Out of the many things Chang WuFei had pictured himself doing with his life, this had not been one of them. Out of the many choices offered to the son of a wealthy lord such as his father, this was not one of them. Out of all the many stupid mistakes he could've made, he had to have made the one that ended up with him stuck in a contract for doing something he loathed for the next three years.
Being the host on a talk show.
He wasn't sure how it had happened. In fact, WuFei was almost certain he didn't want to know how it had happened. However, he was currently in the middle of his third month of 'The Dark Side Of The Moon', a program specializing in the talk of sexual sorts.
Out of all the jobs WuFei had held during his as of yet short lifespan, this was definitely the worst.
As of yet.
When he'd been informed of the title of his show, he'd almost asked what the hell the moon had to do with sex.
The moment before he opened his mouth, he decided he really didn't want to know what the association was.
Unluckily for him, the first female guest on the show had a fairly good idea of what the moon had to do with sex. She was also one who shared her opinions on all subjects rather vocally.
The scholarly martial artist had almost sobbed with relief when she finally left. Except that he had three more guests after her.
No wonder his pay was so high. At this rate, he could buy three small countries within the end of his first year at this horrid job.
"Chang WuFei?" a curt voice called into his 'dressing' room. It was more of a room where he went to escape the crowds who flocked to him after the show, wanting to know if the 'expert' as he was called, was really an expert in such matters rather than a room for dressing, but no one seemed to notice that small detail. Not that anyone should, but that wasn't quite the point.
"Yes?" he sighed, preparing himself for another bout of torture at the heat of the lights, cameras, and what he was dreading most--the action. Only 33 more months, he reminded himself. Then I'm free of this place, and I'll never have to worry about people asking me about... that in any near future.
The door opened, and WuFei turned.
He'd been expecting someone who was about to tell him exactly how many more minutes were left before he was due onstage--three--or some other crazed fan who had managed to slip past the guards to try to find out exactly how experienced he was in the matters he was forced to talk about.
He had not been expecting a man in uniform, with the badge belonging to the government officials.
Not this man at least.
Who would expect a lieutenant as famed as Lieutenant Walker to be in a place like this? Especially since Walker was the one who normally--
No. NO!
"Chang WuFei, by the command of the Wissenschaft Government, you are hereby under arrest."
WuFei had once had the honor of meeting Lieutenant Walker before the man had been made into a Lieutenant under Commander Winner. He'd seemed like a decent man then, full of ideals that would most likely never be made possible.
Less than a year after he had been taken in by the government for 'training' of some sort, Lieutenant Walker had made his first official 'arrest' in the name of the Wissenschaft Government. A youth WuFei barely knew with sweet, trusting, rich caramel eyes was stolen from his home in the middle of the day, while his parents stood by and did nothing to save their only son from his fate. The boy had done nothing wrong except be an expert at understanding tactics.
Two months later, that youth with the sweet caramel eyes had made his first hundred kills.
At the end of his first six months as the government's dog, the youth had cracked, his sweet caramel eyes full of shadows now. The gentleness WuFei had noticed upon first meeting that boy--he'd actually only met him once, but no one forgot sweet caramel like that--had disappeared, leaving behind a broken husk.
He'd mysteriously died in an 'accident' a month after he'd outlived his 'usefulness'.
That hadn't been the first step, nor was it the last in WuFei's long steps of hatred towards the government, but it was the one that stuck out most in his mind. Two people he respected had been taken by that government and warped, their minds twisted until they were full of nothing they'd held before.
Of course, WuFei didn't support the resistance faction who called itself OZ either. They couldn't organize themselves well enough to do a single thing in bringing down the government, and therefore were no use.
But watching someone like Walker, who was highly acclaimed for bringing in prospective soldiers to be 'tested'--or rather, to have their brains erased until they were nothing more than a human body who would follow orders until they were killed--walk into your personal area was not comforting.
"Chang WuFei, will you come of your own will, or will I be forced to employ force?"
WuFei was determined not to go down without a fight. He wouldn't become another one of the government's zombies. He wouldn't become a body without a soul, a mind without thought. He wouldn't--
A war cry split through the walls of the room, shocking both men. For WuFei, it wasn't the fact that he was hearing a war cry coming from just outside his dressing room. He heard those often enough, but it was the way it sounded. So full of fire and passion, so ready to deny everything.
And it was coming from a woman.
"Damnit!" Walker swore, striding to the door so quickly WuFei didn't even see him move before he threw the door open, and whispered two words to the guard outside so fiercely, WuFei wasn't entirely sure Walker was human. "Find her."
Then WuFei remembered Walker wasn't human He was a soldier of the government. There was a vast difference.
Turning back to WuFei, Walker was standing beside the Chinese talk show host in less time than it took to take a sharp breath of surprise. "And you, Chang, would do well to come with me now."
WuFei didn't have the split second it would've taken to form an adequate response--or even a coherent thought.
"Let me go, you fucking bastards!"
WuFei was awake at the first sound of a woman's outrage. He inwardly winced. What kind of woman would use that foul language?
"Now, now, Meiran, what have I told you about your language?" Walker's voice crooned gently, deadly poison beneath the harmless exterior he portrayed before the rest of the world who didn't know him.
"I don't give a damn what you fucking say! Now let me go!" The sound of flesh connecting with flesh split through the air. Not even the thick walls of wherever WuFei now was could block it.
Women were not cut out for battle. Women were, by nature, weaker than men, and couldn't handle themselves in battle.
However, the moans of agony now coming from the direction WuFei had found was 'out' were distinctly male.
Which meant this woman--Meiran, Walker had called her--had done the damage.
Thrown in by Walker rather unceremoniously, WuFei had come face to face with a young woman, perhaps his age, perhaps younger, with startlingly fierce eyes. Shouting a curse in a language WuFei was rather glad he didn't understand, she'd kicked the walls of their prison several times before noticing her companion in this confinement.
"So, the bastards got you too?"
That had been the first time WuFei had met Meiran. Two years ago.
Now, the viciously passionate woman WuFei had known was another statistic, another dead body rotting somewhere, left on a battlefield. He had been left alive, the one who reported the failure of the mission in his deadened voice.
He'd been one of the few who'd escaped being brain-hacked by General Yuy. For some strange reason, he'd been left alone. He still didn't know why, or why he was still alive when, by all rights, he should be dead. But that was life.
Three months ago, he'd been given a new 'partner'. Captured from the OZ resistance faction, Hilde was now simply a step above a drooling idiot--or at least, she had been before the day WuFei had gone to her room to fetch her for a mission and found her lying on her bed, a gentle smile drifting over her beautiful features and her wrists bleeding out the last of her crimson tears.
She'd left him a note, probably written with the last of her sanity, describing OZ to him. Telling him of this movement that hadn't even been able to save her with such words it made him lust for her ramblings of it to be true.
Well, he'd find out soon enough. Rumor was that two of OZ's top spies had been captured. One of them was sure to be ransomed to OZ--he was obviously not a candidate for brain-hacking--but the other would most likely end up as WuFei's new partner, to replace Hilde.
He just wished they'd hurry up about it.
A knock on the metallic door broke through his contemplating on his new partner he hadn't yet seen, and the door whirled open before WuFei had a chance to confirm that he was indeed within quarters as he was supposed to be.
"WuFei. This is Duo Maxwell, your new partner," Lieutenant Barton informed him in his quiet, calm, reasonable way. The door shut behind him as he entered, and the lieutenant gently deposited this 'Maxwell' on one of the chairs.
WuFei knew he had a good chance of overcoming the lieutenant if it was only the two of them in a hand-to-hand contest. He knew the lieutenant knew it as well.
But WuFei didn't regard it as an insult that Barton dared to come in unarmed, as if there was nothing to be feared from the Chinese. Out of all the officials he'd met, Barton actually deserved some of the most pity and respect.
Trowa Barton had joined the government's military willingly. He'd allowed the scientists to do tests on him, to alter him to their standards. Why? For one simple reason. For the same reason he wouldn't walk away, no matter how horrible the government was.
He was in love with the Commander.
Or so he thought. WuFei was fairly certain there was something amiss about that relationship--how could there not be anything with Commander Winner being the way he was--but problems in the way Lieutenant Barton was treated were not his concern.
Yet.