Chapter Text

Prologue: As the World Caves In

"Peace is not the absence of violence, but the presence of justice." - Martin Luther King Jr.

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” -Albert Einstein

Peace, as fragile and delicate it may be, has been held for quite some time.  Soldiers were able to hang up their arms and enjoy the time they had with their loved ones.  The Gundam pilots were no different, having a good portion of their childhood robbed from them.  But time had passed and each of them settled into the lives they deserved a hundred times over.

Duo and Hilde had gotten married not long after they had finished school, Duo ran an auto shop with a scrapyard behind it.  Hilde had taken a liking to working on mechanical things, she helped Duo in the shop as much as possible.  Duo settled into this humble life of theirs, enjoying Hilde’s company, building a future home for their children, and growing old together.  As they grew older their appearance changed, Hilde actually grew her hair out and Duo shortened his.  He had donated his hair to make wigs and was happy keeping it about shoulder length.

Relena continued her work as Ambassador while Heero worked on his own and experienced a life he had never even considered for himself.  Despite therapy Heero had a long road ahead of him but it helped that Relena was there with him.  All of the training and what the Wing Zero had done to him had left him a fractured man.  It took him a long time to wind down and even then he never left the military.  Relena had hoped with time he would settle into civilian life but she wasn’t going to force him into it.  Heero had made great strides in becoming himself and Relena made sure he knew how proud she was of him every single day.

Trowa and Catherine enjoyed their time in the circus, now that Trowa was free they worked together on routines for the both of them to perform.  Now that there was peace for them Trowa no longer had that plea in his eyes that begged for the sweet release of death.  He most of all still enjoyed working with the animals, Catherine was glad that never seemed to change.  It was one of the shows where there was an unexpected visitor after the show: Midii Une.  It wasn’t long before a relationship blossomed between the two.  Catherine was apprehensive at first, wanting nothing but to protect her brother, but eventually gave her support to them.  It wasn’t long before the two of them were married.

Quatre had settled in with a lovely woman named Evangeline Olivia Martin, he had never been happier.  They settled into the colony owned by his family and Quatre made sure that his wife never wanted for anything.  It wasn’t just things, he doted on her making sure she never lacked for affection.  Quatre and Evangeline would frequently host get together with the other pilots, keeping their friend group close.  Quatre had always had a love for his fellow pilots, it was not surprising he would work to make sure his friends were taken care of too.  Anything that  he could do to help his friends, when asked, he would do without question. 

Wufei and Sally had settled into a routine of their work as Preventers.  Each little thing that would disrupt the hard fought peace was quickly snuffed out thanks to their hard work.  Sally had noticed how Wufei didn't really seek out any kind of relationship, his focus seemed hard set on keeping the peace that they had all fought so hard to achieve.  She did however notice another Preventer who eyed him, especially when he was in the workout room.  Sally couldn't help herself and decided to play a bit of matchmaking.  The woman who was interested was someone a couple years older than Wufei named Brittany Kovacs, someone who was just as hard headed as Wufei and would definitely be a match for him.

Sally put together a martial arts class and made sure that Wufei and Brittany would be there.  Wufei had initially said no but Sally convinced him to help her out with some of the Preventers who weren't as strong at it.  Reluctantly he said yes and Sally's plan was put into motion.  Brittany wasn't inexperienced but she said yes to it to brush up on her skills and to perhaps learn something new.  That class Sally made sure she paired them both up, Wufei had started off easy on her and when Brittany flipped him on his back with his low guard the pair really started to practice.  Sally saw the look in Wufei's eyes and the rest was history.  A couple years after that class the pair was married.

But peace is a fragile thing.

It started with small attacks, bombings of buildings.  The pilots out of habit tracked the news, but didn’t see anything particularly wrong with this.  Nothing in those days seemed to even remotely come close to a threat to them.  They continued to live their lives, keeping an eye on events.

Heero and Relena were the first to have a child.  They had a son and named him Jeff Yuy, he had his father’s eyes for sure.  Steel blue and a determination in them, he didn’t cry, he just took in the world around him.  The pilots all made sure they stopped to see them and welcome the baby into the world they had fought so hard for.  It almost made it worth it, everything that they had gone through.  This became a long tradition that they would carry out for the birth of each child.

Wufei and Brittany had their first child, a beautiful daughter Feng Chang was born a few days after Jeff.  Duo had of course made a joke about Heero and Wufei racing to be the first only for Wufei to come in second.  Wufei told him at least he wasn’t going to be dead like Duo would be.  It also didn’t seem like the pair wasted much time before having a second child 12 months later, Flynn.

Not long after that Une gave birth to identical twin boys that they named Jesse and Joel.  Trowa still couldn’t believe that not only did he have one healthy baby boy, he was blessed with two.  He loved the little family he had gotten. Part of him knew that if he had known what laid at the end of his long difficult road then he wouldn’t have been so eager to self-detonate.  There were small differences with the twins and each of them.  Jesse had a sparkle in his eyes when he looked around the room for the first time seeing all their faces.  Catherine was more than happy to play the doting aunt.

A few months after that Quatre and Evangeline had their daughter, but this was the first bit of tragedy that hit them.  Despite the doctor’s best efforts Evangeline passed away shortly after giving birth to their daughter Olivia Sophia Winner.  Quatre never left her and his daughter’s sides, he did at least get to tell her how much he loved her before she passed.  To say that Quatre was a mess was certainly an understatement.

Things had been going rather well for all the former Gundam pilots.  Two months after Evangeline passed away was when Noin called them all in for a meeting.  Tension hung in the room as they all sat around the table, the seemingly random attacks had increased and a few of them were starting to hit a little bit too close to home.  

Anxiety swelled as Duo stood up from his chair and slammed his hands onto the table.  “Alright, I’ll say it, we know it’s about the attacks.  Who do we have to go after to make it stop?”

Noin let out a sigh.  “I wish it were that simple, Duo. There’s little cohesive story between the groups.  The ones we’ve captured only knew what they were supposed to attack, they’re being organized by several different people which makes tracking down the source impossible.  We’ve got some leads but so far nothing has turned up how these people are being directed.”

“So then what are we to do then?”  Trowa asked, his hand lightly gripping Midii’s, their fingers laced together.  Catherine was lightly picking at her lip as she listened.

“We have to put your children into hiding, we have reason to believe they are the targets  of the attacks closer to you.  We had a plan to move your children into safe homes with parents that have already been screened.  But we have them exchanging hands so that they’ll be safely hidden.”  Noin explained.

“Wait, do we get to know where they’ll end up?”  Wufei growled.

“No, in order to keep them safe even I won’t know where they’ll end up.”

“I’m sorry, there has to be another way.”  Quatre said as he stood up, there was a quake in his voice.  “There has to be another way to keep our children safe, I can’t not know where she’ll be!”  His hands balled into fists as he fought to keep his composure.

“There has to be some exception to this.”  Relena said, “Especially for Quatre, as if him losing his wife wasn’t enough?  He has to lose his daughter too?”

Noin shook her head, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do that would keep Olivia with Quatre and safe.  We’ve already considered this and it was for the best.” 

Quatre sat down, he buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with a quiet sob at first.  The stifled whimpers grew into keening wails.  Trowa got up and wrapped his arms around his dear friend’s shoulders, Quatre then buried his face in his friend’s shoulder.  “When are we planning to go through with this plan?”  Trowa asked as he tried to comfort Quatre.

“Two days.”  Noin stated, the tension pulsed across the room.  They were all stunned how quickly this would go forward; Quatre still cried at the thought of losing his baby so soon. “Pack some personal belongings for the children, nothing that would identify them as your children.”

“This is bullshit!” Wufei exclaimed, “We are strong enough to protect our families!  I don’t like running and hiding.  Sally and I have been trying to track them down too; we’re so close!  I know we are!”

“I know Wufei, but we don’t know if this is just an attempt on your lives and what you represent or if it’s the start of something more.  We have to protect your children, that’s what our number one priority is.”

Brittany didn't look that much thrilled at this prospect.  “You mean that sting we did last week didn't mean much of anything?!  We've been busting our ass and we're still not safe?!”

“This is only a temporary situation, your children will be back with you before you know it.”  Noin reassured her.

They all left the meeting bitter and angry, Trowa offering to let Quatre stay with him, Une and Catherine for a time.  Each of them spent extra time with their children and with each other.  Two days came and went faster than they expected, it would never be enough time.  They arrived that morning, none of them had really slept other than making as much time with their children as possible.  Each one of them handed the children off to the first leg of their trips, Trowa thought the twins would end up together at least but they too were separated from one another.  Quatre was taking it particularly hard, having lost his wife to have to give up his daughter too was particularly hard on him.

It wasn’t long before all the pilots and their wives were crying. Heero has tears leaking silently from his face while he holds onto Relena while she sobs into his chest. Duo kept choking back his tears and it escaped from him in short cries. Hilde quietly wept, mouth open but no sound escaped. Trowa and Midii held onto each other and Quatre, who was inconsolable at this point. Wufei’s tears were hot and angry and Brittany did her best to contain her grief for now and to try and remain strong for those around her.  It wasn’t long before her eyes watered and tears started to drip down her cheeks.

They watched as the shuttles split off in different directions. Relena was the first to speak up. “I hope that we get them back soon enough where they won’t really remember they were ever gone to begin with.”  There was that same quiet hope that spread through the group, each parent grieving the time away from their children.

The parents lingered watching the shuttles until they were small dots like the rest of the stars. It wasn’t long before they gathered themselves and were going to head out. “We’ll see them again before we know it.” Brittany confidently stated as they walked out, she prayed quietly that she was right.

[Author's Note]

Welcome friendos to what will be a trilogy!  The idea of them having kids and them being taken away was originally a old friend's idea, Ashley2323.  Her prologue is still on FanFiction.net.  But that's about where the similarities will end and will be my own ideas going into it.  Maybe I'll find my friends again?  Anyway, I hope you will enjoy it.  If you play Sims4 at all I've been working on creating as close to what I think they would look older as well as the kids.  Just search #aheroschild in the gallery to find them.  I also have an official spotify playlist that I listen to while writing and that inspired some of the chapters.  I hope that ya'll will enjoy reading it as much as I've been enjoying writing it.  This project is to get me back into not only writing, but drawing as well.  If you follow me on Bluesky or Twitter I'll be posting snippets of upcoming chapters as well as art related to the work.  This story will be updated every Sunday to keep things spaced out and give me time to keep working ahead.  Till next time!

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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Welcome Home, Son

“Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline

Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass

Was never much but we made the most” - “Welcome Home, Son” by Radical Face

After Colony 215

The year was after colony 215, nineteen years since Mariemara tried to initiate a war and thanks to the Preventers there was a good amount of peace.  Despite the random attacks that continued those involved were promptly arrested.  There seems to be no real pattern to it just yet, especially since The people they capture had little information themselves.  Every so often one of the captured terrorists would mention doing it for the good of the colonies.  It was causing supply issues for the colonies and while the Preventers helped, an organization called The Peaceful Finality led by Thedir Castefort and Tobias Krugle. Even with the aid the colonies were suffering and growing restless.

Flynn adjusted the straps of his backpack as he made his way through the halls.  English had been particularly boring and he was looking forward to lunch at the very least.  His eyes noted a few people looking at him oddly, that wasn’t anything new, Flynn had always been an outcast here.  At the end of the day he didn’t care what they thought, he’d be graduating in a couple years, and this place would be nothing but a distant memory.  At least he couldn’t say he didn’t have any friends, he had exactly one friend and he was happy that they shared a lunch together.

His friend was in the same boat as him, despite her cheery nature she had trouble making friends.  She was a little odd but nothing too out of the ordinary, maybe that was her problem.  If she were weirder she’d fit in with the weird kids, if she were less weird she’d easily fall into the popular crowd.  He grabbed his lunch and it didn’t take him long to find his way to her, she looked rather out of it today.  Flynn bit his lip worriedly as he set down his lunch tray across from her.

The chair scraped across from her as the young man sat down across from her.  He pursed his lips as she didn’t seem to notice that he was there at all.  He spoke and that was when she finally looked up. “Earth to Carol, you’re clear for landing, please put your tray table up, your seat up, and buckle up for reentry!”

“Hey Flynn.”  She said before lowering her head again.

“What’s going on?  Any change with your mom?”  He asked her concerned.

Carol shook her head, “No, no change for good or bad.”  She paused for a moment, “My mom said she had something important to share with me.  I think she’s going to die soon.”  She sniffled a bit, her hands chasing away tears that started to drip down her cheeks.

“Do you want me to go with you?”  Flynn offered, it wouldn’t be the first time he had gone with Carol.

She shook her head, “No, can you come over after I visit her?  I think I’ll need company.”

“Of course, anything for you.”  Flynn Krieg said.  “Maybe you could leave early, I’m sure the school won’t have a problem with it as long as you say it’s for your mom.”

“No, my mom wouldn’t really like that.  She wants me to stay here as much as possible.”  Carol sighed softly, as much as she wanted to spend every moment with her.

~

In another part of the colony Jeff Conners sat in his classroom and looked out the window.  The artificial wind rustled the leaves in the trees.  He sighed as he pulled his blond hair back in a half-ponytail to get it out of his steel blue eyes.  Today felt different but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.  The feeling he got was almost like a spider waiting on a web and those silk threads began vibrating.  He didn’t know if it was a good treat or maybe a warning of something else.

His eyes went up to the clock, it was getting close to the final bell.  As the seconds ticked closer he quietly snuck his school stuff into his bag.  When the bell rang he quickly moved out the door and headed straight to his locker.  He couldn’t wait to get home, there was a new battle royal that was dropping and he was going to spend some quality time with it.

Jeff ran out the door and spotted his mom’s van, he ran over and jumped in.  “Hi mom!  Hey Jackson!”  He reached back and ruffled his little brother’s hair.

“Stop Jeff!”  Jackson grinned as he batted at his brother’s hand.  Even though they weren't related by blood or close in age, they were as thick as thieves.

“I have some really big news!”  Their mom said, “I can’t wait to tell you when we get home.”  

Was this what was itching at the back of Jeff’s mind?  “Do we get a hint mom?” 

“No dear, your father wanted to be there for the reveal!”  She said as she drove, a bright smile on her face.  He hadn’t seen his mom this happy in a very long time.

“How’d school go Jackie?  You win at tag?”  Jeff asked his brother.

“YUP!”  Jackson exclaimed, his toothy grin with gaps beamed.  He’d lost quite a few of his front baby teeth, it always surprised Jeff how fast Jackson was growing.

Once they pulled in, the family rushed into the house and all gathered around the kitchen table.

Jeff’s father clapped his hands together.  “I know it’s kind of last minute but your mother and I won tickets to go on a cruise on earth!  All expenses paid too for the week with travel included!  They’re giving us four tickets to leave next week.”

Jeff bit his lip, going on a cruise seemed like a far more boring way to spend his time this weekend.  He wanted to grind out this new game over the next week, not go on a ship to watch adults play bingo and gamble.  “Hey mom, I can’t go, take Aunt Jenny with you.  I have huge tests and a project presentation.”  Jeff insisted.

“C’mon sport, it’s a trip with the family, who knows how many of those we’ll have of those left.”  His father said, clapping him on the shoulder.  “Once you go to college we’ll be lucky if we see you once a month.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without you, Jeff.”  Jackson whined softly.

“Really, I can’t go, teachers were pretty firm about making sure that stuff gets turned in.”

His mother deflated a little, but they relented, “Alright,” His mother said softly, “We’ll make sure we bring you back some good souvenirs.”

~

On another colony students lingered outside the high school, a small group of them lingered under a tree.  The weather as always was perfect on the colony, the artificial sun warmed them and the fake cooling breeze  moved through the trees and their hair.  Jesse closed his eyes and pulled his cowboy hat down a little.  It wasn’t long before it lifted and his friend, Cheryl, looked into his eyes.

“Hey didn’t you hear me?  I’m taking you to the dance tomorrow whether you like it or not.”  Cheryl said and Jesse groaned.

“Why you gotta drag me there?”  He sighed as he adjusted his hat to better look at her.

She puffed up her cheeks a little, “Because Jesse Harding, you need to get out and how often do I ask you to do something you don’t want to do?”

He simply looked at her with a rather long look, slowly blinking at her.  This was the latest in a long line of requests from her.

“FINE!  Just do this and I’ll leave you alone with doing stuff for like… a week?”  She questioned, drawing out the word week, “FINE! Two weeks.”

“Alright fine, that sounds fine then.  Wait… Our school isn’t having a dance this week?”  Jesse looked rather confused.

“My friend at the high school in district 30 is having a dance.  She’s been hanging out with some new weirdo she wants me to meet.  And since you read people much better than I do, I figured you could help me sniff out if this guy is good for her.”

Jesse groaned, he was being put to work.  But it would only be a little bit of work, “Fine, but you owe me.”

“Thank you sweet pea!”

~

On Earth Feng Winters sat in her class rather bored.  She stared out the window at the rain splashed on the glass, it was a rather dreary day that she’d rather be anywhere else but school.  She imagined targets for her to shoot at, maybe that’s something she’d do today and do some shooting drills to keep her aim sharp.

Feng was a state champion for her shooting skills, she had gotten an invitation to nationals but her parents didn't want her to miss school.  A little practice today before winding down at home wouldn’t be such a bad evening.  One of the women who worked in the office came in and handed a note to the teacher.  The teacher looked down and read it.  “Feng, you're needed in the principal’s office.”

“Alright…”  She said unsure as she gathered her stuff and followed the secretary down the hall.  She ran over things in her mind of what she would have possibly done to warrant this.  Feng thought over it as they walked in.  That was when she saw two men in suits talking with the principal.  They hadn’t spotted her so she took the opportunity to slip away back into the hall.

Something about this was giving her a bad feeling about those men.  She went out the back entrance of the school, it wasn’t watched and she could slip away to call her dad.  He answered and before he could say anything she said immediately, “There’s some guys in suits trying to pull me into the office.  I don’t know what they want, I’m scared, can you come get me?”  

There was a brief pause, “Alright, I’ll pick you up at the gas station close to your school.  Be careful.”

“Alright.”  She hung up her phone and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up to shield her face from the rain. Feng walked in and started to browse around while checking for her father’s car every so often.

~

Flynn was glad when school let out, he was surprised he didn’t see Carol at their usual spot to walk home together.  Her place was on the way to his so it wasn’t unusual for him to walk her home.  He waited around for a few moments before he figured she must have just left right away, maybe it was something to do with her mom?  He put his earbuds in and made the trek back to his house, at least it was a nice day today for it.

When he arrived home he unlocked the door, “Dad?”  He asked, the silence reverberated with the answer to his question.  It wasn’t unusual for Flynn to come home to an empty house.  He went to the kitchen and saw a note, ‘Dinner’s in the fridge.  Take out the trash and do your homework.’  No affection in that note, also not unusual.  He opened the fridge and saw the usual healthy meal of chicken, veggies and brown rice.  He sighed, maybe he would take his allowance and buy some junk food.  But he knew if he didn’t eat that food his dad would know and he’d certainly be lectured about it.

Flynn grabbed an apple and sat at the kitchen island, he spread out his homework and got to it.  He was in the middle of his algebra homework when the phone rang.  The young man rolled his eyes and figured it was his old man calling to check on him.

“Hello?”  He answered, a shaky sob came through the line, “Carol?”

“Can you come over?”  Carol asked, he figured something must have happened with her mom.

“Yeah, I’ll be right over.”  He said as he then packed up his homework, he figured he’d be spending a bit of time there and they could study together whenever they got this sorted out.

The walk over was short and it wasn’t long before he was knocking on her door.  Carol opened the door, she had been crying.

“Thank you for coming…”  She said shakily.

His arms eventually wrapped around her, “Of course, what’s going on?”

Carol led him to the living room, “My mom always dodged the questions I had about my father for years.  Today at the hospital she said the answers to the questions I had would be in this box.  I’ve wanted to know for years but I don’t know if I can open it.”

“I think you wanted company for it.”  He paused for a moment and took her hand into his.  “Let’s do it together.”

Each of them took a hand to lift the lid of that little black box.  On the very top of the box there was a letter that had Carol’s name on it.  She opened up and looked at her mother’s beautiful cursive.

Carol cleared her throat as she started to read the note aloud, “My sweet, beautiful daughter, I had hoped that I would’ve had the courage to tell you about your father sooner.  But the circumstances surrounding your conception were more complicated than either of us would’ve wanted.  Our time together was brief before he left to go back to his wife.  I never told him I was pregnant, I wanted him to be able to keep his family together.  While he had cared for me while we were together, I knew there was only one person who could hold his heart.  When my family found out they tried to get me to tell him and when I refused it wasn’t long before they one by one cut me out of their lives, cut us both out.

“But if I had anyone else I could send you to once I’m no longer in this world, I would.  Your father is going to have to look after you.  He’s a good man, don’t hate him, please.  I’m so sorry I kept this from you, your father is former Gundam Pilot Duo Maxwell.  He’ll have to take you in, please forgive me.  With all the love I can give and more, Mom.”

Underneath the letter was a picture of her and Duo.  Her mom was a gorgeous woman, thick, curly blond hair, years before the cancer would take it from her.  The long haired man that sat with her was Duo Maxwell, her fingers lightly traced over his face.  That man smiled with his whole face.   Now that she thought of her reflection she certainly had his dark cobalt blue eyes, if this man truly was her father she wouldn’t be alone.

“What’s on your mind?  You okay?”  Flynn asked.

“I guess shocked, my father’s a hero, I never would’ve thought I’d ever learn who my father is.”  Carol said, her fingers traced over the picture of her parents. “I’ll just have to track him down.”

Flynn watched as his friend got up from her seat and started to pack up her things.  “What about your mom?”  Flynn followed her around as she gathered things.

“I have the feeling she wants me to settle in with my father so that I won’t have to spend time living with strangers until they track him down.”  Carol said, resolved in packing up some belongings.  Once she settled in she could come back for some of her other stuff.  “What if he doesn’t like me?”

Flynn rolled his eyes at those words, “I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like you.  I’m sure he’ll be more than happy knowing you’re his and you turned out so wonderful.”  

Carol sighed and smiled, “You’re more than right, as per usual.  Would you want to come with me?”  

Flynn smiled at her, “I would like nothing more than to see your quest to its completion!”

~

Feng saw her father pull up to the gas station and she immediately went out to his car and got in the front seat.  The rain pattered off the roof of the car.  “What’s going on, dad?”

He sighed as he put the car in reverse as Feng buckled her seat belt.  “I know you know that you’re adopted, but I never really told you who your parents are.  Those men were there to pick you up to take you to him.”

Feng looked at him rather surprised, “Why all of a sudden do they want me back?  It’s been fifteen years?”

“You and the other kids were put into hiding to keep you safe.  But even those precautions have you no longer protected so that the best place for you is with your parents.”  Her father explained, her eyes narrowed at him.

“What if I don’t want to go with them?  Also other kids?”  Feng asked.  “Who are my parents?”

“Your parents are Wufei and Brittany Chang.”  Her father explained.

“My father is a Gundam pilot?”  She seemed fairly excited at the thought.  “But honestly I don’t really know if I want to go with them.”

“We don’t have any choice in the matter.  At least this way you’ll get to say good-bye to your mother too.”  Her father said as he drove them both towards home.

~

Helen sat at her kitchen table looking at her parents.  “So my parents are Duo and Hilde Maxwell?  And now I’m going to be going back to them?”  She flicked her dark blue bangs out of her eyes, they looked between her parents.

“Yeah…”  Her mother said.

Helen had been home schooled by them on their farm since her sophomore year, she didn’t know anything else.  She couldn’t imagine a day without waking up and tending to the animals first thing in the morning.  She crossed her arms over her chest, “This is absolutely bullshit!  And honestly fuck them!  They can’t just ditch me and decide that now that the hard stuff is done that they want to deal with me?”

“Helen! I don’t want you to go either.  But we don’t have a damn choice!  Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”  Her father’s eyes were watering, he knew this day would come but he didn’t expect to care for Helen for so long, to see her go so suddenly hurt him deeply.

“Whatever, the soonest I can ditch them, I’m coming back here.”  Helen rolled her eyes.  “I’ll get packing my things then.  When are they going to be picking me up to return to the deadbeats?”

Helen’s mother sniffled a little, “Later tonight.”

“We have enough time for one last dinner together.”  Helen said with a small smile.  She got up from her chair and hugged her mother tightly.  “I’ll be back before you know it.”

~

Jesse had gotten himself cleaned up for the dance.  It wasn’t often he had the opportunity to pull out his dress boots, but this was such an occasion.  He straightened his tie  and used some moose to comb his hair back.  He smiled in the mirror and then took the opportunity to spray himself with some cologne.  The doorbell rang and he went downstairs to see Cheryl waving excitedly at him.  

“You look lovely.”  He said as he tilted his dress cowboy hat at her.

“And you look almost presentable!”  She gently elbowed him in the ribs.  She reached up and put a flower onto his left breast pocket.  “Couldn’t have you not match me.”

“Alright you dork.”  He said with a chuckle and the pair of them headed out to the dance.

They arrived at the dance with no problems, Jesse and Cheryl had some time to kill before her friend Ann Marie made it there with this new friend of hers.  They got some punch and had a few dances before her friend arrived.  The girls yelled to each other before running into each other's arms.  Jesse rolled his eyes, he always pretended to be annoyed by them but secretly found the ritual rather endearing.

It was then he noticed the boy that followed her, they both looked each other in the same colored green eyes.  His hair had been dyed black but his eyebrows were the same color as Jesse’s.  They were both the same height, same gangly frame, same mouth, nose.

“Holy shit.”  Jesse said as he looked at him.

“Where are my manners! Jesse, this is Joel, Joel, this is my bestie’s bestie Jesse.”  Ann Marie piped up.

Cheryl noticed the pair of them staring at each other.  “Man!  What are the odds!  You two could pass for twins!”

“Shut up!  You are so right!” Ann Marie laughed and clapped her hands as she looked between the two.

Jesse chuckled a bit, “Yeah, next thing we’ll know he was also adopted.”

“I… I was adopted…”  Joel spoke up softly.

Jesse felt his blood run cold, it was then there was an empty part of him that had been filled in.  All his life he felt like something was missing, was this the answer he needed that whole time? 

~

Olivia sat at her keyboard and practiced her favorite song, she knew it by heart and would always use it as her warm up song.  Olivia Sophia Kennedy was a rather talented young woman; she was an honor’s student, spoke English, French, and German fluently, she was likely going to have a music scholarship for college.  It wasn’t her piano abilities that got her that, it was her violin skills.  

She hummed softly as her fingers flowed over the keys, she just let it move through her and it just lifted her spirits so much.  There was a knock at the door that had her stop playing, and that was when her mother opened the door.  When her face was fully in the door frame she could see that her mother had been crying.

“What’s wrong, momma?”  She asked as she got up to comfort her mother.  It took a lot for her mother to cry, something was really wrong.

“You know how I took you in, how I was keeping you safe for your parents?”  She asked.

Olivia nodded, “Yeah, that one day I would see them again, but you never did tell me who they were.”

Rita wiped the tears off her cheeks, “The time has come for my little brilliant, wonderful girl to go home to your folks.”  She sobbed a little and hugged her tightly.  “I’m so sorry my little chickadee.”

“They may be my parents I’m going back to, but you’ll always be my momma.”  Olivia said firmly as she held onto her mother, “No one can take that away from us.”

“Oh you’re too kind for this world, Liv.  I’m so very proud of you.”  Rita sniffled and kissed her on her forehead.

“I’m proud of you too, momma, you raised me.”  Olivia said.  “How much longer do we have?”

“A couple hours to get your things together and they’ll be picking you up.”

“Maybe you could get our favorite pizza while I pack and we can eat and maybe get a couple games of rummy in.”  Olivia suggested.  “Maybe we can determine which of us is the best finally.”

“Alright sweetie, we can certainly do that.”  She kissed her daughter on the top of her head once more before she turned off to get the pizza.

~

Jeff stood at the terminal window looking out at the shuttle  his family would be leaving on.  His Uncle Drew was watching his wife leave on a well deserved vacation.  Jeff was just glad he wouldn’t be wasting a week on a boring trip.  It wasn’t long before the shuttle started to move away from the colony and turn towards Earth.  He waved at the shuttle before his hand settled down at his side then slipped into his pocket.  Maybe he should’ve gone.

“C’mon kid, let’s get home.”  Drew said, Jeff shook his head.  “Okay, a bit longer.”

The shuttle had just cleared the colony and was about to become another star in the dark when it exploded.  Bright orange, yellow and white flames erupted from the shuttle.  The shock wave rattled the colony and everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.  Jeff screamed and slammed his fists on the window.  His uncle was crying too, covering his mouth.  Time blurred for Jeff, he didn’t really remember the next few hours.  He remembered Preventers trying to talk to him, he remembered some of the drive in flashes, and now he was at home, his empty home. It’s strange, that’s exactly what he would’ve been coming home to but knowing they’d never come back felt hollow.

His little brother would never play hide and seek here again, his mother wouldn’t fill the house with her life force, his father would never watch the latest horror movie on the couch with him.  He felt drained and even though he wanted to keep crying he was out of tears.  He went upstairs from the couch and crawled into his parents bed. It still smelled like them and brought him a little bit of comfort.  It wasn’t long before he fell asleep there.

The morning light shone through the window onto his face.  Jeff groaned a little and scrunched up his face.  He sighed and decided to get up, he knew what his mother would say to him.  Jeff grabbed a quick shower and put on a fresh pair of jeans before going down and he made himself some eggs.  His mom would make just eggs if he wasn’t feeling good and she still wanted him to eat something.  He also grabbed a glass of juice and ate his way slowly through the breakfast when a knock on the door got his attention.

He opened the door to see two men in suits.  “Can I help you?”

“Jeff Conners, we’re Preventers and we’re here to take you to your parents.”  The one explained.

“My parents are dead assholes, thanks for the reminder!”  He went to slam the door shut when a boot stopped it.

“Your birth parents.”

That caught Jeff off guard, “What do you mean?”

“It’s time for you to go back to them.”  

Jeff looked at him, then he looked around the house.  “Sure, can I pack some things then?”

“Of course, once you’re ready we’ll head out.”

Jeff set about packing up his own things, he was going to miss his computer but he couldn’t bring that.  He then collected pieces of his family to take with him.  From his brother he grabbed his favorite squishy t-Rex plush.  He grabbed his mother’s favorite floral hair clip and from his father his second favorite watch.  He had been wearing his favorite…

~

Carol huffed lightly outside the Preventer’s office.  Flynn sat by her and he seemed equally frustrated.  The artificial sun of the colony shone overhead brightly.  Carol looked up and closed her eyes, letting the warmth flow over her.  

“Where should we try next?”  Flynn asked her, kind of tired of helping lug her stuff all over the colony.

“There’s another Preventer’s office not too far from here we can try.”  To that Flynn groaned as he leaned back on the bench.

“What do you want to do now?”  Flynn questioned, closing his eyes and trying to think of what their next move should be.

“I wanna visit my mom one more time, maybe the next place we’ll find him.”  Carol said confidently.

The bus ride to the hospital seemed longer than usual.  Carol and Flynn passed time doodling in his notebook.  One of them would draw for a little bit then pass it to the other to draw for the same amount of time.  When they got to the hospital Carol walked as fast as she could without running to see her mom.

“MOM!”  She exclaimed as she ran into the room and tightly hugged her mother.

“Oh my baby!  I didn’t expect to see you so soon.  Have you found your father?”  Her mother said as she hugged her daughter as tight as she could.  “Flynn, thank you for keeping her company while she looked.”

“No problem.” He smiled as he looked at the pair.

That was when a nurse walked in with a syringe in her hand.  “Sorry, I just need to give your mom this injection real quick and I’ll be out of your way.”

Carol didn’t recognize this nurse, “How come I haven’t seen you before?  I’m pretty familiar with all the nurses that work during the day.”

“I usually work nights, I picked up some extra hours today.”  She said as she used an alcohol pad to cleanse the area and not long after inject the clear liquid into her mother’s body.  “There you go.”  And with that she left the room.

“I’m surprised you didn’t find him, but I’m glad you came to see me before you left.”  Carol’s mom said, letting out a small sigh.  

“I wouldn’t have left without coming to see you.”  She said, “You wanna see the doodles me and Flynn made on our way here?”

“Of course dear!”

Carol was showing her mom photos when she noticed sweat forming on her mother’s head.  Her mother absently rubbed at her eyes as she looked at the photos.  It wasn’t long before her eyes became incredibly unfocused as she fell back against the pillow and then started seizing.  Carol and Flynn were pushed back as the machines started to loudly beep.

Flynn held onto Carol as they tried desperately to resuscitate her mother.  Carol didn’t know how much time had passed when the doctors declared the time of death.  It didn’t make sense, she was fine and now she was dead.  Carol sobbed into Flynn’s shoulder, she knew this moment would come but she never expected it to come so soon.

When they left they were greeted by two men in Preventer’s uniforms.  “We’re here to take you to your father.”

“I just need to go get my things from home.  Can Flynn come with me too?”  She asked.

“Of course, we were actually going to pick Flynn up too.  Flynn, we’ll be contacting your foster father and get your things together.  We’ll pick up your stuff after we pick up Carol’s.”

~

Jesse and Joel had exchanged phone numbers at the dance, texting over the next couple days.  Finally the pair of them got DNA tested and it confirmed that they were twins.  The folks who did the test thought the pair of them were fooling around when they asked for a test.  The next step was to get their foster parents together and confront them.  Jesse agreed to bring his parents over to Joel’s and they would confront them together.

The twins introduced their parents to each other and they all took seats in the living room.  Jesse glanced at Joel, nodded and then handed each of their parents a copy of the DNA test result.  “We know we’re twins, we want to know if you know who our real parents are.”

The four parents exchanged glances, Jesse’s father sighed briefly, “I do.  Trowa Barton and Lady Une.  Even if you two hadn’t accidentally met, you’d have found out today anyway.”

“What do you mean?”  Joel asked, narrowing his blackened eyes.

“They’re going to have you two picked up tonight to rejoin them.  We were planning on telling you tonight.”  

Joel’s father nodded, “We were going to be doing the same as well.”

“So we should pack then?”  Joel questioned.

“Yes, they should be here in a couple hours.”  Joel’s mother said.

It wasn’t long after that Jesse left to go pack his own things up before he would be picked up.

~

All the children that had been collected were gathered in a  room with a two way mirror.  The pilots gathered in the other room, Quatre lightly touched the glass as he looked through the mirror. The tension was high in the room, Brittany and Wufei had divorced a couple years after the children were put into hiding.  The former spouses kept their distance from each other, Wufei there for his children and to support his friends, Brittany only interested in the kids.

“She looks so much like her mother.”  He said softly, tears welling up in his ocean eyes.

They watched as the children mingled with each other, Jeff took it a step too far with Helen and called her a mega babe.

“Call me that again and I’ll kill you!”

Duo chuckled, “Man Heero, I’d swear our kids were swapped at birth if I didn’t know any better.”

Heero chuckled lightly and watched the kids for now.

[Author's Note]

Hi again all!  I'll keep this brief, thank you for reading this chapter!  I look forward to sharing more with y'all!  As always if you play Sims 4, please feel free to search #aheroschild to see what I've someone envisioned how they would look older and what their kids would look like.  Also feel free to share your own ideas under that same hashtag.  See you all next week with Chapter two next week!

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Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Soldier, Poet, King

The parents were so happy to finally have their children back.  They had missed so much of their lives and there was nothing that they could do to get that back.  Maybe they would be able to talk to their parents and see photos of their children as they grew up, see anything that they achieved, whatever they could get their hands on.

The door opened and Noin walked in, “Duo, I need to see you.”

“Sure thing.”  He said as he got up and followed Noin to her office.

Noin sat down at her desk, Duo sat down across from her.  She busily typed at her computer for a moment, then sighed again briefly.  “I don’t know how to say this, but you have another child.”

Duo looked genuinely surprised, “What do you mean?  Me and Hilde only have Helen.  Come to think of it, why'd you only pull me into this little private meeting.”

“The enemy has her along with Flynn, they sent a copy of the picture they had gotten from her.  Maybe you’ll recognize the woman.”  Noin then turned the screen towards him and Duo narrowed his eyes as he thought over where he might have seen this woman before.  That was almost certainly him and that’s when it clicked.

“Oh yeah!  That’s Beverly!  Me and Hilde had gotten in a fight and she threw me out a few months after the kids got moved.  I met Bev a couple months after, we were together for a  few weeks when Hilde called me telling me to come home.”  Duo recollected, he sat back in his chair and looked at the photo of the pair of them.  “Do you happen to know how they’re both doing?”

“No unfortunately, but we do have a good idea where they are.  We’re hammering out the last details before we select people to go retrieve them.  It would seem that Carol was actively looking for you because Beverly passed away a couple days ago.”  Noin explained to him.

“Damn, she lost her mother and then got captured…”  Duo couldn’t help but feel bad.  “Do you want me on the team that gets her?”

“No, you’ve been a civilian for a little while, we need to make sure that this goes right.”  Noin told him, “We’ll get them both back.”

Duo sighed and sat back in his chair.  “Alright, let’s get Hilde then.”  He stood up and headed towards the door.

Noin and Duo reentered the room, and as soon as they did Wufei was the one who spoke up.  “Where’s Flynn?!”  The anger laced his voice despite his best efforts to keep his rage under control.

“I’ll get to that in a moment, Hilde there’s something Duo, you, and I need to talk to you about.”  Noin said and led them both back to her office.

Noin took her position behind her desk, Duo looked at Hilde, “Maybe it’s best if you sat down for this one.”

Hilde looked puzzled between the both of them, “What’s going on?”

“Remember not long after we all had to give up our kids you threw me out?”  Duo watched as she nodded.  “Well… I had gotten together with another woman after a couple months and she had a kid from the few weeks we were together.”

Hilde narrowed her eyes on him and got up to look him in the eye.  “How could you, Duo!”

“You didn’t get with anyone else when you threw me to the curb?”

“NO!  I was stressed over losing our daughter, but you apparently had no problem burying yourself in another woman!”

“It had been months since you kicked me out and as soon as you called me I came right back to you no hesitation!  It’s probably why Carol’s mom didn’t tell me about her, so that I could come back to you.”  Duo said, “I didn’t know about her until today, and it turns out she’s in the hands of the enemy.”

“Well she can have her mother pick her up then.”  Hilde said stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Her mother died, that’s why she was looking for me.  That’s why she was taken by them, we didn’t know about her and it made her ripe for the plucking.  We have to help her…”  Duo said.  “Please, Hilde.  I’m sorry I didn’t mention Beverly sooner, I should have and that’s on me.  I thought we were genuinely done.  Between losing Helen and then you, yeah I took comfort in another person.  Please…”  Duo then got down on his knees and looked up at his wife.

Hilde looked at him, her eyes narrowed and she rolled her eyes.  “Fine, we’ll talk more about this later.”  When he didn’t get up she sighed, “Get up you goober.”

He did and that’s when Noin spoke up, “Well, let’s tell the others.  I know Wufei needs to hear where Flynn is.”

The pair followed Noin back towards the room, Hilde looked up at Duo, “Where’s Flynn?”

“The enemy has him too.”  Duo told her and she covered her mouth, knowing something bad could be happening to both children.

When they entered the room, Noin raised her hands to silence everyone.  “Now that we got that out of the way I can tell you all this.  Flynn and Duo’s second daughter, Carol, are being held captive by the enemy.  I can guess how Carol came into their hands but we’re not sure how Flynn ended up there.”

“Giving up our children was supposed to keep them safe and now our son is in the hands of the enemy.”  Brittany snarled, “Do we know where they are?”

Noin nodded, “We’re triangulating the coordinates as we speak.  We’ve narrowed it down to a nearby colony.  Now it’s just a matter of locating where they’re being held.  For now, however, go see your children.  As soon as we have the intel we’ll be organizing an effort to rescue Flynn and Carol.”

~

Carol sat on the bottom bunk with Flynn, her knees pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on her knees.  “I don’t understand!  Why can’t we see our parents?”

Flynn was propped up against the wall, “I’m not sure.  What’s even weirder is they locked the door.  And logically considering there were four other pilots along with your dad we’re likely not the only children.  Maybe we’re the first ones they brought in?”  

“I can’t help but wonder if I have a sibling.  I’m so nervous about meeting my dad, I’m sorry to have dragged you into this.  You could’ve been out having fun or literally anything else other than sitting in this room with me.”  Carol said apologetically.

“Nonsense.  I told you I’d help you see your quest through and that’s exactly what I’m planning on doing.”  Flynn said firmly and then got himself a little more comfortable.

“Mom said he was married, what if his wife doesn’t want me there and I end up having to go to an orphanage?”  Carol asked worriedly, her voice cracking slightly as her eyes watered with tears.

Flynn sighed and gently nudged her, “Hey now, don’t think like that.  Don’t worry about that now, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”  But it didn’t seem to stop her tears, he couldn’t really blame her after the day she had.  

“I want my mom.”  She sobbed. 

Flynn pulled her into his arms and squeezed  her tight while she sobbed into his shoulder.  His hand gently rubbed her back, “It’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”

~

Jeff and the other children were then separated and put in their own rooms.  He sat down at the metal table and started to drum on it. Was he nervous?  Probably.  None of this felt really real to him as he sat there, his adopted parents just died and here he was meeting his birth parents for the first time that he could remember.  He did get flashes of memories from his infancy but they were never really clear.  He stood up from the chair and started to pace back and forth in the room.  Although, it wasn’t all that bad?

The sound of the door opening drew his eyes towards it.  A man and a woman entered, the man was only slightly taller than the woman with piercing steel blue eyes and a crew cut.  He wore a preventer’s uniform with nicely shined boots.  The woman had a chin length bob and was dressed in a soft pink jacket and skirt with a white button up and white shoes.  So, this was the infamous Heero Yuy and Relena Darlian. He could see he got his hair color from  his mother despite it being wavy, his eyes definitely got from his father.

The three of them stood in silence for the moment, Relena’s eyes watered as she looked upon her son with nothing between them. 

“My little baby’s all grown up.”  She said, her voice choking with a sob.  “I’m so sorry for your loss and I’m sorry that we missed so much of your life.”

Between everything that had happened in the last few days, finally seeing his birth parents Jeff felt his own resolve dissolve.  While he had waited in the room with the others he planned to give them a piece of his mind.  How dare they leave him with strangers most of his life and now that all the hard parts of raising him are done they’re going to swoop in and take him back?  

Jeff’s eyes watered and when his mother opened her arms to him he went into them.  She squeezed him tightly as he buried his face into her shoulder.  Another set of arms closed around the both of them, he felt his father’s chest on his arm as they all embraced.  There was a small heave in Heero’s chest, was this man who looked so stoic crying too?

Duo and Hilde weren’t having the same luck unfortunately.

Helen sat at the table across from them with her arms crossed and an angry scowl on her face.  “So, am I just supposed to, what?  Just accept you two like nothing happened?”

“No, not at all.  I know that we’ve been absent for most of your life-”  Hilde started but Helen interrupted.

“Yeah no kidding…”  She grumbled.

“But every move we’ve made was with your safety in mind.  Believe me, if all of us could’ve kept you kids around we would have.  The situation changed where you were no longer safe.  Jeff’s foster parents along with dozens of others were killed in a shuttle explosion.  It’s not just your life that would’ve been in danger, your foster parents would’ve been in the cross hairs too.”  Hilde explained.

“She’s right kiddo.”  Duo spoke up.  “I fought like hell to keep you and the other kids with us.  I even went back to working as a Preventer for a bit to try and see if we could solve this problem.  Believe me if there was a way that I could’ve kept you here, you wouldn’t have left my side.”

Helen rolled her eyes, “Could you two be even more cheesier?”

Duo shrugged, “I mean I could dial it up to eleven if you like.”  His daughter groaned at that and he chuckled.  “All we’re asking for is a chance to get to know you and for you to get to know us.  That’s all.  And you know what?  If at the end of all this mess you want to go back to your foster parents, I won’t stop you.”  Hilde gave Duo a withering look when he said that, but at the end of the day she knew if she forced Helen to stay she’d only be resentful of them.

Helen sighed, “Fine.  I’m helping clean up this mess since the great Gundam pilots can’t do it in… What? Fifteen years?”

“Damn kiddo…”  Duo said, “But I never wanted that kind of life for you, wars and battles aren’t something a kid should go through.  It was something that was dumped on me, I wanted you to have an actual childhood.”

“Well too bad I’m as stubborn as your wife.”  Helen stated observantly, that made Hilde smile a bit.

“One other thing we need to tell you, you have a half-sister named Carol.”  Duo added, Hilde didn’t look thrilled at the idea but she kept her thoughts to herself.

“Oh?  Was she one of the ones in the room?”

“No, otherwise she’d be here with you right now.  Because of the circumstances around her birth she… She’s in the hands of the enemy, along with one of Wufei’s child, Flynn.”  Duo sighed briefly.  “We’re closing in on where they are and we’re hoping for a smooth extraction.”

“I want to go.”  Helen declared. 

“Hang on, hang on.  Gold star for eagerness, but if you really want to help you’re going to need training.”  Duo said as he held up his hands to slow her thoughts down.

“Fair enough.”

The Barton twins sat in their interview room while they waited for their parents to come in.  Jesse flipped his hat up and down before getting up and started pacing the room.

“Do you have to do that?”  Joel asked as he watched his twin pace.

“I just got a lot of nervous energy.”  Jesse said as he took out a switchblade and started to flip it around in his hands, opening and closing it and rapid pace.

Joel sighed, “You’re making me more nervous.”

“Sorry.”  He said as he closed the knife and put it back in his pocket.  Jesse sat back down and his leg started to twitch as he tried to contain all that he was feeling.  He wished he could just get this over with, the waiting above all was certainly killing him.

The door clicked open and their parents entered the room and Lady Une’s eyes watered as she took in the sight of her twins, how they had grown.  “My, what handsome gentlemen you both have grown to become.”

Trowa smiled at them, he was always a man of few words.  “I’m glad to finally see you two again.”

Jesse smiled, “I equally have a lot of questions for you too, but I’m sure all that’ll come in time.  Let’s just enjoy the moment!  There’ll be plenty of time for questions and catchin’ up.”

“Very true.”  Joel said and Jesse patted his brother on the shoulder.  “Would you believe the two of us met at a dance our friends dragged us to?”

“That must have been quite the shock.”  Trowa said with a small smile on his face.  “Meet someone new and must have thought you were looking in a mirror.”

“Yeah, even with the make-up I could see it.  Though I’m a bit more country and he’s a bit more goth.  I do huntin’, fishin’, and campin’, he’s more likely to curl up with a book.  He does write some pretty good stuff, ain’t something I would have picked up on my own but I can recognize it’s well done.”

“A writer!  That’s wonderful, what kind of stories do you write?” Une smiled, trying to contain her joy that was threatening to burst at the seams.

Joel blushed lightly, “Uh… I write supernatural gay romance…”

“Well isn’t that just lovely!  Midii exclaimed with a large smile on her face.  “I would love to read it sometime if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind that…”  Joel said with a shy smile.

Olivia sat nervously in the room alone, her fingers danced over an imaginary keyboard.  She could hear the music of her favorite song as her fingers lightly tapped on the metal table.  Liv couldn’t help but wonder what her parents would be like, would they be as kind and warm as her foster mom was?  The thought of her foster mother made her eyes water a little as she sat there all alone.  Olivia lightly touched her forehead where Rita had kissed her after giving her the news she was leaving.

The click of the door latch drew her ocean blue eyes towards it.  A man walked in, he had long blonde wavy hair pulled back into a low ponytail.  He was dressed in a pink shirt and khakis, but he was the only one here.  Liv tilted her head at him as he looked over her.

“You look so much like your mother.”  He said, breaking the silence. “I wish that you could’ve met her.”

Olivia didn’t hesitate to get up and hug her father, it felt like the right thing to do.  Quatre was surprised for the moment, unsure of how to react to how quickly his daughter came to him.  It didn’t take long for him to wrap his arms lovingly around her, and it wasn’t long after that that he squeezed her tightly.  His shoulders began to shake as he quietly sobbed.

“Papa, are you okay?”  Olivia asked worriedly, looking up at Quatre.

“I’m more than okay, ducky.”  Ducky was the name Evangeline had given Olivia while she was in womb.

“What did you mean you wish I could have met my mother?”  Olivia questioned, the concern in her voice was only growing deeper.

“Your mother passed away not long after you were born.”  Quatre filled in. 

Olivia looked up at him with watering eyes, “Oh…”  Was all she could manage.  That certainly hadn’t been something she was expecting.  She had been under the impression she would have both her parents.  She gave her father an extra squeeze before letting him go so she could get a better look at him.  A beat passed between them and she smiled at him, “You’ll have to tell me all about her, you must have a bunch of wonderful stories about her.”

“That I do.”  He said with a soft smile, his voice cracking a little.

Feng sat at the table alone, her eyes anxiously watching the door for her parents to come through.  Would they be able to get along or would they just be total strangers?  To calm her anxiety she started to run through her usual drills she'd practice to keep up her aim.  Going over something familiar seemed to help bring her to center in this unusual situation.

The door opened up and there was a man with a shaved head and a woman with straight red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.  Feng could've sworn that the temperature dropped twenty degrees as the pair of them walked in and then sat down across from her.  Feng watched how they sat next to each other, clearly ignoring each other while keeping their attention to their daughter in front of them.

Feng took a deep breath, “So you're my parents.”

“That's right.  You have a brother too, but unfortunately he ended up in the hands of the enemy even though this was supposed to keep you all safe.”  Brittany said, a little bit of venom in her voice as she glanced at Wufei. 

“We don't know what happened yet.”  Wufei said, trying to keep the peace.

“Right.”  Brittany sneered at him.

“Well, you'll get him soon, right?”  Feng said hopefully.

“Yeah, sooner rather than later.”

Noin watched all the families interact with one another and then they all ended up gathering back together.  It seemed to be going well, she couldn’t help the small pang of jealousy as she watched them all with their children.  She and Milliardo had been trying for children but with no success so far.  At the same time she knew that they would’ve been in the same boat as the Gundam pilots as they were just now being reunited with their children.  She sighed and knew it would happen eventually.

“I want to help end this.”  Jeff said firmly, the other children murmuring the same things.  They all wanted to help and fight what was going on.  

“This isn’t the life we wanted for you all.  We wanted you to have the childhood we didn’t get to have.”  Trowa spoke up, surprising most of them.

“He’s right.  We wanted you to enjoy the peace we fought hard for, you deserved to have a childhood.  We didn’t want to put you in a position to have to fight.”  Relena backed up Trowa.

“I think you lost the right to say that.”  Feng said, “All of us are talented in our own ways and no matter your intentions we’ve been dragged into this, not only that our foster families are in danger.”

“Out of the question.”  Wufei said firmly as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well, I guess y'all will just have to deal with it.”  Jesse said as he crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Wufei.

“Is this something you all truly want to do?”  Quatre questioned, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.  There was a round of affirmations from each of the children.  He sighed and looked at all the parents, they looked about as pleased as Quatre had expected them to be.  “Fine,  when all this nonsense is over with you’re finishing high school at the bare minimum.  After that if you want to join the Preventers officially we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.  Does that sound agreeable to everyone involved?”

There was a murmur of agreements from everyone in the room.  Wufei didn’t look too thrilled from it but he kept his displeasure to himself for now.

Noin nodded, “Heero, Wufei, and Sally, I need you three to stay behind.  The rest can show your kids where they will be staying on base.  When I’m done here I’ll make sure you all get uniforms and work on getting more of your things transported here as well.”

With that, those not needed for the next part left the room with kids in tow.  Noin flipped half the lights on and a projector turned out.  It had the layout of the base as well as walking paths for guards.

“It’s a pretty low security base for them, staffing is pretty low from the intel we’ve gathered previously from watching the base.  It wasn’t even considered a true threat but now we know they have the kids we have to at least consider how dangerous it could actually be.  But I do believe the three of you, given your experience and abilities, should be able to get them out with minimal to none combat.”

“Why would they keep such high value assets in such a low security place?”  Heero asked, “You think they would’ve been more guarded.”

“Heero’s right, this does seem a bit too easy.”  Sally echoed.  “When do we head out?”

“We’re preparing a shuttle as we speak.  The plan is to give you an hour to prepare then you’ll leave.”

“Alright, sounds good to me.”  Wufei said and the three of them headed down to gather equipment.

~

Feng walked alongside her mother, she couldn't help but notice the lack of a wedding ring on her left hand.  She felt anxious as the tension was still palpable rolling off Brittany.  “Did I do something wrong?”

It was then that Brittany seemed to relax finally.  “No, my dear, you've done absolutely nothing wrong.  It's just your father and I haven't gotten along in a long time now.”

Mentally rolled her eyes, 'Great, they're divorced.'  She thought to herself as she walked with her mother to the dorms.  “How come?”

“It’s a long story.”  Brittany said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be civil.”

~

Carol had cried herself to sleep against Flynn’s chest.  His arm was wrapped around her as they laid together on the lumpy bed.  How long would it be before they would be out of here and with their parents.  Part of him suspected  that they weren’t anywhere near their parents.  I mean there was a reason why Flynn had been given up.  Maybe that reason was to keep them safe from whoever had them in their grasp.

Then again they could’ve just abandoned Flynn out of sheer laziness too.  He didn’t care much for that thought at all.  He sighed and figured if he was going to be here a while he might as well get comfortable.  He shifted on the bed to get a bit more comfortable, careful to not disturb Carol.  Poor girl definitely didn’t need to be awake right this moment, or maybe he just didn’t want to deal with another round of crying.

Flynn closed his eyes, letting sleep take over for the time being.  It was a dreamless, almost restless sleep.  His eyes opened when he heard the handle to the door being jiggled as someone worked to unlock it.  Carol woke up, grumbling something incoherently.  Flynn quietly shushed her as they listened quietly to the door.  The door opened and the three Preventers stepped through the door.

“Are you both alright to walk?”  Sally asked.

“Yeah, we’re good.”  Flynn responded as he climbed out of the bed and Carol not far after him.

“Good, come with us, stay quiet and close.”  Wufei said and got the group moving.  They moved silently through the halls, Wufei checking the hand tablet he had with him.  He would have them stop at various spots along their route.  It seemed their intel was exactly what it was supposed to be.  That didn’t sit right with Wufei at all.

Still they wound their way through the halls and eventually out the door.  A short walk outside and they made it to the vehicle.  Heero got in the driver seat and the rest piled in; once everyone was settled in he started to drive.

“Now that we’re out of there, are you kids alright?  Did they hurt you at all?”  Heero asked, his eyes glancing at them in the rear view mirror.

“No, we’re okay.”  Carol said, “They just locked in that room and didn’t tell us much of anything.  Just that we were going to be meeting our parents soon.”

“If we hadn’t come for you, that wouldn’t have happened.  We’ve been trying to pin down the leaders for the people who took you.  But why would they leave you so unguarded is beyond me.”  Wufei said.  “I’m glad that was the case and we were able to get you out without any injuries.”

“Me too.”  Carol said as she sank into her seat, her cobalt blue eyes watching the forest as it went by.  “I’m surprised my dad didn’t come to get me.”

“It really wasn’t his choice.  Duo’s been a civilian and rusty.  We needed your extraction to go as smoothly as possible.” Sally told her.

“Yeah, I’m just anxious to meet him I suppose.”  Carol said with a soft sigh.  

Wufei looked towards his son, “I am your father.”  He said a bit awkwardly, Brittany was much better at dealing with their daughter than him with his son right now.  “I’ll take you to your sister when we get to the base.”

“I’m glad that you’re doing alright son, at least this hard part is over.  We’re going to be heading back to the base and then you can decide what you’d like to do when you get there.”  Sally explained as she turned in her seat to look at her son.

“Oh yeah, Duo’s also helping your sister get settled in at the base too, Carol.”  Heero said as made a turn. 

“I have a sister?”  She grinned excitedly, she may have lost her mother but she was gaining a father, a half-sister, and maybe another mother?  Duo’s wife brought the unknown with it.  What if she decided that Carol didn’t need to be around?  Her stomach twisted into knots thinking about scenarios in her mind.

“The other children have decided that they would like to help us take on the current threat.  Is that something you two would be interested in doing?”  Wufei asked them.

“Yes.”  Carol said without hesitation.

“Sure.” Flynn shrugged.  “By the way, did someone tell my foster parents where I would be?  I’m sure they’ve been worried sick about me.”  

“Yeah, we’ve been in contact with them.  They’re sending your clothes to us.”  Wufei stated.

“Oh.”  Flynn said, a bit shocked.  “Alright then.”

It wasn’t long before they got to the Preventer shuttle that would take them to their new home.  Carol was nervous and Flynn knew it, his hand gripped hers tightly.  She looked at their hands and then at him with a grateful look on her face.  He gave her a small smile and they resumed watching space go by as they traveled to their new homes.

~

Duo and Hilde sat in a room by themselves, Duo felt anxiety twisting in his gut as they both waited for Flynn and Carol to be transported back to the base.  As much as he wished they could’ve moved past this discussion, it wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.  They had gotten Helen settled in and found themselves alone again, the elephant in the room staring them down.

“Hilde, I wish I knew what to say…”  Duo said softly.

“You really hurt me Duo Maxwell…”  Hilde stated stiffly, her eyes looking back towards him, “But to acknowledge that you hurt me, I have to apologize for hurting you too.  We had both lost Helen, we were both hurting.  It wasn’t right of me to throw you out in the cold to deal with it alone.  Leaving me alone in the process too…”

Duo bit his lip and looked at her, “I know.  I knew that was why and I still did what I did…”  He got off the couch and kneeled in front of her, his blue orbs looking up at her.  “And I’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to you.”

Her fingers lightly traced over his scruffy cheek.  “How can I stay mad at that face?  Get up…”

He took his seat next to her and pulled her into his arms.  She rested her head on his chest and could feel the soft thumping of his heart.  There was a moment that passed between them, the silence comforting rather than awkward.  “We’ll work through this.”  Hilde said, breaking that silence, “Let’s make our family whole with an extra surprise?”

“I’d like that.”  Duo’s phone vibrated, he took it out and looked at the message.  “The shuttle with Flynn and Carol is getting ready to dock.  Want to go meet them?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”  Hilde said and the pair of them headed toward the shuttle bay.

~

The door on the shuttle opened up as everyone there waited for the kids to exit.  Duo could feel his stomach twisting into knots as anxiety swelled.  Brittany, Wufei and Feng were waiting for Flynn’s arrival as well.  The youngest Chang got off the shuttle and approached his family, they hugged him tightly.  They gathered up his things and moved towards the dorm together, but where was Carol?  

The answer to that question came quickly when Carol stepped off the shuttle. Carol saw Duo, their eyes made contact and she could feel her heart swell.  She ran as fast as she could towards him and wrapped her arms around him.  He said whoa as he caught her and wrapped his arms around her.  “Welcome home, kiddo.”  A small chuckle escaped him as he held onto her.  

Hilde smiled a bit awkwardly as Carol gave her a bright grin and a smile to her sister.  For someone who had been held hostage by the enemy and only recently freed, Carol seemed to bounce back fairly quickly.

[Author's Note]

Thank you for reading this far!  I appreciate you!  I've been having a lot of fun crafting these original characters and I think you'll like what's headed down the pipeline.  As always, updates on Sundays! :)  I've started playing around with a drawing tablet so I've been posting digital artwork on Bluesky if that's something you're interested in looking at.  I've also started (irregularly) streaming on Twitch, pop on by sometime and say hi!  I'm also open to answering questions as well!  See you all next week! <3

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Chapter Text

Chapter 3: brutal

“All I did was try my best

This the kind of thanks I get?

Unrelentlessly upset (ah, ah, ah)

They say these are the golden years

But I wish I could disappear

Ego crush is so severe

God, it's brutal out here” - “Brutal” by Olivia Rodridgo

Heero and Wufei stood at the front of the classroom, it was pretty clear what kind of students each one of the children was already.  Jeff would likely get disruptive or fall asleep if left alone for too long.  Carol, Jesse, and Helen would likely be intermittently not paying attention depending on the subject or the day.  Flynn, Olivia, and Feng would be the optimal students.

Wufei picked up a piece of chalk and started to write on the board.  “Well, given the short window we have for training we’re going to be doing a bit of a crash course.  We’re going to be evaluating your talents as they are, and know how to mold you into the best you can be.”

“We are going to be testing not only your physical abilities but also your mental ones as well.  Just like the five of us, we expect each of you to have a talent.  We’ll be finding those talents and honing them.”  Heero said.  “Everyone will be able to help in the best way that they can.”

“Look, it won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty, but we already know that you all are talented.” Wufei smiled a bit.  

The door opened and it was none other than Duo Maxwell.

Heero looked at the long haired man, “I think we have it covered here, Duo.” 

“Yeah, but I’m a bit rusty too.  You think I’d let my kids do this and not join back in.  Besides, they need someone who isn’t going to be a complete hard ass.”  Duo said with a grin and leaned against the wall near the other two.

“Remember, these next few days we’ll be assessing what natural abilities you have already.  Given the short window of training we have, it’s the quickest way to train.”  Heero explained.  “We’ll start with weapons to not only test your knowledge of them but to see if you can use them.  After that we’ll break for lunch and then work on seeing what mental skills you have.  This means things like computers, tactics in battle, quick decision making.  We’ll be running you through some mobile suit simulations  to see if any of you have a natural talent for it.  No pressure to do that perfectly the first try.

“Tomorrow will be the hard part.  We have an obstacle course for you to run to see your speed and strength.”  Heero explained and then he got a small grin on his face, “There’ll be a reward for anyone who outpaces Duo.”

“Hey now wait just one second there!”  Duo exclaimed defensively, that got a chuckle out of the kids.

“You were the one who said you were rusty.”  Heero said, that small smile still on his lips.

“Yeah but you didn’t have to make it a challenge for them.”  Duo grumpily crossed his arms over his chest.  Heero patted his long time friend on the shoulder.

“Any questions?”  Wufei asked as he stepped away from the outline he wrote on the board.  

There was a small murmur of no and head shakes from the kids.

“Alright, follow us and we’ll be heading to the shooting range.”  Heero said as he then moved towards the door.

The kids got up from their desks and then trailed after the three former Gundam pilots.  They did get to see all the different Preventers that lived on the base, all of them were obviously older than the kids and some not by all that much.  Carol was looking particularly nervous about all of this. Maybe it was a mistake for her to try and do this, some of the other kids seemed pretty confident about what was going on.  Olivia seemed to be just as nervous as Carol and that was at least a little bit comforting to Carol.

They started at the shooting range, Heero busied himself with Duo and Wufei to get guns set up on the table.  

“We’re going to cover a little bit of gun safety.  The biggest and most important rule is to treat every gun as if it is loaded.  The last thing you need to do is accidentally shoot an ally or yourself.  When you are holding a gun make sure it is never, and I repeat never, pointed at someone unless you intend to shoot them.  Keep your finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard, again, unless you plan to discharge your firearm.  Any questions?”  Heero asked as he looked over the kids, who all shook their heads.  “Now do any of you have experience with guns?”

It was then both Jesse and Feng raised their hands.

“Alright, choose a gun you’re familiar with and we’ll get a paper target set up for each of you.”  Wufei stated and then went to work while the pair of them looked over the weapons.  

It didn’t take too long before the two kids had their gun in hand and they took a position in line with their targets.  Jesse had picked up a rifle and Feng had closed her eyes and picked a gun at random.  She gave a wink to Jesse who seemed to be a little confused, but he shook it off as he focused up on the target in front of him.

Feng watched Jesse for a moment, he glanced at her and she nodded, “Go ahead, show us what you’re made of.”  

Jesse furrowed his eyebrows at her before shrugging it off and shouldered the rifle, his dark green eyes looking down the gun site.  He steadied himself and then began firing.  Each shot pushed through the paper target.  While he did get most of his shots towards center mass there were some outliers, overall he did a very good job.  When he was finished they pulled the target back to get a better look at it.

“Not bad at all.”  Wufei said as he looked over the targets.  “Where did you learn to shoot?”

“My foster dad is big into hunting, nothing crazy, we’d usually go for deer, ducks, turkeys, and always fishing.”  Jesse said as he then returned the rifle to the table.

Feng then took her position and without hesitation started to fire quickly.  Everyone was surprised at the rate at which she fired.  The first two shots were a bit slower but then each one after that came much quicker.  When she finished she had a confident smirk on her face as she then set her gun down.

When they pulled the target back there were two shots outside the center targets and the rest had punched a hole through the center of the paper target.  The marksmanship that was being displayed was nothing like the kids had seen and the adults seemed most impressed by this.  Feng  grinned widely at this, and Wufei looked exceptionally proud.

“I don’t think there’s anyone on this base that comes close to this.”  Wufei grinned as he looked over the paper.

“I won the state championship last year.  I was training up to at the very least get a scholarship for college, but I had been hoping to be able to do more  with it.”  Feng said very proudly.

“Well all your hard work has certainly paid off.  Easily can be a sharpshooter.”  Wufei smiled as he patted her on the back.  “Alright, who’s next?”

The other kids hadn’t even handled a gun before so Wufei, Heero, and Duo went over how to hold the gun that each kid picked.  Most of them chose a handgun to start with so each instruction went over particularly well.  Most of them weren’t sharpshooters but some had potential for being good at shooting.  Carol and Olivia struggled the most with it, but at least most of the shots hit the target.  

When they were finished they worked on cleaning up and getting everything put away.  Helen walked with Feng as they all moved toward the cafeteria.  “I’m surprised you didn’t go on to a national championship, Feng.”

“My foster parents didn’t like the idea of me missing too much school.  I was going to a private girls school and was pretty close to valedictorian.  I was in close competition with a girl on the swim team.    So the state was as far as I got.”  Feng gave a shrug.

“I wish I could shoot half as good as you.”  Carol said, she smiled at Feng.

“Hey, I wasn’t this good out the gate, it takes some getting used to.  Plus you’ve never handled a gun before, I’ve been doing this since my freshman year of high school.  I had wanted to go out for the track team but that didn’t work out.”  Feng patted the younger girl on the shoulder.

“She’s right kiddo, cheer up, lots more ways to prove yourself to come.”  Duo reassured her as he smiled, she smiled back not really feeling all that better but she dropped it for now.

“I thought you did great, babe.”  Jeff said to Helen with a wink.

“I’m going to kill you!”  Helen yelled and proceeded to chase after Jeff who was laughing and grinning as he ran from her.

“That boy…”  Duo sighed and shook his head.

“I think this is exactly what was needed here.”  Someone spoke up from behind, Duo whipped around and saw Quatre’s smiling face.  “Can’t say it’ll be boring here now.  How did the shooting range go?  How’d you like it Olivia?”

“It’s alright, not what I was expecting…”  She said a little shyly.

“That’s okay, you’ll be an expert in no time.”  Quatre smiled at her.

“Oh no, that’s Feng’s job.”  Liv chuckled a bit.

“I reckon she can shoot the ass hairs off a fly from a mile away.”  Jesse drawled.

“Stop, you’re too kind sir.”  Feng smiled, “But probably right.”

The group made their way to the cafeteria, the children talking among themselves and even laughing a bit.  Quatre smiled, glad that everyone was getting along so far, they would need to if they were going to be working with each other.  It was only day one of their training, Feng and Jesse were already showing great potential as far as their aim was concerned.  He was sure that the other children’s talents would become apparent soon enough.

Upon entering the cafeteria they saw all the other Preventers enjoying their lunches.  Carol looked around the room at all the different folks that were there, her and Olivia seemed a bit overwhelmed by it all.  Jeff was already there eating with Helen sitting across from him, apparently things had settled down between them.  Jeff waved at the group with a grin on his face,  Duo sighed at the pair and then led the way to getting some grub.

They all sat down and the food didn’t look too bad at least.  Jesse quickly put his fork to work and shoveled the first mouthful of food in.  The look on his face almost made Jeff spit out his own food.  Jesse slowly chewed it and swallowed it, his face scrunched up at the taste.  He then chugged his glass of water.

“The hell did they put in this?!  I accidentally chewed on cardboard that tasted better than this.”  Jesse complained, his fork picking over the food.

“It’s good for you.”  Heero stated as he all but inhaled his food, he really wasn’t tasting it just eating it to get it over with.

“Whatever you say man.”  Jesse said, he then took another bite of his food and grimaced again.  “I think if I put some of my dad’s hot sauce on it it might just be edible.”

“Trowa makes hot sauce?”  Carol asked.

“No, my foster dad.  That man can only cook like five things, but man does he cook them really fucking good.”  Jesse said.  “Man, I could really go for some of his venison stew.  He kept sayin’ he was gonna teach me how to make it but he ain’t yet so far.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had venison.”  Feng chimed in as she finished swallowing a bite of food.

“Well, we’ll have to fix that won’t we?”  Jesse said, “Hell, if you got the stomach for it I’m sure I could convince him to let you shoot the deer, not like you don’t have the aim for it.”

“True!  I’ve never been hunting either, so I might as well get the full experience.”  She grinned at him.

“A woman after my own heart.”  Jesse feigned lightheartedness as he placed his hand over his heart.

“I don’t swing that way, sport.”  Feng said and stuck her tongue out at him.

Jesse smiled a bit, “It’s just a figure of speech, besides, I’m a gentleman, unlike someone else here.”

“Whoa there!”  Jeff said, “I’m a gentleman!  I hold doors open for the fairer sex, go to battle wearing the finest platemail armor while using her handkerchief as a token to fight my way to her bed!”

“Ah yes, the guy who’s first words out of his mouth is to call me a mega babe.  You’re absolutely right.”  Helen sarcastically stated as she rolled her eyes. 

“I’m glad you agree then.”  Jeff grinned at her, which only made her scoff and roll her eyes again.  “Hey if you’re not careful your eyes will roll out of their sockets.”

“And if you don’t watch it I’ll put a fork in yours!”  Helen threatened as she pointed her fork at Jeff, who only laughed it off.

Once they finished up their food they followed Wufei, Heero, and Duo.  Quatre had said his goodbyes for now as he went to work on something else.  The group was quiet as they moved through the building towards the area where they had the computers and mobile suit simulators.  It was just the cockpit with a display that would show their targets and the battle around them.  

They all sat down at computers and started to go through different evaluations, each test that they took determined their skills as far as decision making, recognizing patterns, and how quickly they could think on their feet.  It was all pretty straight forward, Jeff scored the highest as far as manipulating the computer went.  He had even gone as far to do a little bit of light hacking in the computer to fix his score even higher, part of him really wanted to impress his father.  The rest of the kids did pretty well but it was once again Carol that was bringing up the rear of the pack despite her best efforts.  She hid how she was feeling for now, she needed to focus on getting through the next few tests.

They were then set up with mobile simulators to see how they would do.  Going over the controls took a fair bit of time but some of them didn’t seem to have a hard time picking them up.  Specifically Flynn, Jeff, Feng, and Olivia seemed to catch on fairly quickly to the controls; Joel took a little bit longer and the rest lagged behind with Carol once again bringing up the rear.

When they finished up for the day they were released to relax before dinner.  Carol slipped out before everyone else and went to go spend some time by herself, she really needed to clear her head and maybe check out the obstacle course for tomorrow.  She made her way outside and started to cry now that she was alone.  This was all overwhelming from the past few days, between the death of her mother, being kidnapped by who knows, and then being the worst performing out of all the kids she was plenty frustrated and upset.

“Hey, what’s going on?”  A familiar voice spoke up.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked to see that it was Flynn.  “Nothing…”

He rolled his eyes, “Do you think I’d really fall for that?  Now come on, what’s bothering you?”

Carol sighed softly, “I miss my mom first of all.  She just died so suddenly, I knew it would happen but I wasn’t expecting it to be then.”

“Your mother is no longer in pain from the cancer, but I am sorry that she is gone.  I thought she might’ve been making a turn, she seemed to be doing better.” 

“The doc said that happens with terminal patients.  They seem to really improve right before they die.  He didn’t know why that happened but it’s not that uncommon to happen.”  Carol explained, she wiped at her eyes once more to get rid of the fresh tears that threatened to fall.  “I’m nervous about tomorrow too.  What if I don’t do good?”

Flynn put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “It doesn’t matter how good or bad you do.”

“But everyone is doing so much better than me!  I’m the most useless person out of everyone so far!  Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered looking for my father.  Maybe I should’ve just gone into the system.”  Carol exclaimed.

Flynn pulled her into a tight hug and she proceeded to cry into his shoulder as he held her.  “It doesn’t matter how good or bad you do.  They just want to see where you’re at and what talents you already have so that they know how to train you up.  No one is going to judge you for not being perfect at everything the first time.”  Flynn paused for a moment as he pulled back away from her.  “Would it make you feel better if we walked the course together so you know what to expect?”

Carol released him, nodded, and sniffled as she wiped her face with her shirt.

“Alright, let’s go then.”  Flynn smiled at her and led her towards the course.

Meanwhile after dinner a group of them had gone to relax in one of the rooms with a TV.  Jeff had brought his gaming console with him and hooked it up to the TV and started to play a racing game with the others.

“When I play online I’m pretty much undefeated at this game.”  Jeff bragged with a large grin on his face.

“Is that so?”  Feng asked as she took the controller from Jesse.  “What’ll you give me when I beat you?”

“I bet you… If I win you’ll have to tell everyone how great I am for the next week, and if you win… I’ll clean your stuff for a week.”  Jeff said.

She grinned, “Fine, but it has to be completely spotless then.”  Feng said as she worked on choosing her vehicle and whatnot.

The pair of them started the race, going for a best two of three.  It seemed like Jeff was going to win the first race when Feng pulled ahead at the last second.  Jeff seemed a bit nervous at this, he buckled down and focused up a bit more to try and get the second race.  His steel blue eyes narrowed as he steered his car through the turns.  A crowd gathered around as the pair of them finished the second race and Jeff managed to eek out a win into first place.  

Feng grinned at him, “You scared, Yuy?”  

“Oh please!  I let you win the first one as a polite gesture!”

“A polite gesture, is that what that was? Because I saw someone getting their ass beat!”  Feng triumphantly taunted.

“Look! I’ll show you, I’m winning this next one.”  Jeff said as he selected his vehicle.

The vehicles were in their starting positions as they revved their engines.  They peeled out and started the back and forth between them.  Feng lightly bit her lip as she concentrated on the hair pin turns she was making.  Jeff would lean his body a little in the direction he was turning like it would make him turn better.  They went back and forth, the tension between them was palpable as they got closer to the finish line.  It was at the last moment that Feng pulled ahead to win the race.  There was a round of applause and cheering as she stood up with her arms raised in the air.  

“C’mon!  You just got lucky.”  Jeff groaned as he stood up.  “Best of five!  C’mon!”

“Oh no, no, no!  Don’t you welch on me now!  We can always do this again later Jeff, save some of your ego.”  Feng grinned as she winked at him.  He groaned as he fell back into his seat, “Anyone else want to challenge the champion?”  

The kids took turns playing the game with each other, more silly bets were mad and they had a ton of laughs from it.  The parents would drift through every so often to see how the kids were getting along.  Heero and Quatre lingered the longest in the door frame watching the kids take turns racing each other.  Feng and Jeff were at it again, trying to beat each other in the race again.

“They already are getting along, I think they’re going to do phenomenally well.”  Quatre smiled, laughing a little when Jeff groaned at losing again.  “They’re going to do so well, I can feel it.  They already have so much potential right out the gate.”

“Truth be told we got along pretty quickly, you were the one who really got us working together well.  It’ll be interesting to see what role each one of them will fall into.”  Heero said.

The kids packed it in when it was time for them to go to bed.  They hit the showers and got ready for bed, the girls were all bunked in one room and the boys in another.  Carol settled in on the top bunk above Helen, she sighed as she settled into bed.  She stared at the ceiling and pulled her blanket up to her chin. She took a deep inhale of the blanket she had brought from home, it had been her mother’s and it still carried quite a bit of her scent.    Carol couldn’t help but choke up a bit and she tried to swallow the tears that threatened her. The young woman didn’t need to bring attention to herself, everyone here was going through the same thing she was.  Well, at least something somewhat close.

She sniffled a little and rubbed the tears from her eyes.  When she opened them and saw a pair of cobalt blue orbs looking back at her.  “You okay?”  Helen whispered softly to which Carol quietly shook her head.  “Let’s get some tea, we can talk about it if you want.”

Carol sniffled a little more before she nodded her head then climbed down from her bunk and put on her slippers.  The pair of them quietly slipped out of their dorm and made their way down the mostly empty hall.  Most of the base was either asleep or posted up where they were keeping watch.  A few did some maintenance that could be more easily done when night had fallen.

“I figured we could also get some sibling bonding in.”  She said with a smile, “I had heard you had ended up in the wrong hands, they didn’t hurt you did they?”

“No, they just put me and Flynn in a room and left us there.  Next people we saw were some of the other dads and Sally and they got us out of there.”  Carol said, “It was scary not knowing what was going on though, I’m glad that all of that is over with.”

“What’s got you down then?”  Helen asked as they rounded into the cafeteria.  “Do you miss your foster parents?”

“I didn’t have foster parents…”  Carol’s voice cracked a little as she prepared her tea.  “I had my mom…”

“But our mom is here?”  Helen questioned, her eyes examining her half-sister as tears started to leak down Carol’s cheeks.

“We don’t share a mom, we share a dad.  From what my mom had told me is that our dad had met my mom and stayed with her for a short while. I was conceived during that time, but then he went back to your mom and my mom decided that keeping her silence to save his marriage was for the best.  Then she got colon cancer and it had already spread so treatment wasn’t an option.  I just thought I would have more time with her…”  Carol trailed off and looked at her sister’s face as she tried to process all the information her younger sister gave her.  “What were your foster parents like?”

“Carol… I’m so sorry, to lose your mom and get taken hostage I can’t even imagine what you went through…” Helen took a sip of her tea to center herself a bit.  “They were really nice folks.  We lived out on a farm, I would start every morning helping with chores before I would do my school work.  I was homeschooled after my freshman year of high school, I was certainly much happier than going to physical school.”  Helen paused for a moment as she looked at Carol sadly.  “Do you think my  mom won’t let you stay?”

“That’s what I’m worried about…”  Carol’s eyes widened a little as she considered what she could do.  “I have an idea!  I’ll cook dinner for the four of us.  I have a few good recipes that my mom made sure I knew how to cook!  You know what, I have an idea for right now since I think we need something to go with this tea.”

Carol eagerly ran into the kitchen and started to raid the pantry.  She gathered two mugs along with wet and dry ingredients.  She started to mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, oil, vanilla, and a couple other things.  Once it was stirred she placed them in the microwave.

“What are you making?”  Helen asked curiously.

“Mug cakes!  I know we don’t really have sweets but I think we both deserve a treat, no?”  Carol smiled brightly as she looked back at the microwave as the timer counted down.

“I wish I could cook at all.  I can’t say that I’ve really made anything that was remotely edible.”  Helen thought over it for a moment.

Carol smiled brightly at her, “Tell you what, when I cook for the family you can help me in the kitchen and I could show you what I know.”

“You don’t have to do that.”  Helen said sheepishly.

“Don’t have to do what?”  A sleepy voice asked and when the two girls turned around to see who had found them.  Much to their surprise it was Olivia standing there rubbing her eyes as she stood in the door frame.

“Hey Liv, what are you doing up?”  Helen inquired, “We didn’t wake you up did we?”

“No, no, no, you’re alright.  I just had a bad dream and wanted to make some tea.  My mom would make tea for me every time I had a nightmare.  But since she’s not here…”  Olivia said as she poured hot water into a mug and started to steep her tea.  “I knew I’d miss her but it really hurts today.”

“Yeah that’s kind of why the both of us are up.”  Carol stated as she slid the coffee mug cake over to Olivia.  “Here, I made this, it’ll go nice with your tea.”  

“That’s really kind of you, thank you Carol, it smells delicious.”  Olivia said as she then took a bite of the cake.  “This is so good!  I didn’t think I’d have cake for a long time considering what we had for dinner.  I didn’t mind it but it was a bit too healthy.”

“I’m glad you like it!” Carol exclaimed with a smile on her face.  Her being able to bring a smile to someone’s face always made whatever pain she had a little lesser and right now she had a lot of it.

The three girls sat around drinking their tea and enjoying their cakes before they shuffled off back to bed.  They knew they would be a little tired to run the obstacle course that they would be running in the morning but that was something that they needed.  Carol climbed back into her bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, tomorrow would be a better day and it was all going to be looking up for  her.  She fell into a dreamless sleep which might have been the best considering where her head was at.

The next morning the children were woken up at 6 am, groggily all of them got dressed in Preventer issued shorts and shirts to get ready for the course they were going to run.  They all went down to grab some breakfast, it was some pretty light to make sure they weren’t overly full for their run.  It was just some eggs, plain toast, and either orange juice, coffee or water.  They all quietly ate until something drew their attention, it was Duo shuffling and also dressed the same way as them.  His shoulder length brown hair was thrown up into a bun to keep most of the hair out of his face.

“Look who decided to join us.”  Heero stated as he looked at Duo sitting down with some toast and a black coffee.

The former Deathscythe pilot looked up at Heero and flipped him off.  “Well sorry Mr. Military but getting up at the crack of dawn ain’t really my style.”

“Tell me about it, I can barely get you out of bed for work at 10 am.”  Hilde said as she sat next to Duo.

“What are you doing up?”  Duo asked his wife.

“I have a running bet with Heero on how many of the kids are going to beat you.”  Hilde took a sip of her own coffee.

“How many did you bet on?”  

“Three.”

“THREE?!  Seriously?”  Duo asked with a tone of indignation to his voice.

“Hey, that's nicer than what Heero thinks will happen.”  Hilde said with a shrug.  “It’s all them according to Heero.”

“I thought you’d have a bit more faith in me than that, Heero!  After all we’ve been through and you betray me like that…”  Duo griped as he drank some more of his coffee.  “Just when you think you know a guy and he stabs you right in the back…”

“I guess you’ll just have to prove me wrong then.”  Heero slightly smiled and winked at Duo, who responded with another flip of the bird.

Once everyone was done with their breakfast they turned in their plates and headed out towards the obstacle course.  Duo was grumbling something about wanting another cup of coffee but he wasn’t saying it loud enough for anyone to really hear clearly.  Carol couldn’t help but smile a little bit at this, she really was going to like it here.

The morning air was cool and crisp as they made their way across the dew covered lawn towards the obstacle course, each kid was equally excited about getting started.  Heero and Wufei  walked the group through warm-ups to get them limber for the task at hand.  Hilde had come out to the course with two thermos, likely filled with coffee.

Duo glanced over and spotted his wife, she waved and yelled, “I brought some motivation to help get you to the finish line faster!”

Duo grinned and stretched a bit more, the trick with this would be making sure his wife would win her bet.  After all, it was the least he could do for her, doing him such a favor as bringing him more coffee.  Duo looked at the kids as they chatted among themselves, all of them discussing how they thought they would do.  From what Duo had seen these kids were going to do great despite the absence of himself and the other parents.

“Alright, everyone line up at the starting line, we’ll get going as soon as you all are ready.”  Wufei announced and watched everyone take their places.  He was really enjoying the confidence that some of them had on their faces, others looked a bit nervous at what was ahead of them.  Wufei put a whistle between his lips and blew a long shrill sound to start them.

With that they all bolted from the starting line, the first obstacle was a rope net for them to army crawl under.  Unfortunately for them it was a bit muddy as they dragged themselves through it.  Once they popped out the other end they continued on through the course.  Pulling themselves up ropes and leaping over different things that were in their way.  Feng, having been a former track runner, was easily in first, while she didn’t run track officially she still enjoyed running.  Jesse was hot on her heels followed by Flynn.  Duo was doing his best to keep in fourth place for the sake of his wife but he was certainly huffing and puffing a bit.  Carol was bringing up the rear as she ran her best that she could, she struggled with anything that involved upper body strength.  However at the end of it it was Olivia and Joel that brought up the rear.

“Excellent work everyone.”  Wufei clapped as the last of them crossed the finish line, he then started to take down notes on a tablet.  He carefully recorded their times and any struggles that he had noticed while they maneuvered around the course.  

The moment Duo crossed in fourth place he groaned and took his shirt off, further messing up his bun.  “I think I’m dying.  Running is impossible, everything hurts.”  Then proceeded to lay belly down on the cool wet grass.  “You owe Hilde, Heero.”  Duo panted out.

Hilde got off her bench and went to gently prod her husband with her foot.  “Oh don’t be such a drama queen.  Here, drink your coffee.”  Duo sat up and then started to drink his thermos.

“Really good first attempt at the course.  Wufei and I are going to be working on getting a training plan together after we test your hand to hand combat after lunch.”  Heero stated as he looked at the watch on his wrist.  “Now we’re going to have you run a mile to see how long it takes you.  Eventually we’re going to want to shorten that time down for that, for now we’re going to give you a half-hour break.  Take the time to catch your breath, drink some water, that means you too Duo, and we’ll meet at the track.”

Duo rolled his eyes and drank a bit more coffee before getting off the ground with a groan and then draped his shirt around his shoulders.  “Whatever you say man.”

There wasn’t much talking as all the kids and Duo drank their water and lazed about either on the ground or on the benches at the start of the track.  For some of them the half hour went by a little too quickly, it wasn’t long before they were up again lining up for running.  Wufei blew the whistle and they were off.  The results were roughly about the same as far as how they finished, Wufei documented their run times.

The rest of the morning was a bit of a blur as they showered and got clean clothes on.  They had their lunch and some of them could already feel how sore their bodies were.  Any of the sassiness that had come out the other day was lost for the moment.  The kids were just focused on how they would be doing for their next test.

When they worked on the hand to hand combat it quickly became apparent how skilled Flynn was with it.  Wufei had originally gone a bit easy on him, but Flynn quickly proved that he didn’t need that.  His combat was a bit rough around the edges but he knew what he was doing.

~

Tobias Krugle sat at his desk at the headquarters of the Peaceful Finality while he listened to the phone.  He gave small noises of affirmation he was listening to the person on the other end of the line.  “Really now?  Mm hmm…”

The door opened and Thedir entered the room then closed the door quietly behind himself.  He glided over to the chair across from Tobias and sat down, waiting patiently to speak with Tobias.  His hands idly picked up items and rotated them in his hands before putting them back down.  Thedir’s practically light blue eyes looked at Tobias.

“Alright, tell me if anything changes.”  Tobias said and he hung up the phone.

“What’s the word then?”  Thedir asked a bit impatient, his eyes fixating on Tobias’ cobalt eyes.

Tobias leaned back in his chair, “So far the children check out.  Our sources say that some of the children are tied to the terrorist organization that’s been disrupting supplies.  We’ll be keeping an ear out for anything these kids might be doing.  I  get the feeling we’ll figure out which ones are involved.”

Thedir steepled his fingers as he relaxed his body into the chair, “That’s the last thing I would want to happen.  If these children are truly tied to those terrorists, they’ll have access to resources and training that the Preventers would provide.  Not only that it would give them access to information to further disrupt supplies to the colonies.  Not only have they eluded us and the Preventers for fifteen  years, it seems that they are ramping up their attacks.”

Tobias nodded briefly, “I’ll have my contact keep an eye on things, we’ll get to the bottom of this one way or another.”

~

“Helen, is there a reason why you told us not to eat dinner?”  Duo asked, “I’m pretty sure I could eat three horses right about now.”

“You always act like you’re starving.”  Hilde said as she nudged her husband’s arm with her elbow.

“It’s worth it, trust me.”  Helen grinned widely as she then opened the door to a smaller room with a few tables and chairs.  One of the tables was set and there was a wonderful smell lingering in the air.

Carol came into the room from the small kitchen attached to the dining room carrying a pot with her.  “It’s simple but I figured it would be a nice break from the cafeteria food.”

“You cooked?”  Duo asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“Yeah!  I don’t know anything super fancy, but it was stuff my mom had taught me to make.  I cooked a lot when she got sick.”  Carol said as she set the pot of pasta  on the table and went back to the kitchen.  She came out with a bowl full of warm rolls.  “Please, sit!” 

They all took a seat and dug into the food.  Duo’s eyes widened at the first bite and he quickly started to shove more food into his mouth.  He chewed and swallowed and looked at his youngest daughter, “This is amazing!”

“Thanks, I made the pasta and sauce from scratch.  I taught myself a few things about cooking too.”  She said with a bright smile on her face, her eyes glanced over to Hilde.  Truthfully this dinner was more about getting Hilde to be on her side, Carol wanted a family so bad right now.  “I think that we should do this once a week at least, I wouldn’t mind cooking some more.”

It was then Hilde spoke up with a  bright smile on her face, “I think I’d like that.”

[Author's Note]

Thank you for joining me for the next chapter in this series!  I'd like to state again that this project is more about me getting back into the groove of writing and actually completing a project for once.  Any feedback left below would be greatly appreciated!  See you all next week! ♡♥♡♥♡♥

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Chapter Text

Chapter 4: We’re Going to be Friends

Food and supplies going to the colonies has continued to be disrupted by terrorist cells through space and Earth.  The Peaceful Finality has been working tirelessly to make sure some supplies are given to the colonies but it’s not enough.  The organization has made promises to try and make sure  those on Earth know the plight of especially those in colonies further away.  With the lack of supplies the colonies are growing restless and protests have started to arise through the colonies most affected by lack of supplies.  The Peaceful Finality had started to get more of the colonies under their care and the colonies themselves were losing faith in the Preventers who were supposed to be protecting them.  The Peaceful Finality pulls more of the colonies under their wing as they do their best to make sure people are being fed.

With the increase in violence in the colonies it led to the children pushing themselves harder in their training.  Each of them improved on all of the natural talent that each of them had.  A few weeks had gone by and the girls were lazing about after they finished training for the day.  Showers had been enjoyed but now they were just relaxing in their dorms before they would inevitably go to dinner.

“I think we’ve more than earned a break from this.”  Helen said as she sat up on her bunk.

“What kind of break?  What would we do?”  Feng asked as she rolled over on her own bunk to look towards Helen.

The blue haired teen mulled over the question, “I don’t know!  Something to just get us off the base for a few hours.  Eat some unhealthy food, do teenage shit!”

“Well, there’s a mall that’s not too far from here.  There’s some cars we can use to get there too.”  Olivia added with a smile on her face.

“That’s the kind of thinking we needed!  C’mon!  Let’s get dressed and go!”  Helen said with an eager smile on her face as she leapt out of bed.  She picked out some casual clothes and started to get dressed in them.  The other girls grinned and followed suit, they had been working so hard these past few weeks.

Carol looked a bit nervous about leaving the base, but she chalked it up to just not knowing the area all that well.  Not to mention part of her was nervous that they would get in trouble for going off the base.  The girls quickly did each other's make up and hair before they started to make their way out. As they walked out that was when the group of girls ran into Flynn as he was walking to the dorms from his shower.

“You all looked dolled up, what’s the special occasion?”  He asked.

“None of your beeswax, little bro.”  Feng said as she stuck out her tongue at him to which he then flipped her off.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit dangerous considering we don’t know where our enemy will strike?  Carol, we’ve already been captured by them, do you really want to go back?”  He growled irritably, “Can’t have people worrying where you’re at.”

“Relax, we’re just going to the mall.”  Carol smoothed over, a nervous laugh escaping her lips.  “It’ll be fine.”  At that Flynn rolled his eyes and kept on walking back to the dorm.

The girls laughed and headed towards where the cars were parked.  They were able to get keys to a van and they all piled in, Helen got behind the wheel since she was the only one who had her license in their little group.  Helen put in the directions and got them under their way.  For the first time since they had arrived on the base they were truly laughing, they weren’t missing their foster families or buried with grief, they were just teenagers just being teenagers.  They argued with each other over what songs to listen to on the radio, nothing actually meant to be mean just fun.

Once the car was parked they headed in and immediately headed toward the arcade.  Each girl then split off to start winning tickets.  Helen had taken a break from her game to check on the others and came across Feng on a zombie shooting game.  Feng had a large pile of tickets on the floor next to her as she focused on blasting away the cartoon zombies.  

“Holy shit!  At this rate they’re going to run out of tickets in the machine before you lose!”  Helen exclaimed and watched Feng who had a confident smirk on her face as she shot away.

“Suppose it helps that I know how to actually shoot.”  Feng grinned and blasted away more zombies.  It wasn’t long before Feng had gathered quite a crowd as she got her score higher and higher.  The zombies were coming faster and faster from more random angles, the crowd that had gathered was holding their breath as the score climbed higher and higher.

Finally her skills could no longer keep up with the game and it was game over.  A small “Aww.” went through the crowd as she put the gun back in its holder.  She gathered up the tickets and started to look at what prizes she would like.  Feng grabbed a large pink stuffed rabbit and a few other plastic toys.  The other girls turned in their tickets for prizes and it was then they decided to go get some food at the food court.

“What are you guys thinking?  Part of me really wants a good greasy slice of pizza, but maybe some Chinese food would be good too.”  Carol said with a grin on her face as she put her cheap pirate hat on her head.  “Avast ye maties!  Give me yer crab rangoon or ye walk da plank!”  She playfully jabbed at Helen with the plastic sword.

When Helen grabbed it and stared off, Carol looked to where her eyes were looking.  It was then the blue haired teen dragged them all towards the open door of the alternative store that was a bit darker than the other places.  Loud metal music blared as the girls watched as people dressed in Peaceful Finality gear went by.

“Any sign of them?”  One of them asked the other.  “It shouldn’t be this hard to find a group of girls.”

“We have good descriptions and we have the mall surrounded, they won’t slip through our fingers.  Who knows what those terrorists will do in this place.”

Helen bit her lip, “This isn’t good.  I can’t help but wonder who they’re looking for.  My gut is screaming that they’re looking for us.  I’ll trail after them for a little bit to see if I can pick up anything else on what they’re looking for.”  She glanced around the store they had ducked into.

“Wait, why you?”  Carol demanded, “I can do it.  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to remain out of sight.”

The older Maxwell bit her lip, she knew Carol was desperate to prove her worth among the other children.  “Alright, be careful and quick.  I’m not sure how long before they start checking each shop.”

The blonde Maxwell nodded, a sparkle in her cobalt blue eyes, “I won’t be long.”  The girls watched as she slipped out of the store in a crowd that was walking by.  If they hadn’t known her Carol would’ve vanished entirely from their sight.

Anxiously the girls browsed the store to keep suspicion off of them, it wasn’t long before Carol returned.  She looked rather anxious as she caught her breath.  “They’re looking for us.  They think we’re terrorists.”

“But that’s not true at all.”  Olivia said fiercely.

“We just need to slip out undetected.”  Helen said, “We’ve gotten enough training. I think that we’re more than capable of doing just that.”

Feng couldn’t say for certain.  “Alright, our best bet is to split up, go out different exits and meet at the car.  Sounds good?”

“Alright, yeah they’ll likely not notice us individually.”  Helen said, “Alright, there’s a gap in the guards coming up, we’ll head out on three.”

On three the girls headed out of the store and then moved carefully out of sight of the guards.  When they had the chance they split up and started to move carefully through the crowds of people.  Carol had kept an eye on Helen, not letting her go too far from her sight.  It was then she heard screaming and saw that in a brief moment of being obscured Helen had been grabbed by a guard.  Carol felt her stomach twist into a horrible knot, she couldn’t just let her sister be taken like that.

Olivia and Feng made it back to the car without incident, they stayed low in  the van to make sure they weren’t spotted.  There was a commotion at the door close to where they were hiding.  Feng peered through the back window to see that Carol was screaming and squirming in the grasp of some of the guards.  Helen on the other hand was being carried limply on the shoulder of a guard, likely knocked out.

“Shit… They got Helen and Carol.”  Feng said before she sighed and sank down into her hiding spot once more.  “And of course Helen had the key…”  

“What do we do?”  Olivia whispered, a small bit of panic creeping into her voice.

Feng heard the screaming grow louder and she peered back up, it looked like Carol had managed to wiggle free from her captors.  She was putting the training she had gotten to some use as she kicked and hit at her would be captors.  Carol had managed to kick one of them away and grabbed at Helen who had been placed into a transport van, the short girl tried to carry her sister out of there when she was smacked in the back of the head with a rifle and went limp.  “Damn…”  Feng cursed lightly.

“I hate feeling useless…”  Olivia pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

“No, it’s not useless to not get captured too.”  Feng mulled over what their next step would be when she glanced at Olivia who had taken out her phone and made a call.  “Who are you calling?”

“Our parents, who else?”  She said matter of fact.  Liv put the phone to her ear, “Hi, Dad.  Hey so remember how I said I was going to the mall with the girls?”  She paused for a moment, “We have a bit of a problem.”

~

All the parents had gathered into a meeting room to discuss what happened.  Duo looked exceptionally upset at this turn of events.  “How did this happen!?  Why on Earth would the Peaceful Finality take our girls, let alone take over an entire mall just to do that.”

“We’re still gathering intel, but Olivia and Feng managed to get out of there undetected.  They’re on their way back but we were unable to get the other girls back.  The guards said they were being held on suspicion of terrorism and are being questioned.”  Noin explained, “They did give us the location that they will be held at.”

“This is garbage!  I oughta go down there myself, I’ll become the God of Death once more if that’s what’ll take to get my kids back.”  Duo said fiercely.

“ENOUGH!”  Hilde slammed her hands on the table and stood up.  “That type of thinking won't get the girls back.”

Noin nodded in agreement as she crossed her arms over her chest.  “There was no chatter about this, this was put together on short notice.”

Quatre thought about it, “How thoroughly did we check Flynn and Carol’s items?”

“Are you saying this is their fault?!” Duo demanded, Quatre shook his head and held up his hand.

“I’m not blaming them, just that the enemy may have placed a bug in their stuff to keep tabs on them.  It would make sense why they got organized so quickly, they likely overheard and alerted Peaceful Finality with a tip.  It would explain why Flynn and Carol’s extraction from their custody was so simple.”  Quatre explained.  “Heero and I will go over their things a bit more thoroughly when we wrap up here.  Hopefully we’ll find what we’re looking for and we won’t have this problem in the future.”

“Do we have an idea where they ended up?”  Duo asked, his cobalt blue orbs locked onto Noin, that fire burning brightly in his eyes.

“Yes, we were able to place a drone to follow their convoy, just in case the information we have on their location was false.  They didn’t split off which made following them even easier.”  Noin said as she used a remote to activate the projector, a map appeared behind Noin and used a laser pointer to draw on the map.  “They’re about an hour and a half from the mall, once we organize we should be there in about three hours once we mobilize.  We’re compiling the data as far as what we should expect from them when we arrive-Duo Maxwell!  Sit down!  We can’t have you putting the girls in danger by running half-cocked in there.”

“So, what?  You call them up and ask them to give them back nicely?”  Duo demanded.

Noin simply rolled her eyes and ignored Duo for the moment.  “We don’t know if this is an aggressive action on their part or if this is a misunderstanding based on false information.  Considering that they are dedicated to helping the colonies I doubt that it’s something done to be malicious.”  Noin explained, “We’ll be sending myself as well as Lady Une to try and negotiate their freedom.  When that is unsuccessful we’ll go in by force.  Duo, we’ll be sending you, Heero, Wufei, Jeff, and Olivia.  We’ll have Sally, Jesse, and Feng as backup at long range positioned at key points surrounding the base.  This operation will go smoothly and we’ll have the girls back before we know it.”

~

The girls sat on the floor of their cell, it smelled damp and was cold.  They were probably down in a basement, they leaned against each other against the wall.  Helen had her arm wrapped around her little half-sister’s shoulders and Carol had her arms around Helen’s waist.  Carol listened to the steady heartbeat of Helen’s, letting the sound soothe her.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t save us both.”  Carol stated apologetically, her hands lightly gripped at Helen’s shirt.

“You came back for me, especially since that wasn’t the plan.  It was so that at worst only one of us would get captured, at least that was the plan…”  Helen sighed and trailed off.  “It was brave but you need to listen when we’re in the field and in a dangerous situation.  I would have hated myself if something happened to you that I could blame myself for.”

Carol sniffled a little and Helen kind of regretted her phrasing.

“I’m grateful you came back for me.”  Helen whispered softly.  

“I wasn’t thinking, you’re right, but…”  Carol hesitated briefly, “I lost my mom and having you, dad and your mom as my family now…”  Carol struggled to think of how she wanted to word this.  “I didn’t want something to happen to you when I could’ve prevented it.”

Helen smiled down at her little sister, “We’ll get through this.”  Helen paused for a moment, “Thank you for coming back for me.”

~

Tobias leaned back in his chair, a smile creeping slowly onto his face.  It was good to know the information he had been given by his informant was not only accurate but led to the capture of the Maxwell girls.  He signed into his computer and started writing up an email to send to Thedir, he was going to be sending a guard down at some point to interrogate the girls.   He lightly chewed on his thumbnail as he considered his next phrase in the email.  He let Thedir know that the suspects were in his custody, wrapped up the details of their confinement, and intended line of questioning.  He pressed send and let out a small sigh of relief.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he leaned against the soft back of his chair and sank in for a moment.  He closed his eyes a moment before he heard the door open and he reopened his cobalt blue eyes.  Thedir stepped through the door and strolled his way, he was as always dressed his very best, his silver hair plaited into a long beautiful braid that was gracefully laid over his shoulder.  He sat down, his dark green orbs looked at his right hand man.

“I had just emailed you.”  Tobias said, “I thought you’d be in meetings all day.”

“The last one wrapped up a little earlier than expected, I personally wanted to check on our guests.”  Thedir stated, “Please take me to them.”

Tobias hesitated briefly, considering his next move carefully, “Alright, follow me.”  He got up and started to walk towards the cell where the girls were being held.  The halls were long and rather boring with their sterile white walls and polished white floors.  The only thing that broke it up was the wood color trim along the edge of the floor.  They went to one of the more secure areas of the holding cells, after all they were high profile prisoners.

When they arrived at the cell, Thedir peered in through the small window on the door.  He saw the girls leaning against each other and asleep against the wall.  Their cell was rather bare and beyond a toilet there wasn’t anything else in there.  Thedir lightly scratched at his clean shaven chin, “We didn’t give them a cot to sleep on at least?”

“They only arrived a few hours ago, we haven’t had the chance to get that set up for them.”  Tobias explained, “I’ll put in the order for it, it should be in there within the hour.”

“What are the plans for interrogation?  Do we even think they know anything about the higher ups of their terrorist organization?”  Thedir’s eyes examined the girls, “They seem awfully young.”

“We’ll get them to talk, if nothing else maybe we’ll get them to give up someone higher up in their organization.”  Tobias stated, to which Thedir nodded and the pair of them started to walk down the hall.

~

Olivia sat out near the track, it was one of the few quiet places she could think.  She had gotten a run in to work out some of the anxiety she had for Helen and Carol.  Liv didn’t know them that well yet but the idea of them being captured while she and Feng had gotten away only caused guilt to fester in her mind.  She quietly prayed that they would be back soon and unharmed.  

The sun was setting and colored the sky in a bruised color, fluffy nimbus clouds dotted the sky and reflected the colors as well.  She took in a deep breath and sighed, how she missed her mother.  Rita had always been a strong woman in her life, especially after her husband died a year before Olivia was sent down river to her.  Rita had always said Liv was a blessing to her and made sure she never wanted for anything and Liv did her best to make sure that Rita was proud of her.

She flipped her wrist over and looked at her watch, probably it would be a good idea to hit the showers and maybe grab a post run snack from the kitchen before beginning to settle down for the night.  Her eyes saw a small red glow in the shadows of the trees around the track, then she saw the shadow attached to  that tiny red orb.

Liv got up from the bench and walked towards the person and it wasn’t long before Joel became clear.  His black hair and dark clothes had hidden him pretty well, his green orbs found her and he smiled at her a little before taking another drag of his cigarette.  It exhaled the smoke towards the ground away from Olivia and looked back at her.

Joel smiled a bit at her, “You look like you’re just as much of a fish out of water as I am.”

She shrugged a little, “I don’t think it will take us long before we’re used to this.”

“Should we get used to this?  Don’t get me wrong, I want to do my part, but once we’re safe I’m going to work on trying to be a writer.”  Joel said as he then took another drag of his smoke.

“A writer, what do you write?”

Joel sheepishly smiled and blushed a little bit, “Mostly gay horror romance…”

She smiled at him, “I bet you’ve had some interesting stories. I would like to read them some time if you’d let me.”

He genuinely looked a little surprised and blushed a little, “Uh sure, yeah if you want to.  I brought a few different books I’ve written so far.  Are you going to stay a Preventer once all of this is done?”

“Probably not to be honest.  I have a full music scholarship, honestly I’m really hoping to play in an orchestra.”  She sighed for a moment, “I wasn’t able to bring all my instruments, unfortunately, I did bring my violin to make sure I keep my skills sharp.  That’s the instrument I got my scholarship with.”  

“That’s impressive, wait, instruments?  As in multiple?”  He asked, eyes widening.

Liv nodded, “Yeah!  I play violin, flute, and piano.  My primary focus has always been the violin, but I love winding down playing my piano.”

“I would love to hear you play sometime.”  Joel said, “Maybe I can bring my guitar and we can jam out or something.”

“I think I’d like that.”  Olivia smiled as the pair of them watched the sun set on another lovely day.

~

Jeff had taken his own perch up on the top of the building.  Technically he didn’t have the clearance to be up here but he didn’t have a problem hacking the keypad to get in.  It was also a stairwell he noticed wasn’t heavily used either.  He had a good vantage point of the track and spotted Joel and Olivia walking together back towards the dorms.  They were all pretty nice so far, though Flynn seemed a bit aloof about most things.  He couldn’t believe that Helen and Carol had been captured by the Peaceful Finality, those two had never done anything that warranted them being captured.  He chewed his bottom lip as he considered the whys. Jeff headed back to his dorm to chill out on his bed with a book.  He had just settled in to read when the door opened up to the dorm. He looked up and saw that it was Heero there with a small electronic device in his hand.

Jeff looked confused at his father, “What’s going on?”

“We suspect that the reason we were able to retrieve Flynn and Carol so easily was that they had bugs planted on them to spy on us.  Then that information was fed to the Peaceful Finality which led to them being in their custody.”  Heero explained as he started to sweep through Flynn’s belongings.  He started to scan over each piece of clothing, bags and it wasn’t long before there was some beeping.

“Holy shit.”  Jeff whispered as he watched his father remove each bug.  How had there been so many?  By the time Heero was done there were six bugs in total.  Jeff quizzically picked up each one and turned it over in his hand, they were rather small bugs, “Did they find as many for Carol?”

“I’m not sure, Quatre is sweeping her stuff at the same time.”  Heero grimaced as he placed all the bugs in  a special bag to keep them from picking up any further conversations.  “That’s all of them here.  Quatre should be wrapping up shortly with his search..” 

Jeff eyed the bag that contained the bugs, he couldn’t help but be a bit curious about them.  “If I can, I’d like to examine the bugs.” 

Heero briefly raised his eyebrows before his face settled into a proud smile, “Sure thing, I’ll make sure the lab knows to let you poke around them.”

[Author's Note]

Hey all!  Thank you all for joining me for another exciting chapter!  I sporadically have been streaming on twitch and been having a blast.  As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated and feel free to stop by stream if I'm live.

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Chapter 5: Pinch Me

Carol and Helen rarely left each other’s sides as they sat in their holding cell.  One of the guards had brought in a cot that was big enough for the pair of them to sleep on together.  Other than the couple meals they were brought they were largely left alone.   Carol had fallen asleep against Helen once again.  Helen had her arms wrapped around Carol tightly, making sure her younger sister was kept safe.  Her cobalt blue eyes widened as she heard the lock shift as the door was being opened.  She gently shook Carol awake, she woke just as the door opened and a single guard stepped in and closed the door behind him.  

“What do you want from us?”  Helen demanded as she moved herself between Carol and this guard.

“I’ve come for information, about your leaders, about who’s giving you orders, and more importantly, what’s the end goal of depriving the colonies of supplies?”  The guard asked as he pulled a billy club from his belt.  “Now we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way, the choice is yours.”

“We don’t know what you're talking about!”  Helen yelled, “Get away from us!”

“Please!  We’re just with the Preventers!  I was affected by the supply loss in the colony, why would I do that?!”  Carol pleaded as the guard made slow deliberate steps towards them.

“Now that won’t do at all…”  The man said as he then swung at Helen, it was Carol who managed to catch the club and then Helen kicked the man in the abdomen, the force sent him sprawling on the floor.  He wheezed a little as he clambered to his feet and another guard came into the room.  “I see you’ve chosen the hard way.”

The two guards moved in and pulled the two girls apart.  Carol and Helen cried out as blows landed on their bodies, weakening their resolve as they curled on the floor to protect their bodies.  With a final kick at Helen the first guard picked her up by the front of her shirt and slammed  her into the wall.  Helen felt the wind get knocked out of her as she desperately wiggled, but considering the beating she just endured her hands worked weakly trying to remove the guard’s hand.

“Now tell me about your terrorist group.”  The guard said, leaning into Helen’s face, and she did manage to spit in his face.  He retaliated by punching her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her.  The guard let her fall to the ground as she desperately gasped for air.  “We’ve softened them a bit, let’s let them marinade for a bit before we try again.”

The guards left their cell and the door locked firmly behind them.

Carol dragged herself over to Helen, she helped her sister back to bed and helped her lie down.  Carol gently stroked Helen’s head as she wheezed and coughed trying to catch her breath.  Carol felt her body beginning to bruise, how it hurt so much and how much it was going to hurt before long.

~

Noin sat down at the table, the secretary had led her to this meeting room.  It was a rather simple boardroom, a projector towards the head table, plenty of seating.  The leader of the Preventers sat facing the door, her eyes waiting in anticipation.  She hoped that this meeting would lead to them peacefully getting the girls out safely.  Noin couldn’t think of a reason why the Peaceful Finality would take the girls hostage. 

Lady Une entered the room, she had paused at the bathroom briefly before heading to the meeting room.  “We’ll get the girls back.”  She said confidently as she sat down next to Noin.

“I hope so.”  Noin said as she started to absently rub her thumbs together.

It wasn’t long before the door opened up and Thedir and Tobias walked through the door.  Thedir extended this hand towards the two women as they stood up from their chairs.  “I’m Thedir Castefort and this is my second in command, Tobias Krugle. I was hoping to meet under better circumstances.”  

“Lucrezia Noin and this is Lady Une.”  They exchanged handshakes before they all sat down at the table.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you both, were it under better circumstances.”  Thedir smiled a bit politely, “Would you like to skip the small talk and cut straight to the chase?”

“I wouldn’t mind that.  Can I ask why you have the Maxwell girls in your custody?”  Noin asked, her eyes watching the pair of men.

Tobias was the one who spoke up, “We are holding them on the suspicion of terrorism.  Our sources have linked them both to some of the activity going on, we’ve been questioning them to try and get information about their leaders.”

“What proof do you have?  We’re on the same side, both of us would like to see these skirmishes and attacks stop.”  Lady Une said, her eyes narrowing a bit.  “I hope that you haven’t used any… Violent interrogation methods, I want those girls returned in the same state that they were picked up in.”

“We have been treating them kindly and we’ll let them go as soon as we clear them.”  Thedir stated, his eyes locking with Lady Une’s.

“We know that the girls aren’t involved in that terrorism.  We’ve done our due diligence before we took the girls to one of our bases of operation.  There’s no proof that they’ve done anything wrong.  I’m not sure what information your sources are working off of, but it’s false information.”  Noin narrowed her eyes at Thedir.  “Until you can provide proof that the girls are tied to that group we ask you release them to our custody.”

“No.”  Tobias curtly stated, his cobalt blue eyes narrowing.  “No offense, but how long has this been going on?  You all haven’t made a dent in catching these people.  We’ve made several arrests on our own and have a great deal of information on them.  Considering how many have you gotten?  I think we’ll keep them until we can clear them.”

“We trust our sources as they haven’t steered us wrong yet.  We’ll stay on this course.” Thedir said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Our sources have also told us that Carol and Flynn were captured and easily rescued didn’t raise any red flags for you?  Why would they let them go so easily if they weren’t working with them?  We suspect it’s Carol that’s working with the enemy, possibly Flynn as well.”  Tobias idly spun a pen in his hand as he watched Noin and Une.

“Then you should at least let Helen go, if you don’t really think she’s involved with them she should be free to go.”  Lady Une argued, her eyes narrowing dangerously at the pair of men.

“I can’t ignore the possibility that Carol has already started to influence Helen to be involved with her nefarious activities.  They’re both staying.”  Tobias said firmly, his own eyes narrowing as well.

“We want to see the girls to make sure that they are alright.”  Noin insisted, “The very least you can do is that.”

"I don’t see a problem wi-” Thedir started before he was cut off by Tobias.

“I’m sorry we can’t do that.  We can’t risk the integrity of the information we can get from the girls.”  Tobias said firmly, his eyes narrowed at Noin before he glanced at Lady Une. 

“You don’t have cameras watching them in their cell?”  Noin asked, something wasn’t right.

Tobias took out his phone and then showed Noin a still shot of the girls, “See they’re alright.”  They were practically glued to each other as they slept on the cot together.

“Well then, I believe we have nothing left to talk about then, gentlemen.”  Noin said as she and Lady Une stood up, the two men stood up and they all shook hands once more before they were escorted out of the building.

Lady Une lightly tapped her chin.  “Something isn’t right.  I think the sooner we can get the girls out of there the better.”

~

Jeff sat in the lab as he worked on taking apart one of the bugs, he had wanted to see what the components were before he hooked one up to a laptop.  He adjusted the magnifying glass he was looking through at the smaller components, the overall design was a bit complex.  The way the batteries stayed charged was through movement, which would explain why they were primarily in clothing.  Jeff hummed lightly to himself as he took more of it apart.

Yuy sat back in his chair as he looked at the pieces spread out in front of him, and that’s when he noticed that someone had come into the lab.  He glanced over and saw his mother had come in to visit him.  He smiled at her as she looked over his handy work.

“It’s amazing how you’ve taken it apart, was that all in one bug?”  Relena asked as she looked at her son in wonder.

“Yeah, pretty sophisticated for what I thought was a disorganized group.  They likely have some bigger backers or they’re much bigger than we imagined.”  Jeff said as he picked up another piece.  “I wanted to see how it was assembled and what pieces I was going to be working with before I hooked one of them up to a computer.  I’m sure I’ll be able to find out a great deal from it.”

Relena smiled at Jeff, “How did you get so handy with electronics? Was that something you learned in school?”

Jeff leaned back in his chair again, “I didn’t learn it in school, it was a hobby I had picked up on my own.  Pretty decent at hacking and programming.  It’s been something I’ve been doing for fun for a while now.  Gave my foster parents so many headaches when I would take apart our electronics.”  A sad chuckle escaped his lips as the thought about them.  He missed them so much and their deaths still hurt.

“If you could do that for a living would you?”

“I would certainly like to, honestly before everything happened I was going to go to college for an IT degree.”  Jeff said as he looked at his mother.

Relena pondered that for a moment, “I think that through the Preventers we can get you a full scholarship and you’d certainly have a job here once you complete your degree.  That is if that’s something you’d like to do.” 

Jeff pondered that for a moment, it would be a really good opportunity for him, that much he couldn’t deny.  “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”  He smiled at his mom, as weird as it was to think of Relena as his mother.  It wasn’t that long before today that the mother that had raised him had been picking him up from school.  Before terrorists took her, his dad, and brother from this life too soon.

~

Quatre sat in the cafeteria, his finger tracing the rim of his coffee mug as he pondered over things.  Duo found his way to sit across from Quatre, the mechanic looking frustrated.  The blonde man looked up at his old friend, Quatre’s eyebrows knitted together in concern at the look on his friend’s face.  That stormy look that clouded his face was one that Quatre had not seen quite in some time and that look brought concern to the former Sandrock pilot.

“I take it you got news on the girls.”  Quatre asked, his eyes searching Duo’s.

Duo groaned and rubbed his face, “Noin and Une did their best and it turns out that…”  Duo paused for a moment, “They’re holding the girls because they suspect the girls are working with our enemy and won’t let them go until they’re sure that they aren’t.”

Quatre sighed briefly, it was as he feared.  He rubbed his eyes briefly, his blue orbs searching his friend’s eyes.  “Well, Noin said that if negotiations didn’t work that we would come up with a plan to retrieve the girls.”

The former Deathscythe pilot sat back in his chair and let out a sigh, “Yeah, I honestly can’t wait to get them back.  If they so much as come back with a hair out of place I’ll tear them down brick by brick.  I’ll kill as many as I can for even considering harming my kids.”

Quatre held up his hand, “We don’t know anything beyond what Noin told us, the Peaceful Finality has been our allies up until this point.  There’s something afoot here but I can’t quite place it.”

Duo shook his head, “It looked like Thedir was going to let them but his second in command had other ideas.  Said he wanted to keep the integrity of the information the girls might have, something like that.  Something about that rubs me the wrong way, I can’t place it.”

“No you’re right to feel that way.  If they were fine then there wouldn’t be a problem letting them be seen.”  Quatre agreed, his eyes watching Maxwell.  “We’ll push the plan forward to hopefully get them sooner rather than later.”

“Wait, we’re bringing some of the kids?  I know Noin was considering doing it but I didn’t think she was serious.  There’s no way they’re ready for the field, let alone something as delicate as a rescue mission.”  Duo looked a little concerned.

“Jesse has proven himself quite capable and Jeff is exceptionally skilled with computers.  Having a sharpshooter and someone to throw false flags in their computer system will help conceal the girls’ rescue.”  Quatre paused for a moment, “I wouldn’t do this if I was unsure of their capabilities.”

Duo sighed a bit, “Alright.”

~

Helen had fallen asleep, her body aching from the beating but Carol couldn’t get comfortable, her cobalt blue eyes watching the door carefully.  Part of her was exhausted but the part that was keeping her awake was fixated on making sure her older sister didn’t endure anymore.  It was certainly worse than the first time she had been in a holding cell, she wasn’t sure what to do.  

The younger Maxwell slipped off the bed carefully and started to poke around the room.  She went to the door and pulled on the door.  It was locked despite her best efforts and there weren’t hinges on the inside that she could pull the pins out.  She groaned a little and almost slammed her fist into the door.  The only thing that stopped her was the idea of waking up Helen.  The room was dimly lit and slightly too warm to be comfortable in.  Carol ran her hands along the wall as she pressed lightly on it, part of her was hoping for a panel to maybe open up so she could get the door open.  But it would seem that luck wasn’t on her side.  

She sat on the edge of the bed softly to not disturb her sister and buried her face in her hands.  Carol wanted to scream and cry, she wished that her mom hadn’t died and that they were still home together.  But that was something that wasn’t going to happen.  She felt a sob shake her body as she muffled it with her hands.  Tears streaked hotly down her cheeks as she let out her emotions quietly.

It was then the lock jiggled and the door opened.  Helen had snapped awake as the girls looked as guards walked into the room.  There were too many for them both to take on.

“Grab the blond one.”  The one guard ordered.

“The hell you will!”  Helen yelled as she moved to block the guards from getting to Carol, she was ready to fight them all.

The guards weren’t in a mood for fighting and used a stun baton to shock her.  Carol cried out as her sister collapsed to the floor convulsing from the electricity.  She charged at the guard who had zapped her sister only to be met with the same fate, and while Carol was on the ground she was handcuffed and lifted off the ground by the one guard while the other kept Helen under control.

They dragged her through the halls, it seemed almost like a maze to her.  They took her into an interrogation room and proceeded to strap her into a chair.  She glanced around the room and there were various uncomfortable looking instruments including a rather large hose.  She pulled at the restraints that held her arms, the metal restraints were not going to be budging anytime soon.  The room was kind of cold and sitting in this metal chair made her feel even colder.  That was when she noticed the mirror to her right, her cobalt blue eyes stared back at her frightened form.

The guard looked her in the eyes as he approached her.  “Now, tell us what you know of your organization.  We know you know something.”

Carol shook her head, her blond curls swishing with her head.  “I don’t know anything!  I’m not a part of that you asshole!  Let us go!”

“That won’t do at all.”  He said as he walked towards the hose.  “I didn’t want to have to do this but you left me no choice.”  The guard uncoiled the hose slowly.  “I’ll ask you again, who is giving you your orders.”

The younger Maxwell felt her muscles tense, unsure of what to expect from the hose.  “Alright, alright, I’ll tell you who’s been giving me orders.”

The guard paused his movements, the hose nozzle in his hand with his thumb on a small switch on it.  “Who’s behind that?”

Carol paused for a moment and then a small grin crossed her face.  “Your mother.”

The guard narrowed  his eyes and turned the hose on her, a powerful stream of water shot out and started to soak her.  It was ice cold water and was chilling her bones.   He made sure he got every bit of soaking wet.  “Now tell me who’s giving you orders.”

The poor girl shook in the chair as the cold air settled in on her soaking wet clothes making it even worse.  Her teeth were already chattering, “Tu…. Madre…”

The guard turned the hose back on the girl, soaking her to the bone.  The ice cold water felt like knives on her skin.  When she wasn’t getting sprayed in the face she pleaded and begged for him to stop.  “Who’s giving you orders!”

“Please!  I don’t know anything.”  Carol sobbed, “Please stop.  Please.”  She begged, the younger Maxwell tugged at her restraints.

He sprayed her again, the water swirling down the drain beneath the chair.  “I guess you can just… chill out here.”  The guard laughed at his own joke and left the room, the door clicking behind him as it locked.

She shivered violently in her chair, the metal cuffs felt like they were burning her skin.  Her fingers were starting to go numb and she could feel her heart pumping harder in her chest.  “Let me out!  Please!”  Carol tugged at her restraints as she tried to remove herself from this situation, but even now she felt her energy draining from her body.  Her teeth chattered violently as the cold deepened into her flesh.  Each passing moment was beginning to turn into a painful eternity.  She couldn’t say how long she was in the chair before the door opened up once more, the guard undid her cuffs and lifted her from the chair.  She didn’t have the energy to fight, at least the hallway was warmer than that cold room.  She was carelessly tossed into her cell and the door closed shut.

Helen jumped off the bed, “Oh shit… Carol!”  She touched her sister’s skin and it was cold and wet, Helen quickly went to work removing Carol’s wet clothes.  “Stay with me.”  Once Carol was stripped down to her underwear Helen pulled her into the cot and wrapped her arms around her and held her close.  Carol was pale and slow to respond, Helen held her protectively remembering her first aid training that they had.  Thank goodness she had been paying attention.  Carol buried herself into her sister’s warm body and it wasn’t long before she was asleep.

~

Trowa had heard about Joel having trouble finding his own talent within the group.  While he was improving he was sure that his son had a hidden talent that was yet to be seen.  Joel had been working harder than the others to improve, it was certainly an admirable trait.  That stubbornness was certainly something he got from his mother.  It didn’t take Trowa long to track down his son on the base, at this moment he was at the shooting range practicing his aim.  Trowa watched quietly as his son at least was hitting the paper target with every shot.  He didn’t want to startle the boy and waited for him to finish up.

Joel sighed and took his ear protector off and started to clean up.  He turned and saw his father, an embarrassed blush crept across his cheek.

“You look like you’re improving.”  Trowa broke the silence as he looked at the paper target as it rolled back towards Joel.

The younger twin shrugged, “I’m nowhere near as good as Jesse.  I don’t think anyone can hold a candle to Feng either.”

“Both of them had the advantage of using guns before you.  Had you ever held a gun before you came here?”  Trowa asked, his green eyes searching his son’s eyes.

Joel paused and let out a sigh, “Other than a paintball gun, no.”

“There’s a saying you shouldn’t judge a fish by how well it can climb a ladder.”  Trowa smiled and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Joel looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, “Yeah… but my only real talent is writing.”

“I think there’s more to you than even you know.  Let’s get this locked away and come with me, there’s something I want to try with you.”  Trowa smiled at his son.

The pair of them cleaned up and placed the gun back in is place.  Joel shyly followed his father as they went to the gym.  He worked on clearing out a space from the dummies to make sure the mat was wide open for them.

“I’m not really good at fighting either, that seems to be Flynn’s specialty.”  Joel rubbed his arm.

“What’d I say about the fish?”  Trowa gently reminded him, “I was in the circus and quite good at acrobatics, I think that’s your secret talent.”

Joel tilted his head at him.  “That’s right, you’re in the circus.”

“You’d be surprised how handy those skills come into play.”  Trowa smiled.  “Let’s start with some basics and see how you do.  If you don’t like it I won’t pressure you do more, deal?”

“Alright, I’ll give it a go.”  Joel smiled at his father.  The pair of them began working on simple things like tumbling and handstands, which Joel was in fact picking up far more quickly than he had with anything else.  That alone made Trowa even prouder of his son.

~

Jesse and Jeff were gathering their gear and getting ready to go on this mission, Jeff looked at all of his gear for the 800th time.  Everything appeared to be in order while Jesse made sure he had plenty of bullets and that his guns were in good working order.  He sincerely prayed he wouldn’t have to fire it at all.

“You nervous?”  Jeff asked, zipping up his backpack for the last time.

The Barton twin secured his gear after a final check, “I mean a rescue mission from a likely highly secured base, I think it’s reasonable to be nervous.”

“True.  I hope they’re both okay, they said that they looked fine in the video that they were shown.”  Jeff added, “Hopefully things will go smoothly.”

It was then that Duo and Wufei came in, they were already geared up and ready to go.  Wufei was the one who spoke up, “Let’s go over the plan once more.”  There was a silent round of affirmations from the other three.

“We will be entering from the north side since it’s less guarded than the other spots.  This will also put us close to an access panel, Jeff this is where you’ll be triggering the false alarms through the base.  We’ll be pulling the guard away from the cell block so we’ll need quite a bit of distraction near the south end of the base.  We should be able to knock out any remaining guards in the way before we go to the girls.  On our signal Jeff you unlock the cell doors and we’ll figure out where the girls are being  held.  From there we extract them out the same way we came.  It should be fairly straightforward.”

Jeff knew a lot of this mission was riding on his hacking abilities and that made the knot in his stomach twist even tighter.  He couldn’t mess this up.  The rest of them shook their heads and Wufei smiled a bit pleased with himself, “Let’s go then.”

They made their way to an inconspicuous vehicle, one of the more popular models so it would be harder for them to be pursued or found later on.  The plates on the car were fake so even if they did get a plate number from them it wouldn’t lead back to anything.  The four of them piled into the car and drove towards where they would be entering.  The closer they got to their destination the more that Jeff felt nervous, he had to be perfect for this mission.

They parked the car behind some trees and then moved forwards to the base.  Wufei took out a small drone and piloted it towards their access point to discreetly watch the guards as they moved.  It seemed they were still moving in the same pattern  as before.  He recalled the drone and then the four of them slipped out under the cover of darkness.  They moved over the fence and towards the access point for Jeff.

The young Yuy opened his small computer on his wrist and hacked into the system.  The firewalls were a bit tricky but it wasn’t anything that he wasn’t used to.  Once he was done alarms were sounding in the southern portion of the base.  He was also able to glean where the girls were being held too.  They slipped in through the closest door and started to move.  In the halls guards were moving towards the alarms, guns at the ready.

They slipped through the halls and it wasn’t long before they entered into the cell block, they could hear pleading from other prisoners as they moved past each door.  There was a guard that Wufei quickly knocked out and they proceeded forward.  It was then a noise grabbed Duo’s attention, it was gun fire.

The former God of Death ran ahead towards the noise, fearing the worst for his girls.  He opened the door and the scene that was in front of him was not what he had been told.  Carol was standing in her underwear, deep purple and green bruises on her body on full display.  Helen’s shirt was torn, blood covered her as a guard was next to her bleeding all over the floor.  Carol was shaking as she held the gun in her hand, her finger clicking the trigger despite the gun being completely empty.

Duo gently touched Carol’s shoulder and the poor girl practically jumped out of her skin.  “Hey, it’s okay. Here, give me that.”  He said gently as he took the empty gun from his daughter and let it skitter across the floor.  He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, Jeff grabbed Carol’s clothing and put a hand on her back to guide her out.  Duo went to his oldest daughter and lifted her shaking form from the floor.  She sobbed happily into her father’s chest, her hands clinging tightly onto him.

He gently shushed her, “We need to stay quiet for a little bit, we’ll be out of here soon.”  Duo promised her as the six of them moved out of the cell and back the way they had come.  

Jeff  accessed another panel to make sure the guards would be chasing ghosts as more alarms went off in the west and the south.  It made it fairly simple for them to slip out of the way they had come.  They didn’t fully relax until they had made it to the car, it was then the girls sobbed loudly, glad the ordeal was over and terrified that it had happened at all.  The ride back to the base was fairly smooth thankfully.  Each of them sat on either side of their father and held onto him tightly.  It wasn’t long before the two girls had fallen asleep against him.

Once they reached the base the girls were taken to the infirmary to get looked over.  While the bruises on their bodies were severe looking they weren’t seriously injured.  They were lucky that none of their bones had broken.  Duo and Hilde stayed with the girls and brought them fresh clothes to change into once they were cleaned up.  

Each of them felt the warmth of the showers wash over them and clean their experience off their flesh.  Helen scrubbed her skin until it was pink and raw looking, she sobbed as she tried desperately to wash that guard’s hands off her.  She felt absolutely disgusted that man had laid hands on her, she did get dressed after.  The Maxwell girls both got dressed and headed to the dorms to rest.

Once they were settled in, that was when Duo let his anger flow through him.  He stormed his way to Noin’s office, opened the door, and slammed it shut behind him.  “I don’t know what they did to my girls but they looked like they went through the mill!”

Noin looked confused at him, “What do you mean?  What happened?”

“I don’t know the details, I couldn’t ask the girls what happened right now, they need their rest.  But they’re covered in bruises, Carol was in her underwear and I’m pretty sure Carol shot the guard who was going to try and force himself on Helen.”  Duo growled, “I’ll fucking kill those shit head leaders of the so called Peaceful Finality myself.  String them up like pinatas, leave them on display for the birds to peck their bodies apart!”

“Duo Maxwell!  I understand what you’re saying, we need to gather evidence and handle this the right way.  If you kill the leaders of a group that’s been helping the colonies you’ll only make martyrs of them and make it much harder for us to get justice for your girls.”  Noin said, trying to calm him down.

Duo slammed his fist into the wall and then cradled his hand when the pain radiated from his knuckles.  “I’m all the justice that they need.”

Noin sighed, “Duo please go cool off, we’ll handle this, I promise.”

The former God of Death gritted his teeth, growling lowly, "Fine."  He rumbled before he stormed out of her office.

[Author's note]

Things are heating up in a manner of speaking!  Thank you all for reading through this chapter! I certainly appreciate anyone who reads through this.  See you all next week!

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Chapter Text

Chapter 6: The Kids Aren’t Alright

Tobias sat in his office, his fingers steepled as he looked at the phone.  He picked up and dialed a number quickly.  The phone rang and when it was answered the first words out of his mouth were, “Where are they?”  He quietly listened on the phone to his informant, occasionally punctuating his own silence with brief noises of affirmation.  “Alright, lay low for a little while until things with this settle down some.  I’ll be in contact with you then.”  After that moment he hung up the phone and steepled his fingers once more, his chin resting on his fingers.  This was a bit of a mess but surely there was a path through it.  He considered his next move very carefully, he was disappointed he didn’t get more information out of the girls.  It was also a real shame that one of their guards had gone rogue.

Tobias’ office door opened quickly and Thedir stepped through, while to those who don’t know him he looked neutral but Tobias knew better.

“What happened to the Maxwell girls?  I’ve been searching the cameras and it would seem that whoever took them hacked into our system to cover their tracks along with creating distractions throughout the base.”  Thedir sat down across from him, that slight twitch in his eye that he got when he was stressed at all.

Krugle sighed briefly, “I suspect it was their terrorist connections that got them out.”

“What happened to their guard?  It looked like they emptied his own gun into him and left him for dead.”  Thedir asked.

“He had gone in to question them some more at the same time the enemy was breaking in.  A scuffle likely ensued and they got his gun.  It was just  a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  Tobias sighed briefly again as he sat back in his chair.  “I’ve got my sources working on finding the girls, maybe that will lead us to the enemy.”

Thedir examined Tobias’ face and let out a small sigh of his own.  “Well, hopefully something will turn up sooner rather than later.  Have any of your sources gotten a bead on the girls?”

Tobias shook his head, “I’ve got a few possibilities but nothing solid so far.”

Castefort nodded briefly, “Alright, keep me posted.”  He got up from his chair and left the room, the door clicking closed behind him.

When the door was fully closed Tobias slammed his fist into his desk and he gritted his teeth in frustration.

~

Carol sat out by the track on her own, sometimes when she let her mind wander she could feel that unbearable cold again.  It felt like daggers in her skin again, feeling like she’d never be warm again.  When that happened the warmth of the sun always helped, just that seemed to be enough to drive away the feeling.  She then took to laying flat on her back on the bench, her forearm the shield her eyes from the the warm, artificial sun above.

The sounds of footsteps got her attention and she looked to see who it was, it was Flynn.  He sat down next to her and didn’t know what to say exactly.  “You okay?”

The blond girl looked at him and sat up, she bit her lip briefly.  “No.”

Flynn looked concerned at her, “Want to talk about it?

“I just wish I could forget all that happened there.”  She said, rubbing her thumbs together, “I… I have never felt so powerless than I did then.  They tortured us… I… I had to kill a guard.  He had a gun on him and he didn’t even notice that I had grabbed it before I unloaded it onto him.”  She rubbed her face with her hands, when she looked at her hands they were shaking.

Flynn put a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.  “You were in a bad situation and you did, no one would blame you.  You were protecting your sister, no?”

Carol absently ran her thumb under her eyes, wicked away any moisture there.  “Of course.  He was hurting her and… And… I couldn’t let him anymore.”

“See.”  He said softly as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a tight hug.  “You didn’t have a choice, you didn’t know where he would stop hurting her.  You didn’t know if you two would live through the ordeal.  I know it feels bad now, but Helen is safe because of you, you are safe.  And that’s all that we can really ask for.”

She sniffled lightly, tears quietly slipping down her cheeks.  Carol wrapped her arms tightly around Flynn and he reciprocated.  “It’ll be alright, you’ll see.”

The silence passed between the two close friends, holding onto each other rightly.  They eventually pulled apart and sat quietly on the bench, listening to the quiet hum of activity on the base.  It was then Flynn bit his lip a little, “Will you tell me about what happened?”

Carol nodded, “It’s just too… fresh.  I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around it just yet…”

~

Helen found the isolation of the roof to be soothing, free air all around her, there was a special kind of quiet that hung in the air.  It didn’t matter how many times she showered, the feel of the beatings and that guard still crawled over her skin.  She absently rubbed her arms as she walked close to the rail along the roof.  Helen leaned against it and let out a soft sigh.  She was free, she was safe, Carol was also free and safe.  Helen made a silent vow that she would never again be made to feel so helpless.  She would be the one who protected her little sister, not the other way around.

She turned and went down the stairs and headed to the dorm.  She switched into some more comfortable workout gear and headed towards the gym.  Her body still was aching from the time she was in captivity but she couldn’t let her body be idle.  Helen went to work stretching and warming up her body.  Each movement sent ripples of pain through her frame, but don’t they say no pain no gain?  She moved to lift weights, starting with a bench press.  The older Maxwell just had the bar to start with, her gloved hands gripped the bar and lifted it up.

Surprisingly she got a few reps in before her body started to revolt against her, on the fifth rep she felt her arms weakening as she tried to push the bar up.  She grunted as she tried to push through the pain and muscle fatigue.  Much to her surprise a hand grabbed the bar and helped her push through the last rep.  Helen looked up and spotted Jeff there above her; she narrowed her eyes at him and huffed a little as she sat up.

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”  He asked as he looked at her.

“I don’t need it.”

Jeff tilted his head a little and sighed.  “I’ve seen you bench at least 150 pounds and you were struggling with just the bar.  Hurting yourself won’t help you.”

Helen rolled her eyes, “I don’t think you understand.”

“I think I understand more than you think.”  He said and sat down next to her.  “I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t have any control over something.  You can’t let it hurt you any more than you already have been.”

The older Maxwell rolled her eyes again, Jeff chuckled briefly, “Do that anymore and your eyes will roll out of your skull.”  He crossed his arms over his chest, “I think I know something that will help.”

“And what, pray tell, could you possibly have in mind that could help me?”  Helen snarled, she sat up and turned around.

“It'll involve beating me up, I figured it might be helpful.”  Jeff said with a confident smile on his face.

She paused for a moment, considering the offer before getting up, “Alright then, you’re on Yuy.”

Helen worked on putting on the padded gloves while Jeff strapped on the body padding.  He put a mouth guard in after putting on a padded helmet.  He stood across from her and motioned for her to start.  Helen immediately started wailing on him, the punches were wild and full strength, part of Jeff wondered if she would bruise him through the padding.  Helen was screaming as she punched him, eventually the punches started to lose steam as she hit him.  It wasn’t  long after that when she broke down sobbing and collapsed against Jeff.

For a moment he was shocked at this, it didn’t take him long to wrap his arms around her.  He just held her quietly while she sobbed into his chest.

~

Jesse reloaded the rifle he was practicing with and set it down briefly while he adjusted his ear protection.  He slipped an ear bud in to listen to music while he went through the last of his daily practice drills.  This time it was moving targets at a distance, he shouldered the rifle and took in a breath before he started to shoot the moving paper targets.  His shots were almost timed with the beat of the music.  When the clip was empty he stood back up and started to examine his papers.  There certainly was improvement, especially since he had his first ones to compare to.

He let out a soft sigh, he was getting better that was as plain as day.  At the same time he knew that his skills weren’t nearly as good as Feng’s.  He tried to push his self doubt down, he wasn’t bad.  How many large bucks did he take down over the years?  How many ducks?  Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to call it a day, he was getting in his own head about things.  He absently rubbed at his face and went to put the rifle and ammo away.

That’s when the door opened and Joel entered through the door.  He didn’t seem all that surprised to see Jesse here.  “Practicing your aim?”  Joel looked his way through the papers, seeing the tighter groupings with the undated papers.  The dated papers were the first day they were all first shown how much they already knew.

“Yeah, I’m doin’ better but I don’t think I’m makin’ enough progress.”  He said, the frustration creeping into his voice.

“I’m afraid I’m not any better than I was when we started.”  Joel sheepishly smiled, idly scratching at the back of his head.

Jesse pulled the rifle back out of its rack and grabbed the ammo.  “I take it you came to practice?”

Joel nodded, “Yeah.”

“Well, since I’m older I guess I’ll have to show you how it’s done.”  Jesse grinned at his twin.

“Only five minutes!”  Joel took a hold of the rifle that Jesse handed him.  Joel went to shoulder the gun and Jesse put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hang on, let’s get you set up right.”  Jesse helped his brother position the rifle that would make it be a bit more sturdy.  “Alright, let’s see what we’re working with.”

Joel did his best to aim and fire the weapon, each shot he took his time and fired.  A few of them hit the paper while the vast majority of them missed.  Jesse examined the paper, “Alright, look the only place you can go from is up, no?”

Jesse helped his brother, aiming, steadying, and dealing with the recoil.  With each round Joel was getting better and the liberally applied words of encouragement not only helped Joel but reinforced Jesse’s confidence as well.  He could easily apply those kind words to himself, every bit of self doubt melted away.  After instruction Joel was at least hitting the paper with every shot after not too long.  It was getting late when they decided to call it quits and Joel’s aim was already improving. 

Jesse patted his brother on the back.  “Hey we’ll have you out shooting me and Feng before you know it.”

Joel laughed, “Well, we’ll see about that shall we?”

The pair of them walked back to the dorms to get some shut eye.

~

Heero examined the movie case once again, the same level of skepticism about sitting through “Revenge of the Babysitter Pt. 45”.  He didn’t know what was worse, that it was almost two hours long or that there were forty-four other parts to this series.  He noticed the slight limp that Jeff had as he got the movie going before making his way stiffly back to the couch.

“Rough training?”  

“Yeah a bit, but effective.”  He said as he fell to the couch and pulled the bowl of popcorn into his lap.

“Won’t I have missed something from the other movies?”  

“Shockingly no, this is kind of a prequel to all of it.  It’s this one that the babysitter's kids she’s watching get a Ouija board to summon the demon that possesses the first movie’s babysitter.”  Jeff explained.

“Doesn’t that spoil the movie?”  Heero asked, taking a bit of popcorn.

“Also shockingly no.”  The beginning of the movie started to play.

Heero only kept a superficial amount of attention on  the movie but he only needed that much.  To him all the twists and jump scares were more than obvious to him.  He glanced over at his son and there was the first time he had seen his son truly relaxed and happy.    Much to Jeff’s credit he hid it well enough from the others, there were subtle tells he had.  

Once Heero kind of dampened looking for the next twists he enjoyed the film a bit more and when it finished he was amused by this film.  Jeff smiled at his father, “Thank you for watching it with me, I used to do this every Friday with my Dad-”  He cut himself off, “Well foster dad…”

“He was your father though, in ways I wasn’t able to be.”  Heero said, “I don’t fault you for calling him as such.”  Heero added in a small smile, “I appreciate you sharing that tradition with me.  I can’t say I’ve ever watched a horror movie before.”

“What do you watch then?”  

“Usually read honestly.  But I think I’d like to do this again.”  Heero smiled at his son and Jeff smiled back.  “How have you been adjusting to everything?”

Jeff tucked a stray blond hair behind his ear, “It’s just been a lot, it was nice to do something familiar.”  He paused for a moment, “It’s fine.”  Jeff stated almost dismissively of his own feelings in that moment, Heero could see that much but didn’t press his son for now.

~

Thedir knocked on the door to Tobias’ office once more, when given permission he entered.  Tobias was looking a bit worn down, papers were scattered over his desk, normally pristine hair was a bit mussed, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

“When was the last time you took a break since the girls were taken out of custody?”  Thedir asked, concern in his voice as he approached the desk.

Tobias ran his hand through his hair and looked at Castefort, “Not much, have you heard anything?”

“I got a call from Noin, the girls are in their care once more.”  Thedir said as he steepled his fingers.  “She reported that the guard who was shot tortured the girls to try and get information out of them.  What do you make of that?”  

“We’ll have to do a better job vetting our own people, it seems if it is in fact true.  I’ll launch an investigation into those he worked closely with.”  Tobias said.

“Noin mentioned that we should do as such, she suggested that there might be a mole or two hiding in our ranks.  Given how relentlessly we’ve been pursuing them and how successful we’ve been, it’s no surprise that a few spies may have slipped through our own screening procedures.  I made the same recommendation to her, while I still have my doubts about Carol and Flynn I have been forced to leave an investigation  up to her.”  Thedir picked up a pen and delicately twirled it in his fingers slowly, deliberately.  “I trust you’ll find every snake that has tried to make this place their home and destroy the good work we’ve been doing for the colonies.”

“Of course, I haven’t disappointed you yet, have I?”  Tobias’ fingers started to curl and uncurl, his gaze was kept steady with Thedir’s icy blue eyes.

“This recent event with the girls was the first and only time.  I know that you’ll figure it out quickly.”  Thedir’s eyes searched his partner’s eyes, he wasn’t sure what he would find there or even what he was looking for.  He saw nothing but the placid, cobalt blue eyes, calm deep pools of blue.  If he looked hard enough he could almost see his own reflection.

Tobias laid his hand flat on the desk and he gave Thedir that signature devil may care smile, exuding confidence.  “Of course, there’ll be no stone unturned.  I’ll find them all.”

A smile crossed Thedir’s face, “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”  He stood up from his chair and set the pen back down on the desk.  “I look forward to hearing of your success.”

Tobias watched as Thedir exited the room and he sat back in his chair.  It would seem to be that his work would be cut out for him.  He lightly tapped his chin as he considered his exact next move.  He knew what his own gut reaction was to get angry, but that wouldn’t solve anything.  He got to work and wrote an email, his fingers danced across the keyboard quickly.  Occasionally he would pause, chewing lightly on his thumbnail before going back to typing it up; when it was done he sent it away to its intended target and sat back in his chair.  Tobias smiled a bit to himself before he got up from his chair and headed down to start interviewing people to find the source of the potential leak.

~

Jeff knocked lightly on Noin’s office door and when invited in he entered the room.  “Noin, I have some information about the bugs we found on Carol and Flynn’s things.”

Noin looked up from her computer, her eyes meeting Jeff’s steel blue eyes.  “I had gotten the message from the other people working on them that you wanted to present the findings personally.”

He nodded and took his seat across from her.  “While my own initial exam of the bugs presented me with the impression that whoever built them was not only a genius but well-funded.”

“I imagine that it was far different than originally thought; was it not to your initial expectations?”

“That’s right.  The bugs are fakes.”  He stated, his eyes watching Noin’s expression, as far as he could discern there wasn’t any change in her demeanor.

“What hypothesis did you arrive at?”  Noin watched him as she steepled her fingers.

“We have a leak that is a person.  Someone fed information to the girls’ movements directly to the Peaceful Finality.  The only question is if they are working with our enemy or if they are working for the Peaceful Finality.”  Jeff concluded.

Noin smiled, “That is the same conclusion I would draw as well.  Given how the girls were treated in their custody we can’t ignore the possibility of something nefarious from the Peaceful Finality as well.  From the meeting I had with their leaders I have a feeling Tobias is the one who is behind it.  Unfortunately I don’t have any proof and going after them directly without evidence will only end in it being twisted back on us.  And given that the only people who knew about the girls’ rescue were me and the people who went it all but confirmed it.”

Jeff tilted his head briefly, thinking over it.  “What should we do then?”

“Since you’ll be part of one of the teams to go on a mission I don’t see any harm telling you about what is planned.  You are not to speak of this to anyone, we don’t know who or how many people are compromised.”  Noin explained, when Jeff agreed to remain silent she continued.  “There will be two teams going to two separate places.  I received an email from Tobias about a terrorist cell that was supposedly connected with the guard that was supposedly rogue.  While I have my doubts about it, I’m hoping that we might find clues there about who is truly behind these attacks.”

“What about the other?”  Jeff asked curiously.

“We’re sending a few undercover agents to one of the Peaceful Finality’s outposts to gather information on their movements and maybe uncover anything nefarious going on.”  Noin stated, her eyes watching Jeff.

“Which of these two will I be going on then?”  Jeff inquired, his resolve strengthening.

“You’ll be going with the group to investigate the terrorist cell, it’ll be you Feng, Jesse, Duo and Heero.  We need someone who can go through the systems and find the hidden gems.  I think you’ll be able to get us a clue as to who is really pulling their strings.”  Noin said with a confident smile.  “Given your abilities in high stress situations I know that you’ll find something.” 

A cocky smile started to dance across Jeff’s lips.  “I’ll certainly not disappoint then.”

[Author's Note]

The plot thickens! :D  I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday and that you're enjoying reading it as much as I have had writing it!  Though now I'm starting to catch up to where I'm still working on it.  I'm not nervous, you're nervous. LoL

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Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Here is Gone

Duo and Heero sat in their vantage point, the base in front of them had the usual activity.  Vehicles came and went, they watched as the people milled around, some of them on patrols.  Heero lifted his binoculars and watched them a bit closer, average amount of vehicles for the base.  Duo idly flipped a switchblade in his hand, his cobalt eyes watched the base with his own naked eyes.  He had forgotten to bring his own binoculars to watch, so he did his best to keep his hands occupied.

“You’re going to cut yourself again.”  Heero said flatly as he watched the base.  Duo rolled his eyes and put the blade away.  “You always do this when we do a stakeout.”

“I do not!”  Duo said defensively, “Listen last time it wasn’t my fault. Trowa borrowed them without telling me!”

“Still sticking to that story?  Why did Trowa take them again?”

“Bird watching, definitely bird watching.”  Duo said confidently.

Heero sighed, “You know I remembered why I hated going on stakeouts with you.”

Duo rolled his eyes and looked down the road, that was when he spotted a convoy of large vehicles.  On the flatbeds of their trucks there was a large boxy shape under a cloth.  It was all secured down, but Duo didn’t need binoculars to know what they were transporting.  He nudged Heero’s shoulder, “Look at the trucks.”

Heero turned to look at them, a disapproving sound came from his throat.  “Those are at the very least mobile suits.  I had pushed for them to be destroyed.”

“They were, not long after we said our farewells to our Gundams.  I shouldn’t be surprised if some of them slipped through the cracks.  This isn’t good, if they’ve got mobile suits we’re going to be severely outmatched if we try and attack them.”  Duo lightly bit his lip as thought about it.

Heero lightly chuckled, “I had some stored at the Antarctic base as a rainy day type of storage.  I had honestly hoped that we wouldn’t need them.”

“Wait… You said we destroyed them.”  Duo narrowed his eyes.

“I didn’t want to use them if we didn’t need them.”  Heero watched through the binoculars as the crew worked to uncover their shipment.  There was something that caught Heero’s eyes.  “That’s not a mobile suit.”  With that he handed the binoculars over to Duo.

Maxwell took the binoculars in his hand and looked through.  “Dammit… That’s a Gundam.  This got a whole lot more interesting.  And dangerous.  We sure we want to bring the kids on a mission like this?”

“We’ll get them into some actual suits  before we take them into the field.  A good number of them have been very promising in the simulations.”

“We know those simulations aren’t close to the real thing.”  Duo said as he set the binoculars back into the bag.  “We’ll let Noin know what we found.”

~

Olivia and Joel both were getting ready for their own mission.  Butterflies turned in Liv's stomach as she brushed out her  hair and began to place them in their usual braided pigtails.  She did take an extra step to wind them into tight buns on the sides of her head, a bit more professional looking than her usual style.  She glanced over at Joel who was working on removing his black nail polish and his make up.  The transformation was  certainly something, she hadn't realized how different he was without all that on.  Then again she should've been able to guess considering that Jesse was his identical twin, it just seemed strange.

Joel seemed to pick up on her stare and a blush crept across his cheeks.  “I look bad, don't I?”

Olivia looked panicked for a moment as she held her hands up, “No!  Not at all!  I'm just so used to seeing you with your makeup on.  You look just as fine without it.”

“I appreciate that.”  He said softly as he cleaned up the last of his face.  “I think I'm just nervous about going undercover,  what if we get caught and tortured like Carol and Helen?”

Olivia smiled brightly at him.  “I guess we'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen.  Besides, if they weren't sure we'd be able to pull this off they wouldn't be sending us out into the field.  We may not be able to shoot but we're exceptionally good at blending in.  They'll likely overlook us as long as we don't draw attention to ourselves.”

Joel sighed briefly as he took a comb to his hair and started to comb it back out of his face.  He took some hair gel and used it to comb it back with it to keep his hair in place.  “You're right, I'm just nervous.  I will say that Jesse's been helping me with my aim.”

“He has?  That's wonderful!  I'm glad you two are able to do some bonding too after missing so many years together.”  Olivia beamed.

The Barton twin smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, I had felt alone for so long, it's nice to feel a bit more complete after all those years.”  

Joel worked on getting into his Peaceful Finality uniform, it certainly wasn't his color.  It was a navy blue uniform with gold accents, pretty bright considering his usual attire of black clothing.  Olivia emerged from her own dressing room shortly after Joel.  The clothing clung to her curves and she wasn't bad looking in them.  Both of them looked like they would certainly blend in to where they were going.  

The pair of them stood in front of the mirror on the wall and Olivia couldn't help but smile brightly.  “Look at us!  They'll never see us coming, and I know we're going to make our parents so proud.  Whatever the Peaceful Finality is hiding we'll ferret it out.”  She wrapped an arm around Joel's shoulder and held him close.  He seemed a little embarrassed but he smiled a bit too.

“Yeah and with the devices that Jeff helped put together we'll certainly be able to figure out what they have in their computers too.”  Joel smiled.

“Yeah, I bet they wish they could send Jeff to two places at once considering how good he is with computer stuff.”  Olivia bit her lip a little, a bit of anxiety setting in.

Joel seemed to pick up on it, “Hey, remember, we all have different talents, nothing wrong with that.”  They attached their name badges, Joel's said “J. Miller” while Olivia's said “O. Benson.”  Both of them admired themselves in the mirror, they hardly recognized themselves, this was going to be a good mission.

~

Heero and Duo sat in the cockpit and got the shuttle going while the kids strapped in the back.  “Well this is exciting. I got a rifle for when I’m posted up watching over you.”

“Pulling the trigger on a person is far different than a paper target.”  Duo spoke up from the front seat.  “I hope that when it matters you won’t hesitate.”

Feng nodded, “Don’t worry, no one is going to surprise any of you.  I won’t hesitate.”

Jesse smiled and flicked his cowboy hat up, “I know that I’ll be safe under your watch.”  Jesse relaxed in his chair, “Excited to get behind the controls of something  I read about and practiced in a simulator.”

“We’ll see how it goes before we put you in the field.  There is also the threat of at least one Gundam and I’d rather not put you three in that kind of danger when we don’t need to.”  Heero said, “Before the mission we’ll be sending in a few people to infiltrate and see if there is a Gundam and if there are multiple.  If there is a Gundam on site or nearby, out of the question.  If that’s the case we’ll handle the mobile suits and you’ll be sneaking in on foot while we create a diversion.  The information that you’ll be getting will be more valuable than getting your feet wet in battle.”

“I don’t think you realize what we’re capable of yet.”  Jesse snapped back, that cocky grin on his face.

Heero knew that look all too well, to feel like you’ll never die, to feel confidence that was as boundless as the stars.  “Simulations are far different than the field.”  His hands tightened on the yoke of the shuttle, his knuckles turning white.

Duo picked up on Heero’s tension.  “Look, we know that each of you are extremely talented, but we fought in the war.  We’ve seen and experienced things you’ve only read about in your textbooks.  There were decisions that each of us made that if we knew then what we know now we would’ve made far different ones.  It’s not that we don’t think you could do it, we just don’t want you to throw your lives away.  After everything we can’t lose you too, especially since we’ve already missed so much already.  Do us a favor, don’t make us wonder what we would miss out on because we put you into battle too soon.”

Jesse thought about arguing but he could see why they were hesitant.  He and the other kids had all grown up without their birth parents.  “Alright, guess I’ll just have to work extra hard to prove to you what I can do.”

Heero’s knuckles shifted back to their normal color as his fingers relaxed, Duo turned around and smiled, “That’s all we’re asking for, kiddo.”

The shuttle was brought in for a smooth landing on the runway.  Everyone grabbed the warm snowsuits to wear while they traversed the cold landscape.  Jeff could already feel the cold trying to bite his skin despite the protection he was wearing.  They entered the building and took off their boots and changed to their tennis shoes, Jesse put his cowboy boots back on.  It wasn't cold in the building but it wasn't warm either.

There was a skeleton crew that was in charge of keeping the base going and to keep the elements from reclaiming the building, not to mention they were in charge of making sure the mobile suits were at least maintained enough that they didn't break down or become unusable. Heero didn't want them to fall into disrepair while they weren't being used, he had imagined if they were needed he wanted them ready to use.

They walked down several flights of stairs to the hanger where the suits were kept.  Jesse and Jeff were both surprised to see how many were there standing at attention in rows.  Jeff walked up to one and set a hand on one of the legs.  “Wow, I knew they were big, but somehow I'm still surprised.”

“A lot different than the textbooks you read, I'd imagine.”  Duo said, his eyes drifted to Heero as the former pilot switched to his working mode.  Heero worked his way up to the catwalk to assess the suits for any repairs they would be needing.  “You two better go with him, he'll make sure you two know how to look at the computer data.  I'll work on some but Heero's a better teacher than me.”

The two kids immediately followed Heero up, when they had gotten up there he had already hooked a laptop up to the first mobile suit.  “Alright, this will be, and forgive my phrasing, a crash course in maintaining the suits and how to diagnose problems.”

Heero walked them through the diagnostics and started to create a list of repairs that would need to be done to get his particular suit ready for combat.  Once he finished with that he gave Jeff and Jesse their own computers and assigned them suits to work on running diagnostics on.  The boys were working on neighboring suits while  the two former Gundam pilots worked on repairs they would need to do. Jeff was enjoying getting to see into the system's software, he had heard rumors of the Zero system that was put into the Wing Zero and Tallgeese.  That not only did his father pilot it but that Olivia's father had also.  History had glossed over Quatre's destruction of colonies under that system, but he knew Quatre had played a huge role in how the pilots worked with each other and helped lead them to victory.

Jeff made his notes, but Jesse was cursing quietly to himself.  Jeff got up from his work and walked over to the cowboy.  “You having trouble there?”

Jesse let out an exasperated sigh, took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair.  “That obvious, ain't it?”

“No shame in it, we can't all be demi-gods of computers.”  Jeff winked at him.

“Well ain't you humble.”  

“The most humble.”  Jeff grinned and started to look over the computer.  His fingers danced across the keyboard as he worked through the same process he had with his own mobile suit.  He explained his process to Jesse who seemed to be a bit lost.  

The pair of them worked through the problems with the suit and Jeff helped Jesse compile a list of things that would need to be fixed up before they could take the suit out to practice in.  Jesse seemed to have a better handle on things before they split up to do final diagnostics on the mobile suits.

“What do you think?  Think we'll be able to experience our first combat in these?”  Jesse asked eagerly.  

Jeff looked over at the cowboy.  “I mean I'd hope so, but that depends on how things go over the next couple days.  I mean I get why they're cautious with us. Besides I don't-”

“This all seems a bit like a boys club.”  A female voice spoke up and the pair of them looked up at Feng.  “I'd much rather have fun doing this than watching the fun through a scope a safe distance away.”

“Yeah but that's an important job.”  Jeff insisted.

“Sure is champ, you're biting at the bit just as much as discount John Wayne here.”  Feng said Jesse flipped her off and she blew him a kiss.  “Teach me.”

“I don't know, I-”  Jeff was cut off again.

“That wasn't a request.”  Feng crossed her arms over her chest.

“Fine.”  Jeff said as he grabbed his laptop and walked with Feng to a different mobile suit and the started to work through the diagnostics.  She was having a much easier time than Jesse in picking it up, it was almost like she had done this before.

Heero and Duo watched from the mobile suits they were working on and watched as all the children worked on theirs.  They seemed a bit surprised that Feng was going to work on her own.  Duo chuckled a bit, “I wondered when she'd throw her hat in the ring.  Given how she's done in the simulations I thought she'd keep to her own task during the mission.”

Heero tilted his head a little, “Should we be surprised?  She's as stubborn as her father.”

“You ain't wrong there.”  Duo said, “It'll be interesting to see how they do in actual mobile suits as opposed to the simulations.  I think Feng might be the most promising, she has a really good eye for things, I think that gives her a bit of an advantage.”

Heero shrugged a bit, “Maybe.  But I think you may be right.”

~

Carol still felt like she was having a hard time connecting with Hilde, she knew why she would be unlikely to take her in as her own daughter.  Carol was a reminder of Duo finding another woman, a reminder of a dark spot in their marriage, a part of their life that she would sooner forget than embrace.  The young woman decided to seek out Hilde to maybe smooth over at least some of the awkwardness.

Hilde was in the library, she was pouring over a history book.  There was a picture of the five Gundam pilots not long after the war Mariemara tried to start.  They were so young in that photo, Duo and Quatre grinning widely for the photo.  Hilde sighed and let out a startled gasp when she noticed Carol watching her. 

“I'm sorry!”  Carol quickly apologized, her nerves lighting up with anxiety.

“No, no, no, you're fine.  Just startled me.”  Hilde said, a small smile spreading over her face.

Carol bit her lip and tried to think things over, how to proceed.  “Have I done anything wrong?”

It was at that moment that Hilde really looked at the young woman.  She had some of Duo's features and his eyes.  Carol certainly had the same round cheeks that Duo had at her age before he fully grew into his adult shape.  “No, you haven't.  It's nothing that you've done, it's just things that I need to come to terms with.  The fault lies with Duo and I hadn't realized I had been treating you poorly.”

Carol bit her lip and sat down next to her.  “I... I wish I could fix it...”

Hilde placed a hand on Carol's arm.  “You had no control of who you were born to or the circumstances around that.  You're here and there's nothing that will change it.  You'll be a part of my life as much as I will be a part of yours.  You deserve to feel as much love and acceptance, especially given the circumstances.  I'm so sorry about your mother.”

The young woman felt her eyes water, the thought of her mother's final moments still haunted her.  “Thank you...”  She whimpered.

“Come here, dear.”  Hilde said as she pulled the young woman into her embrace and held her close.  “It's alright.”  Carol buried her face into Hilde's shoulder and cried, Hilde gently rubbed her back while she cried.  

When Carol pulled back, Hilde wiped the tears from her face.  “Here, blow your nose.”  As she handed Carol a tissue, which she immediately used.  “Would you like to tell me about your mother?”

Carol's eyes sparkled a bit, tears threatened to spill again, but she nodded.  “Of course.”

The young woman talked about her family, her mother before the cancer tore pieces off of her slowly.  Carol brushed over the sadder parts and focused more on the good family time they had.  How her mother provided a good life for the pair of them.  “She always had the best advice, but one of the ways we would bond together is we'd cook together.  I had always wanted to be a part of everything that she was doing and when I had gotten in the way in the kitchen for the last time, rather than kick me out she started teaching me.  When she got sick I was grateful for her teaching me because I could take care of her now.”

“That's good that she taught you.  I will say my cooking skills were always lacking, I'm sure your father can tell you about the number of pans I ruined trying to cook for us.”  Hilde said with a chuckle.  “Tell you what, next time you cook I want to help you out, maybe I'll learn a thing or two.”

Carol's face brightened at the thought of them bonding, “I would be more than happy to show you some things.”  Then excitement took over her face, “I know!  I'll show you how to cook one of my favorite dishes and when dad and the others get back we can have a good home cooked meal for them!”

“That sounds like a brilliant plan.”  Hilde smiled at her, “I'll try and be a good student then.”

Helen had been watching the exchange and it was then she realized why Hilde had almost been cold towards Carol since she arrived.  But to see them warming up to each other brought her some comfort.

~

Joel and Olivia arrived at the Peaceful Finality outpost, Olivia could feel butterflies in her stomach.  Joel had reminded her about the best way for them to accomplish their task was to know they belong there and they would go unnoticed.  The base was full of so many different people, this plan was going to go well.  They began their walking tour, taking mental notes of structures and how people were housed.  

“I wonder how their food is compared to ours.”  Joel pondered out loud.  “Besides, maybe we can overhear some things too.”

Olivia smiled a bit, “You’re right.  I think I wanna get a better feel for the layout.”

The pair of them moved through the halls, different uniforms indicating different rankings.  The halls were painted a light blue color with white tiles and white ceilings.  Art decorated the walls to bring more cheer to the halls and that was just scratching the surface.  The rec room was the first room they had come across, some were playing at a foosball table, others were playing cards, some were playing video games together, but overall the room is happy.  The chatter that was about the room was just all pleasure rather than business.

“I know that Feng would demolish them at that game.”  Joel pointed out, a grin crossing his face.

“Oh easily.  Hell, Jeff on a bad day could do that.”  Olivia said as the pair of them moved on.

Joel glanced around, taking in his environment, it was certainly interesting how the layout was, it was almost like everything was blocked out, like it was prebuilt and simply planted where it was convenient.  “This has to be a newer facility, the paint smell is stronger in this section.”

“You’re right, maybe quick expansions to better serve the colonies?”  Olivia suggested.

“This one hadn’t been experiencing issues all that long before this place was set up.”  Joel said, “C’mon, let’s find the server room.  I’d rather get out of here sooner rather than later.”

“What’s going on?”

Joel rolled his shoulders a little bit, “I don’t know, I just have a really bad feeling all of a sudden.”

They wound their way through the halls, while they weren’t running they were moving to not draw suspicion to them as well.  It seemed they were getting close to their destination, their badge letting them into areas that were a bit more secure than the last.  The crowds were thinning down and that’s when an announcement came over the speakers.

“If I could have everyone’s attention, we’ve been gifted with a surprise visit from one of the leaders of our great organization.  He would like to speak with everyone, please assemble in the auditorium immediately.  That is all.”

Joel tilted his head at the announcement and then looked over at Olivia. “Sounds like we’ll have the run of the place.”

The pair of them moved through the halls and they spotted their target: the server room.  Just as they were about to scan the badge to get in, a voice spoke up not too far from them.

“Didn’t you guys hear?  Assembly time, probably going to waste our time with something that could’ve been in an email I suspect.”  A man spoke up.  When they turned they got a good look at him, he couldn’t have been much older than both of them.  He had a bit more muscle on him, fiery red hair, face splashed with freckles and almost a devil may care smile on his face.

“Oh right, I thought I’d be able to finish up checking the servers before we headed down there.”  Oliva spoke up quickly, a small smile on her lips.

“I’m sure it won’t take long. Server room will still be there, c’mon, I know a good spot to sit if we hurry.”  The man started walking with them.  “I don’t recognize you two, transfers?  We’ve had a load of them recently.”

“Yeah!  First day actually.”  Olivia smiled, Joel followed them just slightly behind, the small movements of his face was all Olivia needed to know he wasn’t doing alright.

“Well, name’s Seth Leblanc.”  He drawled out, a Louisiana twang peeking through his voice.

“I’m Olivia Benson and this tall, dark and handsome is Joel Miller.”  She smiled, using part of her real name would make the lie easier to keep.

“Pleasure to meet you both.”  Seth smiled at them as they walked towards the auditorium.

“How long have you been with the Peaceful Finality?”  Olivia asked curiously, her eyes watching him as they walked.

“About two years now, given all the stuff happening to the outer colonies… I…”  He paused for a moment looking at Olivia and he bit his lip briefly.  “I wanted to do some good, and it’s been good work so far.  How long have you two been with the organization?”

“I’ve been in for about four months, Joel about two months.  We wanted to make a difference too, even if it was a small one.”

“Well, certainly in the right place to do so.”  He smiled at her, his eyes closely examining her.  Something about that look seemed to be taking in every bit of her.

The three of them arrived and as promised Seth had gotten them good seats, they had a great view of the stage.  The podium was set up with a microphone, the crowd murmured amongst themselves as they waited for things to begin.  It wasn’t long before a man crossed the stage and took his position at the podium.

“Thank you all for gathering on such short notice, we won’t keep you from your important work for very long.  I’ll be brief, Tobias Krugle has come down personally to speak with you all.  Please welcome him and listen well.”  The man then stepped away from the podium and then another man walked out.

He was wearing a black trench coat, shaggy dark hair was combed as neat as he seemed to care to.  Those piercing eyes seemed to look directly at them, Olivia had a small bit of fear in her gut that he would pick her and Joel out of the crowd, that their ruse would be discovered.

“I only had seen pictures of him, I wonder why he’s coming here of all places.”  Seth whispered to Olivia, “Must be something big on the horizon.”

“Thank you all for your hospitality on such short notice.”  Tobias spoke into the microphone  “I know that I may oversee so many of you, those who would do nothing but to see the end of the suffering experienced by so many at the hands of terrorists.  The work that is being done here has been moving mountains and I wanted to come here to personally thank you all.  With your hard work we’ve not only helped get supplies to those who have been neglected by the rest, but you all have brought a large number of these terrorists to justice.  Doing so you have brought a great deal of peace to those who have only been experiencing chaos.”

Tobias paused for a moment, “I have awards I would like to hand out personally to those who have made the biggest contributions.  When I call your name please come to the stage where you’ll be presented with a medal and we’ll tell the others your accomplishments.  We hope this will inspire the rest of you to work harder to finally put an end to the misery that has been unjustly placed on the innocent.”

There was the beginning of names being called, each one of them looking proud as they walked up on stage.  Each one of them shook Tobias’ hand and posed for a photograph.  Each one of them had their deeds listed for bravery, for cleverness, for innovation.  They all lined up there as more names were called.

“Seth LeBlanc.”  Tobias read off, the young man’s face looked a little surprised as he obediently stood up and went towards the front of the auditorium.  His head held high, Olivia shifted uncomfortably as she could almost feel Tobias’ eyes on the pair of them.  Her contacts were itching her, she knew she was being paranoid but Joel looked a little unsettled too.  But those eyes followed Seth away from the both of them.

“Mr. LeBlanc has been on the forefront of leading his unit to not only twenty arrests, but he did so while keeping the lives of those under his command intact.  Not so much as a scrape while they were out in the field.  We should all strive to have such an indomitable spirit!  I look forward to seeing where you go.”  The pair posed for a photo and Seth joined the rest of the people.

A few more were called forward Tobias smiled, “Let’s give them all a round of applause.  These are the best and brightest amongst you here.  I hope that even more of you will be standing up on this stage soon, thank you all for your time.  Please go back to your life saving and difference making.”

People started to filter out and that was when Olivia and Joel slipped out before Seth could make his way back to them.  They needed to get back on track and plant the bugs to track what they were doing.  They had already risked too much by talking with Seth at all, but it was the only way.  While the crowd dispersed they were able blend into the others, into the server room they slipped.  

It was an almost cold room to keep the servers running.  They quickly found what they were looking for and implanted the bug, it wouldn’t be noticed as it ran along the programming.  They slipped out of the building fortunately without running into Seth for a second time. 

~

Jesse and Jeff each rolled up to their meeting point on a motorcycle.  Jeff adjusted his helmet but lifted the visor for now and touched the talk button on the outside.  “We’re in position, ready when you are.”

“Heard.  Moving in five.”  Heero responded.

Jeff glanced and saw Jesse was cracking each of his knuckles, even with the visor down he knew that he was nervous.  It was the first time this felt dangerous, even more so when they rescued Carol and Helen from where they were captured.  “You alright man?”

The cowboy straightened up, “Yeah, I’m fine.  Just going over the plan in my head again just to make sure that this’ll go smoothly.”

“Hey, this will just be a walk in the park, between the others distracting them and my red herrings on the other side of the building we’ll get the information we need.  I’m sure we’ll figure out who’s directing them.”  Jeff smiled lopsidedly.

Jesse chuckled a bit, “Hey, nothing wrong with making sure I got the plan down pat.”  He watched as Jeff pressed the screen on wrist to make sure everything was ready to go.  They both looked up when they heard the whirring of the Mobile Suits moving into position, chaos at the base erupted as they began their assault.

“Yippie-ki-yay motherfuckers.”  Jesse said Jeff didn’t need to see his face to know that he was grinning, Jeff flipped down his visor and the pair of them made their way into the base.

~

The three of them moved into position to drop down on the opposite side of the base.  “Remember, we’re just the distraction and we’re going to cripple their offensive abilities too.  We have the weapons depot as a target as well as any vehicles.  I’ve marked on the map where Jeff and Jesse will be, avoid that area at all costs, if we can take out any mobile suits that they have it would be even better.”  Heero said as they swooped in and landed, thankful they had put their outpost well outside any city.

“You got it!”  Feng said enthusiastically and they went to work destroying what they came to do.  The weapons depot went up in a large fireball before they started to work on the vehicles.  People started to rally and fight back against the suits.  Bullets weren’t doing much of anything, but then Feng’s mobile suit was hit by a rocket.  She grunted as she was knocked back by the explosion but quickly regained her balance.

“You alright kid?” Duo asked over the comms.

“Fine.”  She said as she got her suit back under control and returned fire.  She quietly prayed that the others on the ground were doing okay.

~

“Damn, they’re really fucking things up.”  Jeff said in awe as they moved through the base.  The pair of them stopped at a panel and he went to work triggering red herrings on the other side of the base from where they would be.  “C’mon, gotta keep moving.”

The pair of them kept their rifles at the ready as they moved through the halls, Jeff leading the way with the map on his wrist.  They heard the sounds of running boots in the hall ahead and the pair of them slid into a door frame.  Fortunately they didn’t get spotted.  “How much further?”  Jesse asked.

“Just a few more turns.”  Jeff said and then they moved out when the coast was clear.

They reached the server room and Jeff connected to the panel and began working on getting it unlocked.  Jesse kept a watch out for anyone coming, there was the beep and the door slid open and the pair of them slipped in.  Jeff pulled a cable out of his and started to transfer the data to the cloud server.  Jeff anxiously watched the progress bar as it crept up.

There were more footsteps outside the door and they quickly faded away as they moved down the hall.  Jesse adjusted his rifle as he anxiously watched the door, his eyes glancing down to Jeff’s wrist to see how far it had come.  It was about 25% done, all they could do is quietly wait and make sure that they weren’t interrupted.

~

On the outside they were taking some hits but it wasn’t anything that their mobile suits wouldn’t protect them from.It was going a little too well for Feng’s taste.  It was then the ground rumbled and that was when another mobile suit came up, but the other one didn’t match.

“Shit.”  Duo cursed over the comms.

“Is that a Gundam?!”  Feng cried out, her belly turned into knots.  “What do we do?”

“I’ll keep it busy, we don’t have the firepower to take it out.  You two focus on the mobile suit, take it out first.”  Heero instructed and the pair of them did as they were told.

Heero drew the beam saber he had and engaged in the fight with the Gundam.  Even with his skill it would be a tough fight considering a Mobile suit wasn’t an ideal match up.  Feng and Duo went to work on the mobile suit.  Despite Heero’s distraction it seemed to already pick up on Feng being the weakest link, it disengaged from Heero and flew at Feng knocking her suit to the ground.

Duo engaged with it to give her a chance to to get back up, Heero peeled the Gundam’s attention but the mobile suit took a chance to get some shots in.  “Feng, you need to handle the mobile suit on your own, it’s going to take both of us to keep the Gundam off of you.”

Feng grunted, “Alright.” And she got her suit back to its feet and engaged with the enemy.  She was at least mostly holding her own while the other two were able to keep the Gundam away from Feng.

~

Jesse let out a small sigh of relief as they finished up getting the data that they needed.  Then Jeff seemed to be punching in something else.  “What are you doing?”

“Giving them a little virus to further throw things off and make things a bit harder for them to recover from this.”  Jeff said confidently.  

“We got the time for this?”

“Yeah, just another second.”  There was a brief pause and then he unhooked his cord.  “We have to run though, they’re going to figure out that someone messed with their system.”

The pair of them moved out into the hall and started weaving their way back to their escape.  They were in the home stretch when they heard shouting behind them, gunfire soon followed and they pulled into a doorway to get cover.

“Shit.  How far is the exit?”  Jesse asked.

“Just around the corner.  Once we get to our bikes we’ll let them know we’re out.”  Jeff looked at his wrist once more.

“Alright, on the count of three I’ll lay down suppressive fire and we’ll make a run for it.”  Jesse instructed.  “One.. Two… Three!”  Jesse had already set his rifle to where he wanted to aim, as soon as he was around he started firing as Jeff moved forward and Jesse moved quickly backwards.  They got brave and started firing back, it seemed like it was too late before the pair of them were out and on their bikes.  “We’re out!”  Jesse informed the others.

~

“We’re out!”  Jesse’s voice came over the comms.

“Duo, I’ll get it’s attention, you come from the back and take out the fuel line to the jet boots.  We need to make a clean getaway. Feng, do the same to the mobile suit, we’ll get loose once we do that.”

They followed their instructions and then they took off and escaped, they weren’t going to be followed today.

~

Jesse and Jeff reached the transport vehicle and put the motorcycles onto the shuttle.  It was quick work to get them secured again.  Jesse took off his helmet and let out a sigh of relief.  That was when he felt a tightness in his chest and a pain in his arm.  The bullet proof vest had saved his chest but his arm had been hit, with the adrenaline he hadn’t even noticed it until now.

“Shit, I’m hit.”  Jesse said with a small chuckle.

“Hold still.”  Jeff immediately took off his belt and looped it around Jesse’s bicep and pulled it tight, ignoring any of the noises Jesse made in discomfort.  “Good news, I see the exit on the back, I’ll get the wound packed to keep you from bleeding everywhere until we get back to base.”

“Are you okay?”  Jesse said through gritted teeth when Jeff got back with the first aid and started to bandage the wound.

“Hey, I had a human shield, I’m just fine.”  As he packed the wound with a smile.

“You prick.”  Jesse hissed as the pain flooded through his arm.

“You’re fine you baby.”  Jeff grinned at him.

“Next time I’ll let you get shot next time.”  Jesse groaned again.

“It’s good for now.”

It wasn’t long before the others met up with them and then loaded up their suits and headed back to the base.  They certainly were scolded for taking such a risk in getting shot at, but they were grateful they were alive.

~

After depositing the mobile suits back in Antarctica for repairs they got Jesse’s wounds properly tended to before heading back to the base.  Jesse was a little loopy from the pain medication that they had given him while they worked on him and fortunately had fallen asleep on the way back to the base.  Feng had been incredibly thrilled by all that happened.  When they got back they all were greeted by a welcome back party.  Apparently Olivia and Joel had gotten back from their own mission not too long ago.  

They all were sitting down and eating when Duo spoke up, “Carol you’ve outdone yourself this time! This is amazing!”

“Actually, I didn’t cook it at all.”  Carol said brightly.

“Then who did?”

“I did!” Hilde grinned victoriously.

Duo looked a bit surprised, “How!  In all the time we’ve been together you’ve never cooked anything like this.  Actually last time you burnt pasta while boiling it…”

Hilde narrowed her eyes, “Carol has been a great teacher.”

Noin stood up from her spot at the table.  “I’d like to take a moment to raise a toast to both groups.  You’ve provided us with so much information on both of your missions.  It’s going to take a little while to comb through but I dare say we’ll have everything we need going forward.  The news of the terrorists having their hands on a Gundam is concerning.  Hopefully our information will reveal if there are any more Gundams lurking around that we don’t know about.”

After everyone had eaten and things were cleaned up people started to break into smaller groups to chat with one another.

Joel pulled Jesse aside to talk to him about their missions, “How’d yours go?”

Jesse shrugged, “It went alright, pretty successful.  Did get shot though but otherwise unscathed.  How’d yours go?”

“You got shot?!  How? It was supposed to be an easy in and out for you two.”  Joel looked a little worried at his brother.

“It was but sometimes you can’t plan for everything.”  Jesse was a bit too nonchalant about the whole thing for Joel’s taste.  “You didn’t answer my question.”

Joel swallowed his worry for now, “It was alright, though it was a bit tense when one of the leaders called an assembly for the base so one of the leaders of the Peaceful Finality had come to give awards.  That was the most boring part of it but we were able to finish what we came there to do and got out with no problems.”

“Which leader showed up?”

“Tobias Krugle.”  

Jesse lightly scratched at his chin, “Interesting…”

While everyone was mingling and talking with one another, Carol took note of Flynn.  He was standing by himself texting on his phone looking rather concerned with what he was doing.    The younger Chang tucked his phone in his pocket, glancing around and then slipped out the door thinking no one had noticed.  Carol bit her lip and excused herself under the guise of having to use the restroom.

Carol quietly followed Flynn, he was preoccupied and didn’t notice her following him at all.

[Author's note!]

Thank you all again for your continued support in my endeavor!  I can't wait to see what y'all think as the story starts to build towards in conclusion.  See you all next week!

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