Chapter 1
October AC 197
Paperwork made the world go round, and that was especially true in government. Even Preventers field agents weren't immune to having to fill out a bunch of tedious reports, reading through briefings, and overall having random stacks on paperwork on their desks at any given moment.
At the moment, Sally Po was hiding from the stack that was covering her own desk by getting herself a cup of coffee. She could tell after her first sip that Heero had been the one to make this pot and she mentally thanked him for it.
After the Eve Wars, all the Gundam pilots had joined the Preventers in some capacity. Quatre, for example, was mostly on reserve, having his own business to take care of most of the time. Wufei was her current partner and was on full time rotation with them. Heero split his time between the Preventers and being Relena's security detail. Trowa picked up a few missions here and there between his time with the traveling circus and Duo spent most of his time in the Preventers office, much like Wufei.
It was comforting having the boys around, she couldn't deny it. They would have been lost without them during the Eve Wars and they all knew it. Une had been pleased when they had all accepted her offer of employment, even if most of them had it conditionally.
Sally glanced up at the sound of someone else entering the break room. She smiled slightly at the sight of Wufei. The former pilot gave her a slight nod in greeting before eyeing the coffee pot warily.
"Heero made it," Sally offered as she took another sip of her own coffee.
Wufei relaxed a bit at that before pouring himself a cup. There were people in the office who didn't know how to make a good cup of coffee, but Heero wasn't one of them. Sally wasn't sure where he had picked up that skill, but she sure was glad that he had.
"Everyone is here today," Wufei offered before sipping his own coffee, "It's like a little reunion. Winner is thrilled."
Sally couldn't help but smile at that. It had been months since the ex-pilots had all been in the same country, let alone in the same building. She could imagine just how happy that made Quatre. And, secretly, the others too she suspected.
"I bet he is," she replied instead, "But if you're all here, should we be on the lookout for something catastrophic?"
She was referring to the last time all five of them had been in the Preventers building at the same time and someone had deemed that to be a good time to try and take the organization hostage. They hadn't lasted half an hour before the entire operation was shut down and the Preventers continued with their day.
"Let's hope not," Wufei muttered in response, glancing over as the door to the break room opened again.
Duo popped his head in before grinning, "There you two are! Une is looking for us."
"Us?" Sally echoed, dread setting in at the implication.
"Yuuup," Duo replied, popping the 'p' at the end, "It's sure to be juicy, whatever it is."
"Honestly, Maxwell," Wufei said, even as he and Sally headed toward the braided pilot, "What are you in such a good mood about it for?"
Duo gave a shrug, falling into step with them as they made their way to the conference room, "Gotta be optimistic, right? Maybe we're all getting a raise, or a vacation."
They all knew that it was unlikely to be anything other than a mission and one that required all of them was more than a little concerning. The three stepped into the conference room to find Heero, Quatre, Trowa, and Une all already there and waiting.
"Good, you're all here," Une said as they took their seats, "We've gotten intelligence that a transporter with what might be gundanium was spotted leaving L3. It's not heading toward any known colony so we're not sure what they're doing with it, but we'd like you to find out and destroy it if necessary.
"Sally, you lead. It obviously has a large head start on you. I want you in space as soon as humanly possible, understood?"
There were nods from all around the room as the group got up at the clear dismissal. There was a flurry of movement as they quickly left the room, heading back to their own offices to gather what they needed.
–
It took them hours to reach the location where the ship had last been spotted and even more hours to find where it had went. It was slow moving compared to their ship, so they caught up with it relatively easily, especially with Duo at the wheel.
For the moment they were keeping their distance, trying to figure out just where it might be going. They were all pretty familiar with space at this point and as far as they all knew, there was nothing out this way.
And then the very large, very obvious ship in front of them disappeared from existence.
"What the-?" Duo exclaimed, getting halfway to his feet in surprise. From the copilot chair, Heero was equally taken aback.
"Cloaking device?" Quatre asked, brow furrowing a bit in confusion.
"That's advanced tech to go from visible to completely invisible in a split second," Trowa frowned a bit, "Usually it's more gradual."
"Agreed," Heero scowled, "Duo, head up to the point where it disappeared. Maybe there's a cloaking device that is in the space."
"Roger that," Duo said after a quick nod from Sally confirmed that order.
The shuttle proceed carefully, not wanting to dip behind the supposed cloaking mechanism and crash into the ship they had been following. Instead of suddenly being able to see the other ship, the alarms on their shuttle started going off.
"What in the world-?" Wufei asked, moving over to the console to see what was causing the alarm.
"The cabin pressure is building," Heero reported, looking around to try and find the source.
"But why?" Quatre asked, even as he found himself needing to sit down as the pressure continued to build.
Sally went to her knees next to him, gritting her teeth, "Something is very wrong."
The pressure in the cabin reached an unbearable level, driving all the agents to the ground. The last thing Sally could remember before she blacked out was seeing Heero reach up and hit the distress signal to be sent back to Preventers HQ.
Had anyone been around to see it, they would have seen the Preventers' shuttle pop out of existence just like the ship had.
–
Coming to wasn't a new experience for one Heero Yuy. He honestly wished he could say it was, but he had been on the frontline of a war so it was to be expected.
Sounds came first, though what he was hearing didn't make any sense with what he could remember last. He was hearing… birds? Hadn't they been in space? In fact they had-
Memories rushed back and Heero rolled to his feet, gun drawn and at the ready. Seeing no immediate threat, he let himself wince and reach up to touch his now pounding head. He could feel the blood there that assured him that his current headache was caused by hitting his head on something.
Slowly, he straightened and took stock of the current situation. He was the first one awake, the others scattered throughout the shuttle with what appeared to be minimal injuries. The hatch was still shut which meant that there shouldn't be anyone but them aboard but…
Was that water?
Yes, it was water, seeping in through the bottom of the shuttle. They must have crashed back down onto earth somehow (how? his mind screamed at him, that was impossible!) and likely landed in the ocean.
Which meant they needed to get moving.
He turned to Duo first, the person closest to him, shaking him a little more roughly that was intended in his, not panic, but haste. Duo groaned in response, eyes fluttering open. Heero was gone before Duo could even register that he was there, moving first to Wufei, then Quatre.
Duo had become aware enough at that point to realize why Heero was trying to get everyone awake as fast as possible and quickly got Trowa and Sally up.
"We're taking on water too quickly, we need to go," Wufei said, even as he was kicking out the front window of the shuttle.
The shuttle lurched with an ominous groan as the Preventers climbed their way out of the shuttle and, not into the ocean like Heero had assumed, but into a lake. They quickly swam to shore, even as the shuttle sank below the surface.
"... Well that sucks," Duo offered into the following silence. It did suck, not only was their transportation gone, but so were their bags with their spare clothes, their food and water supply, and their easiest way of communicating with headquarters.
"I sent out a distress signal before the crash," Heero added.
"At least Une will know to send a search party, even if we're not in the right location…" Quatre trailed off as he took in the large castle behind them, "What old architecture, it's in amazing shape for how old it must be."
Wufei looked over and gave a hum of agreement, "Perhaps we can use it as a shelter for the time being."
With that plan in mind, the group made their way across the grounds and up the castle stairs. Heero had been about to push the doors open when they opened on their own and an elderly man appeared before them. Hands went to weapons on reflex, but they didn't pull them. Not yet anyway.
"Hello," the old man said in a British accent, which just served to further confuse Heero; where the hell were they? "You seem to be a little lost."
"Our shuttle seems to have crashed in your lake," Quatre offered, stepping forward so that he was level with Heero, "We didn't realize this place was occupied. Our apologies."
"Not at all, dear boy, not at all. I imagine you're all a long way from home and it's going to be dark soon. You're more than welcome to stay; there's plenty of room."
"That's very kind, thank you. I'm Agent Winner and these are my colleagues Agents Yuy, Maxwell, Barton, Chang, and Po."
The old man's eyes seemed to twinkle in response to the introductions, "Wonderful, come on in and we'll show you to a room. My name is Albus Dumbledore. Welcome to Hogwarts School."