01-Aug-2003
revised: 13-Sep-2005
Title: The X Faction 6/?
Author: Kitty Chou
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: AU, Shounen-ai, Angst, Possible OOC
Pairing: 3+4, 1+2
Disclaimer: *clears throat* I do not in any way, shape, or form own Gundam Wing or its wonderful characters! I just pull them out to play and then clean them up and put them back when I'm done! I'm making no money and if you sue me you will receive no money because *shock* I have none. Oh, and I don't own the movie 'Magnolia'.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, shounen-ai, angst, violence
Spoilers: The entire series, Endless Waltz and Episode Zero... along with Blind Target and Ground Zero.
Author's Notes: I love my schedule this semester for school! It gives me time to write AND do homework! Isn't that amazing?
Feedback: Please send feedback! ARNIE HUNGRY!!!
"Tembin... is Japanese for Libra." The room fell silent.
"Oh Allah," Quatre whispered. "It seems you were right, D. Relena is quite literally going to destroy the world. But why? To what end? She loves it... the Earth... " He expelled his breath in a sigh, running his hand along his ponytail in a nervous gesture.
"I don't know," Heero answered him quietly. "But if what you've said is true, I'm going to find out just that."
"Heero," Duo said suddenly, looking up as if something had just dawned on him. "How did you know about the Gundams?"
"I saw them."
"What?" he demanded, startled. "There is NO way you could have gotten in there! Not only do you have a high security clearance band, but there's vocal identification and fingerprint scans that you definitely don't have clearance for! Even I couldn't break in there if I wasn't in the system!"
"Hn," Heero replied with a smirk, folding his arms smugly.
Duo looked at him hard for a moment before his eyes widened. He turned and roughly pressed a button that apparently activated the intercom system. "All white, black and striped bands report to the Control Room immediately." He turned in a huff and leaned against the console, frowning at Heero.
"What are you doing?" Heero asked him curiously after a moment.
"I'm quietly judging you," Duo replied through clenched teeth. His head snapped towards the door when it slid open, revealing a rather flushed and out-of-breath woman with deep blue hair, a fairly common side effect from life under the false lighting of the colonies.
"What's up, D?" she rasped, holding a black-banded hand to her chest as she panted. Her dark eyes widened as she took in the newcomers. "Scheisse! It's like a terrorist reunion in here!"
"Hilde?" Wufei exclaimed in surprise, simultaneous with Heero's growled 'Schbeiker'. Hilde had frequently visited Duo after he joined the Preventers, eventually gaining Wufei's trust and respect as a friend, or at least a comrade. Soon after Duo disappeared, Hilde had naturally as well, though it had gone all but unnoticed with everything that had happened. Something suddenly clicked in Wufei's mind. "Miss H. You're Miss H."
"Ooh, you're a smart one. Almost forgot that," she teased, placing her hands on her hips and jutting out her chest proudly. "Miss H at your service! Now, what was it you wanted, Duo?"
"Just wait," he growled, still glaring balefully at Heero. The door opened and closed several more times, admitting several bewildered technicians, workers in lab coats, and seemingly random 'not-so-evil henchman'. Duo became increasingly irritated as the door opened and closed, and when eleven people wearing white, black, or striped bands stood before him, his temper burst. "Where's Daniel?"
"He's... hiding in the hallway," a very pretty black woman in a lab coat answered, an amused light in her dark eyes.
Steam all but billowing out his ears, Duo marched to the door and slammed his hand against the pad that opened it. He stuck his head out and pointed angrily at someone in the hallway. "YOU. INSIDE. NOW!" he shouted, before whipping around and stalking back into the Control Room.
Wufei recognized Mr. Meaty Hands, or Daniel rather, immediately as he trudged into the Control Room. His head was down, his eyes on the floor as he came to a stop beside the other white bands. Duo waited expectantly, his arms folded and his foot tapping irritably.
"Well?" he exclaimed finally, tossing his hands up into the air. "You know damn well why you're here, Dan, so why don't you explain: A) How Heero found the hangar; B) How Heero got into the hanger; and C) Why the hell you didn't sound the alarm and send the satellite into lock down when he did?" He ticked off the points on his fingers.
Daniel winced, but kept his head down. "I-I'm sorry, Professor D," he stammered. "I was leaving the hangar when he attacked me, so the door was still visible. He held me at gunpoint and demanded that I open the door and I-I didn't want to die so I did, thinking that I could initiate lock down once we were inside anyway. B-but he locked me in a tool cabinet and when I managed to get out, we'd gone back to code green, so I went to the sickbay... "
"The sickbay?" Quatre asked in surprise. "Why the sickbay?"
Daniel looked up slowly. The entire lower left-hand side of his face was a deep purplish-black and somewhat shiny from how the skin was swollen and stretched. "I... I thought my jaw might be broken, sir."
"Shit, Heero." Duo whistled, his anger deflating as he walked forward for a closer look at Daniel's bruised face. "You damn near took his head off."
"I was distracted," Heero muttered, looking mildly embarrassed but not particularly sorry.
"Alright," Duo conceded, patting Daniel on the shoulder. "You fucked up, but it's understandable. Heero can be pretty scary. Just don't do it again or I'll have your ass, Jones!"
"Everyone," Quatre called the room to attention. "This is Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton, and Wufei Chang. They'll be staying with us for a while, I assume?" They nodded, and grunted their assent, bringing a pleased look to Quatre's face. Gesturing at the dozen assembled crewmembers, he continued the introductions. "These are the top, and most highly trusted, members of the X Faction. Black bands are the highest level and limited to Duo, Hilde, and myself. They can go anywhere on the satellite along with any other X Faction base or spacecraft. White bands are the next highest and are worn by the top pilots, combat specialists, and infiltration experts. The bands with black and white stripes are for the head technicians and engineers, as well as for the heads of security and our expert hackers. The striped bands are basically level with the white bands, but there are a few exclusive areas where only one or the other can enter for security reasons.
"After that, our people are divided up based on their level of experience in whatever field they specialize in. Purple is the lowest and is used for those who have just applied and are being screened in their background and physical condition. Blue is for those who are cleared and have begun training at the base. Green is for those who are beyond their sixth month of training. Yellow is for those who have mastered training in whatever area of specialization. Red is the highest staff level, reserved for those who have mastered several areas of expertise, making them candidates for a white or striped band.
"While you're here, I'm going to give you all black bands, since it's obvious you'd just bypass the security anyway," Quatre finished with an amused smile playing on his lips as he glanced at Heero. "Callie, if you would?"
"Of course, Instructor Q," a woman stepped forward in reply. She was a petit woman wearing a rather jovial expression framed by fairly bouncy red hair. "If you would please step over here, sirs, I'll register you into the database."
They moved to join her, though Trowa had to be prodded, and she began the registration process. After fingerprint, handprint, and vocal identification scans, she assigned them each a bar code, which, she explained, would ingrain itself on their wristbands. That bar code would grant them access anywhere in the base, and announce their presence to the computer system so they could be tracked down if needed. They were then given their bands along with a separate set of earpieces, which would directly link them to the computer and the Operator of the Holographic Projection System, or HPS.
"Now your microphone is always on, so if you don't want the computer or the HPS Operator to hear you, you need to switch the transmission to receive only, kay? I can't tell you how embarrassing it is to have someone overhear you... privately conversing... " Callie blushed, coughing awkwardly into her hand to hide it.
Duo laughed heartily, patting the petite woman on the head affectionately. "Not that Callie knows from experience, of course," he teased, deepening her blush.
"Is that everything?" Wufei asked as his own ears went slightly pink. "Will we see the Gundams now?"
"Ah, good old Wufei! Always keeps his mind on business," Duo teased, clapping Wufei on the shoulder. "Yes, we'll go see the Gundams now."
"No," Quatre corrected him, a 'mother hen' type of gleam in his eyes. "YOU will go rest. You can play with the other kids after you've had a nap. I will show them the Gundams."
"Aw gee wiz, mom," Duo complained loudly, scuffing his feet on the floor comically. "Do I gotta?"
"Yes," Quatre said firmly, pointing at the door. "Now march, mister!"
"Fine," the longhaired man sighed heavily, half-heartedly waving at them all as he shuffled to the door. "See you guys later... "
"Goodnight, Maxwell," Wufei teased. "Have a good nap."
Duo flipped him off.
"They aren't quite finished yet," Quatre admitted as he led the way down the corridor to the hangar. "We only started building them about... six or seven months ago. We've completed two so far, but the last three are still in development with all the new technology we're implementing."
"Are you training pilots to fly them?" Heero asked guardedly, walking stiffly behind him.
"No, of course not," Quatre assured him. "Duo and I can still pilot and all of them have a remote operating system similar to the mobile dolls, so we could pilot them all at once."
"You can pilot?" Wufei asked in surprise, then looked ashamed for having pointed out Quatre's rather obvious disability.
"Yes," Quatre said gently, offering a comforting smile. "I'm not paralyzed. Not fully, anyway. I can still feel my legs, I just can't... use them very well. But they're getting stronger and eventually I should be able to walk with only the use of a cane."
Wufei nodded, still embarrassed at his outburst. An awkward silence filled the corridor, broken only by the whirr of Quatre's wheelchair. Heero broke the silence after a few moments, frowning curiously at Quatre.
"How are you remotely operating the Gundams? The Zero System? Epyon System?"
"No, not exactly. It's a system similar to both Zero and Epyon, but as Duo likes to put it, 'it doesn't make you crazy'. Plus, your reaction time becomes even faster. We call it the Alpha System," he explained, wheeling up to a panel on a sidewall and pressing his hand against the invisible scanner. A smaller panel slid open, revealing a band scanner. Quatre put his hand under the scanner, eliciting a beep from the system and revealing another panel with a vocal identification lock and a scan pad. He leaned forward in his chair so the speaker would pick up his voice clearly and pressed a finger onto the pad. "Quatre Raberba Winner."
Wufei caught his breath as the doors opened, though he was the only one since Heero had already been there and Trowa was watching the way Quatre's gloves moved over his hands when he turned the wheels on his chair. Inside the hangar stood six man-like machines, five Gundams and a smaller mobile suit resembling a Taurus in design. Two of the Gundams and the smaller suit were complete, but the other three were skeletal in appearance, their wires and unpainted gundamium panels visible.
"They're smaller and more lightweight than the old Gundams, making them much faster then they were before without compromising the power or stability. We've changed the cockpit design quite a bit, as well. It's still single pilot and located in the torso, but it sort of revolves now, to take the impact of collision off the pilot," Quatre explained, wheeling forward into the hangar.
"They can no longer self-destruct, but as I mentioned earlier, they all operate with the Alpha System. There is also an AI program, which allows for the remote operation I referred to, and that runs through the Alpha System as well.
"Duo installed hyper jammers in all if them, along with his own stealth system, which is considerably more advanced than any previous system we've worked with. Though, I have to admit, the stealth system on his own Gundam is significantly better since he spends every moment of his free time working to upgrade it. Here, let me demonstrate." He turned and reached into the back pocket of his wheelchair, pulling out a small remote control device from within. Aiming it at the hellish Gundam obviously belonging to Duo, he clicked a button on the upper right hand side of the remote.
The Gundam disappeared; leaving only a slight curve that one could see if they knew what they were looking for. A technician who had been working out of sight on the Gundam's shoulder gave a shout of surprise and lost his footing, tumbling over the side until his emergency cable caught him. "Oh my!" Quatre exclaimed, quickly returning the Gundam to view, his face flushed a deep crimson. "I'm terribly sorry Eddie!" he called out to the technician. Eddie waved, laughing hysterically as he began making his way back up the side of the Gundam.
"That's the third time I've done that... " Quatre muttered, half to himself. "He seems to think it's funny. I'm starting to suspect that he hides up there on purpose. Anyway, that would be Azrael, Duo's 'angel of death'. It's quite similar to Deathscythe Hell as far as equipment goes. The only major difference, despite its appearance, is that we traded the buster shield for two small beam swords stored in the forearm. There are also more Vulcan cannons, located in the shoulders and wings.
"To the left of Azrael is Sadik, my Gundam. Besides the size and design, I didn't make any changes compared to Sandrock. All of the old weaponry is still there, except the self-destruct system, of course. If it's not broken, don't fix it," he laughed, looking fondly at the white and gold Gundam, which seemed positively angelic beside the demon machine.
He gestured to the skeletal Gundams to the right of Sadik and Azrael. "The other three are, like I said, unfinished as of yet, though they only have another month or so until completion. If you're planning to fight with us, you're welcome to them and I can get a team to make any modifications you have in mind."
"I think I'll test the Alpha system before making any decisions on that," Heero stated blandly, studying the Gundams with an odd look in his eyes. Wufei nodded in agreement. Trowa made no response, having missed everything but the artificial glow of the phosphorescent lighting on Quatre's pale hair.
Quatre grinned at them, before suddenly yawning as the stress of long-term space travel caught up with him. "Oh!" he exclaimed in embarrassment, covering his mouth with a gloved hand. "Excuse me! How terribly rude! I do hope you'll all forgive me, but I must retire for the evening. If you have any questions, any of the white or striped bands will gladly help you out." Quatre laughed lightly, still pink in the ears with embarrassment.
He turned to leave the hangar, but stopped as he neared the door. "Oh, and Heero?" he called, his eyes bright with amusement, "Could you refrain from injuring any more of my men? You seem to have left quite a... mark as it is."
End Part 6
Next Chapter: Surprise, surprise... just wait and see.
(:./kitty/faction6)
