Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ In the City at Night ❯ Rules of the Game ( Chapter 16 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Rules of the Game

"Son of a bitch!" Corringer was tackled to the ground, not expecting the sudden weight on his back, he reeled with it a moment and a severe pain shot down his spine. It took him a second to get a grip on the person, and then he slammed the body over his shoulder...and cried out, trying to back away, as he realized it was Yuy.

The instant movement was still not fast enough, and he stumbled slightly, nearly falling, as the man's foot impacted against his face. He could think of no immediate blasphemy to Yuy's person, and though they'd clashed several times, it had never been unprovoked—or had never seemed unprovoked...and then he saw Maxwell. The one and only Duo Maxwell, god of death and Satan's playmate...Eastland had so many names for the man...

And the god was up for blood.

It didn't matter that he didn't know what he'd done to provoke the pair. He was just grateful for Maxwell's restraint when he noticed that the pagan really wanted to join in the beating—it was just a beating. Corringer could defend himself mostly against Yuy's attacks, but not entirely. There was still a huge gap of physical performance between the "obedient" soldier...and the "perfect" one.

But Yuy wasn't perfect anymore, was he?

When Yuy'd had his fill of blood, and Corringer had given up entirely, he stood over the downed man and glared into his eyes. "If you ever beat a fuckin' prisoner again, I swear I'll fuckin' kill you."

"He's all up-close and personal to that godfather dude that tried to kill Marquise..."

Corringer gasped painfully as the man stood straight and turned a searching look onto his companion.

"Is he still conscious?" the man asked...his voice was dark and cold. Uncaring.

It occurred to Corringer that his life didn't matter to the man...to death's playmate...

He tensed for the blow...the intense pain that would send him into darkness before he woke up with people around him...if he woke up.

"Forgive me, oh my god," Yuy muttered, running his hands through his hair as he closed his eyes. "The rules of man forbid," he stood waiting for the final word, hands buried in the hair at the back of his head, elbows up.

The fucker honestly looked like he was praying.

"You're fucking insane," Corringer gasped, not understanding Yuy. He didn't get how a man could pray to a friend...why it'd even cross his mind to do it.

"Hm," Maxwell's tone didn't change in the slightest.

Actual fear washed through Corringer's system as he heard steps approaching. They went silent too far away, and he cracked his eyes open again to see that Yuy'd lowered his arms and was studying him with that trade-mark smirk, a cocky smirk...no man alive could mirror that smirk or even hint at it. Maxwell was directly beside him.

"You are bound by the laws of man?" Maxwell muttered, seeming to not need to blink.

Yuy started laughing, shoving the guy back a few steps. "We're done here," he muttered, "Let's go find Baerinum."

"Good," the word was almost a purr as Maxwell studied Corringer and Yuy disappeared...

"God," Corringer hissed, closing his eyes as some of the worse pain receded. It occurred to him the moment after he'd said it that it could be misperceived, but the word'd passed his lips before he could help it. "Fuck," he added, "don't knock me out...please..."

Maxwell laughed evilly, moving to lean over the man so they were eye to eye. "I don't know you," he whispered. "I don't care about you, and I probably don't even fucking like you. Keep your head down when I'm in the room...please."

"You can't intimidate me," Corringer hissed at him, waiting for the pain that would signify the end of the conversation.

"Jor," Yuy called from the car. "Let's go. Longer he has to recover the quicker he'll call Baerinum."

A car door slammed, then two. Matthew Corringer opened his eyes and watched as Yuy's black SUV slid almost silently by on the street.

"You okay?" someone demanded, running out from a shop. "Oh my god, are you all right?"

"You saw all of that?" Corringer demanded, focusing on the wide-eyed man.

The guy nodded.

Corringer laughed mirthlessly, closing his eyes again, "Thanks for the help."

X x X x X

"Come on, Jor," Yuy muttered almost languidly, "You can't do that."

"I still haven't heard a good enough reason," Maxwell muttered.

Baerinum blinked at the pair of males as he wondered where they'd come from. He was heading toward the base commons, and the path he was on was usually empty. The two continued arguing almost good naturedly as they moved closer behind him, and Baerinum pulled his phone as it started to vibrate.

The two stopped talking, focusing on him sharply—they were right behind him...

"Yeah?" he muttered, slightly unnerved.

"At least he had good enough manners to keep it on vibrate," Yuy noted.

"Fuck...Baerinum," Corringer sounded pained as he heard Yuy's words. "Fuck...run."

Maxwell's laugh was evil...and Baerinum's phone flew through the air as Yuy started laughing...he barely managed to shield his face from being slammed into the sidewalk as part of the reason for Corringer's call became clear in his mind.

But what did I do?

X x X x X

There was blood on his shirt.

Une stared at Jordan in disbelief as he and Heero were led, handcuffed, into her office.

There was blood on Jordan's shirt.

"Une," Edward muttered, seeming nervous. The pilots weren't fighting him, but he knew they could probably kill him, even while handcuffed...probably with the handcuffs, actually. "There was an altercation." He stopped behind them when they decided to stop walking.

"With who?" Une demanded, rising to her feet as she noted the two males watching her with an almost predatory look. Amused and predatory.

"Corringer and Baerinum," Edward returned. "Two separate attacks. Baerinum is in the hospital."

Jordan's smile flashed evilly before it receded again into his expressionless coldness.

"I think it's amazing Baerinum's not dead," Heero added, looking between the rest as he raised his phone into view and flicked it open.

Edward stared at his un-cuffed hands, then focused on Une in a moment of frozen uncertainty. He was completely willing to be scared of Yuy on a one-to-one basis, and with Maxwell at his side again the old horror-stories were starting to surface...

Une sighed in exasperation as Maxwell eyed the escort...and took the phone.

X x X x X

"So this is amusing," Jordan noted as he set his folder in front of everyone in the room. "Terry's list of associates or whatever you wanna call it...the people who may have had access to his accounts..."

Heero started snickering.

"Why is that funny?" Quatre muttered, pulling the paper to him.

"Well, we've managed to narrow down our suspects outside of Terry and Jon," Jordan explained, indicating the sheet. "There's not a whole lot there, but there's something to be said about Corringer's name being on that list."

"Or so you think."

"Mat's political motivations are a bit slim," Trowa muttered, looking between them. "He donates to his causes like a good citizen, and organizes crap here and there, but it's not very likely that he'd have tried to kill Zechs."

"I haven't talked to Zechs yet," Jordan noted, looking around the room. "And I haven't talked to Shifton."

"You're not going to talk to Shifton," Heero reminded him.

Jordan gave him a humorless smile.

"Weren't you two fighting?" Wufei muttered, pulling his toothpick from his mouth and looking between them.

"Go smoke," Heero ordered him with a flick of his hand. "I'm tired of seeing that toothpick."

Wufei's expression became somewhat hurt.

"Come on," Jor muttered, rising. "I need a smoke."

"You smoke?" Heero demanded.

"Once in a blue moon," Jordan agreed as Wufei rose a bit more happily from his seat. "Go ahead and keep going without us," he winked at Chai.

Chai watched her boyfriend curiously as he moved onto the front porch. He wasn't lying when he said he only smoked once in a blue moon. Smoking was a social device, and it meant that he wanted to get Wufei alone. There was no other way to explain it...and the rest of the group didn't even realize it.

When Quatre glanced at her curiously, Chai realized that she needed to let it slide—he would tell her when she asked.

X x X x X

"Care to explain something to me?" Trowa asked Heero curiously as they moved together slowly down a hall two days or so after the fights with Jon's assailants.

"Depends on what needs explaining," Heero returned, giving him a curious look. "I don't have long. I have to go to trial."

"Trial?"

"I attacked Corringer," Heero reminded him. "I've done it enough now that they're gonna try and start getting after me for it. I think Une is even realizing that she shouldn't have let me get away with it to begin with."

"So you'll learn no lesson?"

"Lessons learned aren't always the intended lessons."

"What have you been reading lately?" Tro demanded in amusement. Heero'd been speaking in odd patterns and coming up with odd thoughts since the fight. It was something that'd happen when he'd really get into a book...

Heero grinned at him, "Nothing. What did you need explained?"

Tro studied him seriously as the initial irritation Jordan had been displaying, and then the ride the pair had shared that had taken five or more minutes longer than it should have. He considered the reasoning behind the fight, but that was easily explained...

Heero studied him a long moment, then looked to the ceiling. "What has Wufei said to you about what we did when I talked him into going out with me?"

"Hm," Trowa considered the question a long moment. "He said you were as fucked up as he thought you were, and I'd probably have more fun with you than he did."

Heero nodded, tilting his head at the guy. "What has Q said to you about what he sees?"

"About you?" Trowa considered the question again, then shrugged. "He said he wouldn't tell me unless you wanted him to, and he knew you didn't want him to."

"Did he know what I go do?"

"His eyes looked bewildered," Tro shrugged. "Why?"

"Seven Deadly Sins has some interesting back-room entertainments."

"You talking raves or orgies?"

"I'm never gone long enough for a rave, Tro," Heero noted, meeting his eyes.

Trowa smirked very slowly.

"I left Jor at the bar," he added. "I knew he wouldn't have joined, and didn't want to deal with him possibly disapproving."

"And that pissed him off because he was stuck with you when he was in pain and on Remalene. Nice."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Heero shrugged slightly.

"Okay, that's done with. Why did you take so much longer to get back to his house that day?"

"I wanted to see what he thought about my little habit," Heero shrugged very slightly. "I managed to piss him off so he slammed on the breaks. It took a while to get him moving again."

"Ah...so, why do you keep talking like that?"

"Like what?"

"Lessons learned aren't always the lessons...whatever you just said...that crap."

Heero smirked and looked back to him.

"You interact like that," Tro reminded him. "You get into weird little...swells."

"The old jokes," Heero shrugged. "I have a god again...a god I can believe in."

"Oh!" Trowa remembered the game and realized he'd seen it several times over in the past day or so. Duo had liked to refer to himself as the god of death for a time after the wars...and since they were soldiers, it had been decided that he was their god. They all muttered that it was his will or whim that decided who died on a battlefield, and in peace-times, it had been an easy thing to say. No one was dying, no one was battling. Battlefields weren't won or lost.

The bits of Heero that were ruined, though, the remnants of his childhood...they'd taken the game several steps further. He didn't believe that Jordan was a god, but he could mouth the prayers just like any good Christian could.

"And they call me fei," Trowa noted sarcastically.

Heero gave him an amused look. "He was pissed at me, but when I saw Jon's bruises, we were put back on the same page. I have my god and my sun."

"You mean moon?" Trowa asked amusedly, shaking his head. "You two are fucked up, you realize that, don't you?"

Heero sniggered as he pushed from the building and Trowa stopped inside it. They exchanged a brief amused look, but Heero's expression clouded. He stopped walking to pull his phone from his pocket. His expression changed to excited as he set the receiver to his ear...but the look darkened into amazement, then fear.

X x X x X

"I knew he wasn't back for a reason," Heero ranted, pacing around Jordan's living room as Jordan typed with a single-minded focus. "It's not like him to force a vacation and it's not like him to abandon..."

"Number," Jordan ordered.

Heero repeated it, "I'm grateful you have the patience to try and track a cell-phone." His tone was slightly distant as he said it. "I can't sit down, I can't stop moving. Everything is moving around us and it all suggests a coup..."

Jordan looked up to him, wondering if he realized he was speaking aloud. It'd been years since they'd been together for Heero to have a slip like that, but it hadn't been completely uncommon before...coup?

"How the fuck am I supposed to deal with a coup?" He added, still moving in agitation.

"It's us now," Jordan reminded him very quietly.

The words didn't catch Heero's attention. "There are maybe twenty people who knew of the actual line of power. If President Wilkon were assassinated, the power would fall to the vice President Clyde Zerone." He thought, "Next is Zechs, and then Zachary. Following Zach had been Blunt, a busy body of a woman who still knew everything; she died in a car accident in January on ice. Rudd was a calm woman who'd been made even calmer at the onset of some fatal disease, and she died in the hospital in February. Kante...Kante was the actual thing that had perked up ears..."

"How'd he die?" Jordan muttered, not looking up.

"What?" Heero asked blankly, turning to look at the guy.

"How'd Kante die?" Jordan repeated his question, raising his eyes.

"I was talking out loud?"

"No, I'm reading your mind," Jordan retorted, though he was amused that he'd been right.

"Um..." Heero almost believed it. He really thought he'd been thinking the list. It wasn't the first time it'd happened, though. Not with Jordan. "He had some weird accident that seemed like chance. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, just perfect enough of a wrong time that it wasn't likely it was a coincidence."

"Stray-shot?" Jor suggested.

"No," Heero said quietly, "Avalanche. It was all over the news."

Jordan raised his eyes to Heero's and studied him a long moment, then shook his head and focused again.

"So...Beedus and Baits have disappeared...and no one but us should have known who all it was."

"Who is us?"

"The five..." Heero hesitated, "The four of us," he corrected himself. "Zechs himself...the head of central intelligence and one or two of his underlings...investigation. I'm not entirely sure who all...but no general soldiers...no one outside the officer's club."

"Officer's club?"

Heero smiled slightly, "You're part of it, when you get settled back in. You can find out more then."

"How many names on our list are in the club?"

"None," Heero said flatly. "Where's Chai?"

"Q wanted to go into the shopping area and not feel anything again," Jor shrugged. "I figure she's well entertained with him begging after her like a puppy and Jon floating around in amusement."

"You may want to watch how much she's seen without you," the soldier moved to sit tiredly beside his friend. "She's an Angels girl, and people who know that may get the wrong idea."

"Or realize that I'm completely comfortable with her running around with anyone but Trowa."

"What?"

"He defers to her too much," Jordan shrugged, glancing sidelong. "I don't think he does it intentionally, but the rest of you are normal with her. I wouldn't question either of them for the world, but that just makes me ancy...the idea."

Heero chuckled, then leaned sideways against his arm to study the screen.

Jordan didn't want to talk more about the thoughts that had crossed his mind from Tro's expressions. He knew they were his own issues, and didn't want to put doubts in Heero's mind. He pursed his lips a moment, then hit another key. "You bi or what?"

"Or what," Heero agreed.

"I don't get that."

"I don't have an active interest in males," Heero returned. "The back-room thing...we get a shot of heavy alcohol and strip down while it soaks in...then join the mass. One body melts into another and it's really easy to loose track of yourself."

"Why do you do it?"

"It's...it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from. You're all just there and equal. Rich and poor, good lookin' or feo...it's just..." he trailed off, thinking about it. "I don't know why I do it anymore."

"Is Shin really your girl?" Jordan hazarded. "Or just some orgy chick you allow to prostitute herself for you?"

"She's somewhere in between," he muttered. "I want to be with her and...and help her raise little Zach, but..."

"Is that Baits' boy?"

"No," he reassured his friend. "But...it's a way to differentiate."

"Call him Chip."

"Yeah...Chip...I think I love her, but I can't convince her of it."

"I'm sure your orgy spells help her believe in you faithfully."

"I lost faith a long time ago, Duo," he said very quietly.

"I'm not Duo," Jordan noted. "Duo died."

"And took my faith with him, huh?" Heero's eyes were focused intently on the screen.

Jordan looked down at him a moment, then looked away. "I'm sorry."

"Five years," Heero noted, "And not even a message saying you miss me."

"I typed it," Jordan returned. "I typed it so many times it's not funny."

"I don't believe you."

"I never sent it," Jordan agreed. "I wrote it in a letter, but that would have been traceable. I fussed that I didn't have the right kind of programs to scramble my code, I worried that the words said where I was...you know me. You coulda figured it out. I worried that you'd go down there looking for me and get killed. It was genuine at first."

"I don't believe you," Heero repeated quietly.

"Five years is a long time," Jordan reminded him. "I missed that perfect moment...but I won't do it again. I was living in a hell and I was scared. My life could have ended in some back alley for the few dollars in my wallet...or if someone decided they wanted Chai and I was in the way. Things got confusing."

"It's her fault," Heero agreed, finally blinking. "If you hadn't found her you'd have come back...or you'd have ran on and let us know you were around."

"Yeah."

"Will you come with me when I find where he's at?"

"For a minute I thought you were asking me to stay behind."

"I want Logan to come...me you and Logan like old times? Wayne'll hang out and distract Quatre and Tro? Wufei will pace and wait for our panic attack and come swooping in like a hawk on a grounded salmon?"

Jordan grinned, changing his focus to look at his friend again.

"I'll have my sun and we'll have his charm...and your serpent's tongue will seal the deal."

"Yeah," Jordan agreed, typing in more as he studied the screen himself. "My serpent's tongue..."

X x X x X

The house was empty...no. The house looked empty. Jordan noted that Quatre's abilities would have come in handy at that point, but at the same time it'd taken him ten hours to find the mobile.

That didn't mean Baits would still be there.

They moved silently, Heero, Logan, and Jordan. They moved up around the house silently and watched. It was an odd sensation to sneak up on a house that didn't seem to have anyone in it...but even Quatre could be fooled.

"Clear," came a whisper from the back door and Jordan darted around the house to join Heero as Logan came from the far side. Both were shaking their heads that they hadn't seen anyone inside the two-story building.

"Let's go," Logan added, moving between the pair and silently along the kitchen counter.

Jordan imagined they'd look pretty stupid running through an empty house with weapons in hand and a swat team in the wings. The group was Heero's, and Jordan realized it was the same group that had come after Jon in Angels.

Was he going to train a swat team? Was that part of why his friends had drifted apart?

"Clear," he whispered, looking an empty dining room over. He moved into it to double-check his correct assumption, then made sure there were no doors off of it as Heero moved up the hall to look up the stairs.

"I hate searching empty houses," Logan whispered almost soundlessly. "It makes me feel stupid."

That got him a raucous grin as Jordan moved into the hall as well, searching the room opposite from Heero's. As he looked, he also searched for any letters or paperwork that had been left out. Their cameras were recording wherever they looked, so that sort of thing was important to focus on.

The call of clear came again and Heero moved to the door to the room himself, studying Jordan.

"This floor is clear," Heero noted, looking around to Logan. He kept his voice low, but not the near soundless whisper they'd been using. "Now we get to play on the stairs."

A groan echoed down the hall and they all stopped to look at each other.

"Let's go," Logan whispered, moving up the stairs almost silently. They heard no more noise as they ascended, and as they reached the top and Logan moved into the first room, another groan echoed down the hall, like someone was trying not to cry.

"Check that room," Heero ordered Jordan, pointing at the room before the final...the one where the noise was coming from. "Zachary!" Heero's shout was almost scared as the man lost all pretense at remaining unfound.

Jordan looked the empty room he was in over, then moved into the hall to see Logan with the same almost perplexed expression.

"Oh my god," Heero was muttering as quick movements sounded. "You're...oh god..."

"It's gonna blow," Logan whispered, his gun lowering as he looked around. "Heero!" he half shouted, darting down the hall.

"Pull back," Jordan ordered into his mic as he darted into the room as well...and saw a man covered in blood laying on a bed. "Pull back now!"

There was instant radio chaos as Jordan shoved Heero aside to look at the bullet-wound. He shook his head and cast a silent prayer to any god listening as he pulled the man off the bed, wrapped in the sheet. He felt arms cling around him as he ran for the window, and before he could reach it there was the half-deafening sound of gunshots before the glass shattered...it was a large window.

Please let me land this...

They flew threw the air as a small light flickered on a small machine they'd ignored.

Logan faltered slightly on the dew-wet grass and Heero assisted him as they full-out ran toward the road...

The building exploded.