Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Butterfly: Black Wings ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Butterfly: Black Wings

By: Banshee Puppet

Chapter Five: Courage and Faith

The first thing Wufei heard was Naone's voice cry out for mercy. In truth it wasn't much more than a surprised and suffering scream. He could hear her crying in that scream.

Lin Pao had always been a man with the potential for violence. Couple that with his volcanic temper and Wufei only wished that he could be surprised to find Naone clutching at a bullet wound in her thigh.

"Cut it out!" he demanded.

Lin turned and smirked at him. "Or what? What will be my penance, my very dear cousin, Wufei?"

"I'll kill you, you bastard!" he demanded, lunging at him with a flurry of punches.

Lin Pao blocked and lunged in with a side kick, but Wufei evaded by jumping upwards and connecting a spinning hook kick solidly with his couzin's jaw, sending the former monk spiraling backwards.

"Such threats! We're all going to die when the core explodes anyway, so hurry up and kill me, dragon!"

Lin lunged at Wufei's legs, tackling him to the ground and delivering a flurry of punches to his midsection. Wufei raised his knee into Lin's ribs and flipped them, standing and drop kicking the man's collarbone as he too rose. "My pleasure," Wufei returned. 'For stealing my peaceful life,' he thought, ' I will never forgive you, Lin Pao.'

*~*~*

Zechs could feel the sweat beading on his brow the closer he got to the core. He could see the charred side of the containment unit and knew that it would only be a matter of time before the thing bliew. The obvious answer was to throw the thing into the sun, but the sun was hundreds of miles away and too far to reach in time. It was then that the distant solar rays reflected off of gaseous Saturn's rings. 'That…might just work, actually.' Of course, if it didn't, they were all screwed.

*~*~*

There was work to do, and Trowa was intent on leaving Catherine behind, and Catherine was just as intent on going. And Quatre was trying to keep his nose out of family business, so….

Trowa didn't know why the girl was so insistent upon going to help rescue Wufei. As far as he knew, she hardly knew the young man. Besides that, things were starting to get crazy: Zechs was trying to diffuse a potential black hole; Wufei was probably facing off with another Treize Kushrenada, Dorothy Catalonia was lying in a heap on the floor with Quatre tending to her, and now Catherine wanted to 'play hero'. Trowa couldn't help but wonder, 'what next?'

"Trowa Barton," Dorothy said, coughing out a bit of blood in the process.

"Huh?" It was strange to hear her address him. He didn't know of her ever doing so before.

Before he looked at her, she gave Catherine a meaningful look. 'Go,' it said. 'Save the man you love. It's what you want to do, right? To protect the person you love? That is also my desire…'

"Who is it that you love?" Dorothy asked Trowa.

'Who have I been competing with, losing to?' She needed an answer, so it was with a little bitterness that she took his questioning eyes, like he didn't get it.

Looking at the two blondes, he realized it was a question that he didn't have an answer to give her. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Quatre, take care of that idiot while I…" he turned his head to find Catherine quite a ways up the hall already. "Damnit! Cathy!" He chased after her at full tilt, knowing that he wouldn't catch up if she didn't want him to. 'That idiot!'

*~*~*

The battle was all but won. Wufei no longer had any anger or doubts, he just wanted it to be over. His left leg swung upward, ready to deliver the final blow, when a scream erupted and he shot his head to the source.

"Nooo!" Naone cried, and eyes squeezed tightly shut, sent a shot out of the gun that Wufei had dropped to the side earlier. The bullet ripped through Wufei's shoulder. That damn shotgun. He knew he shouldn't have put it down. He couldn't help but fall back with a hissing squeak, the sound of a loud yell being held back. "Don't hurt him anymore!" she begged helplessly. She understood what was happening. She knew it was completely one-sided but… 'but I still love him. I can't help it.'

Lin Pao saw his chance and acted on it, he pulled his revolver out and eased back on the safety…

*~*~*

It was going to take everything the space Leo had to make this work, so Zechs threw all of his weight into launching the core into Saturn's rings. And at the proper time, just past the second ring, he fired. The explosion shook everything for miles, but if he was right, the mass in Saturn's rings would serve as a plug for the hole he'd just ripped in space. Either way, he would have to get back to the ship before the Leo's reserves were decimated. Too bad for him that he'd already used them. With no fuel and very little oxygen, he watched the mass of rings one at a time and wondered, 'is this the end? Is this how I'm going to die?'

It was then that he heard the dull roar of an engine.

*~*~*

It was instinct, as she slammed through the doorway, to reach under her jacket for the throwing knife when she saw a gun aimed at Wufei's head.

"Don't be stupid," Lin warned, grabbing Wufei and holding him hostage against his chest.

When Catherine's eyes locked the ebon-eyed youth's, she found him to be completely calm, having no doubts at all about her aim. And seeing this was all the courage and faith she needed. It happened quickly, the knife sliding through expert fingertips and slamming into Lin Pao's right hand. The gun dropped, thunking against Wufei's bleeding shoulder, sending him sinking painfully to his knees while Lin clutched at his hand screaming. "Are you insane?! Fucking lunatic woman!"

Wufei couldn't help but laugh, looking up slightly and smirking at Catherine just as Trowa entered behind her. "She's not insane," he said. "She's an expert."

Trowa raised an eyebrow; he was sure now that he was missing something, but as Lin Pao yanked the throwing knife painfully from his hand, Trowa knew that now was not the time to dwell on it. He lifted his gun and a shot rang out from somewhere behind him!

*~*~*

'There!' Zechs' Leo was floating just outside of Saturn's orbit.

"I don't normally pick up hitch hikers, but I think I'll make an exception just this once," Quatre announced to Zechs' usual frequency.

Zechs opened his eyes looking out the front hatch of the Leo when Quatre tore the electronic hatch away. His breath threaded and spread across the helmet of his space suit, Zech couldn't help but laugh hoarsely. It started as a small chuckle and exploded as the Aries hand gently pulled him out of the cockpit. Quatre let a tear roll down his cheek for the other man. 'I understand,' he thought. 'Keep laughing. Laugh as long and loud as you want to so that you don't have to be sad or afraid. You're alive Zechs Marquise, or Miliardo Peacecraft, Preventer Wind or whoever else you choose to be-you're alive, so go right ahead and keep laughing.'

It was now that Quatre remembered Dorothy. She'd lost a lot of blood. "Go on," she told him. He knew what was going on, having gotten the basics from Trowa, and he knew that out there, somewhere, Zechs was all alone, the same as always, walking the solitary red path of the soldier. And so Dorothy had told him, "go on, rescue that idiot that thinks he's a hero. There's no way that I'm going to die here. I refuse to be killed by that guy."

Quatre's eyes had widened in sudden understanding. 'I had no idea…' But in the end, she'd been right; he took the 'something interesting' he found in the hangar, namely and old Aries mobile doll model that had been modified to hold a pilot, and he went to find Zechs. Damn good thing he did too-the Leo was thrashed.

Suddenly the laughter broke into a long silence. "Winner?"

"Yeah?"

"Why don't I die?"

A pain hit Quatre's heart at those words. "You must still have something to do."

"Oh. Alright, as long as there's a reason it's fine."

'Thank you Quatre Raberba Winner,' Zechs thought. 'I've been waiting for an answer to that question for a long time. Knowing that then, I can keep pushing forward.'

*~*~*

Drix's hands shook. 'What did I just do?' he wondered. He had to think back over the past hour. He'd been shot in the shoulder. Then, Dorothy Catalonia had been shot right in front of him. 'I didn't even do anything to stop it,' he remembered, feeling guilty. She was a brave woman. Watching her, he realized that he had a long way to go for Naone-as a soldier, and also as a man. Alone in the hallway, Dorothy pushed herself into a sitting position and looked at him. She just looked at him. He didn't know how else to explain it, her eyes asking 'is this really as far as you can go? As much as you're able to do for your love?'

Before he knew it, before he could even think, he was on his feet, the wound in his shoulder still pulsing hotly, and he was running down the hall to do more, to push just a little farther…and now, what had happened? What had just happened? The gun tumbled out of his fingertips and hit the floor, a sound that resonated through his skull like a single note played on a triangle, echoing until you think your ears might explode, a gunshot, a body falling, the world reduced to life and echoes of life. What he was witnessing now, was an echo, as he realized-he'd just saved the enemy. He'd just shot Lin Pao.

"Lin!" Naone cried out, running to his side. She hovered over him, hands ready to touch and not touching for a long moment before she took his hand in hers. He squeezed it tightly, eyes unfocused. "Where's...Wufei?" he grit out.

"…here," Wufei was so surprised it came out as mostly a squeak.

"Just…I never hated you, cousin. It was that I…wanted to be you. Because you had everything that mattered." He turned unfocused eyes to Naone, the blood pooling out around him. He was definitely going to die from a chest wound like that.

"It's okay Lin," she said, cheeks stained. You can be happy now, somewhere quiet, without the echoes of war. I'll meet you there, okay?"

"Yeah, that sounds good," Lin choked out blearily on his last breath. "I always loved you, Meiran."

*~*~*

A/N: phew. That was a lot of action-packed typing…and now…onto the epilogue. *cracks knuckles* Geez, I've typed like 20 pages already today…ugh…