Bishi Pile Challenge:

Major challenge response: Codes, Conspiracy, Organization, Trust

Minor challenge response: Warrior, Shadow

Word count: 2,529

Series: Friends 2: Friends and Enemies

Author: Karina

Pairings: Zechs + Duo, Trowa x Quatre

Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters.

Warnings: No apology given for Aussie spelling, but fair warning given.

Many thanks to Katie for betaing this fic.

Character Challenge:

Chapter 5

His primary advantage was that none of these men, or their controllers, understood how he did what he did. Missions were assigned to him, the result outlined as they desired, and the means of the mission's success was left up to him. That was how he had insisted it be before he had signed with them. On missions that required multiple personnel he was careful to operate in a shielded manner to guard his secret.

He was good at what he did and that was why he had been approached in the days following his return to Earth. He had been well aware of being watched, even on Mars, and he had wondered when, if, his watchers would dare to approach him. It had almost come as a surprise when they finally had and, as he had come to expect of them, they had chosen their time carefully.

Dead men tell no tales. Walking dead men who needed to stay dead were considered a rare and useful commodity. Noin had seemed incapable of understanding he had to remain dead and a normal life would be forever denied him. It was why he had done what he had, breaking her heart and ensuring he did it in a manner that would not see her bend her pride to try again.

He was a bastard, as she had taken pains to point out to him at their last meeting. A bastard and undeniably a cruel one, he had had to be to get her to live a life that did not involve him… but not heartless, despite her vicious accusation. He had broken her heart so that she could put it back together without him factoring into her future plans and he had done it for her own good.

Noin should be free of 'their' eye, and as a Preventer under Une she should be well protected in the coming days. Une looked after her own.

You could cut the air with a knife for all Marcus sprawled so casually across the floor of the van, his back pressed to the stretcher, just at a level with Zechs' knee. His long copper red hair was tied loosely at the nape of his neck with a plain black band and his ragged fringe softened the line of his glasses. Though those green eyes were now closed Zechs was not fooled.

The man was quite deadly.

The com officer kept his attention focused on his equipment, monitoring civilian and military bands alike. How far they would travel to reach the designated extraction point Zechs had no idea, but he could not afford to relax his guard. Friends could so easily be enemies and, in his line of work, it did not do to label anyone a friend and forget how friends could, in fact, be one's worst enemy.

Marcus was perhaps the closest of his associates that he might consider worthy of the distinction. Might. They had worked as a team on numerous occasions… and they had worked well together. He suspected Marcus had a better understanding of what he could do, and how he did it, than their mutual Commanders, which was fair enough as he knew exactly what the other man was capable of.

In some aspects they were too much alike.

He was the Red Celt of the group. The hair was a dead give away, that fiery copper cascade. In another time and in another country the copper mane might have marked him above others. He came from an old bloodline, one as old and distinctive as Zechs' own, and Zechs found his dreams were… interesting. The red haired operative's ancestry was made up of the stuff of legend and because of it, more than anyone else, Marcus understood his standoff attitude and penchant for solitude.

Marcus, after all, was another with reason to prefer not to be bothered by social niceties unless there was work to be done.

Only the glowing coloured lights and panels from the computer station lifted the gloom in the van. The darkness did not bother Zechs, after all the heavy shadow was good for him and he did not mind the limits it set on his sight. The others, after all, were bound by the same limits to normal vision.

He did not need sight, not for what he would do should the need arise. Shadow was better for that; it hid his darkness after all, allowing him to keep anonymity. Nor did it appear to bother the other field operative who leaned so casually against the stretcher, shifting slightly so that his back rested against Zechs' leg.

Ice blue eyes flicked from the com officer to the red head for a fleeting second and back, aware the interior of the van could be under surveillance. He could expect nowhere to be free of scrutiny for some time to come, and while he intended to find out who was out to silence him… and exactly why that was… he was not intending to outstay the safety limits he had set for himself.

He was not of a mind to die.

Not now.

Not when he had found someone who, like himself, was displaced from society though he could still walk abroad in the full light of day.

Maxwell had struck him as being as solitary as he, not by nature but by design, though he had friends surrounding him. He could walk abroad in full view without the media splashing tales of death and destruction, madness and mayhem from a dead man.

How many people out in the real world were the same? How many of the people who populated this sad excuse for a civilization were alone, even as they stood within the midst of a crowd? It was not a rarity but an all too common occurrence to be alone in a crowd. Too often your friends did not know you, nor you them. Not really. You were extremely fortunate if you had someone you could really call a friend.

Maxwell had friends but even friends could fail you, misunderstand you… push you too far.

But at least Duo Maxwell had friends who were willing to step in if the situation deteriorated to the point he needed help.

Maybe, just maybe, what had happened up on that mountain meant that he now had a friend.

V.

Perhaps more than one?

His eyes skimmed over the red head, head tilted forward as though he dozed, and back around the van. The muted rumble of the wheels told him the van had been well insulated against sound… and it appeared far warmer than the back of the Preventer helicopter had been.

I...K.

How far did they have to go? How far, how long would it be before they arrived at their destination?

I.

What could he realistically expect to await him there?

N.

A reception committee? Certainly, of one sort or another. A death warrant? More than possible, though he doubted such would be the case. It would be… messy. The organization prided itself on neatness… until they had hit out at him… and now? Well, he would simply have to wait to find out.

G.

Someone to debrief him? Someone to ask him why he had vanished as he had? Someone to defy all sense and sensibility and simply put a gun to his head and pull the trigger?

As if he would stand for that.

No more? The small tensing of muscles against his leg had ceased.

V.I.K.I.N.G.

Viking? Ah.

They had teased each other about it relentlessly since they had first met, he with his white blonde Nordic looks and the lithe red head with the Celtic designs tattooed into his skin. That teasing was known to others, but there were some things that were less well known. On a mission he and Marcus had shared the need had arisen for them to devise their own code, being uncertain at the time who could be trusted. The mole in the organization had been dealt with, but neither he nor Marcus had seen any need to inform others of their own peculiar form of communication.

They had used it to warn each other of the mercurial moods of their superiors of late and, as it proved, they should have paid their surroundings more attention and then he might not have been taken unawares.

Well then, he had questions and this was neither the time nor the place to ask them, but he could at least determine how Marcus viewed the severity of the current situation.

C...E...L...T. Minute flexes of the muscles, not enough to be visible but enough, given the position of the other man, to be felt and read.

Any response that might be forthcoming would be telling. Marcus looked relaxed, bored to the point he dozed. He had looked no different on the other shared missions when, at need, people died suddenly… neatly.

T.

Just that initial letter was enough to inform him of the shit Marcus considered himself to be in.

H.

So it was not just he who was on the hunted list? Not good then.

O.

Marcus might not be tagged for elimination, but it would appear he was, at the very least, treading a fine line.

R.

Thor. Yes that was warning enough, given their current surroundings. But did Marcus have an out?

D...R...U...I...D.

Today, would he be the Druid, the Celtic magician, or would he be the Warrior?

A.

Eh? That was not the response he had anticipated.

R...T.

Not good. Not good at all.

H...U.

So they were in that much trouble? The infiltration, the take over, could it possibly have travelled that high in the organization?

R.

Arthur. The King, Arthur, not Gwain the warrior knight but the king. Not Merlin, the Druidic magician.

He wished he could cover his eyes, put a hand to his face and hide from the world just for a second or two, but that might be a second too long. And it would be too revealing.

L...O...K...I

He had not been out of the loop for a full week and already they had moved so far as to rise to the top echelon of the organization. He had wanted to take down the one who had ordered his death, certain as he was that the one who had carried out the attempt would already have been silenced. They would not have wanted him to get his hands on the assassin, if he should chance to survive the attempt, and they knew now he was indeed alive. If the assassin had not been killed on his return, the poor fool would not have survived an hour after word of his survival had been received.

They would be covering their backs, ensuring he could not get to them.

Loki, he would take on that role if he needed to, giving himself over to world wrecking mischief, though it was not his intention to wreck the world. He had fought too long and too hard, given up too much, to see it all come to wrack and ruin. It was Relena's peace and he had given everything for her to enjoy it.

He could be Thor, and had been in the past, his lightning transforming the world far more dynamically than Loki's mischief.

Could he, somehow, limit the damage and make something of it and in the process NOT bring down the organization? Could he somehow still make it work?

Marcus was too still, no minute twitch to give him any more. Thinking, no doubt, as he was, of what their actions might do. Zechs had no doubt at all that he could bring down the organization and with it much of the structure of the currant world leadership, but was that for the greater good? He could not afford to cater to his own whims when the fate of his sister's peace hung in the balance.

He had willingly thrust the world into chaos at the side of Treize Khushrenada, hoping to teach a lesson that could not be forgotten. He had fought Barton's forces, waiting as he did so for proof that his past efforts, the loss of life and chaos they had dared, had been worth it. And he had been vindicated, though no one would understand his feelings… none of them understood what the entire grand design had been for.

They, the people, had come to defend their peace, to tell the invader they did not need him… and it had been enough to quiet his conscience at last.

Was he expected to sit back and allow another to quietly step up in the shadows and pull strings to organize the world the way they chose? To gain the power they desired? To have the power to strike from the shadows, to be an assassin of the peace itself? They would be pretender defenders, defending only what they chose to defend that best benefitted them.

How far could he trust anyone? How far dare he trust Marcus? Something would have to be done, but what? For what reason?

Preventers would be targeted and if his suspicions were right their funding would begin to suffer. Funding cuts at first, small, seemingly insignificant, but over a period of years it would be disastrous. It was what the organization did and they did it very well indeed. Une was no fool; she would see it, recognize it. Whether she would have the connections to resist it… that was something else.

The van skidded sideways, Marcus swearing as he was forced to grab onto the stretcher with one hand, the wall with the other as the van swayed, steadying and then speeding up. The com officer was clutching his consol, saved from being tipped out of his seat only by that desperate grasp.

Was this it then? Was the van being forced off the road? Were they all about to be killed, the com officer and driver being considered to be nothing but collateral damage? If he and Marcus were targeted…

But the vehicle did not stop, nor did it career out of control and after a few seconds Marcus settled back down, scowling, clearly unhappy.

"How much bloody longer?"

And they were slowing down, almost but not quite stopping. The van was turning, into a driveway or onto another road Zechs could not be sure which. A rougher road certainly and he knew with the vibration of the tyres he would not be able to make out any further message from his associate. For the moment he would need to wait and see what happened.

"Got that, Control. Will advise when ready for departure." The com officer reached to twist the frequency dial and leaned back in his seat, inclining his head to sweep the two men watching him with a stony look. "Mobile med station ahead."

Mobile medical station? Zechs bit his cheek to stop himself from swearing, to stop any visible reaction at all. There was no way in hell he was going to allow them to pump him full of what could potentially be a lethal drug.

End

Karina Robertson 2010