Chapter Text
Working together, Duo and Trowa managed to get the enemy mobile suit pinned between Deathscythe and Heavyarms in a mechanical version of a half Nelson. All while avoiding getting their asses shot off by the enemy's other mobile suits who were still taking pot shots at them.
Exiting their suits, the two young pilots tethered themselves to their gangplanks and kicked off, drifting towards the one in-between them. Whoever was piloting the enemy's lead mobile suit, which started its “life” as a White Fang Viper mobile doll, they were good. Gundam pilot-level good. The fact that the whole rescue operation had almost gone tits up was proof of that. The problem was the fact that the enemy's pilot was slow, almost as if they didn't have control over their actions.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” 03 groused as he and 02 began working on opening the enemy suit’s hatch. The young Brit had been having a bad feeling since earlier that day, when he received the small package containing a mass of shorn, sunlight blonde curls, a photo of the battered former owner of said curls, Quatre Rebarba Winner, whom Trowa could've sworn had been tortured, with a print copy of that morning’s newspaper as proof of life.
An optical disk with a message from the leaders of Pax Eterna was in the bottom of the box. The message? “Hand over your Gundams and yourselves and submit to us for retraining, or 04 dies. You have twenty-four hours to comply.”
“Tro, dude, you always have a bad feeling,” 02 snarked in response while handing his friend and fellow pilot a pry bar.
“And have I ever been wrong, Duo?”
Duo sighed, then shook his head. Of course Trowa wasn't wrong. Just like Quatre wasn't wrong about whom to trust, or Wu Fei wasn't wrong about Lady Une’s change of heart when she saved his and Duo’s lives during the war.
After another moment of prying, the hatch opened, revealing the pilot inside. The two boys peered in, and what they saw was horrific, like something out of their worst nightmares.
“Oh, my God” slipped out of Duo's mouth before he could stop himself, and it took all Trowa had not to vomit at the sight before them. Before he could forget, Duo turned on his helmet camera and they proceeded forward.
In the center of the mobile suit’s cockpit sat a silver chair, its occupant held prisoner in it by built-in arm, waist, and leg restraints. A helmet blasting images and sounds at the pilot in a nonstop loop provided sensory deprivation and an inconvenient disguise. Sensors monitoring vital signs were hard wired to the chair and pilot’s astro suit. The pilot was little more than the suit’s less-than-willing brain.
At their worst, OZ had never been this diabolical. Treize had believed in free will, that warriors needed it to fight.
A moment later, the enemy pilot whimpered. Trowa recognized the sound, and it floored him. The last time he'd heard it, he was trying to keep its owner from bleeding out inside Sandrock.
“Quatre?!”
Seeing 03’s distress, 02 took over. He initiated contact with their transport, Mike Howard, on the Peacemillion II.
“Yo, Howard! What's your ETA, grampa?” Duo asked, bellowing into his audio comm.
“About seven minutes away from your current position, Duo,” came the terse reply. “I hadda ditch some Pax Eterna suits in the debris field. Why? What's up?”
“We found Quatre.”
Some time later, after Howard retrieved the boys, loaded their Gundams and the enemy suit in Peacemillion II’s hanger, and after Sally gave Duo, Trowa, and the still trapped Quatre a quick check of their vitals, Howard felt ready to tell what he knew about the silver chair.
“Never thought I'd ever see that monster used,” the angry old surfer said. “The Barton Foundation wanted this cockpit system used in the Gundams for Operation Meteor. It takes control of the pilot's mind and forces them to obey the orders of whomever is leading, and enforces those orders with pain. It was supposed to be installed in all the Gundams but one …”
“Heavyarms,” 03 said, “because of course the real Trowa Barton was supposed to lead the mission. Never mind if it turns the pilot inside into a mindless, drooling drone as long as Dekim gets the results he wants.”