By: Shadow Chaser
Author's Notes:
Gundam Wing and all associated characters do not belong to me; they belong to VizComics, Bandai, Hajime Yatate, and anyone else I forgot to mention. Many thanks to the reviewers and my beta, Algae. ^_^ It was supposed to be a 2-part story, but no, my muses decided to amp up the action and make it a 3-part. I swear, this is the last part then I'm back to writing "Retaliation".
Story:
Part 3
Started: 1/2/04. Completed: 1/5/04.
"So Winner's still alive?"
"Unfortunately, sir, yes."
"Do you know how?"
"No, Commander."
"Then I suggest you make sure that it does not happen again. Preventers is already sending out the investigation crew and guess who's on it."
"…"
"Winner's friends, the Gundam pilots."
"…"
"Yes, yes…it's the 'oh shit' part. Now, do you job right this time. I want my revenge against Winner to be complete!"
"Yes sir, Commander Grayson, sir!"
* * *
"I'll see what I can do Heero," Relena said as the two of them sat in their spacious home, one of two. This old Victorian-style house was on the outskirts of Geneva, snuggled in the mountains, high enough for them to have a spectacular view of the sprawling peaceful metropolis below, but low enough that they weren't constantly bombarded with snow from the Alps. Their second home was near the Nairobi Base in Africa.
She had rushed back to Geneva as did the other prominent Senators and representatives, canceling all meetings in wake of the attacks. The Senate needed to talk about security issues and the possibility of setbacks for Winner Corporation, the Mars Terraforming Project, and anything else that was relevant.
Heero briefly touched her hand, "Thank you." He knew that long ago he wouldn't have said but some abrasive words to Relena, but now, she was his wife and deserved much better than what he could give her. It had been 3 years since the death of their eldest son, and they were still recovering, but he knew that it would be a long recovery…and knew that many of the holes in their relationship could never be patched up – not after Anihiko's death or before that.
"It won't be easy, stalling Senator Hallsfield, but I'll do it," Relena sighed quietly and grasped his hand, absently rubbing her fingers over his. "So you're sure Quatre is alive?"
"Yes," Heero replied. He had made her promise not to tell a single soul that Quatre was alive and knew that she kept her promises.
"Hallsfield's gaining too much power…he has the support of at least a quarter of the Senators already and I fear that he might have more within the next few years. Power isn't a good thing, especially since his tactics are more…military inclined than the other Senators know…" Relena trailed off before Heero reached out and took both of her hands into his, stopping her rubbing. She looked up at him and he met her blue eyes, those same blue eyes he had come to love and see through the power depths they had.
"Be strong, Relena," he said in a firm tone.
"I know…" she replied before silence reigned between them, but Heero welcomed the silence – because it wouldn't last a microsecond in the Senate Hall tomorrow when he went with Relena.
* * *
"So, you're here to help?" a nasal voice behind Wufei and Sally said and Wufei turned around to see an investigator dressed in a flashy business suit staring at them with the utmost disdain look he could manage.
Wufei hated people like this and it irritated him to no end. He knew that many of the investigators in the colonies resented Preventers' interference in what they dubbed, "local colony matters", but it was necessary in order for Preventers to catalogue and prevent something like this from happening to others. He knew that many of the colonists didn't mind Preventers' interference; it was only those who did the investigation that did.
He almost considered telling the man to shut up but Sally beat him to the punch.
"Please show us what you have found so far," she said in her no-nonsense voice, a quality Wufei admired in her.
He knew that he held no romantic feelings for his long-time partner, but he realized that there were times where Sally's attitude towards things were so similar to his that it was refreshing. In ways, Sally reminded him of his long-dead wife Meiran, but that was the past and this was now – he couldn't keep the ghosts of the past forever.
The investigator narrowed his eyes at them before gesturing for them to follow him. They ducked under a few yellow caution-tapes and headed into the rubble pile. Firefighters and rescue crews still swarmed the place, digging to find survivors or even any bodies that weren't burnt or crushed beneath 30-stories of rubble. Wufei knew that for someone to survive trapped underneath this rubble, after at least 24 hours, it would be a real miracle.
He saw Sally shake her head against the wreckage and briefly wiped away tears that were probably brimming on her eyes before the investigator lead them to a tent set up near the edge of the rubble pile. He lifted a flap and they stepped in to a mini-communication center.
"This is where most of the information we have gotten reside. Feel free to look at anything we got. I send someone to help you go through the material," the man said before stepping back out. Wufei knew that the man was going to send someone to keep and eye on them and perhaps hider their efforts, but he didn't care – Sally would be able to handle whoever came in.
"I'm going to look at the wreckage, see what you can do at your end," he said before stepping back out.
Briefly surveying the rubble piles, Wufei spotted a part that he was sure the bomb's origin point was and made his way to there.
* * *
Sally glanced briefly at the flapping of the tent's entrance as Wufei stepped back out before pulling a foldaway chair underneath her and sat down at one of the stations. She knew that the investigator that had brought them here would be sending one of his lackeys to hinder them in any way – well that wasn't going to happen any time soon.
She quickly brought up some of the data collected and looked through them, committing a few facts she thought important to her memory. So far, alls he was looking at was just how bodies had been strewn about during the blast and in what radius, compared with what kind of explosive was used. The investigators were speculating from TNT to nitroglycerine to even beam weaponry. It was so messy…
She heard the crinkling of the tent flap opening and knew that someone had come to oversee what they were doing. "I don't need help at the moment, you can go back to whatever you were doing," she said without turning around.
"I'm sorry, Major, that wouldn't be beneficial," the voice was deep and had a hard edge to it that made Sally turn around and she barely stifled a gasp of surprise.
The man standing in front of her looked almost exactly like Heero Yuy except older and there were subtle differences – but if Heero had a twin, this would be the man standing in front of her. She narrowed her eyes as she sensed something different about the man…something dangerous yet familiar at the same time and it set her on edge.
"Who are you?" she demanded, half-rising out of her seat.
"I'm sure Major Chang might have mentioned me once or twice…" the man stuffed his hands into a beige duster he was wearing, "Ralph Kurt, ma'am."
Ralph Kurt…Kurt…the name sounded familiar until it clicked inside her mind. Though Preventers had been formed nine-months prior to the Barton Foundation's attempt to take over Earth and her colonies, they hadn't been involved in the incident that featured the "kidnapping" of Relena and the bombing of the delegates that was the first of many assassination attempts on Quatre's life. A man named Ralph Kurt was the main instigator and go-between for that whole fiasco, but he had turned on the remnant White Fang rebels and instead helped the Gundam pilots.
That was why the name sounded familiar…Wufei had told her of this during one of their missions way back when.
"What are you doing here?" Sally immediately felt very stupid for saying those words, but Ralph only smiled.
"My wife, Chris and I live on this colony now after moving from the L3 area. When this happened, I knew that I had to do something – especially since it involves the Gundam pilots. I don't know if Winner's alive and I suspect probably not, but I had to help in the investigation. This thing is very similar to what we…I…pulled off all those years ago and it's my chance to rectify what I did," Ralph said.
Sally only nodded, seeing that the man was struggling with the internal demons that he had.
"But I am pretty surprised that Trowa's not here…I mean, when I last saw him, he seemed like a close friend to Winner," he took his hands out of his duster.
"He's doing his own investigation with Heero," Sally lied. As much as she felt she could trust the man in front of her, she knew that even a word that Quatre was alive or anything remotely close to it might spell doom for the former pilot of Sandrock Kai.
"Ah," was all that Ralph said before he gestured to the computers and whatnot in the enclave, "well…Investigator Grayson expects me to hinder you, but I'll hack in for you to get you some of the files he's buried."
"Oh…um…thanks," Sally blinked in surprise before getting up from the seat she had be occupying and Ralph sat in it, glancing at the screen for a second before his hands started to fly over the keyboard. After a few minutes of just the clicking of the keyboard and various screen patterns on the monitor, Ralph stopped then gestured to his handiwork.
"Enjoy. Here's some of the reports," he said before getting up from the seat and letting Sally sit back down. The first thing Sally saw that caught her eye was the security camera pictures. That was where she would start.
* * *
Meanwhile in another part of the colony, not too far from where Wufei and Sally were conducting the 'official' Preventers investigation into the bombing of L4, Trowa was slipping silently in and out of the alleyways. His bangs were pulled back away from his eyes and tied in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck, making him look a bit like Wufei in ways. He wore a light brown duster over his civilian clothing and for all intents and purposes, Trowa knew that he looked very different at the moment – but that was the general idea.
His face and hair style was one of the most recognizable, and that came with consequences, some good, others bad, it was what made him quit Ringmaster Weaver's circus and join up with the fledgling Space Force all those years ago, though Weaver had said that he was welcomed back to the circus anytime he wanted. And so that was where his son was now…under the care of his sister Catherine.
Adler was already 10 and had the best of both worlds; at least the best Trowa could do under the circumstances his son was borne in and the situation with him. He had the care of the circus as his extended family and the care of the military. Though he tried to visit his son almost every week, he knew that he wasn't ready to be a father, even though it had been 10 years since Adler was borne by his mother…
Trowa's hands, stuffed in the deep pockets of his duster, suddenly clenched at the memory of Adler's mother… He could never forgive her for what she had done to him and to their son. She had played him badly and then had the gall to drop Adler, only an infant on the doorsteps of the circus, and disappeared without another trace.
He had tried to look up Adler's mother more than once, but stopped himself every single time because even though he wanted to yell at her, in reality…and he would never admit it to anyone, he was afraid.
Afraid of what might happen if Adler was to find out the consequences of his birth…afraid of his son's mother coming back to take him away…afraid of…basically…loosing his only son.
Focus, Trowa, focus! He mentally pulled himself out of the gutter and looked around for any traces of either Quatre or Duo. He knew that Quatre would always go underground after an assassination attempt and the alleyways were the nearest thing to start from.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck rose and he tensed slightly before slipping into a small alleyway just as three men, all dressed in black, walked past him without noticing him. Trowa noticed that they were all carrying at least some heavy firearms and were walking stealthily on a direct path to somewhere. A nagging sense told him to follow the masked people, but at a discreet distance, and so he did. They certainly did not look like the usual people out in an alleyway in this part of the town.
* * *
Quatre glanced at the portable clock that Duo had 'pilfered' from a nearby store and though he disapproved of his friend's 'pilfering' as he had come to call it, he knew that it was a practical thing, as were all the other things Duo had either brought or pilfered. Stole was what he would have called it.
He had gotten Quatre some comfortable clothing for him to change into, which was a bit hard considering his ribs still ached a bit, even after painkillers, but he could feel them healing very quickly, an aspect all of them as Gundam pilots shared – quick healing abilities (though Heero seemed like the best healer of them all). It had been a day and half since the bombing and through the portable TV, now hooked up to a small 3-day generator, was still showing that the investigation was continuing, and Winner Corp. refusing Hallsfield the rights to buy the company from them.
Quatre applauded his wife for her courage even though he saw pain in her eyes as she defiantly stood with his sisters against Hallsfield. Surprisingly, he would have thought President Kushrenada or the other Senators might have to interfere and judge that Ione and the others were unconstitutional and had to give up the company rights, but it looked like the message that Duo sent had been read by Heero and the others, because Relena Peacecraft was on a warpath against Hallsfield – denouncing him as a money-hungry person with little to no care to find out what happened to Quatre Winner and just too eager to take over his company with his Committee privileges.
Those were some of the sharpest words Quatre had heard come from Relena's mouth and he was actually slightly glad that he wasn't in Hallsfield's position otherwise if her words could melt Gundanium, then there would be no mobile suits or weapons left in the universe.
But he knew that Relena would only have maybe a week or less before her warpath would end – it wasn't democratically sound and Relena had her own reputation to precede her as a peaceful negotiator. Her harsh words would backfire on her if she kept using them on Hallsfield and it would degenerate her power base and eventually tarnish her image in the eyes of the Colonies and Earth.
"Ya know…these protein cubes are actually quite tasty," Duo had brought some food and out of impulse also brought some protein cubes that were the latest rage across L4. Quatre had tried them a few months ago when Ione brought it for their children to taste, and didn't like the stuff.
He made a face at Duo, "Gah…I don't even know how you stand that stuff."
"Dude, Quatre, you're food is too rich for me. I like the simple stuff and this stuff's good," Duo laughed, acting like a little kid, not his mid-thirty-year-old self.
Quatre only shrugged in response before staring at the TV, watching as the latest stocks scrolled by. He made a few mental pointers on a few of the stocks that he wanted to invest in when this whole thing was over…and noted with a faint pleasing interest that Winner Corp. stocks were still steadily rising, a sign that said that even though to the world, he might be dead, people were still confident in his company. He liked that – it meant that people were independent and not dependent on anything. They followed their own hearts and wouldn't let anyone control them.
He knew that stocks had a tendency to plummet when something like the bombing happened, but this time, the reaction was a bit different than one would have expected. As the stock report changed over to sports, Quatre tilted his head at the auto racing statistics.
He himself wasn't interested at all in racing, preferring the quiet life, but his daughter was a rambunctious little 8-year-old. She absolutely adored auto racing* and constantly professed that she wanted to become a professional racer when she turned 10, the age where kids could start competing in the junior circuit before moving to the professional circuit. She also wanted to go to the Sahara Desert and train to be a Maganac and pilot mobile suits and all those things…
Quatre liked the fact that his daughter had a big imagination, but he didn't like the fact that Ione was always encouraging her and even promised her to take her to the Maganac base for a year on her 13th birthday. He didn't want his daughter to grow up in a battlefield or anything remotely close to it. It was peaceful now, there were no Gundams, no wars, no rebellion – and he didn't want her to grow up like he did, half-sheltered, half-naïve, but full of passion to fight for the independence of the colonies.
But even though, he reflected, his daughter did have a quiet, meek, side to her. She also loved playing the piano, and with fatherly pride and a bit of smugness, was a prodigy at it.
He briefly wondered what his little Cerelia, or as he affectionately called her, Neo, was doing at the moment. A quick glance at the clock told him it was afternoon…so she must be back from her tutoring and probably perched up on the little island in their kitchen, eating an afternoon snack while telling her little brother Dumas to stop playing with his food.
Their housekeeper, a nice old lady by the name of Georgia, would probably tell Neo to stop picking on her brother and go do her homework…
Even away from his family for such a short amount of time, Quatre already missed them. But he knew that he had to keep in hiding until his friends could find out who was the one that planted the bomb and blew it and the one to pull the strings of the terrorist.
"Oi, hey Quatre! Quatre!" Duo's insistent voice broke through his thoughts and Quatre blinked then turned his head just in time to catch a face full of a plastic packaged meal lobbed at him.
He glared at his friend before opening the package, the meal inside, instantly hot enough to eat. Poking at the contents with a plastic fork, he dug in, chewing what was supposed to be chicken. He glanced at Duo and saw the other man sniff his package suspiciously then did an elaborate check of his food before opening it and taking a bite out of the stuff in there.
Quatre laughed softly to himself. He knew that Duo was exaggerating things for him to get a laugh out of him and he appreciated that. He took a few more bites of the packaged meal before a sudden clatter made him look up and see Duo drop his food package and fork.
"Duo wha-"
"Shh," Duo hissed at him, drawing out a gun to which he threw at him and Quatre caught it. He glanced at the gun in his hands before he looked up and saw Duo drawing out another gun, his eyes wary, his posture tense.
"Someone's here, Quatre," Duo whispered to him and Quatre's eyes widened…someone had found their hiding place! "Damn, I knew there was someone tailing me…" the former Deathscythe Hell pilot muttered.
Quatre put aside his meal and slowly got up, still feeling a bit woozy from the painkillers and the occasional twinge of pain that the medication wasn't able to suppress from his ribs. He held his gun in his right hand, barrel pointed upwards and glanced at Duo who walked forward slightly towards the door…
BANG!
The door burst open with gunfire and both Duo and Quatre dove out of the way of the line of fire. Quatre landed a bit hard and jarred his ribs slightly, but he ignored the pain as he leapt towards a rickety table, one of the spare furnishings in the room, and dove over it, pulling the legs with him to form a shield from the fire. He heard Duo curse, a bit muffled as apparently the American had taken refuge from the rain of bullets behind a musty, spring-coiled couch.
"We know you're in here Winner!" a voice Quatre didn't recognize shouted above the gunfire and Quatre cradled the gun in his hand tightly. It was happening all over again…the fighting…the war…
IYou can never run away from it, can you?/I
bThe sudden clarity of the voice startled Quatre and his eyes widened as he suddenly found himself in a world of white. He turned around slowly before coming face to face with a girl about his height. She had a slightly boyish cut of blonde hair that framed her sparkling blue eyes…and she looked almost like him…yet almost like Ione at the same time…
He tried to speak but no sound would come out./b
IYou can never run away from it, can you?/I
bThat question again…Quatre tilted his head slightly in question and the girl giggled slightly behind her hands. She was just a mere teenager…who was she?/b
IThe war. You can never run away from it, can you?/I
bQuatre tried to speak once more, but no sound came out. But how could the girl talk as if there were no restrictions on her while he couldn't even utter a sound? The girl laughed lightly again, without malice./b
IIt's okay. This is all in your mind, actually its taking place in a split second, but seems like a long time, isn't it?/I
bQuatre nodded cautiously. Abruptly the girl's expression turned sad./b
ISo if you can't run away from the war…does it mean that war exist when humanity still do? No…but-/I
bHer crystal blue eyes caught his blue-green ones./b
I-but…there is always hope. And sometimes, you have to fight to keep that hope./I
Quatre suddenly found himself staring back at his gun, the grinding sound of bullets a roar in his ears and he realized what had happened. He realized who the girl was and realized that to protect her, to protect hope, sometimes he had to fight…
His grip tightened on the gun and he suddenly burst up from his hiding place and fired off a few rounds towards their attackers, before ducking back down. He heard Duo shout a few things before there was a firing of bullets and suddenly a scream came from one of their attackers.
A quick head-check told Quatre that there were three attackers and one of them was down…the other two, they had seen what had befallen their former comrade and instead had retreated to the door, occasionally popping their head in to shoot before ducking back out as Duo shot back at them.
Quatre waited for the stopping of the guns before he popped his head up and shot a few times towards the direction of the door. Even in the mid-afternoon, the sunlight was still dimmed in the alleyways and seeing was a bit hard.
He ducked back down as bullets impacted the rickety table he was hiding behind. Small splinters flaked off near Quatre's face and he knew the table couldn't take much more…he would have to find a new hiding spot fast as the bullets were endless.
Suddenly the bullets stopped and Quatre popped his head out just in time to see the two other gunmen drop to the floor…and a lone figure beyond the door holding a still smoking gun. The figure lowered his gun and walked in. In the dim light of the alleyway and their portable lamp – well…it was all shot up – Quatre sensed a familiarity about the man that had shot the two gunmen, but he couldn't place where. He didn't really recognize the man…but that feeling of familiarity was very strong.
"Who are you?" Duo suddenly burst out from his hiding place, gun drawn and ready to fire.
The man held up his hands, gun hanging loosely on his thumb and was blinking in surprise.
The it hit Quatre who the man was and he found himself scrambling from his hiding place and forcing Duo to lower his gun, all while his ribs protested from his sudden movements. "Don't shoot, Duo, it's Trowa!"
The American did a double take and his gun clattered to the ground while his jaw dropped open, astonished. "Trowa?! B-But…y-your…"
"Gel, lots of it," Trowa supplied a bit sarcastically.
"B-But…you…look like Wufei…'cept not Chinese."
Quatre had to admit as he released his hold on Duo's gun that Trowa did look faintly like Wufei with his hair pulled back into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. Of all the years he had known his dear friend, he had never seen him pull his hair back…he always thought that even gel was impossible to pull back his bangs…but it looked like he was proved wrong.
"Thanks," Trowa frowned in response.
"So if you're here…Heero's on Earth, that means Wufei is also here?" Quatre asked, barely containing the pain his ribs were screeching about – for a fracture it sure hurt like hell…
Trowa nodded, "Wufei and Sally are heading the official Preventer investigation. They're bound to dig up something soon. How's your condition?"
Quatre nodded, "Bearable. I didn't know fractures hurt a lot…" He sighed, "By all rights, I should be dead… All of them are…"
Silence filled the room following his barely whispered statement until Duo sighed loudly, breaking the tension.
"Ahh…we should get you to a different spot. Know of any others?" Duo asked, poking Quatre gently in the shoulder.
Quatre frowned in memory…there was a spot, but… "I know of one, but we don't have the advantage of confusion to help us, so it's going to be hard to get to the place."
"I guess we can wait a couple more hours as its going to get dark soon then we can move without raising too many possibilities," Trowa suggested before a hacking sound caught their ears and they all turned to see the man Duo had downed coughing, blood spurting from his wounds.
Trowa was the fastest of all of them, and immediately lifted the dying man up by the front of his clothes and pinned against the wall. "Who are you working for?!" his voice was icy cold, deadly, frozen…
Quatre blinked a bit at the ferocity his friend showed towards the man and started to move towards him to tell him to stop torturing the man when Duo laid a hand on his shoulder, "Let him be, Quatre. He's got a lot to vent." The American's voice was serious and Quatre could see a certain gleam in his blue eyes.
He backed down.
* * *
Trowa glared at the man he was holding up. He could feel his anger break through so many of his carefully concealed barriers he had steeled himself never to unlock, but he was beyond caring now. They had tried to kill Quatre one to many times now…they had tried to kill the person he considered a brother. It had to stop…but a part of him knew that there would be more assassination attempts and that this was just another one in the long endless line.
But still, he wanted to vent his anger that had been building so slowly over the past years.
"Who. Is. Behind. This." He said in precise tones, forcing the man to see into his eyes, to see death and to see no redemption from the hell he was going to go to.
The man coughed and spluttered some blood out of his mouth, "I…w-won't…t-tell."
"You will tell me!" Trowa shoved him further into the wall, making him scream in pain. "You will tell me or you will tell him!" he pointed to Duo who had a very dark look to his face, making him look every inch the Shinigami he was always professing about.
A part of Trowa knew that Quatre would be disappointed in his and Duo's actions with the man, but then again, Quatre hadn't been on the same level as they had been…he had been trying to keep the peace while they fought to protect it. No…he couldn't deny that Quatre hadn't fought to keep the peace, it was just that the Arabic man…seemed, sheltered in an odd way.
"P-Please…d-don't…" the man started to blubber, white foam frothing at the corners of his mouth, mixed in with blood that turned it into a pinkish thing.
"Tell me," this time, Trowa let his voice drop the icy tone, and instead made it viper deadly.
The man nodded…broken, dying, defeated… "All right…all right… I-I don't know what he…looks like…but his name's Grayson. H-He…used to be a Commander…"
"Preventer!? Space Force!?" Trowa demanded.
The man shook his head, "OZ…" he whispered. "Igerian Grayson…he was OZ…"
Suddenly the man stiffened and a tremor ran through him before he became limp in Trowa's grasp and he knew the man died. He gently set the man down, closing his half-opened eyelids as a sign of respect and kneeled next to the body, rubbing his forehead.
"Trowa, you okay man?" Duo asked as his footsteps came to rest next to him and Trowa nodded and stood up. He glanced over to see Quatre with a quiet and reserved look, but his eyes were empty and held nothing, no emotion…just…nothing.
"Quatre?" he called out his friend's name.
"I'm fine…did you find out?" the life returned to his eyes and he gestured to the now dead body.
"Yeah. Former OZ Commander Igerian Grayson," Trowa replied, "is there a terminal around here?"
"Uh…I managed to destroy the one I found, but I'm sure there's another one here somewhere…" Duo said sheepishly.
* * *
Grayson was getting worried. His men had not reported back yet and he wondered what was the hold up. His men were the best and surely should have dispatched that pesky Winner by now…
He had wanted his revenge against Winner for so long…and now was the perfect opportunity. He had known that there was a meeting between L4 officials and Winner was going to be a part of that meeting, but what he didn't know were the details and just suddenly, a week ago, he was handed a detailed map and outline of Winner's plans for the meeting – just like that.
Someone had obviously heard of his lust for vengeance against Winner and offered him the perfect opportunity to do it and while he didn't care much for whomever sent it, he had double checked his sources and found the plans to be true. Either that, whatever hellish gods ruled this universe deemed him worthy to be the one to kill Quatre Raberba Winner and get revenge for what he did on in mid-August**, AC 195.
He had seen the former Gundam pilot-turned Preventer dog Wufei Chang walk into the tent some minutes ago and had not reappeared yet. He was slightly puzzled as to what was going on – and shouldn't Ralph Kurt's efforts have hindered the two damnable Preventers to be walking out of the tent screaming obscenities by now?
Something was wrong…he could tell. He spun on his heel and walked quickly towards the tent he had directed Major Po into hours ago, drawing his gun in an indiscreet manner as he did.
He stopped just outside of the tent flap and listened closely to the murmurings inside. His eyes narrowed as he heard Ralph…so the man was a turncoat after all… Ralph Kurt he could deal with later…but for now, Preventers was going to lose two Majors…
* * *
Sally couldn't believe the information she had access to. All the records logged on here…it pointed to the fact that whoever did this was a professional and was actually part of the investigation team. That had spurred Sally and Ralph to pour through the files one by one, scrutinizing each personnel that worked on the case for any significant lead.
Nothing turned up, though a few looked very suspicious that Sally knew she had some proof to take some of those people in for questioning later…but so far, nothing significant.
That was, until they came across Investigator Grayson's file.
Igerian Grayson had classified all of his files behind numerous firewalls and protection circuits that all of the alarm bells that Sally carried with her activated immediately. No sane person in their own mind would classify anything so heavily unless it was black ops or they had something to hide – and since the pass codes and firewalls the man was using did not indicate that they came from the government, Sally assumed the latter choice – Grayson was hiding something.
It had taken her and Ralph over an hour and half to decode the numerous locks on Grayson's file, but once decoded, it was a treasure trove of information. And…the proof they were looking for.
Igerian Grayson was indeed the man that had bombed the building in an assassination attempt on Quatre's life. He had the means, the mode, and the money to pull of his kind of stunt.
The details he put in his files…Sally was very surprised that Grayson did not take his money that he earned through a few valuable stock investments and build his own army. Granted Preventers would immediately detect something like that in an instant, it also meant that Grayson was a very smart man to have kept that much cash hidden and to have brought that many pounds of TNT to blow up the first three floors of the 30-story building without even alerting Preventers.
Wufei had come in and gave them a brief update on his observations from outside and in return got to read over the information she and Ralph uncovered.
"This is the proof we need, did you make a copy?" Wufei asked as he glanced at Ralph.
"Yep, right here," the man replied holding up a disk before putting it inside of his coat pocket.
"Then you can give me the disk, Ralph Kurt," a voice behind them made all three spin around to see a very irate looking Igerian Grayson pointing a gun at them.
* * *
Duo had wanted to help Quatre, but the blond haired man insisted that he was well enough to walk on his own and so he did, but that didn't put him at ease though. He watched Quatre like a hawk, keeping an eye on him and making sure the youngest of the five of them didn't collapse from pain or any other injury he might have received that Duo overlooked in the last 48 hours since the blast.
Trowa, meanwhile, was watching the surroundings carefully. It was near nightfall, at least artificial nightfall on the L4 Colony and they had moved out, quietly slipping through the sleepy alleyways, at least Duo hoped it was sleepy. At least Quatre was wearing a hooded jacket to cover his whole body and partially hide his face underneath the cowls.
Suddenly there was a clatter of garbage cans being knocked over and a cat yowling before a running figure turned the corner ahead of them and ran straight at them. The running figure was a man dressed in a business suit and looked like he was holding a gun. Duo's first instinct was to plaster himself against the wall – it was probably a robbery gone awry…until he saw who was chasing after the business-suited man.
"Stop him!" Sally shouted at them and Duo was immediately spurred into action. He fired his gun at the man, but surprisingly, the man dodged all of the bullets and returned fire.
Duo had to duck behind a building to avoid the shots and hoped to Shinigami that Quatre had found a place to duck and hide until they stopped whomever Sally, Wufei, and a mysterious guy were chasing. He peeked out to fire more bullets at the guy who had stopped and was looking around, eyes wild, pointing his piece everywhere, until Trowa's full-body tackle bowled the man over and the clattering of a loose gun was all the incentive Duo needed.
He jumped out of his hiding place, hoping that it was the man's gun, not Trowa's gun that had clattered to the ground and immediately rushed forward. Fortunately, as he got to Trowa's side, the former pilot of Heavyarms Kai picking himself up with a lithe grace that was cat-like a bit surreal after that full-body tackle, the man was in a dazed mood, and didn't look like he was going to be getting up any time soon.
"Nice…what did you do?" he commented, giving Trowa a quirky smile.
"Pressure points," was the simple answer as Wufei and Sally came up, along with their mysterious friend – to whom Duo nearly had a heart attack as the other man looked exactly like Heero, except older…
"Nice job, Barton," the man commented and Trowa only looked at the man with his unflappable gaze before shrugging.
"Good to see you too, Ralph."
"Who is he?" Quatre's quiet voice said from behind all of them and they all turned to see the former pilot of Sandrock Kai walk up, his hood down now, a tired, withdrawn look on his face.
"Igerian Grayson-" Sally started before a sick kind of laughter came from the man lying on the ground.
"So…still alive, aren't we Winner?" Grayson half coughed, half choked on his own spittle that Duo realized that Trowa had cut half of the man's air supply off when he was talking about pressure points.
Duo could feel Quatre tense a bit before he moved forward and crouched down next to Grayson, looking at him with sad eyes. Duo was about to move to stop Quatre from getting close to the man before he noticed that Trowa didn't seem concerned nor was Wufei or Ralph Kurt – the man that had originally tried to kill all of them back in AC 196, but instead became an ally. He shrugged…but still kept a sharp eye on Grayson; if the man so much as twitched…his trigger finger was still on his gun.
"Why…why did you do it?" Quatre asked quietly.
Grayson choked/laughed and wheezed a bit before answering, "You…you don't remember do you? You…killed my family…"
"I'm sorry…I was naive then…and Operation Meteor-"
"No," Grayson swallowed hard and sucked in a few more breaths, "You killed…them with Wing…Zero."
* * *
"You killed them with Wing Zero."
Those were the words Quatre never wanted to hear in his whole life, yet part of him expected something like this someday. He knew that when he had built Wing Zero and started his psychotic rampage across the Colonies, he knew that he had killed many people in the horrid machine before Trowa and Heero were able to get him back under control.
His first target had been one of the Winner Corporation's asteroids, brought and converted by OZ to use. There had been people in it…people with families, children, friends and co-workers and he had killed them all with a single trigger of the beam rifle on Wing Zero.
He still remembered his whole experience under the Zero System during that period of rage, grief, and psychosis after his father's death. He still remembered the grief and rage that the Colonies had begun to bare arms and his own Zero System twisted mind turning that thought into a killing machine that wanted to kill anything that produced weapons, anything that armed itself with weapons…anything at all.
And now the sins of his past were catching up to him. This was a person to whom he owed more than his life to, he owed a family and friends that could never be replaced – and so, ironically, he guessed, it made the attempted assassination of him a reasonable thing.
But still, even if the justification of his own death was to be on Igerian Grayson's hands, then his other transgressions against the other colony representatives, Mars representative, and even Earth's representative could not account for the fact that most of them were dead – and not to mention that many civilians were injured.
"If you want my life, take it," he said, closing his eyes as he heard the gasps of the others. "But," he opened them again and stared at Grayson without mercy, "you should have only attacked me and not others." He had an eerie sense of déjà vu as this was very similar to the conversation he had with Ralph Kurt a long time ago, but this time, Quatre knew that Grayson wasn't going to convert to any side, this was personal.
"By attacking others, you cannot justify what you have done to get at me. Yes, I did kill those on the asteroid and their families probably have death wishes against me, but I try to live for them, to give them a renewed hope when they have none," Quatre said, tapering to a whisper before he asked, "will you let me give you that hope?"
"I don't need any hope from you," Grayson spat, "you do not have the proof…"
"We do now…" Duo's voice was cheerful and Quatre turned around to see the American holding up a tape-recorder, "you just said that you wanted to kill Quatre here…oh boy, the courts are going to have a field day…especially the military tribunal."
"That's only one evidence," Grayson sneered, "I shot up the disk…"
"Slight-of-hand," Ralph suddenly said and produced a disk to which he tapped his fingers on, "sorry Grayson…but I had been working for Preventers long before you came around to recruit me…call me, a deep cover agent, so to speak."
Grayson was turning purple with rage but before the man could even speak, Sally held out her Preventers badge, "Igerian Grayson, you are hereby under arrest for the attempted assassination attempt on Quatre Raberba Winner and the deaths of countless other government officials and civilians.
* * *
18 hours later…
Quatre walked through the halls of the Geneva Government Center only with one escort guard. One would think that after an attempted assassination one would bring a whole mother-load of guards, but no, Quatre felt perfectly fine with one guard – after all, it was Heero Yuy. Anyone stupid enough to mess with Heero deserved a bullet or a broken appendage.
After Wufei and Sally had hauled Grayson away to the Preventers shuttle to be taken to Earth for questioning and detainment, Trowa, Duo, Ralph and him had made their way back to his residence to which Ione was overjoyed and very relieved to see him alive, and healthy, albeit his fractured ribs and healing bruises. Neo had squealed in joy and gave him a rather painful hug and Dumas just banged his plastic spoons and such. Rashid and a couple of the other Maganacs had apparently come over to support Ione and some of Quatre's sisters Iria included, had also come over for a support-session.
He was promptly engulfed in waves of hugs from both parties, so much that he thought that they fractured a few more of his ribs.
Quatre decided later that night when everything had died down a bit that he would go and stop Hallsfield and his money-hungry committee personally – which meant a very secretive trip to Earth as only a handful of people knew that he was alive, the rest of the world and colonies speculated he was dead.
And now, he found himself, 18 hours later, walking to the Senate Hall in the Government Center. Only one person had been notified in advance of his arrival and that was Relena. Actually it was quite hard to keep news from Relena, but Quatre didn't mind.
He had met up with Heero when his shuttle landed and the former pilot of Wing Zero told him that he was his escort, which also meant that he had some information relevant to the current situation.
"So? What is it?" he asked Heero as they made their way towards the Senate Hall, avoiding the stares of the others who had thought him dead, now back alive, healthy and dressed in business suit.
"Hallsfield's the one, but there is no linking evidence," Heero said in a frank manner. "He's hidden his tracks very well."
"How do you figure?" Quatre asked.
"I was watching the Senators, especially those from Hallsfield's committee during the times the Senate was in session since your 'death' and I noticed that while the others on the committee were very vocal about taking over your company, Hallsfield was not quite vocal as the others. He seemed vocal to the others Senators and was probably their strongest proponent, but he was hiding something."
Heero shrugged as they stopped at the doors that lead into the massive grand hall that housed the Senate. "You'll do fine, its not like they haven't spoken to a dead person before."
The joke caught Quatre completely off guard and he gaped at Heero who smiled slightly in return before opening the door. Quatre stepped through and walked straight to the podium, which was occupied by Relena, making a case for Winner Corp.
"Excuse me," Quatre said in a loud voice, stopping Relena and turning all heads towards him. He looked around, feeling small in such a big place, but then saw Relena grinning at him and smiled in return. He turned his head towards the members of the Senate and sought out Hallsfield's face. The man looked like he was chiseled from stone – no emotion, nothing to suggest that it was him that setup the means to assassinate him.
Quatre focused his gaze at the man, daring him to do anything, while he addressed everyone else, "I believe that there are matters attending to Winner Corporation that needs to be addressed.
"I believe I can rectify those issues."
* * *
The EndEnd Notes:
* - auto racing – the type of circuit is based on Formula 1 Auto Racing, a crème la crème high octane racing circuit that tours the whole world. ^_^ I absolutely follow F1 and have been since I was 8 years old. I grew up watching Michael Schumacher go from Jordan to Bennetton and now to Ferrari…heh…I digress… Go Schuey!
** - August AC 195 – I don't know the exact date when Quatre blew up the mineral asteroid at the debut of Wing Zero, but give or take, its nearly mid-series when he does it and so makes it mid-July since the pilots started Operation Meteor on April 7.