Author's Note: Surprised by Alex and Mueller showing up? I felt that had it easy the last time I used them so this time it was no holds bar. Didn't really last long, did they? What can I say, equal opportunity... Anyway, back to some good ol' plot development. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Warning: language

Lost Treasure

Seeing that the church was still standing and unscathed was enough to put Solo at ease as he strolled towards it with Trowa at his side. He was curious how the others would react when they saw him again, especially with the way he looked. Then he thought to himself that he didn't care what they thought since the look on their faces would be the only thing that mattered.

Without trying, he opened the doors to the church chapel and continued strolling in, reveling in the shocked looks he was getting. He was a bit disappointed that Father Maxwell and Sister Helen were unaffected by his appearance but the looks from the others helped to but a balm on the injury to his pride.

"Be happy that this place gets ta stand another day!" he announced proudly with hands on his hips, resisting the urge to take some sort of stupid stance that one would see in an anime.

"Not the kind of greeting I would prefer but you do make an entrance," Trowa said dryly as he came up to the blond's side.

"Why wouldn't I?" Solo shrugged, eyeing Catherine as said person approached them, namely Trowa.

"You don't seem to be hurt," the ex-circus performer commented as she examined the unibanged young man critically. "You don't have any injuries inside you that I can't see, do you?"

"I'm fine!" Trowa protested at the treatment, flushing slightly in embarrassment.

"You would say that even if you had your stomach hanging out of you," Catherine replied wryly.

Chuckling, Solo looked away and caught sight of Dorothy looking at him and quickly adverting her eyes. Smirking, he strolled over to his chosen victim with malicious intent. "Like what ya see?" he teased as he stood before her.

"Like you have anything I would like," Dorothy sniffed, pointedly refusing to look at the blond, a light blush on her face.

"I beg to differ," Solo said dryly as he flexed an arm. "Ya can't tell me this doesn't turn ya on." He caught Dorothy taking a peek at him from the corner of her eye, her blush reddening to confirm it. Leaning down, he took her chin gently and turned her face to look at him against her will. "Ya know," he drawled, "you're kinda cute when you're blushin'. Ya should do it more often."

And with that, he put a swift peck on her lips, ignoring the strangled "oohs" from a secluded corner where a couple kids were hiding. Dorothy could only lift a hand up and lightly touched her lips that were still tingling. Solo didn't see that, though, as he was paying more attention to the sight of James emerging, holding something small between his fingers. The man raised an eyebrow at Solo's appearance but remained unaffected by it, much to Solo's disappointment.

"It seems like the crisis is adverted," James said. "I managed to turn it off and erase the data that it had been sending. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pinpoint the location of where it was sending its feedback but as for now, we're safe."

"Give that ta me," Solo commanded, holding out his hand for the homing device.

Not seeing any reason not to, James did so and as the blond eyed the device, he curled his hand and fingers around it and crushed it. "There," the blond declared. "Now it can't be used again."

James stared flabbergasted at the sight but shook his head, telling himself that he should've known better.

"So where's that Japanese guy?" Solo continued, looking around for any hint of black hair that would give away his target.

"It's Chinese and I'm right here," a peeved Wufei answered, standing in the very hallway that James had just vacated. "As you can see, the church and orphanage is still standing. Have I proved myself yet?"

"Not yet," Solo replied bluntly. "Trowa and me took 'um all on and beat da shit out of them. But, ya did keep ya word, I think, so as long as ya ain't gonna attack me, I guess I could let ya roam free for a bit."

Wincing at Solo's atrocious grammar, Wufei said in reply, "Thank you…I think…"

"Okay, now tell me what ya know about Duo," Solo stated, bringing a groan of defeat from the Asian.

---

Xavien held an airgun in his hand, eyeing it critically as he inserted a vial filled with a purplish-clear liquid into it. Tightening the screws on it to make sure the vial was kept in place, he placed the end of the airgun against the skin of his lower arm and pulled the trigger, injecting the liquid from the vial straight into his body without need of a needle. Xavien remained in a relaxed position for a few minutes, letting the serum that he had just forced into his body circulate some before he removed the gun and inspected the mark left on his arm, nodding in satisfaction at it and beginning to put the gun away.

It had been some time since he had last taken a dose of his simple yet refined form of Solution 1051. He had begun to notice a gray hair in his head of brown hair and realized that he had been distracted by the current situation involving the escapades of #11085 and #12093 to keep up with his dosage regimen. If he wanted to maintain his youthful looks, he couldn't afford to miss his dosages for too long.

He had just finished rolling down the sleeve of his dress shirt when Malkov entered his office, empty of General Katsaris' presence for once. Raising an eyebrow, he inquired, "So what's going on on the home front?"

"We have lost all contact with the retrieval unit," Malkov stated, not hesitating to sugar coat his words, just the way Xavien liked it.

Frowning, he replied, "Then send out another one."

"That is another problem," Malkov said. "The homing device planted on 12101 deactivated and ceased all functions a few hours ago. When we tried bringing up the last known coordinates, we found the information had been somehow erased. Someone managed to hack into our computers using the device and…"

At this point, Malkov uncharacteristically trailed off, watching his employer whose face was steadily becoming red with anger by the second. Slowly but surely calming himself down, when Xavien finally spoke, it was with a quiet tone that promised death to the next person who crossed him.

"Are you telling me…that #12101 is now beyond our reach?" he asked, barely contained anger threatening to escape at any second.

Nodding his head, Malkov confirmed. "Yes."

The next few minutes were filled a loud, furious voice voicing so many profanities which escaped from the office, muffled only by the door but to those that could hear, it sent them away, trembling and afraid for their lives.

When he calmed down, Xavien stewed in his seat, Malkov still standing whereas others would have either been dead or cowering in a corner. Xavien took in a few deep breaths, trying to clear his head so that his next course of action wouldn't be too hasty nor would it be a resounding disaster. He couldn't rush into this; he needed to plan his next move well, as if this was a game of chess.

Centering himself and finding his cool-headed frame of mind, Xavien opened his different colored eyes, staring his number one down with intensity. Malkov only shifted from his weight from his left leg to his right, the only sign of his discomfort.

"It seems we'll have to return our focus back to capturing 11085 and 12093 for the time being," he finally said. "I guess we're going to have to let loose the angel boys."

---

Whoever came up with red-eye flights…Noventa was going to make it a personal matter to track the bastard down and dispense with him, Navy style. Still, he could probably let it go if it brought him that much closer to being with his granddaughter again, as was the case this time. Currently, he was being chauffeured towards his family estate via limousine.

Sometimes being in a position of power had its quirks.

That meant that he could rest his tired eyes after being trapped in an airtight capsule that was suspended over three thousand feet in the air, moving at hundreds, if not thousands, of miles an hour. That was the main reason why he preferred going into the Navy over the Airforce; he hated planes, no matter their shape, size, or purpose. He hated flying but it was just something he had to put up with and that was not one of the positive quirks of being who he was.

Despite it being the dark hours of early morning, the Admiral opened his sleep-deprived eyes and glanced out the window, watching the dark, wooded landscape of Southern California pass him by. Looking forward to the opened window that separated him from the driver, he could see the limo's headlights temporarily lighten the road until the vehicle passed by, putting the woods back into darkness again. It was almost enough to lull him to sleep; in fact, that was just what he had been about to do.

You see, when one enters the military, no matter what division it may be, you develop an ability to quickly spy out objects no matter the circumstances. Officers especially had to develop it so that they could read a person's body language, be they enemy combatants or privates-in-training, and pilots needed it to pick out enemy planes as they tear through the skies in their advanced fighter planes. Noventa had gained and developed this ability as well and as he looked straight past the driver and out into the briefly lighted road, something odd caught his eye.

"Stop the car!" he suddenly ordered, unsure why he had done so in the first place. However, the driver heeded him and the limo screeched to a stop.

"Is there something wrong, sir?" the driver asked, distressed by the Admiral's alarm.

"I thought I saw something by the road but I could just be imagining it," Noventa said after a long moment of silence that was only interrupted by harsh breathing. "Still, I don't think it would be a bad idea to check it out, just in case."

Nodding, the driver took out a large flashlight and got out of the car. Noventa followed suit as he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the car door. The driver, an army man by the looks of him, looked at him questioningly but the elder officer waved the concern away as he took out a small pocket flashlight and began looking down the road, searching for whatever it was that he had seen.

A few minutes later with no results to show for it, Noventa was on the verge of giving up, blaming this whole ordeal on a hallucination that his aging mind played on him. As the light from his flashlight turned with him, he ran across something and the Admiral paused, debating whether or not to take another look, deciding to do so because it was stop whatever curiosity that had popped up in him and caused this madness in the first place.

That's when he saw the body. It was a young man, possibly a teenager who had long, thin cuts all over his body and his clothes looking as if they had gone through a war of some sort. Stunned at his finding, he waved his arm frantically without letting his eyes leave the unusual sight. It had been some time since he had last done anything involving medical attention but his driver did when he came to the Admiral's side. Immediately, the army man was at the teen's side, checking for any signs of life.

"He's still breathing," the man reported. "Shit, this kid needs a doctor or an ambulance."

Finally able to work with this, Noventa took command of the situation. "There's a doctor at the estate. We'll take him there for treatment and send him off to a hospital if his injuries are too serious. Let's get him into the car, quickly."

Despite looking thin and frail, the boy was a bit heavy, much to Noventa's surprise. More surprising was a slithering movement as he and his driver lifted the boy up, the movement revealing a very long braid that made the Admiral question the teen's gender. Shoving such questions out of his mind, he helped load the unexpected passenger into the car and quickly got inside himself.

It wasn't a minute later but the driver was already in the driver's seat and speeding down the road with an almost reckless abandon. With a snapped word of caution to slow down so that they didn't get into a needless accident, Noventa focused his attention on the male teen that laid on the bench seats of the limo. The lack of breasts was a dead giveaway but confirmation of an Adam's apple cemented the fact in the Admiral's mind.

But what was this child doing all the way out here? Where did he get injuries like this and how? He didn't believe such wounds could come from the local wildlife, especially since he had grown up in this area and knew practically everything about it. It was an intriguing mystery and Noventa loved solving mysteries. It was a private pastime of his and he was already determined to solve this new one that had practically dropped into his lap.

However, first thing was first and getting this boy some help came first, his hobby be damned. Only after it was confirmed that the boy would be all right and healthy would he try getting some answers but not until then.

Hmm, how was Sylvia going to react to this?