FUTURE HAUNTS
By ~ K.T.

Chapter IV

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.  Sabriel, N'Brekk, Aerran, Rina, Ryden,
R'nal, and Shadow are mine...for the time being.

Words surrounded by * are italicized.

      "AAAHHHH!"    Relena yelled as she rolled down the steep side-walk at
a much faster pace than she cared for.
          "Use the breaks on your heels."  Sabriel skated up beside her out
of control body.
     Relena felt a strange peace settle over her at the calm-control in
Sabriel's voice.  She had learned so many things about Sabriel Arran today
that she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.  The woman was so much like
Heero it was shocking!  She rarely spoke unless she had something to say,
she was always in control of herself, and , she had a strange kindness about
her that was hidden beneath layers of a controlled fury.  Relena didn't know
what to do with her.  Heero was...well...Heero.  Sabriel was someone else.
         A child tripped out of no where and landed on the side walk in
front of them.  Relena screamed and felt her body suddenly lifted.  She
squeezed her eyes shut and then bent forward when her feet landed on the
pavement once again, her knees locking at the jolt.  She opened her eyes and
looked up at Sabriel's impassive face which was regarding the fallen child
with cold eyes.  The woman pried her arms loose from Relena's grip and
skated back towards the little boy.  He was sobbing, his elbows bleeding
from being scraped.
Relena wobbled after Sabriel and sat on the curb as Sabriel knelt before
the, now kneeling, little boy.
       "What happened?"  Relena heard Sabriel ask the child.  Not, "are you
all right" or, "everything's going to be okay."  Just, "What happened," in
that careless, deliberate voice.
      "I...f-f-feeellll."  The baby sobbed, his eyes scrunching up as tears
streaked down his dusty face.
    Sabriel looked around and then looked at Relena.  Relena met her gaze
head on and then realized Sabriel was looking through her.  The dark-haired
woman chewed her lower lip in thought and Relena watched her, thinking that
that was the most human pose Sabriel had ever shown.
        "Can you walk?"
      Relena started, realizing that Sabriel was speaking to the child.
   The little boy sniffed and stretched out his little, chubby legs.  His
knees were bleeding as well, and one cut looked particularly bad.   His
miniature features began to scrunch up again when Sabriel snatched him up
and placed him on her shoulders.
       Then she offered a hand to Relena and began to skate slowly.
     "Where to, kid."  She asked the boy on her shoulders, looking up at
him.  He had his hands on her cheeks and bent over to see her face, his
large eyes looking awed and excited at the same time.
     "My house!"  He said laughingly, his recent tears still glinting on his
baby cheeks.
    Relena looked up from watching her new-born-colt-like feet and stared at
the laughing boy.  Sabriel was also smiling, her face once-again transformed
from its plain emptiness to a pixie-like beauty.   Relena shook her head at
them, feeling a smile tug her own lips.
    "There!"  The little boy said, pointing to one of the colonial houses
which lined the old-fashioned streets.   Sabriel skated across the street
easily and then set the boy down at the foot of the steps leading to his
front door.  Relena waited on the other side of the street, watching as
Sabriel and the little boy explained to his mother what happened.
A loud noise caught Relena's attention and she looked down the street at
the motorcycle which came down the little street.  It began to slow down and
pulled to the side of the curb, right where Relena stood.  She rolled back
on her blades a little and began to lose her balance.  As she fell back, one
of the motorcycle riders lept off the bike and grabbed her about the waist.
Relena stared, wide-eyed at the helmet covered face of her savior.  Her body
was bent back, leaning away from the body contact of the man who held her.
He wasn't much larger than she was, and his long hair was braided...
        One strong arm moved to the helmet and pulled it off to reveal
twinkling indigo eyes and a smirk to complete the face.
      "Duo!"  Relena laughed and leaned in to finish the strange embrace.
She pulled back as she noticed a figure at her elbow and looked at Sabriel.
       "Sabriel, this is one of my friends.  Duo Maxwell, meet Sabriel
Arran, my...er, body-guard."
   Duo's eyes widened as he gave the taller woman a once over.  Then he
grinned at Relena who was still encircled by his loosened arms.
        "She looks like the life of a  party."  He said cheerfully.
    Relena glanced at Sabriel again and noted the cold, stoic features.  She
gave a hesitant laugh of her own and then stilled when a familiar voice said.
        "Relena, you should get home.  It's not safe for you to be wandering
around anymore."
    Relena blinked at Heero's own impassive face and then looked back to
Duo.  She scrunched up her nose in an uncharacteristic show of playfulness.
       "These two..."  She motioned with her head at Sabriel and Heero.
"You'd think they were my parents."  She rolled her eyes and stuck out her
tongue at Heero.
Duo threw back his head and laughed, hugging Relena's slim body closer to
his own.  Then he released her, still chuckling.
        Heero fought composure as different feelings assaulted him at once.
He felt jealousy at Duo's manhandling of Relena's body; anger that she had
been naive enough to think one woman could actually protect her from harm;
amazed-attraction for her when she had wrinkled her nose so adorably, he
felt his hot blood thrum throughout his body.
       "We were just on our way back."  Relena said, interrupting Heero's
thoughts.  "Sabriel was teaching me to roller-blade."  She smiled at the
taller woman and then moved to stand before Heero.
      "What do you mean, it's not safe to be wandering around, anymore?"
She tilted her head to the side, a pose that Heero had always found
charming.  He had to think for a moment before answering.
     "We...we found something which may pose a threat to Earth."   He told
her, not wanting to divulge any information to the shy-possessive Sabriel
Arran.
       "Not only that," Duo had to throw his two-cense in. "Dorthy is
missing.  She and Heero went out this mor..."  He caught Heero's stare and
his mouth closed with a snap.  Then he gave a self-conscious grin. "We'll
have to fill you in later."
         Relena stared at him in shock..  Dorthy missing?!  She nodded
dumbly and watched as Duo got back on the bike, helmet in place.
       "We'll see you later, Relena."  Duo told her.
    "Go home, Relena." Heero told her, revved up his bike, and they drove off.
         Relena stood still, her heart seeming to have stopped and her
breath coming fast.   She had nearly burst into tears at the sound of
Heero's voice.  But...Dorthy!
       "We have to get back, Sabriel."
    "Yes."  Sabriel said.   Relena looked at the taller woman and saw that
she was watching the bike drive from view.  Sabriel turned to regard Relena
thoughtfully.
       "Your friend is in trouble?"
    Relena nodded, afraid to answer with the lump in her throat threatening
to cause her voice to break.  She didn't even really like Dorthy,
but...Dorthy had always been kind since Treize had died.  She hadn't opened
up or anything, just...been more amiable.
     "Do you want me to find her."  Sabriel asked, her eyes on her skates as
she rocked back and forth on them.
      Relena studied the woman, a pensive frown etched on her young face.
Her mother had said the reference spoke of Sabriel's investigative
abilities.  Perhaps...
    "I...we will go home."  Relena began and caught Sabriel's dark eyes as
the woman looked up. "And then, if you wouldn't mind, I would be glad if you
looked into my friend's disappearance.  But first..." she looked in the
direction the bike had driven, her blue-green eyes narrowing. "We're going
to pay a visit to Lady Une."
         -----------------------------

   Wufei looked around the large, empty warehouse, his dark gaze showing
only pin-points of light from the open doorway.  He stepped slowly into the
large space, his form swallowed in a mantle of darkness.  He waited, his
eyes taking their time to adjust to the darkness.
       After searching the net and other various advertizing networks, he'd
stumbled onto something which interested him.  And, some time during the
late morning, Heero had typed a quick memo to him.  The NEW DAWN ORDER.
Wufei had immediately recognized the name and checked back on the sites he'd
found.  The New Dawn Order was a group of pro-colony cultists who believed
that the Earth was their mother and that the colonies were nothing but
obstacles to the one-ness of humanity.  As long as humans were separated by
space, their completeness would never come about.  They also were birthed
from the original organization of OZ and the White Fang, a strange mix of
the old Nazis and another socialist reform called the Yeation,  from the Old
Earth, before it had become one nation.  The leaders of the New Dawn
believed that humans were destined to evolve into perfect beings, but only
if their one-ness was complete with Mother Earth.
Wufei found a lot of interesting things, but he decided to wait to notify
Heero until he checked out some stuff on his own.  Looking around the dark
warehouse, though, changed his mind....
      WHAM!  Something hit him from behind, smacking into his skull with a
sickening crack. He stumbled forward, amazed that anyone could have sneaked
up on him like that.  Then he dropped and threw out his foot, catching his
attacker in the side.  The body flew back, and in the eye-
adjusted-darkness, Wufei saw his attacker's lithe form land one all fours
like a cat.
       "If you think that I'm going back into that cell again, you'll have
to drag my corpse into there."  The husky voice growled.
   Wufei listened in amazement and then dropped his fighting stance.
     "Sally Po?"  He called out to the crouched form.
       The woman straightened and took a hesitant step forward.
      "Wufei?"
     Bright lights flashed, flooding the ware-house with light.  Wufei
shaded his eyes with a hand while moving swiftly to Sally's side.  The two
Preventers stared at the large group of uniformed soldiers who stood around
the large room.  A man stood on a platform a head of them, a man not much
older than Sally.
       "I am so glad you found my little base, Preventer Chang.  Your's is
the company this base has sorely lacked."
     "What are you saying?!"  Wufei demanded, moving in front of Sally Po's
body and hiding her gun from their watcher's view.
     The man's face flashed from charmingly handsome, to a twisted
contortion of fury.
"No man shows insolence to Ryden Alyan!  I am the King of the Colony
Alliance and will soon be King of Earth as well."   Veins pushed the skin of
his forehead out and his eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.  Wufei and
Sally took a step back, simultaneously.
        The man on the platform suddenly calmed and let out a soft laugh.
Then he spoke, his voice like that of a father speaking to his unruly child.
      "There is nothing to fear so long as you join our mission.  For I was
picked by God himself to lead the Earth-sphere and the colonies to a time of
co-existing."
      "Funny," Sally spoke, her voice harsh with her own anger. "they seem
to be doing just fine on their own."
      Ryden ground his teeth together so that those nearest heard the sound.
"'They know not what they do'."  He quoted through clenched teeth. "help me
to forgive them, 'They know not what they do'."
      Wufei narrowed his eyes as he looked at the insane man who stood
before them proclaiming to be king.
     "I would never serve a king who thinks that everyone must believe as he
does.  I would consider it the greatest injustice in throwing away my
individuality for another man's delusions of grander."  Wufei's voice rose
as Ryden's face became a mottled red. "And I would never follow someone I
did not willingly believe in!"  His eyes roamed the faces of the young
soldiers, some younger than himself.  Then he locked gazes with Ryden. "And
I would never dishonor myself and those I care for by helping a psycho like
you."
       Ryden lept from his platform and came at Wufei with a samari sword.
Wufei waited calmly and pulled his own sword from its sheath at the last
possible second.  The metal connected and the sound rang throughout the
ware-house.  Sally saw a soldier draw his blade to stab Wufei in the back
and drew the pistol she had taken off another soldier, aiming it steadily at
the young boy.        "Move that, and it will be the last movement you ever
make, save for your dead body crumpling to the blood soaked ground."  She
told him, her voice as deadly as she could make it.  The boy hesitated at
moment before stepping back into the line of soldiers.
       "AAARRRGGHHH!"  Roared Ryden as he leapt up and brought his sword
down hard on Wufei's block.  Wufei's sword shattered and Ryden's blade went
through, plunging into Wufei's thigh.
      "AAAHHH!"  Wufei cried out, his leg laced with pain.
   "Wufei!"  Sally was grabbed by half-a-dozen strong young men and pinned
to the ground as they struggled to tie up her arms.
     Wufei looked up at Ryden and met Ryden's flying foot.  It smashed into
his mouth and he felt his teeth dig into his lip. He flew back and was
caught by strong arms.   Blood smeared across his cheek and dribbled down
his chin.  Ryden's face came into view and smirked at the, now restrained,
Wufei.
     "Hold him tightly."  Ryden told his men.
  Wufei remained silent through the first dozen or so hits, but after
another hit to the head, his world began to go dark.  Before he lost
complete consciousness, he heard Sally still screaming at them to stop.
        ----------------------------------

        Author's Rantings...
A note to those who may actually be interested in reading the rest of this:
I'm having trouble on my G-fic and it's really distressing!
      Duo's mad at me because I'm thinking of killing off Hilde, or maybe
giving her a small part, clarifying that she and Duo have no relationship
and Duo says that he doesn't want to be the only one without a girlfriend to
which I pointed out that Wufei doesn't have one...yet,  and he rolled his
eyes saying that Wufei was in love with his Gundam anyway to which Wufei
entered and told me to *@!# *@! and that he wasn't going to take being beat
up from a psycho like Ryden, to which Ryden shouted back that Wufei was not
one to talk and he could take Wufei on anytime, to which Quatre told them to
"SHUT UP" for they were giving him a head ach and he had already had an
earful from Dorthy for kissing Catherine on the cheek and that that hadn't
been part of the REAL story to which Marimai told Duo that SHE'D be his
girlfriend to which Heero snickered and Hilde whacked him upside the head
and Relena punched Hilde in the stomach, yelling at her for "EVEN THINKING
ABOUT TOUCHING HEERO!"  Noin, Sally, and Wind/Milliardo/Zechs entered with
Catherine skipped in behind them and ran to cling to Ryden's arm.  N'Brekk
and Aerran entered shouting about their last scene in the tent with Shadow,
who entered holding Rina's hand. R'nal came in behind, his eyes throwing
daggers at Shadow's back and Wind/Milliardo/Zechs told Relena to stop being
a drama-queen.  Shadow released Rina who stared dreamily at
Wind/Milliardo/Zechs and Dorthy entered whining about her wardrobe, to which
Aerran told her not to be such an annoying little *@!#* and Dorthy reached
for the nearest sword. Quatre began screaming in a high, girly fashion as
Heero, Relena, Hilde, Duo, Catherine,  Wind/Milliardo/Zechs, Noin, Marimai,
Wufei, and Sally all backed up like a tidal wave. Ryden, R'nal, Rina (who
are actually un-identical triplets),  Shadow, N'Brekk, and Aerran all stared
at Dorthy with confused looks on their faces.  then Shadow stepped forward
and told Dorthy to stop being so childish while Aerran smacked a
still-screaming Quatre across the face.
          TO WHICH, I shout at them all to shut up and sit down and they all
stared at me in shock, complying, once again, like a tidal wave.  I was
about to explain the plan for the rest of my story and how it was to go when
Une came in and told me it was time for Marimai's ADD medicine. Wufei stood
and told me I was a weak writer to which I promptly shot him in the foot. as
he hopped around on the other foot, screaming profanities at me I asked if
anyone else thought I was weak.  To my delighted satisfaction, everyone
shook their head "No"  and I proceeded to tell them what would be happening.
I asked for ideas and found Heero to be a rather good poet, but
unfortunately,  this was not a Shakespearian story and so he didn't help me
much.  Then someone asked about the Gundams, and if they're already
destroyed,  what should they do when the time came to fight Ryden's Mobil
suit.  I frowned a bit at that thought and then shrugged.  We'll just have
to have someone build new ones, to which Shadow told me that Aerran had one
since Ryden did and maybe N'Brekk should be in charge of the Mobil suits to
which N'Brekk shouted at Shadow to not lay responsibility on other people to
which Aerran yelled at N'Brekk to stop yelling to which actual tears started
streaming down Quatre's face and he promptly ran out, yelling about the
horrors of being stabbed by a psycho woman who had already yelled at him all
morning, to which Catherine shouted after Quatre to come back and then
turned on Aerran and Shadow, giving them quite an earful to which Dorthy
told Catherine to stay away from her man to which Catherine said that Dorthy
didn't own Quatre! Dorthy reached once again for her sword but Duo, Hilde,
Heero, Noin, and Sally dived on her and Relena snatched the sword away from
Dorthy's still clutching fingers.  I guess Rina decided it was time to make
her move because in all the commotion,  I caught a gimps of her and
Wind/Milliardo/Zechs necking in a dark corner. N'Brekk noticed as well and
pointed them out to R'nal and Ryden.  Ryden shrugged it off as he moved
suavely over to Catherine and Relena and R'nal got this murderous look on
his face that made ME shiver and he stalked over to the two embracing
figures.  Unfortunately, Noin beat him to it.  I winced as I heard Rina's
scream and then shook my head as she ran by and out,  her hands covering her
head,  her shirt torn.  Noin had Wind/Milliardo/Zechs by the ear as she
dragged him away from the corner and a fistful of...I squinted to see
better...Rina's hair in the other hand. she took him to the exit, apologized
to me for the commotion, and left with a pleading Wind/Milliardo/Zechs.
Relena and Catherine were hanging all over Ryden's every word as he flirted
shamefully with the two younger girls, and Sally had some how managed to
extricate  herself from the jumble of people and helped Wufei limp out.
Heero pushed on Hilde's back, smashing her further into Duo's arms, and
stood, only to find Relena's hand being kissed by Ryden.  I saw that look in
Heero's eye and ran forward to stop him as he pulled out his gun.  Luckily,
Shadow snatched the gun from his hands as Aerran  moved to stand in front of
him.  she told him how cute he looked and as she'd probably never get
another chance because of that protective-freak-girlfriend of his, threw her
arms around his neck and kissed him passionately.     N'Brekk and Duo
whistled as Duo helped Hilde up, Shadow frowned, R'nal frowned, Relena
turned to see what was happening and swiftly drew Ryden's gun from his belt.
I shouted "NO!"  all the while wondering who let Ryden have a real gun when
Relena fired.  Both Heero and Aerran were drenched by the time the
squirt-gun was empty.  Aerran broke off the kiss, and gave Relena a smug
look.  then she took Shadow's arm and lead him out.  Duo and Hilde laughed
at Heero's dazed expression and R'nal shared a "look"  with N'Brekk.  they
moved toward the exit and Catherine followed, dragging Ryden with her.
Relena walked past Heero with a glare and Heero promptly followed, begging
Relena to forgive him, swearing that it wasn't his fault and that he didn't
kiss the "siren" back.  Duo grinned at me (to which I suppressed a feeling
of surprised delight) and I gave him a slight smile.  then he swung his arm
around Hilde's back and lead her out.  I looked around and then moved to the
door. I turned, giving my empty brain one last look and then turned out the
lights before shutting the door with a final click...

      Okay, so I'm crazy, admit me!  I better go, though I did just have a
lot of fun writing the above...I didn't read it either, so if it's bad,
forgive me, I kind of just rambled on, hoping I kept everyone where they
should be...

Thanx to those reading,
                                                                      K.T.