Reality Storm: Prologue
by K.Huntsman
released 25th March 2000
Duo was just enough of a sadist to be effective at interrogation. Quatre was too gentle to get stuck with the job, Heero and Trowa both too quiet, and Wufei too honorable. Duo, while proud of what honor he did have, was not above a little healthy torture to get the information he and his fellow pilots needed out of the spy who had been planting false information in their network.
Thus it was that Saturday night, a night devoid of a mission and hence technically the free time when he should have been out having the blast of his young life, found him in an empty room. Empty, that was, except for the man strapped to the examination table and the various implements Duo had had much fun finding and hauling through the door.
There was a lovely selection of blades, ranging from the ever-practical medical scalpel to one of the huge kitchen knives of Quatre's chef, borrowed for the evening. A similar range of guns lay on the table and included an old-fashioned crossbow he'd seen in a shop once and nicked. (What could he say, it was black. Duo had a thing about black.) Then there were the various vials of corrosive substances, a nice array of whips and a few cat'o'nine'tails. There was also a scythe leaning against one wall and a container of regular old table salt, plainly labeled and placed where the poor sap (one James Gohann, according to his records) couldn't help but see it.
And, of course, there was The Thing.
Duo didn't actually know what The Thing did. In fact, what he did know for sure was that it did precisely nothing. It had taken him one science class experiment with plenty of hangers, wires, and tinfoil to invent The Thing. It worked perfectly on the theory that an overly bright student should not be given an excess of time on his hands.
The victim, of course, knew none of this. All he knew was that it looked very menacing, dangerous, and painful. Duo didn't enlighten him on the subject.
As a combination of all these sights and Duo's unholy grin, he didn't even have to lay a finger on the man. Poor J.G. gibbered out his pathetic guts immediately, telling him everything he needed to know and then some. Duo considered for a moment, then left the room.
Trowa was already checking out the new information as Duo closed the door behind himself.
"It all on the level?" Duo Maxwell questioned.
The young man who called himself Trowa Barton nodded.
Duo grinned and pounded one fist into the other. "Right, then! Let's go kick some OZ butt!" He went back into the room to retrieve the kitchen knife, the crossbow, and The Thing.
The explosion that Heero set off behind them as the trio left the building was rather pretty against the night sky.
The five pilots looked intently at the map which Quatre had spread for them on the table.
"I think we can take it," Duo judged.
Quatre circled first one point, then another. "There are reserves here and here. Additionally the number of mobile suits on the base has doubled in the past month."
"As if they're expecting an attack," Wufei murmured.
Trowa raised an eyebrow. "What's there that they'd be so worried about?"
"That data is encrypted."
Four pairs of eyes turned to stare at the pilot of Wing. "You mean you haven't cracked it yet?!" Duo demanded.
"Yet," Heero replied in a monotone which held the faintest underlay of... annoyance? Or perhaps respect for the unknown person who had encoded the data so well that even he was having problems getting at it.
"Should we wait to find out?" Quatre asked, not liking this. What could be so important that OZ had encoded the disk that heavily?
Heero's voice was flat. "We have our orders."
"SHIT!!" Duo yelped over the radio. Shinigami shook off the first two of the Aries that had jumped him and sliced the third into shreds. Trowa sighed and wished he had more armaments to be able to help out his fellow pilots.
Was this, he wondered, OZ's newest trap for them?
The number of suits against them was far beyond what even they had believed the base had. It took a lot to bother a Gundam, much less five... but it seemed that perhaps OZ had finally stopped underestimating them.
If anything, this was overkill.
"Should we retreat?" Quatre asked.
"We won't get another chance," Wufei answered.
"I hate to blow your party, Wufei, but if we DIE here we won't get another chance anyway!" Duo yelled.
"Retreat," Heero ordered, and Trowa could already hear the whine of Wing's jets as the Gundam lifted off.
"Where are we going?" Trowa inquired mildly.
"North," Heero responded.
Trowa raised eyebrows. North of the base was a forest. If they were quick enough, they could hide their suits there for a while at least. But he still found it hard to believe that Heero Yuy, of all people, was voting for a strategic retreat.
The Gundams flew, flightless Shenlong hitching a ride with Wing, much as Heavyarms had once done.
"Mission... accomplished." Heero said the familiar phrase in a cool voice.
The base suddenly exploded behind them and a shockwave, larger and stranger than it had any right to be, rippled, disintegrating the OZ mobile suits in the area and throwing the Gundams careening head over heels into the virgin forests below them.
Then there was only silence, broken by the snow of a data screen gone blank.
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