Author's Note: For all you action junkies, here's something new for all you to get addicted to. Not only do you get to enjoy The Eternal Encore, you also get to see my latest brainchild, The Maxwell Project. As always, if you're looking for answers all in the first chapter, then you don't know me by now. Remember friends, even the most inconsequential phrase can be and will be used in future chapters, just to keep you all on your toes.

I would also like to give another thank you to Archsage Soren for taking a look at this and picking out some errors that I had missed in earlier proofreading. Couldn't have done it without ya pal.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Warning: language (if you haven't figured that one out by now, then why are you reading this?)

The Maxwell Project

Living in an Uncaring World

If there was one thing that the boy knew, it was this: hope was fake, that is to say it was not real.

There had been a time when he had had hope, a time when that was the only thing that kept him alive. That time seemed far off now that he looked back at it. And, if anything, it seemed more hopeless than where he found himself currently.

He was…is an orphan. His parents had abandoned him a long, long time ago and he had been forced to learn the unique survival skills necessary for surviving on the streets. How it was possible for humans to live in such squalor and horrible conditions, it was beyond any conscious feeling individual. Yet, it had not only been his reality; it had been his life, his entire life.

Since he had been so young, he was easily able to adapt to living in such primal conditions. All he really needed were the necessities for survival, those being food, water, and shelter.

Finding the last one wasn't too hard since all you needed was something over your head but getting good water and the right amount of food was another story altogether. There were days, sometimes weeks, when he went without anything. If there was anything he wouldn't wish on somebody, it was the raw hunger pains he had been forced to endure as a very young child. Nothing, not even the stuff they did to him could compare to that…

However, finding the things one needed for survival weren't the only things to be on the watch for. No, there were the predators, the ones that preyed on the helpless, enjoyed dishing out pain to whoever they caught, caring for no one else but their selves. Sometimes they would beat you and take anything you had on your person. Other times…other times if you weren't lucky enough, they stole your innocence, your dignity…

And sometimes that was all you had left…

He had been a lucky one; he hadn't been caught by any of those damn bastards to receive a beating or a rape. He had been that good. He had used everything he could to his advantage, from squeezing into small crevices that no grown man could get into to even using the public as a shield between him and those monsters.

Maybe that was what attracted their attention in the first place.

He could recall it all with such clarity now. It happened one fine day where the weather wasn't being a bitch and raining on everything and it wasn't too cold either. He had been minding his own business, i.e. looking for suckers to pickpocket when he had caught sight of a twenty dollar bill sticking ever so tauntingly out of a man's coat pocket that he wasn't able to resist temptation and only a fool would have passed it up. As it turned out, he was the fool for landing himself into the trap that it was. Now that he looked back at it, he couldn't help but berate himself since all the signs were there that screamed "TRAP!" to anybody who knew what to look for.

So they had him and could do whatever they wanted with him. But just who were they, you might be wondering.

They were the goddamn military, that's who.

They made him into a guinea pig, did all sorts of things to him that he was sure would result in charges of crimes against humanity if somebody should find out. At first he had pleaded and begged for them to stop and let him go, that he was just a kid that hadn't done anything wrong, had swore never to say anything to another soul about what they were doing to him, but, as was the cliché, they didn't. Soon, his tears had drained and dried out, his tolerance for what they were doing to his body increased.

He had changed. No longer was he a small malnourished boy with the mouth of a sailor on the streets. He was bigger than he had ever been and was still growing thanks to biology and puberty. His body was thick with muscle, though he still retained a lithe, sinuous body that quite easily hid his new strength. His strength had been multiplied dramatically; he was faster than he was before; his skin was tough, tough enough to endure many things without being torn, ripped open, or scratched. His intelligence though…it could have been better since he scorned all the academics they had tried to shove down his throat. He hadn't learned much except the basics of reading and writing and he didn't speak as much as he had used to. With his skills of reading, he allowed himself to sneak in tales of fantasy from some sympathetic guys who felt sorry for him as a means to escape his reality, much to the disappointment of his tyrannical oppressors.

Over time, he learned that he wasn't the only person that had been taken and worked on. There had been others, many others. Only less than half of those taken were still alive, the ones that had died couldn't withstand the tortures of the experiments being done to them. Many had had different reactions to the changes forced on them.

There was one whose intelligence had increased so greatly that he had developed telekinetic powers, ones that only grew stronger the smarter he got. Another had the ability to change their appearance, making them a chameleon of sorts. One had developed the ability to make things combust from a distance while another gained awesome strength but lost almost all semblance of intelligence.

There were so many others that he didn't have the time nor the care to actually mention. He had forced himself into the position of a loner, a guy who stayed away from social interactions. He despised the ones that were overjoyed at their sudden twist of fortunes. They actually liked their new-given abilities, loved the power that was given to them by some freaks who didn't treat them like people. Because of this, they had outcasted him socially, sneering at him behind his back only because he would beat the living shit out of them for doing it to his face. Yeah, he had a reputation alright. It was from that that he gave himself the only name he would ever acknowledge.

Solo.

Yes, he was still young, his blond hair long enough to be pulled into a ponytail that used to be a source of teasing until he put a brutal stop to it. Nobody messed with his hair, nobody. He enjoyed the fact that one look from him could cut into their confidences and he used that against them all, not only against his "comrades" but the assholes who had kidnapped him as well. He had been told that when in the midst wrath and fury, his eyes would change to the color of amber, a drastic change from his normally intense green. This was only confirmed when he gotten a good look in a mirror once and he had to say, amber eyes looked good on him.

Despite everything in this small world of his, there was an abnormality that just wouldn't go away. It took the form of a small brunet, a boy around the age of fifteen or so. He was quiet, introverted, yet no one seemed to want to cross the boy, despite risking their lives against his more painful rages almost everyday. What really fascinated the blond was the braid that the boy kept his hair in. It was like a snake that followed after the boy wherever he went. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought the thing was alive…

Then one day, the strange boy stood right next to him and uttered a single, "Hi."

That was the very first word that he had ever heard from the boy's mouth.

He had stared at the kid for a minute before looking away, not inviting any sort of conversation. The following day, he found that boy at his side again, almost like his shadow, even though he kept a shy distance away from him. At first, he didn't know what to do about it but it wasn't as if he was really bothered by it. So he did nothing and let the boy continue to be near him. As the days passed, he actually grew to like the silent company that only this boy could give him and it didn't hurt that the boy hardly spoke, if at all. Even now he had no idea as to why he enjoyed the meeker boy's presence.

One day, he decided to ask what the boy's name was so that he didn't call him something that would hurt his feelings. It was strange that he thought like that since he didn't give a damn about anyone else but himself.

"I dunno," the boy had answered.

"I guess I'll just call ya Kid then until you can come up with one," he had replied.

The expression on the boy's face had been incredible. The violet eyes that were unique only to this one boy had widened, tears slightly shimmering, and his mouth twisted into a trembling smile. For the first time in all his memory, Solo found himself in an embrace, a platonic one to be sure, and it wasn't something he was liable to forget anytime soon. It had been nice, real nice. In fact, if he recalled correctly, he found himself hugging the smaller boy back.

Soon after, it seemed all the other kids were avoiding them like they had the plague or something. No one spoke ill about him, Solo, again. There were no whispers, no rumors, no gossip, no nothing. It was as if they were all afraid of invoking some supernatural wrath or something.

To tell the truth, it was welcomed by the blond since he had been irritated beyond belief by it all. All he had ever wanted in this place was to be left alone by everyone. There were two exceptions to this though. One was Kid. He was always welcomed. Heck, he could have been the little brother he never had…

The other was one that was not welcomed but he had no choice with. It was the assholes running the show. They were always making him do tests, performing more of their pain inducing experiments on him. What did they want from him anyway? Let him rephrase that, what did they want with all of them? They had never explained that…

They sure as hell weren't doing this for their health and since they were with the military, they wanted something out of them, but what? What were they trying to get? He had been down in this place for so long that he had no idea what the world was like now. He couldn't even remember what the sun looked like even though he always read about it in one of his smuggled books.

He would rather be out there than in here.

Anything else had to be better than this.