"Wuffers, where's this new recruit of ours?" Duo inquired with a manically cheerful grin as he strode up to Wufei at the docking center of the spaceport.
"First of all, Maxwell, my name is Wufei, and second of all, you are a half an hour late." Wufei's reply was concise, if not a little cold, and completely avoided Duo's question. It led Duo to wonder sarcastically what had recently crawled up Wufei's ass and died; this didn't, however, bring Duo out of his cheerful mood when he sniped back at Wufei. "Well, that's okay that I'm late though, because I apparently still beat this so-called recruit."
Wufei's hard stare disappeared as he stared contemplatively out the window. When he spoke his voice was a soft, melancholy timbre, "It's all right if they're a little late." Wufei's arms came up unconsciously to cross over his chest in a gesture that Duo recognized as a purely self-comforting gesture as he continued, "The shuttle was probably delayed before take-off. We can only hope that's all it is, Eris is a special case."
Wufei turned back toward the window, every muscle suddenly tense once more.
//Geez, this recruit has to be somethin' for Wufei to be tense like this!// Duo thought distractedly. //It's obvious he doesn't believe in any of that delay crap he was talking about, and because he's a pessimistic ass he's probably imagined every horrible scenario that could have happened. I have got to get him to lighten up//
As the silence grew longer, Duo started to fidget and finally gave in to the urge to break the silence with an abrupt question which had only just occurred to him.
"So, Wuffie, if two high-ranking Preventers' officers have to come down and act as a personal escort, who's escorting this 'special recruit' on the shuttle?"
Wufei didn't even blink before replying, "Quatre and Trowa are the acting escorts on the shuttle."
"Q-man and mute-boy? No way! You're pullin' my leg, right?"
"No, Maxwell, I am not, as you say, 'pulling your leg,' Barton and Winner both had business to attend to here on Earth so it wasn't an inconvenience for either of them."
Duo smiled broadly, "Then you definitely need to lighten up! Tro' and Q-man are more than capable of handling anything that might . . . Hey! There they are! We'll go meet 'em at the gate, come on!" With which Duo promptly ran off with Wufei following at a more sedate pace muttering, "Why in the name of all of my ancestors did I get stuck with that chuin-zi?"
Duo glomped Quatre, but didn't quite dare to embrace Trowa with the look that the taciturn pilot was throwing his way. Wufei silently wished that he could muster a glare that would have such an effect on Duo. Wufei gently embraced Quatre and nodded respectfully at Trowa before his eyes finally landed on the sleight, pale young woman who stood silently behind Trowa.
"You must be Eris," Wufei murmured as he moved around Trowa to better see the girl, but discovered Trowa's arm blocking his way when she gasped and took a couple of hasty steps backward. Quatre was suddenly all business as he turned to see what was going on.
"Eris, this is Wufei, he's one of our friends, all right?"
The girl shook her head vigorously, clearly not happy to be anywhere near Wufei or any of the other miscellaneous people currently walking through the spaceport. Trowa narrowed his eyes at Wufei, as if Wufei had tried to physically assault her. Trowa turned to Quatre who now held Eris in a comforting, brotherly embrace. Quatre looked back at Trowa mournfully, "It looks like we're going to have to ride with them back to Preventers' headquarters, she's not fit to go with Wufei and if she won't go with Wufei, we're certainly not letting her go with Duo by herself."
"Hey! I resent that!" Duo put in trying in vain to get past Wufei, who stood immobile as a stone statue between him and the others.
"It's not meant as an insult, Duo," Trowa threw over his shoulder as he joined Quatre next to Eris, "It's just that you have no tact or subtlety, you really have no control over it." Trowa turned away from Duo to whisper softly into Eris' ear. It looked odd, two full-grown men in Armani business suits embracing and comforting a girl who looked no older than 16 and looked nothing like either of them.
"Okay, c'mon, let's go out to the car," Trowa said this softly and specifically toward Eris as he and Quatre slowly led her toward the terminal exit. As the terminal doors opened, a black Mercedes pulled up to the drive, Quatre looked puzzled for a moment, he hadn't called the car around yet, but then a masked man jumped out of the back of the car and started shooting into the crowd, right at them. "Get down!" Wufei yelled to everyone and at the same time no one in particular. His hand instinctively went for his gun, which of course wasn't there because this was classified as a "civilian escort." Wufei sighed and slid down the pillar which he had jumped behind to avoid being shot. He looked to his left and the bottom of his stomach dropped out when he saw Eris standing in the middle of the lobby, wide-eyed and frozen. "Eris!" Quatre called to the girl from behind his own pillar, trying in vain to try and snap her out of her current state. It worked, simply not as Quatre thought it would. Eris ducked as a bullet whizzed over her head by millimeters and the shooter screamed something about demons incarnate and purification of the world. Eris straightened almost all of the way back up, but then bent her knees and lunged forward. She moved so fast, Duo couldn't even keep track of her movements, and as a trained thief and assassin that was something he usually prided himself on. One moment, bullets were still flying everywhere, but the next, everything fell eerily quiet in the terminal.
Duo, Wufei, and the others climbed out from behind their respective pillars to stand in awe at the scene before them. Blood was splattered everywhere, it looked disgustingly like a badly done horror movie, and directly in the middle of the entire scene was Eris. She stood nonchalantly as if she hadn't just ripped the shooter's windpipe out with her bare hands and was now covered liberally with his blood. The black Mercedes was nowhere to be seen, obviously having fled the scene when things started going south for them. A small trickle of blood slid down Eris' cheek from a bullet graze just below her temple; she wiped it away impaciently, further smearing her face with the assailant's blood and not doing much to alleviate the continuing trickle of blood or the itching effect that the drying blood was beginning to elicit on her skin. Trowa approached her slowly, but steadily, as if there was nothing more the matter than if she had wandered off to look at the kittens in the pet shop and he was frustrated by having to search for her. Just as he reached her, her eyes rolled and her knees buckled as she fainted. Trowa grabbed her before she fell, cradling her gently in his arms, ignoring the blood as it ruined one of the best suits he owned. He turned his head back towards Quatre before saying, "I think you should probably call the car now."
Quatre nodded mutely and flipped his phone open and called the car to come to the front of the terminal as Duo and Wufei ran damage control with the crowd. It was an unspoken agreement that they would meet up later, but the most important thing right at this point was to get Eris to safety and away from prying eyes.
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mute-boy Trowa, for those that couldn't catch the reference
Chuin-zi is Chinese for idiot
