Hiya everyone! Here's chapter 2, just like I promised. And I forgot the disclaimer, in case that's why three people have me on alert. If that's the case, I'm so sorry. It's my first fanfic, so I kinda forgot. I'll try not to do in again. (clears throat.) Okay, here goes: I don't own Gundam Seed, unfortunately, or any of it's characters. The only characters in this fanfic that I do own are OCs like Edward Havoc and his father, whom you will meet in this chapter. I will tell people which characters are OCs and which are not to avoid more confusion. Once again, I am sorry, and without further ado, here's the second chapter.

Chapter 2:

Wanted: Dead or Alive

(ZAFT base, Australia.)

Eighteen year-old Lieutenant Edward Havoc tread quickly down the halls of the Zaft Australian Base, one of the few bases that the Earth Alliance had yet to find out about, a sort of trump card in case Zaft was ever in real danger. He was not very happy on this particularly fine afternoon, namely because he had just been summoned by his father, General Rando Havoc, the leader of the base. The General only personally gave his son missions when they were quite difficult. Edward sighed, his spiky white-blonde hair in terrible dissaray. His father would probably assign him the Oni Santoryu case, since it had been three days now since the escape and the prisoner, known only by her cell number 3916, had expertly eluded them.

Edward now stopped in front of his father's office, trying in vain to straighted his messy white-blonde hair and Zaft uniform. As the son of the leader of the Australian base, he was expected to be cool, calm, and prepared at all times. Everyone, especially his father, expected that of him. But today, he was a wreck, after spending a week tracking down and eliminating a spy who had infiltrated the Zaft base, and had then spent last night with no sleep while he was writing a report.

Well, there was no point in delaying the inevitable any longer, so Edward raised his hand and rapped his knuckles against the cold steel door. He heard a shuffling noise from within and a voice, as cold and steely as the door, answered. "You may enter." Edward felt as though an ice cube had slid down his spine. His father never failed to creep him out when he was in a bad mood, which was pretty often since the fall of Patrick Zala, and along with him, Zaft. The door slid open, interupting Edward's thoughts and emitting him into his father's office.

The first thing he really noticed was the decoration in the office. Although the walls were cold steel, they were lined with various weapons, some antique and some only recently made. However, thanks to his father's customization, all of them were deadly, right down to the oldest handgun. His father rarely used them anymore, since he was always doing work at the base taking care of it and making certain it was in top working order. In fact, Edward was certain that he had never seen his father in action.

Even more imposing than the weapons was General Rando himself. He was a tall man, well over six feet tall, with shoulder-length platinum-blonde hair and sharp green eyes that never seemed to miss a thing, like a cat's eyes. He was sitting at his desk, signing important documents, completely engrossed in his work. He looked up as Edward entered, and his eyes instantly warmed as he pushed aside his papers without a second thought.

"Edward! My son! Sit down, sit down, no need for the usual formalities!" Edward walked over to the large chair in front of his father's desk. His father quickly bustled around the office, selecting a few papers from his filing cabinet, then whirled around to another point in the room, all the while humming a cheerful tune. Edward was slightly bewildered. He hadn't seen his father this cheerful in months.

His father finished gathering his papers and sat back down in his swivel chair. He grinned at Edward, before flashing him a thumbs-up sign. "Now then, enough beating around the bush, Edward. As you know, the convict who broke out of Oni Santoryu is still on the loose. Efforts to identify her have proved futile, as there was no record of her in the prison archives. We can only assume that she took the records. She has caused no trouble since the escape. However, she has managed to elude us at every turn."

This puzzled Edward, as no one had managed to elude his father before now. If the prisoner was so good at maneuvering, how had she gotten caught before? This was turning into an interesting mystery. He walked up to the desk and took a paper from his father. It showed the path the prisoner had taken before they had lost her. Her path zig-zagged over increasingly difficult terrain, which was easy for her jeep, yet made it difficult for the crew that was pursuing her. "Amazing, Father." He said as he moved his finger over the path in ink. "She must be a master of tactical manuvering."

(Cagalli.)

"Ok, I have no idea where I am." Cagalli yawned as she looked down on the market square from the sandstone building she was sitting on top of. People bustled by as they took care of their shopping needs with their families, not noticing the cloaked figure sitting attop the building. Cagalli scratched her head thoughtfully. "I know that I've been here before, but I can't figure out when or why."

She directed her attention to the vendor straight below her. He was selling melons, along with wine made from melons, though no one seemed to want to but it. Cagalli noticed for the first time in a few days that she was starving. Because of her treatment in Oni Santoryu, she had always been hungry, though she ignored the hunger most of the time. Unfortunately, she didn't have any cash, so she would have to steal.

Cagalli smiled thoughtfully as a plan formed in her cunning mind. She began to dig around in the pockets of her belt, sifting through objects until she located what she was looking for: a small dagger and a long piece of string. She slowly wrapped half of the string around the dagger's blue handle, making certain that it was tied tightly on the handle. She kept a firm grip on the opposite end of the string as she took the dagger in the opposite hand and took careful aim for a large cask of wine next to the vending stall.

She threw and heard the dagger hit home, jerking the string back in one swift motion, quickly pulling the dagger up onto the roof and back into her hand. Wine spewed onto the street from the hole she had embedded into the cask, and the unfortunate vender blanched and tried to stop the flow of wine. While he was distracted by the wine, Cagalli took her chance, throwing the dagger and imbedding it in a large melon, reeling her prize in as quickly as possible.

"This is way too easy." She said to herself as she walked with her prize towards the center of the roof, where she couldn't be seen by anyone from the street. She sat down, yawning as she slammed the melon on her knee, splitting it straight down the middle. She selected a half, then bit into the melon's juicy flesh. Delicious.

(Kira and Athrun.)

"This is the place." Kira said, looking from the map to the town three hundred feet ahead of them. They had been traveling across the desert for a few days now, tracking Cagalli's path by who had seen her, what direction she had been going, and how long ago she had been there. "This is the most logical place she would have gone to, since it's the only town between here and Oni Santoryu."

Athrun nodded as he removed their weapons from the back of their jeep, just in case things got ugly. He had spent the day before they left studying Cagalli's behavior on the tapes from Oni Santoryu, just so he would know her reactions. Her behavior struck him like that of a wounded animal, lashing out at anything that may prove a threat to it's survival. If she was still acting like that, things probably weren't going to be pretty. The only thing Athrun hoped was that the damage to the town wouldn't be too bad. He didn't want to spend another evening filling out insurance forms.

"Well, there's no point in delaying this any longer, not if we want to catch Cagalli before she leaves town." Athrun said, turning toward Kira, who he noticed was strapping a machine gun to his back. "Let's get going." The two turned, and walked towards town.

(back with Cagalli.)

Cagalli finished up her breakfast, before returning to her spot overlooking the market place. She was feeling slightly sleepy, since she hadn't had much time to sleep on the way here, and the hot desert sun certainly wasn't helping any. She closed her eyes, tuning out all of the hustle and bustle of the market. She was just beginning to drift off to sleep when a few comments caught her attention.

"So this is the scum that broke out of Oni Santoryu!"

"How could it be? She looks so young!"

"I feel sorry for the young man who was guarding the room she robbed. I heard the poor boy is in the hospital with a broken chest."

"Yes, what brave young men are there at Oni Santoryu, dealing with the scum there and making certain they don't escape. Bless their souls!"

Brave young men? Cagalli chuckled slightly at their ignorance. If they had known the truth, they would think twice about calling the guards "brave young men." She sat up and looked over at the message boards, where all of the talk of Oni Santoryu was going on. Everyone was crowding around a large poster plastered in the center of the message boards. It read:

Prisoner number 3916 of Oni Santoryu has escaped. Individual is about 5 foot 7 inches, blonde, with amber eyes, and is armed with two twin pistols. Individual was last seen heading west in a stolen jeep. If you see this individual, contact authorities immediately. Right below that caption and the picture beneath it it read: $10,000 Reward. Dead or Alive.

Cagalli sat there and thought about this for a while. Being wanted could lead to some serious problems. She had cut her hair when she came to town, but how many people had blonde hair and amber eyes. It wasn't exactly a common combination.

Before she could give any more thought to the matter, she heard a commotion and saw everyone heading toward the entrance to town. "Hmm... This might be interesting." She stood up and walked to the end of the building. She tensed, then jumped across a ten-foot gap onto the building across from it. She hit the roof and rolled onto her feet, before continuing on to the next one. Before long, she had reached the entrance to town, a lot faster than everyone else.

Standing at the gate, were two figures in hooded cloaks. The hoods obscured there faces, but Cagalli could see them talking to a group of people at the gate. With her enhanced hearing, she could easily pick up what they were saying.

"So, are you here looking for that escaped prisoner?" The tall man was asking the cloaked figures. Cagalli stiffened when she noticed the weapons they were carrying. She could probably beat them with Dusk and Dawn, but there were way too many people around and she didn't want to hurt anyone not involved. The two figures looked at one another, before nodding.

"Yes. We are soldiers from the Earth Alliance, sent here to retrieve prisoner 3916." At this, a lot of the people began to relax, certain that they would handle it. Cagalli took a moment to reload Dusk and Dawn, because the way things looked there was gonna be a show-down. The tall man stepped forward. "Pardon me, but we can't be too careful these days." The two looked up in surprise.

"Could you please show us your faces and IDs?" The two looked at one another again, before nodding. They both pulled down the hoods on their cloaks, and Cagalli gasped and stood up on the top of the building. "It's them!"

A note from the author.

Hey everyone! I'm sorry that I'm late on my deadline, but I got grounded and then my Mom wouldn't let me on the computer for two days! Jeez, is everyone trying to stop me from working on this fanfic? This chapter is shorter than the first one, and I'm sorry that it doesn't have any action. The next chapter will be better, I'm just in the slow part of my fanfic. Trust me, you'll all thank me for it once the real action begins. And now, I'm gonna answer the reviews!

Anime-kaiya, Loopy loki, and unknown: Thank-you all! I hope you like this next chapter!

Ravenwyrd: Whoa. Big review. My head is spinning! I hope you like this chapter, and unfortunately, I haven't seen Firefly, though I will check it out.

Lalalu: Hmm... Romance, huh? I'll think about it, but right now I think there are just way too many Athrun X Cagalli fanfics out there and not enough Action/adventure titles about Cagalli.

Digital-Dragon-Master: YAY! I was hoping you'd check this out!

MXC-the show-rocks my socks: Thanks! I'll try to keep it coming!

Sorry folks, but this time I'm gonna try to wait until I get ten more reviews to update, mainly because I'm trying to get ahead of you guys! You're all great, along with anyone else who read but didn't review! See you all in chapter 3! But before I go, here's a preview of Chapter 3. I forgot to do this for Chapter 2.

Forgotten memories, forgotten friends. And a great adventure begins with a wild chase that will draw an entire city into possible chaos. The Half-blood Outlaw Chapter Three: Chase