Heero rolled onto his stomach as Duo sleepily encircled his arms around him. Heero smiled contentedly as he felt his eyes close, drifting back to sleep. Or so he thought, when the door was broken apart and Trowa was standing there with an ax, and Quatre hovering behind him.
Duo jumped up, "What in tarna-"
"We'll explain later, come on." Trowa said as he threw the ax aside, and Quatre followed him in, carrying a walkie-talkie.
"Hey, you know you could have knocked!" Duo snarled, the blanket slipping down his bare chest and Trowa raised a knowing eyebrow, and his green eyes held a dangerous edge. But before he could say anything, Quatre ushered him into the adjoining room.
"Er..maybe we should get ready." Duo said sheepishly as he got up, a blanket securely wrapped around his waist, while he was looking for his clothes.
Heero said nothing, as he got up. Only a bit surprised at Trowa's audaciousness. Did his cousin have no shame?
Meanwhile, at the back exit of the campus, Wufei and Meiran waited side by side. They stood on the lookout for any suspicious looking vehicle.
"Why do we have to get watch duty?" Meiran whined as she crossed her arms and Wufei rolled his eyes.
"You're too young to understand." Wufei muttered and Meiran huffed.
"Oh yeah, just try me Chang Wufei!" Meiran threatened. "I know what they were doing just the same as you, I just wanted to help Heero pack."
"Wouldn't want Duo freaking out, would you?" Wufei grinned despite himself, but just as Meiran suspected, he knew exactly what was going on last night. It didn't take a genius to figure that out. Now only if they would hurry up.
"We only need to take the essentials." Trowa sweat dropped as he watched his blond boyfriend run frantically back and forth carrying odds and ends of Heero's stuff, and trying to fit them all in one piece of luggage. No luck, there was not enough room.
"You never know how long- we'll...be...gone..." Quatre bounced up and down as he tried to get the suitcase shut and it was doing nothing for Trowa's mental health. "A little help here." Quatre frustratedly commanded and Trowa walked forward. He pressed his hand on the lid, combined with Quatre's weight they managed to get the case shut.
Quatre was now faced with a problem of his own. Trowa was up close and personal. He blushed as Trowa looked up, confused by Quatre's embarrassment.
Quatre cleared his throat, "Um...maybe we should check on-" Quatre lost his voice as Trowa placed a finger on his lips and shushed him as he leaned forward.
Startled, Quatre toppled backward, bringing Trowa along with him.
"A very compromising position." Quatre whispered as Trowa leaned down and kissed him.
"What's taking those two?" Duo groaned as he helped Heero put his laptop away in its bag.
"No noise, no talking." Heero smiled, "What do you think?"
Duo blushed, "Aww man. Couldn't they do that later? We have to go."
"Why don't you tell them that?" Heero mumbled as he put on his coat. Duo glared at him.
"I'll do exactly that." He heard Heero chuckle behind him.
The bedroom was quiet, Duo gathered that much. The room was a mess. What was Quatre doing anyway?
He stopped in mid stride and noticed the very shocking, yet hot sight of Trowa and Quatre making out, reminding him of last night's activities with his own little demon.
"Ahem." Duo interrupted and the two quickly sprang apart, "You know, we are in the middle of a crisis, and the two of you can only make out."
"Oh, be quiet." Quatre meekly said, blushing a bright red. Duo exited the room, chuckling.
"Maybe we'll continue this later." Quatre said, and Trowa agreed.
Treize gazed out into the bleak atmosphere of space, through the porthole. This was the first time he'd lost a battle.
Who would have thought Dr. J was capable of such lies.
The accusations against Dekim left the mind baffled, and "if" humanely possible, Dekim would never have hurt Heero, he was, after all, the heir to the biggest corporation the solar system had ever seen.
He knew without a doubt that Dr. J's special shuttle left before his, and if his calculations were right, he would be on earth in about an hour.
It was time to make some arrangements.
"Ouch." Duo groaned as Quatre stuffed a duffel bag onto his lap, rather harshly. "Why do we need all of these things?"
Wufei smirked in the seat behind Duo's seat; Quatre's truck does cater to everyone's need. "Quatre brings a new meaning to the term, 'travel lightly'."
"I am thinking ahead." Quatre angrily retorted. "We don't have time to stop anywhere, not even at each and everyone of your houses. So I got what I could out of both Heero's and Trowa's room."
"You took the whole room actually..." Trowa trailed off as Quatre threw him a glare.
"Can we just go already?" Heero huffed. His right arm was sticking out the open window as he stared impassively at the school.
"I've got a question." Meiran piped from the backseat. "What about clothing, food, money? Besides, where are we going and where are we going to stay when we get there?"
"We'll know when we get there." Quatre got into the driver's seat and hastily buckled himself in. "Everyone ready?"
"What do you think?" Duo grumbled, still put off about this morning.
"Good." Quatre said.
"Take a good look at this school, it may be the last time we ever see it." Wufei regretfully said.
Unknown to each of them, Heero began to feel guilty. His friends didn't have to go along with this. This was his fight.
"What are you implying, exactly?" Treize asked over the phone.
"They are missing, gone. Left the building..."
"I am aware of the terminology, Appercut." Treize whispered. "How could they all have runaway?"
"Quite easily. They up and left." The headmaster said.
"I can do without the sarcasm. Do you know where?"
"I sent Zechs out to look for them."
"Hm. So that's it. Heero and his friends have runaway."
Overhead, up in the sky, above the little group, a shuttle of unknown make, made a landing at the Soviana Airport.
Quatre continued to speed in the opposite direction, aware of the airport and who just might land there.
Duo lazily stretched his legs onto Heero's lap and fell asleep on the duffel that Quatre had thrown at him. Meiran and Wufei were having a heated argument in hushed tones.
Trowa and Quatre continued to stay silent, and when the silence got to be too much, Quatre turned the radio on to an oldies station.
Trowa smirked and Quatre glared at him. "So what!" The blond stuck his tongue out. "I like the way the music goes."
"Pay attention to your driving Quatre!" Meiran shouted as Quatre effortlessly dodged a ragged tire that was in the middle of the road.
"Trowa was distracting me..." Quatre grumbled as he gripped the steering wheel harder and fixed his gaze onto the blurry road, and lost concentration, again, after Trowa retorted a very...foxy reply.
"It's not my fault that you're enamored with me." Trowa nonchalantly said in a teasing manner. "I'm just too beautiful."
Heero chuckled and Quatre turned bright red.
Zechs stopped by a gas station in the middle of town. Curse Noin for not filling the tank up after she'd driven it.
The brats were probably miles away, depending on how early a start they might've gotten.
Besides, whatever or whomever's car they were using was something to take into consideration. If it was Wufei's, then their getaway might have been sleek and silent, like a cat's. But it would not have accommodated the six teenagers and their bags. If it was Duo's new jetta, then they would be long gone and no one would be able to catch them, even if they flew. So it must be Quatre's. His SUV was built specifically for him. And knowing these rich kids, the vehicles were no ordinary vehicles.
The fact that it was Quatre made him cringe. His SUV could go anywhere, it was fast, and it was big enough for all of them and then some.
Zechs massaged his chin as he continued to think about the truck. Why did the blond brat need a big truck that was twenty times his size, unless he liked hiking or ... "Hey Mister, you're getting gas all over the place!"
It was mid-afternoon when Quatre finally stopped at an abandoned shelter.
They quickly parked the getaway car in a secluded area and walked out of the barn, stretching their muscles. Or, in Duo's case, casually draping his arms around Heero.
"It's kind...of creepy." Meiran commented after a few seconds of silence. "You know what they say about ghost towns."
"Yes and we all know that it would be the girl that would die first." Wufei languidly replied.
"Guys, please." Quatre begged, "I cannot take another hour of your...lame arguments. We've got to think up a plan of what we're going to do now."
Everyone's face fell into retrospective as the consequences of their mistake finally dawned on them.
"You mean you didn't plan this!" Duo finally blew up. "Unbelievable, we're going to die out here. In this...deserted town where we'll become ghost-"
"You're not helping!" Meiran snapped.
"Well excuse me." Duo said in a superior tone. "I was not the one that dragged us all out to gods-knows-where without a plan!"
"Since when do you need a plan?" Quatre equally retorted, in a much angrier tone. "Would you rather have Heero's sadistic guardian take him instead? And if you didn't want to be here, no one asked you to come."
"Would everyone just shut up?" Wufei yelled and the crowd fell silent. Wufei never yelled. Not even when he was irritated, he must be superficially angry. "Good, now that you idiots are quiet. The best thing we have to think of first is ... is this really worth it?"
"It's worth as much as any of you." Trowa finally said in his impassive tone. "We're now a group. No matter what the cause, and no matter how hopeless. We have to keep fighting for what we believe in."
"We would not be friends if we didn't believe in each other as we believe in ourselves." Quatre piped in, "If we let Dr. J take Heero again, think what would happen. The Yuy Corporation would be under his control, where he can create inhumane mutations."
"And before you know it, there might be a war." Meiran finished.
"How do you know about Dr. J?" Trowa quietly asked.
"You see; my father's mainframe is using the same system as the one you guys are using for your company. Every once in a while lost encrypted codes comes our way. Those messages were never meant for us." Quatre explained. "And whatever J is up to, we have to stop him."
"Well then wise-guy, how do you suggest we do that?" Duo asked, leaning against the battered barn door.
"As far as I know," Quatre said. "J uses a drug that can boost certain senses in a human being to perfection. This drug doesn't leave the system and it has dangerous side effects. No one would be themselves. Unless you have the antidote, a person would be under the spell of the drug. If you're lucky, you might become insane."
"What does it do?"
"It amplifies the five senses." Heero said. "It's a strong narcotic and if a person's blood system can't handle it, they die."
"Besides the possibility of death, the drug can also make you hallucinate," Trowa said. "It wasn't created for the weak.
"How far is he into his research?" asked Wufei.
"He's almost complete," Heero said. "The only thing he needs is a way to sell it. By using my father's company, Dr. J can market his research through it by claiming that it's a product of the corporation when we don't specialize in scientific discovery."
"The Barton Foundation is the one that controls all scientific research while The Yuy Corp. was founded on technology." Quatre explained. "And since we're not partners of either corporation, unless it's dealing with pacifism, J wants to use Heero to be a figurehead for the company while he is pulling the strings.
"I still don't see why this has anything to do with you, Quat." Duo said. "Not unless your parents are ready to declare the falsity's of their products."
"Duo," Wufei said in a his tone that said you-need-to-pay-attention, "The legacy of the Yuy corporation has always be a breeding ground for war, and the Winner's are descendants of Pacifist nations. With a world power like both corporations, this would ultimately lead to disagreements about trading rights. Like two powerful nations trying to become kingdoms. Since both corporations are not countries, they sell to those type of countries."
"Then when one country wants more power, they invade another territory, angering the neighboring countries. To protect themselves from any invasions, they buy military supplies from the Yuy Corporation. With Dr. J at the control, he can the earth and colonies. He can withhold any supplies." Duo mumbled. "But to access this kind of power, you have to go through the head of the company. And the head of the company is just a wayward boy."
"Who are you calling wayward?" Heero threatened.
"The point is," Trowa began, "Dr. J cannot do any of these things until he gets Heero. You also have to take into account that Heero can't get his inheritance, not until he is eighteen."
"I would also stake my life on the fact that once he sells this drug to a country," Wufei said, "the neighboring countries would become nervous, so they would also buy the drug."
"And you get a war." Meiran quipped in.
"Once this whole thing cools down and many lives are lost, they would charge the war criminals." Duo murmured. "Since it would be a by-
product of the Yuy Corporation, the person in charge would get the blame. That bastard is going to use Heero as a scapegoat!"
"I bet he would also sell the antidote at a high price." Trowa opinionated.
"Or give them freely to dissuade any doubt that he was behind this and give the world the impression that he was under Heero's control," commented Wufei. "The only way to make such a claim is if he already injected Heero to prove that the heir was the one that created the drug."
The atmosphere turned into nervous tension at the possibility of Heero becoming something other than human. Heero swore under his breath.
"Then that would explain it all," Trowa said at last. "The side effects, the sudden solitude and nightmares. Heero why did you not tell 't," Heero said quietly. "I wanted to stop him on my own."
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Author's Note:: Um.. I can't say I am sorry for the delay, it was kind of intentional. But the next chapter would be up...in a few we-ahem...days. .
Anywho, I am alive. This is almost over. There might be a sequel. Becky and Suzi beta and are great as ever. I think they need to start making deadlines for me so I can get the chapters done. What do you guys think? Well off to wonderland for me, I need some sleep. Post some more new chapters tomorrow.