Midii Une pounded on the door of the second room loudly.

"Alex, Jason, you'd better get up and get ready for school! I mean it this time, if you keep sleeping you're going to be late. And I need your help with the chores later today so don't go anywhere," she ordered.

"Michael!" she called pounding on the third door. "Michael, come on you have to get up too. Let's go, up and at 'em, or do I have to get out the bucket!"

Her threat was met with a series of groans emanating from the other side of the door. She nodded to herself in satisfaction. Boys would be boys, she went through the same routine every morning she was able to stay at home. She found it oddly comforting in a way, too bad she couldn't stay there all the time.

She made a polite knock on the door at the end of the hall.

"Father?"

"I'm awake Midii," came the voice from the other side. Hoarse and raspy but Midii held out the fragile hope that today there was a slight difference. Was he perhaps feeling a little stronger? Was that an extra note of vigor she heard in his voice?

"May I come in?" she requested. She was always careful to request. Her father, a proud and independent man who had once been so strong and provided well for his wife and children, was sensitive about his condition. He was an invalid now, a withering husk of the great man he had been. She always waited until he was fully ready to greet her or anyone else before she entered his private chambers.

"Yes, daughter," he said. Her father sat there in his wicker chair, with his flaxen hair neatly combed and tied away out of his face. He had large expressive blue eyes the color of the sky on a clear winter day. She had inherited her eyes and her hair from him, but her features were purely her mothers, a stubborn jaw and full lips that were more often than not pulled into an expression of proud willfulness. Her fair facial appearance, once rounded by a child's baby-fat, had melted into fine graceful features; high cheekbones, slim waist, willowy limbs. Her body retained a look of fragility about it, being slight and feminine, but the young woman herself was about as fragile as tempered steel. She'd have to be tough to survive, nay prosper, in her profession. If indeed one could call barely being able to keep the bills paid and her family fed as well as make the payments on the enormous debt she owed prospering.

"Hello father, I trust you are well today?" she said as she began making up his bed and collecting his laundry.

"Yes, I'm feeling much improved," he said. They went through this routine every morning she was able to be home and running the household. Her father was an optimist; he truly believed that he was going to get better. Midii hoped it was true in a vague sense but she couldn't really bring herself to believe it. She had lived with her father in the condition he was in for too long to really picture him any other way. He was frail looking, thin and bony, with pale skin like fragile white parchment. When he coughed the coughs wracked his body and left him shaking with fatigue for minutes afterward. There were days when he was too weak to leave his bed. On those days he'd be "just resting, just gathering his strength for the final push."

While father continued to wait for his final push into recovery, Midii went out and found ways to make money so the family could keep eating as well as pay off the huge debt she owed the Consortium. It was an enormous debt too. When her mother had first fallen ill and they had taken her to the hospital, father had had enough money to make ends meet from his small fishing business off the coasts of their village, but as her condition worsened the hospital bills began to rise. Her father had suffered a bad season and lost one of his boats (captained by his brother) in a storm, with the effectiveness of his business halved and the bulk of his savings going to cover medical expenses, Tory Une was hard pressed to keep his family afloat.

That was when Sharry Une's condition had taken a turn for the worse. Midii had been eight at the time but she could still remember visiting her mother in the hospital and how she had looked to thin and delicate lounging back against the pillows. The Consortium, the local equivalent of the Yakuza, had come to her father offering to loan him some money to cover the suddenly increased hospital bills, saying he could pay it all back in another year. Her father had taken them up out of desperation, his wife was getting sicker by the day and the hospital could ill afford to keep her when there were so many wounded drifting in from the fighting going on in their small country. He had ben afraid they would turn her out to die, so he'd taken the Cosortium's loan hoping that he could make a good haul that year and be able to pay them back in full so they couldn't collect interest. It had been another bad year. They had not only not been able to pay off the debt to the Consortium, they hadn't even been able to make the payment on their house, a large ancestral abode that her mother's family had lived in for generations. Father had thought he might have to take out a lien on the house in order to cover the rising medical costs (Midii remembered being awfully damned sick of eating fish that year) on top of that he had broken his leg taking through a storm that year and had been laid up, but the Consortium had generously offered to extend the time on the debt in exchange for a minor service, an act of good faith really.

The rebel army and the Alliance had come cruising through her village battling and destroying and generally making large mobile nuisances of themselves. The Consortium had taken out a contract on the rebel army on behalf of the Alliance and they needed someone no one would ever suspect. If someone would become a spy for them they'd be willing to cut off half of the debt that Midii's father owed them, of course Midii's father couldn't do it seeing as his leg was busted but surely someone in the household… Their eyes had all fallen on Midii, with her cherubic pretty little face and sky-blue eyes no one would ever think could do any wrong.  Midii Une, ten years old and already having spent the last year and a half at odd jobs or with the fishing boat trying to earn money to help feed her family and pay off the hospital and the Consortium, had stood up and declared that she would take on their job but she wanted five hundred dollars in addition to the halved debt. They'd haggled a bit (Midii recalled the agent looking vaguely amused at her boldness) and she'd gotten three hundred fifty.

It had been the start of a long and difficult road for her (her mother had died somewhere along the way). The Consortium had taught her the way of the spy, how to use her looks and innocent appeal to charm her way into a group by looking lost and frightened so they'd take her in. Her missions were clear and her objectives simple; locate a rebel camp infiltrate and transmit the coordinates with her handheld, and pin a transmitter on one of the soldiers so that the Alliance could track the movements of the main fleet. After the first mission the others weren't so bad. The pay was good and got better as her skills improved. Midii improved very quickly. Unfortunately, no matter how much she made, the debt kept climbing because every time she was late with a payment the Consortium raised debt percentage rate by ten percent. She wasn't always able to find a job that paid enough on time and the debt percentage she owed kept climbing, pretty soon she owed close to four times what the original debt was worth before she caught on to their game. The reason she couldn't always find work when she needed it was because she'd always gotten her contracts via the Consortium, they were deliberately withholding jobs from her so she'd get deeper and deeper into debt. After an encounter with a nameless boy-soldier Midii lost her taste for the spy game, she decided to strike it out on her own and chose another field…

Bounty Hunter. It paid a lot better, provided that she could catch and behead the little buggers before someone else beat her to it, There her work as a spy came in handy. She could infiltrate traveling-databases and security networks to locate the last known sighting of her prey, she could also keep tabs on the movements of her rivals. She grew proficient at the job over the years; her young body had been honed and perfected into wiry whipcord toughness by daily practice of the martial arts, her reflexes were faster than thought itself. Shrewd, cunning, she worked alone. Using her portable palm-top (a must for any Bounty Hunter) she constantly checked the Lists, looking for ant new or old hits worth her time to hunt down. She chose based solely on the amount of money offered and once her target had been selected she hunted it down with ruthless efficiency. Once she found it (and she had never once failed to find the target) she struck swiftly and with deadly accuracy, the head of the target was usually stored safely in a cryo-box within an hour.

She could kill as easily as some could draw breath now and she rarely ever came back from a hunt empty handed. She had trained herself at a young age to push aside her guilt, it was necessary as a spy. If she'd allowed herself the luxury of feeling the immense remorse for every life that was ended as a result of her actions she'd drive herself mad. So she's taken the practical approach, they were soldiers and knew they would die because everyone died; she needed to money from the job to feed her family. It was a war people died. They killed others for their beliefs, for their country… she killed them for money. These were facts. Maybe they weren't pleasant but in a war only the strongest made it through alive. In her life as a bounty hunter, she still didn't feel any regrets about the men she killed. Her early training and philosophy still stood; never to regret a kill. Those people were scum, she was doing the world a favor. Evil had no rights. They were criminals and murderers, the money she made from their deaths would enable her family to go on living. On occasion she took on other work, infiltraitor, information dealer, professional assassin, thief of artifacts, but only if they paid her well enough. The occasional contracts she took from the Preventors made her feel oddly good inside but she couldn't afford to work for them regularly, they didn't pay nearly enough. Still, she was all for augmenting her usual bounties with some salt from the Preventors when prices and good hits got lean. All in all, things were just barely squeezing by. She had been back at her home for a week to recuperate from a long stint of hunts out in space but she really should get started looking for more work. The bills and debts wouldn't pay themselves.

"You are… leaving so soon?" he father questioned delicately. He hated to see his only daughter forced to go out and kill in order to support their family. As the father and head of the household Tory Une felt it was his responsibility to support the family, but there was no way he could in his present condition. Some days it was all he could do to get out of bed and they both knew it. Midii was strong like her mother, but Tory hated seeing his daughter grow colder year after year as she lost more and more of her heart with every person she killed.

"Yes. I should be back soon with more money," she offered hopefully. "The last run was only enough to cover this semesters share of the debt, I still need to get money for food and to pay for this house. Those don't cost nearly as much so I should be back soon."

"I hope so Midii, we all miss you when you're gone," her father said quietly.

"And I miss you all when I am gone. Try to make sure the boys don't burn down the kitchen or get into trouble with old Oji while I'm gone," she said with a little smile.

I never feel regret, even though I must carry this family on my shoulders. I never regret any of it because I love them all so much. I don't care what happens to me, just as long as my family is safe, she thought with a final kiss on her fathers cheek she went to double check her gear before she went back to her other life.

She was quite famous in the dark seamy underworld that collected thieves, murderers, whoremongers, druggists, crime syndicates, mercenaries, spies and yes, the Bounty Hunters who preyed on them all. A lot of the same rules that had been taught to her when she was a spy still applied to her life as a bounty hunter. Trust no one, never reveal your weaknesses, love no one for they can be used against you, be ready to turn against your own best friend in order to survive, be ready for when they do the same thing to you, always have an escape route handy, never reveal all of your weapons, sleep in your armor, treat your own wounds, never take anything for granted, watch out for shadows, work alone, never turn your back to the entrance… the list went on and on. But Midii lived by three main ones; trust no one, never reveal your weaknesses, and work alone. Her family was one hell of a large weakness, a chink in her otherwise perfect armor that someone could drive and entire fleet of mobile dolls through. Hence, Midii Une was not Midii Une when she was a bounty hunter, she became Shadowblade. Shadowblade was a legend; a ruthless man-slayer who could melt into the night itself and the only sound his victim would hear would be the sound of a blade biting through the flesh of their neck. Shadowblade was death in the darkness. It was said his sword had taken the lives of hundreds of men in the still shadowy darkness and introduced them all to everlasting night. He was silent, deadly, and once he had someone targeted he never rested nor slept until that person was dead by his blade. He was as inevitable as the night itself. He was never heard coming nor leaving, but left behind only a headless corpse and blood pooling on the floor.

Midii Une hid behind the mask of Shadowblade to protect her family. If anyone had ever gotten wind that Shadowblade had people he cared about, she had no doubt in her mind that she would come home to find them all slain. She couldn't allow her lifetime full of hard work, bargains, betrayals and slayings to come to naught. Besides, there were still places in the underworld she lived and hunted in that was too dangerous for a known woman to enter. Midii had no desire to wake up imprisoned in a cell in a bonkshop being sold to the highest bidder. She had heard that those who ran those houses for illicit pleasures had ways of making even the most fierce compliant and she didn't want to know what those ways were. She'd also knew that there were men, and sometimes, women out there who had very peculiar and unusual tastes; a warrior with a high pain threshold would last longer than most and so probably fetch a good price. No, Shadowblade was a man; a very dangerous and heartless killer of a man. Fortunately for Midii, she'd never be busty so she could fit the part well if she hid her curvature behind her protective body armor. No one would ever suspect the masked bounty hunter Shadowblade and the delicate-looking Midii Une were one and the same.

It's almost time to get to work, she thought, scrolling down the list of likely targets she had selected previously. Ten names, each of them worth at least a thousand Uni-Sphere Credits. That would be enough to feed her household and cover the bills while she was out hunting for more to pay the next debt payment.

* * *

The man who was called Trowa Barton in the year After Colony 199 was not quite the same young man who had helped put down the Barton Army in After Colony 196, nor was he quite the same young man who had fought so skillfully for the colonies in after colony 195. He certainly wasn't the same boy who had been called merely No-name by the mercenaries he had fought with for as long as he could remember. For one thing, he had family now; a nagging, overprotective but affectionate older sister named Catherine who on occasion liked to throw knives at him, but only while there were people watching, who was always happy to haul out her soup kettle and whip up a fresh batch of stew whenever Trowa might find himself hungry (or more likely pour the stuff down his throat at the merest hint of a sniffle) or always look displeased and worried when his old comrades from the wars showed up. For another thing, he had friends. Real fiends; that was something No-name had always been too empty for and the Gundam Pilot Trowa Barton had been too distracted to appreciate. Heero Yuy, the pilot he was probably closest to understanding was usually willing to listen to what he had to say, he even offered sage advice on occasion. Duo Maxwell, easy-going and friendly but death incarnate when roused to battle, was an unbreakable tie as he seemed to see himself and the other pilots as another version of the close-knit street gangs he'd grown up with. Quatre Raberba Winner, kind-hearted and gentle with the soul of an artist and the steel will of a warrior, was probably his closest friend of all the pilots the first he'd met they shared a strange common understanding of the way the universe worked. Then Wufei Chang, with his inflexible sense of honor and his black and white way of looking at the world, they were both accustomed to fighting singularly and found working as a team unsettling (all of them except Quatre and Duo that is) but Wufei often cut out all that chatter nonsense and got straight to the heart of things, Trowa liked that about him. Friends and family… if he was able to go back in time and tell his former self No-name about how full and wonderful his life now was, he very much doubted that they young boy with the empty eyes would believe him. No name never felt anything, pain anger, sadness joy love regret all were closed books to the apathetic young soldier.

So perhaps being a clown was a rather ironic career choice given his quiet personality and general lack of clownishness but he found that life at the circus suited him. He was part of something. They were a group of people who had no allegiance to any land or country and no ties but to each other; no home but the road. They were modern day gypsies who brought laughter and life to otherwise boring out of the way places, who treated the hearts of young children to wonder and amazement. Even Trowa felt special when he looked out at the audience and saw the smiling faces of young boys and girls who had never known a day of battle or the threat of war. And that was what he'd fought for. He'd fought to protect the colonies, he'd fought to end the war so no other children would grow up alone and empty, nameless and holdless like he had been.

To that end, he still took the occasional job for the Preventors (over his elder sister's very loud and vocal protestations) usually when all the other reserve agents were already otherwise engaged. He had a special com channel in his trailer with a line that went directly to the office of Lady Une, the head of the Preventors. If he was needed, she would call. Trowa hadn't answered a summons since A.C. 199, that had been two years ago. He and his old comrades still kept in touch, due mainly to the concentrated efforts of Duo and Quatre (the most sociable of the group) but they hadn't all been together on a mission since the tiny little dust up in A.C. 197 ((A.N. the terrorist attack left unfinished in Episode Zero, anyone reading a Trowa and Midii fic has probably read or at least heard of it anyway right?)).

That was why it came as such a surprise when one morning, out of the blue and completely unexpectedly, the com unit started bleeking at him. Puzzled, Trowa answered it promptly to see a tired and harried looking Lady Une staring back at him. When he had first met the good Lady she had been the heartless and cold Colonel Une, a woman who would use any means necessary to further the ideals of her commanding officer Trieze Kushrenada and underhanded tactics were not a problem for her. The woman who sat on the other end of the line was vastly different; kind yet firm, gentle yet with a core of unyielding strength… she was still willing to do whatever necessary to ensure peace but her shall we say enthusiasm was tempered by restraint and caring. She saw her agents as not just soldiers, but as being part of those whose lives she would have to protect. The grief brought on by Trieze's death still lingered around her eyes, but the Lady had strengths of her own. All in all Trowa respected her now in a way he never had when he had been her little golden boy pilot under her in OZ, infiltrating and spying on the organization. She opened without preamble

"Agent Smoke, I need you down in HQ immediately. I'll brief you when you get here," she said.

"I'll find someone to cover for me. I'm on my way," he said shortly, cutting off the link. He had already finished his chores for the day and Cathy could throw knives at anyone who could stay still long enough. He went to find the manager.

A scant few hours later (most of that time was spent in calming down and reassuring his older sister) Trowa found himself with a carisak over his shoulder standing at the gate to Preventors HQ. It had once been a military headquarters but it had been refitted into the main base for the Preventors. The complex was roughly triangular in shape, the right point on the triangle held the main administrative center, it held the offices where the Preventors filed their reports and kept their files and were briefed for missions as well as several rooms for conferences (which would be converted into "war rooms" should the need arise) as well as the main communications center and the offices for the liaisons to civilian security. The left point of the triangle held the auxiliary and supportive services… the vehicle garage, the airstrip, the main armory, the back up systems generator, maintenance and such. The third arm was the "civilian arm." That was where housing and barracks, the PreEx (store), the commissary, on-base theatre, gym and other niceties and perks were contained. Trowa headed straight to the brain of the HQ. Une would undoubtedly be expecting him.

He'd been right, as soon as he walked down the hall he was waved on into the office by her administrative assistant.

"Three hours and fifteen minutes mister Barton," she said in her cold I-expect-better-of-you 'colonel voice,' but there was an underlying tone of humor in it. "Your sister must have been particularly reluctant to part with you this time… did her last assistant lose his nerve?"

Trowa chuckled quietly. His older sister's protectiveness of him was a running joke among the Preventor Elites(which consisted of the five Gundam pilots, Zechs, Noin, and Sally). Quatre had found himself on the bad side of it a time or two and kept inquiring whether she had actually meant it when she said he was welcome to stand in for Trowa any time but not to expect to come out of the experience a whole man (but he had twenty nine sisters of his own so he couldn't throw any stones). Wufei had said that the threat of death by souping still made him wake in a cold sweat some nights, yes, even Wufei had a sense of humor, however dry. Heero, the smart one, usually passed messenger duty onto someone else so he'd never had the chance to encounter Trowa's famed elder sister.

"You summoned me here for a reason?" he inquired, getting down to business now that the greeting chit chat had been observed.

"Yes. I have my usual agents out in the field right now and can't remove them and most of the Elites who would normally take the job are already out on assignment."

"Oh?" he queired, his expression inviting further comment. It wasn't like Une at all to stretch her forces to thin, especially in these apparently peaceful times.

"Duo and Hilde are keeping an eye for space pirates along the usual trade routes from their sweeper vessel. Wufei and Sally are investigating rumors of a secret weapons bunker in the Peruvian Rainforests. Quatre is keeping en eye out in the upper echelons of society for trouble there, Dorothy may or may not be helping him out… it's always so hard to tell with her. And Heero seems to be desperately trying to keep pace with Relena Darlian, who, as we both know gets bounced around between Earth and Space like a human pinball."

Trowa made a small noise that could have been taken for a laugh. Out of the five of them, he and Heero were the most alike; both soldiers who had been fighting for as long as they could remember both quiet and effective (although Trowa liked to think he was better at infiltration than Heero). Both of them, apparently, preferred difficult and challenging women. Relena'd had a career and an entire life built purely on her own merits with no help from anyone for roughly five years she had a doctoral degree (earned between all of her other duties) a high ranking government position, and a sense of purpose without any mere man to give her one; then his comrade abruptly showed up out of the blue and appointed himself her personal guard. According to Lady Une (who had gotten the complaining phone call of his incredible high-handedness) he hadn't been received very well by his headstrong and independent love interest. She had tossed him out on his proverbial rear after giving him a verbal upbraiding that had left Une in tears of mirth. Relena was certainly not some pretty fool to be swept off her feet while Heero played Prince Charming. And Heero was having to work hard for every inch he got with the willful, self-sufficient, and proud young minister. The entire Preventors office was following the story like housewives follow their favorite soap operas.

Trowa got straight to the point.

"What is the assignment then?"

"I need you to track down and apprehend someone for me," Une said briskly. "This person was heavily involved in the formation of the original Operation Meteor, as well as the gathering of White Fang under Quinze, and the gathering of the Barton Army under Dekim. It is rumored that he manufactured a great many of the parts for the mobile suits and had a large hand in the lunar base factories for mobile dolls and that was how he made his fortune. Heero has been able to ascertain that his money went to a large number of different banks and accounts and that even though he is now a fugitive from justice, with his contacts in the underground he has been able to make a clean escape. If anyone would know where any further hidden weapons bunkers might be it would be this man. Unfortunately, he is a very crafty person. I need him brought in for questioning."

"I see. Is there anything further that I should be aware of?"

"Yes. You're going to have a little competition on this particular hunt. You see, Jeric Kaneda incurred the wrath of a man even more rich and powerful than he (no, it isn't Quatre) and as a result there is a sizable bounty on his head. Every bounty hunter in the area is going to be looking for him, and if they find him before you do they'll kill him and we won't get the chance to question him for what he knows."

"Understood. I'll begin my search immediately."

"Your file contains all the information we were able to gather on the elusive Mister Kaneda including his known fighting style, be careful he is known to use poison-tipped darts and blades. We've already narrowed the search parameters down to three likely prospects. One on Earth and three in space. There's a shuttle standing by, you can hit the spot on Earth first and if you don't find any leads, refuel and head up into space. Good luck and god speed."

"Thank you."

With that Trowa headed out to the nearby airstrip and was swiftly on his way to Hanjok, on the south eastern end of what had once been Singapore. Research had indicated that some of Kaneda's old contacts were still there. If the man were running out of cash (as he surely was if he had not been able to make any more of his own) this would be a good place to launder his money with no questions asked. In a lot of places in Hanjok, no one asked any questions… it was bad for business.

* * *