Bound Part 5
Cold Hunter
Harris drew the short straw.
He turned on the light in the isolation ward, walking down the hall alone towards the cell that held Heero Yuy. The first thing he noticed was that the door looked buckled in the frame, and it did nothing to make him feel safer. The others stood far back, too frightened to follow, but too proud to admit it.
He stood in front of the cell door for minutes, trying to get up the courage to open it, and he finally did. The banging noise hadn't come from inside the cell for almost ten minutes.
// Maybe he just knocked himself right the hell out. Christ what a tank that kid is. Jesus, look what he did to the door. Jesus... // Harris thought in awe.
"There's nothin' to be scared of, you chickenshits," he called back, unlocking the door. "Sounds like he knocked himself cold in there!"
He threw open the door. A lightning streak in a bloodied forest green tank top flew at the young OZ soldier.
// He's got me, // Harris thought wildly in the microseconds before the teenager code-named Heero Yuy struck him, bringing his gun up to shoot even though he knew he wouldn't have the time. // Christ, faster than anybody, Jesus, Mother Mary, Joseph, who is this kid he's gonna-"
The heel of Heero's fist hit Harris in the face; a textbook move, cobra strike, smashing into Harris's nose, driving shards of nasal bone into the soldier's brain. He was still twitching as the others started to fire, as Heero grabbed the keychain in the soldier's convulsing hand and ducked behind a corner in the corridor, going through the keys systematically until he found the one that unlocked his handcuffs. That little inconvenience taken care of, Heero jerked the soldier's gun from his dead hands to return fire.
~*~
Gunshots.
Duo had been around war for his entire life, and he knew exactly what gunshots from a semiautomatic weapon sounded like. These were close enough for even the soldiers to hear it. They cut through the agony glazing his consciousness like a hot knife through butter.
// Heero. //
The officer that was interrogating him looked up as the warden came in. He looked at the officer sternly. "You. Go wait at the gate for His Excellency's arrival. I'll stay here with the boy."
"Yes sir!" The officer gave Duo one last parting glance and ran out of the room.
The warden looked back at Duo contemptuously. "Treize will be here very soon, and when I meet with him, I want to be able to give him information on his two young captives promptly. Talk to me, boy, and you will spare yourself a lot of pain."
Duo looked back at him, a grin crossing his face that would have made Death cringe.
~*~
The bullets that flew around Heero were, for the most part, wild. When the rounds that flew at him from the soldiers ahead gleamed, he threw himself to the ground, still maintaining a dead grip on the weapon he had taken. His own gun blasted, a sound that echoed through the hall. One of the soldiers fell, blood blooming on the front of his uniform.
Heero felt a red-hot poker pierce his shoulder as one of their bullets hit the mark. He ignored it grimly, aiming carefully and firing back one round, not shooting wildly as many bullets as he could at them, but picking his targets with unrelenting efficiency, every bullet finding its target.
One of the others was thrown back in a cloud of his own blood. The soldier's entrails hit the smooth white wall of the corridor about two seconds before the soldier stumbled into it, sliding down the wall and leaving a slick blood trail on it in his wake. The survivors started to back away, retreating slowly down the hall even as they fired. One by one, they fell. Heero may have been filled with icy rage, but he didn't waste a shot.
Heero was cold, filled with a cold, numbing fire. But he knew that in a combat situation, sometimes it was better to be cold, indifferent to your own death, and indifferent to the prospect of killing others. Just as long as you didn't freeze up like an animal caught in headlights or the scope of a hunter's rifle, cold was just fine.
He headed towards the control room, taking them down as he went.
Once, on his path of destruction, he came upon the soldier that had shown pity on him, one that had taken water to him when it had been prohibited for him to do so. It was the one that had begged him to give up, not to be hurt anymore.
Heero looked down at him, a soldier that had fallen with a twisted ankle, a soldier that was frightened, but not too frightened to look him in the face.
He smiled slightly, nodded his head once in acknowledgement, and passed by.
~*~
"Sir! Sir!" The officer ran back into the room where the warden held watch over Duo, his eyes scared and panicked under a spill of dark hair. "The prison ward-"
"Get out of here. Treize is going to be here any minute."
"There's gunshots, sir, and-"
"What?"
The soldier was too distressed to be interrupted. "Please shut the fuck up and listen, sir, it sounds like a riot in the prison! Yelling and screaming, and-"
The lights in the base dimmed to red as the power suddenly went out, and a low, insistent siren began to buzz. Somewhere nearby, Duo heard a thump and a scream. The sound chilled Duo to the core.
"--I think that Heero Yuy has escaped. Sir."
Duo's heart leapt, thundering violently in his ears, but he gave no outward sign.
// Heero, you are the greatest fucking soldier I ever knew, and if we get outta here alive, I'm going to kiss you, even if you blow my head off for it. Jesus, unbelievable... // he thought, with exhilarated wonder, suppressing the biggest grin he had ever felt about to cross his face. He knew that this was probably the end, but the emotion that washed over him at that second was not fear for his life, but pride.
The warden was on his feet now, eyes narrowing to mask his confusion, jaw clenched.
Another noise, as if a train were being derailed. In all actuality, Duo imagined it was more likely the sound of filing cabinets being pulled over. More gunshots.
"Sergeant Salem, sir, sergeant?" the officer asked, trying to get the man's attention. His face was pale, and he felt like the double dose of Dutch courage he had drank to confront Treize Khushrenada was going to come back up very soon on a wave of nausea. The warden ignored him, touched the sidearm holstered at his hip, looking back at Duo. "He's going to come for you, all right, but I'll be damned to hell before I'll let him leave alive."
~*~
Duanez bolted down the hall in blind terror, dropping his weapon and running. Didn't matter. There was no one left to see his cowardice. The ones that would have called him a coward had stood up to the boy soldier that was rampaging the base, and they were all dead. He slid in a puddle of blood and went to his hands and knees, but quickly recovered, stumbling to his feet before he could even stop running.
He locked himself in the quarters of the officers, picked up a military vidphone there, and dialled for the transport of Treize Khushrenada. Less than half a minute later, he was talking to His Excellency directly.
"Sir, this is Private Duanez at Redstone Base," he said, breathlessly. "You can't come into the base. You have to send as many reinforcements as possible, sir. We have a--"
A clatter of machine gun fire. Nearby. A scream that was suddenly cut off by a single, explosive shot.
"--serious problem here, Your Excellency."
"What are you talking about?" Treize asked with a casualness that still managed to remain serious. "What kind of problem?"
"I don't know where the general is, sir, or if he's still alive at all, but it's not a very good idea for you to come in. One of the Gundam pilots is loose. Let me be perfectly blunt, Your Excellency," Duanez added, trying to harden his voice into a professional military monotone. "People are being massacred. This boy... he's not human."
"Are you talking about Heero Yuy?" Treize asked, still staying calm, though a slight, almost imperceptible frown of concern shaded his expression. A crease of worry furrowed his brow, and he narrowed his eyes, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what this soldier was saying.
"Yeah, it's him. That one. Send men, Your Excellency. I don't know how much longer we can hold him off," Duanez said, his voice hushed as he heard more gunshots even closer by. Treize could hear them distinctly over the vidphone. "And guns, sir. Lots of them. Fuck, send mobile suits and the Tallgeese if you can. This kid is unstoppable. He's already destroyed most of the control center for the base."
"Duanez, the--"
Duanez disconnected. Under any other circumstances, he would never have even dreamed of hanging up on Treize Khushrenada, but then again he never would have dreamed a teenage boy could single-handedly take over a small military base. If it was anything, he decided, today was a day of infinite possibilities. He rooted through the drawers of the room until he found a pistol. Loaded. As he stopped to kiss his St. Christopher's medallion before returning to the battle, he wondered vaguely if God was on their side, then who the hell was on the side of the Gundam pilots?
He whispered a prayer, softly.
"Hail Mary, fulla grace, let us blow this goddamned place. And not in a pine box, if at all possible. You get me outta this, I'll never swear again. Hell, I'll go pacifist."
~*~
Treize looked across his limo at the solemn, resolute eyes of Zechs Marquis, the expression of the Lightning Count guarded by his customary mask.
"Do you want the responsibility of subduing the Gundam pilot, Zechs? I know that you and he have... history."
Zechs looked back at him silently for a moment, then nodded. "He and I have something that we have to finish," he replied, softly, as he looked out the window. They were almost to the outer gate of the base. "But even if we do, this may not be the place to finish it. I'll try to bring him in alive, if possible, Treize."
~*~
Heero stormed the halls of the base, cutting down the soldiers that encountered him like blades of grass, stopping at each doorway and methodically shooting anyone he found inside, two shots apiece, as he had been taught.
One of the soldiers that had been hiding in a storage closet right in front of Heero finally gave into the terror of waiting for the Gundam pilot to leave. He jerked open the door and bolted in the direction of the base entrance. Heero grabbed him easily by the collar of his uniform and used his weight as a pivot to slam the soldier into the wall with a bone- crunching thump. The soldier crumpled into a exanimate pile on the floor, and Heero stared coldly down at him for a second before moving on.
Heero's mind was thrumming with battle-haze, all the pain from his wounds lost. He was running on the numbing thrill of pure adrenaline. He tried to hold on to rational thought, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult. He had only two objectives; the first to find Duo, dead or alive, and the second to eliminate anyone who was unfortunate enough to cross his path. He knew he had to find Duo, before he lost the ability to logically think at all, when indoctrination and instinct was all that would be left.
He ran through the wide corridors, trying each room, searching for his partner. He put the gun in his waistband and searched harder, prepared to snap the neck of anyone he found. No more gunshots. He may have been a fierce assassin and a merciless soldier, but he was also careful. And he felt that Duo was close.
// Duo... //
~*~
Duo listened. Most of the noises on this side of the base had stopped. But even in the stillness, the soldiers guarding him seemed to become more and more apprehensive, like sheep before the slaughter.
"What's wrong, buds?" Duo asked, ironic cheer coming through even under the hoarse, cracked quality of his voice. He looked up at them, one eye swollen completely shut. "You guys aren't afraid of one guy, are ya? He's just the Perfect Soldier..."
One of them whirled and backhanded on him, nerves erupting into fury. "You fucking shut up, faggot!"
"Nervous, guys? All of you look a little shaky. Even you..." he added, looking at the warden's back.
"Shut him up or gag him, you pieces of shit," the warden said quietly, without turning away from the door. His eyes had been steadily locked on it since the first shots. "What good are you?"
The soldier that had hit him did it again, much harder. His nose started to bleed again, but Duo just laughed. Heero was close now, he could feel it, as if they both operated on the same wavelength of thought, angels of death.
And suddenly, with a shot to the lock of the door and a shower of splintering wood as he rammed his way into the door, Heero Yuy was no longer close.
He was there.
TBC...
Back to CleverYoungThief's Fanfictions Page