Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Eyes Cold As Death ❯ Twenty-two ( Chapter 22 )

Eyes Cold As Death

Chapter Twenty Two -- Fatality

"Zechs! Incoming at one o'clock!" Wufei shouted over the Comm. He couldn't get there in time, so he tried to warn Zechs of the emanate threat behind him. They were surrounded by enemy dolls, and the odds were not good. They had taken more hits than they had given. And the battle was slowly turning in favor of the enemy. It was all Wufei could do to avoid the multiple missiles and bullets that continued to sweep his way, much less try to target the enemy. Though they were thick as hell, it seemed almost impossible to destroy them. But, Wufei hoped grimly, the enemy was thinking that the Preventers were surely impossible to kill.

However, their immense track record for surviving the most brutal of battles against impossible odds wouldn't hold up for ever, and time was running out for Zechs. Wufei watched in abject horror as Zechs attempted to spin out of the way of the oncoming massacre, moving too slow to do any good. The barrage of missiles slammed fully into Zechs' suit.

What was once Zechs, now blossomed into a fiery bloom, spreading through the battlefield like the dawn. Ash and flame rained to the pitted ground below. One more scar for the land to wear. Noin's anguished scream echoed distantly through his ears. This couldn't happen. Hadn't he lost enough for a lifetime?

What did this mean for the outcome of this battle? Zechs was not a weak pilot. He was strong. As strong as the other Gundam pilots. If Zechs could die by the enemy's hand, then so could any of the others. If they could die, then this battle was essentially over. There were too many dolls for only three, now, to fight against. Their odds were horrendous before, now they were just plain sickening. How were they supposed to destroy this enemy? The numbers were just too great.

How many friends was he going to lose today? First Trowa and now Zechs. Wasn't Trowa enough? he thought bitterly. How many more friends was he going to have to watch die?

An incoming projectile tore him from his thoughts, and he sank back into the calmness of instinct as he tossed the controls to the left, swerving out of the missile's path. He was thrust suddenly back into the battle, and he no longer thought of Zechs, he shoved his anger and his grief to the back of his mind to deal with after the battle was finished. One way or another it was going to be finished.

He could not give up hope. If anything, he had to keep that hope gathered closely to his heart in memory of his fallen friends. He had to keep that hope for his friends who were still alive. He had to nurture that hope for the woman he loved.

He dropped his Gundam, sliding under a group of dolls, thrusting his trident staff into the vitals, killing an engine here, taking out a coolant system there. He needed to disable and destroy as many dolls as he could.

If he had to, he would annihilate every last one of them.

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Quatre shifted his Gundam around, gritting his teeth against the pain. His abdomen had become a giant knot of burning pain. Every move, every breath, brought him more pain.

And yet, he kept on fighting.

It was the only thing he could do. He had just found his friends again; found himself again. And the last thing he would do was to lay down and die. He would not go down without a fight. He refused to go quietly into that great dark night.

If he were going to die, he would go down in flames, taking at least one enemy down with him.

He turned and struck at another doll, his shotel slicing through the suit like butter. He pushed through the resulting explosion to strike at another. He hammered at his opponents, striking them down as he moved gracefully through the battlefield as though it were a dance floor. His seemingly choreographed attacks like a dance.

It felt like a dance. The dolls were organized. Quatre's thoughts inevitably returned to the last battle with White Fang above the Earth's atmosphere. Dorothy had been controlling the dolls with the Zero System, and they had acted the same way that these dolls were acting. The difference was that the White Fang dolls had been more generalized; whereas, the Eagle Squadron dolls were specialized. Perhaps there were more people controlling a smaller number of dolls. That would account for their behavior, and how the dolls were able to react as though they were manned.

He hoped that each and every doll that he destroyed made itself felt in the mind of the person controlling them. He hoped that he could hurt that faceless individual as much as he had been hurt.

He stripped himself down to the basics: pain, instinct and hatred. Not anger--he stripped even that. He couldn't fight with anger; anger made you sloppy, making mistakes. The enemy fell before him as he cut through their ranks in an attempt to join back up with Duo and Heero. He stepped in beside them, cutting through another suit. A bad attack, but a disarming strike. He activated his Comm.

"Who else is here?" He queried.

"Wufei, Noin and Zechs." Heero answered immediately.

"Zechs is gone." Wufei's strained voice came over the line. Silence descended over the Comm. Quatre closed his eyes briefly.

"What is your location?" He asked.

"About sixteen kilometers south of the city." Wufei answered. Quatre could hear an explosion over the Comm. His thoughts raced as he continued to battle the enemy. They were too spread out. Three here and two further south. If they were all brought together, then they could fight the entire enemy at once, but there would only be so many that could immediately surround them.

But, by them coming together, they would open up a clear path for the excess enemy to get to the city. They couldn't get too close together, but they couldn't remain spread as thin as they were. With his and Duo's help, Heero had been able to stop giving ground, but they were far from being able to push them back, away from the city. At this point, they were at a stalemate.

Frustrated, he applied himself fully into the fight, his mind whirring restlessly through possibility after possibility.

"Why don't I go help 'Fei?" Duo asked. Quatre shook his head in response.

"No, then Heero and I won't have enough help. We need to prevent the enemy from getting to the city. What we need…" He trailed off, his eyes catching on an answer.

During the conversation, he had gotten separated from Heero and Duo again. This revelation didn't surprise him, due to the intensity of the battle. However, in the course of his fighting, he had drifted over to the east slightly.

The oil fields were southeast of the city. In fact, he was just north of the immense oil fields. The harvesters constantly moving up and down, large metal pistons circling, bringing the hammer-like heads to bow before the ground and then raising their heads to the sky. It was like a Buddhist service, the harvesters bowing, sitting, and then bowing again.

The oil fields stretched away from him to the horizon. If they could just detonate the entire field…

"Wufei!" He shouted in his exuberance.

"What?"

"I need you and Noin to draw the enemy to me. I need you to fly low. Noin will need to be higher; she doesn't have the shielding that you do. But you both need to be as close to the ground as you can get. I need the dolls following you to be low." He paused, letting Wufei have a moment to trace his Gundam. "Heero, I need your rifle. I think it will have enough firepower."

"Quatre?" Duo's voice inquired. "What are you planning?"

"The oil fields, Duo. We can ignite them, and if we can time this correctly, we can take out a lot of the enemy in the process."

"It would work, but Wufei and Noin will be in there too." Heero supplied.

"I know, but it's a risk that I think we need to take. If you, Heero, can time your shot well enough, you should be able to spare Wufei and Noin from the worst of the damage." Quatre shifted his Gundam out of the way of a missile. Damn, that was too close. He had to remember that he was still in middle of a war, here. "There should be some considerable distance between Wufei and Noin and the chasing dolls. Plus, there will also be a little bit of lag time between your shot and the resulting explosion."

"I've got your location, Quatre. Noin, you go first, I'll hold them off for a while before I follow."

"Acknowledged." Noin's voice was dead and hard. Quatre winced knowing the change in her voice had come from Zechs death. He tried not to think about he would react if Trowa were to ever die. He shoved the thought away. There was no need to think about it--it wasn't going to happen. But the thought had given him the opportunity to take inventory of the entire situation. Trowa was not on the battlefield. In fact, he remembered noticing that Trowa's Gundam had still been in the hanger when he and Duo had blasted out of there to meet up with Heero and Wufei.

Again, he shoved those thoughts away; they were not needed right now. He pulled up the blanket of instinct and hatred, protecting himself from the pain continuing to grovel in his stomach.

"We are ready when you are, Quatre." Wufei stated.

"Heero…" Heero came rushing up to him and Quatre fell silent, turning instead to back Heero up and keeping him out of enemy fire. Quatre became bait. "Ready when you are, Heero."

"Go ahead." He could feel the vibrations in the air as Heero charged up his beam cannon. Quatre moved his Gundam so he was back to back with Heero. He knew that Heero was going to use the strongest power setting to ignite the oil fields. The shot would be reminiscent of the shot that defeated the falling Libra and the combination of shots that disabled the shielding around the Barton mansion. Quatre was suddenly unsure if he really wanted to be this close to Heero when he fired. But he needed to watch his friend's back. So, he stayed, and fought off the attacking dolls.

Duo remained on the other side of the battlefield, swinging his scythe in crazed arcs, explosions and severed limbs littering the landscape around him.

"Noin, go." Wufei ordered. Quatre surveyed his sensors, watching as Noin fled toward the oil fields.

"Cannon at full power." Heero announced.

"Fuck! Hurry the hell up! I'm dying over here!" Duo hollered. Quatre intercepted two missiles meant for Heero.

"I'm leaving. Be ready, Heero." Wufei called.

"Noin, join Duo when you get here. He needs the backup." Quatre directed, following the plan through his Gundams sensors. The way opened up in front of Heero. Noin flashed past them, arcing around to join up with Duo. The Comm fell silent. Time seemed to slow down. His sensors showed that Wufei was traveling at full speed low across the oil fields, hundreds of dolls following him, but to Quatre, Wufei was crawling.

"Now, Heero! Now!" Wufei's hoarse shouts seemed distant to Quatre: slow like an LP played at 33 rpm. A doll took a slow swipe at Quatre; he blocked easily, without thinking. He was functioning solely on instinct, now. As time and the world around him slowed, his pain did not lessen--it grew more distinct, more intense. He could feel sweat beginning to stand out on his forehead. Drops rolled down his face.

The very air around him seemed to electrify with Heero's beam cannon. Quatre could almost tell the exact instant that Heero pulled the trigger by the quality of the air. The cannon fired; the fields exploded.

Flame erupted from the ground, belching forth from the ulcer hidden beneath the Earth. Heero's shot caused a chain reaction; balls of flame rose stately from the fields. The explosions spread outward from the initial detonation like ripples on a smooth lake. Flames licked at the underside of Wufei's Gundam, completely engulfing him.

The recoil from Heero's shot tossed Wing backward, across the battleground. Heero slammed full force into Sandrock, knocking Quatre off balance. They toppled over, crashing into the ground below. The restraints pulled at Quatre's wound; blood began gushing freely again. He cried out as Sandrock was shoved forward before tipping over. His controls were useless.

Time sped back up, crashing into him as Wing Zero had crashed into him. He felt bruised by it. His sensors showed the fireballs engulfing enemy suit after enemy suit; smaller explosions enhanced the large oil explosions. Pain, sharp and coppery, engulfed him in imitation of the fire outside.

He didn't see Wufei emerge victoriously from the blanket of fire. He didn't see Noin and Duo begin to plow through the enemies surrounding them. He didn't see Heero standing up and throwing himself at the remaining dolls. He didn't see the four hundred dolls destroyed by fire. He didn't see the next approaching wave registering on radar.

All he saw was graying spots floating in his vision as darkness closed in around him. All he saw was darkness.

And then he knew nothing.