A/N I did a few small changes to the last chapter. I fixed the date and worked on some typos/inconsistencies.

This chapter has the first major deviation from the original version thus far, but I like it much better. It's fleshed out and shows a better perspective on the situation.

Again -because there was confusion from some my readers-, this is the rewrite, and, yes, I am the same author that wrote the original version. I just thought it'd be easier to simply post here instead of deleting the last one, or reposting the entire thing chapter by chapter. I'll also be transferring my other stories to this account bit by bit, so if you're a fan of Harry Potter or original characters, keep a look out.

Chapter 2

We were hovering behind an asteroid as Trowa finished his sweep of the compound, what we had dubbed Orion 12, from the cockpit. There still was no single sign of life in the place. Wufei was decrypting the footage and files that Quatre had gathered from his time on the deck. This was a very good thing because I wanted answers, damnit. The entire situation was unsettling to me. Why did that girl kill herself? Where were the other people on Orion 12? And for the love of God, how the hell had the Reds gotten the money to make such a sophisticated hide-out?

Quatre had relayed the situation in its entirety to Trowa over the radio while we had waited for pick up. Not the best or smartest of moves at this point, but Quatre was more shaken than the rest of us, I think. In my opinion, he shouldn't even have been there. Unlike us, he had a family to go home to. But he had volunteered and Zechs had given him the job, so who was I to say no?

This newest ship of Quatre's, The Strait and True, we were using was small and made almost no sound, so that could have factored into Zechs decision. When I say "new," I mean brand new. It was a prototype, in essence, and Quatre was the only one familiar enough with the controls, although I did read through the file on the craft before the mission.

I really did hate that ship, and I could think of a few changes I'd make right off the bat. The shape bothered me. The damn thing looked ridiculous, and don't even ask me how she stayed in the sky. I didn't hate it just the interior decoration, which was pure white. everything from the helm to the bench beside me was a bright, unfiltered white. Her outer hull, painted a glassy black, was shaped like a barbell with two balls at the end instead of weights. The front rounded area was the cockpit, equipped with four seats. Two in the front for flight and weapons fire, one in the back for navigation and the last one was for the passenger to hold on and try not to be sick, 'cause this ship was fast, which was about one of the only things she had in her favor. The cockpit connected to the second rounded area by a short hallway. This would be our one bedroom that was more like a barrack -cramped as hell-, and our "bathroom," which, in all honesty, I was surprised we even had. The beds were built into the wall and were designed to shift back into it at the push of a button. Even then, there was only room enough for three beds. Trowa and Quatre shared. We were lucky enough to have a shower in the bathroom, though, even if the addition required a slide-out urinal. Military luxuries. You get used to 'em, I guess.

I call us military. We really aren't. There was no record of us in any military file, and there never would be. We were elite, even without the Gundams. Although lately I felt like we had been bumped to the status of Zech's errand boys. Yeah, the pay was good, but the past few years had been a bit boring, to tell you the truth. This was the most excitement we'd had in months. Which is a good thing, I guess. Boring means no one was dying. I just couldn't shake the feeling that all this surveillance and playing bodyguard to some military bigwig or other had made us soft. Including Zechs. I almost felt sorry for him. If I was bored, he must be crawling the walls.

When the government of New Sanc had been created, Zechs had refused royal status. Relena then promoted him to the highest rank in her Royal Preventers that she could think of. New Chief Military Advisor to the Crown. She had made up the title on the spot, and just handed it over to him. At the time the title had come with almost too much power. Basically, among other things, Zechs could at any time overthrow his dear little sister if he ever thought her unfit. He could and still can call a state of military emergency for no reason whatsoever and order tanks to run through the streets. Not that he ever would, but he has that power. He also has immediate Inheritance of Rule should anything happen to his sister. Relena had yet to tell him. I know he'd never agree to it.

The appointment was Relena's own self-doubt showing through. In her own strange way it assured that if she should fail in any way, the kingdom would be taken care of. However, the newly elected Congressional had a few things to say about that when they found out. Only took them a year. It was still in contestation today. Not from Zechs, he would gladly be done with it. Again, it was just Relana making trouble.

For once, I wished she was with us on this insane mission. She might have had a better grasp of the situation. I looked back through the window for the barracks to the figure lying in my bunk at the far end of the room.

Or maybe not.

From my vantage point by the door I could see he had, in his sleep, draped his left and final feathered appendage over his now thankfully clothed body. We didn't have much in the way of clothing but Quatre had equipped the ship with emergency provisions, including two one-size-fits-all pair of regulation sweatpants and black T. Putting a shirt on the boy would have been impossible of course but the pants fit just barely. Even though they were made small to stretch, the black sweats hung off him precariously. This just made it even more obvious exactly how malnourished he really was. Now, however all that could be seen of the boy besides the wing were his slender feet and bright red hair.

I had already dressed his wounds, of course. Yes more than one. It turns out there were two other stumps on his back I hadn't noticed at the time, located right below the first set. That meant he had had four wings in all. Besides the bleeding stumps he was covered in cuts and bruises, some already having healed over. He had a head wound that had thankfully stopped bleeding quickly. Besides his size, he wasn't showing any immediate signs of starvation or dehydration. No fever or trembling, at least when he was unconscious, and I was glad he was sweating somewhat. His wrists were torn to hell, though. Not having much to work with I had cleaned them and wrapped the wrists in gauze, but seeing him like that… Well I was holding myself back from going back on Orion 12 and shooting that Red bastard again.

I didn't want to think much on what they had done to him, but it still made my blood boil. He couldn't have been more than fourteen, and he was small in every way, from his slender hands to his apparent short stature. He was too young to go through torture like that. Then again, he had two sets of goddamned wings. Who knew how old he was?

Quatre interrupted my musings by heading my way from the cockpit. He had taken off his helmet -against regulations, by the way. We were supposed to wait until we'd docked. That's not what I noticed right away, however. He had that little semi-smile he would use on his more angry clients. The ones he needed to keep calm when he said something he knew they definitely would not appreciate.

Uh-oh. I kept my face passive. As always.

"Heero, can we talk?"

Shit. I nodded, and just to be nice, I shucked my helmet off my head. Thankfully we had relative privacy in the hallway connecting all three rooms; Quatre had closed the door to the cockpit.

"Are you sure we're doing the right thing?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"You're not?" I asked incredulously.

He sighed and looked behind me, to the bedroom door. "This is-. Oh, Allah, what did they do to him?"

Quatre's shoulders, almost his entire body, sagged. He looked about ready to fall over as he walked to the window and stared at the boy, his back to me. "Is it real?"

I didn't know whether he was talking about the wing or the boy, but I went for the safer answer. "It's not a fake. They're attached to his back."

He still had his back to me, as I waited for him to talk. "He's not Duo, Heero."

The name nearly knocked the wind out of me. "Don't."

When he finally faced me, I couldn't look at him. "I just want you to know what you're doing." He added quickly, cutting off anything I would say, "This affects us all."

"I can't just shove him out the airlock," I hissed, surprised at my own vehemence.

"Oh, Heero!" The young trillionaire looked positively scandalized. "I would never suggest such a thing."

"Murder's not an option." Wufei had walked in without my noticing.

I must be getting soft, I thought, turning my attention back to Quatre.

"Of course not," Quatre said defiantly, blue eyes blazing, "but how we handle it when we get back to Calliope, should be brought into question."

Calliope is the main New Sanc warship that was in orbit around the moon. Actually it was more of a collaboration between Sanc and our allies. And "warship" was a general term. There were families and businesses residing on her, too. She was more of a political statement than anything else. Most soldiers, the few that worked there, called her Central. As far as I knew, Zechs was waiting for us there.

I decided without even hesitating. "We tell him."

"You're sure?" Wufei's mistrust was understandable, but it still irked me.

"He is a soldier first, Chang." I glared at him for a moment to drive the point home. "Besides, we can't just come back empty-handed."

Wufei hesitated and glanced over my shoulder, but I knew he couldn't see anything from his vantage point.

I decided to appeal to his sense of practicality. "We'll need him to know something in order to keep this out of the general public."

"I agree," Quatre said, looking thoughtfully at the white metal under his feet. "We can trust him."

"I meant, would he believe... this?" Wufei gestured vaguely behind me and towards the planet to our portside.

This was getting ridiculous. "We. Show him. The. Video."

Wufei nodded accepting my orders with no little reluctance on his part. But he'd do as he was told, like always.

"I decrypted the files," he said, changing topics flawlessly. "We have the footage if you're ready."

I demanded he show me, only giving one final glance at my bed as I followed Wufei to his seat on the cockpit. They tried to peer over my shoulder to the flat, brightly lit console in front of me, when I shouted an annoyed. "Quatre to your position. Wufei take my seat."

Trowa nodded at me from the pilots seat indicating he wanted in on this show. I would have smirked if I wasn't tingling with anticipation. I wanted to know what had happened. I needed to know

But we still weren't out of the woods yet. I looked at my screen and noticed maybe 20 cameras were playing simultaneously throughout Orion 12. But no camera in the room where the boy was found. I cursed under my breath as I noticed there was almost a years worth of footage. I quickly and arbitrarily chose the date seven days prior to our arrival, checking first to see if there were actual people in the footage. Whatever had happened to them must have been sometime after that. I divvied the cameras up into five per person. They'd be playing simultaneously on each of our screens, and there were helpful little time slots on the video so we'd be able to sync up if needed.

I explained this and told them to shout if they saw anything. Unfortunately, there was no audio, but you take what you can get.

Something occurred to me then. "Wufei, are the cameras still recording down there?"

"Yes."

Short. Simple. To the point. Sometimes I missed the truculent prideful bastard from even a few short years ago. It was better than this automaton he had become.

From my vantage point directly behind him I looked at his back through my lashes. I glanced over his crew cut hair -He'd cut it all off a year ago- down to his shoulders, which seemed overly large from my position. I took a moment to remember him as the sinuous dragon from when we were teenagers. Now he was all bulk, having sacrificed the quickness and grace of yesteryears for sheer fighting force. It struck me in that instant how much he had really changed. We all had but nothing like the transformation Wufei had undergone.

Quatre's polite cough beside me brought me back to the matter at hand.

I routed the information and designated cameras to their consoles but didn't have the chance to push play when Quatre piped up, "Do we even have time for this? Maybe we should get back to Calliope first? The tech's there would be better equipped to handle the footage, I'm sure."

Surprisingly, Trowa was the one to interject, saving me from having to bite Quatre's head off, thus showing what a truly short fuse I had right then.

"You know Zechs is going to want answers right away, Quatre," he said gently, and before they could make goo-goo eyes at each other I turned back to the five little boxes of frozen images on my console. "Besides, you're just as curious as the rest of us."

I could fucking hear the fond smirk that was shining through his soft voice.

"Well," Quatre said slowly, obviously falling to the charms of his ex, "we are ahead of schedule."

It was true. We had just arrived that "morning" and already we had full run of the facility.

A moment's silence ensued where they were most likely doing that silent communication thing. I used to be able to do that… with-

"Let's do this thing." I pushed play.

It was a whole week to go through, but that's why God made the fast forward button. We would be done in about a few hours by my calculation. And if after that we had found nothing, I would order departure and we would just finish on our way home, going back in the video and watching it by weekly intervals. It'd take us a few days to get back to Calliope, after all.