Strike Force Five Part 18
Dancing through the Devil's Maze
Heero stopped his SCAT short of the non-perpendicular tower hopefully well out of its path should it decide to come all the way down. The lower-side levels had begun to compact one on the other "sandwiching" each ramp in their downward crush. Thick clouds loaded to overflowing with every conceivably loatheful substance billowed from the fallen sections.
The tower's main vertical supports were more resistant to the compression so their reaction to the shifting lateral forces came in a spiral torsion. Deafening grinding and squealing rang out in one prolonged cry setting Heero's nerves on edge. The bending turned the normally upright columns into odd geometrical figures. The horizontal plane's parallel also was grossly misshapen making the contours totally indistinguishable from the original design.
This askew deviation was both troubling and frightening because Heero knew that somewhere inside the severed distortion Duo was trying to find his way out. With the frail framework folding about him, Duo would surely be so desperate that his frantic retreat would be carried out in a completely reckless manner.
Duo understandable panic told Heero that he needed to find his comrade before they both ran out of time. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that several deep breaths could not remove. There was also a nagging restlessness that he couldn't shake as the limited amount of time that he felt pressed to beat was quickly overtaking what seemed to be his best efforts.
"Can I reach him?" he wondered as he pulled off his helmet.
Gazing up through grimy smog touched by flickering fire-glows his sight centered on the area that was now the top section due to the tower's compression. Duo had outsmarted the Devil's Maze, Heero was certain of that, so that was where he needed to go.
"Up there." he declared pointing at the dark plumes pushed first one way then the other by hot air funneling from pockets of fire trapped in the rubble.
Carefully Heero picked a path to the tower. Every form of shattered rubbish overspread the area. Each inch was littered with razor-edged shards of metal. The ground was in a constant state of upheaval. Large clumps of dirt, grainy pebbles and every size in between made the very act of walking an uphill battle. An occasional "hot spot" of smothering debris made for an even more interesting trek.
After the vexingly slow pace Heero had an ample supply of nervous energy when he finally paused at the tower's dangerously unstable base. The two right side legs swayed and jerked each time the tower settled. The left side had dug into the soil creating shallow craters that offered no better support.
Far to his right what of left of Duo's SCAT lay in a smoldering pile. A few fingers of flame twitched inside the mangled middle and black smoke still drifted from the melted tires. "I bet Duo wasn't happy about that." Heero sighed.
The shrill groan of fatigued metal and warped crossbeams made a constant din so loud that Heero cringed at the noise. "I guess its straight up from here." he decided tensely as he watched the base's ends quiver.
With another centering sigh Heero closed his hands over a titled spanner, tested his footing and started what he knew would be a strenuous, risky and painfully gradual ascent.
*********
Much like the deformed beams snarled in chaotic disorder all around him Duo sprawled partly on his side in an odd angular recline. One arm hung limply across his chest, its hand folded under at the wrist. The other arm was drawn out above his head resting unevenly on chucks of the disintegrated ramp. This distended posture put Duo's torn muscles in even greater distress.
On every side the same ravaged conditions showed that the razing of the tower was all but fulfilled. A continual sifting dispersed clouds of pulverized residue. The wind-driven distribution of powdery soot and odorous gases settled in a stifling overlay. Thicker, more suffocating smoke gave no heed to the eddying currents choosing instead to sink over everything in a suppressive fog.
The coarse coating of dust and ash could not conceal Duo's pallid complexion. His eyes were squeezed shut against the fire's bright glow and the airborne irritants. His elongated extension flattened out his chest. The compression on his partially deflated lungs made a full intake of air difficult bordering on impossible.
Shallow respirations failed to clear the obstructive inhalants. Not only did the choking dust and reeking fumes clog Duo's airway but strangulating fluid swelled in his throat accelerating the onset of asphyxiation. The rapid "filling up" triggered his body's natural defenses.
Calling on reflexive stimulus almost too drained to respond, Duo's lungs sucked in a forceful piercing breath. A fierce seizure shook his body. Raw biting pain shot through every nerve ending. Duo's back bowed and his limbs stiffened as a second tortuous contraction coursed over him. Then the rigid jerk suddenly let go dropping his lax form roughly on the jagged rubble.
Duo's eyes flew opened with a start but his optic nerves retracted in protest at the penetrating brightness and foreign elements. His eye's begrudged reluctance to adjust gave him only a blurred view of his surroundings.
The convulsive spasm quickly used up what fading endurance Duo had left. Flaccid invalidity took over. As hard as he tried all Duo could do was lay among the tower's traces and fight for each ounce of oxygen he could gleam from the poison atmosphere.
A second impaired attempt to flush out the pollutants shook Duo's battered body with racking coughs that hurt so much it felt as though his insides were being ripped apart. But the gripping pain did keep him from drifting into a comatose sleep...a morbid slumber that, this time, he might not awaken from.
This jarring of his senses, although violent in nature, snatched Duo from his stuporous unresponsiveness. He dared to force one more stinging cough. Ejected fluids caught in his throat. But unlike Duo's pervious position on his stomach his posture on his back prevented him from spitting out the strangulating blockage.
The gagging discharge further block his breathing making it clear that if Duo stayed in his present position he would most likely drown in his own fluids. A change in alignment was demanded. He had to take the pressure off of his chest and bringing his overextended arm back over was the first step.
Duo closed his watery eyes putting all his mental focus into moving his arm that felt cold, deadened by lack of circulation. "If it's broken." The possibility stabbed at his mind.
Duo augured back, "It can't be." he growled not giving the defeating thoughts time to take hold.
At first his numbed nerves did not even acknowledge his effort, then he found that he could move his fingers, then his hand. "Take it easy." he advised himself.
Ever so slowly the sluggish extremity began to cooperate. In small degrees his arm began to lift and come forward but each step came with an anguished struggle. Muscles knotted. His arrested breathing, combined with the raw pain, brought on another wave of lightheadedness. Duo pressed his eyes tighter trying to centralize his mind and body, to bring all his functions into one point of convergence.
Duo's arm more flopped than laid over his chest. A tingle prickled over his skin like a thousand hot barbs as the blood flow was renewed. Another tight but manageable breath did not rattle as deeply as his chest felt lighter and the raising fluid less intrusive.
At this point Duo was thankful for even a small victory. He opened his eyes blinking away the fuzziness. He blinked once more as his vision wanted to cloud over again.
Duo carefully tested his recently reclaimed arm. It was "lazy" but showed a markedly improved response. With a dirty, bloodstained hand he rubbed over his tacky eyes. As the sticky film thinned he found that a fresh streak of crimson had brightened the old smudges. He wiped off the new bleeding on his jacket and mopped over his face. Blood, grim and sweat added another layer on his bruised, stiff hand.
Gradually Duo began to take in the shambled setting that he had involuntarily become a part of. Off to the side and a little behind his harsh resting place ashy vapors billowed from a gaping crevice. The plume would thicken then with a compressed inrush of air be sucked back into the hole. Less than a moment would pass before the suction reversed belching out a strong gush followed by a throbbing whoosh. The air-enriched stream spat up sparks and long fingers of fire. The spewing, condensed jet hit the upper currents and flattened out surging over everything within several yards.
Duo rude site was not that far removed from the yard's meager measure. He threw up his arms covering his face as an issue of hot air rolled outward. The rotating drift loss most of its fury before reaching Duo but the heat was still potent enough to sting his skin.
Muffled pops and sputters under the surface told Duo that the violent eruption was not an isolated incident, that more backfire episodes would continue until the building pressure blasted out the entire section embracing Duo in its flaming farewell.
This knowledge of certain doom caused Duo to decide that a rapid relocation was in his best interest. He had not fallen victim to the raging eruptions and he sure as hell was not going to wait around for the final blow to take him out. However the desired execution of motion and actual movement was easier said than done as Duo's body was very much disinclined to any unnecessary mobilization.
"Mind over matter." Duo told himself as he mentally prepared to exit his hazardous habitat. "One step at a time."
Quivering arms pressed down helping Duo as best as they could to push his shoulders forward. He bent at the waist, centered his middle and finally raised his back until he sat up somewhat steadily on his own.
A deep breathe...a long easing release of air. Next Duo slid his left leg aligning it with his hip and curving it up to further prop up his shaky pose but his right leg refused to "follow the leader".
Until that moment Duo had not been aware that a portion of a bracing beam along with a stout pile of trash had his boot, well passed his ankle, trapped. He squinted down at the rubble relieved that he could still wiggle his foot. At first gentle tension was applied to the stuck extremity but when a sharper tug failed in his leg's extraction Duo seriously began to question his leaving.
Upon closer study it soon became frightfully clear that no amount of shoving or prodding would move the ensnaring debris. Even if he had been at full strength Duo could not have budged the pile much less lifted its considerable weight. This irrefutable fact upheld Duo's discernment of his deadly predicament. He knew the he would not be departing his dire quandary, at least not as living flesh and bone.
The total depletion of any hope of escape ravished Duo's will to go on. A heavy sigh was all he could offer his forlorn soul as he, in resigned acceptance of fate's decision, settled back in his final resting place.
"You always knew that you would die alone." Duo declared as another powerful whoosh sent up a stream of fire. "I just wish that I could have seen Heero one last time." he sighed as the tower shuddered in its final death throes.
*********
Flammable gases and blue-gray smoke continued to ebb and flow from the nearby gap but now the opening had begun to glow as the accumulating fire gravitated towards the surface. The fire-flaunt would brighten then dim only to return to a deep ruddy hue just below the rim.
With each bellow of fresh air the confined heat was being primed to its overflow point. Duo turned his head to watch the seething thermal cauldron. Sultry waves, varying in density, created an optical phenomenon. The stratum of hot air caused a mirage of light, a shimmering liquid effect, resulting in an incongruous perversion of everything that it touched.
But this malformed misrepresentation was hardly noticed by Duo's severely altered senses. "If I am going to die," he mumbled running his dry tongue over his equally parched lips, "it might as well be in a blaze of glory." he proclaimed knowing that the incessant firedrake enkindled in its inferno lair could strike out any time.
"Are you going to give up that easily?" he berated himself for his lack of faith.
Then Duo's internal voice whispered softly. *As long as there is life there is hope.*
*********
At first there was a minor tremble along the crevice's glowing edge. A few loose pieces rattled in place then rolled down the side. Duo made no more note of the breaking apart than he did of the escalating swell of smoke and the molten gurgle as the crevice widened. This incinerate casting of heat and the fusion of fire and air immediately ejected the entire section and its contents in an explosive outburst.
The violent regurgitation spat out a great rolling wave. The flinging out of combustive material left no area untouched. Most of the energy lashed outward slamming into anything in its path. Some power, however, shot straight up carried by the updraft into the already weakened superstructure.
The blast soon overtook Duo. Again he curled his arms over his face and turned his back even though he believed the reaction to be a foolish exercise in futility. A sweeping torrent of grounded stone, dense smoke and hot wind washed over. Shredded pellets scratched and dug at his skin. The odor of singed hair and scorched leather filled his nostrils.
Duo drew up further as bits of hurling debris dashed against his body then something larger joined in the collision. It struck across his back skimming his raised arms and this time Duo had no helmet to soften the blow. Although partly deflected by his shoulder the sizable block of "whatever it was" got in a solid strike.
A wall of blistering heat pounded against his back. The crevice was now a full-blown rift. Nearest the oxidized center the reddish-orange blaze jumped from every crack and crater. The flames swept up until their clawing, twitching fingers evaporated into their own private hell.
The torrid radiation surrounding Duo's form-fitting windsuit was rapidly raising his body temperature to a fever pitch making him feel as if he was being baked alive. Swollen fingers fumbled at his jacket's high collar sealed snuggly around his neck. The zipper slid down about six inches then stopped. Duo pushed aside the disturbing thought that its aversion to release was do to heat fusion and tugged again. To his relief the stubborn zipper finally opened the rest of the way but even with his jacket undone his body sweltered and his tee shirt was soaked through.
Duo had no doubt that the oppressive heat, even with the temporary respite, would eventually do him in so he decided that the nonporous jacket was going to have to come off. With his drenched shirt stuck over his chest and with more nonstop droplets adding to the soggy binding, Duo started to undo the shorter zippers on his sleeves and prepare to peel off the leather jacket.
As he extended his right arm to reach the left sleeve something stung the underside of his forearm. A closer inspection showed a long split in the leather and a new batch of scarlet seeping through. The hemorrhage discharge was more of a leaking rather than a gushing but the bloody tide was steady and showed no sign of stopping on its own.
"Shit now I can bleed to death." Duo muttered as each movement irritated the gash. "Fuck the fates." he cursed under his breath wondering what unforgivable crime he had committed to deserve this kind of suffering at the end.
Laying in his own sultry humidity, his arm smarting as salty sweat mingled inside the irregular cut, Duo had no more energy to remove his jacket or react to his waning reserves. This regression in his physical fitness, as well as morale, was quickly carrying him into a state of weary withdrawal.
In his half-conscious daze Duo could barely grasp what was happening around him. His interpretation of the devastated aftermath was inadequate to say the least and wholly deficient in understanding. Mercifully Duo's altered powers of perception and the clouded acuity of his vision did not tell him that, one way or the other, the end would come soon.
One by one his senses began to shut down. His ears did not hear the keen whipping as a cable broke. The earsplitting noise should have caused him to focus so when the spanning girder that the cable supported also let go the nerve jarring SNAP should have shook inside his brain. His eyes should have seen the steel girder's pendulous swinging overhead kept in its midair hover by only a few stress-worn bolts and a borrowed blessing of luck.
Then as if some outside agent was determined to ruin any hope of Duo's recovery, a high potency dose of ash-laden smoke triggered another fit of coughing. The raspy hacking sucked in the rankled sludge making his lungs burn. A stifling constriction encased his chest reducing his airflow to almost nothing.
Slowly Duo's soul became strangely tranquil. This serene release came as he quietly resigned himself to his pain and despair. With calm submission he deferred to fate's choice his hour of departure.
Much like Trowa's apparitional visions of Quatre when he faced death on the Intruder, Duo's shocked system reached out for some comfort in his last moments. Heero's features were flawlessly reproduced, clear and solid, in Duo's mind's eye.
By degrees the perfect picture slipped outside of his discernible coherency appearing to float projected on the dusky haze covering his eyes. In his dreamlike trance a faraway sound touched Duo's ears. He heard Heero's voice calling faintly then with increased volume.
But unlike the wavy phantasm mocking his sight, the melodious vocalization was drowned out by a high-pitched squall as one more bolt gave way allowing the overhead girder to slip. It stopped with a quivering jerk then groaned as the last of two slackened braces gradually sliced through with each grating joggle and sway.
Hard, willful breaths punched through the clogging phlegm that Duo's useless coughing was now too weak to drive away. Stubbornly fighting against his fading awareness he used the last of his strength to halt the rapidly dimming blindness.
As Heero's face retreated into a murky tunnel his gentle voice urged Duo to join him in the black void. Duo's parched lips parted. Gruff whispers struggled from his hoarse throat.
"HEERO! NO!" Duo wailed reaching out a trembling hand for some lifeline as the faint hint of Heero's essence drifted away.
TBC...
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