04-Aug-2000

Legal stuff: None of these characters are mine. Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, and Sotsu Agency, among others--Xenogears belongs to Squaresoft. For time-wasting purposes only and not for profit, so don't sue, 'kay?

Warnings: slight AU, X-over, shonen-ai, language, violence. All the good stuff! *grin*

The Longest Dream by Hope of Dawn

Part Two

(June 13, AC 198--L3 Colony.)

Quatre Raberba Winner smothered a yawn behind his cup of tea with the ease of long practice. The young CEO of the massive Winner corporation looked around the boardroom with an assessing eye--noting once again that he was the youngest person by at least two decades in the room. He sighed as the executive continued droning his report, listening with only half an ear until a statement snapped his attention back to the present.

"JWG Corporation did what?" he snapped. The middle-aged, paunchy executive stopped droning and blanched.

"Umm, ah. . .they've decided to decline renewing their contracts with the manufacturing arm of Winner Enterprises this next fiscal year... uh, sir." He tugged at his tie nervously as he endured the scrutiny of his CEO.

"What was the reason given? They've been satisfied clients of ours for decades." Quatre was wearily certain he already knew the answer.

"Umm... they really didn't give one, sir. They just issued us a memo thanking us for our long partnership, and expressed their regrets that it couldn't continue." His hand began to wrinkle the paper with its sweat as he was pinned by too-perceptive teal-blue eyes.

"I see." Quatre looked down at the reports spread out before him, and turned to his chief financial officer. "How many contracts and partnerships have we lost in total, Mr. Carter?"

"Twelve in just the last quarter," was the quiet reply. The accountant's shrewd black eyes peered down at the financial figures. "That's not counting the number of newer accounts that have suddenly dropped out of sight or refused our overtures outright. Adding those in, the figure comes closer to thirty or so. The company's net worth has dropped by almost 4 billion credits, and our public stock offerings have also dropped considerably."

"I see." Quatre rubbed a hand through his blonde hair as he looked at the figures again. The patterns didn't change--inwardly, he cursed his knack for strategy that allowed him to draw only one conclusion from the pattern of losses in front of him. The multi-trillion-credit Winner Enterprises was faltering rapidly, as piece by piece of the intricate network of partnerships, contracts, loans, and businesses that supported it fell away. His lips twisted in disgust.

Jumping like rats from a sinking ship.

He snapped the heavy folder shut, resting his hands on it, and looked down at his executive board with a calmness he didn't feel.

"That will be all for today, gentlemen. I expect ideas and strategies on how to recoup our losses and fix these damaged business relationships by our next meeting." His voice was cool and dismissive. "Good day." Watching with hooded eyes, he waited patiently as the older men gathered up their data organizers and began to file out. The inevitable sly remark he had come to expect was made in hushed and low tones by a junior executive.

"The only way this company's gonna turn around is if the kid steps down. Not to mention disappears. Thoroughly." The comment was made in a tone barely audible to the exec's nearest companion.

Quatre's keen hearing picked it up effortlessly from across the boardroom.

He rubbed his face wearily. It wasn't the first time that it had been said; though no one had enough courage to say it to his face. When he had first heard it, he'd been hurt and angry. Now--he was starting to wonder if they were right.

He shoved the depressing thought to the back of his mind as he stood up and checked his watch. 2:46 pm. Trowa should be waiting in the lobby by now. A smile lit up his face at the thought; Trowa... Quatre looked forward to a quiet, relaxing lunch with his friend and lover, now back after visiting his sister on Earth. Even a week apart from Trowa had seemed far too long... especially with *this* piling up on his head. He needed his love's quiet reassuring presence, if only for an hour. He straightened his jacket briefly, then headed out to the lobby with happy anticipation.

Trowa was sitting quietly as always--hardly noticed in the busy corporate lobby. He looked up from his book as Quatre approached. To the casual observer, it must have seemed as if the brown-haired young man remained cool and expressionless. However, Quatre saw the slight upward crinkling of the emerald eye unhidden by hair with the ease of familiarity--Trowa's equivalent of a beaming smile. The lanky youth shut his book and rose to meet him.

A long-boned finger traced over Quatre's brow. "You look tired. Is something wrong?" Trowa asked quietly.

Quatre smiled sadly. "Just the same problems as when you left." He pushed open the double glass doors as they left the elegant lobby, and squinted into L3's bright artificial sunlight.

"Ah." Trowa paced beside him, matching his stride to Quatre's shorter one easily. "Where would you like to eat today?"

"I don't know... maybe someplace outside?" Quatre suggested. "There's this new--"

He stopped abruptly. Trowa looked down at the other boy, silently questioning--only to meet a pained, apologetic gaze. Quatre's hands fluttered briefly over the small, blackened hole in his crisp white shirt; then he crumpled to the ground silently, even as the gunshot rang through Trowa's disbelieving ears.

"Quatre!" Old instincts took over as the *crack* of gunfire continued. He grabbed Quatre's limp form, dragging him behind the slim protection of a nearby waste-bin. Stripping off the smaller boy's jacket and holding the wadded fabric fiercely against the huge exit wound on his back, his mind noted with an odd sort of detachment that the hole was much, much bigger than it should be--likely a hollow-point bullet. Suddenly feet pounded towards them, dark-suited bodies surrounding their small huddle and hands reaching for the boy he held. Trowa tensed as his shock-numbed mind struggled briefly to identify the newcomers as friend or foe.

Their identities snapped into place. Quatre's bodyguards--the few that were forced on him despite the young Winner heir's protests. Ordered to be 'unobtrusive'--they were too far back to prevent a bullet. A shout from one of the bodyguards caught his attention.

"There's the shooter!"

The world snapped back into sharp, painful focus. Narrowed and furious green eyes focused on the half-concealed sniper and the gleaming black barrel of the rifle. Trowa rose smoothly to his feet, his face still and pale; a quick snap of his wrist summoned the knife from its arm sheath. The screams from the pedestrians, the shouts of bodyguards--they all faded away and the world narrowed down to a single, focused point. There was a single step, a fast, snapping throw; the sharp blade flew true as it was flung by his skilled hands. Trowa's green gaze watched with detached satisfaction as the knife buried itself to the hilt in the assassin's chest, even as he sank back to his knees and cradled the lolling blonde head protectively. Sirens wailed, unheeded, in the distance.

His voice was a harsh whisper. "Breathe, Quatre... don't give up on me." Threat ended, the raspy, bubbling sound of Quatre's faltering breathing now consumed his entire world. Nothing else had any importance.

Most certainly not for the very dead would-be assassin slumped in the fire escape that he had used to ambush them. An assassin killed by a single knife through the heart--thrown from nearly a block and a half away.

(1 hour later, Earth.)

'... and in breaking news, the multi-trillionaire CEO of the Winner Corporation, Quatre Raberba Winner, was shot outside of the L3 corporate offices. The gunman, a radical pacifist and ex-Alliance military officer Martin Wishnatsky⁽¹⁾, fired at Winner as he exited the building, hitting his victim in the chest. Wishnatsky was killed by fellow ex-Gundam pilot Trowa Barton before he could be taken into custody. Winner has been taken to the Winner Foundation Medical Center for treatment, and is listed in critical condition, while Barton's whereabouts are unknown. He is currently being sought for questioning by L3 authorities.'

Black eyes widened as they watched the brief video clip--a wobbly, shaking amateur video that nonetheless caught the shot, Quatre's fall, and the unerring, improbably-thrown knife that had ended the attack. Lt. Chang Wufei of the Preventers suddenly shoved aside the piled files on his desk as he leaned forward, watching the broadcast with startled intensity.

'In a related story, violent protests over the continued freedom of the five ex-Gundam pilots continue to escalate throughout the United World Nation and colonies. With the investigations into the five men's actions during the war still pending, many world leaders are asking for the swift trial of the pilots for their unsanctioned terrorist activities. The recent, unauthorized release of information regarding the five pilots' genetic 'modifications' in order to give them the ability to pilot the Gundam war machines has also raised a great deal of public concern. Radical pacifistic elements have gone so far as to announce publicly that the former pilots were made into weapons just as much as the machines, and should be treated in a similar manner according to the Absolute Pacifism Weapons Act of AC 196. More moderate voices and other scientific leaders have also expressed their concern on the 'unknown and possibly dangerous' modifications, and are calling for the-'

"Damn!" Wufei clicked off the broadcast with a vicious stab of a finger. "Those damned ungrateful--after all we've done... and why Quatre... " The question was left unfinished--he already knew the answer. Quatre had always been vulnerable--unlike the other pilots, who were effectively invisible and protected among the ranks of the Preventers, Quatre's position was very public. Something guaranteed to make him the perfect target of the rapidly growing public hysteria.

Wufei stiffened as he was hit by a sudden realization.

"Heero and Duo--they're still on vacation... and completely cut off from communications. If they don't check in before they come back from their little hideaway... shit!" Chair screeching in protest, he shoved it backwards and dashed down the hallway. Six doors later, he wrenched at the office doorway and barged in without preliminaries.

"Onna!" he started, reverting to old habits--only to be caught up in Commander Sally Po's wake as she strode out of the doorway, barking commands as she went at her wristcom.⁽²⁾

"I know, Wufei!" Wufei watched with a certain amount of astonishment as a rather large detachment of Preventer troopers fell out of a nearby squad room, some still struggling to pull on combat gear and weapons. Sally continued to bark orders. "... I want a shuttle standing by on the tarmac when we get there, with express authorization for priority takeoffs and landings between here and Colorado! Sergeant, make sure your squad has at least one qualified paramedic and necessary emergency equipment." She muttered darkly to Wufei, "I can only hope that we won't need them."

She leveled a sizzling glare at the harried petty officer that was struggling to keep up with her. "Kesh, make sure that all the paperwork gets stamped and authorized *before* we get there--I don't want any problems with the local authorities if we have to extricate our people. The same goes for internal authorizations. I've gotten verbal confirmation--it's up to you to make sure there's enough bureaucratic red tape filed to cover our ass!"

"...sir!" was the gasping reply, as the officer broke off from the group and took off at a run towards the communications quad. Sally threw a stun baton at the overwhelmed Wufei as they broke out into the sunlight.

"Here." She slid into the driver's seat of the Preventer car, barely waiting long enough for Wufei to enter before peeling out of the lot, lights flashing. Her mouth compressed in a thin line as she drove with a blatant disregard for the speed limits.

Wufei finally managed to get a word in sideways. "Heero and Duo... "

Her voice was grim and brisk. "We've tried to contact them about what's going on, without any luck. Apparently they've already left the cabin--my staff is trying to pin down their probable route out of the mountains so that we can intercept them *before* they hit civilization. There have been riots and protests in almost every major city on Earth about this stuff--and people are getting scared. Those fucking back-stabbing politicians! They're deliberately using this to boost their own agendas!" She thudded a fist against the wheel, then her shoulders slumped.

"If they get hurt... it'll be my fault... " She made a careening turn into the airport without stopping for gate security. "I should have never convinced them to leave their wristcoms behind-"

"You couldn't have predicted this," stated Wufei. "And you know as well as I that sending Heero on vacation with a wristcom is no vacation at all... he's the worst workaholic I've ever seen." He smiled wryly at the thought. A bit of the pot calling the kettle black there--and Sally's sideways, dryly amused glance showed she was aware of it as well. Of course, Duo usually had a number of plans to 'accidentally' break any laptops/com-units that found their way into the luggage... sometimes with the most amazingly improbable results. Wufei shook his head at a memory--Duo explaining cheerfully to a very unamused quartermaster exactly *how* a herd of llamas had managed to trample Heero's latest Preventer-issue laptop into smithereens...

The car screeched to a stop on the tarmac in front of a Preventer shuttle, and Sally leaped out almost before the car had stopped. Wufei was nearly blown off his feet as he followed her example--the shuttle engines were already whining as they were warmed up for takeoff. A young Preventer officer saluted briskly and motioned towards the shuttle, shouting to be heard over the engine noise.

"Everything's ready, sir! Your squad and gear are accounted for--you've got clearance for takeoff as soon as you and Lt. Chang are aboard!" Sally nodded and tossed the car keys to the slim young woman before boarding the plane. Wufei followed, grateful his tight ponytail kept his hair from whipping into his eyes as he fought his way through the rising wind.

He maneuvered around the small bundles of gear and made his way to the front, only to stop in surprise at the familiar face of the pilot. "Commander Noin!?"

Noin slanted a glance at him before continuing her preflight checks. "Hello, Wufei. We're about to take off, so if you'd have a seat. . " There was no arguing with *that* tone--though a year or so ago, he might have tried. Now he knew better. Grabbing a seat next to Sally, he accepted the bulletproof vest she handed him and began shrugging out of his uniform jacket. He pulled the vest over his head and gave her a questioning look. Sally shrugged.

"Noin's still one of the best pilots we have, in or out of a Mobile Suit. She was at headquarters when I made the call--and she insisted on coming along. I didn't really have time to argue."

Noin's voice crackled over the intercom authoritatively. "Put on your harnesses, people! This is going to be a fast and bumpy ride! E.T.A. to Colorado--15 minutes." The rising sound of the engines provided confirmation of her words as the shuttle rose vertically in the air--then took off in a rapid ascent that could only be described as reckless. Wufei tightened his lips and gulped--at this speed, 'bumpy' was an understatement. Not that it mattered--only speed did, and getting to the only two ex-Gundam pilots who had no idea about how bad the witch-hunts had gotten.

Duo swung his legs back and forth against the mud-splattered sides of the Jeep, listening idly to the mellow jazzy wail of the saxophone from the car's stereo. From his perch on the hood of the car, he watched the street life around him with a casual interest and no small amount of boredom. Vacations were great--but only when they were interesting. Waiting for Heero 'I've got a shopping list and a mission' Yuy to get back from the store with their groceries did *not* qualify as interesting. Sitting in the middle of dirty Nowheresville, trying to drum up some interest in the quaint native folk, was *not* interesting. Duo sighed.

Still, the unabated hostility that the people around here radiated was, if not interesting, puzzling at the very least. He couldn't remember ever being here before... maybe it was the fact that he and Heero were a couple? He thought they'd been pretty discreet--but people around here seemed to be more suspicious than usual. Oh well. He certainly wasn't going to apologize to them about it! Still... as much as he tried to shrug it off, the niggling little voice of his intuition refused to let him relax. Something else was wrong. He didn't know what... but he could *feel* it.

He leaned back on the hood, arms behind his head, while a seemingly-lazy blue gaze assessed his surroundings from behind half-closed lids. Yep. He wasn't just imagining things... there *were* more people on the street now than there were a minute ago. And unless the hairs standing to attention on the back of his neck were wrong--they were *angry* people. More men than women, for the most part--but a good mix of both, and of varying ages. They all seemed to wear the same flat, angry expression, and they milled in small, defensive groups--muttering angrily. All of Duo's instincts kicked into high gear, shrilling alarms, when he noticed the no-longer-hidden ugly stares and building tension. In the relatively quiet street, the words 'freaks' and 'murderers' were repeated, staccato sharp, in the low grumbling of the crowd.

Inwardly, Duo tensed. It wasn't the first time he had been confronted by angry survivors of the war--but it was the first time he was completely unarmed, and on foreign ground. Not a good situation. Without showing signs of noticing the attention, he muttered worriedly under his breath. "C'mon, Heero... hurry it up, willya?"

A few tense, endless minutes later, his partner walked through the sliding glass doors of the grocery store, hands laden with bags. Duo jumped off the hood and hurried to meet him, grabbing two of the bags out of his hands and dumping them into the Jeep.

"Time to go," he muttered at Heero, jerking his head incrementally at the angry crowd. No... mob. It definitely qualified as an angry mob. "The natives are getting restless."

A cool cobalt gaze surveyed the situation. "What did you do?"

"Ha ha. Very funny. I didn't do a damned thing except wait for *you*." Duo opened the driver's side door. "Let's go."

A brick suddenly impacted against the windshield, accompanied by an angry shout. "That's them! Those are the terrorist pilots!" With an incoherent roar, the crowd broke and threw itself at the two startled pilots.

"Fuck!" Duo ducked and rolled, trained reflexes coming to the fore as a rain of bricks, rocks, and other objects came raining down on them. An overripe tomato splattered across one shoulder. "What the hell? Who throws rotten fruit in this day and age?! Shit!" He slid under a wild haymaker as one of the angry townspeople reached him, and kicked out his attacker's knee instinctively. The man screamed as his knee broke with a wet *snap*. He blocked a lead pipe, wincing; then weaved his way through his angry (but thankfully unskilled) attackers. A beefy man tried to grab the long brown braid that lashed behind the teen; he earned a stiff shot to the solar plexus.

"On second thought, rotten fruit isn't all that bad... " he panted as he fought his way to Heero's side. The former Perfect Soldier had been living up to his name... a trail of broken, bruised, and unconscious bodies was the evidence. Thankfully, none of them appeared to be dead, not that he felt the urge to stop and inquire. This mob showed no signs of being intimidated by their prey's ability to fight back--if anything, it seemed to incite them even further. The two pilots fought furiously, trying to cripple instead of kill; unfortunately, their attackers didn't feel the need to do likewise. Duo chopped down viciously at the necks of his two attackers and lunged for the vehicle--only to see Heero take a baseball bat to the back of the skull and crumple dizzily forward.

A red mist filmed over his vision. A small, logical voice in the back of his head commented that one hit to the head was not going to slow Heero I-Self-Destruct-Before-Breakfast Yuy down much. However, that voice was lost in the sound of blood pounding in his ears, and the primal protective instinct that surged through his body at the attack on his partner and lover.

"That's it. You fuckers are TOAST!"

The black-clad ex-Gundam pilot waded into the midst of the mob, striking ferociously at vital points and vulnerable areas. Duo no longer pulled his punches, but instead struck out around him with lethal force, his teeth drawn back in a vicious fighting grin, summoned instinctively after more than a year. The smile of the pilot known as Shinigami. With lethal precision he struck at Heero's attacker, crushing his trachea with stiffened fingertips, even as he swept aside the falling baseball bat. A screaming, enraged young woman was flung away with a broken arm as she tried to grapple the chestnut-braided whirlwind. Another paunchy, muscled man grabbed at him wildly--only to get nothing but a handful of a black leather jacket and a relentless sneakered foot slammed into his crotch for his trouble.

Duo's narrowed gaze caught the sight of Heero fighting his way upright again with relief, and he began to battle his way through the melee. "Heero!" he called, trying to gain his attention even as he ducked lithely out of the way of a heavy booted kick. He managed to push forward a few inches--then froze momentarily with the rest of the stunned crowd as the scream of hoverjets suddenly permeated the area. A familiar, amplified voice rang over the street as the Preventer shuttle screamed over the tops of the buildings and stopped with unerring precision above the square.

"This is Preventer Commander Po! Put down your weapons, and go to your homes! Anyone remaining in the square in five minutes shall be put under arrest!"

Duo grinned, then winced at his split lip. "Yeah! Way to go, Sally!" A flash of silver near the ground caught his eye--he tensed as he saw a blade gleam in someone's hand.

An angry old man in a dirty flannel shirt lunged at Heero's undefended back. "Murderer! You killed my son!"

There was no time to think--only to react.

Duo lunged in the same instant as the old man, desperately overreaching himself in an attempt to cover the distance. Off balance and overstretched, he slammed into the grey-haired maniac with the knife--even as Heero spun and reflexively blocked them both away, inadvertently adding to their momentum. The two toppled to the broken pavement, struggling fiercely for control of the blade--then just as suddenly slumped, simultaneously.

"Duo!" Heero lunged for the limp, braided figure that lay on top of his now-unconscious attacker. Other voices barked in the distance, even as Preventers grappled down from the hovercraft and began pushing their way into the stunned crowd. Heero gently pulled Duo over; a cold fist clenched in his gut when he saw the hilt of the hunting knife that had been sunk deep into Duo's vulnerable throat. Blue eyes locked with his as a thin trickle of blood threaded its way past paling lips--a shaky hand wavered upwards. Heero grabbed those wavering, desperately clutching fingers, trying to communicate a calm he did not feel, even as Duo choked and tried in vain to breathe.

"... Duo ... "

"Out of the way!" A small squad of Preventers led by Sally Po pushed their way through the shocked crowd and surrounded the small tableau. Two Preventers that bore the ancient red cross symbol of the field medic pushed their way to the forefront.

"Let go, please, sir--we can't work on him if you don't let him go."

Sally's hands settled insistently at his shoulders, pulling him away gently. "I'm sorry--we got here as fast as we could... " The stony cobalt gaze remained fixed on the fallen form, now huddled over by worried medics. "Please, Heero--Noin's landing the shuttle in a nearby park. We'll move Duo just as soon as he's stabilized--but we need to leave as soon as we can. It's not safe here."

The Preventers continued to push the crowd away, clearing a small circle around the small, huddled group. White-gloved and bloodied hands worked with the quick competence of seasoned paramedics as they worked to staunch the bleeding and insert another tube to allow their patient to breathe. Violet-blue eyes remained locked on cobalt, glazed with shock--they fluttered shut only when Duo's head and neck, with the knife still protruding, had been immobilized. Only once the medics had strapped Duo's now-limp form onto a stretcher and began to hurry towards the waiting shuttle did Heero yield and follow--staying as close as they would allow.

The return to the shuttle was, of necessity, slower and less dramatic than the Preventers' emergence from it--Duo's stretcher had to be lifted inside slowly and carefully, so as not to jar the precariously embedded blade in his throat. The rest of the squad followed in a close, defensive retreat. The milling, still-angry crowd surged forward as the Preventers retreated; only to be scattered by the force of the wind as the turbines roared back to life. With a defiant howl of the engines, the shuttle rose vertically out of their reach, depriving the maddened mob of its prey.

Inside the quiet, spartan crew compartment, the quiet, relieved conversations of the resettling squad were hushed and concerned. It was as if trying to speak over the whine of the engines and the irregular rasp of Duo's breathing could cause either of them to fail, and the stern, thin-lipped expressions of the medics as they monitored Duo's vital signs were anything but reassuring.

The worried gazes of many of the members of the squad did not escape Sally's perceptive eyes. Even with all of the recent ugly media publicity, the ex-Gundam pilots were still well-respected among the Preventers. Especially Duo--whose more casual manner and irrepressible cheer made him infinitely more approachable than either Lts. Yuy or Chang. She clenched her jaw--for once she sympathized with Wufei. That these young men--after fighting and suffering for the people of the colonies, and then for the people of the Earth--after giving everything they had, again and again, should be so reviled by the people they saved--it was truly an injustice. One that made her blood boil and her heart rage against her own helplessness.

Wufei and Heero, meanwhile, stared at each other with a silent, angry understanding. Wufei broke the silence, offering a terse explanation/apology.

"We were afraid it would come to this."

Heero nodded abruptly, then sat down on a nearby bench and fixed an angry cobalt gaze on the pale, blanket-covered form strapped carefully to the floor. Noin exchanged a grimly understanding glance with Sally, then smoothly lifted the shuttle further into the sky, sending it streaking towards the nearest emergency hospital.

End Part Two

Notes:
(1) In case anyone is complaining about the inherent contradiction of a 'radical pacifist' assassin, I thought I'd mention that fanatics do not always follow their own ideals. History is full of people willing to kill in the name of peace--for example, the people IRL who believe killing doctors to prevent abortion--murder in the name of preventing murder.
(2) I've never seen any great details on the Preventers and exactly who and what the organization did--in this AU, I've made them into more of a semi-military/policing agency, and used ranks and protocols from both areas. If I've screwed up on military title designations, I apologize--I have no first hand experience with them, so please tell me if I get them wrong!

(:./hope/dream2)