If you recognise it… I don't own it.

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"Gundam Wing" – Start

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Duo's POV:

You know at first I thought it was a joke… A prank. That finally the man of stone and the man of steel had developed a sense of humour.

Okay, a pretty poor sense of humour, but a sense of humour all the same.

I mean accusing me of being a Serial Killer?

It was only when the handcuffs came out that I stopped staring at them in shock.

"Guys, this has gone far enough. Stop the joke. I'm not playing."

"You think twelve dead people is a joke, Maxwell?"

"No, but accusing me? You know me. I'd never do something like that."

"Turn around."

Funny thing is I never even thought about running.

It didn't even cross my mind.

I just did as I was told. I don't know if it was faith in my friends or just plain shock. But I allowed them to hook me up and take me to the car.

We didn't talk. They had nothing to say to me. And I was still trying to sort my head out.

I was in shock that they had accused me of murder. Didn't they know me? Didn't they have any faith in me?

We arrived at the Preventers. The Press was there. Cameras flashing furiously.

I was hauled out the back of the car with no ceremony whatsoever. Nothing to hide my face. No privacy. No dignity.

I didn't fight. My mind was somewhere else.

Back to when I had been hauled past the Press in a similar fashion in the War.

I don't really remember having my prints taken. But I know they were.

It was really only when I was dumped in a chair in interrogation that my mind drifted back from the memories.

They hadn't uncuffed me. And I wasn't going to unlock myself.

"Why?" Heero looked at me with the sting of betrayal in his eyes.

"I don't understand the question." I replied softly.

"Why did you kill them?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said.

"Don't lie." Wufei snapped, "We know it was you."

"I don't lie, Wufei." I retorted, "I haven't killed anyone since the war."

"What about Suzie Hall?" Wufei smacked a photo down in front of me.

It was of a dead girl's head on an autopsy table. I frowned at it. I almost knew her. There was something familiar about the face. But I didn't recognise here. She might have been related to someone I knew. But I didn't know her.

"I don't know her." I stated, "Never seen her before."

"No?" Wufei clearly didn't believe me, "What about Natalie Lui?"

Another photo. Another person I almost recognised. But I couldn't place her. I didn't know her.

"Please Duo." Heero stared intently at me after I protested my innocence, "If you just confess, it'll go easier for you at trial. You can probably claim temporary insanity."

"I didn't kill them. And I'm not insane. Heero, this is me! You know I don't lie."

"I thought I knew you." Heero looked away.

"I swear… I Shinigami swear, Heero, I didn't kill them. I didn't try to kill them. I didn't want to kill them. I didn't plan their deaths. I didn't have any part in their deaths. I've never seen them before. I swear."

"Liar." Wufei spat the word, "We know you did it. We have the evidence."

"Why would I want to kill them?" I protested.

"They were all related to soldiers involved in the Maxwell Massacre." Heero told me.

"I didn't know." I whispered, "I didn't kill them."

In the end it didn't matter how much I protested my innocence. They didn't believe me. I don't think they wanted to.

Finally they got fed up and walked out. But not before Wufei gave a final parting shot.

"You're being shipped out to prison. Easier to keep you there until your trial."

I hadn't even asked for a lawyer. I didn't know one I could trust… I'd never been in this situation before. The only person I could really turn to for help was Quatre.

But I didn't know where he was. Or how to contact him. He'd told me something about a top-secret business discussion going on that week. He'd be in complete communicado the whole time.

Still in shock I quietly submitted to the next stage in the proceedings… A full strip search.

I'm not sure if it would have been better or worse if Heero and Wufei had performed it.

However they had clearly given instructions to the two strangers who did it, and the guard who watched, because they combed through my entire braid, undoing it as well.

Once they were done, I was tossed a pair of orange overalls, told to get dressed. And denied a hair tie to pull my hair back.

It was when I was told, by the guard, that I would be put through the same thing at the over end I got close to snapping.

When he told me I would be scalped as well… I lost it.

But not that you'd know. No, I simply decided that I wasn't going to make it to the prison, come Hell, high-water or damnation.

However I didn't have much of a chance. Heero and Wufei had clearly reviewed all safety precautions for moving me.

I didn't get a chance to escape while in the Headquarters. Not that I stayed there long, they quickly moved me to the wagon for transport.

And after all their precautions it was something small that let them down.

Someone had dropped a coin.

Deliberately I stumbled, falling so that I could pick it up.

How does the old saying go? "See a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck"?

Well that coin was my good luck.

Just a coin to most people. But my key to freedom.

I suppose I should feel proud of the fact that I was deemed so dangerous that I was the only prisoner in the wagon. I also had the dubious honour of having two guards, one driver, a two car escort and a motorbike scout.

But I didn't really care.

Once inside the wagon, my feet were chained to the floor and my wrists to the seat. But they never spotted the coin.

I'm an expert at slight of hand.

The convoy started and I knew I'd only have a short period of time, so I got to work.

I unscrewed a screw from the bracket chaining my wrists with the coin.

With the screw I picked the locks on the handcuffs.

I then slumped forward and picked the locks on my shackles.

The guards never even looked at me. They had been warned, but they didn't believe I was dangerous. And I'd acted so meek the whole time they'd been near me. They didn't expect anything.

I'd even let them knock me about a bit. Had a black eye from that.

So when I moved they never saw it coming.

First one was down from a sleeper hold before a single noise was made.

The second got half-way to drawing his gun, but stopped when he saw the gun I pinched from the first guard, who was still acting as my human shield.

"Toss it to me." I instructed, "Carefully."

He obeyed.

I dropped the first guard to the floor, not really worrying about bruises.

I tossed the conscious guy the cuffs.

"Put them on, around a pole." I instructed.

Seeing no choice, he obeyed.

I took the time to click my shackles around the first guard's wrists. Neither of them had the keys. A safety precaution I had originally been told. But it worked in my favour.

The driver hadn't stopped, but was radioing for advice.

He believe he was safe, behind his bullet-resistant divider. It required a swipe-card, a PIN and an iris-scan.

But my speciality always was B&E.

I heard the driver being told to carry on driving. There would be a SWAT team waiting for me at the jail.

Well, they could wait all they wanted. I wasn't going.

I was through the barrier like it wasn't even there. Sealing it behind me, just as tight as it had been.

"Don't try anything." I told the driver, holding the gun close to his side.

I ducked down so that I couldn't easily be seen.

"Drive on. Just as you were." I instructed.

I slid a hand under the dashboard to the radio and with one hand started to tweak it to meet my needs. Normally that sort of thing would be beyond me. But what I was trying to do was something I done hundreds of times during the War. And even before it. Howard had taught me.

Once I was sure my rewiring was done, I peeked above the dashboard. One car and the bike in front. One car behind.

I even recognised where we were… Still in the city. Good thing the city's so big. I'd been quick. Probably the fastest I'd ever been. But it still took time.

"Take a right at the next junction." I instructed the driver, "No signals."

He obeyed.

It was such a surprise that we lost the front two and nearly lost the chase car.

Quickly I rattled off directions. All at the last second, so that he never knew what we were going to do next.

I knew we hadn't lost the cars or bike for long. And they were soon chasing us. But the minute or so head start we got was all I needed.

The last instruction caused us to turn down a dead-end road.

"We've got to stop!" The driver panicked.

"Keep going." I ordered, watching the approaching wall.

"I can't!" The driver yelled, "We could die!"

"And you will if I shoot you." I reminded.

Barely seconds before we hit the wall I activated the radio.

The wall slid up allowing us access to the hidden passage behind. Old Sweeper tunnel. From back when they were Rebels. Before the colony wars started. Only a few people know about them… But the mechanisms are still maintained.

The wall shut automatically behind us.

I then made him continue for about a mile inside the tunnel.

I needed as much of a head start as I could manage.

He had a pair of cuffs hooked to his belt, so I cuffed him to the wheel, before I slipped out the wagon and into the side tunnels.

I wasn't worried about them. Howard would hear the news about my escape before the hour was up. He'd know what I'd done. He'd free them. They wouldn't die.

The side tunnels went across the entire city. But the entrance I'd chosen was chosen for a reason… It was close to the Shuttle Port.

I exited into the Spacer Locker Rooms. I have a locker in every Shuttle Port in the sphere. And all of them contain the bare essentials… Or at least what I consider the bare essentials.

Clothes, hairbrush, hair-tie, 'picks, knives, guns, ammo, tools, money, fake IDs.

Add in the fact that the Spacer Locker Rooms don't have cameras and require a key-card to get in, it was the perfect place to disappear.

I didn't know where I was going. And I didn't know how long it would take to get there.

But my motto remained the same… I run. I hide. I never tell a lie.

I would run. I would hide. I would find the truth. I would prove my innocence.

But until then… I had no one I could count on. I couldn't trust Heero and Wufei. I wouldn't risk Trowa and Quatre.

I couldn't turn to the Sweepers.

Well, I'd been alone before. Nothing new to me.

I'd been in the Light for too long. Time for the Demon to return to the Shadows.

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Once again, not everything in this story is as it seems.