First of all, I don't own anything. At all. I have a car and a laptop and you're never getting those so suing will be not only bad karma but completely futile.



Author's notes:

Yet again, I remind everyone to read carefully! ******* denotes a scene change/ change of point of view. The bits in first person are nearly always Hotaru, but sometimes Mina or the main villian.

Thank you to: Ariel, Trisana (the Elemental, go read her stuff it's good!) And her twin Jen *mwah!*, Tensei, and, of course all of my reviewers! Thanks guys! Now... on with the story...









The next morning:



Hotaru:

After blearily wandering around the mansion for what seemed like hours I finally found the kitchen. How big was this house anyway? I was getting winded. I walked into the dining room where Quatre and some other boys were eating. I smiled tentatively at Wufei, Trowa, trigger-happy boy, who's name I still didn't know and the friend that had been with him in the hanger. Grudgingly Wufei returned my smile, but I felt a little hurt when none of the others did. Trowa looked suspiscious, to me at least. For all the emotion he puts on his face, he could have just been constipated, but for some strange reason, I could almost feel his aura touching me as I concentrated on him. The new sensation made my skin prickle and my hair stand on end. Creepy. The long haired boy looked at me oddly, probably remembering our encounter in the hanger, but then again, I could have been wrong. Quatre was staring giddily at something over my shoulder. A woman I hadn't met didn't even note my entrance, she was blearliy focused on the coffee-maker. Gun-boy glared. I glared back at him, resisting the urge to look away from the intense threat in his blue eyes. Frowning, I wondered why I noticed his eyes were blue.

His eyes shifted slightly to glare behind me. I was tackled in mid-turn.

"Hooooootaaaaaaruuuuu!" Wham! One goddess of love missile had fully bowled over her target. " Oh god 'Taru! It's good to see you! Thank god you're okay!" Minako babbled, caught halfway between hysterical laughter and tears.

"Minako..." I began.

"What's happened?" She cut me off, "Last thing I remember, we were fighting the Youma..."

"Minako," I said a little louder, looking nervously at the boys. Four of them looked confused, and I found out that gun-boy had found a new gun.

Minako carried on, oblivious, ".... And the King... oh God, the Queen too, Hotaru, what happened to us?" She babbled. Iria dropped her coffee.

"Minako!" I hissed, grabbing her arm as hard as I could, gesturing to the full, gaping table.

"Oh." She said muttered. "Dammit, still thinking out loud." She pulled me out of the room with a charming smile for the rest of the room, leaving Iria too smooth over her mistake.



******



"Omigod omigod omigod!"Mina exclaimed, frantically pacing the bathroom. "What the hell did I just do! Omigod!" She sat on the edge of the palatial tub, chewing the mis-matched ends of her hair frantically.

"Damn." Hotaru thought. "She really needs a proper haircut." She shook her head. "Okay Mina-chan, calm down, what exactly have you told them?"

"Well," Mina began, a small line appearing between her eyebrows as she concentrated, "Well, I haven't met some of them yet, I, uh, asked Quatre if he's ever heard of a huge crystal palace in Tokyo, and as for Iria, I, uh, er, well she had these test results, and I , uh, kindoftoldhereverything...."

"You what?" Hotaru sputtered.

Mina was suddenly very interested in studying her slippers. "I....kind of..... uh, told her, everything." Mina looked up, wincing slightly.

Hotaru stared at her, a jaw agape.

"Oh shite, I killed Hotaru." Mina said, waving her hand in front of Hotaru's face. She snapped her fingers, Hotaru jumped.

"We're fucked." Hotaru said quietly, "Do you have any idea what they have in their gargage?" She hissed.

"Don't worry," Minako smiled, "Iria will take care of it."

*******



"Soooooo...." Iria began, "Anyone seen any good films lately?" She smiled tentatively.

Five set of eyes stared quizzically at her. Trowa quirked an eyebrow.

"Anyone want an explanation?" She sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"Oh yeah." Duo replied, leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Well, Minako has been on some painkillers for her...injuries. They have given her some delusions....of a sort." Iria smiled cheerfully.

There was a long silence.

Quatre cleared his throat softly. "Well, that explains some things."

Heero narrowed his eyes. No one else had noticed, but the other girl had known what the blond was talking about, he didn't like this, not one bit.



*******



"Ready?" Minako asked, straightening her shoulders and using her best, innocent smile.

"This is stupid." Hotaru groaned, locking her face in her best imitation of Mina.

"Yep." Mina grinned as she opened the door. "Time to meet our public." She winked at her fellow senshi.

"Only you could view this as your next acting project." Hotaru replied.



*******

The boys stared at the girls.

The girls stared at them.

"Hiya! I'm Duo Maxwell, foxy ladies! Welcome to suburbia, where they tear out trees then name streets after them.*"

Heero resisted the urge to smack Duo upside the head. Trust DUO to break the silence like that.

Mina grinned broadly, "Minako Aino, and my shy friend is Hotaru. C'mere! Stop trying to merge with the wallpaper." She chirped, gesturing to Hotaru who had hung back, hoping to be forgotten. She reluctantly trudged forward and held out her hand. It grasped Duo's outstretched palm and a jolt of energy ran through them, creating a brief purple glow around their joined hands. She starter slightly, and moved to pull away, but for an instant, time stopped.

An ancient voice rang out in both their minds. "Four become two, and two join to one, twins reborn, the power is won."

Hotaru's eyes met Duo's, they were the same odd shade of light violet, stretched wide in surprise, mirroring hers. With a stomach-wrenching lurch, time restarted, leaving Hotaru's stomach behind.

Minako was still cheerfully making introductions, as if nothing had happened.

"Hi Trowa, I'm Mina!"

"..." he replied.

Duo looked confused, then shook his head, giving her an apologetic smile as he released her hand. He frowned down at his hand, blinking, then shrugged, and bounced off to drag Heero over to the group making introductions. Mina grabbed Hotaru, shoving her toward the small knot of people in the kitchen. "Taru-chan, this is Trowa, Quatre," Mina, pausing giving him a quick smile, "and Wufei." Hotaru nodded at the boys.

"We've already met." She replied, blushing slightly under Wufei's close scrutiny.

Mina grinned knowingly, "Oh. I see.... you've...met...." The corners of her mouth wobbled dangerously upward as she held back a laugh. "Anyway, this is the good doctor Iria."

"It's good to meet you Hotaru." Iria said, smiling warmly.

"Likewise." Hotaru mumbled. For some reason, she felt nervous near the woman. Could it be that she knew all their little secrets? Why, maybe!

She turned around to find Minako glaring slightly at Mr. Spandex, while Duo was full-out pouting at him. The boy was quite unaffected by this, staring coolly past them, ignoring them both. "Yuy!" Duo growled, "She said hello. Your line is, 'Hello, I'm amazingly anal man, Heero Yuy.'"

Heero shrugged and pushed past them, the spy girl and the braided baka did not apply to his mission, so why should he waste time on stupid social customs. He marched past Hotaru right out the door.

"What the hell is his problem?" Mina exclaimed.

"Don't worry," Duo replied, flopping bonelessly back into his chair, "He's always like that."

Mina shrugged. There was another long silence. "So, uh, what do you guys do for fun around here?" She asked.

Quatre pursed his lips in thought, "Well, there's the pool, the games room, and, if you're really desperate there's a tire swing in the orchard outside."

Mina's eyes lit up, "Tire swing?" She squealed, causing Wufei to wince and leave the room muttering about 'high pitched onnas'. "I haven't been on one of those since I was a little girl! Can we go?" She looked up at Quatre hopefully.

He smiled at her, but shook his head. "I have a conference meeting for the company this morning."

She pouted at him, wondering why a teenage boy would be taking conference calls, but then grinned, and latched onto Hotaru's arm. "You're coming." She ordered before Hotaru could protest, then left the room, pulling Hotaru with her. Tire swing or not, it was time for a good, long talk.



*******



Mina led me outside, after about half an hour of wrong turns, again, we made our way into an ill-tended, half dead orchard just on the outskirts of the mansion's grassy lawns. Mina carefully sat down, her back against a healthy-seeming apple tree. I knew it wasn't, it was dying slowly, crying out to me as it went. I still felt nauseous from the incident in the kitchen, what the hell was going on?

Mina fixed me with a calm stare, calmer than it should have been. Damn, her mood swings are kind of freaky at times, but I'm worse, even more so than usual, so pointing it out would be sort of a pot/kettle thing. I wonder why? The mood swings' increasing frequency, not the comparison. "Hotaru, what the hell happened in crystal tokyo?"

"You were there." I replied softly.

She shook her head, the wind blowing long blond hair, charred at the ends, across her face. She unbuttoned the top three buttons of her shirt pulling the opening down slightly so I could see the pink traces of scars where the Youma had ripped into her. She smiled, the trifle sardonic, "I was out of commission for most of the fight."

I took a deep breath, "Well, we fought, you and Ami went down first, then Haruka and Michiru at once. Endymon took a hit that got him sheilding Usagi. The last ones standing were me and Pluto. Well, I wasn't exactly standing at the time. Pluto opened a portal, opened SOMETHING, and I managed to grab you and put you through, before Pluto was overwhelmed. Rei and Mako were on their way across the river Styx and the last sound I heard was Chibi-Usa's crying. Everyone's gone Mina." I looked up from the grass to meet her eyes, tears streamed down her cheeks, and as she raised a hand to my face, I realised my cheeks were wet too. So we sat there, clinging to each other, all that was left of our lost world, and crying for it's fall.





******



Quatre was, to be frank, worried about Trowa, he had told Duo he would take his surveillance duty for the morning. That, in itself, was strange, but Trowa hadn't come out of the room even once for a short break or touched the food Quatre had left outside the door.

"Trowa?" Quatre asked, knocking softly, "Trowa, it's Quatre. Is everything alright in there?"

Quatre recieved a soft sound of affirmation. Far from appeased, Quatre knocked again, this time with a more personal motive. "Trowa can I come in for a moment? I need to ask you something."

A few seconds later, Quatre heard a click an the door swug open. Trowa nodded at him, a gesture for Quatre to ask his question and swung back to the surveillance desk to continue fiddling with a tape.

Seeing as that is all the attention Trowa would give him at the moment, Quatre went ahead with his question, "Trowa, what do you think of the girls? I mean, Minako and Hotaru, of course."

"What do you mean?" Trowa replied, still frowning slightly at the tape in his hands.

"Well, I don't know, like, do you think they are trustworthy? Do you like them? That kind of stuff." Quatre shrugged, blushing a bit.

"Oh." Trowa replied.

"Well?" Quatre prompted.

"Well what? Why do you ask?"

"Because I.... well....I....I think I like Minako, I know it's sudden and I know I shouldn't, this is war and everything, but... Trowa, I know I trust people too easily, Duo, Wufei, even Heero have biases, but I know you will tell me the truth."

Trowa put the tape down carefully and swivelled his chair to face Quatre, his visible eye looking contemplative. "No. I don't think they're trustworthy. As for liking them, I really couldn't say, they've been here, what? A week? Two? I can't make judgement without any basis for it."

Quatre's blush deepened. "Why?" He persisted, "I can't think why someone from OZ would let themselves be sliced up on the off chance that they'd end up with us?"

Trowa shrugged one shoulder and turned back to the wall of black and white monitors.

"You know I was on suveillance last night?" Trowa asked off hand, not really a question. Quatre nodded. Trowa popped the tape he had been studying into the player and threw a few switches. Soon, a blank screen, up, and a little to the left of Quatre flickered to life. It was a scene of Hotaru sleeping peacefully in her room.

"I don't see how..." Quatre began.

"Just wait." Trowa interjected. Suddenly, the picture flickered violently, slowly settling back to the same scene, this time with a large charred spot in the center of the rug.

"I went to check the rug this morning." Trowa said, "The burn is still there. It wasn't a surprise, I saw how it happened. Duo walked into Hotaru's room, he spoke to her, she woke up, and replied they linked hands and a glow engulfed them for a few seconds. Once it had faded, Hotaru was back in bed, Duo also in his room, and the only evidence being a charred spot on the rug. I tried rewinding the tape, but it only showed what you saw."

"That doesn't mean..." Quatre began.

Trowa shook his head, "Minako was researching the tallgeese in the library until an extremely late hour. She took notes as well as several books to her room with her."

Quatre sighed and asked himself when life had become this complicated.







******



Heero looked down at the two crying girls from the balcony. He frowned. This was not the typical behaviour of spies in their secret meetings. He nodded, to no one in particular, and resolved his newest self-imposed mission. He would find out what these girls were up to, once and for all.



******



Mina sniffled and hiccuped, wiping away the last tears from her sore eyes. With Hotaru, and their sharing of memories and tears over the hours they sat in the orchard, they had lain the past to rest, at least for now. There were more pressing matters at hand.

"Hotaru-chan?"

"Yes, Mina-chan?"

"Well, while you were out on your great escape and discovery in the hanger, I made some interesting discoveries myself."



******

Meanwhile at OZ...



I stood carefully, arranging my cloak about me to flare in a sufficiently dramatic manner. I strode purposefully toward the door, but my chair beckoned to me, saying this time, this time you can avenge your family, their ghosts will no longer haunt you as you put away those responsible for their deaths, then you can rest. Yes, a rest would be nice, but I will not sleep until I've put those ghosts to sleep and created a few more. So I sat, attaching the appropriate electrodes to the appropriate body parts, sliding the wires into the special plugs on the inner side of my elbows, at my temples, and at the base of my skull, then lay back, and REACHED.

It hurt, it always did, but this time I could push past it, fight harder, for mother, for everyone. I would have cried but tear ducts in a cyborg are quite unnecessary, after all, we're not supposed to feel.

The electrodes under my skin that held me together burned, but I pushed on regardless. It felt like hours, but it was only a few minutes later that I finally found the sparks I had been looking for. I roused myself from the trance, ripping out the enhancement wires as a stood. I had found them. I knew where the traitor senshi hid.

An aide, Damon, I think his name was, burst into my chamber, looking excited. "We've found the gundam pilots General!" He exclaimed. I let him babble their location before I killed him. He would serve as a fitting example to the others. No one enters my chambers without special permission and clearance.

As much as I hated my rules being broken I had to smile at the sheer irony of the traitorous gundam pilots living with the treacherous senshi.



******







Hotaru sat on the ground for a short while after Mina had left her. The dampness of the grass soaked into the seat of her pants, but she ignored it. She leaned back against a tree, tilting her head back to rest on the cool bark and inhaled deeply. She looked up at the sky, her mind too jumbled to try to think about anything at the moment. What did this all mean? She squirmed slightly, well, whatever it meant, the call of nature couldn't go unheeded for long, and at least that was a familiar feeling. She rose, pressing her feet into the ground and sliding her back up the trunk of the tree, stopping abruptly, mid-motion as something pressed against her neck, just below the base of her skull. The world narrowed to a pin point. "Don't move." A harsh voice, probably not used much, grated from behind her. Her legs trembled slightly from holding her position but she stayed frozen in a crouch.

Taking a few deep breaths, she grounded herself, just like Haruka taught her, and let her legs go limp. Hotaru dropped suddenly out of gun point, grabbing the hand of her assailant as she went down, using her momentum to pull him down and forward, catching him in a surprise shoulder toss. Still holding his wrist while flat on her back she twisted her body around to kick the back of his elbow. This caused him to drop the gun, but nothing else. She frowned what the hell was this guy made of? That move, even without enhanced strength, should have broken his arm, at the very least. She kicked the gun out of range of his arms, cursed, then dove after it herself. She rolled, coming up to face her assailant, hoping the gun was pointing the right way.

It was. Good thing too, seeing as see looked up to be staring down the barrel of a gun. Heero had a backup. Shit.

They stood there, frozen, eyes locked. Hotaru's hand began to tremble, she would have to either lower her gun or fire soon.... Heero spoke first. "Who do you work for?"

"What?" Hotaru replied, puzzled. "I don't work for anyone. I work for me."

Heero made a grating sound that seemed to be a supressed laugh. "Everyone works for something. I want to know what. I won't kill you painfully if you're working on our side."

That's when Hotaru got mad, she'd been a soldier for millennia, gave up nearly everything in the line of duty, and here was this little BOY threatening her. She didn't notice, but the merging had already began. Her lips tightened until they were a white line, and she clenched her jaw, "What the HELL makes you think you can do that?"

Heero watched warily as Hotaru's entire posture changed, now assuming an aggressive stance, her eyes were cold, and seemed much older than they had been a few moments before. The hair on his arms began to raise, and the air was suddenly heavy, as if it had been charged with static electricity.

She rose to her full height and started toward him. Before she had finished her first step, there was a loud bang off to their left, further into the orchard. In her pause, the ice in her eyes melted, and she started, whirling to face the noise. She looked a little confused. Heero lowered his gun and they nodded her, before running all out into the orchard, the truth about her could wait, for now, security breaches could not. He could hear soft footsteps behind him, the girl was following. He did not tell her to turn back, unlike Relena, this girl was a mystery, perhaps she could be an asset to the fight, and if she got killed, it would just save him the trouble of doing it later.

He reached a small clearing in which a man stood. He was tall, inhumanly so, at least eight feet. He had long red hair that hung to his shoulders, falling over his face and into his eyes. In his large hand, he held a sword, and across his back, a cape was slung.

Heero, skidded to a stop, pausing to analyze his new opponent. He was huge, but probably slow and inflexible, the hair was a liability, so was the cape. Means of dispatch: hand to hand combat, no bullets need be wasted. With that, he launched himself toward the man.



*****



I followed the Heero into the clearing for reasons I don't know. Maybe it was senshi reflex, suspect danger, come running to save the day; maybe it was just curiosity, but something just felt wrong. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so I followed.

I kept up with him. Damn, he's fast! Highly trained, my ass, he's gotta have something other than pure willpower driving him.

By the time I reached the clearing, he was already trading blows with a huge guy. Something about the guy was just.... off, but I launched myself into the fray anyway.

The unknown man and Heero traded solid blows, the larger, slower man missing more often than not, but whenever a fist connected, Heero would be thrown off balance for a few crucial seconds.

Even if he had attacked me, I couldn't just stand here and do nothing. Besides, everyone else in the household had been perfectly civil to me, even kind. Could I really return, dragging his battered corpse behind me and say; "Well, though I am a being with powers of destruction and healing limited only by my physical and mental weaknesses, I stood by and let him die because he was, well, rude and so forth..." No, I couldn't. Plus I really didn't want to see the result of one of them, probably Duo, getting mad enough to try and step on me with a Gundam.

So I jumped in, dodging Heero and the intruder alike. It had, however, been a very long time since I had done any real hand to hand combat, barring the short scuffle with Heero earlier. Soon enough, being unused to fighting with each other, instead of against each other, I misjudged the direction Heero would dodge. I spun away from him at the last moment, my foot slipping into a hidden hole, causing my ankle to twist painfully to an unnatural angle. I fell to the ground, leaving my back open. Not good.

I was picked up in one hand, the sudden contact of the man's skin against mine causing a sudden nausea, then vertigo as he sent me flying, face first, into a sturdy oak tree at the edge of the clearing.



*******



Heero reassessed his judgement of the man. Heero's punches had nearly no effect, and the rare blow the other man managed to land felt more like heavy steel beams than fists. The man swung his fist at Heero and he leapt nimbly to the side, unfortunately knocking over Hotaru at the same time. She was confusing, she had leapt into the fight to protect him, so she was probably not working for OZ. Whoever she was, she was his teammate in this fight, and he did not appreciate his teammates being flung into trees. He growled and backed quickly out of range of the intruders' swinging arms. He drew his gun and emptied his clip into the intruder's chest in one fluid motion.

The intruder was shocked for a moment, looking down in consternation at the gaping red hole where his chest used to be, then keeled over backward. When the collapsed man didn't move, Heero rose from his crouch and made his way over to Hotaru.

She was piled in a motionless heap at the trunk of the tree, but she was breathing, so she was alive. Heero wondered absently, while propping her upright against the tree trunk, if that was a good or bad thing. He shook her slightly, and she slowly opened her eyes. "Ow," she stated decisively. He took a tissue out of his pocket (or spandex-space, whatever), and frowned slightly, gesturing to her bleeding nose. She took it, then looked up at him and smiled, "Thanks." Her eyes met his, then looked over his shoulder, her face going pale as her eyes widened. She shoved Heero to the side and rose shakily, dragging her injured ankle. Her posture tensed and her features hardened, again looking older, more dangerous. She reached her hand out to the side and made a grasping motion. Out of nowhere, a large cruel-looking glaive appeared in her hand.

The man, still with a large bloody hole in his chest, had risen and was advancing quickly on the young girl. She hefted the large glaive in both hands, the deadly blade pointing toward the man. She muttered something in low tones that sounded suspiciously like "Piss off Youma!" and a band of purple energy blasted out of the glaive, knocking Hotaru off her feet with the kickback, completely incinerating the Youma and all life within a few feet of it.

Heeros jaw dropped open. He was a stoic soldier, but this must have been a hallucination? Right?

He blinked, seeing only a charred circle of grass, and an unconscious girl. He shook his head and picked her up, she was light. Probably a lot lighter than she should have been, she was also extremely pale, more so than usual. He sped up.









* Alright, I can't remember where I heard this, but it's stuck with me for a while, so who ever line this is sorry! And thanks....



.