[GW] Bred for Destiny, chapter 2

Bred for Destiny, a Gundam Wing fanfic by Raberba girl
Act 2 - Recruiting

Gym was the last period of the day.  After changing, Meilan rushed outside and bounded up to Wufei, who was waiting just outside the boys' locker room.

"What a day, huh!" she laughed when she reached him.

Wufei merely grunted.

"Oh, come on, you weren't impressed to see those guys leaping tall buildings in a single bound?"

"Those were basketball goals.  Not buildings."

"Culturally illiterate moron," she said affectionately.  "Where's Duo?"

"Taking forever to get ready," Wufei responded irritably.  He turned and called through the door, "Duo!  If you aren't finished in one minute, we are leaving without you!"

"Coming!" Duo called back gaily, re-braiding his damp hair after that luxurious shower.  He stuffed his soaked church clothes in a bag (he had taken the opportunity to wash them, too) and fairly scampered out the door.  "Thanks for the change of clothes, Wu-man."

"My name is Chang.  And why are you so...energetic?" Wufei asked.

"Did you see what happened today?" Duo responded, eyes shining.  "Like, we totally beat those guys, and then--  wow, I bet I can leap tall buildings in a single bound or something!"

Meilan burst into laughter.  Wufei was not amused.

The three of them set out to walk home together, Duo and Meilan chatting about the day's events, Wufei lost in a brooding mood.  Near the front gates, Duo caught sight of a lonely, yellow-haired figure waiting with the other kids who got picked up after school.

"Hey, it's that fancy-pants dude," Duo said interestedly.

"The one from gym?" Meilan said with equal interest.  "Let's go talk to him!"

"Why?" Wufei wanted to know.  Meilan flicked his ponytail and headed over in Quatre's direction.

Quatre jerked his head up, a little skittishly, when he saw them approach.  "Oh," he said glumly, though also with a bit of relief.  "It's you guys."

Duo, who finally recognized him in that instant, squirmed guiltily.  "Oh...hi.  Hey, man, I'm sorry about this morning, you know?"

"This morning?" Quatre said in confusion, his mind still on basketball.  Then his eyes widened.  "This morning!"

"Yeah."  Duo's face was red.  "I mean...you'd caught me at a bad time."

Quatre smiled, and Duo's embarrassment seemed to melt away at the sincerity of it.  "That's okay.  I don't blame you.  I wouldn't be in the best mood myself, if it was me."

"Oooh, you saw Duo getting beat up," Meilan realized, knocking Duo playfully on his bandaged shoulder.

"Beat up?" Quatre echoed, his eyes twinkling.  "Didn't look quite that way to me...I wasn't sure who the bad guys were, really.  The others were all bloody when they left."

Duo laughed appreciatively.

"Oh, there's Ahmad," Quatre said, noticing the familiar car pulling up to the school.  "Hey...did you guys need a ride home?"

"No," Wufei said indignantly.

"What, and get to spend less time with my Fei?" Meilan added more tactfully.  "Never."  She hugged Wufei's arm and smiled at Quatre, who nodded.

"I'll take a ride," Duo put in shamelessly.  "Walking takes for-freaking-ever."

"See you boys tomorrow, then," Meilan said, and led Wufei off.

Looking back on it, Wufei decided that the last happy time was that walk home with Meilan.  He wished he had known to appreciate it more, walking hand in hand with her and drinking in her smiles, her teasing, her brightness, her beauty.

When they reached Wufei's house, they came in, laughing about something, and both pulled up short when they reached the kitchen.

Hiiro was sitting at the table, an untouched cup of tea in front of him, listening silently as Mistress Long engaged in some meandering story.

"It's the basketball guy!" Meilan exclaimed.

"What are you doing here?" Wufei demanded in a rage.

Hiiro looked up at him.  "I need to talk to you."

"So you invade my house?!"

"Wufei."  It was Mistress Long.  Her voice was no louder than usual, but their eyes were on her at once.  Her tone was unusually grave as she said, "I think it is important that you speak with this boy."  Laboriously, the old woman made her way out of her chair and reached for the girl.  "Meilan, come help me into the living room.  The news is coming on in a few minutes."

Meilan glanced from one boy to the other, then went to offer her arm to the old woman.

When they were alone, Hiiro stood and began in a businesslike manner.  "Chang Wufei, my name is Hiiro Yui.  I am known as agent 01, an operative for the United Earth Sphere Alliance.  I have been sent here by OZ, its technological development division, to search for other operatives who have been missing for over fourteen years.  Today, my partner and I identified three individuals who fit the descriptions given us.  You are one of them.  I am here to request that you return with me to the Alliance in order to fulfill the purposes you bred and trained for - currently, to oppose and obstruct the actions of White Fang, a rebel group that threatens the peace of the world nation."

There was a pause.

Wufei opened his mouth to order the obviously insane person out of his house, when something occurred to him.  "Why does my grandmother seem to trust you?"

Hiiro frowned.  He was not used to answering this kind of question.  "It appears," he said finally, "that, for reasons I am unaware of, she seems to have some knowledge of my background."  It occurred to him that he would have to include that in his next report.

Wufei turned this answer over in his mind for a while.  Then he raised his head and said, "You claim to work for an organization that represents the world as a single nation.  You say I somehow have connections to this organization from birth, yet you offer no proof.  You speak of a dangerous rebel group whose name is mentioned nowhere else.  I am a man of straight dealing, and this holds no appeal for me.  The only reason I am still tolerating your presence is because my grandmother has expressed her goodwill towards you."

Hiiro was silently impressed that Wufei had picked out the two oddities that could only be explained by the information Hiiro was still withholding from him.  "I have given you all the information I am authorized to reveal at this time.  Will you come, or must I report your noncompliance?"

Wufei's eyes narrowed.  "What happens if I choose not to comply?"

"That is not my decision," Hiiro answered.

Wufei shook his head.  "Get out.  As I said before, I will have no part in this."  He fixed his stone-cold eyes on Hiiro's.

"Understood," Hiiro replied.  He left.

Duo and Quatre were well on the way to becoming splendid friends.  Quatre impressed Duo with descriptions of his luxurious apartment and his huge, warm, strange family, while Duo kept Quatre entertained with stories about the antics he and the other orphans got up to.  Quatre asked if Duo would like to stay for tea, and the Maxwell ward was not about to pass up an offer of free food.

So it was that the two boys were in high spirits when they walked into Quatre's apartment and discovered that it had been broken into.

"What- why did- how did you get in here?" Quatre stammered.

Trowa gazed back at them with his calm, unreadable green eyes.

"Geez, punk," Duo added hotly, rushing to support his new friend.  "It's not enough you gotta be creepy at school, now you're invading people's homes?"

"Aren't you curious," Trowa asked, settled comfortably in an easy chair, "about why the three of you were able to perform so extraordinarily during that basketball game?"

Duo and Quatre fell silent.  Of course they were curious.

"Get comfortable, make yourselves at home," Trowa offered, not without a sense of irony.  "I'm here to tell you something important."

"Oh that's rich," Duo scoffed.  "Playing the host in another guy's house--"

"It's okay, Duo," Quatre said warily.  "Let's get something to eat and hear him out."

Tension apparently had no effect on Duo's appetite.  Quatre paused with a cracker halfway to his mouth and watched, wide-eyed, as the braided boy devoured platefuls of muffins, cookies, bananas, and some kind of sugary, papery Arabian sweet.

"This is the life," Duo mumbled happily through the food.  He gulped an entire cup of tea to wash it all down.

"Um...would you like anything?" Quatre asked the intruder, once he had managed to tear his eyes away from his apparently starving friend.

"No," Trowa responded.  "You can call me Trowa, by the way."

"Oh, nice to meet you," Duo snapped sarcastically.  "I'm Bill Cox and this is Marvin What-the-Freak-Are-You-Doing-Here?"

"Why were we able to do those things?" Quatre asked, more to the point.  "Jump so high and land without getting hurt."  He hesitated, then added, "What were you looking for?"

Trowa nodded.  "We were testing you.  Hiiro and I work for an organization called the United Earth Sphere Alliance..."  When he had finished, Duo and Quatre sat staring at him, both wondering if he was crazy.

"United Earth Sphere?" Quatre said in confusion.  "The Earth's not united."

Trowa gave a low chuckle.  "Not yet."

"What do you mean, not yet?" Duo snapped.  "And what's the deal with this 'missing for fourteen years' thing?"

Choosing not to answer the first question, Trowa pointed out, "Neither of you know who your parents are, am I right?"

Duo and Quatre glanced at each other uncomfortably.

"Hiiro and I, and the two we are looking for, were trained from birth by OZ, bred as soldiers to carry out special missions for the Alliance.  We have been genetically enhanced to be stronger, faster, and smarter than most humans.  Don't tell me you've never suspected something was different about you."

Duo looked away, but Quatre frowned and said, "I've never felt different.  Today was the first time anything weird like this happened."

Trowa was silent for a minute.  Then he said, "These people you live with, these Maganacs.  They don't strike me as very ordinary people.  How could you tell what's normal and what's not, when you've grown up in an atypical environment?"

Quatre couldn't really argue with that.  He knew better than anyone that there was much more to the Maganacs than met the eye.

"What I need to know," Trowa continued, "is your response."

"Like, what, if we're going to join the Dark Side or something?" Duo scoffed, imitating a movie villain's voice.

Trowa suddenly laughed, sharply and mirthlessly.  "The Dark Side...I wonder sometimes."  Then he shook his head.  It would not do to go giving these boys such hints, not now.  "What should I tell my superiors?  Have I got two recruits?"

"No way," Duo answered at once.  "You guys creep me out."

"I'm sorry," Quatre apologized.  "But this is really out of the blue, and it doesn't quite make sense.  I'm afraid I can't agree to something like this."

Trowa nodded.  Then, with nothing more to say, he got up and walked out of the apartment.

They met up shortly after.

"Results?" Hiiro asked.

"No go, with either of them."

"Chang was resistant, too."

They were quiet for a moment.

"Do you think the Alliance anticipated this response?" Trowa finally asked.

Hiiro shrugged.  "I can't see Treize at a loss, especially for something as minor as this."

Trowa closed his eyes briefly in agreement.

"In any case," Hiiro continued, "our mission to locate and test the candidates is complete.  We will report back and await further orders."

"You sound like you're looking forward to it," Trowa commented.

Hiiro frowned, not understanding.  Reporting in and accepting new orders was simply the next thing to do.  He pulled out his communicator without bothering to reply.

That night, to put the strange visit from that boy out of his mind, Wufei called Meilan's cell phone.

"Hello?"

"Meilan."

"Hi, hon!"

"What are you doing?"

"Church night!" she replied brightly.  "I'm volunteering at the orphanage again.  You should have come too, Wufei."

"Too busy."

"Tsk.  Too busy getting frustrated about Basketball Boy's story, right?"

Wufei frowned in annoyance.  The whole point of calling her was to avoid that subject.  "You were eavesdropping."

"Of course!  What do you take me for?"

He sighed.

"I asked Grandmother about it afterward.  She said she doesn't remember Basketball Boy specifically, but she thinks his story is true.  Because of the way she adopted you."

"Is that all?" Wufei asked curiously.

"All what?"

"The only reason she trusted him?  Because she thinks we might have come from the same place?"

"I guess so."  A bored sigh.  "But hey, enough of mysterious spy movie talk.  You doing anything this weekend?"

"Practice.  Homework."

"In other words, nothing!  Let's go grab a pizza and see--"  There was a sudden loud noise in the background, and her voice cut off.

He waited.  "Meilan?"

Nothing.

"Meilan?" he called again.  Frowning, he pulled the phone away from his ear and saw that the call had been disconnected.  He dialed again.

"I'm sorry," said a pre-recorded voice, "the number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time."

'What?' Wufei thought, startled.  He dialed again.  The same message.

There was a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that he tried to suppress.  There was no logical reason to get upset.  Still, it would be kind of nice, now that he thought of it, to go visit Meilan at the church, to help out with whatever she was doing there.

"Grandmother," he called, "I am going out for a while."

Duo and Quatre talked about Trowa's mysterious revelation for a long while.

"Think he's off his rocker?" Duo asked at one point.

Quatre laughed.  "I don't think so, not to look at him."

"Pretty far out, though, right?" Duo insisted.

They got tired of talking when the conversation started going in circles.  Quatre got up to wash their plates, as Duo went in search of the restroom.  Quatre was just drying the dishes when Duo came pelting back up to him.

"You have a whole VIDEO ARCADE in there!!!!"

Quatre laughed again.  He seemed to be doing that a lot with Duo around.  "I don't play much, really.  It's mostly for my nephews - the Maganacs' kids, I mean - when they come around."  But he didn't resist when Duo dragged him back into the spare bedroom, where they tried out racing games and fighting games and sports games, until Quatre was exhausted and Duo perhaps ready to admit that he might be starting to get restless.

"Shouldn't you be getting home?" Quatre suggested, yawning.  "Did you even call to let your parents - or, sorry, whoever's in charge of you - know where you're at?"

"Nah, I'm always running off, they're not gonna send out the army or anything," Duo said.  All the same, he thought it might be a good idea call it quits for the day.  He was startled to look out the windows and find that night had completely fallen while they were engrossed in video games.  "Dude!  Okay, yeah, I guess I gotta go."  He jumped up to find his stuff as Quatre leaned over to turn off the game system and start putting things away.

The television was now displaying an ordinary station, and Duo paused in the doorway when he thought he heard a familiar name.  "Maxwell Church?" he exclaimed, turning back to look.  "Hey, that's where I live!"

Then he saw the images panning across the screen, and could just barely hear the words of the newscaster through his suddenly fuzzy hearing.  For a minute, both boys stared at the TV.

Then Duo turned and ran.

"Wait, Duo!" Quatre shouted after him, still shocked.  "You can't run all the way there by yourself!"  Frantic, Quatre shot out the front door, yelling for Rashid, Abdul, anyone.  "Someone HELP ME!"

All over the building, doors opened and grim-looking Arabian men poured out, many of them openly armed.

"Quatre-sama!" Rashid called, reaching him first.

"Rashid - oh, I'm fine, I'm okay - Rashid, it's Duo!  That boy I brought - he ran off, we have to find him; someone get the car!"

The Maganacs could make little sense of this wild babbling, but it was clear that urgency was needed.  The car squealed off into the night, pausing by Duo as it caught up to him.

"It can't be," Duo whispered, sitting next to Quatre in the back seat.  His hands were shaking.  "It can't be, they must have got the wrong place, there's no way, no reason...."

Quatre did not know what to say.  His chest hurt.

Duo barely remembered the ride to the church, only that it seemed interminable.  The minute the car slowed down enough, he had shoved the door open and jumped out.

It was like stumbling through a nightmare.  There were flames, debris, a horrible smell in the air, cries all around, other people stumbling in the dark beside and around him, and no, no, he knew that boy, that dead boy lying there; Duo shied away and realized he was sobbing and hadn't even known it and something white on the ground - a flash of fair hair, no, no, it was her, he hadn't even known she was blonde, or so pretty, she was so beautiful now even with her face battered, clothes filthy as she lay sprawled on the ground--

Duo flung himself down beside Sister Helen.  Her face, even twisted with pain, was still somehow glad to see him, lit up when he leaned over her.  She lifted a trembling, sooty hand to his face.  "I'm...so glad...you're safe...."

"D-Don't leave me," he whispered, gripping her hand in his.  "Don't leave!  You're all I have!"

Even in this moment, her face was so compassionate.  He could see her gathering herself to speak once again.  "Duo...may you have...God's blessing...."  Those words took the last of her strength.

Wufei could not keep calm.  First there was the dull boom of an explosion somewhere down there, in the direction he was heading.  He heard it and broke into a run, then made himself slow back down.  No reason to lose control, nothing yet--

Those were flames in the distance, flickering luridly in the night.

This time he did not make himself slow down.

Wufei reached the church, only it wasn't the church, it was the wrong place, had to be, because there was nothing here, just a blackened, smoking foundation, a plain of broken glass and concrete, fires flashing off the terrified faces of people who moaned and wailed and cried.

'This is the wrong place,' Wufei kept telling himself, not even aware of his own thoughts, so focused was he on finding someone, a girl, only he would be searching all night because he wouldn't find her, she had to have left before this happened, in fact this could not have happened to her at all because this was the wrong place.

'Wrong place,' Wufei thought again, staring and staring at this lifeless body lying on the ground.  He had passed and looked at many bodies, and they hadn't been her; so why was he so fixated on this one, and she was so, so beautiful, even with her face so bloody and still; but no, not beautiful, hideous, the face was hideous in her last torment.

"MEILAN!"  He couldn't control his mouth screaming over and over, "No!  No!  No!  No...!"

To be continued....