Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The One-Eared Neko ❯ THE MONGREL ( Chapter 19 )

Part 19 THE MONGREL

"It is my most sincere wish that the criminal responsible for unhealthily influencing my foster brother and later attempting to assassinate my father will swiftly be brought to justice. We all can only hope that others of his people will not take his abominable actions as an example for all to follow. I know that violence is not what is wanted between both the human and Neko races, and perhaps, if this con artist and criminal is brought to justice, it will serve as a way of bringing light to what needs to change between us." A sweet smile sealed the deal for the mass of rabid press, almost rabbling amongst themselves as the sunny-faced daughter of Peacecraft ended the press session with a polite little bow and stepped elegantly down from the podium. And in her place, her steadfast publicist began taking whatever questions had not been answered and dealt with the more unruly of the reporters as Relena was escorted safely out of the building.

However angered she was Relena was also aware that in light of her father's attempted assassination she was also liable to be targeted and knew better than to stay in the open too long. So she quickly fell in line with her bodyguards aside of her and quickly left the conference room. She folded her hands in front of her, the picture of unflappable determination as she left in a simple white dress and pale blue jacket. Though she had hardly appeared before any type of press conference before this time, but it appeared that she had inherited some of her father's leading ability. While he was recovering in a very secure hospital room, she had taken over issuing statements on her father's health and the persecution of his would-be assassin.

As she passed through backstage, she glanced over to the guard who usually accompanied Heero when he was dragged along to their father's ceremonies and saw him scoping out the perimeter, charge-less.

Duo Maxwell, at the moment, was in the custody of the Cinq PD until the time that the Federal Government would take over in his trial. Because of the severity of his attempted crime and Peacecraft's immense visibility, not to mention all the other crimes that had been chasing him in the first place, there would be a trial commencing very shortly. There was definitely unabashed mention of his species also helping in setting an even sooner date, and there was a certain fearful animosity that Duo could see in the eye of every officer that he was handled by. They all wanted to execute him as soon as they could, because they were afraid of him. Everyone in the political and criminal world understood how long cases could stretch on, but this one would begin within the week.

Duo scoffed darkly to himself while he sat on the grimy floor of the holding cell they had given him and thought about all of it. They really didn't need a trial, when it came down to it. The judges and the jury would all sit and stare at him and see the unhuman creature that he rightly was 25% of, and then indict him for the death penalty. He was only about 75% human, and he doubted he would get 10% of the true justice he deserved and twice the spite. After all, they were pretty pissed that an 'animal' had been so expert at simply smiling them out their money. His testimony, if he was even allowed it, on the count of not being a legally registered citizen or even completely human, would probably be skimmed over as animalistic lies created to earn him a lighter sentence. It would pathetic ploy to save himself, anyway-no matter what, he knew whatever jury he could receive would have had already decided his fate, and the letters hadn't even been sent out.

While his mind could only fathom the prejudice with which he would shoved in to a proverbial guillotine, the one-eared Neko sat on the floor of his cell, cross-legged and adamantly silent. The bench had been removed, as well as the sink, for fear that Duo would again pull it effortlessly from the cement and chuck it at the bars, like he had done when he first reached the cell and had had a lot of unused energy and frustration to work off. For the longest time, there were two guards just past the bars, and another pair just past the security door that in order to reach the cells had to be unlocked three or four times. And the stood stone still, trying not to look at him and instead staring holes in to the wall above his head. Duo knew they were probably braver than most humans, for not constantly watching him with a distinct favor for their firearms at their hips, but they still smelled of fear.

He scented the air with a sniff and opened an eye quietly, looking at the back of the one to the right. As ridged and stoic as always, that cop. He remembered distinctly that he was the only one who had said his name as he had arrested him, and he was seemingly more honorable than the other few. In the sixteen hours he'd been in the cell, that particular officer had looked at him a few times and even kept the gaze, undaunted, when Duo had stared back.

There was a decent face on him that could hide whatever apprehension he did have, and Duo let out an internal smile. However it didn't last long because there was an opening of a door just past the barred security one. He didn't bother twisting his head to look. With all the bars obstructing it was hopeless to see until someone stood directly in front of his cell. Duo snorted silently to himself as the scent of three more officers wafted in, thinking how frightened everyone must be to have so many armed men for one seven-year old Neko-man.

He closed his eyes and continued to sit cross-legged as the new visitors came to a stop in front of his cell. Duo didn't need to use his vision to see all about them, his nose could tell more than his eyes ever could. There was a portly man before him, at the front of the formation, with all five guards that now stood before his cell at the end of the block around him. Older, and much less healthy. A distinct scent of cholesterol hung around him. And plastic. Duo scrunched up his face slightly, still with his eyes with the feline pupils closed. Where did the plastic come from?

"Hey, mongrel," the portly man called. "You've got a little present." When Duo didn't respond, he took whatever was plastic in his hand began tapping it on the metal bars that separated them. Obviously he wasn't too afraid of the half-Neko, or else he took power from other's weaknesses and felt like mocking the man in the cell, with his disheveled black clothes and tangled hair. "Wake up, I said that I brought you something nice."

"I remember you."

There was a sharp, fearful stepping-back from everyone, physical or mental or otherwise, as Duo's voice cut through the air suddenly. They were probably the first words he'd spoken in several hours. What a first. The round man who clutched a gray plastic container in his hand staggered back slightly, suddenly wanting to be away from the steel bars that held the criminal in. Duo could smell the high-blood pressure spiking and a sheen of sweat staring at his hairline.

"Marcus Otto," Duo said firmly. "A very close friend of the Peacecraft family, distinguished Cinq officer of thirteen years, married twice, first wife deceased because of a traffic accident, with a son in the service of the military. A son that served for many years under the Peacecraft's eldest son, who currently works overseas quieting coup d'états in foreign countries."

The man identified as Marcus Otto frowned heavily at the con man from behind the safety of reinforced steel.

"So, you know me," he ground out.

"Yeah, I recognize you," Duo replied succinctly, leaving a sinister air as he peeked open an eye and displayed a devilish smirk. "I've done a little of my homework." He was very pleased in having given the man a very substantial scare and fueling the sever expression he held as he snapped in reply.

"Well, obviously not well enough, otherwise you wouldn't have failed so miserably, would you? Officer Gradly of the FBI will becoming to speak with you tomorrow, and you'd better not have any shit for him like you did for us," Otto insulted darkly as he let the small, gray container drop from his palm to the floor, and then kicked it through the bars of Duo's empty holding cell. Skittering across the cement, it skidded to a stop a few inches in front of the sullen con man. "There, some nourishment for the beast."

As Otto and his guards turned and left, the metal locks clattering loudly, announcing their departure, Duo opened both of his cat-slit eyes and glared murderously at their backs as they disappeared. The other guards repositioned themselves to where they had been standing for the last eight-hour-long shift and stood silently, still burning holes into the wall above Duo's head. The one-eared Neko briefly looked them over for signs of a response, and grunted to himself when they didn't and leaned forward to take the gray food container. Duo remained cross-legged, almost as if meditating on his botched act of revenge, and warily pulled the lid off and smelled the contents before he could see them.

Duo looked down at what was in the plastic box and hitched his eyebrows together disapprovingly. "So, this is what the world thinks of me? A ravenous beast?" He lifted one of the items in his hand and gently stroked its leathery ear. "They really think I would eat a bunch of mice?"

The white lab mouse that he cradled in his palm sniffed fearlessly at his fingers with whiskers quivering. Duo was quite taken with the mouse's completely innocent blood red eyes and underneath his flat look there was affection glimmering through again. He pressed the first mouse gently to his chest as he reached out and took up the other one, slightly larger and equally curious as it investigated the folds in his knuckles. "Well, aren't you two just sickeningly adorable."

The mice sniffed in his direction and twisted their tails, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was one-quarter deadly feline. Utterly tamed, he thought. And when Duo's stomach let out a low rumble, he said, "And you're probably just as hungry as I am. How long did that man leave you in there, anyway? He didn't even give you any bedding for your feet in that box, or any water either. Man, he'll make a wonderful housewife someday." He put the mice he'd dubbed Chow and Mein back in the box and put the lid on gently before standing up.

The guards visibly stiffened as he went up to the bars and wrapped his hands around them at chest-level. "Would either of you two happen to have some candy or something on you? The mice are probably hungry and I want to feed them."

Lefty's face darkened, almost in disgust. Duo could hear his gun giving off tiny metallic sounds as he moved, very visibly uncomfortable. "You fattening them up just so you can have more to eat?" he accused quietly, his fear taking a backseat to his repugnance.

"Definitely not," Duo growled back, twisting his face up. "Would you want to eat them? No? Well, neither would I. I'm not some fucking housecat, you know, I'm not so different from you hienn as you'd like to think-"

"I've got a few saltine crackers from my lunch break."

The con man twisted his head towards the guard on the right, who had stepped forward instead of indefinitely backward and actually reached out a hand to the one-eared Neko, with crackers in hand. "I don't think it'll make them sick," he added quietly, as Duo's bright violet eyes raked over him approvingly.

"Thank you," he said genuinely, noting happily how the man didn't flinch when he took them from his hand and recoiled his arm back into the shadows behind the bars. He smiled brightly and lifted up the small packet. "The mice appreciate it, buddy."

"Yeah," Righty grunted in return, stepping back into his place and this time watching as Duo sat back down, opened the packet and continued in feeding his new fellow imprisoned creatures, talking to them as they nibbled and cleaned their white fur. The young guard felt his associate's sharp look on the side of his face, but didn't say a thing to him for the remainder of their shift.

At the same time, on the other side of the Cinq PD, one Heero Yuy was finally being released after apologizing quietly and paying for the damages he'd caused and escaping with little more than a slap on the wrist. After all, there were much bigger fish to fry that day than some delinquent, the Japanese man thought as he walked out into the sunlight toward the road, with police eyes on his back until he'd left the property.

---

"I'm not here to pistol whip what I want out of you, Mr. Maxwell, but I do need you to cooperate with us. That's the only way we can get anything accomplished."

"That's new-giving me a name. Usually people name strays cats something like Garfield. Or maybe even Snowball. D'ya think I'm special enough to be called Snowball?" Duo lilted sardonically, his smile practically dripping with resistance as it stretched slyly across his face, twisting the shadows on his face to look all the more sinister.

"Oh please, oh please, all this kitty-cat wants is a name to call his own. 'Oh Pussycat, oh Pussycat, I love you. Yes, I do-"

A fist slammed on the table separating interviewer and interviewee loudly. "Mr. Maxwell!"

"What's new, Pussycat? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa-"

Officer Gradly's severe frown lost all the sympathy it had struggled to keep and he felt the obligation to twist his arm back and promptly punch the absolutely irritating sarcasm from his very mouth, if he refused to cooperate. Duo grunted sharply as his head whipped to the side with a violent sound echoing through all of his skull and when it lolled back into place with his bloodied chin resting limply on his chest, he spat out the blood in his mouth and actually retained his silence for a second. That seemed to satisfy the normally-restrained officer, that his act of violence had truly been necessary to their operations, and began to order his staff standing in the shadows of the one-light interrogation room when there was a dark chuckle from the handcuffed criminal, slack on the chair. Turning a darkened face toward him, Officer Gradly was infuriated to hear Duo Maxwell's proud voice once again dripping with his relentless, tainted sarcasm as he sang.

"But the cat came back, the very next day…"

---

Whatever information they would have been able to squeeze from Duo Maxwell, like rummaging through haystacks that fought back in search of a few needles, about the money he'd skillfully whisked out from underneath countless hapless Americans and the things that just happened to stick to his fingers as he walked out the door, would have been useless anyway. In the first place, he had thrown away all but the most precious of his worldly possessions in preparation for his final act in life and all his stolen funds had found new homes in the donation boxes of churches across the nation. And in the second place, Heero Yuy had already found what was left of the grand criminal reign of Maxwell's Demon. While federal agents escorted a handcuffed man to a darkened interrogation room, the Japanese man strode resolutely toward the local impound with fifty crisp bills in his pocket.

Through the dense mesh fence and curls of barbed wire strung along the top, he could clearly see the white Isuzu as it waited silently, almost mourning the loss of it's reckless owner. There were even minute hints of a smirk as the young college student approached the gate, thumbing the denominations of money he now held. While the authorities scrambled to juice knowledge from a certain bohemian, he had been skimming through the all the towing agencies and impounds, while simultaneously dodging the authorities himself to keep himself out of his sister's sight. He'd found the white Isuzu before the Cinq police force could think to investigate it.

Heero approached the female officer at the impound booth and paid the fine. He had withdrawn the money from his college savings to pay for the Isuzu-it was the only account in which Relena's people wouldn't catch onto a withdrawal immediately. This way he had more time before the transaction could be tracked and his lead on Relena and the authority shortened. Heero snorted quietly to himself as he slowly approached the white truck, thinking the bohemian really had rubbed off on him, more than he would have imagined.

The door swung open with a dull metallic thunk and Heero stood motionless on the sparse grass, gazing deeply into the cabin with those pensive blue eyes of his. Sunlight spilled in and illuminated the steering wheel and driver's seat in a bright, innocent way. It lit up the bloodstains that had dripped from Duo's battered body and turned them a flat crimson color. It was like staring straight into a ghostly scene of the past, something that he knew logically had been destroyed but had survived in sentiment, and something subconscious drove Heero as he knocked the mud from his boots and stepped cautiously inside.

He moved inside silently, and sat down in the driver's seat in order to pull the door shut behind him. He felt surprisingly lightheaded as he glanced around with a bated breath, and let it out slowly as he felt all the strange memories of his time spent here come back to haunt him. There was still a large bloodstain on the seat from the night the bounty hunters Duo had had the decency to spare the lives of had caught up with him and beat him without remorse, even if they happened to kill him. The bloody knife he'd found lodged in his back had dripped a trail of crimson on the dashboard and later clattered to the floor and fused with the carpet. He was amazed that whoever had towed the truck hadn't taken notice to all the traces of blood and reported it. Unless Duo had dropped it off himself.

Which meant he had the intention of never needing it again.

A flicker of inspiration crossed the traveler's brooding blue eyes, and he quickly shifted to look into the sleeper compartment. Sure enough, lying on the cot was the bohemian's entire set of luggage, seemingly untouched from the last time he'd seen it. Most likely it hadn't been touched. All Duo had needed was a gun to carry out the violent justice he wanted to exact, and it was slowly coming together exactly what else he had planned.

Duo either knew that he inevitably was not going to be returning, or he didn't want to.

Heero felt his fists tightening up at his sides without his permission, but he knew that with the situation being what it was, he didn't have the time to be getting overly emotional when he had work to finish. He'd thought to hunt down the Isuzu only to find out what had happened to it, if it had fallen into the hands of the authorities, most importantly, then he realized that Duo had carried nothing with him when attempted to assassinate Senator Peacecraft, meaning he'd left it in the truck. It wasn't that he was trying to pry through Duo's possessions, he was working to make sure he'd be able to give it back to him soon.

The traveler leaned over the seat and hauled both bags of luggage back over and laid them beside him on the seat. Both were the standard black. One was roughly the size of a textbook, and the other was a full-sized luggage suitcase. He knew what was in the suitcase; he'd watched the bohemian packing away the gypsy costume what seemed like so long ago. Glancing through, he saw that he had a pile of other guises-many assorted uniforms and outfits, including a plaid boarding school skirt, knee-high socks and a cheerleading sweater. I'll have to ask about that later, he thought nervously to himself. Once he finished rummaging through the con man's many costumes, he curiously picked up the other bag. It was more of a duffel bag than anything, and it wasn't very full when Heero held it.

He opened it and poured out the contents onto the seat.

The items that spilled out all seemed to hold a tiny piece of the one-eared Neko's personality, all seemingly equally precious. There was the black-and-white lucky rabbit's foot he had bought for Duo, a tattered book of hymns, a spare clip, a string of what looked like the one-eared Neko's baby teeth, and a meter-long braid of hair tied off at both ends with little black ribbons.

---

"The trial date of the year has been shoved forward once again, as the Peacecraft family and the empire fueling it have requested that they be allowed to bring the criminal swiftly to justice for attempting to assassinate the head of the family, Senator Peacecraft. As you probably already know, the attempted assassination yesterday was carried out by Duo Maxwell, a young half-Nekonese man who had already had been on the country's most wanted list for quite some time for his numerous frauds and robberies, who is currently in the custody of the FBI. We were not granted an interview with any of the officers who were said to have been talking with Maxwell, but we are informed that he is not cooperating with the investigations of the authorities. We were told by our sources that not only will Maxwell be put on trial for his assassination attempt and multiple other crimes, but also that the courts have decided, in this situation, to strip him of constitutional rights, citing that Nekonese rights are not protected by the document. With the severity of his offenses and the threat of other similar acts of violence from Nekos spurred by his actions, the courts have decided that this is an urgent issue and in only three days the Peacecrafts and Maxwell will be testifying. His offenses have been reported in over eleven states, qualifying him for a federal trial and the death penalty-"

Heero stared, enraptured somberly with the image of the bohemian once again displayed in the corner of the screen, with a pen cap held between his lips and his notebook and newspapers spread out in an array of paper on the small hotel table. The television on the dresser had been turned to face him while he frenetically wrote and sometimes remembered to eat something. He paused in his scribbling and stared at the screen as the newscaster's face disappeared and instead there was a semi-blurry, half-gray video clip of Duo being escorted out of the police car into the station, only an hour or so after the botched assassination.

Heero felt his heart begin to crack again, watching the blurry profile of the bohemian glancing sullenly over his shoulder and looking straight into the camera for a moment. He could see straight through the mask of animosity and see the utter despair in his expression. He knew now that it had always been there, but the more he'd been around that false veneer, the more he knew it had been a trick to hide the massive weight on his shoulders, both from others and from himself. Heero resisted the urge to become lost in his thoughts, lost in those blurry eyes on the television screen, but his fist subconsciously tightened around the braid of hair he had taken from the Isuzu and laid across his knees while he wrote. He forced himself to refocus.

The story had shifted, and Heero used the remote to change from the metropolitan news to the national on CNBC, waiting again for the chance to see his sullen-faced bohemian. The entire time he'd been shacked up in the hotel room the television had flickered from news station to news station, hoping to glean even the smallest new bit of information that he could on Duo's state. There had been a few top-of-the-hour debates with the leading political analysts and the news hosts that had infuriated him and caused him to see red, but luckily, he had had the sense to simply change the channel before he did something drastic, like sending his foot through the screen.

He had been writing furiously almost the entire time as well. As soon as he had been allowed to check in, he had swept up the stairs with his own backpack filled with his and Duo's things. He unpacked carelessly on the hotel table, swiped the ashtray off the table single-handed as he shrugged off his jacket on the opposite shoulder, and made room to lay out his notebook and the multitude of newspapers he'd gathered last night. Splashed across every single front page, the media's new lawbreaking sweetheart, was the face of a one-eared Neko. Heero noted to himself that he must have been the first half-breed, let alone Nekonese, man to be pictured on the front of a human newspaper. In most of the pictures he still wore his concealing black baseball cap, and it took a little bit of sniffing into the first paragraph to disclose his species, but a few had managed to copy off the limited video they had of Duo post-assassination and his ikkunnoi was hazily visible. But how long before the trial started?

There would be so many pictures then.

The newspapers were sprawled out to various articles on the assassination. Crumbs of meager sandwiches remained dusted across the edges of the table, brushed hastily from the traveler's lips as he was forced to take in nourishment to prevent from falling asleep as his pen kept moving. Writing furiously, crossing out and editing furiously, Heero was hell-bent on scribbling out the rest of his term paper. The small videotape cassette from the white Isuzu's video log sat quietly on top of the wrinkled New York Times.

Immediately after the news had ended, he allowed himself to put down the pen and took a brief shower just to clean up after many hours of straight writing and researching. It seemed ironic how the many antisocial nights of developing study habits would be so important in trying to get back the man he had fallen for. He hadn't necessarily stumbled across too much action pouring over his Pre-Colony History books. While quickly toweling off his hair, Heero pulled on fresh clothes and decided to begin hunting again for another newspaper, newsletter, or notice that had not already dissected. All the newsstands in the immediate fifteen mile radius of his hotel room had already been combed clean, and he was determined to keep looking, if only to find another picture of the bohemian.

He barely slept for the next three days.

---

It was turning out to be not only the trial of the year, but one of the greatest sham in the name of American justice that Heero had ever been so unlucky to be witness to. What was worse was all the trouble he had gone through just to be able to see it, the travesty of legal equity that it was.

The blocks surrounding the courthouse were almost literally swamped with media dogs, a flood of reporters surging against each other like mindless cattle in their quest for the best shot, the best chance for whatever fleeting interview or comment they could get. That's how it appeared to Heero, at least-he'd never been awfully fond of the press. Being an adopted child of the Peacecraft had merited him more time in the petty spotlight than he would have liked, and he hadn't changed his opinion since then. There were a few he thought he may have recognized, though time would have wrinkled their faces a little since he'd seen them last. Taking a page from the bohemian bible, Heero had donned himself a simple incognito routine with a pair of Duo's dark sunglasses and a baseball cap similar to what Duo had worn. Call it imitation, but it worked well enough.

Heero had been dodging the authorities as well, keeping well out of Relena's radar when he could, and he knew that she inevitably would be here, if only to stare sourly at the accused from her quaint little seat while he would be convicted, sentenced, and hauled off to receive his death penalty. Avoiding her would be relatively easy, but at first, finding himself away into the actual courtroom was a much more pressing issue. Heero pressed his hand to his tight jacket pocket as he twisted his way inconspicuously through the crowd. It helped that most all of the press was much taller than him, and barely gave him a second look as he passed, too engrossed in their filming and scraping for interviews.

Finally, he found what he was searching for. On the outskirts of the mass, he stumbled quite across one of the more friendly reporters. The short, dark-haired, and helpful-looking man offered him a hand up and asked if he was all right. Heero quickly preened him with his eyes and let a small, warm smile take his face when he saw that he had no pesky cameraman in tow, a strong resemblance to himself, and a laminated press-pass hanging innocently around his neck. The reporter asked if he could help him, and Heero said plainly, "You already have."

And when he made a confused face in return, the traveler put his fist into it.

He dragged the unconscious man behind a decorative bush, apologizing silently for what he had no choice but to do. Taking the press-pass and examining it for a minute, Heero then walked casually away from the fallen Andrew McAllen, all attention suddenly focused on the police cars escorting the car of some important political figure come to witness the proceedings. It may have been Relena herself-it was impossible to tell from his vantagepoint if it was a pink limousine-but Heero could have cared less at that point. He went toward the marble courthouse stairs without so much as another glance over his shoulder.

That brought him to the present place and time. His back was pressed against the rich wood paneled walls at the very rear of the courtroom. All the seats had quickly filled once the media had been let in, first allowing the immediate family of witnesses and such to fill up the first rows. Heero had glided through security easily enough-all the press began to blur together for those security guards after a while-blessed his luck, and taken a spot on the back wall and awaited the commencement of the trial anxiously. For his purpose, it was better to be on his feet, anyway.

Heero thought he spotted a familiar, wheat-blonde head within the crowd, but quickly focused his eyes on the stand, making sure that he wouldn't miss Duo's entrance and that he wouldn't get caught staring by that particular young woman, whoever she may be. As he shifted his eyes away, he even caught sight of the notoriously Republican and temperamental Dermail, who had long been a strange force in the political world, almost seemingly seeking out fights where the Peacecrafts would have pushed diplomatic relations. Heero was somewhat surprised to see him there, though it was a dull curiosity, the kind housewives display when they simply say, "Oh, that's nice, dear," and continue with their important tasks without a thought. Around him were a few imposing figures, not particularly large but intensely staring at the door at the side of the court, where Duo would be paraded out in all his apprehended glory. Heero was intrigued enough by their presence to at least glance around for any other familiar political figures who had come to witness his bohemian on trial, but found none.

And besides, it had begun.

There was a distinct ripple that went through the air when that door opened, an abrupt silencer to all the miscellaneous chatter that had gone through the courtroom. It was like electricity moving invisibly through the air and it was evident to Heero on the various faces around him that there was a certain fear reserved for those seeing a Neko for the first time in person. Despite himself, despite the steady coaching in his head that coaxed him not to get worked up, Heero found his heart speeding up and his feet begging to move, pleading to do something when the defendant finally came into the courtroom. He allowed himself a moment of something-grievance, worry, anger, or whatever it was that had overwhelmed him-to pass and make room for a steely face of pure business.

They'd taken his trademark black clothing, he'd noticed, and replaced it with that degrading orange jumpsuit. And instead of looking sour, there was a frightening reservation to his face, like that of a noble war hero walking willing toward his guillotine for his beliefs, his resolution. There were two guards on each side of him, and luckily for them, Duo didn't resist in the least while they escorted him to the defendant's bench, then remained at either side of him. The less nervous of the two seated himself where his attorney would have sat, were such things as equal Amendment rights for inhuman beings.

Where there had been earrings were empty holes in cartilage, where there had been golden bracelets were silver handcuffs, and where there had been a baseball hat was nothing, revealing his proof of his Nekonese lineage. As murmurs and whispers started up behind him, Duo's ikkunnoi would twitch dismally back and forth and sometimes even flatten when the rare comment inched beneath his defenses and got to him. Heero would have gladly taken on the entire courtroom if only it could make them stop with their ignorant speculations, their slurs, whatever it was that could make the bohemian frown like he was, so hopelessly.

Heero held his ground while the judge entered and the jury was settled, but when all the proceedings were finished, he wouldn't be standing still. Meanwhile, he kept his hand on his pocket like he was guarding a very important trigger.

---

First things first. The prejudice had to be put into play before any proceedings went along. All the difficulties, all the intricacies and processes that made prosecution such a long operation were now doubly complex that they were dealing with the first non-human defendant to be charged. The Judge announced, shortly after he had taken his seat, that because of his Nekonese heritage Duo would be ineligible to any legal rights protected by the Constitution. And from the political frenzy surrounding him, the court felt it best if the prosecution could be handled as quickly as possible.

Duo had no attorney and stood up boldly by himself when asked to state his plea. His response was a short and concise, "Guilty." He promptly sat back down in his seat and remained there motionless, simply watching the judge's face. He was being tried by the judge himself-the option for a trial by jury had actually been one of the very, very few rights afforded to him, but he had denied it. The sagacious looking judge nodded understandingly to the plea and after a short narration, he allowed the persecution to begin its own, self-serving questioning, as had been arranged beforehand. It did, and the Peacecraft's attorney promptly called the criminal himself to the stand. He was escorted to the wooden box sitting aside the judge's stand by both of his security guards, and he was handcuffed to a metallic bar on the inside of the stand once he had settled down. The attorney strolled up to face the one-eared Neko, his eyes raking across the ikkunnoi with a predatory gleam in his eyes. The roles had been reversed. Duo was now the helpless one, and the hienn was the hunter. He opened his mouth to start his questioning but only got as far as the first three words before Duo piped up.

"I believe I need to be sworn in, don't I?" he reminded sharply, the insult simmering in his eyes like he was sitting over a hot stove. "I refuse to give testimony until I'm sworn with a Bible."

"That procedure is traditionally reserved for Christians and American citizens, Mr. Maxwell-"

"My mother and fathers were Christians, I am a Christian, and I have been my entire life." he said succinctly, the slightest insulted expression peering through his stony leer as he did so. "Now, I'd appreciate it if you'd swear me in properly, thank you. That is, if you'd like to hear God-honest testimony."

The judge interrupted their conversation just as a souring expression began to overtake the attorney's normally charming, fresh face as the realization overtook him that he shared the same religion with a Neko. He ordered Duo to be sworn in the traditional manner, with his right hand raised and his palm on a copy of the Bible, and when it was finished, he sat down complacently and awaited his questioning.

"Now, Mr. Maxwell," the Peacecraft attorney said cordially, unwittingly beginning a dance between him and the distant-faced one-eared Neko at the stand before him with a smile and a compelling voice, which Duo seemed to enjoy stepping around. "These processions will be short. It is clear to all of us that you had the distinct intention of taking Senator Peacecraft's life when you evaded security, leapt on stage, fired a shot at the Senator. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"You realize that that statement will be used as proof of your guilt, then."

The bohemian remained unflinching in his expression. "Yes. I am fully aware of what it means."

"But there remains much to be learned of your other charges-fraud, embezzlement of immense government funds, multiple accounts of grand theft auto, various charges of breaking and entering, and general, decadent, and shameless thievery, just to name a few. Light must be shown on the details of such accusations, to be fair and just to all those who have fallen victim to you during your reprobate career. We would like to ask you where you were the night of July 8th anytime between ten p.m. and five a.m. of the 9th."

"'We'?" Duo inquired flatly, his old uncooperative humor taking its place at the forefront of his resistance. "When you say, 'we', do you mean the courtroom? I suppose they're all horribly curious, but then again, what's it to them? They've got lives to live, and they can do that without knowing when I walk out of my house or hell, even when I blow my nose. I hope they would have shit to do other than sentencing a man to death."

"For the record, please, Mr. Maxwell."

"Alright, then. The ninth, ya said?"

"Yes."

"I would suppose that very few of you know that in my culture we have many different names for the different months. And there are sixteen, not twelve. And in certain villages, days in a month might be named after the birthdays of certain Elders, Warriors, Midwives, Teachers, or Hunters-And when the men leave on the yearly hunting trips the women will stop eating and drinking for days at a time, fasting religiously, awaiting their arrival. Some slowly starve themselves to death, waiting nobly for husbands who may never return-"

"This is very interesting and all, but there are questions to be answered, Mr. Maxwell, and many of those in the courtroom do, as you say, have other things to attend to-"

"But then again, I suppose that with what I am to you, there wouldn't be a need to know of my culture. I'm very aware how Americans can make decisions without consideration of all the facts, and that's just the way your culture is. I'm very familiar with it, so it's fine." He quickly turned on the venomous sugar in a smile. "You have so many interesting phrases that deal with that same sensibility, I can't pick just one to be my favorite. 'Separate but equal'?-or 'God doesn't love niggers'? Or maybe 'faggots'?"

"Objection, Your Honor," the attorney said calmly, though there was a little disgust filtering through. "The defendant should have the decency to refrain from such vulgarities and profanities."

"Sustained." The judge nodded toward the fully human grown man. "Mr. Maxwell, please watch your language. The witness will cooperate. Mr. Monsett, you may continue with your questions."

Duo made a quietly loathing look beneath his absolutely cool demeanor, even as he was being put back in place, that Heero could feel at the back of the courtroom. But to the remainder of the court, it only manifested itself as a humbled, almost shy or apologetic smile. "It's alright, good sir." There was a poison in his voice, a bitterness that could be tasted, but not sensed by others. "Now, as we were saying. The ninth, was it?"

They danced the first dance of Human-Neko litigation, and it dragged on doggedly between the two. Sharpened by the most accredited law schools, the Peacecraft attorney was impossibly solid in his method and would have won over the jury with his sheer presence. It was powerful and confident, like the straight-laced rock star of the bar exam, but it was completely different from Duo's dynamic. And that dynamic was a raw, shrewd, dark and literally animalistic charisma that held its own against the one named Mr. Monsett. Their dance continued until it began to seem like an age-old battle of predator and prey, where the roles were constantly shifting. At first, Duo tested his opponent's strengths, looking for that falter that he could pounce on. He refrained from answering any questions without first making a snide, clever, and utterly bitter comment to inevitably rile up the attorney. He pressed back, showing no weakness as he suavely ironed Duo down with question after question of his crimes-all eerily accurate and in-depth.

But it wouldn't have mattered how long he toiled in his research, to make traps for the bohemian into admitting his guilt about his crimes-Duo acknowledged them all without a second thought, plowing headfirst into each answer with a, "Yes, I did."

"You were the man who embezzled over $15,000 dollars from the Winston First Bank on the fifth of April last year?"

"Yes."

"You did? And after you had done so, Mr. Maxwell, would you care to tell us what became of that money?"

"I kept a hundred-dollar slice for myself, but if you want to know where the rest, you'll have to ask how the Open Arms homeless shelter spent its recent anonymous donation."

The attorney made an unpleasant, frustrated expression within his calm, collected eyes and flawless face, which Duo cherished secretly. The prey shrunk back a little, but soon became predator again, hitting the records of Duo's most infamous charges furiously to find a contemptible motive. He addressed almost every single account of theft that he had committed, aside from the constant flow of pick pocketing. He asked the poised bohemian why he felt he must habitually steal, on a daily basis. He asked if it stemmed from a pool of hate concerning the human race, and Duo responded, "Only the monsters."

The questioning dragged on and on, and it became clear that Duo at the witness stand was at the mercy of the plaintiff attorney and he had planned quite a lot of questioning for the one-eared Neko. At times where it would have seemed appropriate to ask if either party would like a break, as the questions and the answers dragged on between the two almost in sneers, the judge remained as quiet as he had been during the proceedings, simply absorbing their conversations to the fullest. Of course, with his unflappable cool, the attorney seemed never to falter while he questioned the criminal, but he never seemed to quite get the verbal edge over a 5'4" man in a orange jumpsuit.

Eventually, Duo's defenses had taken unavoidable hits and slowly began to wither and splinter. During the hour of endless rounds of questioning from the very cordial, very talented Peacecraft attorney, he had even relented to a few questions without first pawing at it with his flawless grin and smooth river of sarcasm and cynicism like a feline would paw at his prey-though Heero was sure that this was more of a case of a bleeding tiger lashing out in desperation at the scavengers who would finish him. He hadn't lied, true to his word; but then again, he had cunningly crafted bridges over the truth with his con artist inclination. Nearing the end of his questioning, his eyes had slowly begun darkening with exhaustion, and he'd even asked for a glass of water. And it wasn't only physically draining-there were split seconds during questioning about Heero himself and his involvement that Duo looked ready to break down in the stand out of some intense, internal sadness. Otherwise, he'd been as indifferent about everything as he had been secretly bitter.

But still it continued.

"…and if it is true that he was traveling with you, what would you say to claims that you may have somehow brainwashed or blackmailed the young man into staying with you?"

"Nothing. I did no such thing to him."

That was one lie, Heero thought. He'd done more to him than he would ever understand, aside from just deflating his entire world and leaving him with heartbreak in his chest instead of the black hole that had been there before.

"So, you're saying that Senator Peacecraft's son came willingly to you, then? Completely of his own decision? All of a sudden he just appears to you and asks you to take him with you?"

"Hell, I never said I understood why, but yes, he did," came the half-smirking, half-morbid reply.

"This intelligent, reasonable young man randomly puts himself in the company of a criminal? Your charges had already been brought to the attention of the media, Mr. Maxwell, and the Senator's son was more than aware of the current political situations and very aware of your infamy-a young man who has never been charged, written up, or even tardy to a single of his high-school classes-just chooses you for a Sunday drive? And you did nothing to influence him? Perhaps some of many potent tranquilizer drugs found circulating in his system would argue against that."

Duo hesitated, visibly wanting to scowl, but his complacent outward show didn't falter a step. "I never forced him to do anything," he said, unable to see the young man in the back of the courtroom who frowned to himself. "It was all his decision."

"…Mr. Maxwell." Some time later, the Peacecraft Attorney began a new line of questioning, breaking off from the last, long, and hard-earned string of query but unable to escape the secretive glare in the one-eared Neko's unwavering stare.

"Yes?" Duo replied sweetly. The tone he took made it seem as if he would curtsy too, if he weren't already sitting.

"All of this courtroom is aware of your heritage, that you are yourself half-Nekonese and therefore, not fully human. But I would argue to wager that not as many here are aware of what your lineage entails, what being partially Nekonese actually means. Seeing as it may be essential to this case, would you mind briefly describing it to this courtroom?" The tone may have seemed as harmless, as genuine as could be, but all in the room knew that it was merely an exercise to fool those who would have sided with Duo if the fact that he was not completely human, citing that they treated him with absolute prejudice. If they asked the question, then they could defend themselves against the very few activists who would stand up in the name of a Neko.

"Oh, the curiosity peaks now, does it? As soon as my conviction hinges on it?" he asked, making an utterly innocent face to go with. "Isn't that it? You want me to tell you how we live like animals so you can brand me as one and put me in a nice maximum-security kennel?" When the attorney became slightly unsettled by the forward accusation beneath the shifting bohemian facades, Duo's tone quickly founds its knives and bore them at the ready as he continued.

"Well, I'll have you know that not only am I physically seventy-five percent human, but the Nekonese people are not as barbaric as all of you would like to conclude. We don't incite wars amongst ourselves, we weren't the ones to create the hydrogen and atomic bomb and concentration camps, and we most certainly don't bring humans to our courts and treat them with such blatant prejudice as I feel and am very sure that I am being treated with, good sir. We do not indict humans into our places of justice then strip them of any legal protections. We would never yank the strings as viciously as you all are so damned eager to. And I will not accept your shame. I will take the utmost honor in knowing that I was not making a wrong move in trying to eliminate a merciless killer of innocents, Neko and human alike!" Duo snapped finally, his voice cutting through the thick silence of the room and bouncing off the wall, heightening the sound of his accusation.

The Peacecraft attorney's face twisted as he yelled out a fierce, "Objection, Your Honor!"

The courtroom filled quickly with the voices of the press and the assorted plaintiff supporters murmuring disapprovingly, which encompassed the entirety of the courtroom aside from Heero. The judge even laid down his gavel loudly to call the court to order, as the murmurs and whispers began to grow louder and increase in number. He finally was able to calm the court and announce in a chillingly collected voice, "Sustained." He then calmly told the Peacecraft attorney to continue with his questioning.

There was a sour look on the man's face for a moment, directed only at Duo himself, before he smoothly slipped back into the drilling of the one-eared Neko's dark memories.

Duo smiled faintly to himself as the pressing words poured down on him, but it didn't matter anymore. He could lie blatantly, he could kill that smug-faced attorney if he wanted, even though it wasn't necessary. He had done what he had done, and nothing would change that. He had done what he felt was just in his complex society, translated in his own strange psyche that was both human and Neko, and imprisonment and death were irreverent to that fact.

He was resigned to his loss.

He was ready to die.

"Damn it all, Duo," Heero hissed silently.

And when he finally was allowed off the stand, Heero didn't waste a second in tossing off the guise of a reporter and unfolding his notebook from where it had waited in his pocket, waiting patiently to fulfill its purpose as the traveler began walking towards the front of the courtroom.

Duo had sacrificed his freedom for the chance to avenge the ghosts that haunted him because of his family's slaughter, and he had remained true to his word even when he did not get the revenge he had fought for, killed for, and taken his punishment without contest. It had been pride-a desire to be more virtuous than the ones he was fighting, even if it meant death. It was foolishness, but it was the only way he could live. Heero slowly began to understand what that meant as he moved down the aisle between the crowded pews and approached the elderly, black-robed judge.