CheyII
Cheyenne – Wake Up Call

Duo had sat there by the couch restlessly. The only times he slept was when he fell asleep or when one of the pilots would drug his coffee. It had been nearly four days since he had brought Zacha to the safe house, and he watched her like a hawk. Making
sure that she was still breathing and for any signs of her waking up. Incredibly tired, Duo meant only to rest his eyes on the third night. But his 'few moments' turned into a few hours, as he'd fallen asleep with his head in his folded arms, propped on
the edge of the couch. The other pilots were relived when he finally fallen asleep.
The sun was shining, and a warm, bright light filled Zacha's mind. She followed the light; embraced it. She felt a new energy surging through her veins, a new blood beating in her heart. She now realized the passage of time, here in this 'in-between';
she remembered getting weaker, then darkness. She remembered the space-like void she had been in, caught between life and death. Too tired and unable to choose, she remained there until she could decide. She also remembered hearing the voices of her friends
and those who loved her, and saw their faces formed in the darkness. At that moment the option presented itself; two tunnels, one of green growing things and endless streams of water, the other of that warm light. As she embraced the light, she looked
all around her, felt herself getting stronger, and then she opened her eyes.
Zacha groaned softly and squeezed her eyes. She inhaled deeply, and blinking her eyes once or twice, she looked up and around. She was in a strange, bright house that was nicely furnished and clean. Nicest thing she'd been in inside in a while. The sights
and sounds were totally alien to her, but then the soft sound of steady sleep breathing invaded her ears. She turned to her side to see a sleeping Duo. She smiled to herself. He's so adorable when he's asleep, she thought. Sleeping, he doesn't look that
much different from when he was a kid. Trying to keep quiet, she took her fingernail and gently tickled his eyebrow. He twitched, then smacked himself in the face.
"Cut that out," he grumbled. He yawned, and then met her smiling eyes. "Zacha," he whispered. "You've come back to me. I thought you'd never wake up."
She smiled weakly. "Hello, Duo." No other words were needed; the moment was one of touch and emotion. Finally, Duo ended the moment, getting up and helping Zacha to sit upright. She wasn't ready to get up and around quite yet, so Duo looked down at her
happily. "How do 'ya feel? Anything hurt really bad? Thirsty? Hungry? What?"
She half smiled at him. "Well, it's a bit fuzzy 'round the edges, but everything seems to feel fine. Not too much pain breathing or moving. As far as your question on hungry… fully. But hey, how long… have I been lying here?"
"Umm, let's see… About four days, give or take a few hours." Zacha blinked as Duo went into the kitchen where sounds of talking could be heard. Duo returned promptly with a large stack of blueberry pancakes. "Here ya go, bon appetite! Blueberry pancakes
aala Quatre! Enjoy em while they're hot." As he handed her the plate of pancakes and fork, she blinked in disbelief.
"All of them? For me? Where'd you…?"
"Quatre was cooking them and this is the plate of the cooked ones."
"Duo… these are your friends' breakfast… You sure about this? Won't they be angry?"
"Nah. Just eat. They can always whip up another batch. Besides that, their fault for not watching closer. Now eat! And don't you dare feel guilty about it." She'd lost the argument and gave into her growling stomach. It had only been less than a minute
since he'd brought her the pancakes, and the stack was nearly gone. No sooner did she finish the stack, than did they hear the annoyed shouts of the Arab pilot.
"Duo!" he yelled. "You bring those back!"
Zacha swallowed the last of them and Duo laughed. "Sorry Quatre, but I'm afraid they're gone now!"
"You ate them all?!"
"Oh no, not me. I didn't eat them."
"…."
"..Zacha did. She's awake now!" Duo smiled playfully and took the plate back into the kitchen. Zacha just laughed. She sat there, thinking and looking at her bandaged wrists. Amazing, she thought. I'm certain I should have bled to death. She looked at
all the dressed areas. Man, did I get banged up. Even my fights don't get me this bad; but normally I'm on my feet to fight, equal or outnumbered. If I ever see Bruno again alive, his ass is grass… She looked up to see Duo standing in front of her with t
rest of the team. "Hey," she said smiling. "I'm Zacha, a friend of Duo's. You must be the teammates I've heard so much about."
Heard more about us than we'd like you to know, thought Heero. Duo grinned, pointing them each out. "This is Trowa, Heero, Wufei, and Quatre."
A long while was spent in merry conversation, (at least those who do more than glare. ^^), and as it came to a slow, Quatre popped a question at her.
"So, what exactly do you do for a living?" Quatre asked.
Zacha looked at Duo, then smiled. "Well, if you wanted one opinion, you can read a few cops' wanted posters and files on me. I'm a gang leader of L2, and unlike the stories, there is a purpose to my line of work; my gang and I do it to take care of my
478 children." She grinned at the looks on Quatre's face.
"4…478 children?? Man, and I thought I had a big family…"
"No dear, not mine in that sense. I take care of all the war children I find. All the street children here, and then there's all the ones shipped in and put on the streets. My gang and I find them, group them and care for them. And…." She paused, her eyes
widening a little. "Oh my stars… I've been gone for four days… Man, the gang must be frantic by now! Hey sorry, but is there any chance I can escape for a bit and tell them all it's cool? I mean, if I don't at least notify them that I'm alive, they'll
go nuts looking for me and flaming all the wrong people… You follow, right?"
Duo looked at Wufei. "Well doctor? What're your comments?" Wufei nodded, meaning she looked well enough to move around. Not too long after, she and Duo were walking through her gang's territory. With her usual stealth, she walked into her house, which
was filled with her Ten Finest, as well as a handful of next ranking members and some of the older children. They were having a heated discussion on tracking Zacha, and going from there.
"It's a good plan," came Jimmy's soft voice, "but we don't even know who took her."
"Well one thing's for certain," said Four-Fingers. "We've got to find her and soon! After all that she went through to become leader, fighting to feed those kids all her life, after all's said and done, are we just going to give up on her? Announce her
dead to the entire colony? No way! We've gotta get some kind of working plan organized so we can find her, dead or alive. But the tricky part is finding a plan that she'd go for; I mean, what would she do?"
Zacha couldn't take this anymore; she'd laugh any stitches out and tear a few things. "What I would do," she laughed, "is relax, my man. Chill out guys; the situation's cool." They all ran up to her in one big tsunami, throwing a zillion questions at her
in one breath. "Past is past; what happened is over, so it's all cool. I know I was gone a long time; I was busy regaining consciousness. Yeah, they got my hair. I know it's terrible. Yeah, I'll just be out wandering; you guys can go back to your posts
if you want. Don't worry about me, guys." As the large group of people left, Zacha heaved a large sigh with a sweat drop.
"Have a seat," she said as she sat on her bed mat. Duo looked around as he took a seat in front of her. She smiled. "I was going to wait for Christmas, but, since I'm going to have to blow this place up, I may as well give it to you now. Could you hand
me that crowbar?" Duo handed her the crowbar as she got on the floor, counting boards and nails. She pried a few boards up, and removed a small metal box and handed it to Duo. "Here you go. Merry Christmas."
Duo removed the tiny lock and lifted the lid. When he looked inside, his eyes were filled with wonder and old memories. Pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Pictures of the gundam team, video clips of the gang's best moments, pictures of the children over
the years, of the children at the Maxwell church, of Father Maxwell and Sister Helena, of Duo and Zacha, and of Zacha and family. Duo studied each and every one, recalling fond memories. He looked up at her as she walked over to the phone with two disks.
"So, outta curiosity," he said, "why did they kidnap you?"
"For this," she replied, holding one of the disks. "I don't know for sure, but it's rumored that my father had a large hand in the original design of Mobil dolls and Mobil suits, and had helped with blueprints for the very first gundam suits. On this
disk is everything you could ever want to know about any of these machines. Also has plenty of secrets about Project Meteor, and several other projects, military secrets and tactics of the Alliance and Oz, and enough information to control this entire war
That answer your question?"
"Yep. Question answered. So what's the other disk for?"
"To hack into several other systems so they can't trace any old phone calls, then to terminate the account, and after that detonate the phone. Should only take me a few minutes."
"Oh. When you're done, wanna go for that walk?"
"Kay. I'm just about…. Done. Now, make sure that everything's ready… Duo, get your stuff and hope you don't forget anything. Okay… Now we get out of here… pronto!" Duo grabbed the box; she grabbed the information disk and shoved him out the door and to
the other side of the street. She stood there, counting the seconds.
"Wha…" Duo started. He was stopped in mid-sentence when the entire house exploded.
"Couldn't stay there any longer. Wouldn't be safe, now that everyone knows where I live. So I had to blow it up. Don't worry. I do this all the time. Look." She pointed at the remainders of the house, revealing that only her house burned, and the surrounding
ones remained untouched. "Okay, let's go! Where to?"
Duo blinked. "Wow… nice one," he said. "Where to? How about to start with, you round up all the kids, introduce them to me, split them up into herds, and we take them shopping."
Zacha shot him a funny look. "I'm okay with that plan up until shopping. Do you realize just how expensive it is to shop for just twenty of them? Never mind 478! How will you pay for that? You can't steal the clothing; I tried. Security's too high for that.
Too many cops. So how do intend to pay for them all??"
Duo sighed and grinned. "Well, let's just say that Treize and Zechs are generous enough to cover them. For you see, I have several of each of their major credit cards, debit cards and checking cards, and even access to private Swiss bank accounts. So I
think it's safe to say that they'll be covered with plenty to spare."
Zacha laughed. "Alright. I'll call them."
"Well, let me give it a shot. Hey kids!! Come out, come out!" He blinked as his only reply was and echo.
"Like I was going to explain. Let me call them. I've trained them better than that. See, coming to that kind of call could get them hurt. But they know my call. You might want to cover your ears; it's pretty high pitched." Duo watched as Zacha put her
fingers to her lips and gave three sharp, shrill whistles, kind of like the whistles you do at summer camp. After a moment of silence, children began to appear by the dozen, out of very obvious hiding spots. She gave two low and short whistles, and they
formed into little platoons. Duo gasped that there could be so many children; children from every colony, every age from infancy to teenagers. "Well Duo, here they are. All 478 of them. If you walk between the flanks, they'll introduce themselves, but I warn
you; this could take a while…" Zacha took a seat on a trashcan as Duo began to meet them all, a process that surprisingly only took an hour and a half.
"Wow," he said. "You have a wonderful family. They all seem to love you and being here so much… And what about your gang? Where are they?"
"Oh, you'll meet them later. There's only about fifty or so in the gang, but there's some things you should know about them."
"Like?"
"Like the fact that many of them are ex-soldiers for Oz and the Alliance. I saved them, and they chose to stay here as one of us. These people come from all colonies and histories. We have poor Englishmen and descendants of royalty. Just… Try not to offend
and pick a fight within the gang. Kay? But let's get started!" She gave five more whistles, and several adults came out and stood with the groups of children.
"Alright everyone, listen up! This is my good friend Duo Maxwell, whom some of you have already met or heard stories of. He has a surprise for you all; Duo has generously offered to take us all shopping. Each child gets two new outfits; adults please
make sure the outfits are slightly large for growing room. We'll go in the stores one group at a time. Children, please behave. Duo will hand you payment as you pass. Everybody, dismissed!" Each platoon passed by, Duo handed them a card. When the last of them
had left, Zacha heaved a sigh and smiled. "Well Duo, I think that the rest of the afternoon is ours. Where to?"
"Well, let's someplace to talk. I've gotta tell 'ya about my newest mission…"

Hours passed, and Duo explained that his newest mission was to blow up colony L2, that the reason was unknown, and that Zacha had to get everyone together and off by next week
"So you understand? You're not angry?"
Zacha shook her head with a sigh. "No. Personally, I had a feeling it might come to this, but I just didn't know when. I don't really care about the upper-class area; they can take care of themselves. But what about my gang and children? Where will we
put them for safety?? I can only get so many people to adopt so many…"
"I don't know, but I can tell you this: we've got a refuge spaceship for your gang and kids. It can hold all of them and then some. What kids you can't find homes for go in there and then we all go to Earth. We can find homes for the rest there, or we
can build a safe place and you guys can live there. Or both. How's that?"
Zacha furrowed her eyebrows a moment, then looked up hopefully at her friend. "Alright, I'll go with that plan. But for now I'll need your help in contacting places to take my children.
And so the next few nights were spent finding suitable homes for Zacha's many, many children. The children under the age of twelve had foster homes arranged, and those above twelve had an option: they could try to make it on their own or have foster care
arranged. Some of the older children decided that they couldn't be separated from some of the younger ones and chose to make it on their own with their brothers and sisters. Duo had Trowa talk Catherine into taking about twenty-five or so. When she ask
Zacha what she would do with so many, her answer was "Catherine, this is a circus. Think hard." In the end, Zacha had about ten children left, four teenagers to care for them, and her gang of two hundred.
She was hiding her sadness very well. Her reason was that she didn't have time to be very sad; she had to get everyone ready to leave. The day before the scheduled bombing, Zacha scoured the streets, houses and all her hiding places for anything she may
have forgotten. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Duo where the Church used to be. He was pulling up a large metal trunk, and told someone to load it into a cargo area of his gundam. Zacha walked off to a large, empty house and began to press
against the walls when she heard someone behind her. She whirled around, relieved to see Trowa. "I wish you wouldn't sneak up on me," she said, still groping the walls.
"Sorry," he said. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for the right spot… Here it is!"
"What spot?"
"It's a weak point in the walls that indicates where to hit. Watch." She picked up a simple hammer and hit that area of the wall. Trowa watched as it came crumbling down, revealing a large stock of guns. "Would you mind tearing some down please? Just
grab and pull; it'll come right out." Within minutes the wall was gone, revealing at least twenty different kinds of guns, and many of each, all neatly placed behind the wall. There were even machine parts to a beam cannon.
"How did you… where did you…?" Trowa started, shocked by her stock of guns. Zacha smiled at him. "Well, some of these are payment from jobs past, and some we just stole. We'd hi-jack a fancy jet for someone, get the information or persons needed, and
we'd get paid, and got to keep the jet. Well, we had no use for a jet, so we just scrapped it for it's more useful parts to make what we needed."
Trowa raised and eyebrow. "Oh? Like what?"
"For starters, these," she said, removing her hip bag. She dug out an assortment of devices, all of them being smaller than a silver dollar. "These are some of my favorite and most useful machines. Here are mini smoke grenades; good for escaping, distrations,
and special effects for shows. And these wonderful little tubes are my mini C4 detonators. Each one has only a few grains of C4, but they're not to be underestimated. One can take out two of these town houses; three can take a block; seven is like
small C4 bomb itself. And then there's the tiny light bombs, gas bombs and tracking devices. All home made out of scraps of everything." She smiled brightly, enjoying being able to show off her 'trophy shelf'.
"So, you have over a hundred stolen guns, and I'm assuming they're for your gang. But where'd you get the beam cannon parts?"
"Yes, the guns are for my gang and whoever needs them. As far as where I got the beam cannon parts… The gang helped to find the parts to build them, and I have all the plans." She paused, putting the guns into boxes, unloading them and packing them as
she were simple moving them down the street. "And I should probably shut up now, as I'm telling you way too much information…" Trowa sighed in amusement. "No biggie; I'll tell ya more when I know you better."
"Is that all you build from the scraps? Just more weapons and stuff?"
"Well, yes and no. For now I've been making weapons for the gang 'cause we needed 'em. But, seeing as how we're all split up now, and what's left of us are goin' to Earth, we won't likely need them. I mean, I'll keep a stock of my detonators and the the
things I keep in my bag, but I won't need all these guns. So I'm just take enough for all the adults to have one big gun and one handgun. But aside from weapons, I at least have designs for other handy things. The rest that I won't need I'll just be leaving
ere; if you see anything you like, feel free to take it."
Finally night passed and dawn came, and it was time to load everyone in the spaceship and evacuate L2 for Earth. Zacha stood at the door to the spaceship, making sure all children, gang members and supplies were on board. She gave a sad sigh as she watched
the last of them board, thinking about how much she missed her children. She was about to board herself, when Duo gave her arm a gentle tug.
"No," he said. "This ride isn't for you. You come with me, if you like."
Zacha looked around at all her gang members and the few remaining children. She then turned her attention to Four-fingers; next to her, he was highest ranking and was to take charge in her absence. "Four-fingers?" she asked. "You think you guys can
control them for the trip to our new home? Or do you need me here?"
Four-fingers looked at all the gang, taking their votes wordlessly. "Yeah," he answered with a smile. "You go ahead; we'll be fine. Maybe on Earth we'll meet again." He walked up to her and grasped her shoulders gently. "Good journeys, my leader and friend"
Zacha smiled, holding back tears. "And to you, old friend. Go in peace; you play leader for a bit. And when we all get back together again may it be of more peaceful times. Good journeys." He bent down and she hugged him tightly. She looked at the face
of her gang and children; the faces of her peers, her followers, her family. They'd always been together and she'd always led them; and through victory or defeat and all setbacks and obstacles in between, they'd never deserted her, questioned her judgment,
or considered for very long to vote against her. She was a good leader, and that was it. But now she handed the title to Four-fingers temporarily. She stood back as the doors to the spaceship closed and wondered if she would ever see her gang and children
again.
Duo took her gently by the arm, leading her to his Deathsythe, understanding her motherly pains. As the cockpit opened, she whistled in awe. "Niiice..." she said to no one in particular. "Very nice..."
Duo smiled. "Thank you, and welcome. I'd like you to meet a very good friend of mine. THIS is Deathsythe; Deathsythe, this is Zacha. She's going to be staying with us for a little while."
Zacha raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Duo.. You're acting as though it's an actual person.."
"Well, in a way, Deathsythe is alive. He's an individual being with his own personal thoughts, opinions, biases,point of veiw and personality; sounds pretty human, ne?"
"Duo, at times, I think you should be committed..." she sighed with a smile, walking in.
Duo smiled at the gundam. "Don't worry, buddy," he said quietly. "She'll figure it out in time..." He followed Zacha in, continuing the 'tour'. "See? There's room enough for the both of us." He motioned for her to sit in a seat identical to his that folded
out (a spare for company! ^^') As she sat down, she winced lightly as something bumped one of her still bandaged wrists. "You okay down there?" he asked as he took his seat.
"Yeah, I'm cool... Just bumped my wrist, that's all. So this is your gundam? Not bad.. Not bad at all... No wonder you like this job! (I mean, look at all the BUTTONS!!)" She smiled as she looked around the cockpit, happier than she could show to be with
her friend again. As Duo started it up, she quickly fastened her seat belt and tightly gripped the bars under her seat. "So what next?"
"Well," Duo said with his Shiningami grin, "funtime begins.." Deathsythe started up, and was walking around the colony. Zacha gripped the bars tighter, but looked out the window watching every detail with wide eyes. Deathsythe stepped on cars, sliced
buildings in half like butter, but then stopped abruptly for a moment. Deathcythe lifted his left leg to where Duo could see the bottom of his foot. "Eeeeww! I hate it when they get under my feet like that!" Duo said, wrinkling his nose. He turned and
scraped Deathsythe's foot on the side of a part of a building. Zacha looked at what was scraped off and turned away disgustedly.
"Oh!" she cried. "Duo! That's disgusting!" Duo shrugged at her and kept going. This went on for about twenty minutes; the destroying of the OZ base; before he flew off the colony. Floating about thrity feet from the colony, Duo opened up a fireing system
and took careful aim. As Duo put his hand on the controls to fire, Zacha stopped him.
"Zacha," he said, biting his lip. "I have to do this!"
"No," she said quietly. "Let me; wouldn't want to give you guys too bad a reputation. The Hazzard will take care of this for you." Duo was stunned at her words as she called to the shuttle. "Four-Fingers, everything's ready. GO." The man gave a firm nod
and pushed a button on a small detonator. Before their eyes, the colony exploded bit by bit. The younger children were ordered not to watch; older children watched in silence. A handful of the gang wept. Zacha simply bit her lower lip and heaved a sigh

Duo looked at her, amazed that she would have the heart to destroy her own home colony. "Zacha..." He didn't know exactly what to say. L2 was their home. Now, the only other place they could safely go was a place completely alien to them; Earth.
The shuttle flew in front of Deathsythe the entire time to make sure that it went safely. Hours went in quiet talking; Zacha played off her sadness very well. "Check this out," Duo said, pulling a box from uner his seat. He opened it for her, and revealing
old pictures and a collection of crosses.
"Oh my God!" Zacha exclaimed. "I remember this picture! This is the one James took of you and me after the mud fight! I didn't know these still existed." Duo simply smiled. "And where did you get all these crosses? There are so many of them...." Duo to
the box.
"Well, they're from all the colonies and Earth. This one's from Africa; this one's from France; and THIS one is the one you made for me at craft time." The cross he held up was made from about five different colors of Play-Dough, thick, lop-sided, very
fragile and made with love. On one side was written in very wobbly handwriting: TO DUO. "I've always kept it in here, so it would always be with me. And there's a present in here for you; sort of a late birthday present." From the assortment he removed
small black velvet box. Zacha's eyes widened as Duo opened the box. In it was a small golden cross with a small pearl in the center.
"My God.. Duo.. Thank you... It's the most beautiful thing I've ever been given! Thank you!" He slipped the necklace around her neck and she studied it over. It was very simple, but she was simply enchanted by it. Duo smiled at her.
"And there's another little surprise for you. Close your eyes." Zacha gave him a funny look, but did as she was told, unsure of what to expect. After another minute of her eyes being closed, Duo was ready. Deathsythe was positioned just right. "Alright
Zacha.. NOW." Zacha opened her eyes, and was almost in tears. Here she was, in space, now staring straight at the Earth.
". . ." She was speechless. She was now facing her new home, where she and her remaining children would live in safety and hopefully peace. It looked like something from a dream to her; the only word she could use to describe it was "heaven". Long ago,
in the Church, she said she'd never get to Heaven, because she was bad. But now, she was proved wrong; she was still alive, and facing the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen outside of a dream. "Duo, if this new home's as wonderful as it is beautiful,
know my children and I will be happy..."
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