Chapter Text
This mission had been an utter shitshow from the beginning.
From the moment he and Heero had received their orders, Wufei had felt a hot prickling at the back of his neck and had a stone in his gut. Something was wrong but he couldn't put his finger on what. Without proof or even just any reason beyond “having a feeling”, he knew there was no way his logical partner would listen, but Wufei had to try.
The Chinese boy approached the other where he sat working on his Gundam, preparing Wing for the upcoming mission.
“Don't you think this is too easy?” Wufei began. Heero didn't stop his work but Wufei knew him well enough by now to know the Japanese pilot was listening. “So soon after we arrive on Earth, all the Oz and Alliance leaders are coming together for a large summit? Sure, there will be guards but they're nothing our gundams can't handle. Our handlers know this.”
“What's your point?” Came the blunt inquiry. Wufei wasn't offended in the least; Heero was focused on this mission as he should have been. But maybe too much.
“It's a honeypot!” Wufei exclaimed. “A trap. And you of all people are just okay with walking right into it? Heero, you're much smarter than this. Why?”
The other boy sighed and finally ceased his movements, eyes alighting on his partner.
“Because I was ordered to.”
The answer was so simple, so rational, and so infuriatingly Heero. Wufei sucked his teeth briefly and shook his head.
“You would kill yourself if you were ordered to, which is exactly what this is! Don't you see how dangerous this is?! If we waltz into Oz's trap, the whole mission could be compromised and we'll fail! I know you won't want that, Heero, so why-”
“Not everything has to make sense!” Heero snapped finally in irritation. “We're soldiers, weapons, and we have a mission to destroy Oz. If we die in the process, as long as we succeed in killing Treize, then we accomplished our goal. It's that simple.”
“I want to live!” Wufei fired back as his temper peaked. “*You* may have been raised as a weapon, but I wasn't. I'm a scholar, a poet. I've told you this, my *wife* was the soldier, and now her body is empty. That's why I want Treize dead and you know it. Don't you think I *want* his head to roll, too? To you, it's an order. To me, it's justice and vengeance.”
Heero was still staring at Wufei, though his irritation had somewhat given way to pondering. The other pilot had a point, there were multiple reasons to want this mission to succeed. Heero himself knew this was likely a trap, he wasn't stupid. As he'd said, he was prepared to die, willing even, if it meant the end of the war. Having something to live for wasn't on his mind at all since he'd been raised for this amd taught that such thoughts were a waste of energy. He eventually sighed.
“Wufei, I hear you. But… I have to do this. If I have even a chance of ending this war here and now, I have to take it. And I…. Need you. Shenlong's firepower is invaluable as is her close combat abilities. Best I can do is long range with my buster rifle or maybe my beam saber up close. I need you.”
The admission sent butterflies through Wufei's stomach as Heero had known it would. Though their time together had been rather short, the two boys had grown unusually close, exploring feelings in each other they'd not known before. Or at least Wufei was- Heero insisted it was just a hormonal release but Wufei could sense the lie in that. It didn't matter since this meant neither of them were alone in this war too big for them.
Wufei smoothed his hands over his tightly bound black hair and sighed while thinking hard.
“Fine. You're right, you'll do better with me there to help you. I hate when you lure me in with logic, but I'd rather this than you die. I'll go with you to New Edward's Base, then. And, Heero?” He paused and the other tilted his head a fraction. “We're both coming out alive, hear me?”
Heero closed his eyes and snorted a soft laugh. “Understood.”
----
The pair of pilots had expected there to be heavy resistance, and there was. Both Leos and Aries were in great number and with seemingly unending amounts of ammunition as they pinned Wing and Shenlong behind a hangar. Neither could move from the onslaught.
Suddenly, the suppressing fire shifted, heading in another direction. Wufei peered around the corner and could only stare in shock. A bright red mobile suit with a massive galling gun was firing on the Alliance suits! With it was another two suits, one black as night with a beam scythe and the other black with yellow trim wielding two sickles.
“Are you seeing this?” Wufei asked his partner, very much doubting the proof of his eyes. Heero didn't answer but instead chose to press the opportunity. Wing launched across the bullet-riddled battlefield and joined the fray. Wufei watched a moment before sighing and joining him- they could figure out the semantics later. All that mattered now was that their enemy had another enemy and this benefited them. With now five suits fighting the horde, the battle turned swiftly in the rebels’ favor, leaving nothing but charred and smoking husks of enemy machines scattered around in large pools of oil and blood.
The five gundams stood staring at each other, Wing and Shenlong on one side with the other three opposite them. Wufei was on high alert but something told him these weren't enemies. It was Heero who spoke first.
“Identify yourselves.”
The hatch of the yellow trimmed machine opened and out came a young blond boy. Wufei was surprised at how small the other was, but had to remind himself that he was only fourteen. He sighed and disembarked his own mobile suit, noting with satisfaction that Heero did the same. The other two mystery pilots emerged too, leaving the five of them silently sizing each other up for a moment. The blond opened his mouth to speak when a sudden shuttle launch interrupted the meeting.
Heero swiftly returned to his cockpit which identified the shuttle as Oz property. Without a second thought, he was airborne in bird mode and rocketing towards the escaping shuttle. Before anyone could register what was happening, Wing shifted forms, drew her beam saber, and cleanly sliced the shuttle in half.
The four pilots on the ground watched in a variety of emotions ranging from surprise to approval when suddenly an emergency message began to broadcast. Each boy stared in shock as General Septum announced what Heero had done, that he had murdered not Oz generals but instead the Alliance pacifists who had been working to advocate for peace. All five stared at their screens in shock and horror, but perhaps no one was more affected than Heero. After all, their blood was on his hands. He landed and stared at the smoldering scene in silent horror.
Wufei sighed and shook his head ruefully. He hated being right sometimes. He opened a communication channel to all five of the pilots.
“We played right into the hands of Treize Khushrenada,” he announced into the silence. “He used us as pawns to escalate his war, and now we have become the villains instead of the saviors. We need to retreat and regroup. Staying here is suicide.”
Almost begrudgingly, the three suits in front of Shenlong began to trudge towards the hangers as alarms began to go off anew. Wing, however, stood still where she had landed, her pilot in shock inside. Wufei silently cursed his partner but knew he couldn't help him now. Best case was to secure a hangar of carrier planes for their escape. He headed to where the red unit was trying to open a hangar but couldn't get a grip on the doors. Shenlong's dragon fang easily tore through the steel, crumpling it like paper and allowing him to force the bay open. He scanned with his infrared sensors and, sure enough, traps littered the hangar.
“We don't have time to disarm them,” Wufei sighed. “Someone get that fool onto a plane so we can all evacuate!” Without waiting for a response, he accelerated into the hangar where Shenlong set off the traps. He expected bombs, some sort of heavy explosions. What Wufei didn't anticipate, however, were the small mines that dropped all over and covered his Gundam. “What-”
A sudden zapping sound echoed through the hangar and all of Shenlong's systems failed at once. Wufei cried out in horror and pain as his Gundam's inertia carried them forward. Without her legs or even her hands able to steady her, Shenlong collapsed in a heap of unresponsive gundanium that didn't answer to any of the controls Wufei used. Even her backup generator was offline. He felt loud rumbling pass him and guessed the red gundam was securing the planes instead of him. Fine, that was fine. As long as his allies got away, he could too eventually.
After all, nothing could penetrate his armor. He was safe for now. He would wait until his gundam was likely carted off and put under guard before exiting and making his own escape. Human guards were easy to deal with for Wufei so he wasn't worried in the least. Not for himself, anyway. He was concerned about Heero and hoped that his partner escaped safely.
The sound of passing mobile suits gave way to aircraft taxiing past him. Wufei counted three and that bothered him. Where was Wing? The roar of the planes’ jets as they took off soon gave way to a deep silence. He took the opportunity to do his breathing exercises and force himself to calm. Heero wouldn't give up like this. He would leave on his own and would rendezvous with Wufei at their safehouse. Things would be fine.
Hours seemed to pass in the echoing silence. Every now and then, Wufei would try to coax a reaction out of his gundam but each time he was met with stony silence. He sighed softly.
“Has Nezhe finally abandoned me?” He wondered idly. “Well, I suppose it was a matter of-
Loud yelling outside of his inert gundam swiftly snagged Wufei's attention. Soldiers. So, the Alliance had finally realized he was there, hm? Wufei huffed softly in amusement and settled in, ready to feel Shenlong move as a crane or a team of Leos moved her. What he didn't expect, however, was the roar of a blowtorch and the sounds of crowbars against his cockpit door. Wufei actually laughed- did they really think brute force and acetylene would even leave a mark on his beautiful Gundam's armor?
Time passed even more slowly than before as the soldiers kept at their work. Wufei pulled out a book of poetry to read once the amusement of the notion passed and he tuned out their work.
Thunk.
That made the boy pause and look up. Thunk? He listened. The voices and sounds were…. Louder? Cold dread gripped his stomach and Wufei swallowed. Impossible, they shouldn't be able to break through Shenlong's gundanium carapace! Sure enough, the hiss and spit and rancid stink of burning metal singed Wufei's nose. His eyes widened in shock, less at the fact that he was about to be taken prisoner, and more at the horror of the Alliance successfully piercing his shield!
Sudden daylight blasted onto Wufei's face as the cockpit gave way with a bang. The heavy metal paneling fell on him and nearly crushed the boy were it not for the rough and strong hands which gripped him and pulled mercilessly. The soldiers either didn't realize or care that their target was a mere teenager because they pulled with such force that Wufei's left arm dislocated and he let out a pained howl. His attackers only hesitated a moment before resuming their pulling until Wufei was pulled free and tossed bodily out of the cockpit into the waiting arms of Alliance soldiers. They were swift to yank Wufei's arms behind his back, heedless of the left one flopping more than necessary as they cuffed the boy in manacles which secured each forearm in their iron grip. Tears of agony and rage ran down his face but he couldn't stop them if he tried.
He'd been captured. He'd been right.