Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Taking Flight ❯ The God of Death ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 05 - The God of Death

"The God of Death is back from Hell."

//...// Denotes thought.

***

Duo found it difficult to keep his mind focused while battling the humid summer heat of the small, two-roomed safe house that the boys had acquired. Too much had happened in the past two weeks; and, musing, he realized that if the other pilots knew the truth, they wouldn't blame him for being unfocused.

Before he knew it, the faces situated around the small, cluttered, circular table before him shifted and faded. Heero's face (directly across from Duo's) lengthened, aged, and his hair stretched into a single bun. Then Heero's piercing stare locked with Duo's half-lidded eyes and became a dark, leering violet....

"Duo, are you paying attention?" the stoic boy's monotone snapped the braided youth back to reality. Duo's hand quit supporting his head and fell to the table with a thump; his head might have been behind it if it hadn't jerked up at the mention of his name. Duo had been half expecting a lecture on his dishonorable, shortsighted human behavior. He half chuckled, but realized too late that the others could still hear him.

"Maxwell, you dishonor our cause when you fail to take our situation seriously! How dare you act as though this is a joke!" Wufei began another rant, which only caused Duo to chuckle harder at the irony. Leave it to Wufei to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time....

Suddenly a knife-like, annoyingly familiar pain twisted itself anew in Duo's side. He hadn't been expecting it, and his laughter was cut short as he hissed sharply and tensed up, interrupting Wufei's rant.

While Wufei froze open-mouthed, Quatre quickly placed a comforting hand on Duo's shoulder. "Duo! Are you alright?"

Duo blinked and shook the haze from his head, then replied, "Yeah, just fine." It wasn't truly a lie, but it was stretching the truth. Duo was fine, physically at least. He doubted that he would ever truly be "just fine" again, at least as long as he was unable to talk with his closest (and only) friends about the very thing that had allowed him to survive back on L2, but now refused to let him truly live.

He glanced at the dingy round clock on the wall over Heero's head. It was 3:00 PM, just over three hours since the last time he was able to let his wings out. Two weeks had passed since he left Dr. Arwel's care, and only once had Duo been able to make the two-hour deadline. Every time he tried to sneak away, it seemed either Quatre or Wufei would be right there giving him some light task to keep himself busy, and Heero sure kept an annoyingly close watch. Trowa just seemed to be avoiding him. Then again, the braided boy never recalled having seen much of the silent European.

Duo cast his gaze around the table. Quatre sat with a worried expression on his right, and Trowa sat next to the Arab. On his left, Wufei wore a more peculiar expression, and Heero did nothing but glare from across the table. Amidst the clutter of paper, pens, photos, and Heero's ever-present laptop, everyone was staring at Duo as if to make sure that he was indeed all right. Duo sighed, slapped on his trademarked grin, and assured the other four, "Hey, I'm alright, ok? Everything's under control."

Reluctantly, the others returned their attention to planning the mission at hand, though careful glances were still thrown in Duo's direction intermittently. Duo, however, still wasn't paying attention. He had already presented his conclusions about the target's security and come up with a relatively well received, if somewhat risky plan. Although Quatre, of course, had protested to his attempting to execute such a detailed subterfuge as that which had been outlined, even he had to admit that Duo was the only man for the job. He only had to sneak in, disable the alarms, defenses, and surveillance, and pretty much open the doors for the other pilots to come in and start blasting away in the confusion. It should have been simple, but information that Duo had uncovered this morning had made this meeting necessary.

A delivery of 10 Leo mobile dolls and 20 Aries would be made to the base tonight long before the pilots could safely move out. Although they had long since mastered the art of fighting and defeating the unmanned crafts, the officers of the base would be able to safely fire into the melee without risking their own pilots' lives while the Gundams were thus preoccupied. In order to accomplish their objective, Duo would have to defeat every defense within a window of under five minutes, and he would have to do it alone.

An uncomfortable forty-five minutes later, Duo shifted in his seat for one last time before Quatre adjourned the meeting. Duo quickly excused himself to the bathroom (the only equivalent of which was a cramped outhouse far back in the trees of their German location) and ran outside while only barely catching a scathing remark from Wufei, and quickly shut the door.

Within, Quatre quickly took his chance to glare unconvincingly at Wufei. "Why do you say things like that?"

Surprised, Wufei asked, "Like what?"

"Just about everything you say to Duo is some sort of insult. I for one don't find it very encouraging." Quatre clarified quietly, but without solid conviction.

All eyes were on him as Wufei scoffed, "I've always spoken to Maxwell like this."

Sadly, Quatre shook his head. "Maybe that's part of the problem." Silently, he gathered his papers and followed in Duo's wake.

Wufei didn't need to ask for clarification this time; his thoughts mirrored Quatre's. Angrily, he snatched his few papers from the table and stormed off to the small second room of the house and slammed the door. He would be there for quite a while.

***

Duo ran as fast as he could through the thin, coniferous alpine forest. He could no longer see the tiny, deteriorating cottage with its chipped, off-white paint and warping support beams, but the wooden outhouse was still clearly within the range of his vision. He couldn't take any chances, but the uncomfortable pressure in his back was quickly becoming pain. /"Only a few more seconds…"/ he told himself as he picked and dodged his way through the tall pines, crunchy needles, and snaking roots.

Quatre slowly made his way toward the outhouse. Duo's hasty exit was perhaps typical of him, but that didn't keep the cherubic boy from worrying. "Duo?" He quietly called as he approached the outhouse. It didn't smell like it had only a few days earlier, before someone had cleaned it out. Quatre wasn't very familiar with the maintenance of toiletries. He stood beside the weathered wooden stall and knocked.

About 20 yards away, Duo heard his name called and twisted his head around in surprise. /"Shit."/ He mentally cursed, even though, luckily, the outhouse blocked his line of sight (and therefore Quatre's). He smirked a moment later at his unexpected pun. Just then, his foot caught on a root. Duo yelped in shock as he tumbled face first to the forest floor.

Quatre looked around the side of the small building, to the source of the crashing sound, but saw nothing. He sighed and leaned heavily against the splintered wood. "You know, Duo, sometimes I really wonder if all this is worth it." Silence was his only answer, so Quatre continued. "I mean, all the danger we put ourselves in…"

Unknown to Quatre, Duo was tense, face down in the dirt, and 20 some yards away, though he still caught about half of what the young Arab was saying.

"Wufei doesn't mean what he says," he went on, "well, at least not all of it. I think he's just as frustrated as the rest of us are."

Though what Quatre was saying suddenly twisted Duo's throat in a tight knot, he really wished Quatre would just hurry up and go.

Quatre laughed softly with a strange irony more fit to tickle Duo's morbid sense of humor. "Or maybe Wufei really does mean it. Maybe everything he says about weakness and honor…" Quatre's face fell and he sighed again. "I still don't think you should go on our next mission Duo. If you could take an extra day to explain what you've found, maybe Heero or Trowa could do your part and you could rest back up to full strength." He sounded hopeful then. "I know you're not quite yourself yet…" his tone fell again, "but you're right. We'll be under handed if you stay back. Thirty mobile dolls shouldn't be too much of a challenge…. I just don't know, Duo. It just doesn't-… nothing… feels right."

Duo took note of how his friend stumbled over the word "feel", but thought no more of it. A particularly painful throb just pulsed through his back, and it took most of his concentration to avoid retching. /"When this is finally over, I'm going to kill that idiot doctor."/ He told himself.

"I'm sorry I bothered you, Duo. If you don't want to talk to me, I guess I understand." Quatre turned and slowly began to walk back to the cabin as if half hoping that Duo would call him back. Of course, Duo didn't, and after a few long moments (entirely too long for Duo to wait), Quatre disappeared into the rustic shack.

As if the gentle click was the shot of a starting gun, Duo slammed his palms into the bed of sharp brown needles and sprinted the last few feet to a shallow depression in the landscape where he could finally ease this woefully familiar pain.

***

Half an hour later, Duo walked back through the narrow door and into the claustrophobic hallway that led into the cramped living room/makeshift kitchen. Duo wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but the somber mood he found three of his companions in hadn't been it.

"Woah, what's with you guys? Did someone's dog die or something?" Duo asked with a laughing tone.

"Duo! There you are!" Quatre exclaimed, relieved. It was plain by Trowa and Heero's stiff postures that Quatre had spent the past half-hour trying to bring them to his view. It had probably been a long, mostly one-sided discussion. Maybe Trowa had tried to reason with Quatre; perhaps Heero had finally demanded silence. As grateful as Duo was for Quatre's concern, he had to agree that his anxiety was unrealistic. Well, maybe it was realistic enough from his companions' points of view, but as long as he could remove himself from their sight once every two hours without worrying them, Duo was in very little danger.

"I was starting to worry." Quatre began again. "You've been out for over half an hour. Heero told me not to go looking for you, but Duo, could you please refrain from doing that? I must sound like a lecturing parent, but we're all just as responsible for you as you are, and you worry me."

Though he was slightly taken aback, Duo still kept his ever-present grin and replied, "Hey, I'm all right Quat'." Jokingly, he put a right hand over his heart. "I solemnly swear that I'll never worry you like that again."

Quatre sighed and seemed to lose his nerve. He lowered his eyes and sat down slowly into one of the nearby moth-eaten chairs.

"Quatre, really. I'm all right. I don't want anyone to worry. The mission will go just fine, I'll be fine." Duo insisted.

From behind a closed door, Wufei heard the entire muffled conversation as he laid reading on the bed. Several silky strands of ebony hair framed his face as he tried to block out Maxwell's voice. Almost a minute later, he slammed the book shut in disgust and stashed his glasses in their case, then shoved both into his "important" bag. As he threw open the door and stomped into the front room, all conversation ceased as Duo and Quatre watched Wufei irately cross the threshold. As soon as he slammed the front door, Duo scratched his head and wondered out loud, "What was that about?"

Outside, Wufei chose a quiet spot behind a tree away from the cramped shack and sat wearily in the shade of the tall pine. This forest was indeed old; few trees still had lower branches and the canopy blocked nearly all sunlight. The pine needle floor, if a little uncomfortable, was cool and dry, and the rough pine behind him was large and sturdy. Wufei drew in a deep, even breath of fresh alpine air. He immediately regretted it, as the crisp perfume of cool pines succeeded in further awakening him and clearing his head of everything he had just read, leaving him with only the demons that plagued him.

Wufei hated Duo with an intolerance that was almost instinctual, but even more he hated his own inability to help the baka. Any time Wufei found the words that might express his turmoil, they died in his throat as soon as Duo so much as moved. Still, Wufei truly regretted many of the things he said and everything he failed to do. He had already failed his wife; he didn't want to fail his comrade too.

Marian, the sweet sound of her name defined him more than his own. His Nataku had joined the Dragons and the Kais in the heavens, leaving him on Earth to continue the war for justice. Sometimes on the battlefield, he thought he felt the presence of his precious, irritating woman nearby, but even if she was there in spirit, he could never see her again in this life. Wufei would never get a second chance to protect her, have her, or hold her. The only thing left for him to do was to finally end this war and bring forth the justice that his Nataku had so passionately fought for.

And that included protecting and assisting the other four pilots. Though Wufei found it difficult-now more than ever-he respected Maxwell. Wufei just wished that he could find it within himself to respect his own efforts a little more.

Wufei took another breath and moved into a meditation position. Perhaps now he could bring himself to clear his mind and concentrate.

***

"Mission initiation, 21:00 hours. Gundams, status check." whispered Quatre over the COM link much later that night. A tiny wire ran from Gundam to Gundam to relay the message without any chance of interception. The pilots kept their voices down to fool any audio surveillance equipment in the area now that they were in position.

"01 ready, all systems green." Heero reported monotonously. The Wing Zero lay on its back near a rocky outcrop.

"02 in position and ready to go." Duo whispered into his headphones. He stood several yards away from the first chain link fence, hidden within a sparse bush. He had quite the assortment of completed "projects" strapped to his waist and no doubt several more in less obvious places.

"03 green." Trowa replied from the rusted out hull of a broken down truck. His Gundam rested behind while he sat nearby with a pair of binoculars.

"04 reporting, I'm ready." Quatre confirmed. He was positioned quite a bit nearer to the German OZ base than Trowa, who sat against a hill almost two miles away.

Wufei sighed and rubbed his temples in a soothing circular motion.

"Wufei, are you ready?" Quatre asked after a few moments of silence.

"Yes, 05's systems green." Wufei responded tiredly.

"Stay focused, everyone." Quatre reminded them. "Alright, Duo." He reluctantly gave the boy the go-ahead.

"02 heading in. See ya in 5 minutes, guys. Disconnecting COM link…" There was a tiny pop, a fizzle, and Duo was on his own.

It didn't take him long to penetrate the outer fence. It was electric, but of little consequence. A pair of rubber gloves, wire cutters, and some careful snipping allowed him to quickly bypass the first defense.

The next challenge was slightly more difficult. 50 feet of flat, unobstructed soil separated him from the inner concrete wall. He dashed across quickly, being careful to avoid the frequent passes of searchlights. It was fancy footwork, but Duo made it.

/"Let's see…"/ he thought as he pulled out a pair of bulky sunglasses. Duo pressed a button on the side and activated the infrared option. He clearly saw heat from the spotlights, but he was really watching for the men on top of the wall that he had scouted from behind the electric fence. Duo knew that at least one of them had a pair of either night vision or infrared goggles on (inferior to his little projects, but just as dangerous).

/"Shit!"/ Duo silently cursed as he quickly dove out of the way of a passing searchlight. He scampered back to the wall and pressed himself flat against it, hoping to escape being seen by anyone who had been alerted by the sound of his fall. Duo clearly saw the outline of just such a person as the black-clad youth looked up and the German leaned over the top wall. Duo moved his hand to his glasses and switched on night vision. He almost sighed loudly in relief as he discovered the absence of goggles on the German's head, but held the breath instead.

"Na, Hanz? Geben Sie mir seine Taschenlampe. Ich habe etwas gehören." (Hey, Hanz? Give me your flashlight. I heard something.) The man called back over his shoulder. Duo had no clue what he said, but was pretty sure that the man had called to his buddy, Hanz.

"Langsam, langsam. Ich bin nicht ein junge Mann. Was horen Sie? Wo?" (Patience, patience. I'm not a young man. What did you hear? Where?") Hanz replied as his footsteps approached Duo from above.

"Da druben." (Over there.) The first soldier told Hanz as he pointed where Duo had fallen moments before. His heart raced and his breathing quickened. "Es war, ah…" (It was, uh…)

"Na, und? Was?" (And? What?)

"Es hört wie eine Katze, aber, eine Katze kann nicht ins here sein. Seine Taschenlampe, bitte?" (It sounded like a cat, but a cat couldn't get in here. Your flashlight, please?)

"Ja, hier ist." (Yeah, here it is.)

A flashlight flickered to life several feet in front of Duo, causing him to gasp sharply. Thankfully, the first soldier sneezed at that exact moment and dropped the flashlight. Duo cringed as the light washed over him on its way down, and then clattered to the ground. He took off toward the first fence immediately.

"Da! Franz! Ich sehe etwas! Mach schnell! Das licht!" (There! Franz! I see something! Hurry up! The light!)

"Hanz, was?" (What, Hanz?)

Duo didn't stick around for the rest of the conversation. He was already halfway to the fence, but turned sharply and ran the long way down between the two walls. He heard the unmistakable sound of dogs being released behind him as he turned a sharp corner. "Damnit." He cursed quietly, then dug into his stash of projects and found a stained, furry, white cloth. It was a piece of untreated rabbit skin dusted in cocaine. The dogs wouldn't be able to leave it alone, but one good sniff of it would make their sense of smell useless for hours. It was crude and not an easy project to complete, but it was effective. Duo threw it back around the corner directly from the bag, then placed the dirty bag within another, sealed it, and tucked the whole thing back with the rest of the little gadgets in his jacket.

Duo resumed running. To turn another corner, he only had to run half the total distance of the side he had just turned from, but it was still a long way. He continued to dodge the frequent floodlights. By the time he managed to turn the last corner, he was breathing hard and his legs protested any further motion severely. /"Shit."/ He thought, then looked up, around, and both ways to the side. He had about 7 seconds to work before he would have to dodge lights again. /"No, too many people up top. I won't be able to climb quickly enough…"/ He checked his watch, squinting at the display with his night vision. /"I've wasted too much time already. Arg, damnit!"/ Duo dodged the floodlights as they threatened him, just barely avoiding being caught in the second. Thankfully, he didn't fall this time.

He took a deep breath after the last one and made a quick decision. /"Alright, I'll take it here. With a little coolant, no one should be able to pick me up on Infrared, and I'm wearing enough black to bypass night vision as well. Gotta do this quick…."/ Duo dug around in his projects and pulled out and unfolded what looked like three big clear grapes on a bulky, gelled iron vine, and a small container of some other gel. He smeared the contents of the small container all over key points of his jacket and skin, shivering as the icy chemical made contact. Duo understood chemicals quite well, but he hadn't developed this specific mixture. It was an endothermic reaction that he had found in a fire extinguisher and modified. The grapes were actually the padded points of a grappling hook.

Duo swung and threw the hook over the battlement and tugged. The sharp points of the hook pierced through the gelled ends and hooked onto the wall. He gave it two quick pulls to be sure it was secure, then hoisted himself up and started climbing. It was quick work; any slower and the trailing rope would have been caught in the spotlight. As he was folding the light frame of the hook again, however, he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a male voice in his ear.

"Enschuldegung Sie, wie heissen Sie? Ich kenne Sie nicht." (Excuse me, what's your name? I don't think I know you.) Came the deep, polite voice of a soldier.

/"KILL HIM!"/ Was Duo's first impulse, and sure enough, he had tensed, snatched the compact pole of the small beam scythe at his side, and turned halfway around ready to strike (even without the blade) before he was able to check himself. He must have looked odd, stopped abruptly like that as he forcefully thought, /"There's no need to kill him!"/

"Was ist los, bitte?" (What's wrong?) The confused soldier asked with a hint of concern.

/"He must be new."/ Duo concluded. /"He'd have shot me five times over by now if he understood who I am…."/ Duo shook his head to himself and the OZ soldier behind him, then took something that looked like breath spray from an inner pocket in his jacket, and sprayed the man in the face. He collapsed immediately into unconsciousness, and Duo caught him and laid him down to make him look as if he was sleeping. /"He's so young…"/ Duo noted as he took a good look at the man's face. Of course, all OZ members were young, but Duo couldn't help feeling pity for his might-have-been victim. Then again, the German boy had to be at least three years older than Duo. He shook his head to bring himself back to the mission.

/"Time to move; I've wasted too much time already."/ With little more than a short scan of the ground below, Duo jumped down from the wall and into the heart of the OZ base.

***

"It's been almost five minutes." Quatre announced over the com.

None of his three quiet companions responded.

"Heero, I'm worried." Quatre addressed the stoic youth.

"Hn." Heero replied. Silence fell over them again.

After what seemed like an eternity, Quatre announced, "4 minutes, 45 seconds. Guys, he's cutting it close…."

"We know what time it is, Quatre." Wufei told him irately.

"Duo said he'd get in within 5 minutes. He'll signal us." Trowa's calming voice sounded from the com.

"Duo will be there." Heero stated plainly.

Quatre sighed uneasily and watched his glowing watch as it counted down the seconds. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….

His watch's chime sounded and began counting a new minute. There was still no sign of Duo. Quatre shifted worriedly.

Just as Quatre reached over to send another video com message, a loud explosion appeared over the base, followed by several more. They were fireworks, and Duo's signal.

"That's Duo. Let's go." Heero announced as Wing Zero stirred to life, crushing rocks as it began to stand.

Quatre wondered for an instant if the others had even noticed the two seconds that had glared from his watch as it counted past five minutes, but as the other Gundams rose like an elite regiment of golems behind their winged leader, he resolved to focus instead on the task at hand.

***

"Shit!" Duo swore as a bullet pierced the dirt only inches from his feet; he actually felt the ground rise up beneath his foot as the projectile burrowed into the earth. It wasn't like he had long to ponder the phenomenon; his assailant had shouted something to a buddy out of sight, and the unmistakable sound of a request for backup being filed over the radio quickly followed. Duo turned and ran while several pairs of footsteps and a loud gun retort pursued him. There were more than a dozen voices yelling all around him as he slipped into a dark corner, breathing hard. The spotlights and radios were the only security systems he had left intact. He couldn't do a thing about the radios, but with the push of a small red button, Duo set off several explosives that he had left by the main generator. The spotlights flickered a moment, went out in a rush of paralyzing darkness, and flickered to life again. Backup generators were scattered throughout the base and in the surrounding countryside, and they would need the Gundams to get to the vast majority of them.

The destruction of those generators was key to their mission. Without the backup generators at this base, the nearby factory (which manufactured and recharged mobile suit power cells) would be unable to continue production. The Gundams had already crippled the area over the past two weeks by covertly destroying key power lines from other districts, and therefore the area's ability to import power without great cost. This systematic destruction, however, left OZ with a pattern to follow and an easy conclusion to make.

Then there was the problem of not knowing where the external backup generators were located. Heero could easily find them by hacking the executive system from the inside, but they all worried that the data might have already been moved or deleted.

Duo was breathing hard as he climbed the side of the building that he had used for cover. His infiltration hadn't been easy by a long shot. Internal security had definitely been tightened, and more than one dead security guard lay in a bloody heap behind him, along with the gutted remnants of any security bot to cross him, as well as countless shattered cameras and sensors. The vast majority of these occurred near the end of his journey when he no longer had time to adjust the frequencies of his various stealth systems.

The group of armed men ran quickly beneath him without looking up. It seemed strange to Duo, who so often had his neck craned back, that other people so rarely tended to look up. At the moment, though, he didn't mind that fact.

As he moved to reach the remote activation key to his Gundam, Duo cringed and nearly dropped the small handheld device. He only barely held onto it as a shock coursed through his body. At first he thought he'd been shot, but the pain was different and annoyingly familiar. He checked his watch and mentally groaned. It had been two and a half hours since the last time he had a chance to release his wings, and that last time had nearly been a disaster in itself. The pilots had just gotten their Gundams into position when Quatre came looking for Duo to pass the time. The darker youth spent 15 minutes avoiding Quatre, time he was supposed to be spending resting and stretching.

Duo chuckled softly to himself at the humorous memory and pressed a sequence of buttons on his small computer to activate the autopilot. Deathscythe rose to life in a pandemonium of mechanical groans and snapping canopy and trudged stiffly toward the base. Only its cloaking system and black paint hid it from the enemy, but even that wouldn't confuse the unaided eye for long.

Thankfully, it didn't need to. Loud shouts sounded from every corner of the base (Duo had already taken out the alarm system) and a large group of men was trying to force the Mobile Suit hangar door open. The access panel and hydraulic systems were warped beyond the ability to function, courtesy of Duo Maxwell.

/"That'll buy me some time."/ Duo silently told himself, reflecting on his execution of this simple solution. He waited for a last group of men to run beneath him before jumping down off the building. He rolled with his landing and was up and running in no time, taking the greatest care to stay hidden as much as possible. Of course, there were fewer and fewer shadows with each passing moment as more and more floodlights were switched on manually.

It was inevitable, perhaps, that within seconds Duo had nowhere left to run. He clung to one last dark corner and feverishly searched for another. When he found none, he cursed, /"Shit! …Well,"/ he thought as he removed a loaded handgun from its holster on his hip, /"I suppose I can't avoid it any longer. Anyone who sees me has got a date with his maker."/ He took a deep breath, secured the weapon in both hands, and pushed off into the pale floodlight.

Considering how close he was to the heart of the base, there was surprisingly little opposition between him and the barracks. He hid around corners rather than shooting, and by the time he reached the inner wall he hadn't fired a single shot.

Unfortunately, he grew careless. As he re-used his grappling hook to secure a rope to the wall, a familiar hand was placed on his shoulder. Duo nearly whirled around, but again stopped just short of ending the young man's life. Instead, as he caught a glimpse of the German OZ soldier's face. He incredulously shouted "You!" but a moment later, wished that he hadn't.

The young man blinked open-mouthed, then cleared his throat. With imperfect grammar and a heavy accent he asked, "New here you being? No, ach, I see you before?"

There is a difference between firing a blaster at a line of OZ mobile suits and firing a shot into someone standing right next to you. In ranged battle, or any Mobile Suit battle, the person behind the controls remains a distant, faceless casualty, a tragedy that never truly touches the one pulling the trigger except in retrospect.

As Duo pulled the trigger of his small handgun, with its barrel nuzzled into the blonde youth's side (someone not much older than himself), the difference was very apparent. As the muffled shot entered his abdomen, the confused look never left the young Aryan's face. He staggered back a single step, touched the bloody wound, and with his gaze asked Duo what had happened.

Duo's returning gaze was cold. His hands were clammy, and much of his body was numb. He raised both arms, turned to face the young man fully, leveled the gun at the German's chest, and fired a second time. The boy's heart burst at the impact, and his shocked, lifeless body fell bleeding to the ground.

Duo winced, shuddered, and pried his frozen fingers from the semi-automatic pistol, then put it quickly away. He wrung his hands to remove what he thought to be an excess of sweat-curiously warm-but looking down, discovered them drenched in blood. He twitched, and then wiped his shivering, shaking hands off.

/"Get over it, Maxwell. It's not like your hands have never been coated in blood before."/ He coached himself, then turned and scaled over the wall. Deathscythe was waiting for him.

***

Less than a minute later, Duo climbed into Deathscythe's familiar cockpit and settled himself into the seat. The others were already engaged in battle at various points around the military base, as both Deathscythe's scanners and the loud explosions told him. Duo rubbed his hands, hoping to instill some warmth into them, but moved on without much success. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes in an attempt at both quieting his shaking hands and mentally readying himself for the up coming battle.

When he finally released the breath and opened his eyes, a dark look had overtaken his features and he grinned. As Duo took the controls and Deathscythe's mechanical "eyes" flickered a bright, unearthly green, Duo quietly stated, "The God of Death is back from Hell."

***

[End Chapter 5]

AN: What a way to end the chapter! I hope I've left all you readers satisfied, and if not, rabid, obsessed, and ready for more. ^_^ I've been horrifically busy lately, but somehow I found the time to type this, and Rya once again amazed me and got the beta reading done in under a week. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Now comes the time where I reply to reviews.

Fanfiction.net first this time because they had fewer reviews (and therefore, I can get through them the quickest. ^_^)

Amber: Yup, Arwel's a bitch, and yup, I made her that way on purpose! ^_^ You'll understand why later, but I don't think Duo ever will. ;) Make sure you get plenty of sleep! Sleep is always a good thing.

socceremie: Did you review on Mediaminer.org AND Fanfiction.net? …And how many times? 0.o Well, thank you for reviewing lots! Thanks to your effort, everyone gets chapter 5 BEFORE Christmas instead of after! :D

Shadowed Light: Yes, and now you've waited about 3 months. :P The good news is, I've finally gotten enough reviews to warrant an update! Thanks for your patience, but doesn't sitting at your computer get boring after a month?

Gleevul_Maniac: 0.o Well, please don't burn your eyes out! If you do, you won't be able to read the rest of the story! ^_^ Now you have an update, and chapter 6 is on the way!

And now for Mediaminer.org…

wren_legacy: I won't hurt you for not reviewing, you just won't get the next chapter as soon. ;) I'm glad you're paying attention to details! And discovery scenes… ick, no more of those. >.< Plot twists are more my style. ;) Every story has to have at least one character for the readers to absolutely hate! Right now, that's Arwel. Duo's problems just snowball from here, but I couldn't resist giving him a temporary respite in chapter 5. Please do come back to pester me! I'm lazy, and I need much prodding. :D

neko-satan: Wh00t! I'm not going to die! :D I'm glad you like the story so much. Obviously it's a Duo fic, but I hope I've left some chewy bits in there for fans of Quatre, Wufei, Trowa, and even Heero. Well, I've updated! Before I disappear on hiatus again, I think I'll buy an anti-demon sniper rifle! Well, I'm off to e-bay! ^_^

socceremie: Didn't you review on Fanfiction.net too? -.o

black beauty: The update is here! Now don't die of suspense! ^_^

Phoenix Element: *o* I have your review hanging in my locker, on my sketchbook, and in every other conceivable place I could possibly put it! The little details took me more than a year of research to get right, and sadly, there is no possible way that I'd be able to include everything that I've done with my research in this story. What has been explained so far, though, is far from everything. ;) As for Wufei, even 2-dimentional bastards are people too, even if they're just 2-dimentional bastard people (cough, Arwel, cough). ^_^ I hope this update is enough to sate your appetite, even if only for the few minutes it takes to read it. :P

"When Will you update?": Yes, I have been waiting for more reviews. …I've also been grounded. ^_^;; Not only am I lazy, I have to sneak on the computer too. Here's your update, and off I go!

And so concludes another chapter of Taking Flight, as well as another fruitful year of fandom. I'm currently entertaining the idea of posting this story on Deviantart.com as well as fanfiction.net and Mediaminer.org. Tell me what you think!

Well, the only reason that I'm currently awake is thanks to a healthy supply of caffeine left in the cupboards, in my system, and the promise of more in the morning. Peace, love, and chicken grease to all, and to all a good night!