After Colony: Revelation

Part II: VII

000

Wufei knelt down and checked Edan for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak. Her breathing, too, was barely noticeable. It was just as it had been when Wufei pulled her out from Red Horse so many months ago.

He brought his hand to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose. Isabella had been needed each time this had happened to Edan. It briefly crossed his mind that Edan may not awaken.

Wufei wiped his hand down his cheek and stood, turning to pick up his communicator. He cleared his throat and clicked onto their secured line. "The device has been disabled."

The blinking countdown had stopped with hardly seconds so spare. She had cut it close, but Edan had done it—she had stopped the device from going off. If he had more time… well, if he had more time he would have made sure it was fully disabled by taking the vials from within. But he doubted he would have the chance.

"Yeah, I'll say!" Duo replied first, excitement filling his voice. "The Seals—they've stopped moving. I think they've shut down! Whatever you guys did, it did more than we could have hoped!"

Indeed, Wufei could hear that the explosions were becoming fewer and fewer. However, the attack had only ceased with the mechas.

"Do you have an exit cleared," Wufei said over his radio, watching the security cameras. CSO soldiers were rushing in from all of the entrances, as well as the roof. Surely they knew right where to find the now disabled device. He didn't have much time.

"An exit? Pfft, we'll have everything cleared out in five minutes."

"Do you have an exit cleared here?" Wufei asked again, trying to suppress the growl that leaked into his words.

Trowa finally answered Wufei, possibly already sensing that something was amiss. "Carlino has a transport set up down in the subway system. He and his men are guiding the civilians as far away from the danger zone as possible. If you can get down to the parking garage, there will be a squadron to pick you and Edan up."

"Let Carlino know that someone will have to retrieve Edan from the lowest elevator." He set the communicator down and pulled up a layout of the shopping center on the security system, checking for the closest elevator leading to the lower parking garage. He would be surprised if he even had ten minutes.

"Wait, what's that supposed to mean?" Duo's voice responded over the radio, but Wufei didn't answer.

"Understood. What elevator shaft?"

Wufei picked up the communicator once more, "E. She'll be at E within five minutes. Trowa, get Nataku moved as soon as you can."

He let Duo continue to shout at him, but he didn't respond. Just to make things more difficult for the approaching CSO soldiers, Wufei cut the backup lights. He knew where he was going, and he wouldn't be needing the lights in the empty halls.

Wufei returned to Edan's side and carefully disconnected her from the now useless CSO device. He put the connecting cord into her pocket, after finding the plastic caps to cover the dangerously pointed edges. It took him a moment, but he did manage to get her secured on his back. She hung limply, so he had to hunch to keep her from sliding off.

As he started from the security room, he saw that there was a set of keys still sitting on one of the guard's desks. The final bits of his plan fell into place as he swiped the key ring and briskly walked out into the dark hallway.

Wufei moved as quickly as he could with the unconscious woman on his back. He could hear the sound of soldiers some distance behind him, looking for him. They would probably go straight for the now locked security room. His guess is that a small group would hang back to get it open to check on the device while the others continued on to search the area.

He had maybe a three minute lead on them. Wufei stopped at the elevator he had mentioned and repeatedly pushed the down button, even though he knew it wouldn't make it come faster. He glanced at the floor numbers and saw it was just leaving the lower garage floor. "Damnit!"

Two minutes. He would have two minutes.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened just as he heard the shouts start rounding the closest hallway to him.

"There he is!" One of the CSO soldiers shouted.

Wufei barely had enough time to more or less toss Edan inside and press the "G2" button before he ran back out and jumped up, grabbing the edge of the security gate and slamming it down, locking it in place.

He looked at the group and guessed that about twenty had come for him and Edan, and he couldn't possibly let them get what they came for. At least, he couldn't let them get her.

After the elevator doors had closed—just as the soldiers reached the metal bars—Wufei watched for the elevator to go down the four floors to the lower levels. He used the stolen keys one more time to turn the elevator into maintenance mode, and keep it from returning. He only had enough time to pull the key off its ring and drop it down a vent before the soldiers managed to break down the security door.

Unfortunately, Wufei had locked himself in a dead end. He could have tried to take the elevator down with Edan, but he knew they would have been short by just seconds. All it would have taken was one soldier shoving the barrel of one of their semi-automatics between the closing doors, and they would have been done for.

Wufei raised his arms in surrender and braced himself. He was sure they would kill him after all of the trouble he and the others had put them through.

The mass of twenty all had their guns raised with their fingers on the triggers, but they did not move.

"Roger that," the leader of the CSO soldiers said, before stepping forward. Wufei furrowed his brows and scowled, ready to speak, but he did not have the chance. The soldier reached into one of his front, jacket pockets and withdrew a syringe. Wufei was about to resist when two move soldiers practically flew up next to him with their own syringes.

In a wind of motion, two of the soldiers were thrown to the ground, but one of the needles still hit their mark. Wufei was almost instantly down, to his own surprise. There were stronger than he could have anticipated. As his consciousness slipped away, he thought one thing—those syringes were meant for Edan.

000

True to the plan, a small group of Carlino's men went running through the parking garage to reach the E elevator. It sat with its doors open since it was in maintenance mode. If the soldiers were off put by the site of Edan, laying like a corpse with her eyes staring at the ceiling of the elevator, they didn't show it. Instead, they cleared the area and ran forward.

Once one of the men had her over his back, they jogged out and met up with a jeep waiting to take them to the subway station using as an evacuation point. Because the mobile suits and the mobile dolls had stopped attacking, the rebels had a rather clear path to their destination.

In the end, it would take them almost half a day before the rebels would be able to return to their camp with Edan—another two days before they could arrange for the transport of Altron and Red Horse.

"Still no sign of Wufei?" Quatre asked when the group returned to base.

Trowa shook his head as he walked by, carrying Edan to her bunk. There was no point putting her in the medical bay when there was nothing physically wrong with her. Unless she awoke on her own, there was nothing they could do.

"I see," Quatre muttered and wrung his hands a bit. "The security cameras at the mall don't show much. We can't see any of the recorded footage since it was running on backup generators at the time. It does seem as that perhaps CSO had to force their way through a gate at one point. As far as I can tell there are no signs of blood…"

Now was not the time for that conversation. The injured were just coming in and they would have plenty to do before they could even settle in to start making a new plan. Quatre could only hope, at this point, that Wufei had either escaped or was taken alive, in the worse case.

"Any news other news regarding CSO?" Heero asked as he approached, looking to head straight for their strategy tent.

"Nothing besides what you already know. It seems that all of their mecha has been disabled. I can't imagine how it happened, but video feeds show soldiers fleeing. They don't want to be caught in their suits. It seems that some areas—particularly in the South American and East Asian regions—civilians have started to rise up, now that they know the suits can't attack them. I wouldn't be surprised if they had groups of CSO soldiers rounded up and held hostage by morning." Quatre had done his best to monitor footage from across the world while he was confined to camp. It had been somewhat…exhilarating… seeing the dolls and suits freeze up.

Unfortunately, there had been some inevitable collateral damage from those that had been in the air at the time of shut down.

"This would be a good time to have Relena release a statement warning everyone of the medical facilities. If their systems are shut down across the board, it may help us distribute without interruption," Quatre said and walked into the tent behind Heero. Carlino was already inside, updating CSO troop locations.

"That's a good idea," Heero replied, "can you handle that?"

The other gundam pilot nodded and immediately left the tent again. He avoided going in as much as possible—he didn't want the risk of being exposed to any plans that he could later expose to the enemy.

The next two days would pass in a blur. There were no announcements from Moira—no excuses for the CSO equipment left abandoned in cities. With no soldiers blocking Rio de Janeiro, brave souls entered with gas masks to find the bodies that had not yet been disposed.

And then they filmed them.

CSO may have removed their equipment, but people were inclined to believe Relena when she broadcasted, telling the world what really happened. Experts were quickly able to validate her story when they saw the bodies and ordered tests. The backlash was instant. Chaos broke down as the fleeing CSO soldiers were captured.

In some parts of the world, it was an immediate bloodbath. Angry masses were more inclined to shoot first and worry about the consequences later. In others, however, the soldiers were secluded and kept from any contact with one another. Relena had tried her best to make it clear that not everyone was a willing participant—that some people were forced into the enemy forces.

Edan awoke on her own shortly after Red Horse was brought back to camp. One of the young rebels who was put on watch practically lost his mind when she tumbled off of Wufei's bunk (hers was too high for them to easily check up on her.) Her waking hadn't been slow and easy like in the past. Instead, she jolted to life and flailed about, trying to regain control over her movements. The boy went into try to help her, but left with a bloody nose. Two more soldiers entered to try to restrain her and keep her from hurting herself.

Whenever Quatre finally reached her, she was starting to calm down—well, besides her frantic pointing to Wufei's bed and waving. It took him a moment, but Quatre finally realized she was asking for the other pilot.

"We… we don't know where he is. He told us to get you from the elevator, and that was it. We think the CSO soldiers were too close and he delayed them until you were safe," Quatre tried to explain. He kept his voice even and calm, not wanting to alarm the woman.

It didn't work.

She jumped up and threw one of the men trying to hold her still with impossible ease. Quatre barely managed to avoid the man as he was thrown into the wall of the tent. The other soldier panicked and tried to get his arm around her neck, hoping to knock her out again. She hunched over, kicked her leg back into his calf, and grabbed the back of his jacket from over her (and his shoulder.) She moved so fast, and in such a swift movement, that he was flipped over in a moment and she was going for the door.

Heero and Trowa caught her just as she stepped out and quickly wrapped themselves around her torso, locking her arms against her, and her legs. She struggled but couldn't slip from their strength.

"Edan, calm down," Trowa said evenly, "we're working on tracking him down. If you do disappearing, you won't be much help. We need to work together. You're the only one who knows what went on inside the mall—you need to help us put the pieces together."

Once she stilled, he loosened his grasp and released her from the tight bear hug he had been holding her in. Heero also backed away from her, though he was fully prepared to spring back into action if she started to run.

She turned to face Trowa, her head bowed, and nodded.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and lead her away from the bunk tent towards the strategy area.

Heero watched the pair for a moment before trailing after them. Though Edan responded well to Wufei, and well enough to Heero, Trowa was consistently able to communicate with her—even in silence.

Heero attributed it to Trowa's years of work dealing with caged beasts.

000

Once the group, and Carlino, had gathered in the tent, Quatre handed over the wireless keyboard for Edan to start typing.

"We reached the security room without a problem but there wasn't enough time to dismantle the CSO device. With no other option, I connected to the operating system and shut it down from there."

"How did you know that would work?" Carlino asked, hardly trying to restrain the condescending tone from his voice. He had no problem making it abundantly clear that he put up with the gundam pilots out of respect, but that respect did not extend to Edan.

"I didn't. But we had a minute and a half to do something."

"It obviously worked," Quatre interjected before Carlino could open his mouth again. "Whatever you did stopped not just the device, but all of the CSO troops. Do you know if it's a permanent fix?"

The eyes stared at her and she stared back before looking away and shrugging.

"I don't know. I don't know what I did. I plugged in, stopped the countdown, and woke up here."

Carlino let out a frustrated exhale and turned away, shaking his head. He clearly expected something else. Quatre flicked his eyes over at the soldier in annoyance before looking back at Edan.

"That's okay. We know that infiltrating systems isn't your area. We're just glad you woke up on your own. We will continue our push to rally support against CSO and start sending our own men out to aid in subduing other soldiers. We will need to keep a roster and figure out a way to go find those who voluntarily helped CSO and those who were coerced."

"What about Wufei?"

Quatre gave the woman a reassuring smile, "don't worry, we'll find him. He's strong—he'll be okay." Or at least, he hoped the other pilot was okay. He didn't yet have the familiar pit in his stomach indicating the worst had happened, so Quatre simply had to believe his words were true.

000

When Wufei awoke, he wasn't actually if he was awake. His eyes couldn't focus on anything, and he could hardly move. The one thing that he was sure of was the fact that he was sore—so sore. The main area of soreness came from his neck, where the syringes had pierced him. The entire area ached and he could hardly twist his head.

There was someone else in the room—he could hear breathing and sighing, as well as the clicking of shoes, or well, heels really.

"Tell me where she is," Moira said coolly, unbuttoning her suit jacket. The motion sensored lights turned on as soon as she stepped another foot into the room. Wufei said nothing as she slipped it off, setting it over a chair.

The room was dark and cold. The only light came from the spot light some distance above Wufei's head, hanging from the steel rafters. He didn't know where he was, but he didn't believe he was in an actual military base. If he were, he would have been in a holding cell or an interrogation room. Based on the oil stains he saw around him (or what he hoped were oil stains, at least,) he was more likely in a garage or a mobile suit hangar.

"If I wasn't locked out of my own system, I would put you under the knife. I would put a chip in you while you were our prisoner. I would get the information I needed, then I would release you back to your friends. You would complete the job pilot 02 was to carry out—I wouldn't have to worry about the rebel pilots anymore." Moira slid off her suede pumps and kicked the heels beneath the chair. "What do you think about that, hm?"

Thin, sturdy chains kept Wufei restrained to just a few feet. The most he could do was move onto his knees from his kneeling position, but he could not stand. His neck ached liked all hell from the syringe and he anticipated it would become even worse as the drugs wore off. "You're rather egotistical," he replied with a grimace, "you used 'I' seven times in about four sentences."

He barely had time to react to the leg that came swinging at him—but his reaction was nothing more than trying to raise his restricted arms. Wufei fell to one side, cracking his head against the textured metal floor. His vision blurred, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he tried to shake the blurriness away, to no avail. Yes, he certainly still had a sedative in his system.

"Well aren't you funny," Moira said, circling the gundam pilot. He forced himself back onto his knees, focusing in on her. Her grin showed off her pearly white teeth. She looked like a cat ready to pounce, and Wufei was the prey. "Isabella never said anything about your sense of humor."

Wufei grimaced at the mention of the name, and didn't bother to hide it. "Isabella," he practically spat, "Isabella knows nothing about me."

Moira crouched down in front of him, just out of his reach, and leaned forward "She knows enough. She says you're rather fond of our little pet. I wonder, have you really developed a bit of a connection with her? Or maybe… maybe you've just figured out how to use her. She has certain triggers you know, she can be made to be entirely helpless. Would you like to know what they are? You strike me as the type of man who likes his women completely submissive—"

Wufei lurched forward, struggling against his bonds, just inches from the woman's nose. Moira stood up and laughed a cruel, cold laugh. She kicked her leg up once more, catching Wufei right under his chin.

Moira was far from a trained fighter, and though she had no problem kicking him about, he could barely feel it. That was hardly reassuring, however, since his body was so numb.

"So, I suppose you won't make this easy on yourself and just tell us where she is, will you?"

Wufei probably would have considered spitting in his captor's face if it hadn't been against his warriors code, and the fact that his mouth was completely dry. Instead, he settled for clenching his aching jaw and glaring straight into Moira's eyes.

"Not to worry, I like this way better anyhow. After we send her the footage of what we do to you, she'll surely come to us. Isabella seems to think Edan's rather fond of you too." Moira walked back to the chair with her jacket on it and sat down, crossing her legs, and then called out into the darkness somewhere behind Wufei. "He's all yours, Vince."

000

Author's Notes: I know, this one was a bit shorter, but I decided to break this and the next chapter up a bit more. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me! To be honest, I got so absorbed in working on Cosmic Apathy that I sort of forgot to actually post this chapter! So sorry!

To my lovely reader, Pat, thank you, as always for your review!

And to Flu, a reviewer who has crossed over from Cosmic Apathy, thank you! I hope you will continue reading long enough to see this shoutout!

Until next time!

Ever Your Servant,

A.F