Hello again everyone, this is the Knightewolfe coming back atcha
with another Gundam Wing story for the masses. This story is not going
to be like my Gundam Wing x Robotech crossover 'The Run: G-Wing Style'.
It's going to be more like one of the regular fanfics I've read. Hopefully, it
will be good enough for you to enjoy. This story will be non-yaoi and have
the usual Gundam Wing pairings. I'm going to center this story about another
of the least written about characters from the series, Sylvia Noventa.
Now I know that there are quite a few stories with Sylvia as a character but usually
she is written in as a supporting character added in to the story as an antagonist
of the Heero x Relena pairing. As far as I know there is only one story that where
Sylvia Noventa is the main character opposite everyone's favorite assassin.
Please sit back and enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not I own Gundam Wing. If I did, many of the good fanfics would already have been turned into episodes. Multi-billionaire dollar corporations like Bandai, Sotsu Agency, etc, own Gundam Wing and its characters.
Sylvia's Solitary Soldier.
Prologue:
A.C. 195.
The final battle between the forces of Peacecraft's White Fang and the Earth Forces lead by the five Gundam pilots will start soon. He knew that and he knew what was expected from him. As he laid waiting on the derelict piece of debris from the destroyed Fortress Barge, the fifteen year old boy took his hands off the controls and flexed his fingers. Ignoring the sweat that was popping up on the digits as they tested themselves, he thought back to his final briefing before the start of the modified 'Operation Meteor'.
-"Listen, kid; the other pilots do not know about you. Your mission is similar to theirs, however if either of them show a sign of resistance, you will destroy them and their mobile suit before joining the other five as the Sixth Shooting Star. Use your Gundam for the job it was built for. Create chaos whenever possible and support the others when needed.", came the voice of the dark-skinned man.
-"I will director, but why are you going against the others Gundam creators, I do not understand that? You even argued with Howard, when he asked how you were doing?", asked the teenager as he pulled his gloves on. He liked the funny guy with the outlandishly colored shirts.
-"They refused to acknowledge the system upgrade I created for the suit they are too afraid to build. I was lucky to even get the original system and install it into your mobile suit. They figured that it is too dangerous to the pilot. Yet they don't know if any pilot can handle that system even if they were trained as well as you are. That lonely friend of yours has the capability to handle the Zero system but they don't want to risk installing it."
The boy nodded as he turned to climb into the cockpit of the dappled blue, black, and brown mobile suit standing as a silent sentinel behind the duo. He remembered the dark-haired blue-eyed boy who he had trained with years ago under the unrelenting hand of Doctor J. The old guy had pushed his training to the limit and beyond while the man he had just turned from had allowed it. He had been told that the training was to eliminate the emotions completely from his mind. However, Doctor J had only succeeded in totally burying the emotions of the two boys beneath layers of walls and barriers the two children had built up. In the case of 01, the emotions we so well hidden that on occasion the young boy would go catatonic as he sat in his bare quarters. For the pilot designated originally as 06, then midway through this mission had been redesignated as 07, his emotions had been buried but they leaked out in extremely stressful situations and only improved his shooting accuracy and precision.
Ignoring the man behind him, the teenager looked at his mobile suit. It had a standard design along the lines of a combination of the Wing Gundam and Gundam Deathscythe, however, its main weapon was neither the stealth operations of Gundam 02 nor the all around operations of Gundam 01. The long weapon strapped crossways across its back told all that this gundam's specialty was long distance precision shooting. In other words, this gundam was designed and built to act as a sniper.
Putting on his helmet, the boy let his hand linger on the black leather necklace with the panther pendant and thought of the young girl he had befriended years ago while he and his guardian had been in Italy on a reconnaissance mission. He had been enrolled in the elite academy near the Alliance Base where several high profile targets were marked for elimination with the one shot that signified death. Numerous times over the month-long period, the boy had looked through the scope of his silenced rifle and seen an older officer with the rank tabs of a marshal on his shoulders taking care of a little energetic girl assumed to be either his granddaughter or great-granddaughter.
Now sitting in the cockpit of the sniper gundam, the boy couldn't resist thinking about her as something for him grasp in order for him to keep his own sanity. Last time he had seen the girl, she was pointing a pistol at 01. He had been there to take out an OZ major who was a bit too strategically intelligent for his own good. After the completion of the mission with the firing of the one shot, he had walked through the streets of the city reminiscing and had spotted pilots 01 and 03. Slipping into a deserted alley, the boy had watched as the two pilots separated; 01 was carrying a bouquet of flowers with his pistol hidden underneath while 03 had been at the wheel of a truck that was big enough to transport a mobile suit. Deciding to follow 01 and see what was going on, he followed him to a cemetery where a beautiful girl around their age was kneeling at a tombstone silently crying. When the girl had risen to her feet and turned to the pilot, he had almost dropped the case with his scoped rifle. It was the girl he had often watched through another scope during his recon here when he was a student at her school.
Hastily opening his case, the boy had hurriedly lifted the weapon and sighted through the scope at the head of his old training partner as he pointed his pistol at the girl. He held his breath as he waited for the inevitable shot. When it didn't come, the boy started to lower his rifle when 01 handed the weapon to the girl and demanded she take out her sadness at his mistake on him and pull the trigger. Cursing to himself, he had brought the rifle back up to his dominant eye and shifted his point of aim to the girl standing next 01. Again he almost dropped the rifle when he recognized the light blond hair and expressful eyes. It was the young girl he had played with when he was younger. Now she was an outstandingly beautiful young woman and he felt something inside of him slowly respond to the picture of beauty in front of him.
Shaking his head, the teenager brought his attention back to the present and noticed that the battle had started. Lifting his rifle and taking it off safe, the young man took aim and started shooting the mobile dolls that attempted to take on his fellow pilots. He had taken out scores of the enemy from long range when he saw that a dark wine colored mobile suit stood atop Libra with a white Taurus suit nearby. To him the pilot seemed to be waiting for someone.
"Epyon, Miliardo Peacecraft, you asshole!", growled the young man as he unconsciously reached up and rubbed the left side of his chest where he knew there was a tattoo of a panther.
Shifting his aim, the boy was about to take his shot when he saw Wing Zero arrive and alight on another section of Libra. Configuring, his communications system to eavesdrop on the conversation, he listened as the two exceptional pilots argued about the events going on. Every so often, a distressed and resigned feminine voice added to the conversation.
"Hmph, there goes another fatalist pilot breaking the heart of someone who cares for him. I hope he makes the right decision. I'm happy that I do not care that much for me. I have no one left to live for. ", said the pilot calmly and resolutely.
Shifting his attention back to the space battle, he saw that it was almost over. Only the mopping up was left to the other Gundams. Flipping the beam rifle's safety on, the pilot leaned back in his seat and stretched. As he was stretching, his main system picked up the signals being broadcast from Earth and the Colonies of the final battle. For the next several minutes, he watched the battle between Zero and Epyon. When it was over and Miliardo Peacecraft defeated, the pilot slung his suits' weapon over its shoulder and prepared for his departure from his sniping position. He was in the final stages of lighting off his vernier engines when the man he only knew as the 'Director' cut into his communications channel and ordered him to not go and help Zero with the destruction of Libra before it crashed into Earth.
"But, Director, I must go and help them. As a Gundam pilot myself it is only fair for me to help. Even Peacecraft is helping his former enemies."
"No. That will not be necessary. Zero 0ne will take care of it. This is what he was trained for. He has mastered the Zero system and it will help him. Even now pilot 05 has returned the double buster rifle to Heero Yuy. He has what he needs. For you; the system in your suit needs to be kept a secret. If the other pilots ever find out about it, they will consider you an enemy and peace will never return to the Earth Sphere. Return to base now, your Gundam is no longer needed.", stated the voice as it abruptly cut the circuit.
The pilot angrily growled at the mention of the pilot of the Altron Gundam. The crazy bastard had damn near killed him when he blew up the academy at Victoria Base. As it was, he had a slight scar on his shoulder from the piece of shrapnel he had received as he had scrambled away from the exploding cadet barracks where he had been staying in order to get a shot at the one known as the Lightning Count. His rifle had been set up on the roof of the building and zeroed in for when Zechs Marquise would debark from his aircraft. Chang Wufei had screwed that plan up when he had detonated the barracks. For a fleeting second, the asshole had been in the young snipers' sights as he fled on his stolen motorcycle and he had been tempted to put the smirking idiot out of his misery with a bullet in the brain, but had suppressed the urge.
With his rifle slung, and his twin Gundam handguns holstered, the pilot let his anger get the best of him and grabbed the beam saber from its location in his suits left forearm, and angrily slashed through the barriers separating him from space. The saber hissed as the unearthly bluish-reddish blade cut through the durasteel, molten metal and hardened aluminum with ease. It only had slight problems with the Gundanium supports.
Once out in space, he cut the blade off and replaced it in its holder. Blasting off from the debris, he flew to a very secluded location where one of the first ever colonies floated in the cold darkness. Entering the capsule, the pilot walked the machine to its spot and shut it down. Sighing, he opened the hatch and decided to use the cable to get from the cockpit to the ground. He was beat and exhausted. Four days of no activity with his Gundam lying prone and powered down to the minimum life support required had taken its toll on the boy. Undoing his helmet latches, he lifted it off his face and shook his curly hair to dispel the remnants of the advanced Zero system clouding his mind. With one last look at the inanimate extension of himself, he headed over to where the dark-skinned guardian waited with his hands behind his back.
"Mission Status: Mission Complete.", stated the boy as he stood ramrod straight in front of his guardian.
"Copy Mission Status Report; you are relieved of duty and are ordered to stand down from combat operations."
The boy nodded and turned to go, he was a step away when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Without turning around, he acknowledged the touch by stopping.
"It is time for you to live a normal life. Go to Earth for awhile. Enroll in school, do something constructive. This war has made you jaded. If you keep on like this, you will either find yourself committing suicide because you are a warrior without a war or you will end up like 01, unable to express your emotions further than the little bit you do."
"I accept this new mission, director.", said the boy woodenly.
"Dammit, it's not a mission I'm talking about. It's your life. I do not want to see you dead by your own hand before your eighteenth birthday.", snapped the director.
A light dawned as he realized something. Tomorrow was his charge's birthday. Deciding to do one thing special for the teenager, he told him to prepare their shuttle for departure before getting some sleep. The boy acknowledged and went to the small fast shuttle sitting at the other end of the bay. Once there he proceeded to do all the checks required and then some to make sure their shuttle was space worthy.
Forty-five exhausting minutes latter, he was done much to his guardian's surprise. It usually took the boy an hour to get finished. With on last look at the dappled tri-color mobile suit standing silently in its designated location, the boy exited the bay and headed for his bare quarters. Once in the impersonal space, he stripped down to his boxers and wearily lay his body down on the thin pallet of sheets spread out on the cold hard floor. Indifferent to the deck's chill and hardness and with a thin threadbare blanket covering his form, the boy went to sleep. The last thing he remembered before drifting off was his hand on the pendant hanging around his neck. His last conscious thoughts were of a blond haired willow of a girl who became an unknowing beauty.
"Sylvia."
Two levels up, the man known as the director, lowered the volume of the speaker he had on his desk. Taking off his glasses, he sighed as he played the child's last words through his mind.
"If he is going to live a long and productive life after this war, he needs to find someone who he can open up to so that the horrors he has seen will not torture him. If that girl can do it then he needs to find her and fast."
Several thousand miles away, a fifteen year old girl lay awake in bed at night and looked out her window at the stars twinkling in the night sky. She thought over what she was going to do with her life now that the war was over. With her grandfather dead and her grandmother preferring to stay out of the limelight, the girl couldn't decide whether or not what to do. Part of her wanted to stay away from the political conflict she knew was coming while part of her wanted to jump into the fray with both feet and help keep the peace so that her name would not be synonymous with the Alliance horrors that preceded the war. The girl also didn't want her familial title of Baroness to bring about a new Romefeller Foundation and its trappings of the titled monarchists that had spawned OZ.
"In one year, I'll decide what to do. Maybe I'll help Ms. Relena with her plans for peace. I don't know.", came the thoughts of the girl in the bed.
Little did she and the rest of the Earth Sphere know that within a year, the Earth Sphere and the Colonies would once again be at each others throats and embroiled in another mobile suit war.
As she felt herself drifting away, the young baroness of the Noventa family felt her thoughts shift from the morbid direction they were headed to a lighter time in her past. Where as an eight year old girl, she found herself a chocolate skinned playmate who helped her get over the loss of her parents and moved in with her grandparents.
"I wonder where my dark knight is now. I wish I could see him again. It seems that ever since the death of grandfather, my only moments of fleeting happiness have come when I thought of him."
With images of a young boy with brown skin in her mind, Baroness Sylvia Noventa fell asleep.
December 25 A.C. 196
Once again, the pilot of the sniper Gundam was taking shots at mobile dolls. Once again, somebody had tried to drop a colony on Earth. This time, the Barton Foundation was trying to destroy Earth. Dekim Barton wanted to destroy the Earth Sphere and install his granddaughter as the leader of the planet. And again, the plan had failed. Now the pilot and his mobile suit had the suit's weapon was pointed at the Earth. With his rifle aimed and ready, the now sixteen year old boy waited for the word that would send the one fateful bullet that would either make him a hero or make him hated throughout the Earth Sphere.
Minutes later, this short-lived uprising was over. And once again, the pilot of the Wing Zero had ended the war. Again he safed his weapon and departed his shooting spot. This time when he arrived at the base, he resignedly shut down his suit and was climbing down from the cockpit when his guardian rushed up to him and bodily lifted him up and bore him along to their shuttle; which he noticed was larger than before.
"Before you say anything, we need to hurry down to Earth and pick up the remains of those Gundams. Once we get them we're bringing them back here and rebuilding them where they can be kept in case they are needed again. Plus, I don't want any other factions bent on evil to get a hold on those parts and rebuilding the gundams and the Zero system and using them for evil."
"But director, why do we need to do that?"
"But nothing, just get in the shuttle and let's go. We have about five days to gather all of those parts and bring them back. Doctor J has sent me a message saying that there are several groups out to salvage those parts. We're the closest and can get their before any of the other scavengers. Now start the engines and let's go."
The boy acknowledged and did as he was told. Within minutes, the shuttle was on its way to earth.
"I hope that peace will reign this time.", the pilot thought as the shuttle burned through space.
Then, making a course correction, the sixteen year old boy prepares for the job at hand.
And thus ends the prologue to 'Sylvia's Solitary Soldier. I hope you enjoy the beginning of the new series that I'm starting. I know that I should not be starting a new fic with at least four unfinished ones on my hard drive but this story kept me up for four hours the night before I started work on it.
I know that some of you are wondering 'Why Sylvia Noventa?'. My answer is 'Why not?' There are a few Sylvia stories out there but the majority of them either make her an evil character trying to steal Heero from Relena or they ignore all other pairings and pair Sylvia up with Heero (I'm slightly guilty of this as well, in my Robotech story, I pair Sylvia up with Trowa Barton.).
This story is a 'what if' kind of story that takes place after the movie 'Gundam Wing Endless Waltz' and basically focuses on what could have happened to Sylvia. Please tell me how I do.
Once again, thank you for reading and enjoy the story.
Knightewolfe
Wolfe's Lair. 12/03
