Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Deadly Beautiful ❯ Protective Older Brother ( Chapter 27 )

Disclaimer: I honestly can't think of an interesting disclaimer, so: deep breath I don't own or pretend to own Gundam Wing or any of its parts or constituents, and I am not making any kind of money or receiving any payment whatsoever from this work. Gundam Wing is owned by Sunrise, or Sotsu, or Bandai, or something. I don't keep track of those kinds of things.

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter 27

By danse

Zechs looked up as Noin walked into the room. "Hey, Lucy," he said. "Have a good sleep?"

"Better than the last month's worth," she answered, walking to his side. "I still can't believe you wanted me along."

He looked around the room they were in, an empty office of the OZ headquarters. "We'll discuss that later, when we're on the road."

She stared at him in confusion. Is there something to hide? she wondered. She wasn't sure if he thought they were being eavesdropped on, or what. Well, I can find out later, she thought, dismissing it. Noin surveyed the stuff laid out on the floor in front of Zechs, supplies and equipment that were apparently needed for the assignment. She picked up her small, army-green duffel bag from where she'd dropped it at the door and brought it over to the pile. "Is this everything we're taking?" she asked.

"Yes. We'll be driving, and masquerading as tourists if anyone stops us for any reason. Luckily, border checks are getting quite rare in the European Union, so we should be fine. You brought civilian clothes, right?"

"I was told to," she said affirmatively.

"Good," he said, starting to pack a laptop, paper, camera, and other information-gathering materials into a box. "Help me carry these things out, will you?" She obediently shouldered her bag and took a box, carrying it outside to the car they would be using. When she got out there, she saw with dismay that it was an old, white Renault with rust spots around the fenders. Looks as old as me, and we're going to travel across the continent in it, she thought. "It runs, right?" she asked him as they opened the trunk to put the gear inside.

"Like a dream, apparently," he answered. "But I put a toolbox under the passenger seat, just in case."

This was going to be an interesting trip, she could tell.

"Well, let's get going, then, if you're all ready," Zechs said, closing the trunk and walking around to the driver's side. Noin opened her door and slid into the passenger seat as he started the engine with a rumble. Here we go, all the way to Liechtenstein in a Renault, she thought. Road trip! Somehow, the thought didn't excite her.

J sat at his desk, reading a report and idly playing with his claw, clenching and unclenching it with an almost silent whirr, when his intercom beeped. He pressed the button. "Yes?"

His secretary's voice reached him. "Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but Oliver has some intelligence for you."

"Send him in." He put the report at the side of his desk and adjusted his goggles as the door opened to reveal Oliver.

"Good afternoon, sir," Oliver said. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. What have you got for me?"

Oliver came over to his desk and put a computer printout on it for J to examine. "We picked this up from a comm frequency four hours ago," he said. "We deciphered it and thought it might interest you."

J read the paper, and his eyes went wide when he realized what it said. "You verified the translation?" he asked.

"Twice, as procedure dictates."

"Thank you very much, Oliver. You're dismissed."

Oliver nodded and left the office quietly. J never heard him leaving; he was too busy thinking. He held in his hand the exact location of an OZ training base in Algeria, intercepted from an OZ communiqué, according to the log information at the top. Why has this been handed to me? he thought. You don't just stumble on these things by providence.

After ten minutes of deliberation, he decided that no matter the source, this was too good to pass up. He'd send in his best agent in case of a trap, but he couldn't just let it go. This was an excellent chance to cripple the enemy and advance his organization's agenda.

He pressed his intercom button again. "Sarah?" he said.

"Yes?"

"Find Heero Yuy and send him into my office, please."

All that could be heard in the Playroom was the machine gun sound of a peanut bag being pounded mercilessly. Trowa breathed through his nose as he pummelled it, rivulets of sweat running down his back. The muscles of his arm were starting to scream from the constant strain. Finally, the timer beside him beeped loudly, and he stopped punching the bag, lowering his arms with a sigh of relief and ripping off his gloves as the little red bag continued to swing back and forth.

Grabbing a towel from the bench, he sat down and started rubbing the back of his neck dry, switching arms so that he could stretch them both out as he did it. After a few moments of rest, he got to his feet again, ready to start on the body-size kickboxing bag, but was interrupted by a timid knocking on the door.

He opened it to reveal an agent he'd seen around the base, a kid around his age who'd been there for a year. The guy looked like he would rather have been anywhere but there, but he straightened and said, "S wants to see you right now."

"All right," Trowa said, flinging his towel at the hamper in the corner and walking into the hallway. Completely ignoring the agent who'd come for him, he went on his way to S' office, still in his workout sweats and T- shirt. He walked in silence, lost in the same thoughts he had been for the last several days.

He replayed his last conversation with Catherine over and over in his mind every day, and spent most of his free time trying to plan his escape from this compound, and this life. So far, he had no idea what to do. If I try to leave, they'll find me. And they'll find her. They might not kill me, but they have no use for her anymore. I just found my sister; I don't want her to be killed because of me. I'm screwed....

He passed S' new secretary and walked into the office, where S sat at his desk with some printouts in front of him. "Have a seat," he said after Trowa had shut the door. When Trowa had obeyed and made himself comfortable, he started without preamble. "I have a new assignment for you, bigger than the jobs you've been doing since you got home. I think it will be more to your liking." He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pile and set it on top as he continued. "You obtained those reports for me in Saudi Arabia; the ones that had to do with an organization called OZ and something called the Zodiac Project. You remember?"

Trowa nodded. "OZ was joining with Romefeller, and there was something about a militia. The Zodiac Militia."

S smiled. "You have a good memory. This assignment has to do with that. We have obtained the exact location of an OZ military instalment in Algeria, and you are going to go in and sabotage it."

Trowa raised his eyebrows. He would get to blow things up. This could be a memorable mission. "Tell me more," he said, leaning forward a bit. S smiled more widely.

Wufei was walking along a sunlit French boulevard, enjoying the scenery and temporarily relaxing his fiercely stubborn dedication to his task for the first time since tailing Une back to France and losing her somewhere in the countryside. He'd spent every possible hour since then trying to find where she'd gone, hoping that she would lead him to Treize. He'd had no luck yet; she might as well have turned into a lamppost.

Suddenly, his beeper went off. He took one look at it and headed for the closest pay phone, digging change out of his pocket and stuffing it into the slot as he dialled. A recorded voice told him to input his six-digit access code, and as he did so, he idly wondered why phone recordings were always female. With half a ring, followed by a buzz and a click, he was put through to an office in China.

"Chang Wufei," he said, and a deep, male voice responded in Chinese.

"Hello, Wufei. This is O. I have a mission for you. You are going to destroy another OZ base, this time in Algeria. It will be done in three days, at 0200 hours. The numbers that will show up on your beeper next are the co-ordinates of its location. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. Good luck. Report to me in the usual manner when you have completed the mission."

"Yes, sir. Goodbye." Wufei hung up the phone and walked back to the apartment he was renting in town, watching his beeper casually as a string of numbers crawled across its screen. He was memorizing them, and going back to input them into his GPS. After that, he would use some of his worldwide resources to equip himself for the operation; with only three days to get there, he had to move fast. He put Treize out of his mind temporarily to focus on the task at hand.

Duo looked up and frowned, glaring at the door. Muttering to himself, he went over and wrenched it open, bellowing, "WHAT?" at the person who'd interrupted him. It turned out to be Helen, and he immediately winced, regretting losing it on her.

Helen didn't look the least bit intimidated by his outburst. "G needs you," she said primly. "Can this wait?"

He gave her a funny look. "I'm extracting information from someone," he answered. "What do you think?"

"Hmmm. He never told me that was what you were doing." She glanced at a clock on the wall inside the small, windowless room. "Can you be up there in fifteen minutes?"

"Ask this bastard," he growled, leaving the door and walking back to the other man in the room.

Helen looked at the state of the captive, went a bit pale, and shut the door behind her. She hated having to see that kind of thing, and she hated more that a nice boy like Duo was forced to do it.

Duo heard the door shut, and looked back at the man who was restrained in the chair. He might have been twenty-five, and he was an agent of an enemy organization called OZ. His blond hair was messy and falling in his eyes, and tears of pain stained his cheeks. He was missing two molars, courtesy of Duo, and he had to keep swallowing blood. There was a pail beside the chair in case he threw up. He hadn't yet.

"All right, buddy," Duo said companionably. "I'm sure you heard the lady. You have fifteen minutes, or I'm going to get really nasty. I hate being late." To encourage his victim to talk, he wheeled a large machine over to the chair and turned it on. It made a loud whirring sound as it warmed up, and some needles jumped in their gauges. He played with a dial on the side, and picked up a bare-ended wire. "Guess what this does when it touches your skin. I have a bucket of water handy, too, in case we need it." He smiled, and the OZ agent thought he was looking at the devil. "Electrical burns leave some interesting scars."

Fifteen minutes later, Duo walked into G's office and sat in a chair, feeling slightly shaken.

"How did it go?" G asked.

Duo stared blankly at the tape in his hand for a second before tossing it on the desk. "His whole confession is on there."

G picked up the tape and put it in a desk drawer before asking, "Are you alright, Maxwell?"

"As much as I always am," he answered, crossing his arms and slouching in the chair. He really hated torture.

G watched him with some concern, but decided to let it go for the moment. "You've got a new mission," he said.

Duo looked up in surprise.

"We've got some new intel about an OZ base in Africa. I want you to go and destroy it."

"Single-handedly?"

"At least cripple it badly. You can do that. I'll give you the equipment you'll need, and Ivanov's got some things in mind for explosives to use. You're to do it in three days, when the time is best for you. Get in and get out, got it?"

"Understood. Shall I go get ready?" Duo stood up.

"No need," G said quickly, getting up himself. "I have to go and discuss some things with Ivanov, anyway. I'll look after it. How about you go home and get some rest? You look a little disturbed."

Acquiescing, Duo shrugged and left the office, ready to go out and burn away his day, if he could help it. Perhaps a walk through a park, or a trip to his favourite bar, where they never asked him how old he was, as long as he had money. He could drink himself into oblivion. Maybe he'd forget the screams of that agent today. Maybe.

G watched him leave. That was close, he thought. I can't risk him going to the training level, on the off chance he'd run into the girl. There'd be hell to pay then. Shaking his head, he flipped his secret switch and walked down the revealed staircase to the training level.

Two hours into the trip, Noin was about finished staring at the French countryside as they drove through it, and turned her attention to Zechs. "So tell me what you wouldn't tell me earlier," she said. "What's going on here?"

Zechs glanced at her and sighed, looking back at the road as he explained. "You asked why I wanted you along. It's because.... Noin, I've known you since we were kids. Out of that whole damned organization, you are the only one I can trust with... certain things."

"What things?" She was unbelievably curious.

"You have no idea where I came from," he said.

"Aren't you from Germany? Your parents are millionaires or something."

"Not quite," he said. After a second, possibly drawing on his courage, he said, "Zechs Merquise isn't my real name."

Noin raised her eyebrows and looked at him. "Really?" She couldn't think of anything else to say.

"My real name is Milliard Friedenskraft. Peacecraft. I'm from Liechtenstein."

"Frieden... Peacecraft?" She stared. "What?"

"I'm a member of the royal family, and the crown prince of Liechtenstein." He looked at her again, trying to gauge her reaction.

"Crown... prince...." she gasped hoarsely, completely disbelieving. "You're fucking with me," she said flatly. "I'm dreaming. This is a big joke."

He smirked crookedly, amused by her frank response. "I'm not fucking with you. You're not dreaming. It's no joke. I can pinch you, if you want."

She turned around in her seat to face him more easily. "Let me get this straight. I went through military school with royalty. You are in line to be the king of Liechtenstein."

"Actually, I think that at this point, if I went back and formally announced my presence, and confirmed my identity, I would be crowned king. My parents have been dead for years."

Noin's hand flew unbidden to her mouth, and she made a shocked noise. She'd known this man for so long, and she was learning now that everything she'd thought she'd known about him was a lie.

Well, almost everything.

"Obviously, you're not going to be formally announcing your presence when we get there," she said, settling back in her seat again. "So why are we going?"

"I have a sister," he said. "I haven't seen or heard from her in years. She was living in the US, and now I think she's going back. I want to keep an eye on her."

"A sister? What's her name?"

"Relena."

Noin digested this. "Why do you need to watch her?" she asked.

Zechs shifted in his seat. "She's young. I think I know why she's going back; she doesn't know I'm alive. I want to make sure that she doesn't get taken advantage of, and that she stays safe."

"And you're going to try to do it without her knowing you're there," Noin said, knowing that it was true, because she still knew his personality, if not his past. "Why, Zechs? You want her to claim that throne in your place, to take that honour--your birthright honour--at a young age, to do it all without ever knowing that she still has family alive and well? She'll need your support."

"I think my support would only confuse and hurt her," he answered, "and also keep her from taking the throne, because it's supposed to be mine. I don't want that to happen."

"Why don't you want the throne?" Noin couldn't understand. "It's your right. You could settle down, and get out of this organization that you don't trust. Have a family." The bottom nearly dropped out of her stomach as she said the last part, and she hoped she wasn't blushing as he looked at her again.

"The throne of Peacecraft has always been based on the values of peace and pacifism. No blood was spilled to attain it, and there has never been a war under the rule of a Peacecraft monarch. My father was especially steadfast about his commitment to peace--even until he and my mother were assassinated.

"I have been in war. I have killed. My hands are stained with the blood I've spilled, and because of that, I don't deserve to carry on the Peacecraft line and sit on the throne. My sister, who is still innocent and good, and who hasn't experienced the true evils of the world, is a much better choice to lead." He went dead silent after delivering his speech, and Noin could see the pain on his face. They drove on, and Noin was lost in thought as she looked out the window.