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From
here, it continues…
-~-
--Safe House 023E (A few hours
after the MS Fight)
Trowa sighed as he walked
upstairs. Duo had the strange man
they’d managed to drag out of the other mobile suit bound and chained—yes,
chained—to a chair in the basement. The
braided boy was interrogating, and not being very nice about it, either. Trowa and Quatre were on the alert and
lookout, but were taking a little time to themselves. After all, they reasoned, if they were all dead tired, they
wouldn’t be able to fight, in any case.
The computer systems would alert them if a Mobile Suit came within
range, anyway.
The lanky pilot balanced a tray
with two cups of coffee on it on one hand as he stopped in front of the
bedroom’s door. He raised his hand to
knock, but heard a particularly beautiful burst of melody from inside. The blonde pilot was obviously playing his
violin.
With a quick glance down at the
cups of coffee, Trowa set the tray down on the floor, away from the path of the
door, and leaned against it, listening to the heard-rending melody coming from
inside. The mournful sound of the violin
could echo through time and space—or at least through a closed door. Trowa sighed, so blissfully caught up in the
music that he didn’t notice when it stopped.
In fact, he failed to hear the clicks that signaled that Quatre had put
the instrument back in its case, and started only when the door swung
open. To the inside.
Blast the door. He’d forgotten it opened to the inside. He fell over, trying to regain his balance,
but was strangely clumsy, for no reason at all. He cursed his luck—he was an acrobat. Nimble, flexible, highly balanced. Why, then, did he just fall over?
Ah, but not just fall over. He’d happened to fall on top of Quatre.
“Oof!” the smaller pilot said as
he hit the ground.
Another curse reached Trowa’s
mind, but not his lips. He quickly
pushed himself up to a kneeling position, offering a hand to Quatre. “I’m very sorry, Quatre. Are you okay?”
Quatre looked up at Trowa, his
aqua eyes glittering, not with tears, though.
“It’s perfectly okay, Trowa.
I’ll be fine.” He grabbed
Trowa’s hand and pulled himself up, but didn’t get up from there—he used the
momentum to push himself into Trowa’s arms, wrapping his own arms around the
other boy.
“Ohh, Trowa.” He whispered. Trowa shivered slightly, feeling the other
boy talking close to his ear—it didn’t feel all that bad, truth be
told. He realized the other boy was
talking again.
“…love you?”
Trowa froze. Had he just heard what he thought he
had? If he had…he leaned back slightly,
facing Quatre. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said.”
Quatre repeated his question,
his eyes shining slightly. “I said,
‘How far do I have to go before you realize I love you?’”
Trowa froze for a second,
staring into Quatre’s eyes. What was
it Heero told me that time? ‘Always follow your emotions’? Something like that
anyway… Trowa thought. Well…Quatre
had been the one to say the words…Trowa simply did the only thing that came to
mind. Leaning forward slightly, he
captured Quatre’s lips with his own, feeling the Arabian pilot’s arms tighten
around him for a second, then go slightly limp as he pulled back.
“Sorry, Quatre, I guess I just
didn’t…” Trowa started, when Quatre made a slight noise.
“Shh. It’s okay.” Quatre tilted
his head to the side, as if thinking about something. “Weren’t you going to bring some coffee up here?”
“It’s…outside.” Trowa said. “I brought it, but I was leaning against the
door to listen to you playing your violin, and—“
Quatre giggled slightly and
stood, walking outside. He carried the
two mugs of coffee into the room. They
were only slightly warm by this time, but that didn’t matter.
After all, if the boys were
looking towards coffee to warm themselves up, they had a far better way to do
so now.
--Basement, Safe House (Same
Time)
Duo hissed, pacing back and
forth like a panther on the prowl. His
long braid flicked behind him like the tail of an angry predatory cat. A single light shone in the basement—the
strange man squinted in the semi-darkness, but Duo had no problems at all
seeing him.
Finally Duo lost his patience. He walked over and grabbed one of the chains
that secured the man to his chair. Grabbing it, Duo pulled on it, hard. The man gasped as a completely different
chain, one around his stomach, tightened without warning.
Duo smirked at the confused and
surprised look on his face. He’d
learned many useful things on the streets, and some of the more obscure ones
were finally paying off. Leaning
forward, holding the end of the chain in his hand like a leash, he hissed out a
question, his normally cheerful voice low and dangerous.
“Why did you try and kill them?”
The man swallowed, tipping his
head forward, his spiky silvery-blonde hair falling into even more
disarray.
“There are worse things than
death. I was trying to protect you.” He
said lamely. Truth be told, he was
rather scared of the violent Shinigami.
This was the same boy he’d shot?
That one had been cheerfully chatting to passersby, his braid bouncing
as he laughed and skipped around.
However, the person before him now was a violent demon, his hair
darkened by the room, his violet eyes twin blazing gems of eternal
hellfire. His very expression suggested
that if he did not get the answers he wanted, he would be more than happy to
throw his victim to a pack of rabid wolves, or perhaps step on him with his
Gundam.
After a moment of pondering, Duo
said, in his most dangerous tone, “Protect us? By killing us? You
have a screwed up sense of logic.”
“You don’t understand! They want to experiment on you!”
“And they are?”
“A…a company. Their leader was killed…at a base…”
“I see. We killed a lot of people at a lot of bases,
so that really doesn’t help me much.”
The man heaved a shuddering
sigh. “Me and my sister were raised in
their labs.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. “Really?”
Duo said, his tone more sympathetic.
He nodded. “They…they had a chip in her brain…but not
in mine…they gave us silver hair…they called us their machine project.” His gaze grew troubled. “Mine faded, so they
decided I wasn’t good enough. But hers
was—ah, still is—pure silver.”
Duo frowned slightly. How often did one meet a person with silver
hair? Not often. It wasn’t even a color you saw people dye
their hair often. “Continue.”
“One of their
technicians…stuffed me in an escape pod with a disk full of mobile suit designs
when I was five…he said I had to save her someday…”
“Older sister, or younger?” Duo
said absently.
“Younger,” the man replied,
licking his lips. “And I watched
her. The technician had managed to set
up bugs all over the place…I have the keys.”
“Despite your twisted sense of
logic, you are a most useful person.
Continue.”
“When I heard they wanted to
experiment on you, my first thought was panic.
I didn’t want you to become projects, machines, like my sister was.”
Why should he care? Was
Duo’s only thought. “Hm. Go on.”
“They tore her open. They altered nearly everything about her in
some way. Muscles, bones, heart,
stomach, ribs…”
Duo shuddered. “And what would they do to us?”
“Find out what was so special
about the Gundam pilots. How some of
you can take several gunshots and keep going until you complete your mission.”
Duo made a face. “That’s nothing biological. It was training.”
The man sighed, a haunted look
on his face. “Then they’d take your
brains and figure out a way to implement the training directly into the brains
of others.
Duo’s skin crawled. His violet eyes were no longer boiling, but
shocked. “That’s…that’s…”
“Wrong.” The man said. He hesitated. “I know I wanted to kill you, but I can see that you’re not going
to give up that easily. I’d like…to
join forces with you.”
“I still don’t trust you enough
for that.” Duo replied simply. “Though,
the information you gave me will be very helpful.”
“But…I know where their
laboratory is!” he said helplessly.
Duo’s eyebrows went up and he
leaned forward. “Really. Well, I don’t even know your name…”
“Test Subject 0423-L.” he said
bitterly. “I chose the name Draco after I got out though.”
Duo looked at Draco
thoughtfully. You tell us where the lab
is, and we let you fight with us—on one condition. You keep that cloak and infrared blocker on your mobile suit off
at all times, and if you make so much as a move to attack one of us, we have
every right in the world to kill you.
Draco looked at Duo, his
reddish-brown eyes unreadable. “Understood.”
Duo dropped the chain he’d been
holding and grabbed a totally different one, tugging. All the other chains fell off.
Duo almost snickered at the surprised look on Draco’s face, but
restrained himself. Just as he opened
his mouth to talk again, they heard a faint mobile-suit-in-radius signal from
upstairs. Seconds later the frantic
patter of feet running across the floor reached their ears, then the sound of
the basement door being slammed open.
“Duo! Duo!!” Quatre shouted
urgently.
“What is it?” the braided pilot
asked.
“There’s a mobile suit coming
fast! We have to hurry!” Quatre said.
Duo swore and jerked Draco to
his feet. He dragged the slightly
taller man after him, muttering an introduction to Quatre as he did so. He got coordinates for the laboratory before
he did anything else, then led Draco out to the hangar, where Quatre and Trowa
were already in their Gundams and ready to go.
Duo watched Draco carefully as
the other man climbed into his black and red mobile suit, then bounded up into
Deathscythe’s cockpit, securing belts and powering up. The first thing he heard were Quatre’s
calm—yet raced—data reports. Duo
immediately opened picture links to Quatre, Trowa, and Draco. From what he could see inside of the new
pilot’s cockpit, his mobile suit looked very up to date. That in itself was intriguing, but Duo
decided that now was not the time.
“Let’s get out there and meet
that mobile suit.” Quatre said finally.
With a nod, Duo followed Heavyarms and Sandrock out of the hangar. Draco’s mobile suit followed Deathscythe.
Duo heard Quatre’s stunned gasp
and looked up. He gritted his teeth at
the sight that met his eyes and swore automatically. It was the silvery mobile suit that they’d fought before, but now
instead of holding the shield, it had the gun and a long pole, with no
blade. That spoke of a thermal beam
weapon.
Sandrock’s shotels came into
sight as Heavyarms raised one of its giant double guns, aiming at the silvery
suit. However, the other mech made no
move whatsoever to attack. Duo frowned,
then tried connecting to the other suit.
Surprisingly, it worked. He was
greeted with the sight of a man, in a flight suit, with his helmet off
however. The newcomer had longish
silver hair and violet eyes brighter than Duo’s own.
“You’re in danger!” the
violet-eyed man said urgently. “Your weapons have been sabotaged!”
Duo blinked. “What…how…?”
“You must exit your Gundams
immediately!” he said.
“How do I know this isn’t some
kind of trick?” Duo said questioningly.
“You just have to trust me!” the
other man said in a pleading tone.
Curses ran through the American
pilot’s head. Something about the man’s
manner made Duo want to trust him, but he—
“Shit! Shit!!” he heard the
other man shout, his voice rising.
Duo, alarmed, turned, just in
time to see Heavyarms fall flat on its face.
Sandrock shuddered, taking one step, then falling, one of the shotels
sliding free and slicing into the Gundanium of the desert Gundam’s leg. Suddenly, Duo felt Deathscythe seize
up. He ran scans, but his computers
were freezing. He was just fast enough
to see that the new weapon the Preventers had armed him with was…backfiring?
Duo swore loudly. Through the link, he could see both Draco
and the other man looking in fright at viewscreens, and heard one last
thing. “Remote detonators!”
Duo felt a crackle of energy
through the cockpit, and slumped forward, the belts digging into his skin as
Deathscythe fell. Is this how it
ends? He thought.
Then the large black and grey
Gundam hit the ground, knocking Duo unconscious from the impact.
--Secret Laboratory (Same Time)
The scientist hissed in
happiness. “It’s working! I’ll soon have all the Gundam pilots in my
grasp and we can begin on the work we started so long ago!” He turned to the
silver-haired girl standing nearby, who was staring at one of the viewscreens
in shock.
A black suit. And the pilot of the black suit—
Silver blonde hair. Red-brown eyes. He haunted her dreams. He
told her she could have a better life.
“Brother…” she mouthed, her lips
barely moving. She didn’t know just how
she knew he was kin, she just…did.
“WERE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!” she
heard the scientist scream at her.
Startled, she turned to him.
“No sir. I confess I was not.” She said. She felt the stinging pain of a slap across
her face, but looked at him again.
“I said take the green suit and
kill the other two pilots, then bring me the Gundam pilots. All five.
With three trapped in their Gundams and two in the hospital, you shouldn’t
have that much of a problem, should you now?”
“No sir.” She said quietly, then
turned and ran for the hangars.
--Wufei’s Hospital Room (same
time)
Wufei sat up.
“Something’s wrong…” the Chinese
boy said quietly. “But…but what?”
He sighed. “Maybe it’s just my imagination…but…”
Wufei reached down, feeling of
the casts and bandages. The breaks were
healed, they explained—the new technology for bone breaks was working wonders
these days. The gashes on his chest—those
he could live with any day. The
internal bleeding had been taken care of—he’d just have to be a little careful…
Then, he swore. Even if it was his undoing…
The boy’s hand dipped down
beside the bed, and pulled up a knife that had been hidden among some snack
food. He tested the edge of the blade
against the casts, then began sawing at them.
He checked the clock. He had
maybe an hour before the nurse came back.
He sawed quicker. In ten minutes
he had the first cast off. The ones on
his legs would take longer. He
hurriedly chopped at the plaster and plastic, using both arms now. Thank goodness the bone had healed quick
enough that he wasn’t suffering much muscle failure in his other arm. He cut through one of the casts in fifteen
minutes. His knife was getting duller
now. He started on the third, and ran
into some snags as his knife grew just about too dull for anything other than
cutting butter. Swearing, he stabbed at
it, not caring that he was using a lot of energy. The sense of danger was growing by the second. He finally cut through the last strands of
plastic. Twenty-five minutes had
passed, a whole ten minutes longer than it had taken to cut through the other.
Wufei looked at the clock
again. Just ten minutes before the
nurse came. He stopped to think about
how he was making one of the most foolish decisions of his life, but the
growing sense of doom was driving him to make rash decisions. He didn’t think about dying, just about the
sense of dread radiating from Quatre.
He now realized who it was from, as well—what was going on? Shaking his head, he jerked the IV from his
wrist, tying a piece of cloth around the wound he’d just inadvertently created
on his wrist. He stood, his legs
wobbly, and the room spun. He’d heard
the doctors—he really shouldn’t be up for a couple of more days, possibly even
half a week.
Suddenly a feeling of intense
panic washed over the boy, then all was still.
That wasn’t good. He quickly ran
over to the closet where they’d put his clothes. He looked at the Preventers uniform, then changed his mind and
grabbed his blue tank top and white pants that he’d worn so frequently during
the war. He pulled the clothes on
quickly, grabbing his katana from the closet as well. Last of all, he worked a brush Duo had left behind through his
hair, then tied it into his familiar ponytail.
Looking back over to the closet, he decided that he’d come back for the
uniform…if he could.
Silently, he opened the door to
the room, glancing up and down the hall.
Nobody. He ran out and darted up
the hall, stopping frequently and looking back and forth. The hospital was eerily—empty. He made his way down several levels until he
could see the front doors. Escape was
in sight.
Just then he heard a shout and
saw orderlies rushing towards him. He
cursed in Chinese—then darted for the door.
He was faster than they expected, obviously, because he heard several
surprised shouts.
He darted through the first set
of doors—which were automatic—when they opened, then slammed into the set of
push-to-open doors. They opened and he
was out, but still not out of danger.
He looked around briefly, then spotted a motorcycle parked nearby. Checking the license plate, he promised
himself that he’d pay the owner back for their vehicle, then hotwired the thing
with amazing speed. The orderlies had
stopped, hushed, near the doors, and he took this to his advantage, riding out
of the parking lot and away from the hospital, and towards the safe house, as
fast as he possibly could.
--Field outside Safe House 023E
(same time)
Draco turned to the
technician. “It’s you!” he said
urgently.
“There’s no time for this.” The
technician warned him. “It’s imperative
we save the pilots.”
“I understand.” Draco said, then
watched as the other man activated the beam pike, and used the non-bladed end
to flip the Gundams over. He then
turned it around and began soldering through the cockpit doors. Draco watched, afraid to look—how did he
know just how low to go to cut the Gundanium, but not the pilot?
Alternatively, what if he
didn’t—and they pulled the pilots out in pieces? However, his fears were abated when the tech pried open the
cockpit door of Sandrock, the cut viewscreens still crackling around the
edges. Draco leapt out of his mobile
suit, running over and pulling the blonde boy out. Aside from bruises, and unconsciousness, the Arabian pilot looked
fine. He looked over at the technician
again, who was now working on cutting open Heavyarms.
He hoped that they’d get the
pilots out in time. The very thought of
Quatre with the metallic silver hair and soulless blue ‘machine eyes’ sent
shivers down his spine. None of the
boys deserved that.
Just then he heard the roar of a
small engine, and looked over to see—he gasped. That Chinese boy had been thrown, battered, bruised, and had to
have broken several limbs, and yet here he was, running across the field like a
madman towards the three downed Gundams.
He heard the stomach-churning
screech of metal as the technician pried open Heavyarms’ hatch, then the
Chinese pilot was upon him.
“What have you done to Quatre?”
Wufei snapped, looking down at the Arabian pilot, who was now propped up
against one of Sandrock’s legs.
“We didn’t do anything! It was the scientists…” Draco began
helplessly. Swallowing at Wufei’s
vicious glare, he explained the whole story.
Wufei looked at the silver suit in new respect as it sliced through the
hatch of Deathscythe.
“Maxwell is going to kill him
for doing that to his Gundam.” Wufei mused, almost cheerfully.
“Hopefully he’ll just wait until
after this is all over with.” Draco replied, in a half joking tone.
The creaking sound of torn metal
sounded as the hatch to Deathscythe popped open. Both pilots looked over, but Wufei looked down when he heard a
slight mutter. Sure enough, Quatre was
opening his eyes.
Wufei kneeled next to the
boy. “Quatre?”
Quatre opened his eyes, their ocean-colored depths muddled and confused. Once he saw Wufei, though, his eyes sprung
open. “Wufei!” he said urgently. “You weren’t supposed to be out of the
hospital for at least a few more days!
What happened?”
“We’ll have to discuss that
later,” Wufei said hastily. “Right now
we need to come up with a plan to destroy that laboratory, as well as find
another mode of transportation for you, Trowa, and Maxwell.”
Quatre looked up at
Sandrock. “Did those sabotaged bombs
really do that much damage? We repaired
his mobile suit without much problem.” Quatre stated, nodding towards Draco.
Wufei hesitated. “They had to slice open the hatch to get you
out. It’d take a while to get enough
Gundanium to patch the hatches, plus all the necessary components for the
damaged viewscreens and computers.”
Quatre swore. Wufei’s eyes widened. He’d never imagined hearing some of those
particular obscenities coming from Quatre’s mouth.
“Wait…” Quatre said, focusing on
another thing he’d heard Wufei say.
“What laboratory?”
Draco looked over at
Heavyarms. “Let’s wait until he wakes
up, then I’ll tell both of you.”
“Oh no…Trowa!” Quatre said,
following his gaze. He tried to stand,
but fell back. “Wufei, is he okay?”
”I’ll go see.” Wufei said, springing over Sandrock quickly, then running across
the field to Heavyarms and peeking into the cockpit. Trowa was still strapped in and sported bruises, as Quatre had,
plus a scratch down one side of his face, but was otherwise okay. Wufei unstrapped the taller pilot and pulled
him out of the cockpit, being careful of the torn metal edges around him. As soon as Trowa’s face met fresh air, he
started to mumble. Wufei pulled him out
of the cockpit and put him down next to Heavyarms, then knelt nearby, waiting
for him to awaken.
Trowa’s eyes opened not much
later, and the first thing he focused on was Wufei. “Wufei?” Trowa blinked once, then focused on a totally different
thing than Wufei’s being there. “Is
Quatre okay?”
“Quatre’s fine.” Wufei said. He helped Trowa up, then guided him over to
Sandrock. Trowa looked happy to see
that Quatre was in one piece, and Wufei thoughtfully put him next to Quatre,
then chose a seat next to Draco for himself.
“It’s like this.” Draco
began. He explained about the
laboratory and their projects. Quatre’s
eyes grew wider and wider, while Trowa just retreated further and further into
himself, as if thinking.
All four looked aside suddenly
as the silver suit spun, as if facing something, then jabbed viciously with its
pike. The air rippled and suddenly a
green and white mobile suit appeared from nowhere.
Wufei cursed in Chinese, and
Trowa tightened his grip on Quatre’s arm.
As Wufei ran for the hangar to activate Altron, Quatre followed the
boy’s path, and saw Deathscythe, the hatch open, but Duo nowhere around.
“Duo!” Quatre shouted, as the
green and white suit moved in that direction.
To be continued…
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