A few miles down the road from where the funerals had been held there sat a large house, set aside from the other town houses and apartment buildings. One of the numerous Winner homes currently owned by the wealthy family. After the death of Quatre Winner his sisters had opened this house to those who would be attending the four Gundam pilots' funerals. Most had opted to stay elsewhere, but a few of the Maganacs, Hilde, Catherine and Duo had accepted the offer. Luckily the house was large enough to comfortably fit all its guests. It had a spacious open air porch that wrapped around the front with several steps, and a walkway that led to the street. Three feminine figures were currently perched on these porch steps of the Winner residence. 

    At one end was a slight blonde girl, Aelyn, one of the many Winner daughters, dabbing occasionally at her eyes with her already damp handkerchief. Catherine Bloom occupied the other end, her expression calm, but her hands, settled neatly in her lap, were clenched till her knuckles turned white. Sandwiched between them sat Hilde Schbeiker, shoulders slumped, watching the road. She was decidedly less tense than the other two, but then the only pilot she'd really known was still alive. 

    "I can't believe Quatre's gone." Aelyn whispered. She'd said it before. She'd more than likely say it again before the day was out. She swiped at another silent tear with her handkerchief. Catherine stopped clenching her hands long enough to run them through the curly ends of her hair and let out an exasperated sigh. Hilde fidgeted between Aelyn's grief and Catherine's barely contained anger. 

    "He'd survived the war... They all did. Why now?" Aelyn asked. 

    "Well... at least Trowa didn't self-destruct," Catherine replied. The hands flexed. 

    "Still an explosion though. What a horrible accident." 

    Catherine's temper finally snapped. "You think that was an accident?!" 

    Aelyn flinched at her tone. Hilde put her face in her hands. She'd seen this coming since Catherine had arrived. 

    "You think it wasn't?" Aelyn sounded mystified. 

    "Of course it wasn't! Three months, Aelyn," Catherine leaned closer, hands on her knees. "Three months since we signed the treaty to end the war. But if someone really wants to fight, do you think a piece of paper signed by a bunch of diplomats who've never even seen blood is going to stop them?" 

    "But how? Who'd be able to... to..." she trailed off, still unsure of how something like the fireball that had killed her brother might have been caused. 

    "Plant a bomb?" Catherine finished for her. "Plenty of people managed it during the war." She shook her head in a mixture of frustration and determination. She narrowed her eyes, considering. "Who do we know that would be able to find out something like that."

    "Heero was the one who knew all that," Hilde said distantly. 

    Catherine released a fierce exhalation. "Well, what about the other boy? The one with the braid." 

    "Duo." Hilde supplied. "You could ask. But no one's seen him since the other day." That wasn't quite true. Hilde had seen him, at Wufei's burial service. She'd caught a glimpse of him, way off in the distance, half-hidden by the shadows from the trees and his own black clothing. Watching form a distance as they carried to coffin to the grave. But he never came close. Didn't acknowledge the half-wave she'd sent his way. He probably hadn't even seen it, so absorbed he seemed, far off amidst all those tombstones. Lonely and at home with Death. He'd take no step closer to the living. 

    At this, Catherine propelled herself from her seat and headed down the walkway towards the street. Aelyn called after her. "Where are you going?" 

    "Someone's murdered my brother!" Catherine shot back. She'd say nothing more. 

    "Oh dear," Aelyn said. Her eyes were filling with tears again, presented with this new facet of her brother Quatre's death. "Excuse me," she told Hilde and rushed back into the house. Hilde contemplated going in after her but decided against it. Having a good cry about it wouldn't hurt and might even make her feel better. Seeing as Aelyn had had several good cries... well, that was to be expected. 

    At least she was expressing her grief. Catherine was too, in her own stubborn way. Hilde scanned the street again, looking for a familiar, slight figure with a long rope of chestnut braid and still saw no sign of his return. She was more worried for him. Duo had either been his usual smiling self, or not there at all. She frowned, trying to be angry so she might stop worrying. 

    Late afternoon finally tapered off into twilight when Hilde heaved herself off the steps to get her coat and go after Duo. She had one arm in the sleeve, stepping out the door again when a figure began its way up the walk towards the porch. She couldn't make out who it was. The shoulders were hunched, head bent and watching his feet as he approached. The fast-fading light had come to a point where shapes were made indistinct and all she could make out was a pale blur of face set in dark clothing. Catherine's words crossed briefly through her mind. She brushed a hand against the gun holster lining her jacket and flicked the porch light on with the other. 

    "Oh, heh. Hey Hilde," Duo greeted her, pausing at the bottom of the steps. 

    Hilde's mouth fell open in shock. 

    "Thought you'd be havin' dinner by now. Hey, what's the matter?" 

    "Uh. Duo." she managed. "Your hair..." 

    The braid that used to reach all the way to Duo's hips was gone. It was still longer than the usual for a boy, but by Duo-standards, it was frighteningly short. The locks of Duo's chestnut hair lay about his shoulders in a jagged fringe as if it had been sawn off. She was used to seeing him with it pulled back, the only thing in his face those bangs that constantly swept about his eyes. Now, with nothing to hold it in place, the hair fell forward, framed the edges of his face and made him look like a new person. 

    Duo didn't respond directly to her surprised. He simply shrugged and ran a hand through the mess, grinning at her as if nothing were different. The movement pulled the hair away briefly and coupled with the grin she caught a glimpse of the boy she remembered. Or a mask of the face she remembered seeing. 

    But it's always been a mask, hasn't it? She recognized the shuttered look behind the forced cheer in his eyes. He's shutting me out. Oh, no you don't. 

    Finally presented with the cause of the last day's angst, Hilde put her hands firmly on her hips and glowered, limiting her focus to the bangs and eyes, trying to block out the choppy brown waves about his cheeks that ought to be pulled neatly in his braid. He remained at the steps, smiling, head tilted to one side and waited for her to speak. 

    "Where have you been?" she finally burst out. "You've been gone two days, nobody saw you at the funeral this morning! I didn't know what to think. Relena showed up and do you have any idea how hard it was to deal with her without you here? What happened?" 

    "Nothing happened, man, just thought I'd get away for awhile, ne?" He mounted the stairs and stepped passed her into the front hall. "See whatever sights the town had to offer, Carpe Diem an' all that. Don't worry 'bout me." Don't care. Only gets you dead. 

    Hilde followed, presented with the back view of him. She reached out and fingered the bottom edge of his hair. "Nothing happened? Duo... is this some sort of abstract way of showing your grief or something? What is this?" 

    "What grief? Oh, c'mon, Hilde. They were just pilots like me. Like you were just a pilot." 

    She flinched and Duo was hard pressed not to react. 

    "I know what you're doing," she said. Her gaze firmed and before he could leave, she'd snatched his wrist in a death-grip and was dragging him towards the kitchen. Once there she rummaged around one of the drawers and produced a pair of scissors. She pointed with the sharp ends towards a stool by the counter. "Sit, please." 

    "What're you doing?" 

    "I don't care what you say, I know how fussy you are about your hair. Now I'm going to try and make this look like a hair cut instead of a savaged shrub and you're going to sit still a let me." 

    Duo glanced between the intensity in her eyes and the sharp scissors in her hand and weighed the options. Seeing that it was probably a health hazard to disagree at the moment, he sat. 

***** 

    This isnt' good, Duo thought. He watched as the news as they replayed the scene, the broadcaster's voice a constant drone over the pictures. The quality was grainy, probably taken from a low grade security camera. Still, the huge figures parading around the destruction of the Preventer base were unmistakably Mobile Suits. 

    This isn't good at all... 

    His initial reaction had been a vague twist in the pit of stomach as he hoped that Wufei wasn't stationed at that base. The chance of survival in that sort of wreckage was nearly impossible. This was followed almost immediately with an even sharper pain as he remembered that it didn't matter. Wufei was already dead. Duo winced, rubbing at his chest as if someone had actually hit him. 

    Hilde had called him over shortly after the station had begun its coverage. She was sitting on the floor before the television, a couch cushion folded in her arms, worrying her lip between her teeth. "Do you know what this means?" she whispered and he almost didn't hear her. 

    "Yeah, we missed the bastards last time," he muttered. "Damned Mobile Suits were supposed to be destroyed." 

    Not fair, not fair! part of him raged. I watched Shinigami go out in pieces and they've still got Suits! 

    It had been part of the treaty. The Gundams were destroyed. Mobile suits, dolls, and other things of that nature were supposed to have been surrendered for the same treatment. The new Preventers were to handle the stragglers that didn't want to adhere to the agreement. Apparently the Preventers hadn't reigned everybody in yet. 

    The phone hanging from the wall rang and Hilde got up to answer it. Duo paced the living room, half an eye on the television as they played the video again. He was surprised when Hilde touched his shoulder and handed him the phone, a small frown line forming between her brows. 

    "Yeah?" he said into the speaker. 

    "Duo! I thought Hilde might know how to reach you and here you are!" 

    "Howard?" 

    "We ought to talk. Can you meet me?" 

    "Huh?" Visions of a church, Gundams, close friends exploding flashed through his mind. He wasn't sure why. It must have shown on his face because Hilde's fell into an expression of acute concern. 

    "What is it?" she asked. 

    Duo put his hand over the phone. "It's Howard. He wants to know if I can meet him." 

    Hilde didn't know Howard very well. Pieces of the conversation with Catherine not so long ago came unbidden. "Don't do it." 

    "Why? He probably wants to talk about what's going on over there." He waved a hand to indicate the news broadcast which had stopped looping the tape and gone back to its reporters. 

    "That's what I'm worried about," she said. 

    Duo didn't follow. Howard had waited quietly on the other end and Duo returned his attention to the phone. "Where do you wanna meet?" 

***** 

    Duo fidgeted in the car seat, the silence starting to unnerve him. He'd met Howard just outside a small cafe where the older man had been waiting, trying and failing to look inconspicuous in his loud Hawaiian shirt. He'd accepted Duo's enthusiastic handshake, his repsonse equally cheerful. His eyes had lingered for a long moment on Duo's hair, though he didn't comment. They had run through the motions that any two people seeing each other after several months might have done, though Duo could see that Howard was... jumpy, almost. Howard refused to explain, though, ushering Duo towards a parking lot where a nondescript car waited, the driver leaning a little impatiently against the hood. An hour later, and they were out of the city and on a road that struggled and wound through a thick woods. 

    Duo was starting to wonder if maybe Hilde's strange worry over this meeting might not have some substance. He trusted Howard, truly, but there was just something wrong with the way he was acting. And he still had not explained to Duo just why he wanted to see him or what was with the whole secret agent routine. Small talk had run out fairly quickly and Duo had spent the last half hour quietly finding amusing shapes in the brightly colored splashes on Howard's shirt. 

    "If you had been OZ towards the end of the war, what would you have done?" Howard asked suddenly. 

    Duo looked up, thoroughly surprised by the question. His eyes only narrowed slightly, and his tone stayed cheerful. "How d'you mean?" 

    "If you knew you couldn't beat the enemy now, what would you do?" 

    If I couldn't beat them *now*... "I'd wait until they weren't ready for it." 

    "And?" Howard raised a bushy grey eyebrow. "Think 'treaty', Duo." 

    The treaty... The war ends, the good guys blow up their Gundams, the bad guys let the good guys blow up their Mobile Suits and everyone goes home happy. With the exception of that Preventer base fiasco. 

    "We signed the treaty. We don't have any suitable weapons against a Mobile Suit anymore." 

    "Bingo." 

    The car suddenly went downwards and Duo looked out the window just in time to see them descend into a tunnel built into the ground. The walls of the tunnel were lined with metal and it glinted dully in the yellowed artificial lighting. The car stopped at a what looked like a tollbooth where several informal guards stood waiting. One of them approached the window and the driver handed him a pass which he inspected, handed back, then signaled for them to continue. 

    The tunnel continued a while longer before opening into an underground depot. The driver dropped them off and Howard led Duo through a crowd of other people. Soldiers, Duo noted with little surprise. He even recognized a few from the Sweepers, who waved as they passed. They were milling about, some carrying supplies to various places, others running maintenance checks on several tanks that were parked along one of the walls. It looked like a war base in operation only there wasn't that 'do or die now' tension in the air. Duo and Howard reached the far wall and went through a door into a corridor, passing a few men and women in lab coats. 

    Howard seemed to relax a little, that unknown tension leaking away. "I'd hoped it wasn't going to come to this. I'd thought that after the treaty you kids might get to go be kids again, as much as it's possible after a war like that. And then I heard about the other boys being killed. That's when we first started to really suspect that something was up. That wasn't an accident." 

    "I know that," Duo muttered. "Spent enough time setting my own bombs to recognize one when it goes off." Duo had survived out of sheer luck. He hadn't been in the building when the explosion happened. Quatre had forgotten something in the car, Duo couldn't even remember what it was now. But he'd gone out to get it for him. He'd been halfway across the parking lot when he felt, more than heard the explosion that tore apart half the building. He still had scabs and scars along his back where some of the shrapnel had struck him. 

    "Shit," Duo swore, trying to block out the memories of what had happened afterwards, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "It's starting again, isn't it." 

    Howard nodded. "It's a sub-faction of OZ, apparently, that broke off from the main faction early on. They were smart. They stayed hidden, preparing for this the whole time, waiting for the main faction and our side to wear each other out. We even took care of the Gundams for them, and--" 

    "And they took care of the pilots," Duo suddenly seethed. There was a long pause before Howard nodded again. Duo swore some more. "Man, what I wouldn't give for Shinigami right now." 

    For some reason, that made Howard smile. 

    "So you'd be willing to fight again?" Howard asked, opening a door marked 'Hanger' and leading the way in. The room was pitch black save for the little vent of light that spilled across the floor from their entrance. 

    "Hell yeah!" He'd fought hard to end the first war, never really expected to survive long enough to see peace. And for three short months there had been peace. He'd fight to end this one too, because if he didn't then the others' deaths would be for nothing. And more would die. 

    Duo felt a little chill, standing there in near total darkness. They'd taken the only family he'd had left. "I'd pay them back for what they've done." 

    Howard gave him an appraising look. "There's something I want you see." And he flipped on the lights. 

    The ceiling lights flared to life and Duo found himself staring up, lips parted slightly at the ominous thing before him. 

    A new Gundam stood patiently in the hanger, its deep eyes shadowed as if in sleep. The armor alternately reflected a deep unyielding black and a bloody crimson, swallowing the light that shone on it. It was more slender than its predecessors; the arms were sleeker, the joints more fitted and mobile. Hinged at the shoulders by the Gundam's thrusters were a pair of fine metal wings with sharp fletchet-shaped feathers. Far from seeming fragile, the combination of affects gave it an air of something sinister. The other gundams has been built for war. But this one... This one looked built for murder. 

    Howard clapped a hand on Duo shoulder. "Death... meet Revenge." 

    Duo managed to tear his attention away from the Gundam, snapping his head sharply to the side to look at Howard. The older man was smiling carefully, though there was a sad tint to his eyes. 

    "After all that's happened," Howard went on quietly, "I suspect the two of you have plenty to talk about." 

End Part I