Author's Note: Blah blah, I don't own Gundam Wing, don't sue me,
don't send gangsters who are on your payroll to beat me up because I used
your characters, because I'm saying I don't own 'em and I bruise real easy.
'Kay, that's done.
Duo slumped into his chair, completely exhausted. Never, he thought, let anyone, especially your girlfriend, tell you that running a junkyard would be easy. The paperwork, the endless streams of hobos that you had to chase out, it was just the pits. Though, for the pros list, he did get a lot more time with Hilde now. Duo smiled to himself, flipping on the TV. Yeah, living and working with Hilde was great. Especially since the war was over. Then he caught the news.
"Early this morning, hopes for peace were shattered by a blast in the Earth Sphere United Nations capitol building," Duo couldn't believe what the reporter was saying, an explosion? At the ESUN capitol building? It was too much, the war was over, and there had been an explosion?
"Search and rescue teams are still trying to ascertain the cause of the blast, but it seems to have come from this area," the reporter gestured towards an unidentifiable pile of rubble, "which used to be the central meeting room for the top United Nation leaders. At this time, no information is known on casualties, though near hundreds are presumed to be dead, including Vice Foreign Minister Relena Dorlain, whos body was not found, but was expected to be in that room at the time the bomb went off." At that, Duo nearly stopped breathing. Relena was dead? That was the hardest to swallow of all, of course she was a high profile target, but of all the people for this to happen to…. He almost never talked to Heero, but he'd managed to get in contact with him, the guy was about as unreadable as ever, but when Relena was brought up…. Duo knew that those two had a lot of future together, assuming he'd ever admit it, but now…. Just then, Hilde entered the room, having caught the story on the TV in their shared bedroom.
"Duo… do you think…" she started to speak, then trailed off uncertainly.
"I dunno, Hilde… but they said that they couldn't find her… maybe Heero stopped her from going in, and he's just hiding her… or maybe…" now it was Duo's turn to trail off. He was typically known for his optimism, but he knew it couldn't be possible this time. And if this were meant to start a war, then the ESUN would be helpless, all the Gundams, hell, all the mobile suits, were destroyed, not just sent off to the sun in an asteroid this time, but honest to God destroyed. He'd been there himself to see it, and if someone wanted to start something now…. I don't know what I'd do, Duo thought to himself, if a war started up again… I don't know if I could fight….
Zechs glared through Tallgeeses monitor at the new Gundam, Shadowhawk. "Lieutenant? Lieutenant of what, the ESUN has no military, the Preventers don't use military ranks, what are you talking about?" And how would he know about who killed Relena?
"Lieutenant of the Dragon's Claw organization, I'm here to get you and the rest of the Gundam pilots, we've got serious trouble," the voice came back to him over the intercom, sounding weary, probably of having to explain himself to WuFie, who Zechs knew by personal experience could be very untrusting. Other than that though, the voice sounded a bit youthful, probably only a few years younger than Zechs himself, who was 21 now.
"Dragon's Claw? How come I've never heard of that before?" Zechs asked, instantly untrusting of this new pilot. As a rule, he didn't trust secret organizations.
The new pilot sighed, "the Dragon's Claw is an organization dedicated to the safekeeping of the Earth Sphere United Nation, acting and founded independantly from said nation, and without that nations knowledge of it's existance. Until now, that is," Ace finished off, sounding as though he had just recited part of a training manual.
"And how is it that you know who attacked Relena, not even the Preventers have been able to figure that out yet and they started looking as soon as reports of the attack went out," Zechs unconsciously clenched a fist as he spoke, the mere mention of Relena's supposed death nearly sent him over the edge.
"Simple, we knew the group existed previous to yesterday's attack, we'd been keeping watch over that group for about a year, and, though we missed the actual move on the ESUN capitol, we're dead certain that they were responsible,"
"Then who was it?"
"Come with us and you'll find out soon enough. Rayer out," Abruptly, the Lieutenant broke the communication link and increased it's speed toward the L4 Colony cluster.
Quatre sat in his chair, staring absently down at the papers in front of him. He knew that he had work to do still, but he just couldn't. Not after news like that. Relena, dead…. Every time he thought about it, he nearly collapsed from grief. She'd been a good person, nearly the only good person who had come out of the war, and now…. Quatre suddenly looked up at the sound of his phone ringing like it was going to fly off the hook. Sighing sadly, Quatre picked it up, barely able to speak, "Hello?" his secretary answered on the other end.
"Three people are here to see you, Mr. Winner, one of them is calling himself Chang WuFie,"
"Send them up now, as soon as you can!" Quatre nearly screamed the words. If WuFie was here, that meant he had something important to say, WuFie had been out of touch since the end of the war, and wasn't very personal anyway, he'd use the phone or E-mail if it was something that he trusted, but if he was here in person, that meant he had something extremely important. He heard running steps outside his door, and the sounds of someone being pushed, or rather, knocked, to the ground as the doors of his office burst open, Chang WuFie running up to his desk.
"Quatre, you need to come with us, now," Quatre blinked. WuFie was never one for politeness, but this was downright strange, bursting into his office like he was being chased… and then, Quatre noticed the other two people who were facing in either direction down the hallways leading to his office. One of them was Zechs Merquise, and the other one he didn't know, and only had time to register the fact that he was wearing all black, black leather jacket, black pants, black boots, black shirt under the jacket, black fingerless gloves, and a black hat on his head, a strand of spiky brown hair hanging down over his eyes, before Quatre noticed that they were both holding pistols, and had started firing.
They had managed to get to Quatre's building fast enough, but they'd been tailed. A black, unmarked car had followed them the whole way, and they couldn't waste any time in getting to Quatre's office, so when they finally did, they decided to just have WuFie kick in the door and talk to Quatre, while Ace and Zechs covered the hallway. That's when the brown- suited soldiers rushed down the hallway at them, carrying assault rifles. Zechs recognized the uniforms immediately, United Earth Sphere Alliance uniforms, the group that OZ had infiltrated at the start of the war, and that meant they were part of the group that Ace had called the "Global Insurgence," a group that meant to re-establish the rule of the UESA over Earth and the colonies. That meant they were the ones who attacked Relena. Gripping that thought like a life preserver, Zechs opened fire on the charging soldiers, shooting to kill. Behind him, Ace was doing the same, and WuFie was yelling at them.
"Get in here you two!" Zechs and Ace wasted no time, throwing themselves into the room, diving over Quatre's upturned desk, using it for cover as WuFie joined them, all three popping up from behind the impromptu shield to fire at their enemies. Quatre, meanwhile, was trying to get a signal on the phone, but was receiving nothing but busy signals.
"Don't even bother, Mr. Winner, they'll have the lines cut!" Ace yelled, pausing to slap another clip into his pistol.
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Quatre yelled, obviously shocked at the infiltration of his, supposedly secure, building. Ace could definitely relate, the whole business with the bombing was more than shocking, even to him, and he hadn't expected to have picked up a tail so soon. Must be getting rusty, he thought. He smirked to himself, then popped up from behind the desk again, shooting at the apparently endless supply of brown-suited idiots with machine guns, managing to catch at least two of them in the chest. However, he soon had to retreat down as the enemies opened fire once more with the assault rifles.
"To answer your question, Mr. Winner, we wait!" Ace yelled, cursing as a piece of the desk blew off next to his head, their little shield was getting a little weaker.
"Wait? Wait for what?" Quatre yelled. He was, to put it mildly, pissed. All this was happening all around him and he couldn't do a thing. If there was one thing he hated most in his life, it was feeling useless, which was precisely how he felt right now. Ace didn't even have to respond, as the hallway outside of Quatre's apartment exploded, smoke and fire blasting out, obscuring the sight of the enemy soldiers. Quatre barely had the time to be surprised, before something even more amazing happened. The trademark head of a Gundam appeared outside his window, the blue color and make of the mobile suit instantly identifying it as Heavyarms, and the only person that Quatre knew who could pilot that suit well enough to make a shot like that was Trowa Barton.
Inside Gundam Heavyarms, Trowa almost smiled, seeing Quatre again. It had been years since they'd seen eachother in person, and it was always good to see the golden-haired pilot. Even in circumstances like this. Out of the corner of one eye, Trowa glimpsed the warning light that signified oncoming enemies. Mobile suit enemies, which wasn't good, they were in a colony, and Trowa's Heavyarms suit wasn't exactly known for it's prescision firing. This would be quite the trick, taking that suit out inside a colony without damaging the surroundings. Trowa knew he could probably pull it off, but there was the rather large risk of whatever suit it turned out to be firing wildly…. Heavyarms turned to face the new attacker, and Trowa was, only mildly, surprised by the model. A brown-painted Taurus suit, carrying a rather hefty and damaging beam cannon, which was pointed directly at him. If the other pilot decided he wanted to fire, which was looking pretty likely, then he had two choices, either allow Heavyarms to be hit, which he could only really do for so long, or dodge, while the beam punched a hole dead through the colony wall. Having no options, Trowa hit the comm button on his mobile suit console.
"Well, you appear to have me pinned down." Trowa said, completely calmly.
"Yeah, kiddo, that I do, so you'd best open up that cockpit and tell your friends in that building to come out, before I blast either you or this colony to smithereens!" The other pilot sounded pretty angry. Then, without warning, the right hand of Trowa's Heavyarms suit, not having the double-gatling guns mounted on it, swung around to it's back, coming out holding a beam sabre. There had been a few modifications to Trowa's suit when it was rebuilt by the Dragon's Claw, one of which was melee weapons. Trowa enjoyed the other modification, increased vernier output, as the suit flew toward the Taurus, swinging the beam sabre towards the Taurus's midsection. Trowa scarcely had the time to blink before he was past the enemy suit, Heavyarms' feet landing heavily to a stop, the Taurus suit blasting up in an explosion from the lethal beam sabre slice. Heavyarms de- activated the sabre and re-holstered it, turning once again to face the building, in time to see Ace, Zechs, WuFie, and Quatre running out of the Winner building, racing towards the Colony's hangar bay. Trowa, with the use of his suit, could definitely get there faster, so without hesitation, he blasted off for the hanger, ready to take down any enemy suit that he could find.
Ace ran for the hangar with the others, totally aware that they were pretty exposed out in the public, and not caring, because speed was what they needed. He hadn't expected the GI to attack so soon, in fact, he expected to not even have been noticed by them up until now. Trowa's Heavyarms suit flew past them, already heading toward the hanger, as he noticed a major flaw in his plan. There was absolutely no real way to get Quatre off the colony with this sort of time constraint. They had expected to come to warn him, leave Zechs, WuFie, and Trowa with him and go get the rebuilt Sandrock suit to have Quatre pilot off the colony. The only thing they currently had for transportation was Shadowhawk, Tallgeese, Heavyarms, and Altron, and Quatre riding along with one of them on a combat flight… it would be tricky, but that was their only option right now….
The four pilots barely managed to make it to the hangar, Quatre jumping into Trowa's suit, which had the best armor on it, and therefore, offered the best protection to Quatre if things got tough. Which, Zechs mused, they almost certainly would. He powered up the Tallgeese, switching the weapons systems on, turning Tallgeese toward the airlock doors. As soon as they opened, they'd probably have to come out firing. Well, that was just another challenge, then. He was confident he could take it, especially if these were the same people who killed Relena. He gripped Tallgeese's controls tightly, grimly glaring out at the airlock doors. Just let them try to stop him.
Duo slumped into his chair, completely exhausted. Never, he thought, let anyone, especially your girlfriend, tell you that running a junkyard would be easy. The paperwork, the endless streams of hobos that you had to chase out, it was just the pits. Though, for the pros list, he did get a lot more time with Hilde now. Duo smiled to himself, flipping on the TV. Yeah, living and working with Hilde was great. Especially since the war was over. Then he caught the news.
"Early this morning, hopes for peace were shattered by a blast in the Earth Sphere United Nations capitol building," Duo couldn't believe what the reporter was saying, an explosion? At the ESUN capitol building? It was too much, the war was over, and there had been an explosion?
"Search and rescue teams are still trying to ascertain the cause of the blast, but it seems to have come from this area," the reporter gestured towards an unidentifiable pile of rubble, "which used to be the central meeting room for the top United Nation leaders. At this time, no information is known on casualties, though near hundreds are presumed to be dead, including Vice Foreign Minister Relena Dorlain, whos body was not found, but was expected to be in that room at the time the bomb went off." At that, Duo nearly stopped breathing. Relena was dead? That was the hardest to swallow of all, of course she was a high profile target, but of all the people for this to happen to…. He almost never talked to Heero, but he'd managed to get in contact with him, the guy was about as unreadable as ever, but when Relena was brought up…. Duo knew that those two had a lot of future together, assuming he'd ever admit it, but now…. Just then, Hilde entered the room, having caught the story on the TV in their shared bedroom.
"Duo… do you think…" she started to speak, then trailed off uncertainly.
"I dunno, Hilde… but they said that they couldn't find her… maybe Heero stopped her from going in, and he's just hiding her… or maybe…" now it was Duo's turn to trail off. He was typically known for his optimism, but he knew it couldn't be possible this time. And if this were meant to start a war, then the ESUN would be helpless, all the Gundams, hell, all the mobile suits, were destroyed, not just sent off to the sun in an asteroid this time, but honest to God destroyed. He'd been there himself to see it, and if someone wanted to start something now…. I don't know what I'd do, Duo thought to himself, if a war started up again… I don't know if I could fight….
Zechs glared through Tallgeeses monitor at the new Gundam, Shadowhawk. "Lieutenant? Lieutenant of what, the ESUN has no military, the Preventers don't use military ranks, what are you talking about?" And how would he know about who killed Relena?
"Lieutenant of the Dragon's Claw organization, I'm here to get you and the rest of the Gundam pilots, we've got serious trouble," the voice came back to him over the intercom, sounding weary, probably of having to explain himself to WuFie, who Zechs knew by personal experience could be very untrusting. Other than that though, the voice sounded a bit youthful, probably only a few years younger than Zechs himself, who was 21 now.
"Dragon's Claw? How come I've never heard of that before?" Zechs asked, instantly untrusting of this new pilot. As a rule, he didn't trust secret organizations.
The new pilot sighed, "the Dragon's Claw is an organization dedicated to the safekeeping of the Earth Sphere United Nation, acting and founded independantly from said nation, and without that nations knowledge of it's existance. Until now, that is," Ace finished off, sounding as though he had just recited part of a training manual.
"And how is it that you know who attacked Relena, not even the Preventers have been able to figure that out yet and they started looking as soon as reports of the attack went out," Zechs unconsciously clenched a fist as he spoke, the mere mention of Relena's supposed death nearly sent him over the edge.
"Simple, we knew the group existed previous to yesterday's attack, we'd been keeping watch over that group for about a year, and, though we missed the actual move on the ESUN capitol, we're dead certain that they were responsible,"
"Then who was it?"
"Come with us and you'll find out soon enough. Rayer out," Abruptly, the Lieutenant broke the communication link and increased it's speed toward the L4 Colony cluster.
Quatre sat in his chair, staring absently down at the papers in front of him. He knew that he had work to do still, but he just couldn't. Not after news like that. Relena, dead…. Every time he thought about it, he nearly collapsed from grief. She'd been a good person, nearly the only good person who had come out of the war, and now…. Quatre suddenly looked up at the sound of his phone ringing like it was going to fly off the hook. Sighing sadly, Quatre picked it up, barely able to speak, "Hello?" his secretary answered on the other end.
"Three people are here to see you, Mr. Winner, one of them is calling himself Chang WuFie,"
"Send them up now, as soon as you can!" Quatre nearly screamed the words. If WuFie was here, that meant he had something important to say, WuFie had been out of touch since the end of the war, and wasn't very personal anyway, he'd use the phone or E-mail if it was something that he trusted, but if he was here in person, that meant he had something extremely important. He heard running steps outside his door, and the sounds of someone being pushed, or rather, knocked, to the ground as the doors of his office burst open, Chang WuFie running up to his desk.
"Quatre, you need to come with us, now," Quatre blinked. WuFie was never one for politeness, but this was downright strange, bursting into his office like he was being chased… and then, Quatre noticed the other two people who were facing in either direction down the hallways leading to his office. One of them was Zechs Merquise, and the other one he didn't know, and only had time to register the fact that he was wearing all black, black leather jacket, black pants, black boots, black shirt under the jacket, black fingerless gloves, and a black hat on his head, a strand of spiky brown hair hanging down over his eyes, before Quatre noticed that they were both holding pistols, and had started firing.
They had managed to get to Quatre's building fast enough, but they'd been tailed. A black, unmarked car had followed them the whole way, and they couldn't waste any time in getting to Quatre's office, so when they finally did, they decided to just have WuFie kick in the door and talk to Quatre, while Ace and Zechs covered the hallway. That's when the brown- suited soldiers rushed down the hallway at them, carrying assault rifles. Zechs recognized the uniforms immediately, United Earth Sphere Alliance uniforms, the group that OZ had infiltrated at the start of the war, and that meant they were part of the group that Ace had called the "Global Insurgence," a group that meant to re-establish the rule of the UESA over Earth and the colonies. That meant they were the ones who attacked Relena. Gripping that thought like a life preserver, Zechs opened fire on the charging soldiers, shooting to kill. Behind him, Ace was doing the same, and WuFie was yelling at them.
"Get in here you two!" Zechs and Ace wasted no time, throwing themselves into the room, diving over Quatre's upturned desk, using it for cover as WuFie joined them, all three popping up from behind the impromptu shield to fire at their enemies. Quatre, meanwhile, was trying to get a signal on the phone, but was receiving nothing but busy signals.
"Don't even bother, Mr. Winner, they'll have the lines cut!" Ace yelled, pausing to slap another clip into his pistol.
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Quatre yelled, obviously shocked at the infiltration of his, supposedly secure, building. Ace could definitely relate, the whole business with the bombing was more than shocking, even to him, and he hadn't expected to have picked up a tail so soon. Must be getting rusty, he thought. He smirked to himself, then popped up from behind the desk again, shooting at the apparently endless supply of brown-suited idiots with machine guns, managing to catch at least two of them in the chest. However, he soon had to retreat down as the enemies opened fire once more with the assault rifles.
"To answer your question, Mr. Winner, we wait!" Ace yelled, cursing as a piece of the desk blew off next to his head, their little shield was getting a little weaker.
"Wait? Wait for what?" Quatre yelled. He was, to put it mildly, pissed. All this was happening all around him and he couldn't do a thing. If there was one thing he hated most in his life, it was feeling useless, which was precisely how he felt right now. Ace didn't even have to respond, as the hallway outside of Quatre's apartment exploded, smoke and fire blasting out, obscuring the sight of the enemy soldiers. Quatre barely had the time to be surprised, before something even more amazing happened. The trademark head of a Gundam appeared outside his window, the blue color and make of the mobile suit instantly identifying it as Heavyarms, and the only person that Quatre knew who could pilot that suit well enough to make a shot like that was Trowa Barton.
Inside Gundam Heavyarms, Trowa almost smiled, seeing Quatre again. It had been years since they'd seen eachother in person, and it was always good to see the golden-haired pilot. Even in circumstances like this. Out of the corner of one eye, Trowa glimpsed the warning light that signified oncoming enemies. Mobile suit enemies, which wasn't good, they were in a colony, and Trowa's Heavyarms suit wasn't exactly known for it's prescision firing. This would be quite the trick, taking that suit out inside a colony without damaging the surroundings. Trowa knew he could probably pull it off, but there was the rather large risk of whatever suit it turned out to be firing wildly…. Heavyarms turned to face the new attacker, and Trowa was, only mildly, surprised by the model. A brown-painted Taurus suit, carrying a rather hefty and damaging beam cannon, which was pointed directly at him. If the other pilot decided he wanted to fire, which was looking pretty likely, then he had two choices, either allow Heavyarms to be hit, which he could only really do for so long, or dodge, while the beam punched a hole dead through the colony wall. Having no options, Trowa hit the comm button on his mobile suit console.
"Well, you appear to have me pinned down." Trowa said, completely calmly.
"Yeah, kiddo, that I do, so you'd best open up that cockpit and tell your friends in that building to come out, before I blast either you or this colony to smithereens!" The other pilot sounded pretty angry. Then, without warning, the right hand of Trowa's Heavyarms suit, not having the double-gatling guns mounted on it, swung around to it's back, coming out holding a beam sabre. There had been a few modifications to Trowa's suit when it was rebuilt by the Dragon's Claw, one of which was melee weapons. Trowa enjoyed the other modification, increased vernier output, as the suit flew toward the Taurus, swinging the beam sabre towards the Taurus's midsection. Trowa scarcely had the time to blink before he was past the enemy suit, Heavyarms' feet landing heavily to a stop, the Taurus suit blasting up in an explosion from the lethal beam sabre slice. Heavyarms de- activated the sabre and re-holstered it, turning once again to face the building, in time to see Ace, Zechs, WuFie, and Quatre running out of the Winner building, racing towards the Colony's hangar bay. Trowa, with the use of his suit, could definitely get there faster, so without hesitation, he blasted off for the hanger, ready to take down any enemy suit that he could find.
Ace ran for the hangar with the others, totally aware that they were pretty exposed out in the public, and not caring, because speed was what they needed. He hadn't expected the GI to attack so soon, in fact, he expected to not even have been noticed by them up until now. Trowa's Heavyarms suit flew past them, already heading toward the hanger, as he noticed a major flaw in his plan. There was absolutely no real way to get Quatre off the colony with this sort of time constraint. They had expected to come to warn him, leave Zechs, WuFie, and Trowa with him and go get the rebuilt Sandrock suit to have Quatre pilot off the colony. The only thing they currently had for transportation was Shadowhawk, Tallgeese, Heavyarms, and Altron, and Quatre riding along with one of them on a combat flight… it would be tricky, but that was their only option right now….
The four pilots barely managed to make it to the hangar, Quatre jumping into Trowa's suit, which had the best armor on it, and therefore, offered the best protection to Quatre if things got tough. Which, Zechs mused, they almost certainly would. He powered up the Tallgeese, switching the weapons systems on, turning Tallgeese toward the airlock doors. As soon as they opened, they'd probably have to come out firing. Well, that was just another challenge, then. He was confident he could take it, especially if these were the same people who killed Relena. He gripped Tallgeese's controls tightly, grimly glaring out at the airlock doors. Just let them try to stop him.