Chapter 3

RRRRRIIIINNNNGGGG

The phone brought Quatre back from his musings. Around him, the other pilots seemed to be slowly coming back to life.

His eyes went to the clock, the softly glowing numbers mocked him. 2:40. In the morning. He could still hear the phone ringing and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wufei making his way towards it. A few seconds later, a bleary-eyed Sally was on the screen.

-"Good, hmm, morning. I think. Uhh, Une wants you four to haul ass down to HQ. Don't ask me why, I certainly don't have the slightest idea. But she did say that she needed you here yesterday and. I'm babbling, am I not? I always tend to do that when I haven't slept. Oh, God. I need coffee!!"

With that, the screen went blank. Wufei turned to the others with a slightly annoyed expression.

-"Maxwell is not driving, clear?"

-"What!! Hey, I'm not that bad!!"

-"No, you're worse."

Duo blew him a raspberry. Wufei went read, his hand inching towards his katana, while Trowa stood to the side, watching, an amused expression on his face. And Quatre ended up wondering how on earth were they going to make it in one piece.

And so it was that they finally found themselves at Preventers Headquarters, on their way to Une's office. Down the hall they could see Zechs and Noin talking quietly and obviously flirting with one another.

Duo felt a pan at the display. Heero.

Quatre was giving him the Look, obviously aware of where his thoughts were drifting to. A pat on the back, in a vain try to reassure him, and they reached the couple.

Zechs looked as if he hadn't slept in a year: he sported dark rings around his eyes and his hair was barely contained in a sloppy ponytail. Noin was being her cheerful self, already having a good dose of caffeine in her system.

-"So, you guys know what she wants?"

-"If we knew, Maxwell, we wouldn't tell you."

-"Got up on the wrong side again, huh? You should really consider getting laid, Milli. That would probably relax you."

Zechs leveled a glare on him, while muttering something under his breath.

-"What was that? I didn't quiet hear you."

Before the blond man could answer, the door to the office was thrown open, and a really frightened technician ran for the elevator as if he had every demon from hell at his tail. They were left standing there, gaping as the cloud of dust settled in his wake, and wondering what exactly was going on.

That was, until a very tired Sally peeked out the door, and turned to inform her superior officer of their arrival.

-"Get your asses in here, NOW!!!!!"

Sally was not having a nice time. Une had had her working for more than 72 straight hours, and she desperately needed a rest. Hell, she had taken (stolen, seemed more like it) more than an hour to rest before she called in her friends, using as an excuse that she couldn't find them any faster. She wasn't entirely sure that her boss had bought it, but it had given her some desperately needed shut eye. Still, she felt that now that the others were here, perhaps a few more hands working to solve this mess would make it easier for all the involved. She was pretty sure that that poor man from tech support was going to be begging to be fired by morning (well, later in the morning), as they were not accepting resignations until the situation was solved.

With a sigh, she returned her attention to the new discussion taking place before her eyes. She just hoped that Duo would keep his mouth shut. Upsetting Une anymore would probably send them all to the guillotine. Now that she thought about it, Wufei should probably keep his thoughts to himself too.

Une watched calculatingly as her new "victims" stepped into the chamber of their doom. Oh, yes, she was feeling vindictive. It had been a while since something had pissed her of as badly as the actual situation had. If she couldn't have her beauty sleep, then no-one in Preventers would.

-"Its good to see you can actually make it on time to anything, Preventer Maxwell."

He froze, like a deer caught in headlights, when her tone sank in. The sheepish grin he gave her was tinged with nervousness. Good. Now he knew where the wind was blowing from.

-"We have a situation, one that may require your particular field of expertise."

-"Which one? Terrorism? Infiltration? Stealing?."

-"All of the above, and then some. You see, I want you to take up what you all are best at."

-"And that would be.?"

-"Kisama!! Maxwell, are you really that dense!? She's talking about the Gundams!"

-"But she can't be, Wu-man, because there are no Gundams!!"

-"Actually."

Everyone turned to look at Sally. She couldn't help but blush under their stares. Her eyes went to Une, asking her permission to continue. Quatre caught the look and turned to Une.

-"You've got to be kidding, right? We destroyed them. You didn't actually replace them with fake ones and kept the real ones hidden somewhere. That's impossible!! I mean, we checked, we made sure of what we were doing, specially after."

Quatre immediately stopped his ramblings, noticing the paleness that had come to Duo's face. He hadn't meant to remind him of it, and here he was, causing him more pain. Une looked at him in understanding, but shook her head softly.

-"No, we didn't deceive you like that. A while ago, we found J's lab. In his files, we found detailed blue prints of each Gundam, along with enough instructions and directions for it to be incredibly easy to build our own. We've even enhanced them, using the newest technology and every single resource we have. We hope that they will be enough to stop our new enemy."

-"What's that supposed to mean?"

Trowa was looking at her, probably judging how much of what she was saying was reliable. She had never been able to completely understand pilot 03. He always managed to baffle her in every singe possible way (not that she was going to admit it).

-"It means that we don't have a plan B. You're all we've got."

Turning to her computer, she quickly tipped her access codes. A couple of seconds later, a hologram appeared above her desk. Seven machines of mass destruction, all with their respective data.

-"Deathscythe!!"

Duo's cheerfulness was contagious. The men moved closer to inspect the image of their respective Gundams. Noin looked pleased at seeing the white Taurus that had been destined for her.

Their excitement died just as quickly as it began. All eyes were focused on the winged suit marked as 01.

-"Why don't you seat down, and I'll finish my briefing, hm?"

Everyone returned to their seat, albeit hesitantly.

-"Now, our new enemies have not revealed their intentions, yet. They have made several attempts against the lives of several members of the Congress, and there have been even more terrorist attacks against heavily populated areas. We believe that they are specifically trying to attract our attention, but we don't know why. We know of at least three possible bases, two of them are most probably MS factories. We need to stop this people. The newest rumor picked up by our underground contacts has it that they are even more powerful than OZ, the White Fan, or any of our previous enemies. If its true, then they have to be stopped before things get out of hand. Our first problem, though, is that you are going to need Wing Zero. I know you can deal with two factories, but we don't know how many more there are, or how many MS's they have got by now."

-"I agree with you, but there is a problem."

-"Zechs is right, as much as I hate to admit it. We are the best damn pilots there are, and none of us can pilot that Gundam."

Everyone nodded at Duo's words. Une couldn't help but smile sweetly at him.

-"Perhaps that is why your first mission, whether or not you wish to accept it, is to find a pilot capable of doing so."