Just to be clear, this is going to be more about the action between the episodes than the actual fighting. I refuse to try to one-up the epicness that is Gundam Wing.

He was in strange, dark place, but he wasn't afraid. He had been here before, once. When the nanomachines that the doctors managed to recreate were put in. his body had to be placed in a medical coma, for what he later found out was a solid week, before his body fully assimilated the tiny robots that now propagated in his bloodstream. It had given him a bastard version of a regeneration quirk, though all it did was amplify his natural ability to heal and fix his body.

The nanomachine design was given to them from a former Pro Hero forced to retire because it was later revealed he was quirkless. The QRA could spin it all they wanted, but anyone with a brain could tell they were more angry that a quirkless hero had been so successful when they were supposed to be anomalies. They weren't supposed to encourage those without abilities to actually work as heroes.

Heero knew that they were likely on full recovery mode after he hit the self destruct button on his suit. He also knew someone was clearly taking care of him...because it was the machines working on overdrive to repair the damage, his body kept showing the classic signs of a nasty fever...one that basic over the counter medication wouldn't help. Someone had evidently figured out the best way to keep him alive was to keep his body in a freezer, because his temperature finally stabilized.

From the smell alone, he could only assume it was some sort of meat freezer.

He vaguely became aware of people around him.

"I don't get it...the medication isn't working, but sticking him in the freezer where we store the lions meat does?" said a voice. It had a feminine tint to it.

"Maybe it's not a normal fever. It could be his quirk," said another voice. This one sounded young, about his age. But there was something to it that told him this was an ally.

Considering how young Duo was, it wouldn't surprise him in the least if the five scientists had chosen five teenagers to deal with the problem Oz presented. Which meant that this was likely a fellow pilot, hiding in a rather unusual place.

Which one didn't really matter, in the end.

On the plus side, since he could discern voices again it was likely the machines were almost done with his self-recovery mode.

The cold against his back was gone when he woke up again. This time he was in a soft bed.

"Ah! You're awake! Let me get Trowa!"

A tall, lean boy about his age (maybe a year or two older) came in. He had a long bang and walked like a cat. Heero immediately pegged him with some sort of animal based quirk from the way he moved and acted.

"How long?" rasped Heero.

"A month. So far OZ hasn't used the colonies again, and I haven't received any missions either," said Trowa. He gave Heero a long look. "And I don't know what sort of quirk you had, but the fever almost finished off what the internal injuries started."

"Wasn't a fever," said Heero. "Just an issue with cooling when it comes to dealing with self-recovery mode."

Trowa gave him an odd look.

"You sound like you're a robot," he deadpanned.

"Tell Duo and I will shoot you," said Heero, half joking.

"Duo?"

"02."

"Ah."

Once he was deemed fit enough to walk...or at least move without someone watching him for potential relapse, Heero borrowed a computer.

Trowa only came looking for him when he saw an alert from the same channel the doctors had been using to send them missions.

"...You hacked into the system?"

"I didn't need to. The doctor who trained me created a similar system for something else. I just piggybacked off it to reach the others."

Doctor J had been surprised, then delighted at being able to teach Heero everything he knew about programming. The boy was like a sponge, and the doctors had plenty to teach him.

In fact whenever they were taking a break from basically rebuilding his body to something that could handle more extremes than the average human, they were saturating Heero with everything they knew about programming, machines and general technical skills that would make him all but untouchable by either Oz or the Alliance.

In theory, he could be able to hack into the Nanomachines in his blood and bone to make him a cyborg of sorts. The problem was that he had no way to actually cool off the nanomachines before it killed him. It was a fatal flaw that had kept them from experimenting beyond giving him a fake regeneration quirk.

They took what they could get, considering they were under a time crunch by the end.

Almost immediately, he got a response.

02- Hee-chan, it's great to hear you're alive!

04- We all feared the worst...but how did you get into this channel?

Heero glared at the screen a tad.

01- Duo, if you call me Hee-chan again I will strangle you with that damn braid of yours.

02- haha, sure!

Trowa smirked at that.

Heero didn't bother to ask where they were. He didn't want to know and he if really needed to meet up with them, he could always find them later. Right now he just wanted to assure himself that the others were alive.

From what he understood of 05, who was likely Chinese considering the style of his Gundam and the colony he had likely come from, he was unlikely to respond.

Heero closed the laptop, after erasing all evidence he had been on the system in the first place.

Trowa said nothing.

Some time later...

Heero felt minutely proud when he finally managed to contact 05.

05- so, you're alive. The weak have no place in battle, after all.

Heero had to snort at that.

01- It is not the weak who have no place, but those who have no conviction in their actions.

05- Are you saying I lack conviction?

01- I'm saying you've lost your resolve.

He could sense 05's anger at his words, however true.

05- And what would you suggest? You've already blown up your suit...you're weaker than I am right now.

01- You mistake 'patience' for 'weakness'. Any idiot can pilot a suit...it takes a true warrior to know when to pause and take stock of his battles so that he might continue his fight. Oz was more cunning and decietful than any of us anticipated...we underestimated them and we're paying the price for it.

05 logged off, but Heero could sense that he had rattled the other pilot. If he really was Chinese, then he would have undoubtedly read the Art of War, among many other classics. He would understand the meaning of his words.

A real warrior had no need to rush into a meaningless battle. Heero acknowledged that Oz was more cunning and vicious than he expected and that he needed time to reconsider his options before he rose from the dead. And everything about the way 05 had operated so far spoke of a noble warrior, not someone who had joined the fight half-assed.

According to Trowa, the other pilot had openly crossed swords with the head of Oz, with no suit between them...and he had lost. Clearly, the blow to his honor and the fact they had suffered a grievous blow when Heero blew up his suit had caused self-doubt to enter.

Heero couldn't help him, nor was he inclined to. It was time for 05, or Wu Fei...if Trowa was to be believed...to find his own path.

"So you're a quirk analyst, Heero?" said Catherine.

"It's a hobby," said Heero. He felt guilty about using up so much of their medicine, and this was a simple way to pay them back. Besides, with the war going on they'd need every advantage they could get.

The circus troop, amused by the offer, showed off what they could do. Some of it was useful for show business, and they did have licenses to allow them to make money off their quirks. Some of it might have been mistaken for useless. But there was one that had Heero's attention, and that was a little girl who was downtrodden for being quirkless.

Heero knew he had to speak up after hearing the girl's father had recently gotten an offer to move to the space colonies, at no charge. It even came with a job already waiting, along with accommadations for his family.

Circus life could be tough, and a stable job and a home that didn't pick up and move all the time was a highly enticing offer.

Heero took the envelope, and without hesitation ripped it to shreds. Including the tickets.

"Heero?" said Trowa, questioningly.

"The entire offer is a trap. There's a group who singles out quirkless people or their legal guardians, and sends out 'exclusive offers' to ship them to space. While the offer and the job are real, they're not worth it. The house is usually in the worst of slums and the job is so low-paying that you barely make ends meet by scraping by," spat Heero. "It's an unofficial program to get rid of the quirkless for something they had no control over to begin with."

The sheer anger, hatred and disgust in his voice told Trowa that the matter was rather personal for him.

"How do you know this?" asked Catherine.

Heero's face went decidedly blank.

"I know someone who took the offer, and didn't survive. If you think the Alliance and Oz were bad to regular colonists, it was even worse if they found out you were quirkless."

Heero turned to the child who was disappointed he didn't have a quirk.

"Just because you lack some fancy ability does not make you worthless. Sometimes quirks need an extra nudge to wake up...just look at the Pro Hero Midnight for example...her quirk didn't wake up until she had hit puberty."

"Really?" said Becka, hope in her voice.

Heero's eyes glinted, as he promptly gave the girl a list of pro heroes who were either late bloomers or in one notable instance, had fooled the QRA into believing they had a quirk long enough to gain noteriety before they learned otherwise.

Trowa...silently made a note that Heero apparently had a fascination for the pro hero sect. Not that it was any of his business anyway.

The highlight of the day was when Trowa reluctantly showed off his quirk.

Everyone knew of his knack for the large cats...they just never expected him to turn into one.

Trowa's quirk was Beast Mimicry. As long as he had an affinity for an animal...say, a lion or a tiger, he could turn into it.

He looked like a half-grown lion cub for the first round, before he turned into what looked like a white tiger with gorgeous fur.

Needless to say Catherine got a laugh when she saw this.

Since everyone assumed Heero was still recovering from a quirk overload, no one asked him to demonstrate his ability. For which he was grateful.

During the next show, Heero joined the technicians and helped them out with the lights. He didn't like relying on charity, and his willingness to help endeared him to the ringmaster.

Trowa was about to make some coffee when the news came on about a special report. It was a good thing the pot was still percolating, because otherwise he might have spilled some of it from surprise.

The reason was simple...there was a special news bulliten that claimed to 'reveal new evidence' regarding what really happened to the Alliance pacifists. As far as the public knew, the pacifists died at the hands of the Gundam Pilot, namely Wing.

However the video clearly showed the Gundam defending the plane the pacifists were on and even trying to stop it from crashing...as it was attacked by a third party.

The camera number clearly had it labeled as one from the New Edwards base. One that was reported 'damaged' after the fact, as the base officials refused to comment.

But that wasn't the most damning video. A second one, clearly from the cockpit of a suit, played the threat Colonel Une gave to the Gundam Pilots as well as the blurred response from the rebel scientists who sent them. The clear sight of a teenage boy Trowa easily identified as Heero came out, as was the sight of the explosion from the cockpit's perspective.

The knowledge that at least one of the pilots was a teenager was particularly shocking to the civilians, who had largely kept out of the mess if possible.

Trowa's first thought was to go looking for Heero. He was the only person who could have given the second video.

Heero took one look at Trowa's incredulous expression, before smirking.

"I was bored."