Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Prisoner of War ❯ Phase Two ( Chapter 22 )

Note: Oh my God. I totally forgot about this account. I've been kind of wrapped up with ffn. Anyway, if anyone is interested, I have just finished chapter twenty-two six days ago. I don't own Gundam Wing, but I wish I did. The pairings are the same. The beginning is thin, and the chapter is short, but it still took me ten drafts to get to this point. Another reason I need to rewrite this thing. I've already started some ^_^;; Anyway, I hope you like it!

Prisoner of War

Chapter 22

Bloodshot eyes blearily stared at the glowing screen, gradation of dark smearing everything else. It had been three days. Even the perfect soldier tires without rest. Three days ago seemed like an eternity . . . He was going to school with his comrades, cautiously enjoying a break from war and reality. That night he had gotten a mission, a solo one. Sally had walked back, quietly asking him if he wanted some dinner before it got too cold. Heeding no response, he furiously began typing. Squinting those silver-blue eyes, she slipped closer, peeking at his work.

Eyes widened. Breaths caught in throat. Silverware and china dropped. "Oh, my God . . ." she whispered, leaning closer, slapping a hand on his desk for support. "How? Those were - they were banned - well over three hundred years ago." She turned those accusing eyes straight into dark pools. The rumored effects of the weapons were terrifying - but all the technology had been lost. And Oz planned to relearn it all.

"Must be the trap," he responded with dead calm.

Shuffling feet filed into the small room. "We heard a crash," Quatre explained breathlessly. "What happened?"

Duo's violet eyes narrowed dangerously, snatching up a single sheet of paper from Heero's printer, met with no protest. And he began to recite:

01,

I have received information from a reliable source about Oz's new move. In the late twentieth century, weapons of mass destruction better known as nuclear weapons were invented and used as a tactical and revolutionary means of fighting wars. It drove two nations, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, into the Cold War and a nuclear arms race. Getting to the point, Oz seems to be copying those moves . . . holding tests in clandestine. Find the supposed weapons, and destroy them.

"Fuck, Heero!" he swore as the weight of the words sunk in. "Tell me you didn't fucking accept that mission! How the hell is one person supposed to do this? You won't survive!" he gestured wildly, almost hysterical. "If not from the blast itself, the radiation! There were very good reasons why these things were banned -"

"Kuso," Wufei muttered, rereading.

"It's not an option," Heero replied, still typing. "And I don't need to explain to you again why."

Slowly, the American shook his head. "Suicidal bastard," he hissed. "I'm going with you," he decided stubbornly. "If not willingly, I will follow you. I don't give a shit. Relena's stalking will be *nothing,* absolutely nothing compared to what I'm willing to do."

"No," Heero disagreed in monotone, clicking around with his mouse.

Silence filtered the room, and through gritted teeth, "Fine," he seethed. "We'll see . . ." before storming out.

"If, if you need anything - we'll be on call, Heero," Quatre interrupted softly; in silence the others slipped out. And the Arabic wondered how much it took for Heero not to run after the braided teen.

"It's not necessarily true," Trowa pointed out, doubting himself for the first time in a long while.

Sally emitted a snort, as did Wufei, "It's so typical of them, to do something so dishonorable just to win."

* * *

It had been three days of Hell. Everyday Duo had stumbled out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and to the kitchen. There he shoveled down whatever food he could handle and ran to catch the bus, after glancing at the stairs a hundred times in ten minutes. Dark circles rimmed under his eyes, turning into huge, purple crescents, concerning his classmates and teachers. He rushed through homework in between classes and on the bus. He had sneaked his laptop into school and was stealthy enough to keep it a complete secret while he worked, researched, calculated. Everyone became increasingly worried about both boys.

* * *

"Damn that stubborn asshole," his outburst earned a few surprised stares from the dinner table. The other pilots and Sally exchanged looks but said nothing, staring back at the bowls of soup. "The soup was great, Trowa," he muttered and practically ran up the stairs with his backpack in tow. 'I've waited long enough.'

"Heero," he burst into the soldier's room. No response, he lost it. "Heero, god dammit! Look at me! For one fucking time just stop staring at that piece of shit!" His breathing was labored and his speech forced from fatigue. "Come on," he whispered, trying a different angle simply because he didn't have the energy.

He collapsed onto his knees in front of the offending piece of modern technology, staring up at the person it had imprisoned. "Heero," he murmured, a hand reached out, grasping that chin delicately to turn his head. Blankly Prussian blue shot into amethyst.

"What?" he asked without a blink.

"You're killing both of us," Duo cast him a weak smile. "Stop it," he ordered, lips drawing into a serious line.

"Go to bed, Duo," Heero shot back. "This doesn't concern you."

"Fuck yeah it does," the American scoffed as he propped himself up unsteadily. "Heero, you're my best friend. All my life and the rest of it, too. I - I just - I can't let you die. Not again." He pulled his friend from the chair, pleading with large eyes, 'Don't go back. Don't go back,' and onto the mattress.

The edges of dark blue softened, "Duo . . . it's for the good of the world."

"I know," dark fringes dipped down. "You're always too selfless and heroic. You know that? I've been - researching on this whole thing, trying to beat you to it. 'Cuz I know once you settle on a plan, you're probably not going to change your mind. I haven't slept either, but at least I've been eating . . . taking breaks, going to school . . ."

"You shouldn't have done anything. It's not your mission. I don't -" he began but was hushed by a tapered finger, softly pressing against his lips.

"I got it, Heero," he gave him a small smile, deepening at Heero's surprise, then sobered. "But it needs more than one person . . . I can't let you go do this alone," he whispered. "I'm not going to sit by this time and watch you go helplessly."

His lips parted, speechless for a moment, then, "but you could die . . ." The words slipped out before his rational, half-conscious mind could halt them. "And it would be my fault."

The humming of the laptop a few feet away was the only noise throughout the entire room. 'What?' Duo stared at him in surprise and slight awe through orbs of dark lilac. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and forced them open again. "Is that it? Is that why you don't want me to go? Because my blood will be on your hands?" his speech accelerated with his heart. 'This is it,' his mind vaguely comprehended.

"It slipped out," Heero rushed to explain, in confusion of where those thoughts came from in the first place. But looking into those depths of violet, more inappropriate thoughts came to mind. If he was going to die doing this, Duo needed to know them. "No . . . I don't want you to die," he confessed quietly through a breath of air. "I remember everything, Duo, about L2. I just couldn't tell you I knew because it would be a liability if we both knew. Especially in times like this."

He wondered how much it took to tear down those defenses. "It wouldn't matter if we have never met in L2 . . . that six-year-old boy back there - he isn't dead. He's you no matter what J did. You think that it'll be your fault if something happened to me? I would feel the same way, if something happened to you out there."

"Why? It's not your mission . . ." his fatigue was catching up to him rapidly, jumbling his thoughts into intangible balls.

"Because," he murmured with patience, "you're worth saving. And I didn't try hard enough. Now please, please, please stop killing both of us before we have a chance to stop them," he whined, collapsing with an 'oof' on top of the Japanese youth, forcing him on Heero on his back.

"What's your plan?"

Duo groaned, "Oh, dear God!" he growled in extreme frustration. Glancing up at the boy he was on top of he relented. "We can't drop them somewhere on Earth obviously without killing thousands and thousands of people. We also can't kill all the cute, little fishies swimming around in the ocean. We don't know how to properly handle the shock wave/blast from underground without collapsing some land. Apparently since the ending of the Madrid Protocol people *live* in Antarctica now, so that's a no-can-do. Besides any place on Earth would mean damaging the Ozone and the environment. And who knows how many they're making! You could alone set off the nuclear winter theory," he snorted. "And that would defeat the purpose of getting rid of them in the first place . . ."

"What's your plan?"

The American glared at the soldier, muttering something about being taken for granted. "My whole point is - we can't destroy them by setting them off. The blast would be too obvious, and we can't be sure what would happen, if we blew them up somewhere in real life. We're going to have to disarm them."

"That information is no longer available," Heero pointed out in his monotonous voice. "And," interrupting him before the tirade of defense set off, "the information that is available is only proven in theory, not real life," he commented to his comrade.

Silence again echoed the room as the two pilots faced down. The American drawled slowly his carefully chosen words, "There's always a way to dismantle a bomb, and the creators always have the information." He paused for effect and wriggled finely arched brows, "I think this calls for infiltration." Violet eyes hardened with the deadly gleam, smirk curling back its permanent fixture in the familiar expression.

It was simple and effective. For now anyway. Heero had to give the braided boy that much credit on his part. But the essence was time, which chose to run scarce at the moment, when it was most needed, and that certainly presented a problem. Three days of worthless shit had already been wasted, and the world couldn't afford anymore.

Contemplating his options, the perfect soldier finally relented, "Get the others," knocking the other slightly off balance, he snapped up out of Duo's loose pin. Quickly he pieced together a rough idea of an acceptable plan as the other wandered downstairs.

* * *

"Yuy and you can't go, so Barton, Quatre, - Sally, and I will," Wufei gave the remaining members pointed glares. "With what they're hiding, there'll be tight security. And Sally . . . we'll need your knowledge to move things along."

"You guys should get a lot of rest," the Arabic suggested. "After we get back there might not be too many opportunities, and we really need as much help as we can get."

"What about Noin? And Zechs?" her brow scrunched in thought. "They can help us . . ."

"We can sort this out later - after we get that information," Duo calmly interjected before objections started to fly, sparing a glance back at Heero.

Everyone nodded in agreement. "We'll brief down in the kitchen." Wufei halted, gaze flicking behind him as the others filed out, "Yuy, Maxwell, I don't care if you're over this shit or not. Get some sleep," and turned to join the others downstairs.

With the finalization of a solid plan, the full force of fatigue swept over them both in a matter of minutes. Nausea churned to the metronome of his headache, and it hurt too much to snap his eyelids open. Slowly, Duo forced his muscles into use, treading with thumping steps back to the seclusion of his bedroom, one room to the left. Tapered fingers smoothed over the top side of the doorframe as those shots of violet lingered a final moment at the softened image of Heero Yuy. Surely they both should have looked like hell or worse, but the gazes carefully cast made them feel beautiful.

"Goodnight," Duo murmured behind the soft hint of his smile but couldn't resist sneaking in a quiet, "Hee-chan," at the end, only smirking at the other's offense. Which of course was only a steely glare. 'Yeah, Fei, I think we're over it.' Muffled steps slipped steadily into quiet, the two soldiers lapsing into sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Okay, here is a rough diagram of each guard's 'area' in the base. And here's the pattern they take to patrol. The shift changes about every four hours with intervals between one to two minutes," she brushed away twin curls, leaning over the blue prints. Shifting slightly, Sally withdrew a folded map. Unfurling its contents, she began to explain, "This is the blueprint for the first floor, the underground sector, the hangar, etc., etc."

"You really come prepared," Quatre commented a bit overwhelmed and surprised at what they had to work with.

She grinned for a moment, letting down her guard, "Well, I figured that we might need some of this stuff - so I took almost everything I had on Oz."

A grudgingly respectful grunt sounded from the opposite end of the table. Sally looked up in slight curiosity in time to catch Wufei's gaze immediately snap back to the prints. The pilots examined the large layouts to engrave the imprint of the map into their memories. She had, of course, memorized them long ago and would be able to speed up their progress.

"I knew," she muttered grimly, "that they were doing *something* down there. I just can't believe I never wondered and found out myself and prevent a month's progress or more. I would have come sooner or at least confronted you at that inn."

Wufei's opaque eyes peered curiously into her own, "You speak as if it were too late."

"It may as well be too late," she emphasized.

He snorted, "It's never too late to start another war."

"He's right," Trowa spoke up. "We still maintain options, but you need to stop feeling guilty for us to work more efficiently. Don't get distracted by what could have been - there are more important things at hand," he finished before silence settled again as if no one had spoke at all.

"We should move out now," Quatre observed grimly. Everyone affirmed with a nod and strode quickly to the large hangars.

Gundams would be too noticeable, and blatancy was not the desired effect. But ammunition and denotation devices were essential to the plan especially with such high security involved. Even then, they would have to be extremely careful and only use it in emergencies. This was merely an observation mission. They would need someone from deep within Oz, preferably standing in a high position, willing to transport the actual bombs out. That could wait until later, when Heero and Duo were fully rested and competent. The plan was ready to for execution in a matter of an hour. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

'It's strange . . . how things can come together in odd moments . . .' Quatre gripped the handle of his case carefully as the troupe of four sailed across the highway. Shots of adrenaline raced with his blood furiously. The sensation of imminent battle began to smother him already. He felt that the entire world could change in the matter of days, fueled by people's hatred for war. Oz, Romefeller, nor the Gundam pilots - it could be that none of them would be considered the victors or heroes of the bloodshed in the end.

So silently they stole through the night, slipping by the trees, whips of wind, shimmer of stars nothing seemed to be affected in the slightest degree. But, quiet was only a brief instant. Then, as expected, chaos would rip out, and they would leave unnoticed once more. Or at least that was the plan. The trick was making it all look like an accident, like it was Oz's fault and a false alarm.

These missions had always been Duo's specialty, but they this time they lacked the American pilot's advanced expertise. As soldiers they felt uncomfortable with a twinge of regret, but as friends, there was a calming relief that he and Heero were out of danger and recovering sleep.

The base came into full view. Four sets of eyes hardened considerably; their time was ticking away against the grind of concrete and rubber. On a syncronized cue, all veered apart, leaping off their motorcycles as soon as the engine cut off. In separate locations, the bikes were stashed far apart in secluded areas, outside of the barbwire section.

Glittering dark eyes narrowed as Wufei tested the metal pliers in his hands. A thick hedge cleverly concealed the knifepoint-sharp wires, but from the memorized map, he knew it was there. He snipped off a small section, and the silver of metal gleamed in the dim starlight. The Chinese pilot tossed a small coin against the fence and watched for it to glow blue with a strong current. Nothing happened. Withdrawing a warm pencil from his thermos, he teetered it meticulously into a barb loop and waited. With a quick snap, shards of wood scattered into the bushes.

'Kuso,' he gave Sally the signal. Her only response was swiftly climbing over the physical obstacles, creeping to the end of the hedge to signal Trowa.

He affirmed with a nod, "Fifteen," he murmured to Quatre.

"We're going to have to go in one at a time," he bit his lip in thought. "But," the Arabic halted him, "just be careful, Trowa."

With a soft smile, the brunette rested his hand briefly on Quatre's arm and disappeared, following Sally. Quatre watched anxiously as Wufei assessed the grounds. Mentally calculating the measurements, he steadily raised his hookshot and aimed for the flagpole. A firm grip on the gun, he crouched down and released the trigger the moment he jumped, swinging himself towards the fence. In impossibly fluid motions, his feet pushed him up and away until he cleared it.

Sally repeated the Chinese soldier's precedent with mild difficulty but managed to clamber over the barbwire as well. Trowa shot for the flagpole and flipped over the fence easily with the added momentum of the pull. Quatre followed a few seconds later, waiting for the guard to pass again. The small hole in the hedges allowed a glimpse of the marching soldier. They passed the outer sector.

Breaking in afterwards was easy enough. Trowa distorted the sound-based electronic security system with one of Quatre's metronomes. He had enhanced it for an earlier mission to emit different pitches of sound in different rhythms in different tempos. It set off the correct security codes, allowing him entrance. Faint beams of light crisscrossed the halls in random patterns, almost invisible. He slipped on advanced night vision and twisted, flipped, and tumbled his way though the maze to the central control. Again, with the metronome, he jammed the system, and instantly the lights flickered out. Motioning for the others, he quickly reloaded the security as they passed.

The internal anatomy of the base would be harder to crack into. The further towards the testing grounds they reached, the heavier the security. Even the ventilation system had cameras set up. Thankfully, Sally had sneaked out some base uniforms prior to her leave, which the troupe had all slipped over their infiltration clothes.

The tricky thing about illegal business . . . the company couldn't afford any evidence that it was happening. Especially not live footage caught on film, so past a certain point, the security cameras had to be eliminated. In less than ten minutes, they were in the enormous underground base, alone. A few lights were left on for a dim glow skimming across the weapons.

"Holy shit," Sally murmured as they all stood in complete awe.

Nuclear arms lined the walls of the rectangular chamber, overwhelmingly powerful, daunting. They remained unassembled from her knowledge of explosives but exceeded by far the primitive technology of the twentyth century. It wasn't a miracle that their infiltration was too easy - Oz didn't care. No one could stop them at the point of the process. Still, numbly they shot photos of the place, close-ups of the bombs, recording notes and observations, committing everything to memory - and left.

Mission accomplished.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

O.O I'm in an odd mood. And not a good one. Can you tell? ^_^;; Wow, it's really, really, really been a while, huh? I'm sooooo sorry again. It took me forever just to figure this much out. Yup, I'm just stupid like that -_-;; And I fried my brain trying to think of more plot and study for finals. It paid off though! Not by much - I still got like two B's and five A's. Monday I have to go to summer gym again *sigh* Anyway, I'll try to get another update in soon. Thank you so much if you're reading!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kat- Hey! Thank you so much for leaving a review for me. Not only did it cheer me up, I finally realized I needed to update this account ^_^;; I hope you liked this chapter, and I hope I didn't dig myself into too much of a hole with the last few paragraphs . . . The changing the past thing didn't actually occur to me so much as to one of my friends. She asked me if I was implying anything by a few scattered comments -- and I kind of got into the idea. It provided a more solid basis for Heero and Duo's changing relationship! It definitely deserved thanking, which I did profusely. I never cease to find it amazing how a good story can just pull you in like that! And to think that mine would be considered one of those to a number of people is incredible. Especially when I made a long, long list of why I need to rewrite *nervous laugh* Anyway, thanks again!