Soul Searcher

Heero Yuy was walking in the street. Then again, walking isn't exactly the
best word to use in this situation. The pounding winds and hail bounded into
his form, crashing into him, beating him. This made his movements more like
a push, as if he was underwater, trying to continue. This didn't matter to
Heero. He could care less. He had more important things on his mind. In this
icy setting in which he stayed, he thought about his situation. Two weeks
ago, he wouldn't even think about doing what he was doing now. 'Why am I
doing this?' He thought. Then he remembered. He didn't understand it, he
didn't even try to because he knew he couldn't. There was no way he could.
There was no possibility of this after he gave up his humanity. He pulled
his coat close to his near-freezing body, hoping to keep in the heat for the
rest of his short journey. It didn't work. 'Why didn't I just accept Duo's
invitation to use Deathscythe Hell?!' he asked himself. He smiled as he
remembered the deception. The agent, code-named Preventer Wind, had secretly
supplied the doctors with entire tons of Gundanium to build new Gundams,
copies of the Custom models. The doctors were still working on his, so he
had to accept the fact that the two pilots Duo and Chang were the only ones
with Gundams for the moment. As he pushed his way through this bleak scene,
he allowed himself thoughts of the past two years. His adventures with the
other Gundam pilots, Chang, Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and the woman that had
survived it all, Relena. He didn't know what let his thoughts wander. Two
years ago, a year ago, even two weeks ago, it never would have happened.
However, it happened now, and he had yet to explain why. He looked up, a
look of determination in his eyes. Perhaps this quest, this journey, would
give him the answer he needed.
Queen Relena Peacecraft was sipping tea in her elaborate room within the
palace where she had been given as her home on Earth. She looked around,
admiring it. It was a very large room with a chandelier on the ceiling in
the middle. There was a silk bed, complete with curtains on the far wall,
away from the door. She was sitting in a wooden rocking chair on the corner
of the wall nearest to the bed, reading the newspaper while her tea laid on
a silver platter, waiting to be sipped some more. On the corner to the right
of the bed was a door that led to a private restroom, a world of its own.
Other eccentricities were on different cabinets, dressers, and other things.
She didn't hold clothes in these since her servants brought her clothes each
morning for the day. The cabinets, dressers, and other things along the room
held mementos of the past two years. She got up, carrying her tea, and
walked to a cabinet nearby. She opened it, and smiled as she saw the
contents. Inside, there were pictures of the only two men she could ever
have cared about in her life. Milliardo Peacecraft, Preventer Wind, her
brother, and another. Heero Yuy, the perfect soldier, his body serving only
as an arm of his mission. She sighed, remembering how he refrained from
killing her and others, Duo, the Doctors, many people. She let her mind
drift off towards memories of the past, and one thought floated to her head,
'You're still human, Heero. You can still be who you really are. Underneath
that mission of yours, you are human. You must be.'
'Am I human?' Heero thought to himself as he walked across this icy
landscape in nothing more that his jacket and clothes. This thought bounced
around the inners of Heero's mind until he decided to let the thought go.
Only a human could help him with that question, and that was why he was
going to find Relena. As he looked back onto his past, he saw that she was
as 'human' as he had ever seen. Sure, she wasn't as friendly as Duo, and
didn't have quite the skills of empathy as Quatre, but she was the only
person who had ever loved him. Of course, this surprised him since he didn't
even know what love really was. 'What does it feel like,' Heero thought, 'to
know that somewhere, there is someone who really, really, cares about you.'
He sighed as he recalled his life in the past. When he was a small child, he
met up with Doctor J, who turned him into a Gundam Class weapon. What few
knew was that Doctor J was actually a close friend of the original Heero
Yuy, as he had told Heero, the boy now nearly dead of hypothermia in a
lonely street on the planet Earth. Back at the start of training, he
remembered that he still had emotions, a sense of calm and peace, and a lack
of pure desire for the mission. Doctor J turned his life upside-down in a
horrid way. He first set up a theoretical wall inside Heero's head, and a
physical wall around his sleeping chambers, isolating him from the outside
world. Then, he started instilling in him the sense of the mission, further
building up the wall in Heero's heart. As far as Heero new, only Relena
could break that wall down, and make him human again. Suddenly, as Heero was
thinking these things, a fuzzy gray square appeared in front of him. First
it got larger, then it became more of a green as it got closer, and when it
was nearly a foot from Heero, it stopped, showing Heero that it was actually
a jeep.
"Well, Heero Yuy! I didn't expect to see you here! Come inside."
Heero gladly accepted, vaguely recognizing the voice in the flashing wind
and hail, crashing on the car and on his body in a symphony of torment. As
he stepped inside and felt the warmth of the heated car, everything became
clearer, and before him sat Milliardo Peacecraft.
"Where are you going? It's not a smart idea for anyone to be driving around
in this cold!" Milliardo yelled.
Heero wondered for a moment why he was shouting, then remembered that he
hadn't closed the door, letting the hail drop in its icy minuet. After he
closed the doo, the jeep became quiet, and Milliardo started driving off.
Heero responded in his usual, quiet fashion.
"How far away is Queen Relena's palace?"
Milliardo responded inquisitively, "About four or five miles the direction
you were going. Why?"
Heero ignored the question and said, "Take me there."
Milliardo heartily agreed, doing a U-turn on the slick street, nearly
sending the jeep into a spin, then headed towards the palace. Zechs looked
Heero over, noting mentally that Heero wasn't bruised by the hail, he wasn't
shivering, and he showed no signs of hypothermia, even though Heero was
probably simply starting to succumb to it, and not showing any symptoms.
"You must be a fool to be walking towards the palace in weather like this."
Milliardo said, breaking the silence. "That's just plain inhuman!"
Heero almost smiled, a strange reaction for him, and said with a longing in
his eyes, "Milliardo, you have no idea how close to the truth you are."
Relena had left her chambers after about twenty minutes of contemplation
and memories, and she walked out to the terrace, wearing a fur coat to keep
in the heat, and a special portable heater that she wore on her neck that
Doctor H had offered as a gift to her. She breathed out and watched the
vapor go out for a couple of inches, only to be smothered by the snow and
small chips of hail that swarmed in the air. She took a seat on one of the
bolted-down chairs on the side facing the entrance to the palace. For a
moment, she just sat there, enjoying the fresh air as a wonderful chain of
pace from the claustrophobic life indoors. For security, her room was inside
a nautilus shell shaped hall with a security system second to none. Although
this inspired a feeling of security, it induced a form of claustrophobia,
and could be considered a nuisance, since it took 2 minutes to simply leave
her room and get to the rest of the house. Again, she admired the snow,
watching as it fell, when off in the distance, two headlights appeared.
These two lights congealed into the form of a jeep. 'Milliardo. You've come
back.' She thought. She was about to go back to her silent contemplation
when she saw that there was another passenger in the jeep. It was impossible
to tell, they were so far away that the other passenger simply looked like a
gray splotch on the window. Something in her mind or in heart, she couldn't
tell which, whispered 'Heero'. It seemed to echo in her mind, reverberating,
giving her a second to think of it's possibility. She didn't really believe
in hunches, but she went down there anyway. She tried to convince herself
that she was just curious to see if her gut was right, and not anxious, but
as she left, the hot chocolate spilled from the speed she got up. It was
obvious that she was anxious. Very anxious, indeed.
Milliardo drove the Jeep into the parking garage at the first floor of the
palace after his silent trip with Heero. 'He's not the very conversational
sort,' he thought. Of course, he already knew this, but it still fascinated
him how focused Heero was. He had once tried to get that level of focus at
the Academy, but he constantly found himself being distracted by people.
Lucrezia, and others posed a challenge to that focus, but now, he was glad
that they were there, and that he hadn't turned into the lonely Heero that
he would have become if he had so desperately tried. Heero just sat there
looking out the front windshield. He was going to leave the car, allowing
the smell of oil and lubricants assault his nostrils, when he saw the
elevator at the opposite side of the room open, and out came Relena. His
spirits suddenly shot up. as far as his spirits ever did, which
unfortunately, wasn't much. He saw Relena walk out of the elevator, and just
stand there. Their eyes were locked, as if held by an invisible beam. He
exited the car, his eyes never looking away from Relena, and just stood
there. He stepped out only to make sure he was alive, and that he wasn't
dreaming. The assault of smells told him he was.
Relena started heading towards the ground room when she noticed the immense
heat when she stepped inside. She smiled, taking off her coat, revealing the
pink dress she had worn on that day when she returned to Earth. That very
day, she had worn it at the beach when she first saw Heero. And that very
same day which had changed her life forever. She took an elevator down to
the 1st floor, anxiously pacing, waiting for the silver doors to open to the
entrance garage. Anxiously waiting to see Milliardo, and perhaps even Heero.
The silver doors opened in their usual, brisk manner, opening up the garage
for her eyes. She didn't even have to search. Right in front of her was the
jeep, parked along all the others in the lot. Normally, she would have been
distracted by all the mechanical things being done, she always appreciated
mechanics, but she was focused on the car and its occupants. Milliardo. and
Heero. Her gut had been right, he was there, and he was looking straight at
her.
Milliardo, unaware of the situation between Heero & Relena, came out of the
car, and then looked into the car to tell Heero where he would be if he
needed any help. Heero wasn't there. In fact, he was just outside the door,
staring at something. For a moment, Milliardo allowed himself to think that
the only thing Heero would ever stare at would be his Gundam, when he let
his eyes drift to where Heero was looking. Milliardo instantly took back
what he said about what Heero found important when he saw what he was
staring at. Relena. Although no one had ever heard his thoughts, he suddenly
felt embarrassed, a strange sensation for him since he rarely ever felt
embarrassed, and rarely had a reason to feel embarrassed, anyway. Even
though there were sounds all around the hangar, automatons welding doors
shut, engineers cursing, news screens declaring their announcements for the
people that were stuck there in the building, he felt a strange silence
between Relena and Heero. As if to atone for his earlier thought, he
regained his composure and walked over to Relena.
"Hello, Relena. You look stunning today."
This gave Relena a brief relief from staring at Heero, and she smiled and
looked at him.
"Thank you, Milliardo. How did your meeting with the other Preventers go?"
He smiled and said "I finished the meeting and went for a test drive on
these new engines. Strangely, I found Heero."
She smiled and said, in a light voice, "Thank you."
For a moment, Milliardo was confused, then he was startled as the revelation
of what was happening finally hit him. 'Those two have feeling for each
other!' He thought. He never would have thought Heero would have feelings
for anyone, but he had just proved himself wrong, or at least he think he
did. It could be that they were just staring at each other for some other
reason. Either way, he decided it would be best for him to just fade away,
so he stepped into the elevator and left the two.
After Milliardo left, Heero started walking towards Relena, and suddenly
she said,
"So it is you, Heero. It is you."
With an almost affectionate voice, Heero said "Relena."
Suddenly, Relena broke out in laughter, easing the affectionate tension
between the two, but not breaking it completely.
"What's so funny?" Heero asked.
Relena simply smiled and said, "I remember the last time we said that. If
history repeats itself, you'll pull out a gun and say 'you're way in over
your head.'"
Heero allowed himself to remember the past, remembering that day at the
naval base, when he had foolishly attempted to destroy his own Gundam, and
had nearly lost his life. The two of them walked into the elevator, now
returned from dropping off Milliardo. As the elevator rose to the top floor,
where Relena lived, there was a silence between the two. Heero didn't really
know what to say to Relena to explain why he had come, and Relena simply
basked in his presence, and hoped he would tell her why he had come. She had
always felt these feelings for him, but now she considered them childish.
'I'm 17 now!' She thought. 'I am Relena Peacecraft, Protector of Peace,
Keeper of Right, I need to keep my emotions under control.' In many ways,
she knew she could. if she wanted to. However, something kept her from it.
Something inside her told her that he was there for a reason, and that
emotion wasn't a bad thing, especially next to someone who could care less
about his own emotions, even less hers. Someone who needed emotions. Needed
them desperately.
When the elevator opened, Relena tried to edge in front of Heero, but he
refused. In response to the question he knew she would ask, he said,
"I studied the building. I know where to go."
At the end of the hall, and at the end of the 2 minute silence, they reached
the door. Relena finally managed to get in front, and opened the door. Heero
managed to find a dresser and plop down what supplies he had brought into
one of the empty dresser doors.
"I don't think those will be necessary, Heero." Relena said. "The staff
brings our food and clothes, if you would like it that way."
Heero couldn't manage a response, so he allowed his actions to speak, rather
than his words. He pulled out the contents of the bag he carried. It was a
touch-pad, designed for military use.
"I know you have food and clothes and I. thank you. for it, but all I
brought was the slave control to my Gundam."
Relena could tell that he was just barely cracking out the thank you. She
knew it was against his nature, but the fact that he even said it was a sign
of improvement. Perhaps he was changing, as she had hoped from the start.
After about 2 minutes, Heero found a seat and started explaining the
question that haunted them both. Relena was haunted because she simply was
ignorant, and Heero because he didn't understand what he was starting to
feel without a mission hanging over him. It was the question of the moment.
Why had he come?
"Relena. I know this seems strange. It is strange even to me, but I came
here for your help."
Relena frowned and thought, 'What do you mean, Heero?'
"During the past two weeks, I have gone without a rally point to stay
around. I truly have no purpose but to live, because I simply don't have a
clue as to how to live as a normal human. When I had a mission, my emotions,
me, made no difference. Only the mission did."
He looked up at the chandelier as it reflected light onto the walls,
flashing it in a pattern that seemed more like an intricate dance than a
reflection.
"Now," Heero said. "I'm simply not sure. I don't know how to live like a
human, so I have only two choices. To change into a human, or to die like
the automaton that I have become."
He looked straight into her eyes, as if exploring her mind for an
explanation, and then she knew what he wanted. He wanted her to help him
become human. Relena just stared at him, almost open-mouthed, for a while,
and then said, in a calm and deliberate voice,
"Yes, I will help you, Heero."
He stared at her in an almost affectionate stare, as close as he ever got to
smiling, and then laid down to fall asleep on the chair where he was
sitting. Relena, however, stayed awake for a little while longer, and said
under her breath,
"Why do you come to me now. my love? Why now?."
The next morning, Heero woke up before Relena, and took a shower in the
restroom nearby. It was really a fascinating place. It was almost completely
marble, with pearls used to line the flower pattern of the wallpaper on the
wall. The sink had over 3 types of lotions, 4 types of mouthwashs, and who
knows what the other bottles were for. The shower, as well, was amazing. It
was a marble spa, with a shower-spray on the ceiling that sprayed across the
entire spa. After Heero finished his cleaning, including his getting
dressed, finding the clothing rack waiting for him outside the bathroom, he
sat down on a chair and waited for Relena to wake up.
'Relena.' he thought as he watched her sleeping there so peacefully. During
the mission, he considered her a nuisance at first, a danger later, and then
a powerful figure, but never really as a person. A woman. As he looked, he
changed his opinion. She wasn't just a woman, but a beautiful woman,
sleeping there in her silk nightgown. In fact, as he racked his brain for
the correct term to use for her looks, the word 'stunning' suddenly drifted
up to his mind. He didn't really know why, either. He had never thought
that about anyone else, so the idea probably didn't come from him. then he
knew.
Wing Zero.
As he thought about the possibility, it started to make sense. Those Gundams
had a form of rudimentary AI, and even if the Gundam hadn't formed the
opinion, then the zero system probably associated 'Relena' with 'stunning.'
He knew that it was possible. In fact, his way of controlling the Zero
System made it almost impossible to be otherwise. However, he somehow
relished the thought. A short time ago, he would never have thought that he
could like, or even acknowledge the beauty of another human. Now, as he
stared at Relena, sleeping like a lamb there on her silk bed, he wondered
why he didn't. Suddenly, he realized that he was already becoming closer to
the person that he wanted to be closer to. the 'himself' that he wanted to
be, and Relena. He sighed a sigh of relief, took one last, and very long,
look at Relena, and then he walked out of the room. He had made sure that he
left enough things in the room that if she woke up, she would know that he
wasn't gone for good. He walked down the long hall for a while, feeling
rather oppressed in the clothes he was wearing. He had on a pair of black
jeans and a matching black vest, and a pair of black sunglasses. He was glad
that Relena had had the courtesy to provide the clothes, and he had to admit
that they were. to put it in the best words he knew. aesthetically pleasing.
However, he sensed an ulterior motive with the all-black choice. but that
was probably just his own paranoid mind speaking to him. That mild paranoia
was normal for him, or at least the 'him' that he was, but not for the 'him'
that he wanted to become. He sighed, this time a sigh of sadness, and then
reached the end of the nautilus-hall. He tapped the button on the
turbo-elevator, and then stepped inside. He depressed the button for the
floor that he wanted to go to, the mess hall. He waited patiently for the
elevator to reach the floor, then stepped out. He knew he could have waited
at the room for food, but he was more adapted to the atmosphere of the mess
hall. After all, he was a military operative. He was THE military operative.
Gundam pilot, Assassin, Weapons Expert, Spy, just a few of the many. (many)
titles he had accumulated. He walked over to the line where everyone where
everyone was getting their food. He felt slightly out of place, being as how
everyone else was wearing military insignia except for him. When he got to
the food, he picked his choice. Hash browns, sausage, a banana, and orange
juice. He chose it for its nutritional content, but he preoccupied himself
thinking about how he should probably concentrate on the flavor, now that he
was trying to be human. Suddenly, the cafeteria woman looked over the
counter and said,
"I recognize you from somewhere."
Heero said in his usual monotone, "Heero Yuy."
When she drew a blank, he said, "Gundam Contingent. My Gundam is Wing Zero."
The woman's eyes widened so far that Heero thought for a second that they
would pop out of their sockets.
"You. You really are that Gundam pilot aren't you!?"
Her voice carried for a distance and several pilots got up from their seats.
Heero knew what they wanted. He walked over to a seat and laid his tray
down, never sitting down. They reached him, and the one in the front asked,
"So. You're the Gundam pilot."
Heero simply nodded, looking him in the eye, but concentrating on the other
pilots, waiting for them to strike.
"We've always wanted to see why you Gundam pilots were considered so
special."
He grinned, cracked his knuckles, and said "What do you say, boys?! Should
we test him?"
The others smiled, and circled. Heero simply watched as the pilots went
through the diatribe that pilots in every colony he had been too had gone
through. He sighed as he noticed that there were only five. 'No challenge
here.' He thought. Suddenly, all of them pulled out knives. He quickly
assessed the danger that each of them posed. Heero's adrenaline level shot
up, and he allowed a laugh to escape. The same laugh which he gave when he
was succeeding in a mission. The same laugh that had haunted his enemies for
years after his attack. Suddenly, one of them struck. He dove at Heero,
yelling some barbarian-like battle cry. Heero smiled and grabbed his knife
hand, pressing his fingers against the fleshy space between the fingers so
hard that he kneeled on the ground. While he was occupied with the
aforementioned idiot, two others came at him. One of them foolishly threw
the knife, hoping to hit Heero. He was standing on the side which the knife
came from, so he simply caught it in mid-air. The pilots stared wide-eyed.
Suddenly, the other pilot who came in the pair came at him, more cautiously
than the first, waving the knife. Heero dispatched the second pilot, then
let go of the pilot whom he was holding, letting him crumple to the ground
in pain. In an instant, he brought up the knife, blocking the knife of the
third pilot, then cut downwards, startling the pilot to the point where he
brought his hand back to avoid getting slashed. just to get hit by a
jackknife from Heero. Suddenly, Heero felt his arm get hit. He was glad that
the vest was just that. a vest, or the knife would have slashed a jacket,
rendering it worthless. He was also glad that his skin had been tempered to
an almost inhuman level. A gun didn't pierce it, so a knife didn't even get
close. He instantly grabbed the handle of that knife, than used it as a
holding point. Knowing that the pilot wouldn't let go of the knife, he
pushed himself up, using the knife as a pull, doing a back-flip, slamming
his foot into his enemy's chin, shooting him several feet up into the air.
First, he heard a ripping sound. Then he heard the unmistakable metallic
clang of metal hitting metal. to be specific, there was a slight wavering in
the first 'twang', leading Heero to believe it was the sound of steel
hitting reinforced titanium, the ripping sound being kevlar. He looked back
and quickly disabled the last pilot with a crushing blow to the neck. He
almost allowed himself a smile and he thought 'Relena. A bulletproof,
titanium reinforced vest.' He looked down at the cut and noticed a couple
weights. 'Not only that, you made it weighted for physical training while I
was here. You are too kind.'
Heero quickly finished his breakfast, vaguely paying attention to the
medics who came in to pick up the pilots which he had so easily tattered. He
would need to find a better class of drinking establish. or find someone
worthy of fighting. He took the elevator back to Relena's floor, and then
headed down the nauti-hall. He reached the door, and found it locked. Heero
frowned, and picked up a small piece of wire lying on the floor to pick the
lock. He opened the door. The first sign of activity was a barrage of
smells. Then, he noticed the steam coming from the open bathroom door. He
couldn't see in, of course. It was at an angle from him, and it was so long
that he would probably have to be looking directly into it to see anything.
He quickly went to the clothing rack and found a medication. Isopropyl
(rubbing) alcohol. He knew it would sting, but he didn't care. He pulled out
the dermal spray and sprayed it on his arm. The pain was minimal, it was a
barely noticeable cut after all. In fact, it would be closer to the truth to
call it a mark. He found a convenient dresser and sat on it, waiting for
Relena to come out. He noticed, as he sat on it, that the top dresser was
empty. Curious, he got off and opened the top dresser. As he suspected, it
was empty. He opened the second dresser, and inside were pictures from the
war. pictures of Milliardo. and him. He noticed as he looked at the myriad
display of memorabilia that she had collected a lot of pictures. He regarded
a picture with him and Duo carefully. It was a wonder why she kept them. and
then he realized something that had haunted him for a long time. and that
was why he felt there was a connection to her that he had with no one else,
the reason that he didn't ask the infamously energetic Duo or the empathetic
Quatre to help him with his problem. Their relationship was different. she
cared for him. He looked at the picture, and then noticed a picture from the
Marina Bay security protocols of him not shooting Relena, a look of actual
compassion on his face for a split second. That was when he realized that
the person who he wanted to be was inside of him, and that that person cared
for Relena. No, that wasn't it. Whoever it was. loved Relena. As he looked
at the pictures, a menagerie of thoughts drifted to his head. the last of
which was the thought that somehow, in the deep reaches of all of this, the
Zero System had a part in it all. He noticed, in the corner of his mind,
that the shower stopped, but he wasn't really paying attention. He went over
to a cabinet on the opposite wall. and brought out the slave control. The
control was actually an access to the 'input' portion of the Zero System. He
couldn't do what he had been wanting to do, but he knew that the Zero System
in his Wing could. He activated it, and then splayed his hand over the
touchpad to let it identify his fingerprint. He let the thing send out its
beam pulse, and he suddenly was Wing Zero. in an ephereal way. He felt that
he was completely functioning, and then he noticed that he was in a dark
truck. He felt the visual stealth upgrade which either made it look
invisible, or like a phantom with a specially designed shimmering silver
skin. It was most likely something Doctor J cooked up for Deathscythe Hell
that the others used it. He moved his arms and forced open the truck that he
was lying in. He left and then phantomized. All five trucks stopped. Duo
jumped out and simply stared. Heero turned on his speakerphone and said,
"It's my mobile suit."
In that same monotone voice that he always used. He cloaked himself and sped
off towards the palace. He found an empty space in the botanical garden and
set down Wing Zero.
"Heero?"
Heero heard the worry in Relena's voice and looked up. She was standing
there in her full dress regalia, probably while he was Wing Zero. Heero
looked at her and said,
"I'll be back shortly."
He didn't explain, but rather, he left the room and headed for the elevator.
Another two minutes and he was there, at the imposing silver double-doors.
He pressed the button, walked in, and allowed it to take him to the gardens.
He immediately recognized the spot where Wing Zero had landed. Heero felt
around until he had Wing Zero, then climbed up in the way that he had done
thousands of times. It didn't matter that it was cloaked. He knew. He
entered the cockpit, hoping no one had seen him. The delicate peace that
existed didn't allow Gundams, or any other form of mobile suit for that
matter. He stepped in and instantly felt the Zero System.
"Zero System, disable forced input circuitry, voice code Heero."
There was a slight burst of electronics, and then it all shut off. The
secret behind Heero's control, the secret that no one else knew, and
therefore, no one else could control, was the fact that the Zero System
worked both ways. Not only did the user. become. Wing Zero, and not only did
the Zero System destroy personal thoughts and quirks as being threats to the
mission, but it stored what it deleted, and that information could be
brought back. By shutting off the input system, Heero would not be affected
by the Zero system's negative affects, but he would be able to command it to
do certain things in his mind, which he did.
"Voice code Heero. Zero, in two bursts, bring back all conversations with
Relena, Duo, and Quatre on my mark."
He prepared himself for the mind-blowing blasts of memories and said
"Mark."
Suddenly, a burst of memories, desires, emotions, feelings, everything that
came with human communication came to him. He was overwhelmed, since the
memories were not only visual and auditory, but they also had many other,
intangible things that couldn't be quantified. He gritted his teeth against
the barrage, and then a second one came. Even though Heero almost didn't
feel pain, he gasped as the memories came flooding into him. He could almost
feel the barriers to his mind being brought down. but even after all the
memories came to him, he didn't feel as if he'd changed. He was more aware
of what he was looking for, but he still wasn't there. then he thought of
something. When he was a child, Doctor J had him put into a prototype model
of a fantastic Gundam. The Wing Zero Prototype. Suddenly, Heero remembered
something from the past, something Doctor J told him to do after his mission
was complete.
"Voice code Heero, open up file 'Heero 111011.'"
Suddenly, it was as if the barriers placed into his mind were no longer
there. He could almost feel his old self being stored in Wing Zero, probably
never to be brought back again. Heero could feel the emotions, the feelings,
the attitudes, from events through his entire life. Now he knew what Doctor
J did. He strengthened Heero physically and mentally, but stored his ability
to emotionally evaluate situations inside the Wing Zero Prototype. By using
the same file, and letting Heero put it in himself, he saw everything that
had happened in his life with emotions. like a real person would. He opened
the cockpit slowly, making sure no one saw him, then jumped out. He walked
across the garden, marveling at the flowers, marveling at the fact that he
could marvel at the flowers. When he got inside, he stayed silent, but his
guts were almost exploding with joy. When he got into an elevator to take
him up to Relena's floor, he started laughing so hard that his sides almost
burst. So hard, in fact, that he started crying. As he walked into Relena's
room, he saw her sitting there on her bed, putting on her shoes, probably
getting ready for a walk since she didn't have anything scheduled for the
day. In fact, she probably only wore her diplomatic regalia for appearances.
When she looked up at Heero and saw him smiling widely, she was caught off
guard, and was barely able to manage a "Hello, Heero." Heero, however,
didn't care. He walked over to Relena and started to talk at a lightning
pace, almost overwhelming her. When she finally calmed down, and he finally
slowed down, he got slightly more serious and said.
"I'm sorry Relena, for the past two years, how you've been trying to reach
me, and how I've kept pulling away. Without you, I just wouldn't be who I
am."
Relena almost stopped him. In fact, she started to say that she really
didn't do anything, that she, in fact, really hadn't helped him, but Heero
stopped her.
"You've helped me more than you or I could have ever realized. Not that I
see what you've done, I'm amazed."
Again, Relena tried to tell him that she didn't do anything to help him, but
suddenly, he said,
"Shutup. Just please, shutup."
As he pulled her face to hers in a brief kiss that he had waited for a long
time. It was brief, but for Heero, it was remarkable. Relena was left
dumbstruck, and could only barely manage a
"Wow."
They were about to come together again when an alarm blared loudly. The
intruder alarm. 4 trucks, mobile suit carriers, came. Heero ran with Relena
at a heart-stopping pace, reaching the elevator in under a minute. They got
down to the ground floor when the alarm shut off. Heero ran out, saw 4
figures coming out of each of the trucks he ran at a pace that was almost
inhuman, recognizing that even though he had his emotions, he was just as
strong as he always was. He did a triple flip, landed behind one, and had
his gun pointed at him, when he recognized the braid.
"Duo? Is that you?"
Heero yelled, smiling. Duo looked behind, more shocked to hear Heero
laughing than the fact that the gun was pointed at his head. Heero put that
gun down and said.
"In the name of all that's good and right, what in the world are you doing
here, Shinigami?!"
That got the attention of the other pilots as well. Who was this clone of
Heero that stood before them?
"Uh, Heero?" Quatre asked.
"Yeah?"
"What happened to you?"
Heero smiled. Quatre always was blunt.
"It is me, Quatre. I've changed. for the better."
Quatre managed a tense smile, still not convinced.
"Are you sure?" Quatre asked.
"Yes, offer proof." Trowa said, cautiously.
Chang stepped in for Heero
"Why does our friend need to defend himself. You should all be ashamed that
you would question him."
Suddenly Duo saw Relena.
"He came out with you Relena. Is it true?"
Relena nodded yes, smiling, remembering their kiss.
"Well then, that's enough a reason for me."
He put his arm over Heero's shoulder and said,
"You'll need to explain later. At the moment we have a mission."
Heero, still jubilant, smiled, placed his arm over Duo's shoulder, inciting
a small jump, obviously Duo wasn't used to the new Heero.
"What's the problem?!"
Milliardo asked, startling the people assembled. Standing next to him was
Lucrezia.
"Uh, nothing."
Duo said. then decided he should know. Their voiced went down to a whisper,
and Duo said,
"Did Doctor J provide you and Lucrezia with the Cloaking device?"
Milliardo nodded, noting that there was an urgency in Duo's voice.
"Okay. Here's the deal. Lady Une, as you know, is schizophrenic, and she
just added another personality to her repertoire. A controlling personality.
She made herself a Gundam of unknown origin, very powerful. and assembled an
army of Virgo II's, based off of her flight programming."
Duo sighed.
"The Doctors have analyzed her Gundam, and have found that it is
theoretically invincible with the Mercurius Shield, Tallgeese's Doblitzer
gun, Vayeate's beam cannon, Wing Zero's Beam Sword, the Zero System,
everything that makes a mobile suit powerful. and it's made, like you could
guess. of Gundanium alloy."
Duo sighed, and then said,
"The Virgo's will be pretty easy, with our Gundams finally all completed.
Heero, I suspect you have yours parked somewhere here. however. I am
slightly ashamed to say that I'm the reason those Virgo's were made."
At all of their malevolent glare's, even Relena's, he said,
"Hey, Hey! I'll explain later! Anyway, we need to stop her mobile suits from
being seen by the colonies, defeat it, and capture her for psychiatric
treatment. Anyway, all of you, except Relena, cloak your Gundams, get them
away from the cities, cloak them, then head them off into space. Don't
worry, with the cloaking system came a power boost. You can get to space
without a rocket launching you."
Everyone complied with what Duo said very quickly, except Heero. He stayed
back, and talked to Relena.
"Don't worry about me. You'll see me again in a couple of weeks."
Relena smiled, nodded, and said to herself,
'I'll be seeing you long before then.'
Heero and the 6 other pilots, Chang, Duo, Milliardo, Quatre, Trowa, and
Lucrezia, met at a deserted portion of desert and launched off, escaping the
atmosphere, and clawing for space. When they finally hit the wild black
yonder, Duo went to tight-beam communication s thinking to ask Heero what
caused him to take a 180 degree look on life. Unfortunately, all of the
other pilots were doing the same. Heero smiled and said to everyone,
"You don't need to tight beam me."
To explain his point, he raised the volume on all of their communiqués to
let them hear each other. Then he switched it to the frequency that they
were all using.
"Okay, if you want the scoop, here it is."
He explained everything, allowing Milliardo to add in certain comments at
the beginning, starting with him walking through the hail, to the cafeteria
incident, to the pictures in the bedroom, to the Zero System, to the kiss."
At the mention of the kiss, Heero could almost feel the smirk that was on
all of their faces. It was obvious that they were expecting it for years.
Suddenly, Heero saw a blip on the radar.
"Voice code Heero. Activate Zero System minus the active defense system."
He became Wing Zero, except it didn't try to delete his emotions as negative
to the mission. The others wondered why he had done that, then noticed the
blip. Normal Mobile Suits and radar wouldn't have registered it, after all,
it was cloaked, but their Gundams, Deathscythe Hell Custom, Wing Zero
Custom, Altron Gundam Custom, Sandrock Kai Custom, Heavyarms Kai Custom,
Tallgeese 3 Custom (a new model), and the Mercurius Custom (again, new
model), were tuned to the cloaking frequency of their own Gundams. Heero
frowned. Who could be in the mysterious Gundam that was one of their own.
Suddenly, Wing Zero positively identified the newcomer, a second copy of
Wing Zero Custom, but that didn't allow Heero/Wing Zero to identify the
pilot. Suddenly, Heero/Wing Zero intercepted a transmission on the tight
beam from the other Gundam.
"Hello Heero."
"Relena!!!!!"
Relena may have been on tight band, but Heero wasn't, and the other Gundams
turned to her. Suddenly, Heero realized something. Wing Zero would only be
effective in the hands of an untrained pilot with the Zero System running.
Relena's Gundam came up to his. so close that Heero/Wing Zero could
physically see Relena.
Relena suddenly said.
"Voice code Relena. Activate the Zero System."
"No!!!!"
"Minus the active defense system."
Heero was puzzled. Only he knew what the secret to personal safety with the
Zero System was. then he realized that Doctor J must have supplied her with
the Gundam, and the explanation. However, he was surprised that Relena's
mind could withstand the onslaught of power that Wing Zero pumped into her.
The two Gundams came together in mid-space, then they aligned themselves to
face the other pilots. Relena said
"I've had this thing for a while. I knew the secret, and so I incrementally
increased the pressure the Zero System placed on my brain. I can. withstand
it now."
Suddenly, on the wide-band, someone said,
"Shinigami Squadron lead, come in. Shinigami, come in."
Duo responded with,
"I'm here, Shinigami 2. What's the deal?"
"There's a large amount of metal moving fast towards Earth. Billions of
dollar's worth. Should we intercept?"
"That's a negative."
Duo said. The person on the other end was obviously puzzled by the answer,
but said,
"Very well. See you soon, Shinigami."
Duo closed the connection. Chang snorted and said,
"Who in the name of justice was that?!"
Duo shrugged, although the others couldn't see through the eyeholes to know,
and said,
"My salvaging group. we didn't destroy our mobile suits. Shinigami is our
space Leo mobile suit squadron. They think I'm flying a space Leo."
Chang snorted again.
"That's disgusting that you would have an ego so expansive that you would
name a mobile suit squadron after you, that you didn't destroy your mobile
suits like you were ordered, and."
Chang drifted off for a second. Then he came back and said,
"Waaaaaait. You never told us why it was your fault that the Virgo II's were
created."
Duo sighed and said on the wide band,
"Look. You know how all the mobile suit parts were scrunched into little
cubes, sent into space, and destroyed?"
Everyone nodded. The even was old news. After all, it was probably the only
thing that assured some people that peace was possible.
"Well. they didn't actually blow up. I asked Lady Une to scrunch them down
to a size smaller than she was supposed to, smaller than the radar could
pick up. Then, I asked her to make the explosives flash explosions, not
real, devastating explosions. This charred the pieces, so that they couldn't
be seen by the naked eye. I was going to come in with the sweepers and take
it all up, smelt it down, and sell it. well. it wasn't there when I went for
it."
The tensions rising among the other pilots, along with Heero's buster cannon
rising to face Deathscythe Hell, showed how much they really disliked what
Duo did. Duo continued on, unfazed by the fact that the buster cannon was
faced at his cockpit.
"Anyway, I think Lady Une got to it before me, and formed her army with it.
As for the Gundam, she had the Gundanium from Doctor S, and got the
blueprint from all of them. It didn't take her long to make it since she was
using those new automatons that build directly off of a blueprint."
Heero smirked, then said,
"Hey, Chang! You wanna play 'Shinigami in the middle?!"
"It'll be my pleasure!"
Chang was about to bring up his flamethrower when Duo said,
"No! Remember, my guy said that they detected Lady Une's forces! We should
go out there!"
Chang huffed and said,
"Okay. Where is she?"
Duo smiled as he racked his brain for the answer.
"They would have detected her using one of our metal sensor satellites,
which would explain how they didn't know that those were working mobile
suits. At the moment, we only have 2 running, one in Earth's orbit, and one
at colony cluster L7."
"To L7 it is."
All of the Gundams, now 8 adding Relena to the fray, shot off at full power
towards the colony cluster. They all were still cloaked, of course, so as
the passed the spinning colony itself, they couldn't help but smirk at the
ignorant citizens below. Suddenly, Trowa said in that same, monotone voice
of his,
"We have contact. 30 targets 400 kilometers away from the base. all black."
Heero smiled at the ingenuity of Lady Une. As an alternative to real
cloaking, she painted the suits as black as space. Trowa came back on.
"Correction. That was only a first wave. 100 kilometers farther back are 60
more, and 50 kilometers behind that is Lady Une."
"Let's kick some tail!"
Duo yelled in that boyish, ear rattling sound he made.
"I'm with you all the way, buddy!"
Heero yelled. This still startled the others, but it didn't matter. Cloaked,
they shot off towards the first wave of enemies. decimating about 10 of them
in the first second. Suddenly, a beam of light came through the ranks of the
Virgos, forcing them to divide. That beam nearly slammed into Relena's Wing
Zero, but at a warning from Heero, she dodged it. Suddenly, Lady Une
disappeared.
"What happened?!"
Duo yelled in a panic, dodging a beam blade that slashed at him from
nowhere, than disappeared. Suddenly, Heero/Wing Zero and Relena/Wing One
came out of cloak, took their beam swords, and slashed at a point in space.
to hear the blades crackle as they hit shields. Matter-of-factly, Trowa
said,
"Lady Une is cloaked, so only her radar blip appears to us. Relena and Heero
by her radar signature."
Duo screamed his hatred at this fact, de-cloaked, and struck out at one of
the nearby Virgos, setting it to explode. The others took the hint, if there
was one, and attacked the 60 some odd Virgos that were left. They were going
to have to leave the Zero System fighters to fight by themselves, and fight
the Virgos the only way they knew how. Trowa with his cannon barrage, Quatre
with his scythes, Duo wish his fairy-toed shoes, Milliardo wish his Cannon,
Chang with his flamethrower, and Lucrezia with her electro-magnetic discs as
ramming shields and weapons.
Meanwhile, Heero and Relena were having problems of their own. A shot from
a beam cannon fired at Heero and he intercepted it with his sword, allowing
Relena to come in, only to have her saber strike the Mercurius shield that
defended Lady Une. Using this tactic, Heero held off Lady Une, firing shot
after shot from his beam cannon, using slash after slash from his beam saber
to keep Lady Une occupied to let Relena come in. to be pushed back again.
"Why doesn't she run out of power?!"
Relena yelled, firing her beam cannon, hitting the Mercurius shield, sending
Lady Une back about ten yards. Lady Une's Gundam didn't even have a scratch.
Heero responded to Relena saying,
"I saw the prototype blueprints for her unit right before Operation Meteor.
It runs off of a fusion system. It's highly unstable, and the energy must be
used instantly and continuously after the charge or else the energy will
destroy it."
"How do we deal with it?!"
"I don't have a clue."
The really didn't bolster their confidences, but that didn't matter. They
had to defeat Lady Une, and they had to defeat her NOW. Suddenly, Heero went
off the defensive, and came at Lady Une full speed, slamming into the shield
full-force, slightly charring the Gundanium Alloy. He knew, of course, that
that wouldn't damage her, but it would create a static disturbance, and
would blind her for a second, which was a second Relena used. She came
behind Lady Une and fired her beam cannon, shorting out the cloaking system.
Lady Une's suit was visible. and unscathed.
"What the.!"
Heero yelled as Lady Une fired a beam from her cannon, slamming into his
suit's arm, charring some of it. In a rage, Relena fired another, sustained
shot from her beam cannon. Lady Une reoriented her shields to block, but
still fired at Heero. only to have her armor be cut into by two scythes.
"AHHH!"
Was her scream on the broad band wave. Suddenly, all the Gundams, able to
see her since the cloak shortage, fired on her open side. She used her other
energy discs to block, but it didn't help. The shield sparked under the
constant barrage, then broke when Lucrezia slammed it with her own shield.
Suddenly, without the constant drain of the excess energy, the fusion drive
on the Gundam's back blew, shattering the bottom half of the Gundam, leaving
Lady Une alive. Duo sighed and said,
"You do know of course that we can't take her to Earth. After all, she
doesn't have her cloak."
Then an idea came into his head. He opened up on the wide-band and said.
"Shinigami 2! Bring every Sweeper unit over to my coordinates, pronto! We
have about 2 billion dollars worth of machinery here for you to pick up!"
Heero smiled. Duo was always very intelligent in such situations. then he
frowned. On the wide band, he said.
"Duo, do you have that voice converter prank program still on Deathscythe
Hell?"
"Yeah."
"Load it onto Wing Zero."
Heero, still connected to Wing Zero, felt the data coming in.
"Voice code Heero. Disconnect from Zero System."
Suddenly, he was free, and Relena followed suit. He found the program, set
it to Lady Une's voice code, and said on the wide-band.
"Voice code Une. Detach all memories of past battle. Detach all memories of
explosive mobile suits. Insert more plausible memory in its place."
Betting that her unit's Gundam would still have it's communication system
working, and it's Zero System working, both of them being individually
operable, he said that, hoping that her comm system would pick it up, then
the Zero System would pick it up, assume it was her, and then complete the
command. The sudden burst of light in her cockpit affirmed it, then he laid
back. Mission accomplished. Suddenly, Duo said,
"Oh, and Shinigami 2, bring a medical team."
Duo smiled and switched to tight beam Heero.
"After all, if she's in a medical facility, her warped little brain can make
up a million reasons for being there."
Heero smiled. It had been a long night.
After they had detained Lady Une and convinced her to go to a psychiatric
ward temporarily, all of them went to Earth for a private celebration of
their victory.
"To victory!"
Duo yelled, popping a bottle of champagne.
"Yes." Trowa said. "We succeeded where others would most definitely would
have failed."
Heero smiled at the proceedings, than walked over to Relena who was standing
at the other side of the room talking with Lucrezia about the battle, her
arms moving as if mobile suits in combat. Heero smiled. Apparently, a little
battle had shown Relena the art of being a warrior, and the full extent of
the need for peace. Heero walked up to her, getting Relena to look up at
him.
"Yes, Heero?"
Heero blushed.
"I've been subconsciously waiting to do this for 2 years,"
Heero said as he pulled out a small black box, suddenly getting the
attention of everyone in the room. He opened the box and removed a ring,
gold with silver lining along the sides. The room went totally silent.
"Will you marry me?"
Relena was taken aback, but she took the ring, placed it on her finger, and
said in a heavy voice,
"Yes, Heero."
As Heero wrapped his arms around her in a slow hug, he whispered softly in
her ear,
"I love you. Relena."