08-Feb-2001
Heero skulked behind a large tree, his head barely visible as he peered around the trunk at the soldiers milling about the front of the targeted building. Looking through the eyeglasses gave the soldiers' forms an eerie glow in varying shades of red, orange and yellow.
The lenses unfortunately rendered the whole scene in a rather two dimensional fashion, as if it were a psychedelic photograph. The disorienting sensations that the lenses created set him off balance in a way that the Soldier found unacceptable. In a slow movement designed not to gather attention, he slid off the glasses and tucked them into his uniform's pocket. //I can just as easily find my way around without them as with them,// he decided.
Heero crept towards the building he knew housed the motorpool. Using his senses of hearing and more particularly touch, darted towards or slunk past whatever cover was available, a tree, some bushes, a truck. Even with the loud and fast winds the weather brought that night, he could still feel and hear more than what most would consider even human. He crouched low and worked his way to the wall of the building, close to a side door that was his entrance.
As he neared the entranceway besides the two massive doors, footsteps and a sudden warmth and fumbling presence nearby announced a soldier's patrol. /No light,/ Heero thought dispassionatly. /He must be wearing night goggles. We made a dangerous underestimation. He can't see colors though. An advantage./
"And just what the hell do you think your doing?" the man barked out at Heero as he was nearing him. Heero remained silent, he wanted the soldier to get a little closer before he made his move. "I asked you, just what the hell are you doing? Everyone is to report to the second level for reassignment for the patrols or to get the backup generator running, I want you to double-time mister, and I mean NOW!"
The man was almost in Heero's face. The boy could faintly detect traces of corn chips and a sickeningly sweet alcohol on his breath. /More than close enough,/ Heero judged.
In a movement almost too fast for the human eye to follow, Heero brought a closed fist down on the man's shoulder. The collarbone gave away with a satisfying crunch. The soldier jerked back sharply with a strangled sound before crumpling to the ground.
Heero nodded with cool satisfaction. Quatre had only authorized death in a scenario with no other alternative. The second force of Preventers deployed after their team would arrest the man. It was unlikely the solider would regain consciousness before then.
He knelt down and removed the sidearm and the extra ammunition the soldier had on him. Heero had been issued just one handgun with some extra rounds. He had felt grossly under-armed. With the barest hints of a smile, he tucked the gun into his belt and pocketed the extra bullets.
As his hand closed around the door's handle, two shots echoed over the night air from the direction Quatre had been assigned to. There was something vaguely not quite right about the sound of the report, but Heero did not have time to wonder over it. He needed to get inside before he was spotted again.
Slipping inside, another shot rang out, this one sounding more true. /Quatre,/ Heero confirmed as he felt his way down the darkened hall, the easy burden of the explosive he was set to plant a comfortable weight.
Three Preventers had been assigned to Quatre, to assist him on Trowa's rescue. They had reached level seven, where it was believed Trowa was being held, without incident. This had not surprised Quatre, as the building had been fairly empty during Noin's preliminary surveillance. Although it did surprise him there was no skeleton crew, that was standard operating procedure, in any manual. The place looked deserted; with the exception of a lone guard here and there, they had encountered no one. The guards had been easy to overtake or avoid entirely.
They had reached the confinement area within easy time. Not expecting interruptions or reinforcements (it was obvious to him that their main bulk of manpower was being focused elsewhere; a wonderful convenience) he ordered his escort to post guard outside. He wasn't sure what he would find when he entered the brig; he couldn't feel Trowa as strongly as he should, and that worried him.
He cautiously stepped in, still his sense of Trowa was faint. Three cells occupied the far end of the short, bleak hallway. Hesitating briefly, Quatre's ears picked up the faint sounds of breathing from the third cell. Cautiously peering inside revealed two men, obviously guards. They were unconscious from some unseen trauma and had been locked within the cell and stripped of any tools. Strewn about the floor of the second cell were pieces of what had been a wooden chair and a discarded pair of handcuffs. Trowa had been in there obviously, but had made his escape.
Quatre quickly returned to the Preventers waiting in the hall. "I'm changing your orders," he commanded, "You will no longer accompany me, instead you will report to Lt. Noin for reassignment."
"But sir," one Preventer spoke up, "Colonel Une herself ordered that..."
"I am overriding those orders, soldier. The situation has changed. I no longer require your assistance. Report back, now, or would you like the prospect of disobeying your direct field commander?"
"Yes sir," they responded, backing away with some reluctance and leaving Quatre to his own thoughts.
Quatre reexamined the scene. He could guess what had happened. Trowa had managed to free himself from the handcuffs, and had surprised the guards. The problem now was locating the missing boy before anyone less friendly did.
Quatre stepped back into the hallway. He took a slow cleansing breath, clearing his mind of all the impressions he had accumulated.
Quatre started walking, following an unexplainable instinct. The path that had chosen him took him deeper into level seven. Quatre came upon an intersecting hallway and the path nudged him to the left. As he followed, a bright yellow human form collided with him.
"Trowa."
"Quatre."
There was no need for anything else. Everything that needed to be said, the relief, the worry, and the joy were all voiced in the names on each others lips.
"Freeze!" A loud voice called out, backing up the threat with a warning shot. The bullet ricocheted between the two men, a scant inch from wounding either. A man in a high ranking Devolutionist uniform broke from cover and trained his gun steadily on both, obviously sizing up the situation. He quickly turned and aimed at the unarmed escape. "No moves or the funny haired one gets it."
"Surrender please," Quatre asked. The man swallowed as the little blonde's face became cold and stony. When the man hesitated in his answer too long, Quatre, faster than the man could track, raised his own weapon and sent two bullets straight into his chest.
Quatre mentally frowned as the man got back to his feet almost immediately. The man had to have been wearing a vest under his uniform. If so, the concussion bullets he was using would have no effect.
"Blanks? What did you expect that to do?" The man snorted, now swaggering.
"Nothing. I was just getting rid of them," Quatre said calmly. He fired once more, using the man's overconfidence as his own weakness. "The last one was real," he quietly explained as the general crumpled to the ground.
"Blanks?" Trowa asked as they ran for the exit and the cover of night.
"I didn't want to have to kill again." Quatre sighed, tucking his gun away.
"Finally joining us, ojosan?"
"I'm not interested in this game tonight." Relena responded, trying to brush past the harlequin. The scene she had gone through with Heero was unsettling. All she wanted was a night in peace and the solace of dreams had been denied to her since the day she had "fallen" into Duo. "Unless you'd like to uncuff me?"
"You?" The Child said, stepping out from behind the shield that the Jester had made of himself. "Ya the one playin' veg'table on the table aboves us. Dunno where ya get tha idea that it *ya* who'r cuffed."
Relena speared the urchin with a dark glance. "You're being technical about this."
"I think I's gotta right tae be!"
"I don't have time for this!" Relena snapped, a bit of the earlier hysteria returning, tainting her frustration.
"Nay fair phantom, it is we who are short on time." The Jester shook his head slowly. "I think you do not know how far you've gone. Slipped away in the wind. Is this your nature?"
Relena frowned. "What would you know about me?"
The Jester laughed, a bitter and weak thing. "More than I care to. How many times have you dipped within our thoughts, our memories. Did you think nothing was exchanged?"
She stiffened at that. She'd seen some of the worst of times Duo had been through, embarrassing moments, private habits and quirks, personal things. The air crackled around her at the thought her own were picked through. Her naps with the teddy bear Heero had given her, the time she found out *after* an important meeting that her dress was tailored far too low to safely curtsy or bow, the hundred of times she had doubted herself and the Peacecraft way.
They had seen them? How *dare* they! And then to act as if the moments were nothing, not even worth mentioning that they had noticed them.
Her eyes narrowed and the 'temperature' dropped more than a handful of degrees. "I see now," she said. Her tone was brittle and prim. The Child raised his chin and set his feet.
"That tha problem lady. Ya aint seen nothin'."
"They are taking too long." Noin said, her dismay evident as on her computer scattered, blinking warning lights became a flood of information. The base was powering up and recovering much faster than they anticipated. Worse yet, it was a closed circuit, and she couldn't kill the power and communications again. "Where ARE they?" She growled to herself.
"They'll make it," A calm confident voice murmured in her ear. Long fingers curled companionably around Noin's tense shoulders.
"Sally," Noin greeted, turning her eyes from the monitor just a moment to greet the Chinese doctor. "Shouldn't you be with the MB team?"
"They're prepped already. We can move any time," Sally replied quietly. She smiled at Noin, her round face lit up by the screaming monitor. "You aren't the only one waiting breathlessly for someone to get out."
"Zechs no baka. If he'd just..." Noin said, her fingers racing over the keyboard, but her tone was anything but detached.
"I know. Wufei was the same way, for a long while. He.... wait, did you see that?"
"No.. where?" Noin flipped the screens to the surveillance, trying to spot what the sharp eyes of the other woman had caught. She frowned, noticing some of the base's floodlights begin to wash the field with damning illumination. There in the midst of the scans were two figures, running low, between cover. The bright golden hair of one gave their identity away immediately.
"Quatre and.... and yes! Trowa's there!" Noin flipped onto the comm. "9 to all units. Extraction complete. Complete reconnaissance and withdraw."
"I'll grab some of the boys from the med team," Sally said, standing up brusquely. Noin gave her a concerned look.
"I didn't see any wounds."
"Look at how Trowa's walking." Sally pointed out, watching the gait of the tall acrobat. He was walking with what on anyone else would be a normal walk, but on the incredibly graceful boy...
"He's hiding a limp." Sally nodded at Noin's observation. The dark haired woman opened up a narrow line. "Status, team 13?"
{Clear.}
"Good. I want a cover for the withdrawal. Proceed to the southeast quadrant and clear a path for 3 and 4."
{Acknowledged.}
"...complete reconnaissance and withdraw." Noin's voice echoed through both headsets. Wufei and Zechs glanced at each other, only long enough to confirm that the other had heard the transmission before pointedly trying to ignore each other.
Even in the recovering emergency lights, it was quite amazing how much of the earlier argument could be carried out in body language and heated glances. The tension of the situation hadn't helped. Heero's movement through the area earlier had set off some unsounded alarm within the troops, and to progress undetected, they had to move painfully slow.
The first mission priority had been fulfilled and they were still thirty meters from even reaching the labs and their storerooms. Each, within their own minds, were solidly attributing this lack of progress to the other, lack of rationality aside.
The echo of bootheels striking the floor forced the two back again, to wait for the approaching patrol to pass their position. As the last bluegrey uniform receded into the dim lighting, Zechs let out a hiss of held breath.
"Could you.. please... remove your foot," he whispered. The mellow voice nearly a growl.
"My apologies." Wufei replied just as quietly, standing smoothly and shifting the offending foot. The dour glance he received from the blond made it unlikely that the possible sincerity of the statement was well received. Cornflower blue eyes narrowed, about to retort, when another, much louder argument drifted down the cleared hallway.
Their own dispute forgotten, both men fell into a matching stance. As they crept towards the brighter light pouring from a doorway ahead, the voices rose in pitch and ferocity. Wufei snapped across the doorway to rest against the other side of the open portal, a blur of tan and black in motion.
"SHUT UP, stupid!" The caution seemed unnecessary. The verbal combatants seemed too engrossed in each other to notice a stampede, much less the steady progress of the team's partners. The words were clear from their vantage points.
"Shut up? Shut up? How many times have you talked over me, rambled on and on and on, endlessly. Dear god woman! Do you even need to breathe? Now that it's my turn, you tell me to shut UP!?"
"YES!" The two men peered around the edge of the doorframe in time to see a dark-skinned woman get roughly turned to face a balding man. They glared at each other, nearly nose to nose, before breaking out into another volley of screaming. "We destroy the records now! They are too much of a risk. Get it through your thick skull, O'Hara!"
"It will take too long, Yasmin. We have to move them somewhere secure! Overzealous camel jockey!"
"Oh and moving won't take forever?" the woman identified as Yasmin snorted. "Whiskey-soaked potato-peeler!"
The pair turned away from each other abruptly.
"Stupid raghead!"
"Arrogant Mick!"
"BITCH!"
"BASTARD!"
They paused to stare at each other, panting and red-faced. Finally, Yasmin relaxed her posture by a degree. "So we move them.... THEN destroy them?"
"Agreed, my little desert rose."
The dark skinned woman giggled and leaned against him before the former combatants set into a flurry of emptying the metal cabinets and hastily stuffing files into canvas mailbags.
"Was that a fight or foreplay?" Wufei whispered, feeling as if the world had just been turned upside down and the sky had just been declared green.
"You know," Zechs replied, feeling slightly lightheaded and disoriented himself, "I'm not entirely sure."
The Chinese man shook his head. "Reminds me of my first wife."
Zechs stared at the other man, trying to absorb that new information for a moment. "You were married before?"
"That's not important right now."
Zechs shrugged, conceding the point. "Let's go and get this over with."
Wufei nodded his agreement. As one, they snapped into the doorway, shoulder to shoulder. "Freeze!" The Devolutionists looked up into two twin guns aimed at them. "By the authority granted in the Preventers Act of 196, you are hereby under arrest under charges of conspiracy against the World Sphere Government. Surrender peacefully an.... Damn it! which part of 'Freeze' isn't clear!"
Bullets pocked heavy concrete walls as the Preventers belatedly opened fire on the fleeing couple.
The two made their stand not twenty feet away, crouching in opposite doorways. The hallway had ended abruptly and a ladder to the higher level stood between them, undared yet.
With a wild whoop from the darker woman, and a determined scowl on the balding man, they quickly returned fire, pushing Zechs and Wufei into a slow withdrawal. Flickering emergency lights acted as almost a strobe light, alternately bathing the area in illumination and utter darkness. Neither could afford to advance or retreat, both made to dangerous by the erratic play of weapons.
A sound of crisp shattering in the darkness broke the steady conversation of reports, far too delicate than it deserved to be. Four heads turned immediately as the light flickered again into life, identifying the strange sound that the wild bullet had produced. A small block was taped with neat precision to the indentation of the wall. In the shadows, it was easily missed. What had been some sort of container above the package had shattered and drenched the bomb below it prematurely.
Eyes met across the impromptu battlefield and a set of black ones took on a feverish cast. Yasmin leveled her gun, aimed and pulled the trigger.
"Get down!" Someone shouted.
The world lit up and the walls came down.
Deep within the compound, a willowy and graceful blond braced her arms against the walls as everything shook deeply below her. A catty smile crossed her face and she continued on.
From the overlook, the explosion was felt before it was heard, and never actually seen. The explosion roared over the still night air and shot mercilessly down the spines of the onlookers.
Trowa, being tended by Sally and a very flustered Quatre, had to be held down despite his wounds.
Noin simply stared, struck dumb as the realization of what happened occurred to her and refused to simply go away.
Scrabbling for her communicator, she opened the bandwith to all the channels. "Report," she said, her voice cracking. In a much stronger, forceful voice, she shouted over the line. "All teams within the compound! Report now!"
"That tha problem lady. Ya aint seen nothin'."
Instead of the expected retort or scornful glance, Relena laughed. "No my dear, it's you who will not see." At that, the familiar shape of Relena, the trappings that Duo's mind had given her, dissolved, disappearing. All three could still feel her presence, but it was scattered, all over and impossible to pinpoint.
"Where she learn that?"
"I think such randomness bears no source." The Jester answered, backpedaling slightly. "She knows not what she does."
"She maken it up as she go along. Great. How ya mess with tha?"
"You don't." A voice like a frigid breeze whispered in his ear. There was a caress of chill, invisible fingers across his grubby face, a twisted parody of a lover's or a mother's sweet touch.
The Child took a hasty step backwards, but the presence persisted. The mindscape shifted, changing from the malleable and soothing darkness they were used to a glistening surface, a honeyhued wall that closed slowly around the retreating urchin.
"You can't," she purred to him. He couldn't see the Jester or Shinigami. He could feel their utter panic as they frantically search for a weakness in the walls around the Child, for the woman who did this. He wanted to tell them he was safe, not to expend their energy, but he wasn't so sure it was the truth.
"Wuts this?" The Child asked hesitantly. He could feel Solo slowly slipping from him, stepping out and behind him. Their hands met and curled around each other for comfort and strength.
The figure of Relena appeared before the two, in the now cramped space of the glittering cocoon. She smiled benevolently. It was not a comforting sight to either children.
"During the battle, I found out that something kept you from pushing me out," Relena replied. "It took a while to discover, but I found it. Look around, this is everything you are. You made this cage and then made it invisible. Hiding from yourself. It binds you down far better than anything I could ever do." A ghostly hand gestured, the graceful movement more suited to Dorothy than the pacifist Relena was supposed to be. "I just made it visible."
She looked at both faces, and the doubt written there. She smiled. "Go ahead, touch one."
A hesitant touch. He had to know.
//"Because I love you," the words were blurted out in Duo's voice. He could feel Relena's presence over the memory, but it was solid, real. No fabrication. Heero's face was colder than he'd ever seen.
"I don't love you." Heero replied, harshly.//
She disappeared again before either could recover from the bitter memory. The Child watched the encroaching walls with a sick feeling. She was right. Now that he could see them, he could see how they kept him tied. Bound and helpless. She was right.
He curled up, trying to deny it all.
Dark.
{Come in! I repeat, come in! Status anyone!} There was a click of a communicator switching to a private channel.
Heavy.
Awareness came to him, floating in on the coattails of a throaty female voice. Something weighed down on his back, stealing his breath and making starbursts of white pain flash behind his clenched eyelids. Why couldn't whoever it was let him rest?
Pain.
{Zero-one report!}
Don't want to. Just rest for a bit. Duo always said never to report when he... Duo...
"Hey, you come out of this okay?" A tenor that carelessly rose and fell in pitch, and violet eyes in the dark. He had promised something. To violet eyes.
{Zero-one can you hear me? This is Noin, over.} the voice sounded desperate, strained. {Come on you indestructible sunvuabitch! This is not the time to die!} Somewhere in the background, a soft male voice was telling the woman to calm down, but he hardly paid it much mind.
Die? No, he couldn't die. He had a promise to fulfill... no more important: a mission, didn't he? The weight on his back made it hard to think.
"If I come through, you have to come through? Remember?" That was the promise! The pain in his head and ribs became more sharp. He latched onto it, desperately, as a focus. That voice... Duo's? No, he was hallucinating. Still, it continued, coaxing him. "Just give a push Heero. You aren't giving up, right?"
{Zero-one?}
"Right?"
With a strange sense of rational detachment that he was sure was half delirium and half oxygen deprivation, Heero slowly inched his hands underneath him. Grit and pebbles dug painfully into his palms as he pushed off the uneven floor below him.
A moment's strain resulted in little more than a soft grinding shift of stone against stone above him. Dizzy and panting, Heero collapsed the mere inch he'd managed to rise.
He'd failed? No. Impossible. It wasn't option. He braced himself again, gathering every ounce of strength he knew he had. He pushed.
Pain exploded through his palms and ribs before focusing in a dull throb behind his eyes. Heero desperately gasped in the stale, dusty air, trying to glean some last wisps of oxygen for his muscles. His arms trembled as the pressure increased.
"Right?"
Something gave way above him. The weight rolled off his back and crashed to the side of him. Suddenly, his world was filled with crisp, cool air and the flickering of emergency lights.
Heero slumped back to the ground, concentrating only on taking one breath after another. His vision was clearing, one gasp at a time.
{Zero-one?...... Quatre, I think we lost him....}
Heero propped himself up slowly, fishing through the silt of the fallen ceiling for the noisy communicator. Finding his quarry, he depressed the button.
"Zero one, over."
{Nani! ... Copy that! Nine here! Heero, thank god! No one else is responding! Status?}
Heero slowly surveyed the shattered landscape around him. Some dim, unknown source of light from somewhere to his left flickered, illuminating the dusty room in irregular flashes. An emergency light, Heero concluded. It was too dim to see far above him, but by the rubble, he assumed some part of the ceiling collapsed, maybe more than one level.
His memory supplied the impression of an invisible concussion of air and noise roaring around him before everything went black.
"Status uncertain. There was an explosion. Most likely one of the detonators went off prematurely and set off others nearby."
{Can you make it to the surface?}
"Undetermined. The mission..."
{Withdrawal takes priority. Look for survivors of course, and complete your mission only if the opportunity arises, but... just try to get out, okay?}
"Ryoukai."
"Hey kid." Solo's voice broke through the haze of his misery.
"Wut?" The Child groused. "Leeme 'lone."
"Like tha' gonna happen anytime soons." Solo poked him in the ribs, eyeing his twin thoughtfully. "Ya ain't gonna lissen to her, are ya?"
"I's gotta choice?"
"Sure ya do."
"Hn. Dun't feel like it."
"Dun care wutcha feel. This's important, kid. Last ditch, 'member? Ya gotta get tae the others. None of us ken do this alone."
"Wut bout ya? Why ya out here?"
"I's fine, kid."
"I canna get tae them." The Child gestured toward the wall of threads.
"Betcha it ain't that strong. Thems all lies."
"If thems lies, how come it bound us up right?"
"Cuz ya believed in em, baka." Solo ignored the Child's scowl. "Jes' give it a shot, a'right? Ya gotta be Duo, and Duo's gotta be Shinigami. But to do any o that, ya gotta get there. So w'as stopping ya?"
"Dunno where tae start..." The Child whispered. The glistening web shifted constantly, weaving a hypnotic pattern. They ducked and wove around him, both winding firmly around him and frustratingly out of reach. A small hand reached out and hesitantly brushed one of the filaments.
//A shove came from behind him, causing Duo to stumble a step, the precious books falling out of his grip. Moving stiffly from the effort to ignore the indignity of it, Duo smoothed his too-large priests clothes, and moved to pick up the texts. A sparkling clean boot descended on the small pile before his hand could close around the bindings.
"You want som'thing rat?" The owner of the boot, bent to sneer down at Duo face to face. He recognized the plump boy. His father was a high placed Fed. He never let anyone forget that.
"Yer standin on it." Duo growled, his violet eyes flashing. It took everything to keep his temper in check, mainly by repeating Father Maxwell's heartfelt entreaties to behave at school. Sending him there was costing them dearly.
"Whoo boys, looky here. The rat's thinking he's got something." Sniggers came from all around. Duo didn't find anything amusing about the lame threats. The words weren't the problem. The fact he was surrounded was more worrying. "He's even talking like a rat, aintcha rat? Say it right and I might letcha have it."
"You are standing on it," he repeated, in perfect English. "I'd like my books back."
The bully swaggered forward, the movement deliberately sending the books skittering away from them. "I don't like you."
Duo stared at the boy waiting. The taller kid stopped inches away from him, trying to force Duo to either take a step back or to crane his neck. He did neither, merely stared up from beneath his drown brows and grimy bangs.
"Street shit like you don't deserve to be here with us real people." The bully said, taking in Duo's dress, the thick cuffs of the overshirt and pants showing how many times the hems had to be folded to fit the slight boy. "Dressed like a priest huh? I bet that's just a front. Wearing it to keep people form knowing you live in some whorehouse."
It wasn't the words, or the expression on the pudgy face in front of him, it was the laughter coming from all around him that made him tremble and clench his fists. He was seeing red.
"You know how I know that?" The bully didn't see the temper rising dangerously on the black clad boy. Or if he did, he stupidly ignored it. "Cuz you smell like fresh shit, and everyone know that boys when the...OOOF!" The laughter died into gasps as the dirty gradeschooler rammed his fist into their leader's throat.
It was only a stunned, split second, before the fight began in earnest.//
The Child recoiled, his entire body flinching from the force of the memory. He couldn't bear to touch it anymore... there had to be another way. Something else.... The shift away brought him in touch with another thread though.
//"Pretty thing you are. Why don'tcha sit in my lap little boy." A gaptoothed man sneered at the preteen.
"Fuck off," Duo mumbled as he passed. Rule number one, never look a Creep in the eyes.
The other man chortled. "You say that now. When you get hungry again, you know where I am, sweet thing. Your type always come back."//
He jerked and pulled back, denying it for all he was worth. His stumbling step flattened him against an entire wall of the threads.
//"You good for nothing..!"//
//"Ungrateful little..."//
//"Really? Duo? I mean he's nice and all but..."//
//"Maxwell! If you were capable of thinking of anything beyond your petty games, you might understand this war!" Wufei raged, bright red after being caught one too many times at the end of Duo's pranks to lighten the mood.//
He didn't mean it. Wufei had spent the next three weeks trying to make up for the words he didn't mean and never should have said. Despite their fights, they truly were best friends. An insult from frustration and the pressure of war wasn't changing that.
//Heero glanced at Duo irritably. "Baka," he growled coldly.//
No... that was before he and I.... before we...
//Relena drew closer to the child, her cold presence laced with a bitterness and determination. "He never said It, did he? How hard could it be to say he loves you if he really means it."//
No! He did. Solo was right. These were all lies.
His gaze followed offending line down. Suddenly, everything around him shifted imperceptibly, revealing an overlooked pattern. No matter which way the lies swirled, spun and wandered, they all traced back to one.... he held them all tightly in his left fist, unheeded until now.
//Cobalt eyes stared down at his, searching for a trace that he KNEW had to be there beneath Relena. The voice, gruff from unconscious awkwardness and true, heartfelt emotion. "Ai shiteru."//
With a smile, he finally understood. He met Solo's gaze and they shared a smile, both impish and soft. The Child opened his hand, and let it all go.
Wufei woke in nearly the same situation as Heero, but the burden on his back was somehow softer. It moved by itself as well, just the fractional rising and falling of..
Breathing? Something was breathing?
Wufei pried his eyes open. The glasses Quatre had given them had miraculously survived without a single fissure across the lens. The surface of it was flooded by a swirl of reds and soft oranges, body heat above him. Wufei pushed himself out from under the other Preventer, a little astounded at the sight.
For all the bickering they had done before and during the mission... Zechs had knocked them both out of the worst of the explosion and took the brunt of the blast for the smaller boy. For luck, the golden haired man appeared battered, likely as much as Wufei felt, but free of serious wounds, the worst being a shallow cut above his forehead.
He scanned the heat signatures of the room around them. A plume of heat still floated in the middle of the hallway, residual from the blast that had shattered the surrounding walls. Beyond the heatcloud, there were two shapes, still bright. The couple they had fought against were still alive as well by the looks of it.
The Chinese man crouched, weaving a little unsteadily on his feet, next to Zechs. He could send a team after those two later. He lifted an unresisting arm and slung it over his shoulder, and stood, shifting the taller man's weight to his back.
"I do not," Wufei panted as he dragged the limp, heavier man through the settling dust and fallen rubble, "Need another name on my heart."
The words slowly floated through Zechs' muzzy semiconsciousness. The blood loss and the pounding of his brain against the contours of his skull made even puzzling out the simple code of language an arduous task.
"Which name?" Zechs asked hoarsely, forcing his eyes open. Wufei was staring down at him with a mixture of guilt, alarm and surprise.
"What?" he asked. Zechs frowned, struggling with his confusion and the urge to just go back to sleep. For some reason though, it struck him as too important just to leave alone. He had to know now.
"Which name would've it been? I got two you know." He hated how slurred he sounded. Irrationally, he wondered how appalled Pargan would be if the old man had heard him somehow. Still, it must have come out at least somewhat coherently, for Chang Wufei was standing stock-still in the destruction with an almost comically thoughtful look on his face.
"Millardo. Millardo Peacecraft." Wufei said firmly, if a touch slowly, as if he were tasting the words for their truth as he spoke them. "Zechs died on the Libra, the name no longer fits you."
"How do you know?"
"I've died too, when I killed Treize. I was merely fortunate enough to be reborn as myself." Wufei shrugged then hefted the man a bit farther onto his shoulder, and trudged on.
The sharp bolt of pain at the movement did more to clear his mind. The implications of the entire conversation. He shook his head, focusing on the blood that had begun to color his golden locks. //Not entirely pleasant,// his mind supplied wryly, //but it will do.//
As soon as he'd gathered enough of his wits, he wrapped his hand around the smaller man's arm. "Chang," he croaked. "Put me down."
"No." Angry black eyes met his. "I did not tend to you, carry you all this way so that you can now lay down and die for some sense of debt," he finished with passion.
"No, I want you to help me walk."
The two men stared at each other through the psuedocoloring of the glasses and the occasional flash of real light. Finally, the Chinese man set Zechs on his feet, allowing the taller man to lean on him heavily. Wufei started off down the corridor again, but was stopped by his companion.
"No. Back." Zechs gritted out between his teeth.
"You are in no condition for that." Zechs raised an eyebrow and stared pointedly at Wufei's uniform, now a sickly red brown in color.
"You hardly look better."
"The lab is secure. I checked it before we left. And yes," Wufei said, answering the unspoken question with a bit more force than necessary. "I am fine. I was taught to deal with far worse wounds."
"With the cave-in as it was, there will undoubtedly be people trapped," Zechs persisted. He took a bit of pleasure in the renewed strength of his voice. He was always, somehow, just that much stronger when he was with a purpose.
Wufei frowned slightly. "If they are strong enough, they will survive. Otherwise no one could help them." The "should" was unspoken, but heavily implied in the man's tone. "We, on the other hand, need to escape."
"What about the two at the labs... who set off the explosion."
"They live."
"Then we go back for them. We know of at least two survivors. To simply abandon them, would be the same as outright murder." Zechs struggled to put together the concept to find something to turn the determination to saving Zechs' life to returning to those who were in greater jeopardy. "This isn't just a mission, it's a matter of principle."
He felt odd saying it. He who was willing to sacrifice so many lives during his dark period. But that was a matter of principle as well, a hope for the lives that were saved from the act would be improved by it as well. Wufei had, on his own, followed nearly the same line of thought.
"All right," Wufei replied slowly, "we'll see if your ideal is strong."
"Thank you, my friend." Zechs felt Wufei stiffen at the name, then somehow relax subtly beneath him. Through the pain, he managed to smile all the way back to the lab. Somehow his earlier tensions and resentments had dissolved.
Within the mindscape, the destruction of the prison from the outside looked like nothing so much as the shattering of a prism. The outer shell stilled and suddenly gave every appearance of being too brittle to breathe near. A fissure developed along one side, and the crack widened and expanded, pouring itself into millions of hairline rivulets.
All at once, it shattered, fragments glimmering in midair for a moment before going black and shriveling, the true form of it revealed and the two 'children' within freed. The black haired one simply drifted to the side, away to observe, while the chestnut haired Child walked between the ecstatically grinning Jester and the specter of Death, who for the life of him, the Child could have sworn was purring.
The spirit once again reappeared in their midst, one foot giving a petulant stomp more suited to one half her age. "How?" she spluttered.
"Wur all lies, alla em." The Child said. "Weren't not me, jest others who not knows me and didn't want to. Ain't no truth in that."
At those softly spoken words, an almost tangible connection shot between the three aspects with more ease than any of them could remember. They were separate still, but just a fraction away from perfect synchronization with each other. The weariness fled their posture immediately and the sheer feeling of power between them, the heart, the voice and the will, was overwhelming when combined.
Taking a faltering step backwards, more out of panicked instinct than any true hope of it helping, Relena fought to smile confidently at the trio.
Resolved, the Child tugged on the connections, drawing the willing pair to him. It was nothing visually spectaculor at all, but Duo finally reveled in the sheer feeling of completeness.
The first priority in the wake of disaster was always 'search for survivors,' Preventers and Devolutionists alike. Karla's location still needed to be determined. Was she still within the bowels of the demolished building or had she made her escape? Her capture and the confiscation of the vials were the highest priority, despite Noin's pleas to hold leaving above it.
The explosion had knocked out what was left of the emergency lighting in that particular wing, and the murky darkness defied even his night vision. With a sigh, Heero pulled the thermal glasses out of his pocket and pushed them onto his face. The glasses would detect any body heat and might aid in finding anyone trapped anyway.
With steady determination, he scanned or searched each room on the route he had chosen for himself. Which action he took depended entirely on how bad the destruction was beyond each portal. With a mixed sort of relief, each room turned out as empty as the last. The fewer injured he had to help, the better. It would slow down his search for Karla. Even though he doubted she was still on base, Une would require a definitive report.
Maria was in Karla's office when the explosion hit, sending everything into chaos. Ducking under a desk had saved her, but now a layer of grit, drywall and rubble kept her pinned beneath the cramped confines of the desk.
Bracing herself against the back of the desk, she shoved the worst of it out of the way, methodically tossing the smaller pieces aside until she had a clearing almost large enough for her to wiggle through.
She was about to crawl out from under the desk, but froze as a new sound mingled with the noise of her labor. Maria froze and concentrated her hearing. It sounded like footsteps, uneven perhaps, maybe to dodge the rubble. She listened harder as the footsteps grew louder as the person beyond her cubby found more solid footing. /Average weight,/ she decided, tilting her head. /Maybe on the short side.... cheap shoes./
She pulled herself out and stood up. She'd take her chances if it was a Preventer. Maria picked her way to the hall over the tenuous footing provided.
Heero had found no one and was approaching the last room when the back up generators kicked in again. The emergency lights flared to life, giving only a hum of warning before the blinding change in illumination occurred. Heero jerked off the glasses a moment too late. The brilliant flash of the lights left huge red patches of burned afterimages, obscuring his vision. He pressed the back of his fist against his eyes, but trying to clear them only achieved the opposite... bright flashes behind his eyelids.
Heero felt a sudden jolt in his chest. Pain radiated through his injured ribs and he staggered back a few steps, one arm groping through empty air for his balance. A second jolt stole the wind from him and dropped him to the floor. He rolled instinctively to his side and with one hand, caught the descending foot that was about to smash him in the face.
Years of training in blind fighting began to trickle back into his reflexes as he shut his eyes and concentrated on what he felt and heard. He dropped flat suddenly and grabbed the other ankle of his attacker and yanked the figure's feet out from under it. He heard an 'uumph' of expelled air, and the thick thump of a body crashing to the floor.
He got to his knees immediately, setting one firmly over his attacker's chest pinning her... yes, definitely a her, it was hard to mistake now.... to the uneven ground. Inch by inch, the spots dancing over his vision dissolved, slowly revealing the grimacing face of a woman, a very familiar woman.
Everyone on Earth and the Colonies with a vid could have recognized it from the most frequent peace talks. The tall, dark-haired woman beneath him was unmistakably Karla, his target, and leader of the Devolutionists.
'Karla' kicked out, catching Heero just below the groin. He doubled over instantly, compensating for an intense wave of pain, or so 'Karla' assumed. As she staggered to her feet, Heero kicked out and the heel of his yellow sneakers caught her in the chest. It was a swift strike to the pressure point on her neck that felled the woman. She crumpled, unconscious, without ever having said a word.
Heero removed a second pair of handcuffs from his belt and snapped them around 'Karla's' wrists, then dragged her in the direction of the entrance.
From the shadows, the real Karla Grey watched as her second-in-command was picked up and slung over the young Preventer's shoulders. /I'm sorry Maria, but I have to live. This is too important./
She disappeared back into the hidden passageway, bolting for the tunnel system that would lead her out and across the Preventer lines. She managed to run only thirty steps before a cool voice stopped her in her tracks.
"It's beautiful isn't it?" Karla froze, turning around to meet the odd blue eyes of Dorothy Catalonia. The woman stood primly in the flickering light of Karla's flashlight. Her hands were tucked behind her back, and her head was tilted slightly to one side, like a curious cat. "The battle that is. Most of them are."
"You were so close to the last," Karla agreed, looking for a way around the blonde woman. She wasn't sure how Dorothy had gotten in, or why she was here, but the look in those eyes unsettled her.
"True," Dorothy admitted. "I learned so much from them. Do you know, I really don't like war. In fact, I would like nothing better than to see it never happen again."
"Your actions in the past have said differently." Dorothy actually looked saddened at the statement.
"I would suppose, perhaps, that you of all people would understand my motivations. Have you ever hated something with such a passion, over such a length of time, that you truly fell in love with it?"
Dorothy rocked back on her heels, smiling. "So few people look past the brushstrokes. The doctors were good at that. They saw the whole painting for what it was and manipulated their tools of art adeptly for it. I merely follow in their admirable footsteps." Understanding suddenly dawned on the smaller woman's face as the pieces clicked solidly into place for her.
"It's ending isn't it?" Karla asked.
"Indeed."
"And you are here to kill me." Karla smiled tiredly. "No. Don't explain. I've known from the start. I just thought..."
Dorothy walked forward, wrapping her arms around Karla, taking her into an impulsive hug. "Zechs was always fond of saying that it is the head that needed to be cut off. I disagreed with him. A cockroach can wander around for a month without its head, they say."
Karla nodded. "It's the heart that the body can't function without."
"You are a smart woman Grey-san." Dorothy smiled and stepped back, drawing a small, petite gun. "It's a pity we hadn't met on the same line of battle."
Where the three had stood, a familiar image of the boy she knew so well had taken their place. His head was bowed and jagged bangs fell over his face, shading it and hiding his expression. It took Relena a moment to notice the direction of his gaze. He was quietly staring at his hands as though they were unfamiliar, opening and closing them slowly.
"Duo?" Relena asked uncertainly. "Another trick." She said with more conviction.
"I've played no tricks. That would imply me being in a /good/ mood." Duo simply lifted his head, violet eyes opening and a smirk flitting across his lips. "Enough of this ojosan. You're leaving. Now."
"I am not." She said with quiet, soul deep conviction, but as she spoke, her voice rose with a slight hysteria. She was sensing the sudden and powerful purpose of the man in front of her. "I have nothing left but this! You won't take this away from me as well."
"I'm taking away nothing that did not belong to me first," he stated with almost unnatural calm.
The two met, the first time touching, power against power, determination against determination.
For a second, they stayed in perfect balance, locked in a flash of a moment, suddenly completely understanding as their lives and consciousnesses overflowed, overlapped.
One gave away. A third made his decision and split away, his essence wrapping around the one before taking his willing passenger with him as he left for the first time since his death. The world for the three of them disappeared in an afterburn of electric white.
TBC
Nixers
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