Silent Waltz by Comet~Princess

Disclaimer: I should make up a standard disclaimer song or something, like the opening songs to an anime. *starts humming* La, la, la, I don´t Gundam Wing or Sailormoon and I have no clue what to put next since I really suck at rhyming. =P

AN: Thank you so much for all the kind reviews. I just couldn´t not start writing this. *sigh* I´m going to feel so bad when school starts and I can´t spend as much time on the computer.

Warnings: Mostly humour as opposed to plot development. You´ll understand as soon as you read the first line of this chapter.

siren: No offense taken. ^_^ I agree with you, otherwise, I would write the sequel, ne?

Aidenn Legacy: LOL! You are soooo not weird, because I wonder the same thing!

Lady Rinehart: Awww. . . that´s so nice of you to say! I just hope people enjoy reading it.

Uranus2000: I have no clue =D. *sweatdrop* Usagi will probably have a bigger part than Minako though. Just thought I´ll try something different than the last story.

Neo Angel Solar System: Um. . . I do get writer´s block. I just have a brother who helps me get rid of them. ^_^ No, he´s not for sale!

Aquarius: Hey! Good point! I forgot to ask. HEY EVERYONE!! Who should Minako be with? I´ll consider anyone except for the person Usagi´s with. That was decided in the poll at the end of my last story. I´m leaning towards either Minako/Duo or Minako/Quatre though.

Timeframe: Same as last time. But pretend that Noin stuck around on Earth, and none of the "normal people" knows the identity of the Gundam pilots. I´ve decided that for now, it´d be AU for SM. My stories never go the way they´re planned though. *sweatdrop* If I change it, I´ll let you know.

That´s enough talking! Let´s start the story before you all come kill me!

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Chapter 1 - Plane Ride

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Duo Maxwell was bored. Duo Maxwell was very bored. And this was never a good thing. He sighed and looked at his watch. There was another six hours until they reached the Sanq Kingdom, and he had already been on the plane for three. (AN: It´s not the plane Usagi and Minako are on.) Duo glanced at his companion, Chang Wufei. He was usually not bored when Wufei was around. Heck, there were too many things that annoyed the Chinese boy and entertained Duo at the same time. Too bad Wufei had fallen asleep five minutes after the plane had taken off. Duo had entertained himself with a Gameboy for awhile, but he was itching to do something else.

"Wu-man, why do you have to fall asleep?" Duo mumbled under his breath.

Duo had received an e-mail from Lady Une at the Preventers´ Headquarters. She had asked that he come to the Sanq Kingdom right away for something important. What, she didn´t say. She had even booked Duo´s plane ticket for him, so he had accepted and gotten to his seat to find his old comrade, Wufei, in the seat next to his. Apparently, he had been checking out something in the area when Une had called him back, booking his plane ticket as well. Wufei had cursed the person who put him next to Maxwell for a nine hour plane ride to hell, but Duo had merely shrugged it off. He had tried to talk to Wufei and catch up on old times, since none of the pilots had seen each other for two years, but Wufei had announced that he was tired and that if Duo didn´t shut up, he´d cut his braid off. So, Duo had shut up, but now, he was bored.

Duo sighed again, checking his watch for the umpteenth time. Five hours and fifty-five minutes till the plane landed. It was then that he caught sight of the packets of peanuts in the traveling packages. Duo grinned. Being chased around the plane was better than being bored. He reached forwards and grabbed his package of peanuts as well as Wufei´s. He opened them and started putting each individual one in Wufei´s open mouth and ears.

About fifteen minutes later, there was a pile of peanuts in Wufei´s mouth and a couple stuck out his ears. Duo snickered and looked into the peanut package. Two left, and no place to put them. He shot a glance at Wufei and made a final decision. He stuck the last two peanuts up Wufei´s nose, one in each nostril. The effect of Duo´s actions took about five seconds to occur.

Wufei woke up abruptly, shooting peanuts from his nose and mouth like bullets from a gun. Duo started laughing hysterically.

Wufei unsheathed his katana. "Maxwell!!" he shouted, not caring if he was disturbing anyone on the plane. "I´m going to kill you!!"

Duo jumped up from his seat and ran down the aisle, laughing the whole way. Wufei chased after him, shouting death threats and curses. Halfway down the plane, an old lady stepped into Wufei´s way and smacked him in the face with her purse.

"I´d appreciate it if you keep the swearing to yourself!" she reprimanded. "My granddaughter does not need to hear them!"

Wufei shot the woman a glare. "Weak onna and weak Maxwell," he muttered before turning to stalk back to his seat and going back to sleep.

Duo glanced up from his hiding spot. He suddenly had an idea. He grinned and borrowed a piece of paper and a pencil from the flight attendant. He scribbled Peanut Shooting Machine. Try it for 50 cents and a pack of peanuts. Now, to sneak back to his seat and stick it on Wufei.

~*~*~*~*~

"A penny for your thoughts, Master Quatre?" Rashid asked as he sat down next to Quatre Rabarba Winner on the Winner Corporation´s private shuttle. After receiving an e-mail from Lady Une, the blond Arabian had immediately prepared to leave colony L4 for Sanq Kingdom. Currently, he was looking out the window, a pile of folders on the tray in front of him. He snapped back into reality at the sound of Rashid´s voice.

"I´m just fine, Rashid," Quatre answered with a reassuring smile. When he had announced his departure, the Maganacs had insisted on coming with him. They were a stubborn lot if Quatre ever saw one, so he had reluctantly agreed.

"I didn´t ask whether or not you were fine," Rashid replied. "I asked what you were thinking about."

Quatre sighed. Rashid had always been able to read him like a book. "I´m just worried about what´s going on with the Preventers, that´s all," he stated. "It´s unusual of Lady Une to call so abruptly."

Rashid nodded. "I just hope it´s nothing like what happened two years ago," he said.

"If it is, it seems like they detected it before it got out of control though," Quatre responded. He sat back in his seat as the shuttle took off. He wondered if the others were called as well. He had lost touch with the other pilots after the Mariemeia incident, except for Trowa, who he had seen once when the circus had arrived to perform on his colony.

"I´m sure if it´s an emergency, they would have been called as well," Rashid answered.

Quatre looked up in surprise. He hadn´t realized he had voiced the question out loud. Then, he smiled. "That may be the only good thing that will come from this, seeing everyone again," he pointed out.

Rashid nodded in silent agreement as Quatre turned back to the folders containing customer information for his company.

~*~*~*~*~

"Have a safe trip," Catherine Bloom stated as she bid farewell to her brother and friend, Trowa Barton.

Trowa gave a brief nod before he boarded the plane for the Sanq Kingdom. Catherine sighed as she stared at his back. He still barely talked at all. Sometimes, she could swear he communicated with the lions at the circus more than he did to other humans. He had told her this morning that he was going to the Preventers´ Headquarters because of something urgent. She didn´t want him to leave again, but she had learned that fighting for peace was part of Trowa, and she had accepted that.

She walked to a large window and watched as his plane took off. The circus was on Earth at the moment, so it shouldn´t take very long for him to reach the Sanq Kingdom. "Trowa, come back alive," she whispered to no one in particular.

~*~*~*~*~

Duo collected another two quarters as Wufei chased him down the aisle of the plane again. He grinned as Wufei got smacked by another parent with a child for his curses. After hiding for a couple of minutes, he slowly crept back to his seat, only to find Wufei wide awake and glaring at him. Duo eeped and hid behind one of the seats. He thought fast and as Wufei rounded the corner to him, he blurted out, "Okay, if don´t kill me, I won´t do it again!"

Wufei raised an eyebrow. "Maxwell, if I kill you, you won´t do it again," he replied dryly.

Duo gulped. "Well," he began, "Lady Une is expecting me there. What would she say if you showed up with my corpse?"

Wufei sighed. The braided baka was right, for once. His co-workers at the Preventers would not be pleased. "Fine. But one more time and I swear you´re going to hell," he threatened.

Duo nodded like a good little boy and the two headed back to their seats. Luckily for Wufei, a movie was put on, so the two turned their attention to the screen. After fifteen minutes, Duo grumbled, "This movie sucks."

"What do you expect these weak people to put on?" Wufei muttered.

Duo grinned. "Glad you asked," he said. He brought out his laptop computer and started some hacking. Hey, Heero wasn´t the only person who can do it.

Another fifteen minutes later, a movie from Duo´s computer started playing on the screen. Wufei´s eyes bulged and he smacked Duo in the back of the head. "Braided baka! There´s children on this god-forsaken plane!" he hissed. (AN: One guess to the kind of movie.)

"Oops," Duo replied sheepishly. He quickly punched in a few more keys and a different movie started to play. Music from The Lion King blared all over the plane. Wufei punched Duo in the face. "Why me?" he asked no one in particular.

To Wufei´s dismay, Duo knew every single word to every single song of the movie, not to mention, the braided baka sang off-key, way off-key.

"Where is Yuy´s tranquilizer gun when you need it?" Wufei muttered to himself as he prepared for another three hours of the plane ride. (AN: Please, no one take offense to me using The Lion King as the movie. I actually love it ^_^. You just got to imagine Wufei watching it.)

~*~*~*~*~

Usagi clicked away on her laptop computer, all the while keeping an eye on the sleeping Minako. She knew they were going to the Preventers´ Headquarters, but she wondered why. She had a feeling it had something to do with her dad´s job. She narrowed her eyes as she hacked into her home computer. The new satellite cannon was probably the problem, but how? As far as she knew, even the Preventers didn´t know her dad was working on such a project. She sighed and closed her eyes for a second, focusing her thoughts.

Her dad thought she didn´t know anything about what he did, but she wasn´t that stupid, or that naïve. She´s known for a couple of years now, but she never told her parents that she knew. It was obvious to her that they had tried to shelter her from what was going on in the world. They would start to panic if they knew that she knew, and if anything happened to her, they´d blame themselves. She can´t let them do that. She loved them too much to let them do that. Usagi opened her eyes and looked out the airplane window. She didn´t regret finding out though. In fact, she´s never regretted anything in her eighteen years of life, except one.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her cousin stir. Quickly, she closed all the windows she was in, snapped the laptop shut, and put it into her bag. Minako opened her eyes just as Usagi straightened herself in her seat.

"Hey," Minako greeted with a smile, "what have you been doing?"

"Nothing, just thinking," Usagi replied with a smile of her own.

Minako sighed. "Look, Usagi," she began, "I´m not stupid. I know that something is going on. And I know you´re not telling me everything."

Usagi shook her head. "I don´t know what you´re talking about," she lied.

Minako eyed her. "Alright, Usagi," she said. "Just know that I´m here if you need me."

Usagi smiled again. "Of course!" she agreed. "And I´m here for you too."

Minako nodded and turned to watch the movie the plane was playing. Usagi turned to stare out the window. There was only about another hour until they reached the Sanq Kingdom.

~*~*~*~*~

Quatre walked nervously towards Lady Une´s office. He hoped there wasn´t another war. The Maganacs were at his mansion because he had insisted on going to the Preventers´ Headquarters by himself. He knocked gently on the door before opening it. There was only one person inside, a guy with long brown bangs and piercing emerald green eyes.

"Trowa!" Quatre greeted happily. "It´s been a long time, hasn´t it?"

Trowa merely nodded in his direction and offered a small smile.

"Do you know where Lady Une might be?" Quatre asked.

"She said she´ll be back in a bit to brief us," Trowa answered.

Quatre nodded and took a seat in one of the chairs. "Tell me how you´ve been doing lately," he requested.

Trowa shrugged. "Working at the circus," he replied. "You?"

"Not much, just taking care of the business," Quatre said. "I wonder what we´re here for though."

Trowa nodded in silent agreement.

~*~*~*~*~

Wufei snapped on his seatbelt as they prepared for landing. The plane ride was finally over, thank the gods. As the people prepared to leave, he grabbed his two carry-on bags and walked towards down the halls of the airport with Duo, who was chatting endlessly. Wufei tuned him out until he realized he was carrying two bags, but he had gotten on the plane with one. He stopped and looked down at the two bags. One was his, but the other, he didn´t recognize.

"I wonder what´s in here," he mumbled to himself. He turned the bag upside down, shook it a few times, then opened it.

A mountain of peanuts and quarters fell out onto Wufei, burying his feet. He turned to glare at Duo, who was grinning innocently. "There had better be a good excuse for this," he told the braided boy.

"See, after all those kids gave me the quarters and peanuts, the flight attendant came and asked me to clean up the mess I made, so I stuffed them all in a bag, labeled it with your name, and left it with your stuff," Duo explained in one breath.

Wufei silently counted to ten before unsheathing his katana. "That´s it, Maxwell!" he shouted. "I´m going to kill you!"

Duo eeped and tore down the hallways of the airport, praying that he´ll find the exit soon.

~*~*~*~*~

Usagi grabbed her luggage from one of the rotating belts and turned to Minako. "That´s all," she chirped. "Now, let´s go and find this Lady Une my dad told me about."

Minako nodded, and was about to reply when they heard a loud yell of "Maxwell, I´m going to kill you!" A moment later, two boys came running down the halls, one had a long chestnut coloured braid down his back, and the other had a black ponytail at the nape of his neck. They ran past the two girls and disappeared down the crowded hall.

"That was weird," Usagi commented. But they looked kind of familiar, she thought.

"The one with the braid was cute," Minako replied with a grin.

Usagi laughed. "Minako, you´re probably never going to see them again," she said.

"I can hope though," Minako responded.

Usagi sighed. She can hope too, but it´s been awhile. I wonder if I´ll ever see you again, she thought sadly.

Snapping herself out of her thoughts, she followed Minako to the exit of the airport.

~*~*~*~*~

Noin and Sally waited for the two they were supposed to pick up. They knew how to get the Preventers´ office, but Lady Une was afraid they´d kill each other on the way. Sally checked her watch. "Are you sure they come out these doors?" she asked her companion. "They are later than usual."

Before Noin could reply, they heard a loud cry of "Maxwell, you´re going to die!" Noin shrugged. "Here they come," she said.

A moment later, Duo burst through the doors with Wufei and his katana on his heels. "Ah!" Duo yelled. "Save me!"

"You weak baka!" Wufei shouted.

Duo spotted Noin and Sally´s amused looks and ran to hide behind them. "Wu-man, it was a joke," he pleaded.

"Maxwell!" Wufei warned.

Noin shook her head and sighed. "You´d think the two of you would have grown up in two years," she commented.

"I told Une that it was a bad idea to put them on the same plane, but did she agree?" Sally muttered.

"Damn right it was a bad idea!" Wufei blurted out.

Sally frowned as she looked at the Chinese boy. "Wufei, why do you have peanut shells all over you?" she asked.

Duo grinned. "Wu-man just won a lifetime supply of peanuts," he joked. He gulped when Wufei growled.

"Okay, okay," Noin said. "Before you kill each other, let´s go back to the office. And don´t say a word, Duo."

Duo nodded, glad that he and his braid were still intact. Wufei grumbled death threats as they walked to the car.

~*~*~*~*~

Usagi and Minako followed the woman they learned was Lady Une into a spacious office building. The woman had been very nice to them. Although it was apparent that she knew why Kenji had sent them there, she had avoided answering that question for them.

"Could you at least tell us why we´re here?" Usagi tried again. She wanted some kind of clue, no matter how indirect it was.

Lady Une sighed mentally. Kenji´s daughter was a stubborn one. She smiled reassuringly. "I´m going to give the two of you some bodyguards," she replied.

Usagi nodded silently. Obviously, they were in danger of some kind, and her dad knew about it, otherwise, he wouldn´t send them here. But what caused it? Usagi frowned, deep in thought.

Minako blinked. "So, we´re in trouble of some sort?" she questioned.

Une shook her head. "It´s just a precaution," she answered.

She opened the doors to a large office. Inside, there was a desk, bookcases, and other office supplies. There were also four guys around Usagi and Minako´s age.

"Lady Une," the blond guy greeted.

Usagi and Minako looked around the room. The first thing out of Minako´s mouth was, "Hey! You´re the two guys who tried to kill each other back at the airport!"

Duo grinned. "How come you saw me but I didn´t see a babe like you?" he asked.

Minako grinned back at the compliment and Usagi raised an eyebrow. "I think you were just too busy running for your life," she said with amusement in her voice.

"Why are these two weak onnas here?" Wufei interrupted the conversation.

"Weak?!" Minako exclaimed, insulted at the comment.

"All onnas are weak," Wufei replied.

"Don´t mind him," Quatre cut in quickly, "he´s like this all the time."

Usagi took a few calming breaths and fought the urge to punch the chauvinistic jerk in the face right then and there. As far as the members of the Preventers knew, she wasn´t supposed to be able to beat one of their workers to a pulp. Finally, she looked up to meet the Chinese boy´s eyes with a deadly calm. "You´d better watch what you say," she warned him, her voice cold.

Minako looked at her cousin in surprise. She had never heard Usagi use that tone of voice with anyone, not even when she was really angry. She must be way beyond mad at that comment, she thought.

Lady Une cleared her throat, deciding that she had better break up what looked like a potential fight. "These two young women," she began, "are Usagi Tsukino and Minako Aino. The four guys here are Duo Maxwell, Chang Wufei, Trowa Barton, and Quatre Winner." She gestured to each person as she spoke and they either waved, smiled, nodded, or grunted.

No wonder they looked familiar, Usagi thought, they´re the ex-Gundam pilots.

"Now," Lady Une continued, "the four of you will be bodyguards to Usagi and Minako. Something came up, so Usagi´s father has asked that they be under protection."

"So my dad knows about this something?" Usagi asked.

"Yes," Une confirmed, "but he has requested that you not be told what it is."

Usagi nodded. That was fine. She could find out herself. Well, if he wanted to give us bodyguards, he certainly managed to get us the best of the best, she thought to herself.

"You will work in teams, two of you for each girl," Une briefed.

Quatre blinked. Two and two was four, but there should be five of them. "Lady Une, what about Heero?" he asked the question that was on all the pilots´ mind.

Une sighed. "I have not been able to contact him," she answered. "In fact, there hasn´t been any trace of him for two years."

Six months, Usagi corrected in her head absentmindedly.

"So there´s no way to track him down?" Quatre questioned. He was rather disappointed that he wouldn´t get to see all four of his friends again.

Duo snorted. He was Heero´s closest friend and even he hasn´t seen or heard from the guy since the Mariemeia incident. "If anyone can find him, I´ll. . .I´ll be their slave for a week!" he blurted out, emphasizing Une´s point.

Minako blinked and turned to him. "For real? This guy is that hard to find?" she asked.

Duo grinned. "For real, babe. The guy is impossible to find if he doesn´t want to be found. I´ll bow down to the person who finds him," he replied.

Usagi let a slow smirk cross her face. Then you´d better be prepared, Duo, she thought with amusement.

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End of Chapter 1.