Author's Note; The reason most everyone reads fanfiction is quite simple;
they don't want the story to end. This is exactly how I feel about Gundam
Wing, and Endless Waltz. Consequently, I decided to go and read some
fanfiction, to see what it was like (never having read fanfics at all
before!)... There was some exemplary material out there, but there was an
awful lot of... well, crap. So I have decided to do my bit in maybe evening
the ratio of good to bad, one fanfic at a time. Mind you, this is all my
own opinion. So, in essence, this is my very best shot at an entertaining,
well-written fanfic, with a plausible plot that stays true to the
characters and the mood of the show. I'm going to try to be the best writer
I possibly can, and I'd much appreciate it if those who like my work can
tell me why, and what I need to improve on. Thank you for reading this
overly long blurb! On with the story!
Chapter 1--Begin
"Master Quatre!"
Rashid's call echoed throughout the towering halls of the Winner Estate, waking a certain very tired, very blond young man. Quatre Raberba Winner's eyes flickered open as he wearily sat up in his chair, leaving behind his comfortable slumber, his head having rested atop one of the many towering stacks of paper dominating his overlarge mahogany desk.
"Master Quatre! There's a call for you on line four!"
Quatre coughed, and drew in a breath to answer his friend and mentor.
"Thank you, Rashid... Please put it through to my desk phone." Quatre guessed that it was probably just another irritated executive officer, having called to complain about how Winner Enterprises was 'forcing them out of the market'. Quatre snorted and smirked. It's not our fault that the hardworking and honest people of Winner Enterprises make us more popular than those other inefficient, unmotivated corporations...
The videophone on his desk lit up. Quatre had resigned himself to another pointless argument by the time he answered.
"Hello. This is Quatre Winner. How may I..." his sentence drifted off into the realm of the unspoken.
"Well, hello there, Quatre! My, it's been a long time... Almost a year now?"
"Er... Sally Po! Of all the people I wasn't expecting... Yes, it's been a while. I haven't seen you since AC 196." He smiled at the equally blond woman on the screen. "What can I help you with? Has my old friend Wufei gotten into trouble again?"
Sally Po laughed, her happiness and natural good humor managing to shine through the videophone connection. "No, it's nothing like that. Chang is fine, and has been a great help..." Her voice trailed off, along with her smile. "It's something more serious. Tell me, Quatre. How soon can you be at Preventer Headquarters?"
Quatre could tell this was no laughing matter now. "I can be there in two days. Will that be soon enough?" Lines of worry etched his brow.
"Yes, that's soon enough. Say... Do you know where any of the other former Gundam pilots are? We might need their help. This is a crisis too big for the Preventers to handle alone!" "And now for our final act... Catherine Bloom and Trowa Barton!"
Almost every spectator in the huge circus tent rose to give a preemptive standing ovation, the gaily-colored structure reverberating with the sheer volume of applause. Down on the mostly-dark stage, two beacon- like spotlights lanced down to reveal the aforementioned performers.
Catherine Bloom, a slim young woman with a head of short, curly brown hair, stood in the center of the first pool of light. Her arms were crossed across her chest, a brace of four throwing knives protruding from between the fingers of each hand. Under the second beam of light stood Trowa Barton, an unsmiling, though handsome youth with a spiky mass of brown hair lancing down to cover one eye. The other half of his face was covered by a checkered clown half-mask, his trademark apparels.
Together, these two young people made up the one of the greatest circus acts in recent history. It was because of them that the circus was sold out nightly, show after splendid show.
Their act started. Trowa was manacled, spread-eagled, to a large round slab of wood, which in turn was propped up perpendicular to the ground. Catherine stood five meters away from him, forehead furrowed in concentration. The crowd quieted; the air was saturated with apprehension. Suddenly, Catherine's arm flashed out, sending the four knives hurtling through air, like short, silver bolts of lightening. The crowd held its collective breath... The four blades thunked into the wood, each one having embedded itself on either side of Trowa's legs, mere millimeters away from his skin. Before the crowd even had time to breathe a relieved sigh, Catherine whirled her other arm out, and her knives again hit only wood, but above and below Trowa's arms! The whole circus crowd, down to the very last man, exhaled their pent-up breaths, relief showing on their features.
However, the act wasn't over yet. Catherine reached behind her, and pulled yet another knife from her belt; this one was golden, and wickedly long, twice as deadly looking as the other blades. Trowa frowned, the only emotion he had shown during the entire ordeal. The crowd's breath caught in its throat. The beautiful young performer flung her knife... Straight at Trowa's head! The crowd gasped in horror; the young man was about to be killed! Zzzzzzt-thunk! Once again, the knife had failed to touch Trowa's flesh... but it had struck where it had been intended to. Trowa's head was tilted at a forty-degree angle, and the long, golden knife protruded from where the left, masked, side of his face would otherwise have been.
The crowd went wild, having gotten more than their money's worth of excitement. A half-hour later found Trowa out behind the circus tent, feeding the circus animals. They deserved it... We had a good show today. Trowa's sharp senses alerted him to Catherine's light and dainty footsteps behind him.
"Good evening, Catherine. I there anything I can help you with?" He turned and smiled at the young woman who was his friend, his companion, and quite possibly his long-lost sister.
"No, Trowa, I'm fine. You dodged my knife wonderfully tonight! We're going to have to buy a bigger tent, at the rate that we're going! You and I are pulling in huge crowds! I'm so happy!"
Trowa stepped forward and embraced his closest friend. "You're doing most of the work, Catherine. Don't give me too much of the credit. I'm only paid enough to dodge, remember?" It was a private joke they had shared for some years.
"Actually, Trowa, I had no intention of inflating your ego. In fact, I came here to tell you that you have company. An old friend of yours, I remember him. He came to visit some years ago, back when you were..." her voice caught. "were still fighting." She turned, and took a few paces in the direction of the tent, before pausing to add, "Quickly, Trowa. He says it's urgent. And I believe him."
Sitting in a chair behind the stage was another young man of roughly Trowa's age. Although he was evidently Chinese, he had the same unsmiling, severe demeanor as Trowa. Small wonder they were friends. The other youth rose as Trowa entered. "...Wufei." Trowa eyed his former brother-in-arms. "I never thought I'd see you again. Has working with the Preventers become too boring for you?" Chang Wufei didn't laugh. "Don't waste my time, Trowa, and I won't waste yours. I came here... for your help." The admission that he wasn't strong enough to depend only himself and no one else was a blow to his ego. "The Preventers need you, Trowa. I won't sugarcoat it; we're in trouble, and we're not powerful enough to stop our enemy alone this time. Will you come with us?" "Wufei, I need to know what I'm getting into," Trowa countered, "the last thing I want is to take part in or start another war. I'm happy here, at the circus. I don't want to go back to the life I had before. I..." Trowa hesitated a moment. "I don't want to leave my friends." Catherine had heard enough. From what Chang had told her, this latest development didn't leave the Preventers much time. This had to be decided, now. She decided to make her opinion known. "Wufei, answer me honestly. Will the Preventers fail without Trowa's presence? Is it absolutely necessary for him to go with you?" Wufei's features hardened as he answered her. "Yes. If Trowa does not assist us, we will fail." "Then go, Towa Barton. The world needs you." "But, Catherine-" "I won't take no for an answer. No, you know I don't like it when you go to fight, but I realize now that it's necessary. Your place isn't here... with the circus. With us." Catherine let her head sink down onto her chest. "Go, Trowa. And please... please come back to me safely." Trowa and Catherine, both raised as orphans, had just recently discovered evidence that had led them to the conclusion that they were, in fact, siblings. The two had become very close lately, and were loath to leave one another's company for any great length of time. "...I'll go get my things." Trowa walked off towards his room. Ten minutes later, Trowa Barton sat in a Preventers' light transport, beside his friend. He was leaving behind not only the circus and Catherine, but the new life he had worked so hard to create for himself as well.
Only silence greeted Hilde Shebecker as she opened the door to the house she shared with Duo Maxwell. Silence was an unusual occurrence in her house, considering Duo's nature, and that had her worried. She and Duo both worked in this particular space colony as heavy-machinery operators at the local scrap yard. Ex-soldiers both, they had quickly bonded and shared the hardships of some of the more tense times of the Colonial War together.
"Duo? Duo! Where are you?" There was no response. Hilde sighed. This happened all too often; Duo ran off somewhere to do something... and he never told her. But that doesn't matter right now, Hilde thought, I have an armload of groceries to put away... which will promptly disappear. Duo was not only the original prankster, but he ate like five men! Hilde didn't mind that, however. He pulled his weight at the scrap yard, and helped pay the rent.
As Hilde walked into the kitchen, she noticed a slip of paper, with a message hastily scrawled on it, lying on the table. She set the groceries down, and read;
"Dear Hilde; I'm off to save the world again! Call the Preventers if
you really need me. Keep the home fires burning for me! -Duo Maxwell" "Oh Duo... what could have gone wrong now?" Quatre watched the clouds streak by the window of his private jet, which was, of course, of Winner Enterprises manufacture. He sighed. There was so much work to be done... and the responsibility weighed heavily upon Quatre's shoulders. It's not easy, being the heir to a giant corporation at a mere fifteen years, he reflected, but it's a job, and somebody's got to do it. Quatre inherited Winner Enterprises in Year After Colony (known as AC) 195. His father had died defending his home colony in the Colonial War with the Earth Alliance, leaving Quatre as the only son of the family, and therefore, in his father's eyes, the only acceptable heir. Quatre had twenty-nine sisters, all of them grown from test tubes, like himself. They were all older than he, and helped take the workload off him. The loved him dearly, as he cherished them. I'm just so sorry that I have to put the company entirely upon their shoulders while I'm gone... But from what Sally's told me, this is far more important. A mile below Quatre's blue and gray Winner jet, Trowa looked up and took note of its passing. Without turning, he let out an offhand "Wufei? Quatre's here. Look up." Chang Wufei didn't spare the time to glance up to Quatre's plane. His only response was; "Good, he's on time. At least I know we can count on him..." "You're worried about Duo?" "Aren't you?" "Point taken." Wufei sped up, and turned onto the last stretch of icy road that led to the mostly-subterranean, Antarctic complex that served as Preventers HQ. Inside the Preventers' complex, Major Sally Po had something more pressing than Quatre's arrival to worry about. "Major Po! We've got a high-speed space transport going through re-entry right above us! The pilot is requesting permission to land, and it doesn't seem like he's going to take no for an answer; his course isn't changing!" Sally looked at the base's radar screens, and they confirmed the Ensign's report. She stared incredulously at the sensors before snapping off an order. "Of course, let him land! And get that pilot on the comm right now!" No rational pilot would go into re-entry in a non-atmospheric transport, let alone right over his landing site! There's only one pilot with enough skills and total disregard for personal safety who would try something like that... Sally felt an involuntary smile creep across her face as she thought of the young prankster pilot. She had just enough time to compose herself before the main communications screen lit up. "Hey, Sally! Lookin' good!" Duo Maxwell cracked a roguish smile at his fairly recently acquainted friend. Although a young Gundam pilot like the others, who were rendezvousing at the Preventers' base, he was unique in more ways then one; he had a long braided ponytail of brown hair that dangled down below his waist. He also opted to wear the garments of a priest, minus the robes, with the shirt's sleeves rolled up. These were not Duo's most notable trademarks, however. He was known for his unflagging optimism, constant good cheer... and his constant pranks. Sally didn't know how poor Hilde managed to live with him. "Maxwell. I should have known you'd pull something flashy like this. I'll reprimand you later." She couldn't suppress the smile that crept across her face. "In the meantime, the runways are..." she glanced over at a young technician, who gave her a thumbs-up. "Yes, the runways are cleared, so hurry up and get on the ground. I'll have a tech escort you to the meeting." "Sounds good. I assume the others are here?" Sally nodded. "Alright, then. See you dirtside!" The screen flickered to black as the heat from re-entry began to cast a red glow across Duo's face. A half-hour later found the five young men in a brightly-lit and sterile- looking room, seated around a large, green conference table. After a few minutes of impatient waiting, Duo dared to cut the thick blanket of silence that smothered the conference room. "Come on! Where the heck is Heero? Moreover, why have we been called here? I've been sitting here for almost ten minutes now, and-" Wufei cut him off, his voice sharpened to a razor's edge by irritation. "Be patient, Maxwell. Your complaints aren't going to help. Major Po will return with the briefing materials in no time, and then we'll get underway. And as for Heero..." As if on cue, the door hissed open. Wufei smirked. "Why don't you ask him yourself, Maxwell?" "Heero!" Duo stood with such enthusiasm that he upended his chair, and immediately began bombarding Heero with questions. "...The last two years? I thought you'd gone off to die, or something! And that's just like you, showing up late for an, uh, important meeting like this!" Heero's normally expressionless visage angled into a glare. "You think I'd sit still at a time like this? I was here before any of you." No one had anything to add as the last Gundam pilot took his seat, impassive as always. The door opened and closed itself again, and a stack of five manila folders hit the table with a thump. Sally took her position at the front of the room, armed with a portable data projector she placed upon the table, to shine onto the whitewashed wall to her left. "Alright, gentlemen. Since we're here, let's get started." "It's about time..." Duo muttered under his breath as the projector clicked and whined to life. Sally turned away from her work to face him. "Excuse me, what was that, Mr. Maxwell?" Duo broke out into a cold sweat as he stammered something to the effect of 'Nothing, ma'am.' She may be a woman, but she sure can be intimidating! Thank goodness I don't see her very often! Duo turned his full attention to the projector's target wall as Sally inserted a disc. The little machine beeped, and dutifully regurgitated an image upon the wall. An image they had all seen before. "Gentlemen, the first half of our operation is basically an elimination mission. And," she gestured to the picture on the wall, "here is our target." Then all hell broke loose, with all the pilots either shouting in surprise or gaping in disbelief. Wufei, knowing of this in advance, stayed nonplussed and quiet. "What the...!" "What do you mean, our target?!" "But he's dead!" Quatre was the first to put together a coherent sentence of any meaningful length. "Major Po, I saw him shot by one of his own soldiers! How can he be the target of an assassination if he's been killed? Unless..." Quatre frowned. "He is dead, isn't he?" "Calm down, everyone! Yes, all evidence points to this man's death, but that doesn't change at all that we're dealing with nothing less... than the apparent revival of Dekim Barton."
Duo remained unconvinced. "I don't believe a word of it. You can't bring people back from the dead! If you could, don't you think we'd be seeing Treize again?" Sally nodded. "You're right, Duo, but I think we have a plausible explanation. Right before Dekim was killed, he professed to have created Marimaiea through cloning, correct?" Quatre gasped as the implication dawned on him. "Sally...! That's ludicrous. We hunted down all his followers after the incident, and arrested him. Not only that, but how could his clone have inherited all the original's memories?" Wufei decided to answer these questions himself. "Good points, Quatre, but apparently we may have missed a carefully hidden sleeper cell set up specifically for this contingency plan. And as for the memories..." Wufei paused to gather his thoughts. "I trust you all remember the Zero System?" The other pilots nodded. They had all at one point had experience with the mind-altering Zero System. This device was installed in only a few Gundams, and was designed to feed raw data directly from the mecha into the pilot's brain, turning him into a devastating tactician and a superweapon in his own right. The only problem with the Zero System was its tendency to completely override the pilot's lower-lever reasoning skills, resulting in a form of temporary insanity in which any and everything becomes a target. The first time Quatre had used the Zero System, he had gone on a rampage, with the intent of wiping all human life from outer space. Only the combined efforts of both Heero and Trowa stopped him from causing any more damage. Heero was the sole pilot with a strong enough will to use the Zero System and not fall prey to its wiles. Sally continued her explanation. "Apparently, Dekim's scientists had managed to perfect a device based on the Zero System that can manipulate with great precision the brainwave-altering effects of the original System, before his death. We believe that his technicians were able to restore a 'backup copy', if you will, of Dekim's memories and brainwave patterns into his cloned copy. Thus, we are faced with the prospect of a renewed full- scale war, led by what his remaining followers will perceive to be a near- unkillable leader" The Gundam pilots all sat silently for a while, absorbing the information that Sally had just imparted to them. Trowa, always the logical one, was the first to speak out. "So. We know that Dekim Barton lives again. Nevertheless, isn't it the Preventers' job to be prepared for exactly this kind of crisis? Why does something like this warrant bringing all of us out of retirement? We're Gundam pilots... or rather, we were." All the mobile suits in existence, including the Gundams, had been destroyed and their plans confiscated after the final conflict with Dekim Barton's forces. The five pilots had gone into retirement, and decided to try and live out the rest of their lives as normal people. This had been extremely difficult for Wufei, who only felt truly alive in the heat of battle; so he had joined the Preventers. Heero was trained only as an agent and assassin, so he disappeared off into outer space, presumably to carry out more of his covert 'missions'. No one knew exactly what he did, or where he went, and it was unlikely that he would be telling anyone anytime soon. Sally hesitated before answering. "It seems that Dekim's revival is but half of his contingency plan. There is something much more pressing, and dangerous, afoot." She sighed. "All available information points towards Dekim's forces starting off their renewed terror campaign... with an assassination of their own." Duo remained the die-hard sceptic. "Assassination? What, are they going to do, try and kill Miss Relena?" "Actually, that's exactly what they're going to do, Duo. There's going to be a suicide bombing at the United Earth Sphere Summit, coming up in three weeks. If their plan succeeds, everyone there dies." Up until now, Heero had shown no emotion or reaction to any of the proceedings, but now his forehead creased into a frown. Major Po continued. "As of midnight tonight, we have exactly three weeks to stop the bombing and rid the world of Dekim Barton, all while preventing a propaganda war and full-scale terrorism campaign from breaking out. I'll be frank, boys. This is going to be the most difficult mission you've ever undertaken. Do you think you can do it?" Duo consented, only grim determination audible in his voice. "You're right. It's not going to be easy, but if it means saving lives..." He brought his fist down on the table. "Count me in." Quatre was the second to speak up. "Duo's right. Saving lives and protecting the peace is the most important thing in world to me. That was one of the many things Sandrock taught me, among others. I also learned that if we all work together, the five of us can do anything. I'm with Duo!" Heero stood. "Mission accepted." Trowa merely nodded. "Now that we're all on the same level here," Chang concluded as he stood, "I'll lead you to the guest quarters. Grab your mission folders; I suggest that you all study them and go over the details before doing anything else. There are recreational facilities here for you to use at your leisure. We'll begin operation preparations tomorrow.
Chapter 1--End
Chapter 1--Begin
"Master Quatre!"
Rashid's call echoed throughout the towering halls of the Winner Estate, waking a certain very tired, very blond young man. Quatre Raberba Winner's eyes flickered open as he wearily sat up in his chair, leaving behind his comfortable slumber, his head having rested atop one of the many towering stacks of paper dominating his overlarge mahogany desk.
"Master Quatre! There's a call for you on line four!"
Quatre coughed, and drew in a breath to answer his friend and mentor.
"Thank you, Rashid... Please put it through to my desk phone." Quatre guessed that it was probably just another irritated executive officer, having called to complain about how Winner Enterprises was 'forcing them out of the market'. Quatre snorted and smirked. It's not our fault that the hardworking and honest people of Winner Enterprises make us more popular than those other inefficient, unmotivated corporations...
The videophone on his desk lit up. Quatre had resigned himself to another pointless argument by the time he answered.
"Hello. This is Quatre Winner. How may I..." his sentence drifted off into the realm of the unspoken.
"Well, hello there, Quatre! My, it's been a long time... Almost a year now?"
"Er... Sally Po! Of all the people I wasn't expecting... Yes, it's been a while. I haven't seen you since AC 196." He smiled at the equally blond woman on the screen. "What can I help you with? Has my old friend Wufei gotten into trouble again?"
Sally Po laughed, her happiness and natural good humor managing to shine through the videophone connection. "No, it's nothing like that. Chang is fine, and has been a great help..." Her voice trailed off, along with her smile. "It's something more serious. Tell me, Quatre. How soon can you be at Preventer Headquarters?"
Quatre could tell this was no laughing matter now. "I can be there in two days. Will that be soon enough?" Lines of worry etched his brow.
"Yes, that's soon enough. Say... Do you know where any of the other former Gundam pilots are? We might need their help. This is a crisis too big for the Preventers to handle alone!" "And now for our final act... Catherine Bloom and Trowa Barton!"
Almost every spectator in the huge circus tent rose to give a preemptive standing ovation, the gaily-colored structure reverberating with the sheer volume of applause. Down on the mostly-dark stage, two beacon- like spotlights lanced down to reveal the aforementioned performers.
Catherine Bloom, a slim young woman with a head of short, curly brown hair, stood in the center of the first pool of light. Her arms were crossed across her chest, a brace of four throwing knives protruding from between the fingers of each hand. Under the second beam of light stood Trowa Barton, an unsmiling, though handsome youth with a spiky mass of brown hair lancing down to cover one eye. The other half of his face was covered by a checkered clown half-mask, his trademark apparels.
Together, these two young people made up the one of the greatest circus acts in recent history. It was because of them that the circus was sold out nightly, show after splendid show.
Their act started. Trowa was manacled, spread-eagled, to a large round slab of wood, which in turn was propped up perpendicular to the ground. Catherine stood five meters away from him, forehead furrowed in concentration. The crowd quieted; the air was saturated with apprehension. Suddenly, Catherine's arm flashed out, sending the four knives hurtling through air, like short, silver bolts of lightening. The crowd held its collective breath... The four blades thunked into the wood, each one having embedded itself on either side of Trowa's legs, mere millimeters away from his skin. Before the crowd even had time to breathe a relieved sigh, Catherine whirled her other arm out, and her knives again hit only wood, but above and below Trowa's arms! The whole circus crowd, down to the very last man, exhaled their pent-up breaths, relief showing on their features.
However, the act wasn't over yet. Catherine reached behind her, and pulled yet another knife from her belt; this one was golden, and wickedly long, twice as deadly looking as the other blades. Trowa frowned, the only emotion he had shown during the entire ordeal. The crowd's breath caught in its throat. The beautiful young performer flung her knife... Straight at Trowa's head! The crowd gasped in horror; the young man was about to be killed! Zzzzzzt-thunk! Once again, the knife had failed to touch Trowa's flesh... but it had struck where it had been intended to. Trowa's head was tilted at a forty-degree angle, and the long, golden knife protruded from where the left, masked, side of his face would otherwise have been.
The crowd went wild, having gotten more than their money's worth of excitement. A half-hour later found Trowa out behind the circus tent, feeding the circus animals. They deserved it... We had a good show today. Trowa's sharp senses alerted him to Catherine's light and dainty footsteps behind him.
"Good evening, Catherine. I there anything I can help you with?" He turned and smiled at the young woman who was his friend, his companion, and quite possibly his long-lost sister.
"No, Trowa, I'm fine. You dodged my knife wonderfully tonight! We're going to have to buy a bigger tent, at the rate that we're going! You and I are pulling in huge crowds! I'm so happy!"
Trowa stepped forward and embraced his closest friend. "You're doing most of the work, Catherine. Don't give me too much of the credit. I'm only paid enough to dodge, remember?" It was a private joke they had shared for some years.
"Actually, Trowa, I had no intention of inflating your ego. In fact, I came here to tell you that you have company. An old friend of yours, I remember him. He came to visit some years ago, back when you were..." her voice caught. "were still fighting." She turned, and took a few paces in the direction of the tent, before pausing to add, "Quickly, Trowa. He says it's urgent. And I believe him."
Sitting in a chair behind the stage was another young man of roughly Trowa's age. Although he was evidently Chinese, he had the same unsmiling, severe demeanor as Trowa. Small wonder they were friends. The other youth rose as Trowa entered. "...Wufei." Trowa eyed his former brother-in-arms. "I never thought I'd see you again. Has working with the Preventers become too boring for you?" Chang Wufei didn't laugh. "Don't waste my time, Trowa, and I won't waste yours. I came here... for your help." The admission that he wasn't strong enough to depend only himself and no one else was a blow to his ego. "The Preventers need you, Trowa. I won't sugarcoat it; we're in trouble, and we're not powerful enough to stop our enemy alone this time. Will you come with us?" "Wufei, I need to know what I'm getting into," Trowa countered, "the last thing I want is to take part in or start another war. I'm happy here, at the circus. I don't want to go back to the life I had before. I..." Trowa hesitated a moment. "I don't want to leave my friends." Catherine had heard enough. From what Chang had told her, this latest development didn't leave the Preventers much time. This had to be decided, now. She decided to make her opinion known. "Wufei, answer me honestly. Will the Preventers fail without Trowa's presence? Is it absolutely necessary for him to go with you?" Wufei's features hardened as he answered her. "Yes. If Trowa does not assist us, we will fail." "Then go, Towa Barton. The world needs you." "But, Catherine-" "I won't take no for an answer. No, you know I don't like it when you go to fight, but I realize now that it's necessary. Your place isn't here... with the circus. With us." Catherine let her head sink down onto her chest. "Go, Trowa. And please... please come back to me safely." Trowa and Catherine, both raised as orphans, had just recently discovered evidence that had led them to the conclusion that they were, in fact, siblings. The two had become very close lately, and were loath to leave one another's company for any great length of time. "...I'll go get my things." Trowa walked off towards his room. Ten minutes later, Trowa Barton sat in a Preventers' light transport, beside his friend. He was leaving behind not only the circus and Catherine, but the new life he had worked so hard to create for himself as well.
Only silence greeted Hilde Shebecker as she opened the door to the house she shared with Duo Maxwell. Silence was an unusual occurrence in her house, considering Duo's nature, and that had her worried. She and Duo both worked in this particular space colony as heavy-machinery operators at the local scrap yard. Ex-soldiers both, they had quickly bonded and shared the hardships of some of the more tense times of the Colonial War together.
"Duo? Duo! Where are you?" There was no response. Hilde sighed. This happened all too often; Duo ran off somewhere to do something... and he never told her. But that doesn't matter right now, Hilde thought, I have an armload of groceries to put away... which will promptly disappear. Duo was not only the original prankster, but he ate like five men! Hilde didn't mind that, however. He pulled his weight at the scrap yard, and helped pay the rent.
As Hilde walked into the kitchen, she noticed a slip of paper, with a message hastily scrawled on it, lying on the table. She set the groceries down, and read;
"Dear Hilde; I'm off to save the world again! Call the Preventers if
you really need me. Keep the home fires burning for me! -Duo Maxwell" "Oh Duo... what could have gone wrong now?" Quatre watched the clouds streak by the window of his private jet, which was, of course, of Winner Enterprises manufacture. He sighed. There was so much work to be done... and the responsibility weighed heavily upon Quatre's shoulders. It's not easy, being the heir to a giant corporation at a mere fifteen years, he reflected, but it's a job, and somebody's got to do it. Quatre inherited Winner Enterprises in Year After Colony (known as AC) 195. His father had died defending his home colony in the Colonial War with the Earth Alliance, leaving Quatre as the only son of the family, and therefore, in his father's eyes, the only acceptable heir. Quatre had twenty-nine sisters, all of them grown from test tubes, like himself. They were all older than he, and helped take the workload off him. The loved him dearly, as he cherished them. I'm just so sorry that I have to put the company entirely upon their shoulders while I'm gone... But from what Sally's told me, this is far more important. A mile below Quatre's blue and gray Winner jet, Trowa looked up and took note of its passing. Without turning, he let out an offhand "Wufei? Quatre's here. Look up." Chang Wufei didn't spare the time to glance up to Quatre's plane. His only response was; "Good, he's on time. At least I know we can count on him..." "You're worried about Duo?" "Aren't you?" "Point taken." Wufei sped up, and turned onto the last stretch of icy road that led to the mostly-subterranean, Antarctic complex that served as Preventers HQ. Inside the Preventers' complex, Major Sally Po had something more pressing than Quatre's arrival to worry about. "Major Po! We've got a high-speed space transport going through re-entry right above us! The pilot is requesting permission to land, and it doesn't seem like he's going to take no for an answer; his course isn't changing!" Sally looked at the base's radar screens, and they confirmed the Ensign's report. She stared incredulously at the sensors before snapping off an order. "Of course, let him land! And get that pilot on the comm right now!" No rational pilot would go into re-entry in a non-atmospheric transport, let alone right over his landing site! There's only one pilot with enough skills and total disregard for personal safety who would try something like that... Sally felt an involuntary smile creep across her face as she thought of the young prankster pilot. She had just enough time to compose herself before the main communications screen lit up. "Hey, Sally! Lookin' good!" Duo Maxwell cracked a roguish smile at his fairly recently acquainted friend. Although a young Gundam pilot like the others, who were rendezvousing at the Preventers' base, he was unique in more ways then one; he had a long braided ponytail of brown hair that dangled down below his waist. He also opted to wear the garments of a priest, minus the robes, with the shirt's sleeves rolled up. These were not Duo's most notable trademarks, however. He was known for his unflagging optimism, constant good cheer... and his constant pranks. Sally didn't know how poor Hilde managed to live with him. "Maxwell. I should have known you'd pull something flashy like this. I'll reprimand you later." She couldn't suppress the smile that crept across her face. "In the meantime, the runways are..." she glanced over at a young technician, who gave her a thumbs-up. "Yes, the runways are cleared, so hurry up and get on the ground. I'll have a tech escort you to the meeting." "Sounds good. I assume the others are here?" Sally nodded. "Alright, then. See you dirtside!" The screen flickered to black as the heat from re-entry began to cast a red glow across Duo's face. A half-hour later found the five young men in a brightly-lit and sterile- looking room, seated around a large, green conference table. After a few minutes of impatient waiting, Duo dared to cut the thick blanket of silence that smothered the conference room. "Come on! Where the heck is Heero? Moreover, why have we been called here? I've been sitting here for almost ten minutes now, and-" Wufei cut him off, his voice sharpened to a razor's edge by irritation. "Be patient, Maxwell. Your complaints aren't going to help. Major Po will return with the briefing materials in no time, and then we'll get underway. And as for Heero..." As if on cue, the door hissed open. Wufei smirked. "Why don't you ask him yourself, Maxwell?" "Heero!" Duo stood with such enthusiasm that he upended his chair, and immediately began bombarding Heero with questions. "...The last two years? I thought you'd gone off to die, or something! And that's just like you, showing up late for an, uh, important meeting like this!" Heero's normally expressionless visage angled into a glare. "You think I'd sit still at a time like this? I was here before any of you." No one had anything to add as the last Gundam pilot took his seat, impassive as always. The door opened and closed itself again, and a stack of five manila folders hit the table with a thump. Sally took her position at the front of the room, armed with a portable data projector she placed upon the table, to shine onto the whitewashed wall to her left. "Alright, gentlemen. Since we're here, let's get started." "It's about time..." Duo muttered under his breath as the projector clicked and whined to life. Sally turned away from her work to face him. "Excuse me, what was that, Mr. Maxwell?" Duo broke out into a cold sweat as he stammered something to the effect of 'Nothing, ma'am.' She may be a woman, but she sure can be intimidating! Thank goodness I don't see her very often! Duo turned his full attention to the projector's target wall as Sally inserted a disc. The little machine beeped, and dutifully regurgitated an image upon the wall. An image they had all seen before. "Gentlemen, the first half of our operation is basically an elimination mission. And," she gestured to the picture on the wall, "here is our target." Then all hell broke loose, with all the pilots either shouting in surprise or gaping in disbelief. Wufei, knowing of this in advance, stayed nonplussed and quiet. "What the...!" "What do you mean, our target?!" "But he's dead!" Quatre was the first to put together a coherent sentence of any meaningful length. "Major Po, I saw him shot by one of his own soldiers! How can he be the target of an assassination if he's been killed? Unless..." Quatre frowned. "He is dead, isn't he?" "Calm down, everyone! Yes, all evidence points to this man's death, but that doesn't change at all that we're dealing with nothing less... than the apparent revival of Dekim Barton."
Duo remained unconvinced. "I don't believe a word of it. You can't bring people back from the dead! If you could, don't you think we'd be seeing Treize again?" Sally nodded. "You're right, Duo, but I think we have a plausible explanation. Right before Dekim was killed, he professed to have created Marimaiea through cloning, correct?" Quatre gasped as the implication dawned on him. "Sally...! That's ludicrous. We hunted down all his followers after the incident, and arrested him. Not only that, but how could his clone have inherited all the original's memories?" Wufei decided to answer these questions himself. "Good points, Quatre, but apparently we may have missed a carefully hidden sleeper cell set up specifically for this contingency plan. And as for the memories..." Wufei paused to gather his thoughts. "I trust you all remember the Zero System?" The other pilots nodded. They had all at one point had experience with the mind-altering Zero System. This device was installed in only a few Gundams, and was designed to feed raw data directly from the mecha into the pilot's brain, turning him into a devastating tactician and a superweapon in his own right. The only problem with the Zero System was its tendency to completely override the pilot's lower-lever reasoning skills, resulting in a form of temporary insanity in which any and everything becomes a target. The first time Quatre had used the Zero System, he had gone on a rampage, with the intent of wiping all human life from outer space. Only the combined efforts of both Heero and Trowa stopped him from causing any more damage. Heero was the sole pilot with a strong enough will to use the Zero System and not fall prey to its wiles. Sally continued her explanation. "Apparently, Dekim's scientists had managed to perfect a device based on the Zero System that can manipulate with great precision the brainwave-altering effects of the original System, before his death. We believe that his technicians were able to restore a 'backup copy', if you will, of Dekim's memories and brainwave patterns into his cloned copy. Thus, we are faced with the prospect of a renewed full- scale war, led by what his remaining followers will perceive to be a near- unkillable leader" The Gundam pilots all sat silently for a while, absorbing the information that Sally had just imparted to them. Trowa, always the logical one, was the first to speak out. "So. We know that Dekim Barton lives again. Nevertheless, isn't it the Preventers' job to be prepared for exactly this kind of crisis? Why does something like this warrant bringing all of us out of retirement? We're Gundam pilots... or rather, we were." All the mobile suits in existence, including the Gundams, had been destroyed and their plans confiscated after the final conflict with Dekim Barton's forces. The five pilots had gone into retirement, and decided to try and live out the rest of their lives as normal people. This had been extremely difficult for Wufei, who only felt truly alive in the heat of battle; so he had joined the Preventers. Heero was trained only as an agent and assassin, so he disappeared off into outer space, presumably to carry out more of his covert 'missions'. No one knew exactly what he did, or where he went, and it was unlikely that he would be telling anyone anytime soon. Sally hesitated before answering. "It seems that Dekim's revival is but half of his contingency plan. There is something much more pressing, and dangerous, afoot." She sighed. "All available information points towards Dekim's forces starting off their renewed terror campaign... with an assassination of their own." Duo remained the die-hard sceptic. "Assassination? What, are they going to do, try and kill Miss Relena?" "Actually, that's exactly what they're going to do, Duo. There's going to be a suicide bombing at the United Earth Sphere Summit, coming up in three weeks. If their plan succeeds, everyone there dies." Up until now, Heero had shown no emotion or reaction to any of the proceedings, but now his forehead creased into a frown. Major Po continued. "As of midnight tonight, we have exactly three weeks to stop the bombing and rid the world of Dekim Barton, all while preventing a propaganda war and full-scale terrorism campaign from breaking out. I'll be frank, boys. This is going to be the most difficult mission you've ever undertaken. Do you think you can do it?" Duo consented, only grim determination audible in his voice. "You're right. It's not going to be easy, but if it means saving lives..." He brought his fist down on the table. "Count me in." Quatre was the second to speak up. "Duo's right. Saving lives and protecting the peace is the most important thing in world to me. That was one of the many things Sandrock taught me, among others. I also learned that if we all work together, the five of us can do anything. I'm with Duo!" Heero stood. "Mission accepted." Trowa merely nodded. "Now that we're all on the same level here," Chang concluded as he stood, "I'll lead you to the guest quarters. Grab your mission folders; I suggest that you all study them and go over the details before doing anything else. There are recreational facilities here for you to use at your leisure. We'll begin operation preparations tomorrow.
Chapter 1--End