FUTURE HAUNTS
By ~ K.T.
Chapter II
Disclaimer: Don't own G.W. Anyone with a half a brain should be able to
figure that out.
Words surrounded by * mean's that they're italicized.
(K.T.: To re-cap or not to re-cap.....re-cap).
Catherine stared up at the night sky, willing Trowa to fall from it. Where
was he?!
Something warm and hard clamped over her mouth and a strong arm
pinned her own arms to her sides. She wriggled, but to no avail.
"Well, well, well." Hot breath hit her ear and tickled the inside.
Catherine gave a muffled scream from behind her captor's hand. "What have we
here?"
Two more figures came out of the darkness and they made their way into the
large circus tent. Catherine's captor dragged her along.
She blinked in the light of the tent and but then stared at the other two
figures in order to remember their appearance.
"Where is he?!" Demanded one of the men. He wore baggy khakis and a
long-sleeved black shirt. He wasn't very old, probably in his early to
mid-twenties.
The hand came away from Catherine's mouth but a knife replaced it just as
swiftly, pressing down on her neck.
"No loud sounds." Her captor said, his voice strangely soothing.
"Where is he, dammit?!" Kaki demanded again, the cords standing out in
his neck. The other young man who stood a little behind Kaki wore an, almost
frightened expression on his baby face.
*Who are these guys?!* Catherine thought. Then she looked at the man in Kaki.
"W-who do you mean?" She asked, knowing exactly who they were looking
for: Trowa.
The man started for her, his eyes wild.
"Ryden." A woman's voice warned.
Catherine peered into the dark shadows of the tent's entrance and her eyes
widened as a tall, beautiful woman came in. Her hair was red-orange, like
fire, and it sat on her head like a mop, the different lengths framing her
triangular face. Her hair came to a long tail at the base of her neck and
was wrapped in black ribbon to a length even Duo would have to admire. She
also wore black baggy pants and a loose, black tank.
Catherine brought her gaze back to Kaki, er, Ryden. He still looked like
he wanted to strangle her. She winced away and then felt the knife press
harder onto her neck.
"Where is Trowa Barton." The red head asked, coming to stand next to
the man, Ryden. Catherine looked at the two of them and the, slightly
shorter, young man behind them. She drew in a breath and answered truthfully...
"I don't know."
Red looked at Kaki.
"She's lying." Ryden told the woman. An evil grin spread across
his features and he leered at Catherine. "Give me a few hours with her, I
could make her tell the truth."
Catherine shuddered in true fear, her heart pounding so fiercely she
was sure the man holding her could hear it.
"Knock-it-off, Ryden." The man holding her told Kaki.
"No names." Ryden hissed.
Catherine watched the woman move away from them and examine the
circus ring. She turned back.
"Any chance you know when Mr. Barton will be getting back." She
asked Catherine.
Catherine shook her head and remembered the knife a bit too late.
"Ah." She squeaked as she felt her neck beginning to burn. Her
captor immediately loosened his hold, dropping the knife from her blood
smeared throat.
"She did it on purpose!" Ryden screamed at the red haired woman as
she squatted beside Catherine's kneeling body. "She knows too much all
ready. We should just kill her." Ryden went on.
Catherine met the red head's shadowed gaze. She fell back as the
woman whipped out a gun and pointed it at Ryden.
"If you don't shut-up I'm certainly going to kill somebody." Her
voice was low, the same pitch it had been every time she spoke. That
monotone deadliness...
*"Can I tell you something, Trowa?" Heero asked Catherine's brother
while lying on her bed after he had tried to self-destruct. The standing boy
nodded.
"Death hurts like hell."
Both he and Trowa laughed, the sound almost foreign to their own
ears and coming out nearly as monotone as their voices.*
Catherine stared at the red haired woman. She didn't look very old up
close. In fact, she didn't look much older then Catherine herself!
"Who are you?" Catherine whispered.
The woman glanced at her and then back at the three men who stood together.
"He's not here, so let's go." She told him.
Ryden glanced at Catherine and then stomped out the tent entrance.
The shortest man stepped forward, his gaze shy and sympathetic as he handed
Catherine a kerchief. The other man, still holding his bloodied knife,
nodded to the red head and then, followed by the shorter man, walked after
Ryden.
Catherine stared at the woman as she crouched by her side and
holstered her gun in the back of her pants.
"Look, kid." she told Catherine. "If you hear from your little brother,
you tell him that the leaders of the New Dawn are looking for him, you get
that?" She looked Catherine dead in the eye and Catherine nodded painfully.
"Are you one of the leaders?" Catherine asked hoarsely.
Then the woman stood, her eyes once again in the shadows.
"I am just the messenger." Then she walked out.
--------------------------
"And you say this all happened less than an hour ago?" Quatre asked
Catherine over the com-link Trowa had left with her.
Catherine nodded, tears still blurring her eyes. She had been so
afraid, after the four people had left, she hadn't moved until the shock
wore off. All the implications of what the man in Kaki had meant and the
deadly seriousness of the woman and the man who had held her. The
frightened, sympathetic look of the shorter man who had probably been forced
into it all. And on top of that, she didn't even know where Trowa was in
order to warn him. The whole thing was too much, emotionally as well as
mentally.
Heero listened to Quatre and Catherine Bloom as she re-counted what
happened over the com. He didn't like it. Not only had it been dangerous
for Catherine but she was kind of falling apart. That was definitely not
the butt-kicking-Catherine he knew.
"Catherine." Heero interrupted them. "Where is Trowa now?"
Both young men glanced at each other as they heard her sobs coming over
the link.
"Don't....know..." she hiccuped.
"Catherine, wait there, I'm coming to get you." Quatre told her. He
looked at Heero. "Just wait there, ok?"
They listened.
"Ok." They heard her whisper.
Heero shut off the com as Quatre strode out of the study; he thought
of Trowa and how he would deal with this and then turned the com back on.
"Catherine?" Heero called through.
"Yes." She said quietly, the fear in her voice seeming very real even
though they couldn't even see each other.
"I'm going to leave the com on so if you feel you need to talk until
Quatre arrives, I'm here."
Catherine listened to Heero, wondering if this wasn't the longest sentence
she'd ever heard him utter. She smiled thinking how much he sounded like
Trowa. Like...someone else as well...
Red flashed through her mind and Catherine leaned closer to the com.
"There was something else, Heero." She told him, while trying to get
her voice back under control.
He waited.
"There was this woman...she...she had red-orange hair and a...a
triangular face. I couldn't tell about her eyes though, they were too
shadowed." Catherine took a shaky breath. "She...the only reason why I
brought it up is because she sounded like you and Trowa do. You know,
emotionless, careless, like...like you aren't afraid of anything." She
waited and listened.
"Anything else?" Heero asked, his voice once again monotone.
Catherine smiled, able to pick up on the thought going on behind the
monotonous tones.
"Nope." She told him, her voice beginning to resume its usual perkiness.
----------------------------------------
Ryden stared up at the mobile suit and licked his dry lips. He'd had
enough! He was going to destroy all of the Gundam pilots and rule Eurasia
on his own. The Shadow had messed up his plans, coming back to earth and
taking over the order of the New Dawn. Ryden ground his teeth. He would
make the Shadow pay!
"But first I'm going to go back and give that pretty little circus girl
what's coming to her. Then we'll see how fast Trowa comes out of hiding."
"Ryden, you know I can't let you leave." A voice came from behind him.
Ryden turned and stared at N'Brekk who was holding his, now clean knife,
in one hand.
"You can always come." Ryden told the bleach-haired man, an evil grin
spreading across his face. "That circus girl would probably welcome the
embrace of two strong *men*."
"You sick-son-of-a...oof!" N'Brekk doubled over as Ryden hit him hard.
"Had enough?" Ryden sneered and then kneed N'Brekk hard in the gut.
The blond man fell to the ground and Ryden stood over him, a disgusted look
on his face. Then he let out a vicious snarl and kicked the fallen man
once...twice...three times.
"Don't ever try to tell me what to do again!" Ryden screamed
childishly at the unconscious man. He turned and began to climb into the
mobile suit's cockpit.
"If you get into that mobile suit, I'll have no choice but to eliminate
you." A feminine voice said behind him. Ryden felt a real smile turn up the
corners of his lips. He turned and regarded the fiery haired woman
confidently. This was the girl he had grown up with, trained with, killed
with. If anyone were to understand him, it would be her.
"Do you think you can stop me?" He challenged both playfully and seriously.
She gazed back at him with those cold, impassive eyes who knew Death like
a brother. Ryden watched her calculatingly.
"Why don't you come with me? This Shadow is going to completely take
over the New Dawn order and those silly pawns will be tricked into doing his
bidding." He watched her as she watched him. He knew she was listening,
weighing the possibilities. She had always been the thoughtful one in
their...partnership. With his passion and her genius, they were
unstoppable. He said as much and noted the flicker of interest in her
golden eyes. Aerran and he were one and the same. "If you come with me, I
will help you destroy that pathetic Darlian girl, just as you've always
wanted, and we can rule Eurasia together."
"I don't want Eurasia." She said evenly, her eyes never leaving his.
"Well then, I can have Eurasia and you can have
whatever-the-hell-you-want!" He gave her his most winning smile, knowing
that many women found him irresistible.
Aerran turned and began to walk away. Ryden's smile faded.
"The Shadow won't allow you to kill that Darlian girl, you know!" He
called after her. "He doesn't believe in killing a person for no reason!"
"Then you'll just be one more broken rule." She called back in her calm
voice as the morning fog swallowed her willowy form.
--------------------------------------------
Rina Calton gave her twin's hand a squeeze as they sat watching the sun rise.
"You know, mother would have loved this." Her brother told her softly.
She breathed in the clean, fresh air. It was so wonderful, not having
to breath the same, stale air in again and again. If only the others knew
what they were missing.
"What are you thinking?" He asked her in his soft-spoken manner.
"How much they're missing." her features twisted slightly as she
frowned. "How much we've all missed."
He nodded.
"If we do fight to make all of this under OZ control once again," a
smooth, accented voice broke into their peaceful musings. "All of this will
be destroyed."
Rina turned and stared at the Shadow as he stood in the shadows of
a near-by tree.
"And if we don't," she countered. "No one on the colonies will ever know
what living like a human is all about. What this Earth is about." She told
him angrily.
R'nal looked from the Shadow to his sister, confusion warring in his
gentle heart. He agreed with his sister about the colonies, but...He saw
the frightened, wide-eyed face of the circus girl he and the other three had
threatened just that night. What the Shadow said about the way they were
going about it all nagged at him.
"Is destroying one another to prove a point really what being human is
all about?" The Shadow questioned softly.
Rina frowned, her kind heart troubled by these discerning words.
She caught and met her brother's gaze. They looked back at the Shadow...but
he was gone.
---------------------------------------
Quatre strode into the circus tent and saw Catherine's lithe form as she
stood before the target board. He glanced down at the small duffel bag at
the rim of the ring and then leaned against the bleachers to watch. She had
on jeans and an-off-colored-purple t-shirt. Even then, she still looked
graceful.
She drew her arm back and aimed. With a snap of her wrist she let the
five knives fly, creating a perfect circle around the bull's-eye. Then, she
brought up her left hand and spun, flicking the knife in mid-spin. It flew
and hit its mark true.
Quatre clapped but his smile faded when Catherine whirled around to
stare at him with wide, terrified eyes. He straightened and walked towards her.
"Catherine...are you ready?"
Her amethyst gaze met his deep blue one and she ran forward, throwing
her arms about his neck. Her head buried into his shoulder as her own
shoulders shook.
"Easy." He said, rubbing her slim back. "Easy." He frowned at the
ring master who entered the ring.
"I'm taking Catherine away for a bit. If Trowa comes back will you
let him know she's with Quatre?"
"B-b-but...!"
"Thanks." Quatre nodded to the man. He wrapped one arm around
Catherine's shoulders and picked up her small duffel bag with the other
hand. They walked out of the circus tent and towards the small air craft.
--------------------------
"I don't see why you guys are so worried." Wufei told Heero as he looked
over the faxed data Heero sent him. "Even if you're right, and these
shuttles are angry colonists trying to terrorize helpless civilians, why
haven't they attacked yet?"
"I don't think they're terrorists." Heero corrected Wufei.
"Hmm."
Heero waited.
"I'm on Colony 3 and can't get to Earth any time soon." Wufei mused
out loud for Heero's benefit. "I will try to get there as soon as..."
"As a matter of fact I think it would be wiser for you to stay. See if
you can find out anything about any secret groups who are trying to follow
in the Oz, or White Fang footsteps."
"I understand." Wufei told Heero. "I'll keep in touch."
"Do you really think that Oz or White Fang followers are still out
there." A feminine voice asked Heero.
He swivelled around in his chair and eyed Dorthy Catalonia warily.
"Truthfully?" He inquired.
"Truthfully." She answered.
"Yes."
Dorthy entered the den and sat in a near-by chair, her eyes never leaving
Heero's face. He noticed she hadn't done a lot of changing over the past
two years. Her body was still lean and willowy. She moved with the grace
of a cat and her hair was longer than ever, the pale, white-corn-colored,
silk strands held back in a long, thick braid. She watched him with the
eyes of a hunter and the eyes of the hunted. Heero truly just did not know
what to make of the girl-woman. "My, my." She clucked. "How you've
grown."
Heero's left brow rose.
"Funny." He said, not sounding at all amused. "I was just going to say
the same thing about you."
"Womanhood agrees with me." Dorthy told him, her tone baiting.
Heero didn't deny it.
"So," she said, stretching her lithe body. "what makes you think that
the White Fang and Oz followers are up to something?" She rested an elbow
on the arm rest of her chair and plopped her chin in her hand. Heero
blinked. The pose made Dorthy look very child-like. He felt himself relax.
"Well..." He began and told her what they found out as well as show
her the data files he'd printed out about it all.
Dorthy perched on the arm rest of his chair while looking at the
computer screen as he brought up file after file.
"Wait." She said, pointing a finger at a picture. Heero enlarged
it. It showed the entry point for one of the shuttles.
"I saw that." She said, gazing at the time slot. "I *thought* it
was too big to be a meteor." She moved her hand to the mouse and ended up
putting her hand over Heero's. They both froze and then jerked their hands
away at the same time.
Heero looked slightly up into Dorthy's crystal-blue eyes. Her own
were wide as if she were expecting something. He move swiftly out of his
seat and turned his back on her, looking through the file print-outs.
The silence held until Dorthy finally broke it.
"Um...this...there!" Dorthy sounded excited and Heero turned to look
at what she had found.
"It must have landed somewhere in the Serian fields."
"That place is massive." Heero told her, coming to stand at her
shoulder. "Even if we did a fly-by they could be hiding in
grass-covered-trenches."
"Not if we did the fly-by early and surprised them." Dorthy looked
over her shoulder and froze, her nose barely a centimeter from his. Their
eyes locked and then Dorthy quickly looked back at the screen. Her breath
was coming too fast.
"We could go now." Heero murmured.
Dorthy turned again, nothing but the excitement of adventure in her
crystal gaze.
Heero's lips quirked in the corner and he nodded.
"Then let's go."
-----------------------------
Duo landed his air craft with precision and leaned back in his seat to
stare at Relena Darlian's mansion. She had always been a weird one, that
Relena. Her and her strange obsession with Heero...and then there was
Heero's with her. It was all too warped for Duo's light taste. He
shrugged it off and unfastened his belt.
After checking over his ship, he exited through the cargo hold and breathed
in the crisp morning air. He'd arrived here sooner than he had expected.
He chuckled.
A loud sound overhead caused him to jump and he watched a, smaller,
air craft fly off toward the west. Duo cocked his head to the side and
scratched it. They he gave another characteristic shrug and began to
whistle as he walked toward Une's.
Another sound over-head caused him to look up and then dodge out of
the way as an air craft began to land. The engines were cut off and he
glared at it until he caught sight of someone at the gang-way. Quatre hung
out the door.
"Duo!" The blond boy wave his hand and laughed in delight. Another
form stood beside him and Duo felt his eyes widen as he saw Catherine Bloom,
the circus girl. What was Trowa's sister doing here?!
"Hey, Quatre." Duo shouted.
The boy ran down the ramp steps, a small duffel bag slung over his
shoulder. He stopped just before crashing into Duo and stared down at the
smaller man.
Duo's eyes widened as he looked up at the blond boy.
"Geese, Quatre!" He threw the boy a lopsided grin. "Quit growing, will
ya."
Quatre laughed and unashamedly hugged his friend.
Duo gave Catherine a grin of embarrassment before noticing her strained
features and downcast eyes.
Quatre noticed Duo's curious gaze and glanced at Catherine's
shoulder-drooped form. He reached for her hand and then looked back at Duo.
"Catherine's going to stay with us until we can find Trowa."
Duo blinked at the fierce, protective look on Quatre's face.
"Ah, sure." Duo said backing up as Quatre pulled Catherine off the
ramp. "No problem." Duo finished.
The three figures walked to Lady Une's. The large piece of land was
shared by Mrs. Darlian and Lady Une, both women deciding to build their new
homes close to one another since Une was taking care of Mariama and Dorthy
really had no place to go. Relena would be close by for both girls and Mrs.
Darlian would be there as well. It made things easier on the directionless
Dorthy and hurting Mariama.
They entered Une's home and walked to the den.
"We're back, Heero." Quatre called out to the tall, dark haired boy.
"And Duo's here as well." The two boys looked around as Catherine sank
into a near-by, overstuffed chair. She rested her head on an arm and gave
in to her drooping eye-lids.
Quatre glanced at the computer screen and saw the note taped to it.
He snatched it off and read it.
Duo looked at Quatre and gave a laugh of confusion at the expression
on Quatre's face. Then Duo noticed the note.
"What is it?!" He demanded of Quatre.
"Dorthy and...Heero." The blond boy said , a note of amazed disbelief
in his cracking voice.
Duo blinked.
"Well did Heero finally kill the...er, lady, or what?! What is it,
Quatre?!"
"Heero took Dorthy out with him to check the Serian fields for space
craft."
Duo's eyes widened in shock and then he began to laugh. Quatre
frowned.
"They *hate* each other." He mused. "And Heero really mistrusts
Dorthy." He folded his arms, staring out into space. "I wonder what made
him drag her along."
"Knowing Heero, she didn't *make* him do anything." Duo said with a
chuckle.
Quatre glanced at him and shrugged. Then he let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
"Whoa!" He breathed and shook his blond head. "I think I'll get some
sleep."
Duo grinned.
"I think I will too."
Quatre laughed. Then he remembered: Catherine.
"Catherine?" He looked around and saw her mahogany head lying on her
sinewy arm. Quatre walked over and stood infront of her staring down at her
sleeping form. Her body hardly moved from the deep sleep she had fallen
into. A lock of hair fell onto her cheek, and her lashes fanned out on her
cheek, creating a tiny, dark half-moon across the slightly freckled, creamy
cheek.
Duo stared at the silly grin on Quatre's face and wondered if he had
looked that way when he once caught Hilde sleeping on the couch. Duo shook
his head and moved to stand next to Quatre.
"Should we just leave her there?" Duo asked the taller, blond boy, but
Quatre had already begun to move. He leaned down, scooped his hands under
the sleeping girl's knees and shoulders and gently lifted her into his arms.
Quatre moved quietly out of the den, leaving Duo staring after him in
something akin to shock.
Duo shook himself and rubbed his face. He quickly moved after the blond
boy and waited outside the room Quatre disappeared into. The blond boy came
out, gently closing the door behind him and then motioned for Duo to follow
him with a long finger to his lips.
They entered a room with two twin beds, one of them rumpled from use.
"You can stay with me." Quatre told Duo.
Duo looked at the extra bed and then moved closer to it. He let
himself flop down on it and then rolled onto his side. Quatre just sat,
tailor style on his own bed, staring off into space again. Duo rolled his eyes.
* "It hits guys like that sometimes.*" Was his last coherent thought.