"Colonel Treize, sir!" A young cadet saluted his superior nervously, shifting uncomfortably in such a powerful man's presence. A dark form silhouetted against the huge, open window, turned towards
the boy, walking over to him quickly.
"What have you got, Corporal?" Treize muttered offhandedly, staring at the Corporal skeptically.
"We have succeeded in capturing the daughter of Heero Yuy, sir." The words immediately drew the Colonel's attention.
"I was not aware of such a mission." He eyed the Corporal suspiciously, calculating with a professional eye, "Since when do we track down the prodigy of Gundam Pilots, Corporal?"
Could he belong to Une? The name kindled the raging fire that had begun to grow within Treize for some time after she had betrayed him.
"Not the Gundam Pilot Heero Yuy, the...other Heero Yuy, the former leader of the Colonies before he was assassi-"
"I know what happened! I was the one who gave the order!" Treize snapped impatiently, sending a glare towards his subordinate, "How old was she at the time? Old enough to remember anything?"
"Yes, sir. She was fifteen at the time, sir." Treize gaped, momentarily shaken from his posture as the glorious yet painful memory crashed over him for the first time in five years.
The room was filled in dazzling lights, sparkling ever brighter by the magnificence of the ball-gowns twirling about the marble floors, but also by the warm glow given off by Heero Yuy and his beautiful daughter, Aralia. By her father's insistence, she stayed close by him throughout most of the ball---a ball being held to celebrate the newly gained independence of the colonies---and drifted away only once at an admirer's insistence.
Treize watched from the shadows, a young man at seventeen, already making world-changing decisions, and glared daggers into the boy's back as he led Aralia from her father.
"Jealous are you?" Zechs muttered, appearing beside Treize with twodrinks, handing one to his friend.
"A bit, maybe. But I was mostly thinking of how she will react."
"To the...oh, well I suppose she will be distraught..." Treize held up his hand to silence his colleague and peered closely at a place across the giant ballroom.
"What is it?" Zechs inquired.
"Aralia is conversing." Treize hissed. He could almost hear the cynical remark bubbling up from inside Zechs.
"With whom?" The blonde was working hard to control the cynicism in his voice.
"With the assassin." The remark vanished as was replaced byy the disciplined warrior and guardian sworn to protect his leader, and Zechs immediately reached for is gun. It was, of course, not there.
"Give me back my gun, Treize."
"We cannot have you causing accidents, I have labored long and hard for this plan to work..." Treize warned. Sighing, his friend agreed and began following the Oz leader around the dance floor to where the two women stood.
"Lady Une, Princess Aralia," Treize greeted them, bowing formally and gesturing for Zechs to do the same; as he did, reluctantly.
"Please, sir, do not refer to me as Princess Aralia." The girl informed her acquaintance politely. Lady Une suppressed a grimace at Aralia's firm and confidant voice. Treize couldn't help but smile at her arrogance, as Lady Une was widely known for.
"Very well then, Miss Aralia---"
"Aralia will do fine." Her voice held a miniscule but unmistakable hint of deflation and annoyance. Bowing apologetically, Treize offered her his arm and they walked out of the ballroom.
"I do not recognize you, sir. May I ask your name?" Aralia inquired softly.
"My name is Treize, and I have not been in your father's services for long, which would explain my lack of place." Treize replied with a similar tone, "May I ask your age?"
"I---" She was cut off by the sudden sound of a gunshot. Whirling around, she gasped at what she saw through the open pillars of the garden walls leading to the ballroom. Treize didn't move, but held her wrist tight.
"Please, sir. Let me go," Aralia hissed, anxious to get back.
"Tell me your age." He growled in reply, grabbing her other wrist and pressing her gently into a marble column, out of sight of the hundreds of now screaming guests.
"Fifteen, Treize." She replied in the raw, passionate, dangerous tone of a teenage girl with a sharp tongue and a matching attitude. Without knowing exactly what he was doing, Treize smiled and stroked her cheek delicately; the sparkle in his eyes one of eagerness and mischief.
"Treize! Come on!" Zechs yelled from across the garden, carefully masking his surprise and envy as he saw Trieze and his Aralia in embrace...
Treize released Aralia suddenly and disappeared behind the rose bushes.
"If you did it Treize, I will hunt you down and kill you to avenge him." Aralia called into the darkness before disappearing into the ballroom, now flashing with the blue and red lights of MediVacs.
"What is her name?" Treize demanded weakly, thought determined not to display his distraught.
"She calls herself Arashi Ookami, sir."
"She calls herself after the Stormrunner Wolf?! That Gundam is more powerful than all the other Gundams combined!"
"She doesn't call herself after that Gundam, Treize," Zechs muttered from the doorway, "She is that Gundam."
"Sure," Treize smirked and turned back to his large, open window, "Prove it."
"Arashi Ookami, it was rumored, was..."
"In love with you."
"Indeed."
"And?"
"I encountered her several minutes ago, and she..."
"What?"
"She kissed me."
"She what?!"
"That's right Treize." Came another voice, this time from the window. A girl of twenty, her auburn hair reached down below her elbows, in soft and elegant curls. Her eyes glowed a bright green like her Gundam.
"You're in love with him?" Treize pointed to Zechs, who was staring at the beautiful figure. Grinning mischeviously, Aralia nodded sardonically and chuckled.
"Or, at least, that's what I've led them to believe." She whispered, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to indicate the row of mech units a mile long, marching southwest, away from the grand mansion. Zechs smiled as well, his blue eyes sparkling.
"For a while I thought you had me," He smirked, fingering the handle of his gun out of habit.
"For the small while I had that gun pointed down your throat, I did." She sighed, jumping gracefully from the windowsill and striding over to where Treize stood, baffled.
"I told you I would avenge my father Treize. Yet you took no heed to my warning." She circled him until she was completely behind his back, and only then did he turn. He glanced over her shoulder, to Zechs, who was absently staring at the auburn back turned to the man, then back into the feiry green eyes of his nemesis.
"You were but a child---"
"And what you were, but a military confidante, a child as well?" She snapped, eyes narrowing to small slits, covering much of their intense shine.
Her words went beyond those of a teenager. Of course, they would. She was an intelligent, cunning adversary; why had he not payed more attention to her threats? The daughter of a highly respected, military prodigy, who had his own child succomb to the training sessions equal to, if not harsher than, those
of the Gundams...Had he expected her to be more...fragile? More docile? More silent? More like...Relena?
Of course he had. As had Zechs, when he met her in the academy. But both had turned out incredibly wrong.
Aralia had hardened herself into a warrior; her hair often tied back to hide her female features, (thus gaining much respect from the Gundams...) and her intelligence had set her off to build her own Mech.Unit.
Called Neku, Arashi's Gundam had spawned an entire fleet of her own mobile dolls; dolls that, reportedly, had never lost a battle they had fought.
"Aralia, it was...necessary. Earth and the Colonies belong together as one. When the colonies expressed their independence, it started a massive shift of rumors on Earth." Treize muttered, his eyes glued to hers.
"It was necessary that you murder my father in order to obtain peace? It was absolutely necessary Treize?!?!" Pressing her lips to a thin line, Aralia whirled around and stepped to the window, gazing over the sparkling oceans of Earth. Zechs smiled slightly and tapped Treize on his shoulder.
"If you do not leave, I have it on good authority to think she will kill you." Treize jerked back to life and strode from the room, not looking over his shoulder as the door shut.
"And you did that...why?" Aralia asked softly, a hint of disappointment in her voice as she holstered the gun she had been ever-so-quietly drawing during the last few minutes.
"I cannot let you kill him...yet."
"You want that honor left to yourself, am I correct?"
"Yes. Very correct."
"You are a traitor to Oz, Milliardo."
She didn't struggle as he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him and nuzzling her neck.
"Indeed, Aralia. Whitefang is a much more-planned operation. Just..."
"What?"
"Just be careful."
"I'm always careful, Zechs. Always..."