Standard disclaimer... Not mine. Theirs. Too bad, cos the G-Boys are damned cool. Not making any money outta this, so dun sue me. All I have are a few dogs, and a few thousand dollars worth of college loans (which anyone is welcome to!!!) blood. turnip. you do the math. *gryn* Now on to the fic!
"Heero no baka!" came the cry across their shared com links.
Quatre paused in the battle and focused on his rear view screen, taking in the smoke and sparks belching from Wing Zero with a stunned "Oh."
Shinigami finished off it's six opponents with a savage twirl of the thermal scythe and a strangled shout of rage from it's pilot.
Astounded, Quatre watched as Shinigami abandoned its attack and raced over the broken terrain, cutting down the Aries and Leos that surrounded its partner with deadly accuracy and savage aplomb.
Trowa's stoic face appeared on his side monitor.
"The rest are fleeing."
Quatre shook his head with confusion and glanced around at all of his monitors and radars. Trowa was right. The enemy mobile suits were turning tail and running, racing away in the face of Shinigami's rage. Or something else.
His chest seized up, filling him with a sudden sense of dread.
"A trap," he murmured.
"Everyone bail!" Duo shrieked over their com link.
Shenlong wasted no time, springing into the air and kicking in its jets, flitting away from the valley with amazing speed. Quatre paused for a second, watching as Shinigami grabbed the smoking wreckage of Wing Zero and tried to lift off. There was too much weight. The two suits stayed ground bound.
As Quatre turned Sandrock to join the two wing clipped suits, Trowa's face once again appeared on his side screen.
"Get out of here, Quatre. I've got it."
Heavyarms ghosted out of Wing Zero's smoke and seized one arm, while Shinigami shifted its grip to the other. All four suits took to the air with a blast of jets a moment later.
As they cleared the ridge, a searing wave of white agony blossomed from the valley, overtaking them in a flash and tossing them all to the unforgiving earth once more.
Quatre's fingers flew over his control boards as he struggled to maintain his fleeting power over his mobile suit. He righted himself, fighting to keep his beloved Gundam from plowing into another valley, and only just managed to slide to a controlled landing two canyons over from the glowing crater they had just been occupying.
He whipped his head from screen to screen, seeking out his friends. Shenlong stood relatively unaffected on the ridge overlooking this canyon, apparently keeping watch over them as they sorted themselves out. Trowa had lost his grip on Wing Zero, and had somersaulted to a landing a few hundred meters from Quatre. Shinigami took the brunt of the shockwave that raced over them, yet maintained its grip on the other mobile suit.
Quatre watched, amazed for what seemed like the thousandth time that day as Duo fought to control his tumbling Gundam, as well as Heero's. Apparently realizing that he wasn't going to succeed, he managed to spin Shinigami with a well-timed flaring of engines and landed first, crashing backwards into the hills and valleys with a shriek of tortured gundanium. Shinigami cushioned Wing Zero as it tumbled across the landscape, the black suit taking the lion's share of the damage from their landing.
Quatre felt his chest tightening again as the two suits lay motionless and entangled for several long moments.
"Duo?"
Shinigami finally stirred, and Duo's voice broke over the com link.
"K'so. Get the hell outta here!"
Heavyarms made to rejoin the black Gundam, to help transport the crippled Wing Zero, but Shinigami simply gathered the white suit possessively into its arms, and fled on foot.
As the two Gundams vanished into the canyons and valleys, Quatre suddenly realized that they hadn't heard Heero since he'd... leapt in the way of the shot that had been meant for Shinigami?
:Heero took a shot for Duo? How strange... He'd never sacrifice the mission for anything. Not even a friend...:
But there'd been no mistaking the Wing Zero pilot's intentions when he'd broken off his attack to intercept that beam cannon shot.
And since the smoke and sparks had started billowing from the white suit, there had been only silence.
They stuck to the canyons, hiding in the desert scrub and twisted landscape until they came to Quatre's base. Slipping past the silent Maganac sentries, they entered the cavernous hanger and bailed out of their Gundams.
Duo carefully set the crippled Wing Zero on the large repair pad before its cradle. Stepping away, he spared just enough time to slip his own suit into its berth before popping the hatch and leaping out.
Duo hit the catwalk in front of Shinigami at a dead run, and then, ignoring the nearby stairs, he launched over the railing and grabbed one of the support posts to slide all the way to the ground. Striking the concrete pad with a muffled curse, he sprinted to the sprawled bulk of Wing Zero.
Spry as a cat, and with an agility that Quatre had rarely seen matched even by Trowa, Duo squirreled up onto the fallen mobile suit's chest and popped the emergency hatch release. As Quatre raced down the steps to the main bay floor, he heard the hiss of air escaping Wing Zero's hatch, and then Duo's sharp, and strangely anguished, intake of breath."Heero..."
Trowa beat him to the side of the fallen suit, giving him a hand up and then tossing the blonde pilot the medical kit he'd grabbed. Quatre paused, intending to offer a hand up to Trowa, but the quiet pilot simply waved him on and sprang up after him with a quick leap. Wufei shimmied up the opposite side of Wing Zero, and all three of them converged on the cockpit at the same time. They peered over Duo's shoulder as he struggled to free Heero from his harness; every one of them hissed in surprise and pain.
The inside of the cockpit was liberally splashed in congealing blood, its coppery tang tainting the air. Heero lay sprawled and unmoving in his seat, held in place only by the few undamaged harness straps that Duo was even now threatening to "just fucking cut" in a choked voice. The last strap finally came free, allowing Duo to scoop his partner up in gentle arms. He carefully backed out of the cockpit, scooting on his knees until he was able to lay Heero out on the flat expanse of his own Gundam's chest. Heero's eyes shot open and he murmured something through teeth clenched in pain. Duo's only response was a strangled growl as the Japanese pilot's eyes rolled into his head again, and unconsciousness claimed him once more.
Quatre's chest tightened another notch as he surveyed the damage done to the shorthaired pilot. Every inch of exposed skin was bright, a flushed red, like a deep sunburn. Ribs poked through a massive rent in his side, and blood poured freely from the jagged slash. There was a deep gash across his scalp, just over his left eye, but the bleeding there had already slowed to a sluggish ooze. Heero's left arm lay twisted at an odd angle, bending in the middle of his upper arm as if there were a new joint, and the whitish ends of the humerus poked through the ripped muscle and skin there. It, too, was only oozing sluggishly. Vicious black and green bruises had already sprung up over much of the pilot's body, and a thin trickle of blood and mucus trailed from where he'd bitten through his lip. Shrapnel dotted the limp body, from tiny slivers of glass, to the six-inch shard of gundanium that protruded unheeded from his left thigh.
He lay there, so still and unmoving as Duo rummaged through the medical kit still clutched in Quatre's hands.
"You gonna fuckin' help, or what?" Duo snarled.
Quatre shook himself out of his shock and batted Duo's shaking hands out of the way to fish out the bandages and rolls of gauze. Duo accepted them with a grunt, and then began frantically to try and stem the blood flow from the savage tear in the Japanese pilot's abdomen. The Arabian pilot was surprised at the intensity of Duo's emotion as he worked on his partner. Something didn't seem quite right. Were they-
Shouts heralded the medical staff as they sprinted into the bay, toting all of their equipment. Rough hands pulled him out of the way as the emergency doctors arrived and started to work on the unresponsive pilot. Duo growled with feral intensity as he too was unceremoniously shoved away.
Quatre listened, his eyes wide, and his small fists clenched, as the doctors worked on his friend furiously.
"...Pulse ox down to 78."
"BP crashing!"
"... not breathing. Intubate..."
Various patches, pads, wires and tubes were quickly and efficiently attached to their friend. Warnings sounded on the monitors those tubes and wires led to; the frenzy of activity around the fallen pilot picked up another notch.
"... Vfib!"
A long board appeared in the fray, and Heero was quickly rolled onto it and strapped down.
"Initiate CPR..."
"Tube's in!"
The boys parted as the doctors lifted the board Heero was attached to and carefully lowered it to the floor and the waiting doctors there. With brisk efficiency, Heero was settled onto a gurney and wheeled quickly out of sight.
No one moved.
The stunned silence stretched on as they peered at the door their friend had vanished through.
Someone drew a long shuddering gasp of breath, and all eyes focused on Duo's face. Quatre saw the tears slipping unnoticed down Duo's cheeks, mingling with the splattered blood that was quickly drying on the braided pilot's skin. Before anyone could do or say anything, Duo slipped past them, slid down the side of the fallen Gundam, and vanished through the same door the doctors had.
With a frown of perplexity, Quatre spared a moment to peer into Wing Zero's cockpit, and gasped in fear; there was very little of the cockpit left!
Most of the screens were shattered, glass shards collecting in shimmering pools at the back wall, and clinging to the panels around the chair. One of the control sticks lay snapped and discarded in the seat of the chair, it's wires tangled in the shreds of the harness straps. The padded vest was kilted off to one side, tatters of cushion and padding spilling from the parallel rips in its outer shell and hanging from the frayed straps. Components and electronics hung brokenly from the ceiling and walls, while heavier shards littered the floor, scattered amidst the glass. A jagged, melted tear in the wall of the cockpit caught his eye, and Quatre recognized the burn pattern in the components; a beam cannon or energy weapon had breached Wing Zero's cockpit.
:That would account for the bright flush. He's probably got first and second degree burns over his whole body!: Quatre thought.
Seeing the inside of the cockpit, he was privately amazed that Heero had lived long enough to get to the base. At least he HAD lived to get this far. He'd opened his eyes and said-
It was then that Quatre's stunned mind finally registered what Heero had murmured to the braided pilot before he'd passed out again. He twitched and stared at the door the two pilots had vanished through with shock as the whispered words rang through his brain over and over again.
:Heero no baka, ne Duo-chan? Ai Shiteiru...:
End part 1
RavynFyre
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