02-May-2003
So we're set to go?" Quatre asked from where he was examining the layout of one of the bases that the Gundams were going to hit. The team from the other world had already placed explosives at 7 bases, including the one where Diana was being held. They were planning on setting them all off at about the same time, while the Gundams attacked four other bases. Shin and Kane were going to attack the base where Oz was pretending to be holding Diana, so they wouldn't realize their ruse had failed until it was too late.
Andrew, Brian, and Devin would hit the base where she was being held.
Quatre had been only peripherally involved in the setting of the explosives, and in the initial planning, although he had chosen the target bases, so as to do the Gundam pilots the most good, and to maximize the confusion it would cause. The others hadn't taken him at his word for the first two bases, insisting that he explain why the bases were best, and why exactly they should target them. After that, they'd just listened to him. There had been a certain satisfaction in that, when they admitted that he knew what he was talking about.
Glancing up from where he was doing some last-minute checks of troop placements, he did a double take.
Andrew currently had coal-black hair and dark brown skin, with eyes that matched. He looked completely different than Quatre had ever seen him. There was something foreign in his eyes, too, a look that made the hair on the back of his neck stick up. Quatre had the strangest feeling that he wasn't really looking at Andrew at all, but to someone else who by some incredible coincidence looked somewhat like Andrew and who had happened to get into their safehouse.
Then Andrew blinked, and suddenly he was himself again, albeit with dark skin and hair. "Yeah, we're set to go. Shin and Kane left a half-hour ago, and we're leaving as soon as I change."
"What are you dressed like that for?"
"Last minute reconnaissance."
"Like that?"
Andrew shrugged. "I went down to a bar where some of the local troops were slumming and drugged someone's drink." He paused, then corrected himself. "Actually, I drugged a bunch of people's drinks. Anyway, there's no sign that they have any idea what we're planning."
"Would regular soldiers know about that, anyway?" Quatre asked doubtfully.
"Last guy I found was a general." Andrew's voice drifted from the next room.
Quatre blinked, then decided that he didn't want to know what a general of Oz had been doing slumming.
"Heero and Duo left hours ago, they should be in position soon. Same for Trowa and Wufei. I'm just letting them know that everything's a go, and then I'm heading out."
"Got it," Andrew reported, coming out of the room dressed in a black jumpsuit. His face and hair were their normal colors again. He had a gun in one hand, and the clip to the gun in the other. As Quatre watched, he slid the clip home. "Lets go get her back."
"Are you insane, or just really really stupid?" Diana demanded as she was brought into Treize's office.
Treize settled back in his chair and allowed a small smile to appear on his face. This was new. He wasn't sure what that meant yet. It could be that this was just another one of her endless personality switches, or it could be something new altogether. It might be just his imagination, but he thought that she was actually being honest with him right now. Which led to another question: what had he done to get her like this?
"And what, exactly, led you to this conclusion?" he asked, ignoring her question for the meantime. As always, he was keenly aware of Zechs standing at his side, and Velanz skulking about in one corner. He was very seriously beginning to think of giving the man to Diana. He was rapidly losing patience with him, and he'd suddenly become extremely reticent on the matter of spaceflight. Besides that, Treize just plain detested him, and the more he got to know about him, the more strongly he felt.
"That woman."
<That woman?> "I'm assuming that you're referring to Lady Une," he said calmly. That was the only woman he could think of. There weren't that many of them on his staff, and of them, the Lady was the only one he could think of who Diana would have seen.
"The psycho with the buns and the glasses, yes. Her. Or maybe I should say, 'them'."
"Them?" he asked, although he had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. More interesting than her observations about Lady Une was the fact that she really was well and truly angry right now. He allowed his smile to widen ever-so-slightly.
"You can't possibly be that stupid," she muttered, slumping into the seat across the desk.
"I'm happy you think so highly of me," he said blandly. She glanced at him, looking tired.
"You are aware of the fact that she has Disassociative Identity Disorder," she said.
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that term."
"Multiple personalities," she said sarcastically, and he mentally sighed. It looked like she'd gotten control of herself and was back to switching gears again. <Sarcastic... that's probably the teenage kid, but it could be the old man...> He'd taken to naming her various personalities by their characteristics, to help him keep them straight. Not that he knew if it would help him at all in dealing with her, but it never hurt to have more information. "You know, when a personal has multiple people running around in their head, most of which are not aware of each other?" She added that last one after a moment's pause. He wondered at it.
"That's an interesting way of qualifying it."
She gave him a dark look. "Don't change the subject. So, are you insane or stupid?" That came out in a light, lilting voice.
"Neither, I trust. She does her job well."
"She's legally insane! You're putting a lunatic in charge of half of your forces!"
"This really bothers you, doesn't it?" Despite all of her mood-changes, she'd refused to allow herself to get sidetracked, leading him to believe that he hadn't lost the advantage totally yet.
She blinked once, stared at him, then smiled. "You're very good, you know that? But not good enough, I think." She squirmed slightly in the chair. It looked like she was simply trying to get more comfortable, but he mistrusted that observation. It couldn't possibly be anything that simple.
A second later the door to his office slid open and one of his aids ran in, panting, his eyes wide with alarm. "Your Excellency! The Gundams! They've attacked..."
Diana suddenly lunged out of her chair, striking the soldier who stood to her left in the solar plexus with her manacled hands. He crumpled forward, all the breath rushing out of him, and she raised her hands, catching him under the chin with her fists. His head snapped back and he dropped like a rock. Diana somehow now had her hands on his gun, and fired off one shot at Velanz, who was the only one who'd begun to react to her attack. The shot caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around and making him drop his gun.
While Treize had been distracted looking at Velanz, Diana had taken out the other guard and moved on to the aide. She kicked him once in the stomach. The man was lifted off his feet and tossed two meters across the room, where he hit the wall hard and slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Treize turned his head back towards Diana, reaching for the gun under his desk, and found himself staring at the wrong end of the gun Diana held in her manacled hands. "Hands where I can see them," she instructed coolly.
Stunned by the swift attack, Treize silently placed his hands on the top of the desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zechs tense.
"And if you try anything, I'll shoot your boss," Diana continued, flicking her eyes towards Zechs once. "And if *you move*, Velanz, I will kill you," she threatened without looking at him at all.
There was a slight smile dancing on the edge of her lips as she continued, "I believe your man was coming here to tell you that my people and the pilots have launched simultaneous attacks on a number of bases. Probably a dozen at least." Her smile widened into a definite smirk. "I *told* you that you didn't want to hold me."
Treize finally got his mind back into working order after the suddenness of the attack. Dismissing his worry for his downed men to the back corner of his mind, he spoke carefully, not moving his hands from the surface of the desk. "And why are you so certain that's what's happening?"
"Because it's what I'd do under the same circumstances," Diana said, her eyes slightly glazed over and her face expressionless. He had the feeling she wasn't entirely focusing on their conversation, but wasn't about to test that theory by going for his gun. "I need to be rescued, and you need to be taught a lesson about minding your own business." Her eyes cleared and she gave him that little smile again. "I think this is a fairly effective way of dealing with the issue." The smile disappeared again. "Now, take these things off," she said, nodding her head ever-so-slightly at the cuffs that were still on her wrists.
<Well, those were certainly effective at containing her.> He took a deep breath. "No."
She didn't blink. "No?" she asked, sounding more amused than surprised.
"If you do, there's no more reason for you to keep us alive. I'd prefer not to die just yet," he explained reasonably, hoping he hadn't just signed his own death warrant.
She looked at him for a second without speaking. "Reasonable. Unacceptable, but reasonable, assuming that I'm not willing to kill those of your men who are here, and still alive." She tilted her head to the side, then stepped to the side of the desk, and switched her aim to Zechs. "How good is your orthopedic surgery around here?" she asked in a conversational tone.
"What?"
"Medicine on my world is much more advanced than it is here - I'm proof enough of that. I'm wondering how good it is here. Is it good enough to, say, restore a shattered knee?" Her tone was still light, but there was nothing even vaguely friendly about her eyes. She shifted her aim down to Zechs' knee. "I think not. I think, that if I were to shoot out his kneecap, he'd never fly again. At least, not in a mobile suit."
Treize felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. "You wouldn't."
Her eyes were absolutely dead. "I would. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I *would* do it." She pulled back the hammer. "Now, take these things off me, or I see to it that Oz's star pilot never flies again."
That would destroy Zechs. He had given up his birthright and abandoned his father's principles in order to fight against the forces that had killed his family. To have that taken away from him... he'd have nothing left. It would destroy him. And Treize couldn't let that happen. And Diana knew that. <She's using what she knows about me against us,> he realized with a growing anger. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Very, very slowly he opened the drawer to his desk, and pulled out the metallic strip that would open her cuffs.
"Sir..." Zechs said stiffly.
"Shut up," Diana said absently. She shifted slightly to allow him better access without moving the gun at all. He slid the strip through the key-hole, and the cuffs immediately unlocked and started to fall. Diana caught them easily with one hand - the one not holding the gun. "All right, sit down again," she instructed. "You, put these on." She held out the cuffs to Zechs.
"What?"
"The pilots have a healthy respect for you and your abilities. I'm not taking any chances. Put them on."
Zechs silently obeyed, and Diana pocketed the key. Then she stretched out her arms, rotating her free hand. Then she moved the gun to her other hand and stretched the first one. "All right, lets go."
"What?"
"We're leaving. Come on." She jerked her head in the direction of the door.
"You're expecting us to just walk with you and allow you to kidnap us?" he asked disbelievingly.
"In a word, yes." She glanced between them. "You think that I can't knock you unconscious and then carry all three of you wherever I want to?"
"All three of us?" Treize asked. To be honest, he hadn't thought of that possibility, but now he wasn't ruling it out, not after what he'd seen her do. "You don't think I'd let Velanz go after I finally got my hands on him?" she asked with a growl, then, "And stop stalling. Are you going to walk or am I dragging you?" Treize exchanged a glance with Zechs. If they were still conscious, there was a chance that they'd be able to use that to their advantage and escape. It was hard to run if you were unconscious. Zechs dipped his head ever-so-slightly, indicating his agreement. Treize stepped out from behind his desk. "Lead the way."
Andrew pulled the zip-ties firmly around the downed mechanic's wrists with one hand, keeping the other one - the one with the gun - available for use. He glanced around the hanger they'd chosen as their entry point. Devin was finishing tying up the rest of the men they hadn't killed, and Brian was checking the room to make sure they hadn't missed anyone. Andrew heard a startled shout, followed by the unmistakable sound of a silenced gun going off. His eyes flickered closed for a moment, regretting all of these pointless deaths, but he refused to let his feelings... his weakness... interfere with the mission.
A minute later, Brian returned. "Clear," he reported.
"Cells first," Andrew said. They'd established before that they'd check the cells first, hoping that they'd get lucky and find Diana right away. If they didn't... well, then they'd just tear the place apart until they did find her.
<Or maybe she'll find us first,> he thought, turning his head as he heard gunfire. Quatre's attack hadn't come very close to the base yet, and all of his team was here. That meant either there was another enemy on base, the soldiers were panicking, or Diana had already gotten loose and was wreaking havoc. He was willing to bet on it being the last.
He gave a silent jerk of his head, and Brian and Devin moved to cover the door from two different angles. Andrew moved to stand right next to the door, so that he could ambush anyone who came through. He pressed himself against the wall and waited. After a minute he heard a voice that made his breath catch in his throat. <Diana.>
She sounded irritated, but there was no strain in her voice to indicate that she was in any immediate danger or injured. "All right, turn left here," she said to someone else. "Into the hanger." Andrew heard two... no, three sets of footsteps. So she had prisoners. That was a little odd, they rarely bothered. So either she really had no idea where she was, which didn't sound right, especially considering what he'd overheard, or... or she had prisoners that were worth the trouble of dragging around.
He could only think of a dozen or so possibilities, on this world, and they were all guaranteed to cause trouble, some more than others.
The door next to him slid open, and Treize Khushrenada stepped through, hands held up in surrender.
<Shit.>
Treize felt, rather than heard, someone waiting on the other side of the door to the hanger. He wasn't sure whether to hope it was on of his men or not. This might be the last chance they had at recapturing her, or at least for him and Zechs to escape. On the other hand, he didn't really think that any of his men could stop her, not after what he'd seen her accomplish already, and wasn't anxious to waste more lives.
His concern was proved unnecessary when he did step through the door, and caught a glimpse of a very pale face out of the corner of his eye. He hesitated for a second, turning his head to look at the boy. <04's double.>
The 'boy' stared back at him without a trace of expression on his face. His eyes were hard and uncompromising, and immediately fixed on Treize's face. Treize suddenly realized that he was identical to the man who'd spent several years torturing this boy, if Diana's version of events was at all accurate.
"Keep moving," Diana instructed from behind him, and he took several steps forward, allowing Zechs, Diana, and the unconscious Velanz to enter the hanger. His motion brought him far enough into the hanger to see the bodies of mechanics lying all over the place, some with their hands tied behind them, others unbound, but very still, or lying in pools of their own blood. He looked around, committing the image to memory.
<Six more dead because of me.> He'd have to find out their names later, assuming, of course, that he survived this.
"Tiger..." said another voice, and Treize saw two more albinos appear from hiding, one from behind a mobile suit, the other from a pile of spare parts.
They both froze for a second when they saw her, with Velanz slung over her shoulder. "You caught him!" the one on the left said.
Diana gave a short nod as she handed Velanz off to the first of the two to arrive. "I assume you have a plan for getting us out of here?"
The first, occupied with examining his new prisoner, didn't respond, but the second nodded shortly, then flashed her shy smile. "Have to adjust for prisoners, but it shouldn't take long," he reported. "Two minutes." Diana nodded, and he turned and darted off to the nearest mobile suit, which he scaled using nothing but his hands and feet.
Treize nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice spoke from the general vicinity of his head. He was so startled that he actually missed what the person had said. He swallowed, trying to compose himself. "Excuse me?" he asked, his voice coming out calmly.
"Hands behind your back, sir," repeated 04's double. Diana's head suddenly snapped around, and she stared at the boy.
Treize felt hands on his upper arms, and decided that the 'boy' could probably force him to obey if he wanted, so he crossed his wrists behind his back. He felt something slip over his hands, then that something tightened around his wrists.
"Who's the one with the mask?" asked the first boy, who'd slung Velanz over his shoulder and walking over to examine Zechs, who remained silent.
"Later," said the boy who'd climbed up the mobile suit. "We're ready."
Treize glanced at Diana just in time to see the tail end of some sort of communication between her and 04's double. Whatever she'd said, he shook his head slightly, and her lips tightened in annoyance.
"Fine," she said, turning away from 04's double. "Let's get moving."
"Sorry about this," said a polite voice from behind him, and Treize felt a sudden pressure near the junction of his neck and shoulder. Everything went black.
Escaping from the base was relatively easy, relatively being the key word. Things were going pretty smoothly until they got cornered by a lone mobile suit towards the edge of the base's territory. Apparently someone had finally noticed them carrying the leader of Oz and one of his top men off the base. Luckily, Devin and Brian had been doing some research on how to deal with mobile suits. While Diana and Andrew scattered with their hostages (Brian dropped Velanz in the dirt, and no one cared much whether or not he survived the encounter), the other two boys ran straight at the mobile suit.
Brian slammed into it at full speed, taking most of the impact on his shoulder. Diana winced mentally. Just because their bodies could take that kind of stress didn't make it a good idea, or any less painful. The mobile suit staggered slightly. Even one of them couldn't just knock a mobile suit over, but an impact delivered at that speed could do some damage to the inner workings of the leg.
While the pilot was trying to recover his stability, both with the mobile suit and with his own mental well-being after seeing a boy do that to the suit by running into it, Devin started hauling himself up the side of the suit, moving as quickly as he could. In seconds he reached the suit's right arm, the one which held the huge energy gun. He reached into the elbow joint and started ripping stuff out. After a few seconds, electricity began to spark from the joint, and he jumped clear. A few seconds after that, there was a minor explosion in the join, and the arm swung down, pointing the gun at the ground.
Once the major threat was dealt with, Devin and Brian ran at the suit again, this time slamming into both of it's 'ankles' at the same time. That impact actually knocked the suit over, and it fell with a huge thud that echoed in Diana's ears. "Run!" Devin shouted, and they took off into the woods, Brian snagging Velanz's wrist on his way and dragging him along. By the time the suit was upright again, they were well hidden in the woods.
Her men had hidden a jeep a few dozen miles away, and they were back at the safe house by that evening. Treize and Zechs were locked in a spare room that had been thoroughly searched and prepared by Andrew, and Velanz was chained to a bed in another room. Then Kane and Shin got home, and they held a minor celebration at her safe return. Not long after that, the Gundam pilots returned, and wanted to be briefed on what had happened.
Diana saw Andrew pull Wufei into one of the bedrooms almost the second he got home. She didn't like being in the dark about anything, and had the growing suspicion that whatever he was hiding from her was extremely important.
She'd first noticed that something was wrong when she handed Treize over to him. He'd called the older man 'sir'. Andrew almost never called anyone 'sir', unless he was playing a part that required it. He and the others had all been required to call everyone around them 'sir' when they were being trained, and he, in particular, had chosen to discard that mannerism when she freed them. About the only people he did call 'sir' were herself, when he was in mission mode, and Dev, under similar circumstances. For him to call Velanz's double that...
She could think of any number of reasons he'd do that, the problem was, she didn't like the implications of any of them. And she was sure that she was missing something.
When Wufei came out, his expression was the same as it always was, mildly haughty and angry, but she thought she detected a hint of pallor under his skin tone, and his heart was beating faster than normal. <Enough is enough,> she decided, and grabbed Andrew by the arm, hauling him back into the bedroom that he'd just vacated.
"All right," she said, keeping her voice low. "What is going on?"
"We have a potential problem. No one expected that you'd catch such high-level officers," he said, matching her volume.
"Fine. So?" They'd dealt with unexpected windfall before.
"They're not like the enemy on our world."
Diana knew exactly what he meant. For most of the Alliance officers on her world - about 90% of them, actually - she would have no difficulties walking up to one of them and pulling the trigger. It was hard to raise to any rank in the Alliance while maintaining anything resembling morals or a value for human life. Apparently it was not the same here. Diana knew that she would have difficulty pulling the trigger were it Treize or one of his men at the other end of the gun. Oh, she would do it, if given a good enough reason, but she wouldn't be happy about it.
It had been a difficult thing, threatening them with torture. The truth was that they'd never tortured her, nor allowed others to do so, and she tried to hold herself to a higher standard than those she fought against. It wasn't often that she found herself on the other side of the scale. She'd been relieved when they'd acceded to her demands. She wouldn't have liked doing that to Dev's double.
"You're right, they aren't," she said, then realized that she'd allowed herself to be momentarily sidetracked. "But that isn't the problem. Either we kill them, or we don't. That is not the problem. What is the problem?" she growled.
Andrew opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then sighed. "Wufei is involved with both of them," he finally said.
Diana stared at him, desperately searching for some meaning to what he'd said that made some sort of sense. She failed.
"Please... please tell me that you mean something other than what I think you mean," she asked pleadingly.
He just stared at her.
Diana closed her eyes and resisted the urge to throttle someone. <It's this world. That's got to be it. Everyone on this world is involved in a conspiracy to drive me insane!>
End Part 14
Tada! Bet you thought I was gone forever! Sorry about the long break, but I decided that taking two unrelated languages wasn't challenging enough, I should take them both at the same time! I am working on this story and thinking about a sequel to My Dads, but no promises on when they'll come out.
Diana isn't really serious about that last comment. Well, she did think about it, for a second, but that's her job. I've always been interested in the idea of Wufei being with Treize and/or Zechs during the war, in terms of what it would do to his sense of loyalty, but the issue isn't dealt with that often (at least, not that I've seen). So I'm going to play with that a while. Fun fun fun. Hope everyone is enjoying this.
(:./marika/others14)
