Stormfront

Sandrock's joints creaked alarmingly. Quatre knew there was little chance of breaking the current stalemate. In desperation he fired the remaining missile. With instant reflexes Shockwave jerked its cutlasses together as if to block, but too late. The missile exploded messily, setting both gundams off balance. Quatre recovered first, sending a barrage of vulcan gun fire which Dimitri half-heartedly blocked as he raised Shockwave from being down on one knee. One cutlass had been lost in the explosion. He held the remaining one in both hands as Quatre cut the vulcan guns.
"No more tricks!" Dimitri growled. Shockwave rushed forward, cutlass leading. Quatre raised the heat shorters to block...and suddenly recalled an identical situation...which had led to this battle...

Duo closed Deathscythe's cockpit door then brought down its arm. "So what now?" he called over the comm. The girl didn't respond. He scowled but let it pass that she was probably distracted by her thoughts -- something about the battle seemed to have disturbed her beyond the usual trauma-to-the-naive. He thought of Quatre and remembered how he had acted in the days following Heero's self-destruct. Some people just couldn't handle things...Duo shook his head and sighed in annoyance.
A whirring sound from outside pulled him from his disdainful thoughts. He looked toward Ananse and one eyebrow went up. The arms and legs -- skirt armor and all -- were retracting into the torso. The six weapons-laden appendages came down to support the suit, which now truly resembled a giant spider. Duo grinned. "Now that is cool! I definitely got to get me a bat mode!" Imena apparently didn't appreciate the comment for there was no response again. Duo huffed and decided to wait for her to actually talk to him.
Ananse started toward a deep stand of trees, its six legs moving it much faster than the slow plod of the two. However, Imena paused when she realized Deathscythe wasn't behind her. She flicked the comm switch. "This way, I said! Aren't you listening?" She frowned. He can go back where he came from for all I care. I don't need his help. She twisted Ananse's head around to glare at the black suit. Finally Deathscythe moved to follow. Imena sighed and lowered the head again, leveling it with the trees.
Duo watched Ananse slip through the foliage as agile as any real spider. He chuckled knowing he would leave a slightly more obvious path. It only took around ten minutes for curiosity to overwhelm him. "Say, what got you so upset before?" The standard silence greeted him. Truly annoyed now, he decided to ask her what her problem was as soon as they reached their destination. Another ten minutes went by and then he started to fidget with the comm system, wondering if something was wrong with Deathscythe. An adjustment to volume revealed no static, and he began to have suspicions about Ananse. When at last they emerged back onto the plains he reached out with the beamscythe, blade off, to tap the spider-suit. When it turned, he opened Deathscythe's cockpit, stepping out with a wave. Ananse shifted upright, its arms and legs sliding out to mobile suit mode again. The hatch opened to reveal a confused Imena. "What's wrong? The village is just down there." She pointed over a hill where Duo could see a scattering of small buildings.
The braided boy disregarded this and casually perched on the edge of the platform. "Is your comm system working? I've tried to talk to you three times already."
"Yes. It's been on the last half hour," Imena answered warily.
"Mind if I check it for myself?" he asked in a non-chalant manner. She half-frowned in reply. "Hey, I'm a professional mechanic, don't worry about it!"
"Wait until we get to the village," she said reluctantly. Duo nodded and stood up. Five minutes later they reached the outskirts of the large village. A group of people came to greet Imena but she politely waved them away, announcing that she had much to discuss with her newfound ally. The villagers gave Deathscythe a wide berth, unsure of its formidable appearance. Duo decided against introducing himself as the God of Death.
When the two were alone standing below Ananse, Duo started in bluntly, "So you've been fighting without much knowledge of your enemy. Obviously you haven't heard that OZ threatened the colonies."
Worry came to Imena's face but she was determined to not be caught by surprise again this day. "No," she admitted carefully. "The OZ troops stationed around here have been warned by the locals that a spirit from their legends would take revenge for the abuse from the military. No one suspected I'm from the colonies. Ananse the Trickster is handling matters differently these days." She glanced up at the gundam with a mocking smile.
Duo only frowned. "Well, I still think your comm system is screwed up. Hard to miss news of four gundams being handed a defeat." He said the last with such bitterness that it grabbed her attention more than the comment of four gundams.
But it was to this that she replied to. "Four more? Then there are six of us?"
"Seven, actually, or there were," he said dryly. "At least two are dead, two are MIA, the fifth is relaxing at home and you're looking at the last." He grinned.
She took this news in stride. "And I haven't heard about any of it. I feel...used..." She glumly sank down to sit on Ananse's foot.
"How about a look at that comm?" he hinted. Imena nodded and a few minutes later Duo was sitting on the cockpit floor poking through the tangle of wires inside one of Ananse's control panels. He hummed thoughtfully and moved to open a second panel. More tangled wires. He simply had to untangle them. Imena watched warily from just outside the cockpit. "Aha!" the braided boy exclaimed at last. "There you are!" He pulled a wire from each panel that did not have a corresponding match on the opposite side. "Your comm ain't even connected." As he did the necessary repairs he missed Imena's troubled scowl.
As soon as the two wires were reconnected an alert sounded and an image window opened on the righthand screen. The face of an elderly man of Imena's heritage looked out at them grimly. "Councilor M," the girl murmured.
"If you are seeing this message then you have found the sabatoged comm. I hope you will forgive me, Imena. This was for your own good. You know the sensitivity of your mission, and I trust you will keep this secret. Please do not feel guilty. This was a necessary thing." The window closed.
Duo glanced up at Imena skeptically. "I'm not askin'."
The girl gazed at the screen, her face pensive. "I've compromised my morals. Yet..it was a needed thing..." She crouched beside him. "I don't know if I should thank you or not. But tell me, Duo Maxwell, anything else I should know about OZ and the other gundams."

Despite that his mission had kept him awake most of the night Duo managed to recall everything he knew about OZ and all that had happened since he had met the others at New Edwards without dozing. His recounting of the Alexa incident was short, for he had not known the late pilot very well. Frustration surrounded the defeat they had received as he admitted he did not know if Heero truly was dead. He finished with the recent troubles with Dimitri. "On top of everything else, the delusional little pest is still out there bent on revenge." He snorted in disdain. "I don't understand why Quatre let him go."
Imena had a mind to glare at him, but she kept it to herself. "Maybe he wanted to give Dimitri a chance to see his error."
Duo snorted again. "Yeah, right. Quatre will see himself getting his ass kicked before that happens."
Now Imena did scowl, standing to leave the campfire they had been resting by. "You aren't very nice about your friends."
"Who said they were my friends?" Duo retorted. His tone changed abruptly, becoming dark as he murmured, "I don't have friends. I have allies for a while. But if they are near me too long, they die."
Imena drew back, startled by the way he spoke the words. It was like a well-rehearsed litany. But since he had not asked explanations from her, so would she not inquire about his bitter -- and lonely -- statements.

Shockwave versus Sandrock. Neither had an advantage at the moment. Sonic weapons were useless to one, while the other had used up all missiles. And words, Quatre mourned, were just as futile. One of them would fail only through the carelessness of the pilot. Surrender was hardly an option. That had worked once, and only because his opponent had also sensed they were not enemies. He thought briefly of Trowa and then Heero, wondering at just how much they all had lost; for himself, his courage was swiftly dwindling. All he had hoped to accomplish was summerized in the current battle: his life in return for what was important to him.
This realization galvanized him and he uttered an angry battle cry, pushing Sandrock's power output to its limits. The strain of the doubled heat shorters took its toll on the single cutlass. Sparks flew from the blades and Sandrock's arm joints.
Shockwave twisted suddenly, taking the force of the 'shorters onto its shield. Dimitri couldn't move far, but if he thought tothrow the cutlass...Quatre's hand darted to the switches for the shield flasher knowing he had to think faster than Dimitri. In the blinding light that followed Sandrock hastily retreated several steps while Shockwave went motionless as its pilot struggled to clear his eyes.
The comm crackled. Dimitri spat out another, "Bastard." It took a few minutes for the light to fade as Quatre backed away a little more, still holding the 'shorters up in a wary position. Shockwave's remaining cutlass was still raised yet even as Quatre watched in bewilderment the gundam's hand opened to release the weapon. The blade fizzled out as soon as it hit the ground. Then the cockpit opened and Dimitri stepped out holding a small device attached to a long wire. "Thank you for reminding me. A suicide mission. You're right."
Fear seized up in Quatre's chest. Could Dimitri really be insane enough to self-destruct right here and now?! Oh, Allah, he was...Quatre could only watch as the unstable boy raised his arm and slowly lowered his thumb over the button. "It's set for two minutes! You can't get out of range in time!!" Dimitri shouted.
All he needs is a psychotic laugh, Quatre thought grimly, swallowing hard. He wasn't afraid of death, but there was too much left to do...too much unfinished business...He had to get that detonation switch away from Dimitri. But...no...too late...Shockwave began to emit the alarm warning of pending self-destruct.
Then a louder, practically shrieking alarm went off in both gundams. Quatre grimaced and clapped his hands over his ears, although he immediately removed them when a message window came up. The image was of a steely-eyed man with sparse white hair and a matching thin moustache. "Dimitri! You selfish brat! The self-destruct was not to be used! Fool! What a waste of a machine!" The man shook his head, scowling angrily. "Selfish, selfish boy! You still haven't even found the others! You deserve what you get!" After the scowl deepened, the man looked straight out to where the pilot should be with hard, unfeeling eyes and added coldly,"By the way, there was no cure. V, out."
A choked sputtering sound came from Dimitri. The self-destruct device fell from his hand and clattered across the cockpit. He could do nothing to stop it. Quatre grit his teeth and threw out one of Sandrock's hands, dropping the heat shorter on the way. "Dimitri, get out of there!!" As carefully as possible he snatched the boy from the doomed suit. Then he turned, shifting almost all power to the verniers. But it was not enough. Only twenty-five feet separated them from Shockwave when the rockets faltered. Quatre bit back a tempting curse and lowered Dimitri between two sand dunes. Then he lowered Sandrock over the spot and slipped out of the cockpit. A rumble signaled the end of Shockwave. Quatre threw himself over the smaller boy in a pitiful attempt to protect him.

Duo lounged under a tall, sparsely-branched tree, having been unable to fall asleep in the few moments he had tried. An unsettling feeling was poking at him, something he couldn't place. Like he should be somewhere, or something. He tried to shrug it off since he couldn't figure it out. Imena came over to him after leaving her meeting with the village elders. "I have a mission in the rainforest tomorrow," she said, breaking him out of his musings. "Would you care to come?"
Duo folded his arms behind his head and let his gaze remain on the star-filled sky. "Nah. I gotta make a report of my own, then I think I'll go back and bug Quatre -- he's really boring when left on his own." He grinned as if he was the highlight of everyone's life.
Imena gave a humoring smile then sat down beside him. "Well, I won't thank you, again...Things have to change for me now. I still have to protect my homeland, but I think I will leave OZ to you boys. You can still let me know if you come up with a plan to take them out." She smiled wryly. "And tell Quatre I wish him luck in dealing with Dimitri. I would like to meet him, and all the other pilots, too."
Duo rolled his eyes. "Quatre is the only one you'll get a friendly reception from. The other three'll either grunt or ignore you."
"It seems I have to be nice just to balance this grim group." After a moment she added quietly, "And what about you? Going through all the same things, will you ignore it or move on?"
"Both," he replied, suddenly cheerful. "Shinigami just keeps going, there's no point to thinking about stuff."
'Stuff' like killing and destroying anything in the way... Imena translated to herself. She gazed up at the sky, missing being among the stars but accepting her role as protector of her new homeland. Heartlessly killing... No, that wasn't true. It was because of their heart that they killed -- in their heart they held their own truths. It was for the good of others that they issued the sacrifices of their opponents. The guilt within her ebbed as she realized this.
Perhaps she would thank Duo, after all.

Quatre opened his eyes. The world was still intact. The expected onslaught of a raw blast never came. Neither boy saw, but Shockwave had actually imploded. All circuits from the cockpit, torso, and head were destroyed; rather than a massive explosion outward they charred the insides of the suit, much like a bad electrical fuse. The only loud noise to follow this was the earth-jolting impact from the gundam's shell crashing to the ground.
Quatre scrambled up the side of a dune to view the smoking wreckage that had been Shockwave. His mind churned at the idea -- a self-destruct that would have taken out only the pilot, being of little use other than getting the programmed parts out of enemy grasp. Then he remembered the man's words, of finding the others -- gundam pilots, he presumed -- and of there being no real cure for Alexa's illness. With that thought he slid back down the dune to see how Dimitri fared.
He dug his heels into the sand to skid to a stop. Dimitri was curled up on his side with a gun next to him pointing at his midsection. Quatre froze but then realized he would have heard the gunshot. Cautiously he moved forward -- in case Dimitri decided to jump up and shoot him. The Russian boy looked up, but made no move. His eyes were filled with hatred, not for Quatre, but rather self-loathing. He rolled onto his back and spread his arms. "Go ahead. Shoot me." He looked straight up at the sky. "I don't care anymore. I'm sick of this vengeance mission, and now it's all been for nothing. No cure." His voice broke on the last two words. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, waiting for the sound of a gunshot.
Quatre came closer then leaned over to pick up the gun. He regarded it thoughtfully for a long moment, hefting its weight in one hand. Then he turned and hurled it high above the line of sand, smiling very briefly when it made a satisfying clang off some portion of Sandrock. Dimitri immediately bolted upright at the sound.
"W-why did you do that?? Why don't you just kill me?!" He seemed to think Quatre had something worse in mind, for he scuttled backward to avoid the blond pilot's approach; he bumped into the other sand dune and had to halt his retreat.
Quatre stopped a few feet away. "You aren't an enemy," he said simply. "You haven't done anything to deserve death."
Dimitri could only blink. His face darkened in confusion. "I've been trying to kill you, and you don't consider me to be an enemy?"
Quatre hesitated a few moments, then replied softly, "You are Alexa's brother. She fought to protect you. I'm not about to betray her trust now."
"You're sparing me for her sake?" Dimitri asked with narrowed eyes.
"No. For yours. So you can learn what she knew." Dimitri scowled as he considered this. Quatre risked stepping closer. "All I want is for you to tell me who that man was and why he wanted you to find 'the others'. And help dismantle Shockwave," he added with a rueful smile, "I can't exactly leave it where it is."
The other boy glared at him incredulously. "But then I'll be stranded here! There's no way you'll trust me that much! And you won't strand me out in the desert!" He rose, clenching his fists as if the last comment had been a threat.
Quatre backed up a wary step. "Neither," he agreed. "I have a mobile suit you can use. But only if you will help. Otherwise I'll drop you off at the nearest civilian facility and you'll be on your own for transportation."
Again Dimitri scowled. After a tense moment he sighed. "That man is Advisor V. He built Shockwave and LunaAria, raised Alexa and I, and trained me for Operation Meteor. As you know, Alexa went in my place, but the Advisor found me and told me to stand by in case an extra fighter was needed. We were listening in on her frequency just before she...self-destructed. Just a few hours earlier the Advisor had announced that one of his research teams had found the cure we had been looking for for years. We had tried to contact her, but by the time we got through we heard her arguing with someone, and then..." He scuffed the toe of one boot in the sand before continuing. "The Advisor gave me Shockwave and told me to search out other gundam pilots. I don't know what he wanted with them. All I could think about was punishing someone for Alexa's death." He tightened his fists. "And this whole time it was the Advisor's fault. He lied about...he...he lied..."
Quatre had an uneasy feeling about this Advisor V person. He hoped that he and the other pilots never had a chance to meet him. Then another realization hit him. "He...raised you, and let Alexa die like that?" Horror washed over him but he kept other questions to himself.
"Yes...He took us in after our father died -- at least that's what he claimed," he replied with such bitterness that Quatre knew a different vision of revenge had been born. "I was too young to remember...I don't remember anything of my father or mother."
"Don't go after him yet," the blond boy admonished softly. "Help us first, then you will have proven that you are more than his tool in war." This he spoke without knowledge of his own imposition.
At last a smile found its way onto Dimitri's face, albeit a wry one. "Then I'll do as my sister wanted and take a new name and make a new life -- my way, of course. Maybe I can't fight openly but I can try to destroy OZ from within. And when we have won -" Here he shifted a proud look to Quatre. "-I will find the Advisor and let him know that he is no better than OZ."
Although Quatre knew the last action would be carried out rashly, he held out a tentative hand in a gesture of trust. Dimitri clasped it readily and they shook in agreement on their united goals.

"Okay, let me get this straight. You actually let him take fully functional weaponry and let him just leave without a scratch?" It was not ten minutes after he had returned and Duo found himself staring in flaberghasted disbelief at the blond boy sitting at the computer monitor before him who calmly held a teacup in one hand, a saucer in the other, and an unnervingly placid expression on his face.
"Yes."
"But he tried to kill you! And me!" the braided boy all but shouted.
"It was all a misunderstanding. He's on our side now."
Duo sputtered incoherently then gave up on communication. He sighed and scratched his head. "Well, at least I didn't fix up that old suit for nothing. And we have another ally in Africa, even if she decided to cut back on OZ attacks." He leaned against the side of the desk. "All in all, I don't think we're doing too badly."
"And the others must all still be alive if this Advisor V expected Dimitri to find them," Quatre agreed, hope in his tone.
Suddenly Duo grinned. "Maybe we should come up with our own way of finding them."

"They told me to stay, I heard all the information
I motored away and steered straight ahead
Though the weatherman said


There's a stormfront coming
White water running and the pressure is low
Storm front coming....


-Billy Joel, "Stormfront" (Storm Front)