Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Cult Characteristic ❯ Chapter 21 ( Chapter 21 )

Notes: forgot one! Special thanks must also go to Goldenrat, who while completely confused most of the time, still comes back for more.

TWENTY-ONE

Wufei sat in shock as he watched the ambulance creep away, quiet and morose. Senator Randolph Devourjac had died twenty minutes after being shot in the chest. He had never made it out of the Chapel. Not that Wufei was sorry he had died. Wufei was just upset the mission had been flawed. All should have gone right and had not. It was not a good sign.

Preventers were already working hard on clean up, arresting all those involved and hauling them down to the lock ups in the main building. Une was moving through the ruin of the Chapel, hair still up, ordering her men as surely as she had over a year ago. No one dares gainsay a word she said and Wufei could not blame them. It was almost funny to watch them move around her, hoping she would not notice them. Little chance of that.

Wufei was startled from his new occupation of Une-watching when his phone rang. Reaching down to his hip, he drew the small device from beside his firearm and answered, eyes already seeking Une out among the crowd once again.

"Hello?"

"Mr.Chang?" Wufei's attention was won. What was Fiona's doing calling him for? Surely he new of the situation; it was all over the news!

"They came to the house and took Fiona."

Wufei's blood turned cold, moving sluggishly to his heart. It couldn't be…

"How many, how long ago and did you see which way they went?" Reflex kicked in. This was a case and he would treat it like any other case. There could be no room for mistakes.

"Five, I think. They left about ten minutes ago. I didn't know who else to call. I don't know where they went. They were in a black van, no plates."

Wufei was nodding, already walking toward the massive Gundam still leaning over the Chapel wall.

"I'll find her," Wufei said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. Considering his mood, he wasn't confident it was. More like cold blooded stalker killer, but it would do. He hung up the phone and only barely heard Fiona's father reply with a faint `I know' in a reassuring yet strangely accepting tone. What that tone of voice was for Wufei had no idea. He put it down to shock and fear.

The Gundam's hatch was open when Wufei caught the rope lift up to the cockpit. It was dark within, lights dimmed, only a smidgen of sunlight making it within. That, at least, told Wufei how Duo had managed to see, but it did not explain how either Duo or Heero were able to even sit up on their own, let alone walk around. They looked half dead, but when he thought about it they had had similar injuries before. Heero in particular, had had far worse.

Heero and Duo, excluded from duty for as long as Une cared to make them sit around doing nothing due to their injuries, were huddled together on the pilot's seat, talking in soft tones Wufei really didn't want to interrupt. But this wasn't about what Wufei wanted, of which he was very much aware, and a moment later Wufei was opening his mouth, the words tumbling out before he could think of a better way to phrase them.

"They have Fiona."

"Shit!" Heero exclaimed loudly. Duo didn't even seem to blink, arms snaking out, hands flickering above the consoles of the Gundam, bringing the screens to life and booting up the internal computer. A map of the city appeared on the screen, along with a small green dot.

"Now she's found," Duo said softly, turning to face Wufei's accusing glare.

"You tagged her? She is not our enemy Duo Maxwell! You had no right!"

Duo didn't flinch, didn't react in any way. His completely lack of emotion, in fact, was what made Wufei pause and consider what he was doing. He was yelling at Duo. Yelling at his friend. Yelling at a man who had lived in hell for close to a year because everyone he loved hadn't bothered to find out where he was. He knew this emotion well; guilt. He bowed his head in disgust.

"Wufei," Duo said softly and he couldn't help but meet that unflinching gaze.

"They put me in a pit for eleven months. Alone with nothing to do except create this system for this gundam." Duo waved his hand over the console before them. "Every day they poured a few more barrels in, and at the end of the month they would toss in a body. Then they would flush the system and start again. I was the only thing that stayed. Then, in the ninth month, they tossed in the sacrifice, and it cried. They hadn't killed it and there was enough offal in the pit that the fall was broken."

Wufei swallowed dryly. That sacrifice had been Fiona. The only one to survive.

"I never told them she had lived. As long as they thought she was dead…" Duo's voice trailed off but they all knew what he was thinking. As long as they thought Fiona was dead, she could not be touched and Duo had a weapon. A weapon Wufei had no doubt he had used.

"They gave me everything I needed to create the system, just no fuel to fly it the hell out of there. Still, I managed to make a small chip and Fiona let me put it in her foot. I built this tracking device in case she got in trouble when I…I…" Duo shrugged, trying to get a clear story together for them. Trying, Wufei knew, to ignore the memories threatening to spill over. "I built a rope pulley system so I could lift her out of the pit, because she wasn't strong enough to pull me. At night she would go out and…I taught her to watch, to look at things, to remember details, to listen…Everything I could think of. She would run through the complex and tell me what she found. In time she gathered enough information for me tell her how to get out. I told her where to go when she escaped, who to see, what to say. Everything."

It took all Wufei's self control not to strike Maxwell. It wasn't that he blamed him, but he hated to think of Fiona crawling through that house, at risk every minute she was alone of being discovered and truly killed, tossed in a barrel…That Maxwell had risked her to do such a thing…And yet, without that reconnaissance Wufei had no doubt neither of them would ever have escaped. It was a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless.

"I know what you're thinking Wufei, but you're wrong. It seems evil to you, I know, but…She was thrown into the pit two weeks after she was kidnapped. You're supposed to spend a month there, repenting, before they throw your corpse in, but they were running out of street rats so they threw her in early. I don't know why she wasn't dead already. They usually slit their throats first…"

Such haunted eyes, it hurt Wufei to see them and he was not unaware of the way Heero's arms had snaked about Duo's waist and pulled him hard against his chest, even if Duo was.

"She was only with me for five weeks. Do you really think I could have taught her all that in five weeks Wufei? How long were we trained for? Think about it."

Wufei did, and he came up with the only logical conclusion; Duo was not the only one to have trained Fiona. But who…

"You don't survive long when you're that small unless you learn quick, and learn well. Fiona already knew how to run, her memory is flawless and she was already aware of most of the little things around her. I just…refined what was already there."

Wufei could read between the lines. He knew what Duo was trying to say. They run, they hide…What was it about the streets of L2 that produced such determined cold-blooded killers, and such searing, devoted hearts and souls to love? What was it about the streets of a penniless colony that such divine creatures were born of it?

"We'll get her back," Heero said stubbornly, looking from Wufei to Duo with that strange steely determination he had once approached mission's with. It made Wufei smile to see it and semblance of control was regained along with that small slither of hope. They would get her back.

Duo's attention snapped onto the screen. The small green dot had halted. All the colour drained from his already pale face and Wufei found himself reaching out, hand resting on his friend's shoulder. Heero was holding on so tight Wufei feared he would bruise the already injured young man.

They were going back…The green dot had stopped at the Cult House.

*

Dorothy Catalonia had not gone to help save the day with the Gundam, preferring to stay behind the scenes with Quatre as he escorted Miss Relena to her home for confinement until her trial. Seeing that she was not needed to actually guard Relena, Dorothy had moved straight to the Senator's office to begin the arduous task of searching for evidence as well as trying to get a clear picture of where Relena's affairs stood so they might stand a chance of getting them back in order.

It did not take Dorothy long to realise she had her work cut out for her. Relena was months behind on some of the most important reformations since the war's end; those alone would take Dorothy months to get on track once more and they weren't the only things begging for attention. A pile at her elbow slowly emerged as the top priority list; Dorothy intended to take it to parliament as soon as her initial look over the office was complete.

It was a very little known fact that Dorothy Catalonia was not all she appeared to be. After the war, homeless and devoid of a family, she had been taken into tutelage by a very unexpected saviour. Senator Garmen and his wife had offered her a home, a family; all the things she had lost. They had also offered her a place in the Preventers, as Une's right hand. Dorothy had accepted both offers and was promptly given her place in parliament as Une's spy. She was good at her work and more importantly she enjoyed it. Everything had gone well, until Relena sent her to L2 in the hopes of making her Senator Catalonia…Dorothy had not wanted that but both Garmen and Une had insisted she at least give the impression she intended to consider the job. So she had gone to L2…and the mission of her life began.

It only took a week for Dorothy to realise all was not right on L2, even more so than usual. The streets were rife with rumour and after her initial report Garmen and Une had agreed with her assessment it was too dangerous. Rosemary Devourjac had, in Dorothy's slender week absence, woven her way into Relena's confidence and was sent in her place. Dorothy had not really been insulted, but she had sensed ulterior motives and been searching for clues ever since.

Her first clue had been the sudden disappearance of Duo Maxwell. While no official missing persons report was filed, Une nonetheless had her searching. Dorothy never did find any clues on Maxwell, but she did manage to get contacts on L2 who reported the growing tale to her on a weekly basis. And so it was that Dorothy learnt of a Cult darker than any history had to offer, with the political ties to make it lethal indeed. She had just never assumed it would go so far, or for so long.

The scope of the Cult became truly apparent when she discovered the correspondence shared by Relena and Rose. It was obvious the two had at some point been lovers, or very close to it. Relena had wanted Heero and Rose had wanted acknowledgement from her father. Working together to achieve Randolph's goal would earn them both what they wanted, and clean up L2, getting rid of the earth sphere's largest thorn, all in one foul swoop.

It was from the correspondence that Dorothy discovered who exactly had saved the life of the small girl who had finally cracked the case. Rosemary had been rostered to find the monthly sacrifice, but the streets were too clean and she had resorted to kidnapping a `rehabilitated' child. The child had, apparently, managed to endear itself to Rose in the short time they were together and Rose had decided it would be a kinder mercy for her to drown than to have her throat slit. Drowning was, after all, the most painless way to die. All of this was dictated to Relena. Dorothy wondered how Relena had reacted to such news and decided she did not want to know. Better not to discover how far her Queen had fallen in the pursuit of her obsession.

Tired, weary, worn, Dorothy pulled out her phone and dialled Une. The phone barely had a chance to ring before Une's voice snapped at her from the other end.

"Where are you?"

"Relena's office."

"The Cult House. As soon as possible. Chang, Yuy and Maxwell are on their way in the gundam; Rosemary Devourjac has kidnapped Fiona."

Dorothy didn't bother to glare at the phone that beeped at `dead' signal at her, though she wanted to. Instead, she dialled Garmen even as she hacked further into Relena's email box, pulling up a new composition file.

"Dorothy?"

"Garmen, I need a helicopter to pick me up from Relena's right now. Make sure its armed."

"On its way. Be careful."

Another dead signal, not that Dorothy was paying any attention, focussed now completely on the screen and the words she was typing. Such a simple thing, and it might be of no use whatsoever. But then again, it might be…

A minute later Dorothy was leaping aboard a black special-ops helicopter equipped with more gear than even Heero Yuy would dream of, on her way to the Cult House, while at the house itself a pager blinked that a new message had arrived.

*

To: RDevourjac@Parliament.com

From: Relena@Parliament.com

Blonde birdie on its way to take chicken under its eternal wing.

R.

Rose smiled at the message and sat back on a high backed throne beside the pit to wait. Relena was sending her an assassin to take care of the brat; everything would be well. She nodded confirmation of the assassin to her brother and pulled on the leash around Fiona's neck, causing the girl to stumble at her feet. If she had her way, they would all be dead by morning and she could take over her Father's enterprise with Relena at her side. Nothing would stand against the Senators of earth and L2 and their brilliant peaceful society they would create.

She wondered who this blonde birdie was that Relena trusted them so implicitly…