Hello! ::waves:: Thank you Archer for reviewing.

A message to everyone reading: this quick update is due to the fact that I have written more then one chapter before uploading. Future updates will have about a week in between them, and even if this story isn't updated, SOMETHING of mine will be updated at least once a week. Okay, on with the story!

Chapter Two:

Escape: Stage One- Dungeons

Rae buried her grin at the looks she got from the other two at her pronouncement. Maybe A had the right way of things after all. Besides being able to get pictures of their faces like this (thanks to a hidden micro-cam in the braids), she had a very distinct advantage over them. She knew them and what they could do. They didn't know her.

Or what she could do.

Duo Maxwell, the boy to the right with a braid that bounced off his upper thighs, was Pilot 02 of Gundam Deathsythe Hell, from the L2 colonies. His skills were pretty varied, but mainly had to do with mechanics and dexterity- he was an master thief and could pick any lock, given enough time, not to mention sneak past most forms of security. He was also an expert on various explosive devices, as well as just about anything mechanical. Lastly, and almost incongruently, he was one of the best MS pilots in existence. None of the Gundam pilots weren't good in any of these areas- they all could sneak, break and enter, make a bomb, and pilot their suits with nearly unmatched skill. But Duo was considered the best among them.

And to the left, Heero Yuy. The look on his face, though partially hidden by his messy bangs, was more stony then anything, but shock could still be read there. He was the flyer of Gundam Wing Zero- Pilot 01, the best known of the pilots. A specialty of his was demolition: knowing how to get into a building and knock it down on his way out. He and Duo were often partnered for this. Yuy decided where the bombs were needed, and how strong they'd have to be, then Maxwell made them. Together, they would infiltrate and set them up, then off.

His other skills included personal strategy and combat- he could come up with a viable plan for himself from almost anything, and was nearly unbeatable in both rifle and hand-to-hand combat. The two things that truly made the legends among OZ troops, however, were his superhuman strength/reflexes, and his skill with a computer. He had been known to bend or break steel with his bare hands, and the reflexes gave him very high advantages in most fights. But on a computer, there was no system that wouldn't eventually admit him. Few could even detect him. He was an electronic phantom, a ghost in cyberspace.

But they didn't know anything about her. Oooooh... fun opportunities. But those would be for later. At the moment, both boys were beginning to shake off the shock off the announcement, which was just as well. They still needed to get through the base, and being stunned speechless wasn't conducive to getting out whole and undetected.

Heero was now looking at her in his version of open suspicion. "How do we know you're telling the truth?" he demanded.

Please. And Yuy was supposed to be one of the smart ones. "If I wasn't, I would be asking questions, and not volunteering my own information. I also wouldn't know about petty rivalries in the mentors. I wouldn't know that you would have broken out of those chains sometime in the next ten minutes, with Duo out in five thanks to his picks. I'm just here to make the escape easier on all of us. It'll be a lot more nerve-racking to OZ if Gundam Pilots 01 and 02 disappear without a trace.

"Further point: if I was a fake, how would I know your numbers? You've hacked their data before- you know all they have on you is the visuals of the five Gundams.

"Besides all that, you getting any better offers?"

Duo blinked, then started to chortle. "I think she won the argument, Heero." Heero just glared. Rae smirked. Point to the female.

"Now, you two face that wall and put on your uniforms, and I'll face this one and change my own. When you turn around, there will be one helpless female prisoner for you to escort." One presto-chango coming up... this should be good for more shocked faces. Rae's hands worked all on their own, transforming her while her mind wandered over her new... teammates. These two were an interesting pair. Almost completely opposite, according to their psyche profiles, yet they fit so perfectly. And, given time, maybe in more ways then one.

If the looks that Maxwell had hidden when Heero had picked up his uniform meant anything.

But how did Yuy feel about that? That would be an answer probably requiring skilled torture to extract, given what the file on him had said. Tension in a team was not a good thing, especially in this business. Something to keep an eye on, then.

Rae packed the remnants of her original costume into the brief case, then stood up. "You boys done yet?" she called over her shoulder.

"Yes." Yuy should win the Olympic gold medal for brevity, Rae thought as she turned around.

This time, she didn't even try to hide her grin at the looks of shock. Well, Maxwell's look of shock. Yuy had apparently reached his quota of shock for the day, and stopped responding to it. And, all modesty aside, they had very good reason to look stunned.

The person before them only resembled the girl who had originally entered the cell in two ways: her basic proportions, and the briefcase she carried. Other then that, there was no resemblance. Instead of a waterfall of silky black hair, there were filthy brunette tangles to mid-back. The neat uniform had been transformed into filthy rags that resembled what had once been a skirt and blouse. Dirt and filth had been smudged liberally over all exposed skin, and once immaculate nails were now caked and filthy. Her feet were bare, both adding to her image as a prisoner and subtracting several inches off her height- she now stood no higher then Heero's shoulder. And lastly, the green eyes of the schoolgirl were now a dull, flat brown. The only two things that kept them from seeing only a prisoner were the pixy smile she still wore, and the briefcase- which she handed off to Heero.

"How- how did you-?" Duo choked out. The pilots looked very different, too, though not nearly as much as Rae. Neat uniforms covered untidy civilian cloths, and lent authority to their otherwise young faces. Their hair had been tucked up beneath their hats- too many people had seen either the long braid or messy bangs on the way in, and had heard who wore them. At least she wasn't dealing with total disguise newbies, then.

"A tattered cloth around my waist, a change of shirts, removing the boots and wig, changing contacts, and making good use of the fact that no one had cleaned this place since Before Colony," Rae listed, not mentioning the micro-cam transferred to her shoulder. She quickly stooped over, picking up a discarded set of handcuffs and their key from the floor. A prisoner needed chains, after all.

As she fastened the cuffs onto her wrists, Duo lost his stunned look and began to laugh. "We need to introduce you to Trowa. You two can trade spy-tips and discuss the merits of one ruse over another!" Ah, yes. Trowa Barton. Pilot 03 of Gundam Heavyarms. An anomaly among the others- a last minute replacement. And yet, he had been far more successful then anyone had ever imagined the original choice might have been. He was a master chameleon, able to infiltrate almost any group. Nearly as stony as Yuy, but he had managed to open up to another person. The file had been quite clear on that. It had also mentioned a very strong affinity for animals, and a strength in acrobatics. Useful talents. Hell, with this job, anything was a useful talent.

Rae finished locking the cuffs down, and slipped the key underneath them. "Okay," she said, looking up at her 'escorts.' "The first guard station is around the corner, then there are two more on the way up to exit. Once we get out, there's a side hall about 200 ft. down the main corridor. It was originally part of a new wing for visitors, but it got shut down before it was completed. The end result is that there's a pair of public restrooms down there that are hardly ever used. We can use them for the next costume change. Questions?"

Duo raised a hand. "Where do my socks go when I put them in the dryer?"

"Smartass. Any questions that are even vaguely related to sanity?" When this query went unanswered, Rae stepped up between then two males. "Right. Let's go."

Give the two credit, they knew how to play guards. The grips on her arms certainly weren't gentle. Schooling her face into a look of blank despair, Rae let her thoughts wander over the two men who were currently hauling her down a prison hallway. They both certainly had masks, expertly maintained ones. Unsurprising- everyone had masks. Teenagers especially- and these were teenagers accustomed to betrayal and loss. Teenagers trained for it.

Yuy's was obvious- blank steel. An ice shield. Nothing gets let in, and no emotion was allowed out. Very, very tough, and almost impossible to penetrate. But in many ways, Maxwell's shield was much tougher. It was also far more dangerous. With Yuy's shield, it was fairly obvious it was a shield. Everyone knew, instinctively, that something had to be behind it. But Maxwell's shield was that of a smile and a laugh. Very few would realize there was anything but the shield, and fewer would be able to get past it. If that kept up, he could become nothing more than what his shield claimed he was.

Mask of a soldier, mask of a jester. Two such complete opposites, and yet...

Her thoughts remained on her two escorts as they past the check point, giving her eyes a far away, drifting look. The guards at the checkpoint asked no questions- they knew that look, had seen it before. Generally in the eyes of a prisoner who had been 'interrogated' one too many times. A prisoner who would snap soon. Rae didn't notice the looks of mingled fear and pity they gave her- her mind was still on the thoughts that gave her the look in the first place.

The masks weren't a danger, yet. They might never be, if the two managed to connect- and, from what Rae could tell, it was very possible. But how would their trainers react? Especially J, who had trained Yuy specifically to be emotionless.

Actually, that answer was easy. He would throw the mother of all fits.

Rae had a very distinct advantage over the other pilots. Lady A had gotten all the information about each of them from their respective sponsors. Their skills, their training, their psyche profiles, their basic backgrounds- at least as far as the scientists knew them- and what their Gundams could do, were all known to her. The arrogant idiots masquerading as trained professionals had mistaken A's interest in their protégés for envy, and had sent her all their information on them.

To quote the Lady- "Getting what you want is easy. You trick some schmuck into giving it to you. This is especially easy if said schmuck is male." Her opinion of the Doctors was never quite what one might call 'complimentary.'

The point was, Rae already knew what it had taken them months to discover: that each of them was very capable, very dedicated, and very deadly- in their own ways. But they knew nothing about her. They didn't know her own special skills- and there were a few. They didn't know where she came from, which was just as well. She had no intention of ever letting that out. They didn't know her reactions, her training, or her fighting style. They weren't even sure of her loyalty and dedication to the mission. This would be a learning experience for all concerned.

Hopefully, everyone would survive it.

During her musings, Heero and Duo had hauled her past the second two checkpoints. They had asked no more questions then the first one. Seeing a prisoner hauled out for questioning was as common and as regular as the change in the guard. As the group neared the stairs leading out, Rae shook her thoughts out and murmured instructions to the side hallway they wanted. "The corridor is to the left, just past the door marked 'office supplies.' What the soldiers really keep in there is everything you're not supposed to find in barracks. The officers know about it, but they turn a blind eye for a percentage of the pay." Rae snorted softly as the reached the top of the stairs. "Why the Hell do they call these people 'nobility.'" It wasn't a question, or a statement, but something in between. Both men heard the cynicism in it. Heero marked it as information, and Duo wondered at the story behind it. But neither one would ask anything- that would require opening their own masks.

No one noticed them slip into the side hallway, and once there they were free from watching eyes. Rae straitened up and fished the key to her manacles out. "We can't take too long, someone will check that room soon. Be out in ten, at the most." Rae snatched the briefcase form Heero and started for the Women's room. "Just rip all the military braiding and decoration off your uniforms- they'll look like suits, then. My change is gonna need to be a little more extensive." With that, the door swung close on her.

Duo and Heero looked at each other- and headed for the Men's room for their costume transformation.

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Well? Like it? Love it? Hate it? I need feedback to live...

Hee hee... you still don't know what Rae looks like... Anyone care to guess? And what do you think of her character so far? I'm honestly trying to give her issues and a personality NOT MY OWN. I'm working very hard to let her be herself, and not some little avatar of me. How'm I doing?