CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (Raliena and Neph Champion and Kit)
"Why did you not press him for details about the Gundams?" Une snapped at Trowa as he entered.
"He told me that he wasn't meant to talk to me, ma'am." Trowa replied, mentally sighing to himself. He had been hoping for Lady Une, not Colonel Une. He could talk his way around the Lady a lot easier than the Colonel, "I need to earn his trust before he will tell me anything of any use. If I push too hard, too quickly I will learn nothing."
"It is a shame that the General frowns upon aggressive interrogations of non-combatants. Particularly children." Une sniffed, "I will be forwarding the details of the child to him. He has a particular interest in the Pilots and anyone associated with them."
Trowa made a note to fiddle with the General's spam filters. It would be written off as a glitch if all Une's reports ended up in the spam fill. It was a common enough problem; no-one had yet invented the infallible spam filter.
"When will the Pilot's execution be, ma'am?"
"Two days from now." Une announced, "That will give us time to retrieve as much information from him as possible. Will you be able to get anything of importance from the child by then?"
"No, ma'am." Trowa stated, "However once the Pilot is dead, he will have no one to turn to. He will be emotionally distraught. If I build a relationship with him now, he will turn to me. And will tell me what we want to learn."
Inwardly, Trowa hoped that Quatre and Harry would be long gone by then. He knew that the game he was playing was potentially very dangerous, but it was the only option he could see. It was the only way to seem like he was trying to interrogate Harry… Without actually doing it. It also meant that he didn't hurt the emotionally scarred child anymore than had already occurred.
"Good." Une nodded, "Keep going."
Suddenly an alarm sounded.
"A breakout?" Une gapped recognizing that particular alarm, "But how?"
About thirty minutes later, Trowa was leaning against a wall in the main command centre, watching Colonel Une lay into two guards.
"Would you like to explain?"
"He surprised us, Colonel. He did something to my leg… Just touched it, and it wouldn't support me."
"He got me in the groin. As I doubled over, I managed to grab his wrist… The little devil bit me! He ran round the corner and vanished, Colonel."
Trowa was using all his years of training and experience to prevent the laughter from bubbling up in him from escaping.
"He is a five year old child!" Une snarled, "And you couldn't contain him?"
"Barton took the cuffs off, Colonel!" One of the guards accused.
"And I intended to put them back on." Trowa countered, "Only you instructed me not to."
Quatre was pacing in his cell. He had been put back in the cell two hours ago. Obviously the first session was just to show him what could happen. But worse than the torture was the knowledge that Harry had been taken while he was gone.
"He won't be coming back." A voice sneered from the cell door.
"What have you done with him?" Quatre snarled spinning round to face Colonel Une, "He's just a child!"
"A child that consorts with terrorists." Une retorted, "Where would he go?"
"What?" Quatre blinked, then a smile spread across his battered face, "He escaped from you. He ran and hid… And you'll never find him."
"We will."
"No. You won't. There's only one person in the entire Sphere who can find him right now… And he doesn't work for you."
"Who?"
"His big brother." Quatre smirked.
"He abandoned you."
"I told him to," Quatre laughed, "You can't make me mad at him for that. Tell me… Did he bite anyone? He's got sharp teeth."
xx
"How are we doing this, Yuy?" Wufei asked, as they docked at Colony D-6792, "Should I stay back and protect our escape route?"
"We don't know their mobility status," Heero pointed out, "We may need to carry Harry, at least. We both go. I'll take point."
"I'll cover your six." Wufei nodded, agreeing to the logic. Inwardly the Chinese boy was hoping that the child had not been harmed. While he had never met the boy, he had learned of him through the others, and his Honour would never allow him to let the Injustice of deliberate injury to a child go unpunished.
The pair managed to infiltrate the bunker with ease, and moved silently through the corridors.
xx
Harry was in the duct work of the bunker's ventilation system. He had kept his promise to Quatre. He had run. And he had hid. And now he was going to figure out how to help Quatre escape.
He'd been hiding for nearly a day and a half. And he was still no further forward in figuring out the problem.
As he peered through the ventilation grill, he grinned broadly as he spotted Heero moving down the corridor.
Heero had come to rescue Quatre!
But there was a strange person following Heero. Black hair pulled back in a short pony-tail. The person also held a gun.
He was going to hurt Heero!
As silently as he could, Harry lifted the grill. He then dropped to the floor, rolling as Duo had taught him to lessen the impact.
Pony-tail had turned to face the noise, but he was looking too high, as Harry rose to his feet, and landed a punch directly in his groin.
xx
Heero had turned just in time to see the punch. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards slightly.
Harry had just…
Wufei stared down at Maxwell's brother in surprise. He began to feel faint.
Heero pulled Harry away from Wufei and hid his face in Harry's hair trying to control his laughter.
Wufei blinked. "Yuy?"
"Wufei, this is Harry Maxwell, Duo's brother." Heero turned back to Harry. "You get back in that vent and we will come back when we've freed Quatre, ok? Trowa is in deep cover, so be on the lookout for him too. Treat him as if he was the enemy, even though he is not."
"Yes Heero." Harry jumped and with Heero's help climbed back into the vent above their heads. He poked his head back out, "be careful, Quatre's in bad shape," before settling the grate back in place perfectly.
Heero nodded to Wufei. "Let's go."
"Yes." They ran down the hallway.
xx
Back in the vent, Harry shivered. He was scared. "It's ok to be scared… Duo said so." He shook his head.
After fifteen minutes, the two Gundam pilots found Quatre. He looked up. "Heero, I had Harry hide."
"We just saw him. He jumped Wufei, thinking he was going to attack me. I put him back and we will be going back for him once we get you out of here."
Quatre pushed himself up as Wufei broke the lock. "What of Trowa?" It was obvious that the subject pained him.
"He's in deep cover." Heero told him walking into the cell. He held out his hand out to help him up.
Quatre nodded. "I couldn't really make out the message. And because of that…"
They made their way down the halls silently. Heero stopped at the place they had left Harry. "Fei, get Quatre to the ship, I'll follow with Harry in a minute."
Wufei nodded. "Let's go."
Quatre nodded, hesitantly.
When Wufei and Quatre were gone, Heero called to Harry quietly. "Harry, We're leaving, come on!"
Harry dropped down. "Ok, Heero."
Heero grinned as he scooped Harry up and carried him to the ship. When they got there, Wufei was already going through the preflight check. Heero ran up the ramp as Wufei finished. "We're here! Raise the ramp and let's get out of here!" Heero called to the Shenlong pilot.
Wufei hit the appropriate buttons, gunned the throttle and they took off to the safety of space.
"Heero?" Harry asked tiredly.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Is Duo ok?"
"Yes." Heero reached over and ruffled Harry's hair. "He's a bit beat up, but he's fine now."
As Harry turned away from Heero, he saw again the state that Quatre was in. Liberal bruises, cuts, he even thought that Quatre had some broken bones from being hit in the chest. Looking at Heero, he began to shift nervously; he really really wanted to try to heal Quatre, but he didn't know how he had done it to Heero, but he still wanted to try. Would Heero let him?
Heero, seeing Harry shifting nervously, began to wonder what he wanted. There wasn't usually anything that Harry wanted that bad that had him like this...then again, with what Duo had told him of Harry's previous life, he wondered if there was nothing that Harry was nervous about wanting. So, he made it as easy for Harry as he knew how...not that much easier, but he had to bridge the gap at some point.
"What is it that you want, Harry?"
Harry, wringing his hands as well as shifting, began looking between Quatre, Heero, then the floor.
Raising one eyebrow, he tried to put the visual clues together so that he could give permission, or denial, of what Harry wanted to do. Unfortunately, he came up with nothing.
Sighing, he asked again. "Harry? What is it that you want?"
Hunching over, Harry began to debate over what he wanted to do. Finally, after some time, he began.
"I know it's freakishness, Mister Heero, but I wanted...Quatre? Please? May I try sir? I really don't know how my freakishness does it, but I want to try, sir. Please?"
Heero began to piece the puzzle together. Harry wanted to try to heal Quatre, but he didn't know how, and he was nervous about his reaction to his asking to use, what he believed everyone thought it was, freakishness, to help a comrade. As far as he was concerned, it was fine. Anything to complete the mission. If this boy somehow had the power to heal a person of their injuries, then that meant that there was less recovery time, and more mission time, making everything run smoother, covering ground faster. There was only one thing that he was cautious of though. How would it effect Harry once he started healing?
Looking at Harry, he wondered at the strength of his character. To help someone with something that they believed was a sort of 'curse', an abnormality that they knew would get a punishment later, was truly something in someone so young. He began to see what Duo saw in this kid. Hope.
Nodding, Heero gave Harry permission. "However," he added. "Take it as slow as you can. We do not know the effects that it's going to have on you, or Quatre, so we go slow. Understand?"
Harry bit his lip but nodded. He made his way over to where Quatre was lying down, half asleep but aware of what was happening around him. As Harry sat beside him, he watched curiously as Harry placed his hands on his chest. He knew that he had several broken bones, but the worst area was his chest. Slowly, he began to feel light-headed. Something was happening, and Harry was at the centre of it all.
Heero and Wufei watched as the air seemed to whirl around the kid. A light blue glow appeared around his hands that were placed on Quatre's chest, and soon they saw that bruises began fading from Quatre's face and arms, cuts were healed, and with one final push, they heard bones snapping together, making Quatre jerk his chest up in pain, upsetting Harry's hold on him, and he let go, falling to the ground in a dead faint.
Racing forward, Heero checked Harry's pulse. It was steady, but weak. Lifting him up to place on another cot, he watched as Wufei checked Quatre over. Turning, Wufei's eyes locked onto Heero's.
"I don't know how he did it, Yuy, but Quatre is almost completely healed. His ribs are only slightly bruised, and everything else seems to have been healed completely. We'll have to wait until Quatre wakes up, but I'm positive that whatever that kid did, he healed him."
Heero nodded. Looking at the kid that was unconscious, he began to plan. It was an amazing gift that the kid had, but he needed training so that he could do it more often, with less effort and less effect towards himself.
As Heero began to plan, Wufei looked at the child they had come to save with Quatre. He saw the abuse that the child had gone through, the effects still lingering still after a few months with Duo. He saw the struggle it had caused him to ask to use it to help someone else; A 'freakishness' that wasn't supposed to be used, had helped someone and had torn the child into bits as he fought against ingrained beliefs to help someone else. And as he looked at the child, he knew that he now had another reason to fight Oz, not just because of the colonies that were in danger, not just for his that had been destroyed, but so that what had happened to this child could not go on. And like Duo, he saw that this child was going to have to fight. He would help protect the child, he would help train the child, and he would stand by this child of honor in his time of need.
xx
Dumbledore was sitting in his office, fuming. The boy was supposed to be a pliable little pawn. He was supposed to come to Hogwarts, marry the Weasley girl, get her pregnant and die in the final battle!
Where was he?
Flitwick and Minerva watched the Headmaster with dawning comprehension. "Filius," Minerva said shakily, "I don't like this. Not one bit."
The Charms professor nodded. "I think he has finally lost it."
The Transfiguration professor nodded.
TBC...