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"Friends "Written By: Karina
Series: Friends Pairings: 2+6 Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the characters. That’s the way it is. Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.
Aussie spelling and unbetaed. Summary: When Milliardo Peacecraft is abducted
and left to die a solitary death Duo Maxwell decides to take a hand
in the proceedings.
Chapter 43 The engine purred, a muted rumble as the passing lights illuminated the car as they drove along the main street of New Port City. He sat erect, his head thrust as high as he could, using the shadows in the car to best advantage in the hope of keeping his identity secret. The cities CCTV system was good, with highly efficient cameras and they were well placed; if the angle was right he might be picked up on camera and identified, should anyone associate this totally unremarkable car with Quatre Winner and look more closely. His driver asked no questions, following his instructions in silence and putting his trust in his employer. Quatre knew he had a host of responsibilities to his employees. He was placing everyone who worked for him in danger and in the current economic climate there were already too many people unemployed. His activities must not reflect back on the company. Though it was already too late for that. The minute he had called Une he had come too far to back out. When he had spoken to her and made his intentions clear he had involved the company and he knew it, but it had not stopped him. His sisters would be furious and it would not surprise him if some of them moved to have him replaced. They would have to be quick to disassociate themselves from his current activities and he would not blame them. Not that he would really mind losing that kind of power and the bone aching weight of responsibility that went with it. He did not particularly enjoy the responsibilities of being at the top, but there was no option for him to step down gracefully and he had needed to prove he was not just a teenager when he had stepped up to take over the company. Now… it was highly possible that he would never be able to prove himself to his Board of Directors. They might be rabid for his dismissal soon enough and to protect the people who worked for him, and who were entirely innocent of his current actions, he would not fight them. He had a nest egg secreted away which would be sufficient for him to rebuild independent from The Winner Corporation. Besides, he and Trowa would enjoy more freedom if they started from scratch. It was a crisis he had not thought he would face for many years and this situation was not exactly as he had expected events to play out. To begin with, it was not Milliardo Peacecraft he had expected to rouse the interests of people best avoided if one chanced to be psychic. He had expected to be approached years ago, but he had been careful about his use of his abilities and being the Winner had given him a certain amount of protection. That protection would not count in this witch hunt. Not with Milliardo Peeacecraft at the heart of the matter. Nor would it be just he and Milliardo who would be noted to be of interest to these dangerous people. Primary on his worry list was Duo, who would be in danger should anyone suspect he was one of the select individuals who were different. He had hoped to bring Duo to awareness of his abilities in careful stages; the man was volatile enough at the best of times, but being considered to be a freak by the general population was something Quatre had not wanted Duo to need to deal with. Nor did he wish for those who would seek to use those abilities to their advantage to learn of Duo’s capabilities. They were not freaks to be feared, nor were they tools to be used for personal gain and to influence power plays. They were merely different and, in his opinion, they were better suited to build a peaceful world than most others for the benefit of all. If he was not careful he might turn into the very people he feared and Quatre sighed softly. He had to take such care to remind himself what it was he feared from others and not himself emulate their methods. He knew of others with psychic potential, though amid the Gundam Pilots he was fairly sure there were only he and Duo with such talent. Trowa had good instincts but Quatre was fairly sure those instincts were not the result of abilities heightened by Psychic talent. He and Duo, he had thought, not daring to think for years about what he had sensed during the battle at Libra. His mistake and one they might pay dearly for. He, Duo and, it appeared, Milliardo Peacecraft could be numbered amidst those who were not as mundane as the vast majority of the human species. That other awareness he had sensed during the madness of the battle above Earth; the pain and heartache and despair, and the cold, hard determination that it had to be done… those emotions had not come from one of the people he worked with. And that something else, the shadow, brooding, observing, powerful and leashed tightly but feeling that it must explode. That bundle of emotions, that sense of purpose and leashed power had been, he suspected, Milliardo Peacecraft. The real Milliardo Peacecraft, not the madman the world had so carefully been coaxed to see. Presumption was a dangerous thing, particularly when it involved the intricacies of a convoluted conspiracy to change the very nature of the human species. It had been a time of crisis, a time when those few people with the will to act, and the vision to scheme, could change the entire world and re direct the course of civilization. To effect change there had needed to be a hero and a villain. One must take on the role of hero and the other must be reviled as a villain, the be all and end all of blame for the lives lost and the disruption of values. What greater impact than to have the child of pacifists in the role of supreme villain? Some people attracted trouble with seemingly no effort on their part. Some people had the heart to stand up and fight for what was right. Some people had the intelligence and determination to take on accepted conventionality and wrest change from it. Some people could not simply be ignored or dismissed. Milliardo Peacecraft and Treize Khushrenada had been two such individuals, living in the same age, who had, instead of opposing each other as they might easily have, instead chose to work together to effect startling change. It made him wonder if perhaps Treize Khushrenada had himself been one of them; one who was different to the common species that professed to rule the planet, and might not have claimed talents above and beyond the ordinary. Not that it mattered as the man was dead, leaving Peacecraft to survive as best he could in the aftermath of their world shaking intervention. “Sir? Directions?” Quatre focused on his surroundings and discovered they had passed through the business district and were approaching an intersection, the left off ramp would lead to a residential suburb and the right turn would lead them to a light industrial area. “Go left and drive a random number of streets and direction for the next ten minutes, then come back in a roundabout route and go into the light industrial area.” Again no questions from his driver, the man simply moved lanes and flicked on the indicator preparatory to making the ramp and coming off the highway. New Port City had changed in the intervening years since the war. Winner Enterprises had had much to do with that change and Quatre had watched the city grow and develop with a sense of pride at his participation in improving the living conditions of the people who had survived two invasions, three if you counted the liberation from Alliance occupation by Zechs Marquise of Oz. One thing he would need to determine was exactly how different Marquise was in his mental capacity. There were varying degrees of psychic ability, varying levels of strength and sensitivity, and the innate character of the individual also factored in to the equation. Marquise had a unique perspective on living, given his past, and Quatre was sure the man had not intended to survive the explosion of the Libra. Quatre suspected Khushrenada alone was not supposed to have died on that fateful day so many years ago. Marquise was not suicidal though, from what little Quatre had managed to learn of him. Had any of them really expected to survive the war? Certainly he had not really expected himself to survive, though of course one could never really stop hoping and thinking one was invincible. Particularly a teenage male. Zechs, while older than the group commonly referred to as Gundam Pilots, had still been a teenager during the war. He had been older by a mere four years and guided by a man who was barely five years his senior. They had all been so young, too young, and thought they could make a difference. And they had. Some of them were still working to make a difference, though now they worked in differing ways toward the same goal. Maintaining the peace. Marquise was the Black Opal and the Black Opal was legendary; seemingly untouchable. He was reputed to be able to enter a room, or building, unseen and unheard. Clandestine infiltration and information retrieval was a specialty and, if rumour had it right, the Black Opal was not squeamish about killing. He was not too sure about the latter; there were so many rumours about the abilities of the Black Opal that one really had to wonder if the man was an urban legend and nothing more amid the shadowy halls of the powerful. It would have to be more than the psychic ability though. He suspected there had been modifications made to Marquise, either during the war or after, when he had been recruited by the organization utilizing his particular skills. Nothing to the extent Heero had been modified, and Quatre now knew how extensively Heero had been altered. Yuy had trusted him enough after the war to come to him when he had needed help with some of those changes. //Government departments have to answer to higher authorities, so they would not be as extreme as a private concern might be. Dekim Barton is no longer alive and his company have backed away from financing genetic enhancement facilities. There is also the matter of his being the Prince of Sanc to consider. I do not think they would have dared to interfere much in making modifications to a top level agent who was a member of the aristocracy.// Even one who was as infamous as the Prince of Sanc. Zechs was certainly no slouch and his Oz training would have been enhanced by his current employers. What Quatre needed to know was the extent of the physical modifications made, when they had been made, if the modifications were completed and would there be any danger to the man’s health if the modifications were not completed? //Would they have not modified him? No, I cannot believe they would not have enhanced some aspects of his physiology. From the rumours about The Black Opal he would have to be a modified agent. Psionics would not account for everything he is reputedly capable of doing, but I don’t know how far they would go. How far he would permit them to go.// Quatre was not fool enough to think Marquise would trust him enough to confide in him, and if Marquise did choose to talk of the modifications then he would not reveal all the details. Certainly should their situations have been reversed Quatre would not reveal all when those abilities might mean the difference between survival and death. It would take time to win Marquise’s trust, particularly as his current employers appeared to have determined to remove him. “Sir?” They had completed their tour of the suburbs and were entering the light industrial sector, he noted. It was time to meet Rashid’s people.
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