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C&C much loved and taken care of, along with any art, and flames will be used as tissues.

Fate's Daughter

Chapter 6

Destiny shot down the hallways, pulling off the apron she had been wearing as she went. If Majour, who was her stepfather and guardian, had called for her, that meant that he was almost into the docking bay.

There was a good chance that Destiny wouldn't be late. No matter how "playful" Sarah decided to be she wasn't stupid. She wouldn't directly disobey any of her fathers orders. He was probably the only thing that scared her, which gave Destiny an uneasy feeling that Sara would find a way to get around her threat.

She wipped around the corner and looked into the control room that housed all of the technology for the base. The massive monitor displayed all the incoming and outgoing ships for an immense radius around the base, reaching even some of the outer colonies. It also sent scramblers for any of the Preventer ships that came along, another one of Majours little inventions. All of the smaller ones kept track of what every single person was doing everywhere within the station itself.

If there was thing about Majour that was certain, in the dark world that was his mind, he was very paranoid. Destiny couldn't say that she was glad he was back, but it did mean that he would be handling all of this instead of her, giving her a little extra time to get some much needed sleep. The little blip close to the docking bay had to be him. The description and code that was his own signature ship was all they needed. She gave a small whistle to the technicians, who looked harassed.

"Everything okay for docking, guys?" One of the four looked up at her with a pained expression. It was her friend and the head of the group, Karn.

"Docking's all right, Destiny. Nice and clean," He grinned slightly at her in relief. If there were one group of people that liked the young girl, they were the techie's. Her natural ability of locking in coordinates, dealing with rouge difficulties in the computer, and flying the heavy maintenance machines to take care of more physical problems, had pulled them out of a lot of scrapes with their fickle employer and his maniac daughter. These, as she proclaimed often, were her people, and she did everything within her power to help them. It was also easy now to read them.

"So what's wrong?" He went back to the panicked look.

"We've had to move Stand out of his room, and everything in it, so a new prisoner can be admitted." Destiny blinked. That wasn't good, Stand had a precious lot of equipment, and was the only one among them who was known for being able to acquire alcohol, even with the uptight security. Then her mind froze as the meaning of what he said sunk in.

"But I thought we had them all. Not counting," she winced. "The one we lost."

"Apparently not, and supposedly, or at least, what the rumor mill is saying, is that even HE is afraid of this one." Destiny felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. The techie rumor mill was generally a good one, based on careful observation.

"And I suppose I get to take care of this one, too." It wasn't a question but Karn nodded anyway. "Wounded?" He shook his head and Destiny was grateful for that small blessing at least. She then sighed. When she thought about it, moving Stand out made sense. Once his stuff was moved out there would be nothing in there but four white walls and a bench that was attached to the wall. Knowing Stand, even that piece of furniture might be gone.

"All right, I want someone to come down with me to direct the guards to where our new guest is staying and I want two more of you to go down to Stand's room and attach some chains to that wall. Not to mention help him get all that crap of his out." Karn stood up to follow her then nodded to two others who instantly ran for the exit hallway down to the elevators.

They left one there, Destiny recognized him as Sean, to monitor everything going. She chucked the apron at him, saying thanks for keeping an eye on things, which he answered with a quick salute.

Then Destiny was off again down the maze, with Karn following close behind. They didn't waste time talking. By now Majours ship was in and he was just getting out. She was proven right as she walked into the bay and the imposing mad man that was her stepfather turned around.

"Ah, there you are, my dear," Destiny winced at the deep, familiar voice and entered all the way into the bay, feeling her body grow lighter with the lesser gravity. The small magnets in her boots kept her stationary. "How's everything running?"

"Smoothly, sir, although I think you should know that Sara is interfering with-"

"Yes, yes, very good." He turned away from her. "What do you think?"

Destiny felt a flush rise to her cheeks at the deliberate snub. She could see even Karn go a little red at the insult. He had had his share of tangles with Sara interfering himself.

Didn't the dark man even realize how dangerous it was to leave his natural daughter alone with anything chained? Then Destiny had a realization, he knew all right. He just didn't care. Now she really began regretting leaving Wufei alone with Sara. She had caught that flash of fear in his eyes as she left.

Destiny had worked hard to get the pilots to at least talk to her. She had almost succeeded in making Quatre, the blond, sad-eyed one, her friend. She didn't need Sara beating the crap out of these guys while her back was turned.

It was hard enough trying to keep up with three highly dangerous prisoners, plus an entire working station (quickly built with a still a few bugs to work out), an extremely illegal and very evil Gundam, plus Sara. Destiny hadn't gotten any sleep for the past five days and was on the verge of collapse and a severe caffeine overdose. That was probably why she didn't notice who Majour was talking about until he was right in her face.

Prussian blue eyes bored holes into hers from underneath jagged dark brown, almost black, hair. She was so surprised at the suppressed bitter cold fury within them, that she had to take two steps back and brace herself so she wouldn't run for cover. Was this the new prisoner under her care? No, Majour was too friendly with him. That must mean-

"Her reaction time is off. And she scares too easily." The monotone, nasal voice had a somewhat of a subtle reprimand in it. Destiny got angry. She couldn't help it, she felt violated by those eyes.

"Try taking a workload for ten people, a psycobitch, and three prisoners on by yourself for five days straight, with no sleep, I might add, and see how your bloody reaction time is!"

She saw the blow from Majour coming and didn't care. It was enough to see the surprise in those dark blue eyes at the vehemence in her voice before she hit the floor, mouth filling with the metallic liquid of blood from a new cut in her cheek. So this was to be her trainer, Heero Yui. He was cute, in a suicidal type of way.

"Hey! Didn't your mother ever teach you not to hit girls? Or did you even have a mother? If you do, which I doubt, I feel sorry for the woman. Must have been hard screwing a bear-" The slow drawl was deliberately insulting and Destiny wasn't sure she even heard it, except that it kept going. She swallowed some of the blood and slowly got to her feet. There, standing between two very skittish guards, was what could have only been, her new prisoner.

He wasn't very tall, but the way he carried himself he seemed about six feet. There was a boyish, impy sort of look about his face, but it was marred by the hollow bitterness in his large, and Destiny had to admit, very attractive violet eyes. What she found most impressive, however, was the long, chestnut braid that ran down his back to about mid-thigh. He was smiling slightly now, Destiny didn't think that mouth was capable of a real frown, the structure was all off. But even she could tell there was no heart behind it.

She winced as one of the guards his him over the head with the butt of his gun for being insubordinate, cutting off the tirade of insults.

"I thought we had a deal, Maxwell. We take off the gag and stop drugging you," Majour grinned dispassionately. "And you keep your irritating chatter to yourself." He nodded sharply to the guards. "Take him to the cell."

Karn waved them down and told them to follow him, and as they walked out Majour turned back to the blue eyed young man. When he did so, he missed the wink that the purple eyed prisoner, Maxwell, gave to Destiny as he was carried out. Destiny wasn't even sure she saw it. She blinked a few times after they had left, then vowed to go to bed after all this. She turned her attention to the two men.

"-so would you like to see my creation, Heero Yui?"

***

Heero couldn't believe that he was following someone he wanted to shoot so badly, it was an almost physical pain not to. Certainly, it wouldn't have been a problem before. The madman was a threat, therefore he had to be eliminated, simple, precise, and to the point. But something was definitely wrong this time. There were other factors that were competing, factors that were too close at heart to be ignored.

He couldn't really say that he had ever truly been close to any of the other pilots. They had their own missions to accomplish and he wasn't one to interfere, unlike Duo, who seemed to go out of his way to involve himself in other peoples problems.

No, he actually distanced himself in order to stay out of each of their new lives, including Relena. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Whatever menaces that popped up had seemed to follow him. Now he realized he had been too reliant on this, and someone had caught on. Someone who happened to be a maniac, and managed to read him like a book. That, was what seriously grated on his nerves.

Suddenly, in front of them, Majour stopped walking. They were at the end of their little trek. The girl fidgeted a little bit and spoke softly.

"May I attend to my duties, sir?" He seemed surprised that she was still there.

"What? Oh, oh yes, of course, of course. Go. But be ready to train soon." He punched in the security code, ignoring her from then on. She said nothing as she walked off, but Heero noticed she began running as soon as she reached the end of the hallway. She was worried about something, and he found himself wondering why.

Heero didn't know what to make of her. At first, he had an incredible feeling of deja vu, but he soon realized that there was something subtly different about the situations each of them had been put through. Deep down, the girl knew rebellion, she knew what was completely wrong about a situation, something that had tried to be trained out of him, and had almost succeeded. This was very strange given how Majour seemed to handle any sign of dissonance. Which meant she got it from an outside force-

He shook his head as the door swung back to the bright glare of a Gundam docking hanger. Enough time to worry about her later, right now, he had to be a witness to the rebirth of destruction.