another day to go over the plan and ready themselves. Though certain aspects of the plan Delta was still brooding over as he and Nowaki drove to their target site in the cool of the twilight air. Everyone had split up about an hour ago, Hiroki and Nowaki, Miyagi and Shinobu, and Misaki and Akihiko, and the battle would commence in mere minutes.
Hiroki looked out the window of the jeep, his brow furrowed as he remembered Alpha pulling him aside right before they had left their campsite.
"What is it?" He had asked as Alpha opened a compartment in the interior of the plane. But Akihiko only reached inside and with some difficulty, pull out a long, heavy object wrapped in a plastic tarp.
"A parting gift," he said. "Best of luck, old boy."
Hiroki's brow twitched as he replayed those words in his head, but before he could ponder them further, Nowaki had begun to slow the jeep down. He parked the vehicle at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the base below. Both of them got out and opened the trunk to unload their gear, as they would be trekking on foot from now on.
"Nowaki, could you carry this?" Hiroki asked, pointing to the "gift" Alpha had bestowed.
"Sure, what is it? It's awful big." Nowaki replied, even though with his strength it took very little effort to lift.
"I don't know." Hiroki said, shrugging on a backpack and a long ranged rifle. "I haven't opened it. Let's get going."
The two hiked for nearly an hour, darkness beginning to cover them as they neared the edge of the base. The barb-wired fence was but fifty yards away, and the two had to keep low as they saw guard towers with spotlights scouring the terrain. It was there that they began to set up, Hiroki prepping his guns and grenades and Nowaki gathering a few boulders to shield them from return fire. Their main objective in Alpha's plan was to be a diversion, and gather all the attention on themselves while everyone else got inside to destroy the main computer.
Hiroki allowed himself an eye roll as he loaded his rifle. Like it would be hard to get their attention. Once he picked off a few of those tower guards they were sure to sound the alarm.
"Hiro-san, aren't you going to open that one?" Nowaki said in a low voice as he finished positioning the boulders. Hiroki's eyes travelled over to the wrapped object and he sighed.
"Might as well," He muttered as he cut the binding cords with a ka bar. "Maybe that idiot Akihiko actually gave us something useful—" But his words were cut off as the tarp unrolled, revealing a weapon neither of them expected in the least.
"Oh my god," Nowaki said. "Is that?"
"An RPG-7," Hiroki breathed, picking up the shoulder-fired bazooka, a rocket-powered grenade launcher with a huge warhead at its front. "God, these things are built to take down tanks…what on earth was he thinking..."
Hiroki's words trailed off as his mind put the puzzles pieces together. He looked over to the central guard tower, doing some calculations in his head.
"Hiro-san?" Nowaki said. "It's almost time to begin."
"Then let's make the biggest bang we can," Hiroki said, slinging the heavy launcher over his shoulder and positioning himself against a low boulder. His fiery eyes narrowed as he took aim.
"Nowaki, do you have any spare rocks?" He asked.
"A few. I'll have to use them sparingly," the giant replied. "Why?"
"On my mark, I want you to throw one as hard as you can at that tower. Then I'm going to follow up with a blast that'll knock the spit out of them."
Nowaki nodded grimly and with his inhuman strength picked up a horse-sized rock, taking aim at the tower Hiroki had indicated.
"Ready," Delta said. "Aim…Fire!"
And with that, Nowaki sent the rock flying, striking the guard tower with a booming crash. A second later, Hiroki fired, and the recoil of the powerful RPG nearly sent him sprawling on the ground. But his grenade flew and struck the tower as well, sending the structure crumpling to the ground in a heap of smoke and flame.
Hiroki suppressed a smile and quickly reloaded the warhead as he heard alarms begin to blare. The assault had begun.
"That's our signal! Go! Go!" Akihiko spoke, beginning to run down a hill on the other side of the base. Misaki followed behind him, keeping a lid on his super speed as he and Alpha dashed to the perimeter fence and quickly sliced a hole in it with a pair of wire cutters. They slid through and headed into the bright lights of the FMA base, ducking behind a warehouse as they heard chaos descend on the soldiers from Delta and Beta's fiery diversion. The two continued to slip between buildings, easily avoiding the soldiers thanks to the anarchy.
From there, they went to the side of the main building, where they found a grate for an air vent. And Misaki paused with wonder as he realized that they were following the exact route that he had used to first escape this place.
"Come on!" Alpha hissed, wrench the grate off and beckoning into the duct.
"But how are you supposed to fit?" Misaki whispered. "I barely fit!"
"I'll manage, now go!"
Misaki nodded and climbed into the air duct, using his elbows to pull himself forward in the cramped space. The vent was a rectangular shape, having more length than width, giving him just the leeway he needed to crawl through. Misaki heard Usagi grunt in exertion behind him, but there wasn't enough room for him to turn his head.
"I'm in," Akihiko panted. "Keep going until you hit a fork, then turn left."
"Okay," Misaki replied, following Usagi's directions. Even without Miyagi's radar, Akihiko seemed to know exactly which way they needed to go. The first had planned this mission well, but he also seemed to have extra intelligence as to the layout of this place, probably from the plans they stole from the secondary base.
For what seemed like hours, the two crawled around in the metal labyrinth, twisting and turning so much that Misaki barely knew where they were going anymore. But all of a sudden, he came upon another grate bolted to the duct.
"That's it," Akihiko barked. "Can you get it open?"
Gritting his teeth and tapping into his small bit of strength, Misaki heaved and managed to pry the metal grate up.
"Jump down, I'll be right behind you." Akihiko said. Misaki shifted his feet in front of him and held onto the sides of the duct as he maneuvered his way to the edge and jumped. The fall was much further than he anticipated, and as soon as his feet hit the floor he lost his balance and fell down. With some difficulty in the cramped duct, Akihiko followed and also jumped down, but managed to land on his feet.
"Well, well…look who dropped in," a sudden voice came from the head of the room. Misaki lifted his head towards the voice, but when two figures stepped out of the shadows, everything he knew, everything Alpha told him changed in a heart wrenching blur.
Because next to President Usami, Akihiko's father…was his brother.
Seshomaru94, Artemis Fortune, JoanIncarnate, KiyameHikari-chan, Misagi, inuyashalover33, Ayame-san, and Guest- thank you so much for the awesome reviews! Time for some action and plot twists!
Don't Preach- Beloved, so glad you are loving the couple dynamics :) I too enjoy Romantica sans the molestation and stripping them down to their pure emotional states. Such a nice and unexpected change from my normal fodder. I pass the action baton to you! Kisses!
More Romantica and Terrorist next!
Love,
TBF101
P.S. The black flamingo is now on FictionPress dot com with some original yaoi stories of her own! Including a neko story based off of Don't Preach's "Neko Hiro." You can find me under this same pen name in the M rated manga section. I hope to see you guys there! :)