Chapter 7

(3 weeks later)



"You've got to be faster then that." Heero spoke to Iris and Orchide from inside the recently completed Eternity Gundam. He, the tow of them, Pearl, and Teardra had been out training all morning. Just as he had expected, Pearl had the beginnings of an amazing pilot. Her score on the zero system was even higher then Teardra's, a fact that didn't make the Ice Princess very happy.

"Okay Pearl." Heero turned to the Epyon suit that was flying around rapidly over his head.

"I'm ready." She replied. Heero smirked and started an all out attack on her. She managed to dodge every attempted blow and then come back with a stream of laser beams that the flashing red tail, that if he had been in anything weaker then a Gundam, would have destroyed him. He grinned, finally there was someone worth training with. Teardra was good but she was too unpredictable and she got distracted much too easily. The other two girls were just too immature and too dense to comprehend everything that he was telling them. Pearl was just an all around amazing fighter, she knew plenty of different strategies and she knew what she was doing in her suit. Besides all that, she always kept a clear mind and tired to stay a step ahead of her opponent, a skill that very few pilots had been able to master.

Their suits clashed a few more times before their battle once again ended in a draw. "That's enough for today." Heero told them "let's go back inside so you can get something to eat."

"Okay." Iris said in a singsong voice before the 01 and Wing Zero took off to the base.

"How am I doing?" Pearl asked him, opening up a private line between the two suits.

"Better then the other three." Heero replied, not bothering to hide any of the facts "You didn't get the score you did on the zero system test because of nothing. You don't just have the piloting skills that the other three have, you have a mindset that compliments them and helps to increase your abilities."

"At least it wasn't a glitch in the machine like I originally thought." She joked

Heero just looked at her. Something inside of him wanted to joke back, to get to know her better. Unfortunately, the part of him that had been curbed to resist emotions was still there and it was still very evident in his personality. "Let's get going." He said finally, flying off back to Peacemillion.

"That was kind of strange." Pearl muttered before following him

Quatre sat by Calisia's bed, freeing her ankle from its sling. "We're going to have to put you in with Pearl." He said with an apologetic smile "She'll be a lot better with you in this condition. I would have you go with Iris and Orchide only Teardra, well, she really doesn't even want you to be here."

"Is she the blonde one?" Calisia asked

"Yeah. She's been in here to see you?"

"Once. She wasn't really pleasant to be around."

"That's Teardra for you, She doesn't like you if you're weaker then she is but if you're stronger, she'll loathe everything about you." He handed her the crutches the doctor had given her to use "Do you need any help?"

She swung herself out of the bed and tried moving around for the first time in weeks. "I should be okay if you'll get the doors for me."

"Sure thing." Quatre hit the button on the door and bowed down with a smile "Ladies first."

Calisia smiled back "Thanks." She said before hobbling out and into the hallway. Quatre led her through the maze of corridors

"Oh yeah, by the way, we have something to keep you busy if you want her." He opened the door to the room and helped her over to the single bed against the right wall of the room.

"What are you talking about?" She asked

Quatre scooped the white cat off her cushion on the floor and set her in Calisia's lap. "She's precious." She said, stroking the cat's silky fur "What's her name?"

"We've just been calling her Nanashi for the past few weeks because if you didn't want her then we were going to get rid of her and it's much easier to get rid of an animal that you haven't named."

"But I thought you said you had been calling her Nanashi." She protested

"It just means no name." Quatre tickled the cat's chin "She seems to know that because she won't come when you call her that."

"Why didn't you give her to your daughter?"

"Katya is allergic to cats so that kind of took out that possibility."

"I think I'm going to call you Topaz." She said after a minute and then looking up at Quatre "Just look at the color of her eyes."

"I take it you want to keep her." Quatre asked

"Of course." Calisia replied, hugging the cat to her

"I had a feeling you would." He replied, sitting down next to her "At the very least she should be good company for you."

"Quatre?" Katya called from the other side of the door "There's someone here who wants to see her daddy and she doesn't want to wait."

"Come on in sweetie." He called back

Katya opened the door and led in the young girl "Daddy!" She cried running into his arms

"Achoo!" Katya sneezed, grabbing some tissues and leaving the room "Make sure she washes her hands if she touches that cat." She warned

"Satunia, this is Calisia." He sat her down on his lap "She's going to take care of the kitty from now on."

"Kitty." Satunia repeated, reaching a hand out to it. She studied Calisia intently for a minute before letting her eyes rest on her cast. "Boo-boo."

"Big boo-boo." Calisia replied with a smile. Satunia looked up at her again before focusing her attention back on the cat.

"Babies are so interesting." Quatre said, looking at her playing with Topaz "They act so curiously sometimes. The way they look at you, it makes you wonder if they can really understand what you're saying or not. I mean, just because they aren't developed enough to communicate back, does that have to mean that their brains can't comprehend what we're saying. Do you understand where I'm coming from?"

Calisia stared off into space, her eyes locked on a certain spot on the wall "She can understand." She said softly "She doesn't know all the words that you use but she can understand most of it. Most babies can't though. She's special."

"How do you know that?" Quatre asked in complete disbelief

Calisia shook her head; trying to clear her mind "I have no clue." She replied, rubbing the back of her head "As soon as you asked that, it was like someone took over my thoughts to tell me the answer."

"That's really odd." He remarked, "Has it ever happened before?"

"A few times, back in the medical bay. I could hear people asking each other questions outside of my room and I just always knew the answers but I wasn't about to say anything."

Satunia crawled back over to where the two of them were sitting. "Papa, up!" She ordered, holding her arms out to him until he picked her up and set her on the bed between the two of them.

"Do you think she seems happy here?" He asked

"I haven't been around the two of you together much but from what I've seen, she does. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know." Quatre shrugged "I'm doing the best job I can and I think I'm doing a decent job balancing piloting with being a father but I'm not always here for her when she needs it. I just wonder if she knows that I'm doing the best job that I can right now."

"She knows." Calisia's eyes glazed over once again "She misses you whenever you're gone but she knows that you'll always come back to her."

"You're really starting to freak me out." Quatre said, eyeing her wearily "What's going on?"

"I don't know exactly." She said, shaking her head again "It's almost like I can read minds to answer questions, whether I want to hear the answers or not."

"Okay, let's do a little test." Quatre moved forward to look her in the eyes "Tell me what I'm thinking now."

Calisia concentrated for a moment and then shook her head "I don't know. You never asked a question."

"Okay, I'm going to think about the same thing and just ask you a different way. What am I thinking?"

Calisia got the same dazed look in her eyes "You're thinking about the Eternity Gundam." She said slowly "How advanced it is and how it really does have the chance to stop anymore stupid battles from occurring."

"That's right." Quatre said in amazement "I can't believe how ironic this is. You have amnesia but you still have the power to read minds."

"I guess so." She shrugged, "At least now I know where all of these ideas are coming from."

"Heero is going to have to let you stay here now." Quatre smiled broadly "With a power like that, you could help us stop any revolutions before they even start."

"He was going to send me away?" She asked, looking up at Quatre in fear

"Yes. After your ankle healed he was going to have you sent to a shelter on the Earth because you really weren't going to be any help for us in the long run. I didn't want to have to send you away but I really couldn't argue with his logic."

"Why would you want to keep me hear anyways?" She asked "I don't want to leave but I don't understand why you still want me here when all I could be is a burden. I can't even fight with this bum ankle."

"The doctors told me that the cast should be able to come off in a week or so if that makes you feel any better." He glanced down at his daughter "As for wanting to keep you here, I really can't explain it. I just have this gut instinct that I have to protect you and keep you close to me." He picked Satunia up and stood up "You better get some sleep now. Trowa will probably stop in later."

"Whatever you say." She agreed, settling down on her bed

***

The girl wandered through the ship "I know she's here somewhere." She muttered, listening at each door. "Her ship is outside." She sighed and moved back into the shadows so she could creep back to the central boiler room where she had started.

She unscrewed the bolts, holding one of the larger vents to the wall. Lifting it away, she set it down on the floor with the screws in a small pile next to it. She hoisted herself up into the open area inside the walls and began to crawl through. "Alright Maylm." She glared down into another empty room "Where are you?"

She wandered through the vents for what seemed like hours but in reality was probably only about half of one. It seemed like she had found every other person on the ship except for the one she was looking for. She saw a girl sleeping with a cast on her ankle, another girl giving a baby a bath while sneezing into a handkerchief. There was the black haired boy she had been told about practicing the martial arts with a smaller blonde boy. Where else could they hide the princess of a rebellion?

Her ears picked up as she heard the faint voice. Yes, that was it. There was only one person in space that she knew of that still threw in the occasional traditional Spanish phrase. "Gotcha." She muttered, crawling rapidly down a different tunnel that took her to the far back end of the ship. She gazed down through the vent at the two people speaking softly in the dimly lit room. That was her, Princess Maylm Carolina Hernandez. That was the young dangerous woman in her visions.

"Do we have an agreement?" The princess asked

"I believe so." The young man answered. "I find a way to wipe out everyone on this ship and make it look like an accident and you make me one of your partners in crime."

"Crime is such a harsh term." Her smile was cold "Let's just say I'm helping to speed history down the road I want it to take. Now dime. Why are you so willing to destroy the Gundam pilots?"

"Let's just say that I'm sick of them." The man grimaced "Ever since I was born, I was treated like another laborer by my father. When those pilots came around, he stopped caring about me altogether. Those pilots stole my father's affection away from me and they will pay for ruining my childhood."

"I see." She said with a from "It sounds like you're holding onto a childhood envy of them. However, whatever your purpose may be, it means nothing to me as long as the end result is still the same and they are cut out of the picture and you remain on my side."

"You have my word." The man promised "I've got the gas tanks in the locked storage closet. All I have to do is open them up and no one will wake up the next morning to suspect anything."

The girl's eyes widened. She had to get out of there and quickly. She had to make sure those pilots lived for the sake of outer space and the Earth. She turned around quickly and was about the start crawling back the way she came when one of the hair pins holding her long white hair up in a bun came loose and hit the metal vent with a loud plink.

The two voices within the room stopped suddenly. "Someone is here." The princess whispered "We have to find them now or everything will be ruined. Vamos!"

The girl breathed a sigh of relief as she made her way back to the boiler room where she found some extra uniforms for the engineers stored in a box in the corner of the room. She slipped one on, pinning up her hair under the hat and smearing some grime on her face and hands. She fixed the open vent and then sat down on the floor, calling upon her powers of prescience. "Heero Yuy." She murmured after a moment "I need to find Heero Yuy."

She stood up and adjusted her hat one more time as the door swung open. "Boy. What are you doing in here?" The princess demanded

The girl forced her hatred back "I was told that the vent in here had come loose. I came in here to fix it." She lied quickly

Princess Maylm's eyes narrowed. "Where are your tools?"

"They said I would find everything that I needed in here but as you can see, they were obviously mistaken. I did manage to fix the bolts by hand luckily."

"So you say." The princess frowned and inspected the fixings. "Bien, carry on." She turned and left the girl to breath a sigh of relief.

"I don't have very much time." She murmured, taking off through the halls. "I've got to find him now." She ran out the door and around a corner and smack into another body. "Oof." She grunted as she fell to the floor

"Are you alright?" The tall boy she had run into asked

"I'm fine." She studied him for a moment. He didn't seem like an enemy so she had to take a chance. "I need to find Heero Yuy. Do you know where I can find him?"

The boy's one visible green eye widened in amusement. "Could you tell me why you're in such a hurry to find him?"

"I can't at the moment." She replied in a whisper "In time, all will be reveled but only if I can speak to him now."

"Follow me." The boy began to lead her back to one of the living areas she had discovered earlier. "Heero." The boy said softly, making the other boys sitting at a table, typing into a laptop computer look up. "'He' needs to speak to you." The boy coughed a little and sat down, obviously wanting to here what she had to say

"Can you secure this room?" She asked, "If I'm found here, we will all be in serious danger."

The first boy walked over to the door and hit a few buttons on the keypad there. "Door is locked and the jamming field had been activated." He announced before returning to his seat.

"Who are you?" Heero demanded

"My name is Wysli Marie Sertory." She replied, relaxing a little bit "you don't know me but I do know about all of you to a certain extent."

"Isn't Wysli a girls name?" His eyes narrowed

"I am a girl." She replied, taking off the hat and letting her hair fall down "I've been getting these visions lately and they weren't very pleasant to say the very least so I started doing a little bit of research and it turns out that there is a woman of royal Spanish ancestry who is planning on taking over the universe."

"What happens to us in those visions?" The first boy asked

"You aren't in them so I'm assuming you're all dead."

"When is all of this supposed to occur?" Heero asked

"I don't know." She admitted, "All I know is that all of this was confirmed within the last hour when I found Princess Maylm talking with a young blonde man. He was planning on letting some deadly gases loose in the middle of the night to destroy all of you at once."

"What color eyes did this person have?" Heero asked

"I'm pretty sure they were green." She replied after thinking for a moment "They were either blue or green."

"It has to be Professor B." The taller boy said, "Quatre would never try to kill someone he was close to. His uchuu no kokoro would drive him insane if he even thought of it."

"So we basically have two choices." Heero noticed glumly "We either stay here, prevent the gas and risk the chance of another attack on our lives or we can leave here immediately, go to the Earth and risk endangering the people there."

"Why the Earth?" Wysli asked

"Because if what you say about this Princess is true, then space won't be safe for very long." He snapped

"We better start letting everyone else know what we're doing." The other boy said

"I better get back to my home before I get found out." Wysli said, turning to leave

Heero grabbed her arm "You're not going anywhere." He said, "For all we know, you're a spy working for her. You're going with us where we can keep an eye on you."

"Of all the ridiculous ideas." Wysli threw her hands up in the air "I risked my life trying to find you and now you're accusing me of siding with the one person I want to destroy?"

"We have no evidence that what you're saying is true." Heero replied "Trowa, you take her and tell everyone to meet in them mecha bay in an hour. I'm going to get rid of those gas tanks."

"Come with me." Trowa nodded at Wysli "We've got a lot of people to find."

Heero stalked out of the room and into the control room of the ship. He quickly scanned the area surrounding it and located a corner of another ship hidden in the darkened area of one of the screens. "They did a decent job getting her in here unnoticed. Professor B didn't leave anything out. Damn traitor." Heero cursed as the professor came running into the room.

"Heero, could you conduct a search of the ship?" He asked, "We have a stowaway running around here somewhere."

Heero hit a few buttons to shut down the camera system and then turned around and clipped Professor B on the back of the skull, making him fall to the floor unconscious. "Bastard." Heero glared down at him before running out and down to the unused portion of the ship. "Gotcha." He said, spying the cylinders of gas piled in the corner of the room. "Pure chlorine." He noticed glumly "We would have all been goners if it wasn't for that girl." He began to set them all into some empty boxes in the corner and then after checking the hallways, snuck them down into the mecha bay where he loaded them into the Eternity Gundam. His next trip took him back to the room he hared with Duo and Trowa where he began to pack the bare necessities he would need on Earth. A change of clothes, a toothbrush and his other limited toiletries, his laptop, some plug ins, disks full of information that was all he needed. If he found anything else he lacked later on, Quatre had seemingly unlimited capital resources and he was always trying to spread it out.

"Heero? What's going on here?" Duo asked, walking into their room "Why are we leaving and who was that chick with Trowa? Since when does he have a girlfriend?"

"Keep quiet." Heero warned, "That girl's name is Wysli and she snuck in here to tell us that our lives are in danger. She could also be a spy for the same person that she warned us about and they could have plans for us here. She's going to stay with us until I'm sure that she's a safe person."

"What about Professor B?" Duo asked

"What about him?" Heero asked dryly

"Is he going with us?"

"He's the one who was going to kill us." Heero replied, "Do you really want to drag him along?"

"Why would he want to do that?"

'He's lying unconscious in the control room right now. You can stick around and ask him when he wakes up if you want but I'm getting the hell out of here."

Trowa walked in and began to pack his things quickly and efficiently. "Everyone is aware of the situation who needs to be." He paused "Would you take Wysli with you in the Eternity? Katya is going with Pearl, I'm taking Calisia since Quatre is taking Satunia and Wufei is going to take all of Satunia's baby things with him."

"Hai." Heero grunted

"Heero, where are we going to go on the Earth? They're going to be looking for us down there."

"There's only one secure place that I know of." Heero muttered, "As much as I hate to do it, we're going to the mansion where Relena is hiding out."

"You put her in a mansion?" Duo asked

"It's very well hidden and it's the only place I know of that has enough room for all of us."

"Wouldn't it be less conspicuous if we split up?" Trowa asked

"Not at the moment. I rather have us all stick together until it's too dangerous to do so."

"Alright." Trowa zipped up his bag and stood up "Are we all set?"

"Guys…I think I need another bag." Duo moaned, trying to force down the mountain of items. The two of them looked at him and sighed, several other bags later, they stood up again, their bags bulging out with Duo's "necessities". "Let's get out of here." Heero said with a nod. The three of them made their way out to the bay where the rest of their companions stood around with bags, baby supplies, and one white cat crying in a makeshift carrying case. "Let's get these things loaded and get going." Heero commanded, picking up various bags and packing them in his Gundam. "You're coming with me." He told Wysli, grabbing her wrist and floating up to the cockpit. Minutes later, the eight suits exited Peacemillion and began flying to the Earth. "Hold on for a minute." Heero said, stopping the Eternity suit and throwing the boxes out into space. He climbed back into the cockpit, flew a little ways away and fired a laser beam out at the floating objects, watching them explode. "I'm not going to let you hurt any more innocent people." He swore as the flames quickly went out without any oxygen to feed upon.

"How noble of you." Wysli quipped

Heero glared at her "Put this on." He ordered, pulling a blindfold from the pocket of his jeans "I can't have you knowing the exact location of our safe house."

"Whatever you say." Wysli shrugged and fastened it over her eyes

"Hn." Heero grunted, flying through the atmosphere and over the continents until they settled down in a hidden valley on the South American continent. Heero laid the Eternity Gundam down on the ground and pulled a net covered in brush and other plants over it to hide it from anyone who may have been flying overhead.

He undid her blindfold and helped her out of the suit "It's this way." He said gruffly, leading her through the trees until a massive building rose up in front of them.

"Why is there a mansion in the middle of nowhere?" She asked

"It suited our purposes." Heero shrugged as the rest of their group caught up to them.

"I am so not looking forward to this." Duo grumbled, struggling with his bags "I can't stand that girl."

"Does she even know we're coming?" Quatre asked

"There aren't any phones here, remember?" Heero asked, "The only communication she has with the outside world is through the laptop I left her. There's a connection in there that is run by one of the satellite companies. It would be nearly impossible to track her down that way."

Trowa walked up and knocked on the door. "Relena, it's us." He called softly through the intercom system.

"The door opened and a girl who couldn't be much older then the rest of them opened up the door. "Heero?" She asked, opening it even wider.

"Hn." Heero glared

"Why are you all here?" She asked, noticing the bags "I take it you're planning on staying awhile."

"It wasn't safe for us to stay in space so we had to find somewhere on the Earth to stay." Trowa answered for the rest of them since no one else really seemed to want to be social.

"Well, I'm glad you're here." Relena smiled "Life gets pretty boring when you're living in hiding."

"This is your powerful world leader?" Teardra asked in complete disbelief "She can't be more then sixteen."

"I'm seventeen." Relena replied, "Now who are all of you?"
"Teardra Lee." She replied, her eyes icy cold.

Pearl stepped forward "I'm Pearl Robyn." She said, much more pleasantly then Teardra had "This is Katya Anne, Calisia Rose, Iris Teresa, Orchide Christine, and…" She paused

"Wysli Marie." The new white haired girl supplied, offering her hand for Relena to shake.

"Pleased to meet you all." Relena said with another smile

"Is there enough room for all of us here?" Heero asked

Relena thought for a moment "There are seven bedrooms here so there should be plenty of room."

"Let's get inside then." Heero said, more gruffly then usual. The mass of fourteen teenagers moved into the spacious living room area.

"So much for roughing it." Teardra commented, looking around at the expensive furniture and fixtures around her.

"Who stays with the baby?" Relena asked

"Do you want to?" Quatre asked Katya, "She seems to depend on you now."

"Alright." Katya agreed readily.

"You have a baby?" Relena asked Quatre in shock "I can't say I expected that one."

"I found her on the lunar base after it was destroyed." He explained, "I've already taken care of the formalities and I've legally adopted her. It wasn't very difficult to get it approved with no immediate family and with my family being who we are. Katya came around a few months ago and volunteered to be her nanny so I could keep fighting. The situation has worked out fine."

"I see. Well, then the two of you can have the master bedroom upstairs. It has its own private bathroom which you'll probably end up needing with a young child."

"That's fine with me." Katya replied

Hours later, everyone else was settled in; Heero, Trowa and Wufei were sharing a larger bedroom on the second floor. Quatre and Duo, Pearl and Calisia were in the two adjoining room with connecting doors leaving Iris and Orchide and Teardra and Wysli with the remaining two rooms on that floor. Relena was able to keep her bedroom on the third floor with Satunia and Katya across the hall.

Later on that night, Relena walked out onto the balcony and gazed out into the night. Somehow fate had brought her only true love back to her. She had been slowly falling into a socially deprived depression, not having anyone that she was able to talk to. People and noise, from the time she was able to walk, up until these recent times, had surrounded her. Now there was a warrant out for her arrest and she was forced to live in hiding until the pilots were able to come to her rescue again.

She heard the balcony door below her open and a dark figure moved out into the dim light that shone out from behind the curtains. She looked down and smiled as she recognized the dark figure. "Heero." She murmured softly into the night. He gazed out over the area, not hearing her loving word and if he did, he ignored it like he often did to her. "I still love you." She whispered, walking back inside "I probably always will. But it doesn't matter, does it Heero?" She looked down at him one last time, shook her head and walked back inside the house.