25-Nov-2002
Title: Magic Happens Part 20
Author: Ebonydove
Archive: aenai.steelsong.com
Warnings: language, lots of sap, slight angst, yaoi. Also wanted to mention that I have taken great liberties with Duo's past, so for you purists out there... don't hang me.
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: still not making any money off anything here...
Story: Heero & Duo are on the run from a group out to destroy Relena and Quatre's hard work for the peace process and fair trade policies in the colonies.
Author's note: Feedback craved more than chocolate covered Duo's... well not really, but it's a close second. ><
No doubt the brute had heard the gunshot from the lookout posted on the second story balcony and was now guarding the servant's door from approach, but he was oddly overconfident as he stood puffing away on his cigarette. I watched the tiny swirl of smoke as it rose above his head in a gentle wisp and could feel my finger tighten on the trigger of the gun I was holding. It's an unwritten law that once you pull your gun out from where ever its been hiding, that it's your intention to use that weapon with deadly force. If that isn't the case, then you have no business carrying one in the first place. As I inched silently closer the man I was about to kill, I realized quite suddenly that he didn't have to die. I didn't have to kill him. I could hurt him; scare him certainly, but I didn't have to kill anyone anymore than Heero did.
I had myself quite a dilemma.
Although Heero had been in the Preventers far longer than I had first realized, both covert and working for Relena in secret as her protector, I knew in my heart of heart that he hadn't killed anyone since the very end of the last war against Mariemeia and her puppetmasters. And neither had I. I had joined the Preventers to find my way back into the world of the living, not take people from it. I thought about Hilde and how sad and frightened she was for me when I left L2 to find Heero and work for Wufei. I think she always knew that I would find myself at this point. I think Heero knew it too, or he wouldn't have been planning and building that house for us way out in the middle of no-where.
It was insane for me to be thinking these things at the time that I was. I was almost on top of my gravedigger and walking a dangerous line of kill, or be killed, when I made the decision that one way or the other this would be my last day with the Preventers. I was no longer complacent, but I no longer needed to risk life and death in order to be happy. I could be content. I would be content with Heero and our little country house in the middle of no-where, and I smiled at the thought of us growing old together.
But, my timing has never been all that good.
Just as my epiphany surfaced to full realization, Quatre had decided to back me up even after I had told him to stay put. Don't get me wrong, the guy can be stealthy when he wanted to, but he was also counting on me to be paying attention to what I was doing and not daydreaming in the middle of the situation we were in. I still had a shit-eaten grin on my face thinking about Heero and I on our front porch swing when I heard the slight snap of a twig behind me.
Brutus turned in the direction of the sound to find me mere paces from him and Quatre no more than five feet behind me, still slightly obscured in the long shadows of the house but still within striking range. Our eyes locked for just an instant before he winked and spun around grabbing at the door handle. For a guy as big as he was, he moved fast and ducked around the door and began firing at us. I flew to the ground and then heard the hiss and grunt from Quatre behind me, and did a full body shiver. He'd been hit.
"Q! Status!"
"Just go, Duo! I'm all right."
I knew he wasn't, I could hear it in his voice, but we both knew if big and brutal got to warn the rest of those inside, things could get really bad, really fast. I was pretty sure that Heero and Fong had made it in already and Trowa was probably close to Wufei and Relena too, but without knowing for sure, I couldn't risk Brutus warning our mole and having her do something rash.
"Stay down, I'm going after him!"
"Roger that. I've warned the others that we have a moving target and you're in pursuit."
I heard the slight feedback in my ear and cursed myself for not using the damn comm. link to warn the others myself. Then I heard the rustle of shrubbery as Quatre made his way back towards the rose bushes. At least he was still moving under his own power.
I had to get my shit together.
I darted to where the servant's door was still open and swinging lightly. The inside hallway was short and lead up a shallow flight of stairs to the pantry and then opened into the smaller part of a very large kitchen. When we had looked over the blueprints of the house with Heero before leaving we figured that they would all be in the "working part of the house" where both he and Relena had offices and studies, and such. It had an alarm system separate from the house's grounds with reinforced walls in case of fire, or other natural disasters. At least that's what Relena had been told when Heero insisted on all the high tech wiring and ten-foot thick steel reinforced walls to that particular part of the house. Despite making sure that Relena was left well protected by some of his own trained people, Heero hadn't given Trakener all the access codes that existed to that part of the estate. And he always left himself more than one way in and out, just like he did in his computer systems. Always have a backdoor, and his office window had been one of them. Still, the offices were on the first story and I was in the absolute other ass-end of the estate and very little help to them until I caught up and took out my quarry. I ducked inside and with gun out and ready taking the stairs two at a time.
Once I was through the kitchen and listened for signs of which way the brute had gone I remembered how big the damn house was and to use the comm. I clicked over to Trowa's frequency first. "Tro?"
"I hear you. What happened to Quatre? Is he all right?"
I knew that Trowa had gotten soft when the first thing he asked was about Quatre. I heard the very small tremor in his voice when he asked, almost as if he was afraid I would tell him it was bad. "He's been hit, but not too bad from what I can tell. He's laying low and waiting for us outside."
I crept into a formal sitting room and then down a short hallway to where it opened up to another flight of stairs that lead to the second story balcony. I was just about to tell Trowa that Quatre was moving under his own power and not to worry, when I caught movement and had to duck behind some heavy draperies.
I watched as a slight man dressed in a gray suit cautiously made his way at the top of the stairs, searching the area for intruders. Bringing my gun up level to him for a killing shot I was about to squeeze the trigger when I saw him crumble into a little heap. Trowa appeared out of the shadows and sent me a nasty glare as I slid out of my hiding place.
"You left him hurt, outside, and all alone?"
He was pissed and gripping the other knife he held a bit too tightly. "Like I said... " I watched Trowa's head tilt and then he visibly relaxed and nodded to me.
"Quatre said not to give you a hard time. You told him to stay put and he followed you anyway. I'll kick his ass as soon as this is done and I'm finished kicking yours for leaving him in the first place to go after that guy. Vendetta or not. We have bigger fish to fry right now." I knew he wasn't kidding about the ass beating he had in mind for me when this was all over and decided not to try to discuss it with him just now. He ran down the steps and we quickly made our way to the east part of the house where the offices were. "Heero's been worried that you haven't acknowledged him yet."
"I forgot about the comm. link and had it off until just recently." That confession earned me another hard look and I had the good sense to look sheepish about forgetting it. "Heero?"
"Damn it Duo where have you been? Quatre said you went after some guy and hadn't come back."
"Easy love. It's all good." I glanced to Trowa who gave me another patented glare and shrugged. "Almost. Quatre's been hit, but he's gunna be okay."
"He told me. As for us, we are in position. Fong is going to wait in my office until this is over. You and Trowa need to come down the main hallway and past the receiving room to get to Relena's office. Wufei, Relena, Trakener and two other men are inside. There are also three more men stationed outside the door in the hall and two in the receiving room. I'm going to go in from a passage that links my office to Relena's and come in behind them."
I cursed softly to myself that I hadn't been able to catch up to my target and he had made it all the way back to the offices to warn his cohorts. I tucked my gun back into its holster and dug around in my pockets for the other little gems I had brought. It didn't matter that we lost the advantage of surprise now. "Roger that. Stay low love. I got a surprise of my own."
"Understood. Thirty seconds on my mark. And, Duo... stay safe."
"Will do babe. You too. Ready Tro?"
Trowa nodded once he saw the tear gas pellets in my right hand and the explosive device in the other. "Ready." Trowa echoed as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and sighted in the opening of the receiving room entrance.
"Mark." Heero whispered in my ear over the link.
I took off down the hall running past the receiving room as I launched the pellets inside. They burst the instant the hit the ground and sent a plume of foul smelling gas into the air. Moments later two men inside came out sputtering and coughing to clear their lungs of the stuff. Before they even knew what hit them I had taken them out, with nothing more than a few well delivered blows.
"Go!" I yelled as I took off towards the office door and fished around for the gummy adhesive I needed to stick the device to the door. The three men standing guard outside the door came barreling down the hallway with their guns blazing as I continued to piece together my little bomb.
"Down!" I heard Trowa shout behind me and I dove to the floor. When I looked back up in the next moments the three unfortunate souls had learned just how deadly Trowa's aim was. I stepped over the still twitching bodies towards the door to the office. Inside I heard some resolute swearing from Wufei in Mandarin followed by glass shattering and a small stifled scream from Relena no doubt. I waved Trowa off who was approaching fast behind me as I warmed the gum in my hands and set about the final steps to bring the device live. It then took me less than ten seconds to stick it, wire it, and fling myself to the carpet as I triggered it. As the charge blew I hoped it had given Heero and Wufei the advantage they needed to get a drop on those inside.
There was a lot of noise and confusion in the next moments as splinters of wood and plaster rained down around me from the demolished door to Relena's office. The hallway was full of smoke from the explosive and the gas from the pellets had begun to seep out of the receiving room into the hallway, making it hard to see and breathe. I felt Trowa tug me up off the floor and pad me down. Apparently I hadn't flung myself as far as I had thought and my jacket was scorched and smoldering from a bit of the residual backlashed firepower.
Go big, or go home I always say, and had to grin at the gaping hole my baby bomb had made to the "reinforced walls" of Relena's office.
We stepped over the remaining bits of door and crumbling wall with guns drawn to find a very unnerving scene. Apparently Wufei hadn't had time to move, or was in the wrong place when the explosive went off, because Relena was sobbing slightly as Trakener held a gun to her temple on the far side of the room and he lay in a little heap near the remains of her large, oak desk. Heero had his gun trained on Trakener's head and was glaring hard enough to shatter diamonds with the another of the two men sprawled unceremoniously nearby. The other guard instantly focused on Trowa and held a shaky gun in his direction. But it was the fact that Brutus had his gun sighted on my Heero that made me see red.
Trowa was at a standoff with the unknown gunman, I aimed at Brutus, he aimed at Heero, Heero aimed at Trakener, Trakener was holding a gun to Relena's head, and Relena was crying softly as she stared at Wufei's limp form on the oriental rug next to her desk.
"You picked the wrong person to stab in the back, Trakener."
Of all the people who I hadn't expected to break the tense silence, it was Heero. And the moment the words were uttered I could feel tension in the room go up exponentially. More than one person wasn't going to make it out of this room alive.
End Part 20
(:./ebony/magic20)
