Tendrils of Destiny 6/?

[paxbanana]

Disclaimer: Really, you don't think I do own it, do you?

[AN]- Terribly sorry to the few who are reading this fic for taking so long. Classes are terrible right now, and exams are coming up, unfortunately. Hopefully, this weekend I'll have time to update, but if not, it will be possible over the holiday break.



TENDRILS OF DESTINY


CHAPTER 6


Trowa Barton breathed deeply, savoring the wonderful odor of the coffee percolating in the maker. He sat back in a small, hard chair, glancing over the familiar pictures of past circus performers. His eyes paused over his favorite, and a faint smile tweaked the corner of his shapely lips at the sight of a tiny Catherine holding a tiny knife, her young face screwed in determination at hitting the target before her.


With a sigh, the man rose and strode easily around the small trailer, carefully rearranging everything though it was had all been neat before. His long fingers danced momentarily over a small frame, hesitating between putting it away and leaving it out. The picture was of a young, smiling, love-filled couple, holding each other tenderly, unknowing of the photograph until the revealing flash. One had dark, messy locks, the other tidy blonde hair.


Trowa sighed, placing the frame on a small table, while his mind told him the irony of the situation. Nostalgia now defined his deft, yet graceful movements as he strolled through the trailer.


He would see her tomorrow morning. She would nod, or even give him one of those alluring, cynical smiles, and they would go through their exercises together. When he arrived back at the circus site, he would clean the cages and perform. The next day would be the same. This process would continue until her death.


Jumping at the deep, growling gurgle of the coffee maker, Trowa flipped off the red switch and emptied the dark grinds into the white of the sink. He lifted a hand to fasten on the jug of hot liquid, but before he could complete the movement, a powerful knock shook the right wall of the trailer.


With another sigh, Trowa opened the door, careful to slip backward into the trailer so he would not be easily reached. Trowa Barton, a man usually relaxed in emotion and stoic in face, allowed his features to slip into hat of disbelief. Heero Yuy stood in front of his trailer.


Trowa stepped from his habitation and nodded to Heero. "What can I do for you?"


"Where is she?" Heero asked dully.


"'She?'" Trowa retorted, equally dull.


"Relena." Her name slipped from his lips, dry and tattered from its overuse.


"I believe," Trowa stated automatically, his tone dry and irritated, "she is currently on L1 at the Preventers' headquarters. Une flew up to meet with her to discuss a terrorist organization."


For a moment, Heero's face drew into a confused expression. Then he shook his head, tossing his dark locks, and repeated his earlier question though his voice shook this time. "Where is she?"


Trowa sighed, turning away from the other man. "Why would you care? You abandoned her long ago."


Heero's face slipped into angry lines. His lips pinched together and his face paled in rage. With a mighty throw of the fist, Heero swung at Trowa. The other man, with a look of boredom, dodged easily, landing an uppercut to Heero's exposed ribcage.


The Japanese man stumbled backward, drawing a hoarse breath and throwing out a statement. "I didn't know." The words came automatically as if he had been planning ahead for this conversation.


"You had no faith," Trowa said, sliding back into a defensive stance.


"Faith? On what, humanity?" Heero laughed cynically, throwing himself forward again. Trowa danced to the side and grunted in pain as Heero connect with his chest.


Both men toppled together to the ground, Heero fighting vainly to get the upper hand. Trowa, with a powerful flick of his hip, rolled them over. He was now on top, crushing Heero into the hard dirt of the colony. "Yes, faith. That's what you need to survive. How can you live without faith?"


Heero forced his torso off the ground, straining and shaking until he was sitting up with Trowa pushing hard against his chest. "You live like I do."


His strength gave out and they both hit the ground with a painful 'thud'. Heero closed his eyes and felt salty tears begin to work from under his lids. 'Like I do?'


Although their thoughts were the same, Trowa was the one to voice them. "You don't live, Heero."


The Japanese man swallowed noisily. "I do when I'm with her."


Trowa's emerald eyes paused as they studied Heero's large Prussian orbs, gazing so fiercely pleading out from his dark face. Then the man rose and nodded. "I'll take you to her."


* * * *


Several sharp shots rang from the hallway of the whitewashed building. Dr. Lin, wincing and holding her bleeding side, called feebly. Twice she tried, but not words louder than a whisper emerged. Her throat, she suddenly realized, was injured. The doctor carefully lifted her clipboard, wincing again at the tortured movements, before striking the panel beside her, the one that was forced in her ribcage. A loud 'clang' echoed excruciatingly in her head before the woman dropped the board with a gasp of pain. The rolling vibrations of the metal now transmitted through her chest, making it difficult to breathe.


She watched, gazing at two emerging figures from the thick smog that covered her vision. She could no longer hear her own labored gasps as she watched the two men, erupting from the nothingness of her life like two great angels come to take her to her resting place?or two demons bursting forth, frothing and laughing to drag her to hell as the great Amazons that wounded her.


Trowa stared down at the hallucinating doctor. His eyes then swept across the wall, to the mirrored computer room, to the bed. Everything was destroyed. Everything was broken and smashed, though the man now looked for something that was missing. The bed was empty. This was A23's holding room.


Heero, coming to rest beside the other man, only took the scene with passing shock. He unlike Trowa, felt used to this destruction; it was not a thing of the past.


"Please, get her," Dr. Lin suddenly gasped. "Kill her?kill her before she can do what she wants?. She wants to kill us all. She's lost her mind. She needs to be filtered again. Without that?she?her mind will be controlled?by them."


"Where is she?" Trowa murmured, not moving to help the woman. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, and he heard through it the song of a death, decay, and hopelessness. He realized this tune was always played by the doctor, and his fear sprang from that. Her body, filthy with blood, sent out a nasty odor of something vile that caused bile to rise in the man's throat.


The doctor turned glazed eyes on the man. "I?I?don't know. Not anymore?not anything. I'm sorry." And she died.


The room crackled and sizzled. Heero glanced around the room with a detached look??and yet he felt complete in this environment, or as complete as he was capable at the time. Something was off. Something? A dark veil fell across his inward vision and he knew not where or what he was anymore. Frugally, he tried to push the darkness from his vision, but it broke away and stretched like great black cobwebs in his mind. Something?something important he should remember?


"They destroyed all the machines."


Heero blinked, his mind thrust forward in thought again. "Why?"


The left side of the room was demolished, and frayed wires and broken computer boards, damaged and gaping vilely in its disarray, snapped angrily at the men. The right side of the room, white-washed with a white, neatly made hospital bed, lay completely untouched. Everything was in order, nothing tampered with.


Heero calmly sat down in the middle of the white tiled floor, a dark blotch against a stainless surface, and opened his laptop. His fingers moved furiously for a moment, then slowed and stopped. His gaze fell black on the screen in front of him. Trowa watched this. "Are you hacking into the security surveillance system?"


The dark man jumped, and then nodded. His eyes once again gleamed with purpose and he finished his task with vigor, seeming to race some unseen force within himself. "Mission complete."


Trowa couldn't help but smirk at the statement, inspite of the gravity of the situation. He walked calmly around to where he could view the screen and leaned against he dry wall of the holding room. His green eyes watched with utter boredom and infinite curiosity as the screen began to glow.


The two men watched as A23 sat up in her white bed. Her body was frail and pale even against the startling colorless room. Dr. Lin turned from her position just beside her subject, presumably at a noise. Blood spread on her gray lab coat and she fell. A23 sat in passive silence, limp as a doll, watching a barrage of women, all armed to the teeth, stride purposefully forward.


Heero touched a key on his computer, throwing both of the men into a den of muffled screams and sharp spats of gunfire transmitted dully from the machine.


"Will you lead us?" the head Amazon asked, her gun lowered respectfully in a salute.


Those blue-within-blue eyes closed and A23 smiled. "Yes."


* * * *


So A23 walked shakily down the colorful hallway of the NATURE Center. Swirls of blue, red, and green rolled through her eyes, tainted with a sheen of bright blue from the drug in her system. She was loosing her sense of sight, though everything was clear in her vision. Two armed Amazons walked calmly beside her, though their presences were all but forgotten??or never realized by the woman they were escorting.


She wore a long white gown, so like another once given to her by a powerful man. His vision was corrupt, though her purity was not. But her head began to ache at the thoughts of the past, something not to be lived again. She would make sure that the endless cycle of the world would be terminated.


A delicate smile painted the corner of her pale lips as she walked down the red carpet as a bride would walk to her groom. But she was the one waiting at the end. He would come soon and finish it all. And she would rest again. Bile rose in her throat and A23 paused, slipping to a shaky halt. Then, all thoughts were banished as she sighed and took a firmer step forward. Before the respite, she had to complete her mission.



[AN]-- I am quite pleased that I've gotten any responses at all. It flatters me that anyone would so much as touch this fanfiction. The gravity of the story is very hard to...portray, though I am trying. Please note symbolism and ongoing themes, because I tried so hard to incorporate them! I think there will be perhaps four more parts to this fic, so hopefully I can get it out and start another that I've been thinking on. R&R!

[Elegant Destruction]

This chapter was definetly worth the wait and am amaze with your continued show of skill in your writing. You have shown much maturity in your writing and i love how you are letting the story develope, however i your writing does lack a certain depth. If you could add that you would be a remarkable author and do some real publishings.

Anyway, can't wait for the next chapter!

[paxbanana]

I appreciate the advice and will try to incorporate that in coming chapters. Part of my problem is that this work is hurried in the little time I have. Hopefully I will be able to take more time in the future to add to it.