Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Happy if Farfetched Ending for 13x5 ❯ (Epilogue) ( Epilogue )

Explaining to the Preventers Epilogue

Warnings: multiple pairings; shonen ai, violence. Some OOC for Treize, but all things considered, that's understandable.

Setting: Epilogue to Explaining to the Preventers; after Endless Waltz; Part of the Willing Slave universe, which will be apparent after the WS sequel.

Disclaimers: Gundam Wing characters belong to Mixx Entertainment, Koichi Tokita, the SOTSU Agency, Sunrise, Kodansha and anyone I may have forgotten, not to me. I make no money off of this.

A new moon and scattered clouds kept the warehouse district so dark even the silhouettes of the buildings were hard to make out. The five agents scattered through one building in particular kept to the darkest corners, despite being alone in the area.

A new voice crackled over their communications. "Sandrock, Angel, are you in place, over?"

Quatre pushed the heavy night vision goggles back into place and glanced over the expanse of glass that made up the dome ceiling and nodded at Heero, who nodded back. "We're ready, over."

"Dragon, Lion, are you in place, over?"

Wufei pressed the small hearing nodule in his ear and wished he could turn the volume up a little. "We are."

Sitting beside him on the second tier inside the warehouse, Trowa checked the safety and power levels on his firearm one last time. "Are the others all right?"

Wufei lowered his head so his voice wouldn't carry in the large room. "Are the others confirmed, over?"

Sitting behind the computer in the apartment, Treize clicked off two more points on the schematic in front of him. "Sandrock and Angel are, over." The contact broke off from Wufei and transferred to another receiver. "Shinigami, are you in place, over?"

On the ground floor, Duo hid behind a heavy metal crate and flattened himself against the surface. "Yup, I'm all set. Could you do something about the lights, though? It's too damn dark." He snuck a peek around the crate until he remembered. "Oh, right. Over."

A sigh, and Duo could hear the newest Preventer shaking his head.

"Not yet, Shini'." Treize put the finishing touches on his hack job, giving him complete access to the warehouse automatic functions, and brought the light command up. "I'm sticking to Angel's plan."

Duo grinned and looked down at his watch. Twenty more seconds before seven o'clock and all hell broke loose. "Aw, Thorn, you're so good with our code names--"

He stopped talking as the main door opened, and he looked around the corner of the crate to see several

men walking in, two carrying briefcases and the rest in typical thug attire of suits stretched across huge muscles. They looked around the room and then gathered around a single crate in the center of the room.

"They're early," Duo whispered, ducking back into the shadows behind his own crate. "But I can't see all of them."

Two channels of communication opened. "Dragon, can you see them?"

Wufei looked over the railing. "Yes, there are...fifteen, I think."

"Wing?"

"We've got visual." Heero released the safeties on his two desert eagles and left one in his holster. He looked up at Quatre, who nodded once. "We're ready."

"Hang on," Duo whispered. "Something's happening." He stood on his tiptoes and watched the two dealers open a laptop and bring something on screen. Duo squinted and stared at the image until he recognized the shape. "Oh geez, we were wrong..."

Treize readjusted his headset and opened another window on his computer screen. "Shini? What is it?"

"These aren't ordinary arms dealers," Duo said. "Those're tactical nukes."

"In the crates?"

"I think so." He switched his firearm from semi to automatic. "Boy, we got lucky. What a bust."

Heero tapped his communicator twice. "Shini, quiet. We attack in three, two, one--"

Treize flooded the warehouse with light. Glass from the dome exploded down, slashing the men's faces as they raised their heads, and Duo dived onto his side, firing at their legs.

Wufei and Trowa leaped down from the second tier, closing off the only escape route.

"Shini," Wufei called out, "stop firing at the nuclears."

A moment later, Duo stopped and stood. "Heh, sorry."

Quatre, sitting with Heero halfway along their rappelling ropes, counted the groaning, bleeding men on the floor. "Nine, ten, eleven...guys, we're missing two."

Duo brought his gun back up even while he looked over the wounded. "The dealers...where are they?"

They acted without any further communication. Trowa moved to the left, back into the spaces behind the crates, while Wufei worked through the right. Duo hung back, gun out, waiting for his comrades to flush the prey out into the open. Above them, Heero released the clip on his rope and slid down the rest of the way to the floor. He leaned over the laptop and read the pop up windows on the screen.

Still hanging on his rope, Quatre used his vantage point to search for movement. Wufei was visible, as were Trowa's long bangs behind a few small crates. The room was so large, though, even with the boxes of nuclear arms filling it. He heard something squeak to his right, and he swung his weight around. One of the dealers already had his gun up, looking down the sight at Quatre's face.

Quatre ducked before the man even squeezed the trigger, bending backward on the rope like Trowa had showed him. He felt the heat of the bullet pass over his cheek and disappear, and when he can back around, he fired his own round. He heard more than saw his target slam back into the wall and slide to the iron grating floor.

Another shot echoed through the warehouse, and Quatre looked down behind himself, ignoring Duo's laughs at how ridiculous he looked hanging upside down. Behind them, Wufei waved from on top of one of the largest crates.

"Got him," he said.

"How'd you get up there?" Quatre asked.

Wufei jumped down and started dragging the unconscious man across the floor. "It wasn't easy. Barton?"

Trowa somersaulted over the few crates between him and Wufei and took one of the man's legs, helping pull him to the rest of the bodies.

"Is everyone all right?" Treize asked. "I've got an unidentified signal coming out of there."

"We've got a problem," Heero said. "One of them got a program out just before they ran."

"Program for what?" Duo asked, looking over his shoulder.

Treize pulled up two of his own programs. "Let me guess. A run command."

Heero nodded. "Exactly."

Quatre finished sliding down and walked over while he worked on undoing the clip holding him to the rope. "A run command?"

"It's a little warning telling everyone who gets it to run and hide." Heero slammed his fist on the crate. "By the time we track it, the entire network'll disappear."

Wufei crossed the floor, wincing at the amount of blood getting on his shoes. "Thorn, can you do anything on your end?"

"Hang on," Treize said. "It still hasn't divided..." He flew through the network route, following the program as it sent itself to a central mainframe. Just before it reached its target, he slid in his first program. He waited, then laughed. "Got it. I snagged it on a loop. It still thinks it's on the right track."

Heero closed the window holding the nuclear schematics and rooted through the hard drive until he found the most recent command and deleted it. "I've cut it off from here. Can you kill the part still going?"

Treize checked the properties and sighed. "No way. It'll consider any alteration as an attack and divide itself and run out. I don't think my loop can hold that many messages."

Heero accessed his own computer through the laptop's internet connection and brought up a list of files. "Then let's see if we can follow all those messages."

"Virus?"

"Mm."

"I'll call Wind and Fire. Any suggestions where to concentrate?"

Heero picked a few choice viruses, smiling at one in particular, and sent them to Treize. "Tell them to keep to eastern China and lower Russia. At least those're the dialects the files are in."

Treize chuckled when he saw the viruses Heero had sent him. "Ah, the Braid special..."

Duo blinked. "Huh?" He leaned on Heero's shoulder and squawked when his lover closed the window. "What's the Braid special?"

"Just a virus I named after you."

Quatre frowned at the stubborn clip, still trying to pry the tight clamp from the rope. He felt the line go taut suddenly and he was pulled backward too fast to turn around. Whoever was pulling tossed the excess rope in loops around Quatre's arms and tightened them, so that when Quatre finally stumbled into his captor's arms, he couldn't move. Trowa smiled and hugged his love from behind, stealing a kiss.

"You had me worried up there," he whispered.

Quatre smiled. "The bullet didn't even graze me." He squirmed, but Trowa was stronger. "Let me go. We're still on a mission."

Trowa shook his head. "Hee--Angel and Thorn seem to have this all wrapped up. I'll think I'll take you home like this."

Quatre blushed bright pink as his rope was made into a leash. "Trowa!"

Treize turned off the communication channels to Quatre and Trowa, then sent off the run command with the virus playing piggyback.

*

Thousands of miles away on earth's surface, Zechs and Noin each sat inside a Preventer mobile suit, flanked by their own troops. Zechs leaned back in his seat and stared at the miniature viewscreen nested within the main screen. "Any activity on your end yet?"

Noin shook her head. "Nope. The architecture's nice, though. Looks like Hershey's kisses."

Miles away, Zechs smiled. "Not here. Just a lot of junks and low houses."

"At least you got the Chinese harbor to look at,"she said. "It's only a lot of snow and ice up here."

"And Hershey's kisses."

Noin smirked. "Yeah." She checked the screen again. Even though the virus was moving, it still hadn't reached its destination. "I can't believe anyone has connections this slow anymore."

"Thorn said that's why he was able to catch it so easily. Otherwise he might have missed it."

"He'd have found something else," she said. "Hey, Wind."

"Yes?"

"Is Thorn really all that different as I've heard?"

Zechs smiled. "Sandrock?"

"You know he can't keep a secret from friends. So spill."

"He's not the same, no. He's a lot less self-assured."

"Sandrock said he was pretty shy now."

"Mm-hmm. He won't do anything without Dragon's say so."

Noin laughed. "Must make poker night interesting."

"Actually, he usually ends up cleaning everyone out." His monitor beeped, and he sat straight. "Fire?"

"I see it, too. Good luck, love."

"You, too."

And holed up in their respective hideouts, two groups each received the distant communication and opened the files. First came the command to run and hide, but as soon as they had finished reading the messages, a new picture popped up and covered the screen, freezing the hard drive. The flashing graphic too interesting to pass up, the enemy held still in mute horror even while Preventer troops broke in and surrounded them.

A perfect scan of Duo's body, clothed in his black jacket and red shirt, began a little dance, wiggling his rear end at the viewers and flipping his braid back and forth. Of course, a neat hole had been digitally removed from the seat of his pants so his dance kept him mooning the audience.

*

"Heero, how could you?" Duo held up his new printout of one of the many stills from the Braid special. "I mean, showing me off to countless enemies like that."

Heero glared at Treize, his hands tightening around his mug. "You just had to show him."

"It wasn't by choice," Treize said. "He threatened to pluck all of my roses."

"Don't try foisting this off on him," Duo said. "You're the one who did this. Where the hell did you get a scan of me anyway?"

Wufei pulled a chair up beside Treize and sat beside him, leaning forward on the dining room table. "It's probably a composite of all the bedroom pictures he has of you."

Trowa put his arm around Quatre, still wrapped up, and put his mug of hot chocolate to his lips, letting him take a sip. "Sounds like a nice idea."

Heero smiled and patted Duo's paper rear end. "I think I'll have this framed."

"That is not going up in our apartment," Duo said.

"Not the apartment," Heero said, smiling even more. "Over my desk."

Duo blanched.

Treize reached around Wufei and opened a cabinet drawer, bringing out a deck of cards. "So, what's the game tonight?"

"Poker," Quatre said and he looked up at Trowa. "So untie me."

Trowa sighed but did so. On the other side of the table, though, Wufei took out a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on Treize's wrists, taking the cards out of his hands.

"Um, love?"

Wufei smiled as he shuffled. "I'm not letting you clean us out again. You're playing with a handicap."

Treize brought the metal up to his face and stared at the lock, then looked at Duo. "Could you?"

Duo grinned and pointed at his braid. "Sorry, Heero won't let me."

They all looked and saw that Heero had a firm grip on Duo's braid.

"All right," Wufei said, dealing the cards out. "House rules, one eyed jacks wild, no limits on bets."

"And the stakes?" Heero asked.

"One article of clothing," Quatre said with a big smile.

Everyone stared.

Treize lowered his head to his bound hands. "Oh, joy."

The End