Disclaimer:  I think my little AU is getting a tad bit violent…If I had a trillion dollars then maybe I’d own Gundam Wing.

Chapter four is broken up into two parts! (because I haven’t written the other part)  I bet you didn’t think I would get this out so early, but I was on a roll!!

THIS IS THE REVISED VERSION!

The Colours of Life

Chapter 4.1: The Circus Aftermath and a Letter Opener

By: J.B. Santiago

- The Circus, Paris – Earth – Real time –

Catherine put the finishing touches to her make-up as Trowa placed his half-mask on his face.  Their act was coming up soon and Catherine felt exhilarated.  The crowd tonight was the biggest one she had ever seen since she had joined this troupe.  ‘This is going to do wonders for the circus.’ She thought as she watched the act that was before theirs.  The circus had been struggling lately but with the P.D. Children’s Charity, they weren’t going to be struggling for long.  She looked over at Trowa who was silently standing against the make up stand.  So far she had only seen Quatre but she was hoping to at least see Relena before they left to follow the next P.D. Children’s Event.  Catherine studied Trowa’s stance as they waited for the act to finish.  Smiling, she said, “Smile Trowa!”  Then they heard the ringmaster cue them in.  Trowa gave Catherine a smile, holding her hand as both of them stepped out of the curtain, into the excited crowd.

“What do you find so fascinating about my cousin, anyway?”  Bethany enquired.  She and Quatre had squeezed into a seat near the middle to top of the big tent.  They had been sitting there for the last twenty minutes and she had been firing questions at him non-stop.  She watched him carefully as he pondered the question.

Quatre stared thoughtfully at Bethany.  He had found out a bit about her from the trip over to the circus.  She was Dorothy’s first cousin.  Their mothers had been sisters and like him and Dorothy her parents had died when she was young.  She had then been sent to live with her father’s parents – pacifists, would you believe – in Hawaii of all places.  She had laughed when she said that when she had first arrived in Hawaii, she had felt like her grandparents and herself were the only Italians on the islands.  She had explained how her grandparents had adamantly kept her and her older brother away from the wars – they hadn’t wanted to lose any more grandchildren.  Bethany’s voice faltered when she explained how her oldest brother had died in the war, quickly changing the subject to Dorothy and how she had been led to believe that Dorothy had died through correspondence from Duke Dermail (her voice hardened and she had gripped the steering wheel tightly when she had said his name).  She had only found out Dorothy was alive when they bumped into each other at the cemetery, both placing flowers on Treize’s grave.  When they had found a parking space and were on their way inside the circus, she told him that she was making up for the lost time she and Dorothy were robbed of in their childhoods.  Quatre could feel how earnest and innocent she was being.  She really wanted to help him. 

Quatre sighed, his eyes troubled. “What’s fascinating about Dorothy?”  He sighed again.  “Everything.”  A loud cheer rose from the crowd.  They both turned to see what act was about to start.  Quatre’s eyes brightened as he saw who it was.  “That’s Trowa and his sister Catherine.  Trowa’s my closest friend.  You’d like Catherine; she’s one of the nicest people I know.  All their acts are amazing.”

Bethany nodded keeping her eyes on the two performers who had just stepped out.  Even from this distance she could tell this Trowa person was handsome. ‘Damn it, Dorothy!  Why didn’t you introduce to all your cute friends sooner?’  She looked at Catherine who held six sharp looking daggers by the tips.  Her eyes narrowed when she realized what she was.

‘Where is she?  Argh, Bethany I swear, I’m locking you in your room for the remainder of this vacation.’  Dorothy tried to find her cousin in the throng of people.  She had unsuccessfully tried to move against the crowds and her designer gown had been rubbed against grubby hands, which did give her a chance to punch people but she couldn’t find the guilty person.

‘I’m going to cut up all your credit cards as well, Bethany.’ She thought as more vicious plans came to mind.  Dorothy finally sat down near the front of the ring, thoroughly annoyed and angry, never a good combination to be near when it’s coming from Dorothy Catalonia.

She cursed under her breath and had given a death glare to a child who had unfortunately spilt their coke on her dress.  ‘I’m going to put purple dye in your shampoo, Bethany.’  The roar from the crowds almost deafened her.  She gave an angry glare at whoever was the next act.  Her face softened into a smirk. ‘The clown and his sister.  My night gets better and better.’ She thought sarcastically. Then she felt it.

Wufei swore on everything he believed in that he would never, ever have kids. EVER.  Standing in that stupid dinosaur costume (as it was impossible to sit down in it) while those idiotic children screamed, clapped and generally made a heap of noise in a jam packed circus tent was torture.  Beyond torture, beyond any of the pain he went through with the wars.  He had lost about ten kilos in this suit, his feet had been trampled to death, he had taken enough people to toilets to last him a lifetime.  ‘One more, ‘P.D. can you please sing the P.D. song again’ and he would pull out his gun and shoot himself in the head. 

“The shows pretty good, Wufei.”  Sally said in his earpiece.  Or maybe he could just shoot her instead.  ‘Stupid onna!’

The crowd roared as another act came out.  ‘Finally!’ Wufei thought as he saw Trowa and Catherine come out.  They were the second last act.  ‘One more act and I’m out of this costume forever.’  He ignored the whining kids and focused on one thought. ‘It’s almost over, it’s almost over, it’s almost over…’

Even with their formal attire, nobody really gave much heed to them.  Relena felt like a normal woman going out with her fiancé and a couple of friends to a circus.  She glanced at Duo who was covered in popcorn from the popcorn fight he, Hilde and Relena had engaged in.  Heero hadn’t thrown any popcorn but had placed himself in front of Relena to protect her from the popcorn missiles.  So he was covered in popcorn while she was relatively clean.  She snuggled deeper into Heero’s embrace, his arms tightening around her.  Duo burped loudly.  Hilde laughed as she burped as well.  Relena laughed. “No more sodas for you guys!  You two are - ” She didn’t get to finish a roar erupted from the crowd.  The four of them looked down from their middle row seats.  “It’s Trowa and Catherine! Woohoo!”  Relena gave a very uncharacteristic yell of support.

“She gets that from me!  Woohoo!”  Duo yelled as well.  “Go Tro-man!  Go Cathie-babe!”

The four watched as Trowa flipped towards the spinning board where he was going to stand in while Catherine threw her daggers at him.

Trowa strapped himself to the board and began to rock side to side gaining momentum until he was fully spinning around in circles.  He could see Catherine carefully take aim, raising the dagger behind her ear ready to throw.  Catherine pulled her arm a little bit further then was about to release it when everything went dark.  The crowd had stopped its anticipated humming noise.

“What?  Trowa? What’s going - ” Catherine didn’t finish as a hand covered her mouth and she slumped over, her daggers landing with dull thunks.

“Cathie? Cathie?”  Trowa stopped the spinning board and deftly unstrapped himself from it.  “Cathie?” His voice louder now.  Then the lights turned back on.  A confused murmur ran through the crowd as they saw that the knife thrower had disappeared, and the clown was standing there, calling out someone’s name…then the gunshots were heard.

Utter pandemonium broke out as people surged forward and towards the exits.  Replacing the sounds of happy cheering were terrified screams as people were trampled on, children became lost as people created a gulf between their parents’ safe hands.  The tents structure creaked.  Then pieces from above began to fall…

         ******************

He watched as people rushed out of the collapsing tent.  ‘Pitiful.  Pathetic humans.’  He turned towards an attending soldier.  “Do you have it?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Good.  Get everyone out of the area and return to base.”

The soldier saluted before running to give the signal to evacuate the area.  He gave the horrible scene one more look before smiling.  He could feel it.  The end was near.

         *******************

“Trowa, we’ll find her.  The Preventers and the French Police are all looking.  We’re looking.  We’ll find her Trowa.”  Quatre tried to console his best friend.  Trowa’s face had remained stoic but if anyone saw his eyes, they would turn away from the emotions that raged in those emerald orbs.  It had been four hours and everything had finally calmed down enough for them to start searching through the remains of the collapsed tent.  When the gunshots had been heard, Quatre had immediately grabbed Bethany and had run her to safety.  He had tried to run back to save more people but it had been futile and he just tried to help people who had fallen from running instead.  He had seen Wufei wearing a purple dinosaur suit without the head, with a bunch of children huddled close to him.  Heero had swiftly carried Relena from the circus and had made her promise that she would stay in their hotel room with Hilde who had been saved from falling debris by Duo.  Duo seemed overly jittery and had kept calling Hilde, just in case - he kept telling everyone but anyone could see that having his wife have a near-death experience had shaken him to the core.  Heero had gone into full perfect soldier mode – no one tried to hurt his Relena without getting his full wrath.  The place was teeming with Preventers while the French police barricaded the area from the media and such.

“You guys!  I found something.”  Duo shouted gesturing for the others to come and have a look.  “I found where they must have taken her.  Her daggers are dropped here.”  Pointing to the daggers on the floor, he continued, “But look at this.”  The four other ex-Gundam pilots pointed to a dark mark on the floor.  It looked like it had been scorched into the ground with a branding iron.  It was circular in appearance, having a diameter similar to a tennis ball.  Inside the circle was a weird looking picture of what looked like a twisted tree crossed with Japanese kanji.  “What the hell is that, you guys?”

They were all crouched down around this emblem trying to decipher meaning from it when a voice across from them spoke up. “It’s an ancient symbol meaning ‘Darkness’.”

Trowa was the first to get up.  He walked up to the person, and shook their shoulders.  “How do you know that?”  He spoke in a low threatening voice.

“Trowa!  Stop that!  This is Dorothy’s cousin, Bethany Montague.”  Quatre gently but firmly removed Trowa’s hands from Bethany. 

The others gathered around Bethany, Trowa and Wufei giving her a suspicious look, while Duo looked at her confused and Heero just gave her his usual glare.  “How did you get in here, Bethany?”  Quatre asked.

“It’s not that hard to pretend to be a Preventer.  Besides I hid in the car, which was inside the barricades.”

Trowa glared at her.  “How did you know what that emblem said?”

“I think it would be better if I explained this somewhere safer.”  She didn’t like the way Trowa was looking at her like that.  His eyes were an explosion of emotions.

“No.  Tell us what you know now.” Trowa said in that voice again.

“I think she’s right, Trowa.  This place isn’t secure.  Let’s go discuss what she knows somewhere safer.  I want to find Cathie as bad as you do but we need to do that with a clear mind, right Trowa?” Quatre said soothingly.

Trowa nodded curtly. “Fine.”

Bethany nodded in agreement. “I know a safe place.” Looking over at Heero and Duo she said, “I don’t think you should leave Relena and her friend alone.  The days are going to get worse.”

Duo’s eyes widened and he quickly dialled up Hilde, while Heero started walking towards his car.

“We’ll follow you to the hotel, pick them up then we’ll head to this ‘safe’ place.”  Trowa said as he walked back to where the emblem was, motioning to a Preventer to draw it.

         ***************

Two cars pulled into the driveway of a villa on the outskirts of Paris, in the early hours of the morning.  Nine people quietly got out, and followed a blond woman, with jade coloured eyes to a pair of huge wooden doors.  Placing her hand on a fingerprint scan, the door’s security locks unlocking as her fingerprints matched the criteria.

She headed towards the sounds of a TV.  The group of people looked around their surroundings as they followed the blond.  The villa was a traditional French villa with high arches and the place was lit up with tiny candles that flickered, making shadows appear to be moving people as they jumped from arch to arch, corner to corner.  The group entered the study, a spacious room with a tall bookshelf on one side, a lounge chair opposite it and two leather armchairs around that.  A dark mahogany desk table sat opposite the two large French windows.  A TV on the opposite wall from the bookshelf was turned on, showing the news on the tragic circus incident.  The figure sitting in one of the armchairs noticed the intruders at the same time they noticed the figure.

“Bethany!  There you are!  Miss Relena? …Hello everyone.”  Dorothy looked surprised to see them all in her study at three o’clock in the morning.

Bethany was about to reply, when Trowa cut in, “Where’s my sister, Dorothy.”  He glared at Dorothy who had quickly schooled her features into calm again. 

“What makes you think I know?”  She said in a sweet, sardonic voice.

Before he could reply, Bethany cleared her throat.  “Look.  Before you guys go bite each others heads off, please let me explain.”  She ushered Sally, Relena and Hilde towards the lounge chair while the guys milled around near them.  Dorothy sat back down on the armchair, beginning to tap her long manicured fingernails on the armrest.  Bethany walked to the TV and switched it off.  The room was bathed in the light from the moonlight that came through the French windows.  She walked to the desk table and turned on the study light.  The light gave an eerie orange glow.

Trowa took out the picture of the emblem the Preventer had drawn on.  “How did you know what this was?”

If anyone had been watching her and not Bethany, they would have seen Dorothy miss a beat in her rhythmic tapping of her fingernails on the armrest.  As it was, no one noticed.

Bethany gave a slight smile. ‘I’ve been waiting forever to do this.’ She thought.  She leaned onto the desk, her hands behind her, searching, searching…ah, found it.  Grabbing onto the handle, she said with a smile, “I will tell you when my cousin - ” She had walked up to Dorothy with her hands behind her back, “ - stops that incessant tapping!”  She yelled out the last word before plunging a letter opener into Dorothy’s hand.

         ***************

Person writing this, instead of studying for Politics exam:

I definitely need to start studying; it’s on Thursday!!  Therefore I will have part two of chapter four out much later in the week, sorry to anyone reading, who might want to know what is going on! Please don’t be angry!

Please R&R and C&C and flames, lots of flames!!!! (please)

THANKS FOR ALL THE REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS SO FAR!!!