Preventer Crisis: Missing - Zechs Merquise
(Chapter 2 - Missing Preventer)
Author: Sher
Email: sher_sites@yahoo.com
Story Rating: PG
Anime: Gundam Wing
Pairing: Heero X Relena, Zechs X Noin
Summary: Chapter 2, in which the Preventers realize that Zechs is missing, and they form
a battle plan. In the meantime, Zechs is on a ferris wheel.
It was 6:00 in the morning, and Lucrezia Noin was in the early stages of panic as she burst into Lady Une's office. Of course, Une had just arrived at work in herself, and she wasn't too excited when one of her Preventers suddenly appeared in front of her desk with a very frightened expression.
"Noin? Is something -?"
"Have you seen Zechs?" Noin demanded it rather than asked, cutting Une off before she had the chance to ask what was wrong.
Une blinked and sat her briefcase down on her desk. "No, not since yesterday. He's your husband, not mine."
Noin groaned and started pacing, running her fingers into her black hair. "Damn it! This is serious! He didn't come home last night! And I haven't seen him since he left here yesterday afternoon!"
"I doubt he's got another girl. Zechs isn't like that."
Noin sank into a chair, her face starting to set with shock. "Then where is he? He didn't even leave a note - and his car is still in the parking lot! I noticed it when I came! I went straight to his office to give him a piece of my mind, but he wasn't there either!"
"Maybe he went to see Relena or something." Une turned around and grabbed her coffee cup from the windowsill. She had a feeling she'd need the caffeine - probably several cups of it, to be honest - the way this day was starting.
"Yea, right," Noin muttered.
"Well, maybe he went to one of the Preventer's homes. He's starting to tolerate Heero, so they could have gone out last night," Une shrugged. To tell the truth, she wasn't all that concerned. Zechs Marquis could handle himself. He had always been the soldier, even back to the days they had spent in the Academy.
That was when the door burst open again, this time bringing Wufei into the room. This, too, wasn't exactly what Une would have wished for at six in the morning, but there wasn't anything she could do about him either.
"Lady Une." He stalked straight to her desk and stood rigidly before her, with a severe look on his face.
"Wufei, do you ever knock?" Une glared.
"This is an emergency!" Wufei snarled back. He slapped a piece of paper on her desk. Une arched an eyebrow and picked it up gingerly, reading it over carefully. However, she did a double take and re-read it again. It couldn't be possible. She slowly put her coffee cup on her desk and grasped the paper with both hands, reading it one more time to make sure the information was what she thought it was.
Noin stood up next to Wufei. "What is it?" she asked nervously.
"It's Zechs..." Une managed to sputter out in shock.
"What?" Noin snatched at the paper, but Une held it back.
"Wufei, gather all the main Preventers. I want them in my office at 7:00 sharp! That's an order!"
"Of course," Wufei stated matter-of-factly, as though he had already foreseen such a meeting. He turned and walked back out, shutting the door behind him.
"Zechs has been caught... By an unknown enemy." Une frowned, sitting into her chair. "Here, you can read this note... It's not even an email, so they had to drop it off personally."
"It's written in crayon!" Noin stared first at the paper, then back at Une. "Some kid took my husband hostage?"
"I doubt it's any kid Noin..." Une's eyes narrowed. "This is definitely something serious."
~*~
At 7:00 in the morning, Sally, Wufei, Noin, Heero, and Trowa sat in Lady Une's office. Une tapped her pen against her desk in annoyance and glanced at her watch. She had wanted this meeting to start right now. The watch read 7:01. Silence hovered over the room. 7:02. Wufei growled slightly and looked towards the door, his face dark and aggravated. 7:03. Heero shifted and scowled. 7:04. Noin stood up and started pacing again for the fifth time that morning. 7:05. The door opened and brought the final main Preventer into Une's office.
"Hey guys! What's up? Something wrong?" He spun a chair around and sat in it, leaning his arms against the back.
"Maxwell, when I send out a memo that has URGENT written in huge bold letters at the top, do you even read it?!" Wufei practically shouted.
Duo looked a little blank. "Sure. After I make sure my Playboy magazine is on my desk."
Wufei looked as though he were about to explode, and Duo shot him an annoyed look. "Well? It was a hot centerfold this month."
"My letter was 50 times more urgent and important then some stupid woman in a Playboy magazine!"
"Anyways..." Duo focused on Lady Une, who looked almost as annoyed as Wufei did.
"Duo, I wanted everyone in my office at 7:00. It's now..." she glanced at her watch, "7:08."
"So I'm five minutes late..." Duo rolled his eyes. "What's this about? I'd like to know who in their right mind kidnapped Zechs - and more importantly, why didn't he just shoot them?"
There was a general groan. Everyone was used to Duo's way of acting, and truth be told, no one really cared or minded that he had such a light personality. But today wasn't any ordinary day for joking around.
"Some maniacal idiot kidnapped Zechs," Heero frowned. "This is serious, Duo."
"Extremely serious!" Wufei added, glaring at Duo.
"I get the drift," Duo shrugged. "But can we wait to save him until after breakfast? I haven't even had coffee this morning."
"Because you were looking at some slut in a..."
Sally grabbed Wufei's arm and yanked him into a seat. "Sit down and cool off. You and Duo go through crap like this everyday."
"Alright, getting down to business..." Une demanded. "Some man named 'Johnny', or that's the alias he put on this paper, kidnapped Zechs, and his ultimate goal is to take over the world."
Duo grinned. "It's Pinky and the Brain... It's Pinky and the Brain... One is a genius, the other is insane..."
"Maxwell!!" Wufei shouted
.
"Duo!" Noin cried. "This is serious! Some lunatic took my husband!"
"Alright! Alright! I was just joking around!"
"Well, stop!" several voices snapped.
There was a bit of silence before Une cleared her throat and started reading again. "The letter states that this man has taken Zechs to the L2-R5569 Colony."
There was a moment of silence. Everyone turned and glanced at Duo, but for once, he didn't say anything.
Trowa finally asked, "Well?"
"Huh?" Duo blinked.
"What's on L2-R5569?" Heero forced through gritted teeth.
Duo paused. "Nothing."
"Duo..." Noin warned.
"Nothing!" Duo repeated. "That colony was destroyed when I was about 8 years old! During a terror attack, some rebels destroyed part of the outer shell, and the colony was evacuated. Some parts of it are still okay for living, but on the whole, the entire place has remained empty. I hid Deathscythe Hell there once..." Duo shrugged. "But otherwise? No one lives there."
"Good place to hide out then," Heero frowned.
"Sure," Duo shrugged.
"It says Zechs is at an amusement park on this colony," Une read.
"Oh yea. Space Land." Duo grinned fondly.
"Space Land?" Sally raised an eyebrow.
"Yea. Man, I always wanted to go. But being an orphan, I didn't get to see cool places like that. I saw it on posters and stuff... Looked like a blast! It's on the back side of the colony, so it's still intact I'd imagine."
"Alright..." Une stood up and handed everyone a sheet of paper. "I'm sending you all to this colony. We've got to get Zechs back. I imagine that if this person kidnapped one of my best Preventers, he'll be tough to deal with. These are some directions according to the data we've received from this person. Hopefully, we can put this little fire out fast."
"Roger that," Heero stated, standing up.
"Do you always have to say that?" Duo groaned, folding his paper up some 8 times and stuffing it into his Preventer jacket pocket. Heero didn't reply.
Wufei nodded to Une. "We'll get him back."
Une frowned. "I don't want Quatre Winner involved in this operation. It's possible that Zechs was taken because he's an important political figure. In that light, Quatre can't go with you all. And I've sent some extra guards to watch out for Relena - if of course, that's okay with Heero."
There was a snicker around the group, and Heero scowled. "I suppose."
"You suppose?" Noin giggled.
"She would want me to save her brother, so I guess I can't watch after her today," Heero muttered.
"Then let's get going," Wufei announced. "We've got a difficult mission ahead of us!"
~*~
"Unnn..." Zechs groaned - groggily. He felt dazed, and for a moment, he tried to orientate himself. Forcing his mind to think, Zechs tried to recall the last thing he remembered. After a few minutes, he decided it was definitely the strange guy in the alley. Now, on to more important things. Where was he?
Realizing his hands were in handcuffs, locked onto some sort of bar, Zechs muttered under his breath. Not only was he bonded, but his hair was in his face; and without his hands, he couldn't easily get it out of his face. Grumbling something about cutting the aforementioned hair, (but not really meaning it), Zechs tossed his head back, sending a stream of platinum blonde flowing behind him. Then, leaning back against the chair (or he assumed it was a chair), he looked at his surroundings.
Everything was dark. Great observation Wind... he thought sarcastically. Other then that, he was definitely in some sort of chair, but the bar came across his knees and prevented him from standing. It was the same bar his hands were locked to, and he found the chair was wide enough for two people to sit in, side by side. Looking straight up, he made the discovery that this chair was attached to a larger apparatus of sorts, and there were more chairs on it. It looked like a wheel, but Zechs couldn't turn around to see behind him.
"You're awake!!"
The voice was far too cheerful for Zechs to handle. He looked angrily in the direction it had come from. "Not so loud please, I've got a bad headache," he snarled.
"Aw..." The owner of the voice appeared in front of Zechs, standing on a slight platform. "I'm sorry to chain you down, Mr. Merquise, but I can't have you getting away!" he giggled. "This is all part of my extravagant plan to take over the world!"
"Great," Zechs muttered blandly.
"The other Preventers will be along shortly, I'm quite sure! But they won't be much of an obstacle!" The man, who was the same man that had dragged Zechs into the alley, raised his cane, and stuck it in Zechs face.
Zechs grimaced and leaned back, staring at the tip of the cane, and realized with some sort of sickening horror that it was a gun barrel. "What the hell?!"
"AH HA! You figured it out!" The man did a strange little dance before saying anything more. "This cane is extremely lethal!" he beamed happily. Firing off in the distance, he gave Zechs a good example of the gun's power. It was rapid, fast, and deadly. Zechs only stared in shock as he listened to what sounded like a wall crumbling in the distance under the gun's power.
"So, why do you want to take over the world?" he finally asked, not sure if he could comprehend such insanity.
"Because! I just want to." The laughter filled the area with this statement, and Zechs cringed.
"Uh oh!" The man blinked and looked at a watch. "Preventers in the area! Time to play!" He skipped off towards a control box. There was a jerk, and Zechs flinched as his chair started moving.
"Oh shit..." he muttered - but there wasn't anything he could do to stop the moving. His chair rose up in a circle. "A Ferris Wheel... I'm on a Ferris Wheel..."
"You'll wish to see all the action, I'm quite sure!" The man laughed manically. "From the top of the wheel of fate, you can watch it ALLLLLL!!!!" The moving stopped, and Zechs realized he was dead top this Ferris Wheel.
"Damn..." He watched as the man skipped off into the darkness, clicking his heels every so often. Unfortunately, he couldn't make anything out because there were no lights - but he could still hear that frightening laughter in the distance. He hoped the Preventers wouldn't be caught too off guard. "Well..." he sighed, "I wanted something different. And this definitely qualifies."
On to Chapter 3
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