Chapter 14

Stephanie stared at herself in the mirror. The bangs were itching her forehead. She seriously hadn't had bangs since she was in middle school and being that she was now twenty-three, that was a decade ago. Frowning at her reflection, she realized that she hadn't exactly aged a whole lot, at least not in the face. She probably looked the same as she did when she was thirteen!

"I really hope this is worth it," Steph said as Lady Une entered the room, accompanied with a seamstress.

"It should be," Une offered as the seamstress took ahold of Steph's arms and began to measure her entire body. Steph tried not to look in the mirror as the woman did her job. At least the Preventer training had put her body back into some kind of shape, otherwise she probably wouldn't be too pleased with the results of this.

"She's a couple inches too big," the seamstress said, standing straight. "She needs to lose some weight."

"Or Relena needs to eat a goddamn sandwich," Steph muttered.

"I'm sorry?" Relena Darlian-Peacecraft said as she entered the room. "I need to what?"

"Nothing," Steph quickly amended. Not that what she said wasn't true. Relena was a bit too skinny for her height. Probably stressed from her job... or stalking Heero too much. Okay, okay, Steph sighed. I have a bias of Relena in my head from the anime. I need to not do that. It's not fair to her, and I didn't do it with anyone else.

"Can you step off the platform and stand next to the Vice Foreign Minister?" Une asked.

Steph did as she was told and immediately regretted looking into the mirror. The two of them were identical, except for the fact that Steph had actual curves and Relena's curves were practically non-existent, as well as her own eyebrows. For some reason, even though she was naturally blonde, her eyebrows had always been dark.

"We'll probably need to bleach my eyebrows," Steph decided to offer.

"Only a little," Relena smiled, turning to Steph. "If we don't have some kind of physical difference, even small, then it will be hard for us to tell each other apart! The rest of the world will be fooled, I think,"

Une nodded in agreement. "You'll be briefed in the car. From there we're heading to Europe by shuttle, so I hope you bring some books, Miss Witechowsky."

"No problem," Steph replied as they all crossed the room. Feeling the silence as a dead weight, Steph decided to comment, "I really hope that Jaenelle and Sharon are okay."

"Heero and Duo will find them," Une said gently.

"You can count on Heero," Relena put in almost instantly. "If there's anyone who can find them and bring them home safe and sound, it's Heero."

"Still," Steph sighed. "I hope they don't get into too much trouble ahead of time."

"What kind of trouble could they possibly get into?" Relena asked, blinking.

"You really don't want to know," Steph groaned.

Duo practically jogged back to Heero, who was imputing information onto his cell phone. "They left a couple of hours ago with some others," Duo said as he reached Heero. "They thankfully were talking about their plans, so the lady says they went to dinner and then some nightclub called G Plus Plus."

"G Plus Plus?" Heero entered the data onto his phone and waited for the map to come up.

"They probably finished dinner by now and are there," Duo nodded, looking over Heero's shoulder and watching the map pop up. He whistled. "That's pretty far from here."

"We'll catch a taxi," Heero said, putting his phone in his pocket. "They know these roads best."

"But we have our own car!"

"Do you really want to navigate Chinese streets?" Heero asked, raising an eyebrow as he pushed open the main doors and headed down to the street. "Even with a GPS, Wufei said that new taxi drivers often get lost. We have no time to get lost."

"But our car is pimp."

"Duo. We just rented it. It's not actually our car." Heero stuck his hand in the air, waving down a cab.

"I know," Duo sighed. "But I want to drive it!"

"Fine," Heero snapped as the taxi pulled up. "You can get in the car and follow the taxi." He yanked open the door and slid into the car.

"Aw, man," Duo groaned, sliding into the car as Heero snapped the directions in crisp Mandarin. Duo blinked. "Since when do you speak Chinese?"

"I only know some basics," Heero said as the taxi driver pulled away from the curb. "Wufei taught me pronunciation of pinyin, romanized Chinese words."

"Trying to impress Jaenelle, right?"

Heero ignored Duo's remark.

Duo grinned. "You know how to say, 'I want to hit that with you' in Chinese?"

"'Hit that'?" Heero blinked, then shook his head. "Focus on the objective, Maxwell."

"Fine, Yuy." Duo crossed his arms. "You are so no fun. Like, ever."

"My apologies," Heero replied in a sarcastic monotone.

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?" Duo demanded.

"Objective, Duo."

"Fine, fine." Duo sighed, looking out the window and staring at the flashing lights of the city, unable to make out more than a couple of the characters' meanings. "I just hope they won't be too disappointed when we tell them that it's past curfew and they have to come home now."

The bass was booming. The lights were flashing. Bodies were everywhere, and the bartender just kept passing out the drinks. Sweat just kept dripping. The DJ was spinning.

Yes. This was the way a club should be, Sharon thought as she and Jaenelle were dancing with probably the hottest Chinese guys on the dance floor.

What a way to end a pretty much perfect night! Zhang Kai and Wang Xiaogang seemed to be too good to be true. Zhang Kai was into martial arts such as wushu and video games, Wang Xiaogang was a Tai Chi enthusiast (Jaenelle almost fainted when he mentioned that) as well as an avid player of the piano. It was also clear that Kai was into Sharon and Xiaogang was into Jaenelle. The boys had been excellent conversationalists and the nagging feeling that Sharon had had earlier was now completely gone.

The best part about this club was that it was playing just the kind of music that Sharon herself had been addicted to her entire life. Zhang Kai had happily filled her in with the new genres that had evolved in electronica and who the new Djs were as well as let her sample his music player. It was like heaven. No, he was like heaven. Could it really get any better than this?

Xiaogang tapped Kai on the shoulder. Sharon watched him say something to Kai before Kai leaned over and said loudly in her ear so she could hear over the massive music, "Xiaogang and Jaenelle are getting a drink. You wanna join them?"

"Sure," Sharon grinned.

By the time that Sharon and Kai made their way to the table, Jaenelle already had a drink and was sitting very close to Xiaogang and he and her were making a toast. Jaenelle took a few sips of her drink. Xiaogang set his down before drinking, rising to greet both Sharon and Kai. "You guys get any drinks yet?"

"Not yet," Sharon said.

"What do you want?" Kai asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. Jaenelle was sipping her drink again.

"Um," Sharon mused. "I don't know. Hey, Jae, what did you-"

Jaenelle slumped to the side, unconscious. Her glass hit the ground.

"Damn!" Kai cursed. "How the fuck did it get through her system so fast?"

Sharon stared at Jaenelle before rounding on Kai. "You fucking bitch!" she screamed, enraged. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

She swung her fist at Kai but, sadly, the bastard had been honest about his wushu skills. He caught Sharon's hand with ease, twisting her arm behind her back. Pain shot through her body and soon Sharon was on her knees, cursing both of the men loudly and obscenely.

"Why the fuck are you doing this?" Sharon demanded, tears coming to her eyes. She wasn't sure if the tears were from the pain in her body, the betrayal, or her looking at Jaenelle's all too-still body.

"You'll see," Kai smirked. "You and your other black friend... what's her name, Gina? You've been our targets all along."

What? Sharon blinked. But Gina wasn't even on L5!

"Don't worry, we won't kill your friend," Kai continued as Xiaogang started to pick up Jaenelle, swinging her onto his shoulders. "But I wouldn't be surprised if Xiao has a little fun with her first."

"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER!" Sharon screamed, violently thrashing under his grip, only for him to press down harder, stepping on one of her ankles and grabbing her other wrist. "Jae!" Sharon screamed, watching as Xiaogang calmly began to walk away. "JAE! WAKE UP, JAE!"

Suddenly, Kai's grip loosened a little.

"Step away from the girl," a familiar voice said. "You don't wanna lose your head, man."

Sharon looked up in time to watch Heero Yuy shoot past him. Heero sent a fierce kick to the man's knee, causing him to buckle. It seemed effortless to Sharon, watching Heero take Jaenelle from him as he stumbled to one knee, cursing.

"I said, step away from the girl!" Duo's voice repeated loudly from behind Sharon. Kai loosened his grip on Sharon. She wasted no time and scrambled away from him, turning to look at Duo. His gun was pressed hard against Kai's temples.

Gunfire went off. Sharon whipped back around in time to see Heero, still holding Jaenelle in his arms, dive behind a table. She watched Heero knock the table over, using it as a shield against Xiaogang's gunfire. Heero set down Jaenelle, whipping his own gun out from his back pocket as he snapped up and opened fire on Xiaogang. Xiaogang's knees seemed to just burst open as he fell down, screaming.

"Now then," Duo said, forcing Kai to his knees. "Let's have a chat, shall we? I-"

Kai's hand snapped up, wrapping around Duo's. "Solet ed!" he laughed.

Then he pulled the trigger.

Sharon had never seen a man die before. It almost looked like the way Heero had blown out Xiaogang's knees, but it wasn't the same. She felt something touch her face. It was warm and wet. Her hand seemed to move without real thought, real consideration as it reached to wipe off the foreign substance that was now on her face. She seemed almost surprised to see that it was blood.

Another gunshot. Sharon turned around. She didn't know why she turned around. But she did it anyway. Like a train wreck, she thought to herself. I can't seem to stop watching.

Xiaogang's body fell forward. His own gun was still in his mouth as he fell. Sharon watched Heero's gun lower. She was glad she couldn't see his face. Glad that Jaenelle was passed out and not seeing any of this.

It was then that the rest of the club finally realized what was happening in their corner.

It was then that everyone else started to scream.

Including herself.