1.1.1 Unwinnable
BEGIN PART ONE
The world was burning around her.
OZ was taking over, flowing into the kingdom with their mobile suits, troops and other moving death factories. Death from the land. Death from the water. Death from the sky. Fire flew great distances, and buildings all around her were burning to charcoal.
People were all in the streets, looking for a way out, trying to run or to disguise themselves amongst the rapidly coming invaders. People sworn never to touch a weapon were dressing up as soldiers to save their own sorry skins.
She, the princess, could hear the screams and smell the smoke from not buildings, but people—people slowly dying in the inferno. Dresden for the new millennium. All this, from her balcony at the palace in St. Peter, the capital. She was standing, waiting to be taken captive and face God knows what at the hands of OZ.
Her standing there, in the heat of the battle, was supposed to rally people. It was not working. The panic of the OZ killing machines were too great. Everyone was convinced that they were going to die unless they fled as fast as possible from the destruction. No one helping the women and children, just everyone for themselves.
From the sea a large shell fired from a water mobile suit flew high into the air. The princess watched it, as it floated above the ground from the bay, toward the town. It moved lazily until gravity took it hostage and pulled it earthbound. The princess kept her eyes on it, observing it, gazing at it, until it finally landed at the base of the wall of the palace, right below her.
The wall crumbled, and the balcony became undone from the decaying structure. Her three story fall began.
Relena Darlian snapped her eyes open anxiously. She was in her bed, her boyfriend next to her, in her palace—in Rome, not in St. Peter. There were no shells in the air and no fires.
She sat up and covered her mouth with her hand, and shook some of her blonde hair from her face. The smell of burning flesh was still in her nose. She had to clamp her blue eyes closed to keep from gagging. She switched on a lamp on the night stand, and decided she needed to get her head back on straight.
She didn't die in St. Peter. She was a survivor, who was taken hostage, put up as a puppet ruler, then her and the Gundam pilots took the earth and the space colonies from OZ. She was the ambassador to the colonies from Earth, the greatest honor that anyone could hold.
All before she was thirty. A long time before that. She was still twenty-seven and was already The One for a decade. And she was the princess of the Sanc Kingdom for a year before that, when she was just sixteen. Her path of being spoiled brat to the most important person of the world made her grow up fast.
Very fast.
She needed a drink. And a step on the balcony.
There was a bottle of brandy on the shelf across the bedroom, and a couple of glasses. She poured herself a glass and went to the glass door outside.
One step out and the memories flooded back. She came back in and was sure she was going to throw up. "Gack." She decided to just go up to the window and sit on the sill. She opened it and gave herself a seat.
It was December, and rather cold. Despite her wearing only her nightgown, she minded that none. It seemed far too hot inside. An icy breeze made her feel much better, and calmed her down a little bit.
The scene of St. Peter's burning was eleven years before. The child of her died instantly then, and she still had to live with the demons. It was 206 years after colonies left the earth, AC 206, and more than ten years since war last made people suffer.
She herself still hadn't completely stopped suffering.
She returned over to the bed, deciding that the cold was a little much for her after all. She snuggled up next to her boyfriend, the hero of the previous war, Heero Yuy. A pacifist like her in love with a warrior like him. What a world. "Heero…Heero, wake up baby."
"Huh?" He gave an irritated grunt.
"I can't sleep, babe. I got the dream again."
His face made a tiny twitch that it always made when he was softening. As a warrior, he was shown how to give as little emotion as possible. He had been the number one player in the last war—pilot of the strongest mobile suits, the great fighting machines. The huge man-shaped weapons. Like the ones that laid waste to St. Peter and fought in every single battle of the last war. "Yeah?" He saw the drink in her hand. She had never bothered to put it down. "I dunno if alcohol is gonna help."
"I don't know if I want to go back to sleep."
"It's two in the morning and you have work to do, I think."
"Mmmmm." She looked at his spiky brown hair going all over the place, and into his brown eyes. "God, this is a tough life. You too. You had to kill from a young age and I had to do cleanup." After a pause, she added, "That did not mean to come out that way."
"Okay." Heero had nothing to say, as usual. The middle of the night was not a good time to have a philosophical discussion with him anyway. "Sleep well, Relena."
She looked at him for a second, then rolled back over and switched off the light. "You never have anything to say."
"You knew about that for a long time before you got the foreign- ambassador gig."
"You're like a wall."
"So you can lean on me."
She closed her eyes halfway. "Yeah. You're sweet." She settled in to drift back to dreamland.
The last war, in AC 195, was the result of the colonies sending out five super-strong mobile suits and their pilots to the earth to overthrow the oppressive government there. OZ, a secret society, decided then was prime time to overthrow the government, the Earthsphere Alliance, and take over the world and the colonies. Top leaders for peace in Earthsphere, including Relena's father, were killed. She then discovered she was not really one of the Darlains, but a Peacecraft, the princess of the Sanc Kingdom, a pacifist nation. She declared it as a separate country from OZ, then was overrun, since she had no army in the country.
Out in space, a third side called White Fang developed, wanting independence from OZ in a more violent way. It was controlled by Millardo Peacecraft, Relena's ex-OZ brother, and her friend Dorothy Catalonia, one of her many weird friends that were in places of power at the time.
In a final space battle, OZ was defeated and White Fang decayed. A new peaceful government was put into place, and Relena was ushered back into power. The Gundam pilots, the main players in the war, scattered. Heero was one—he became her boyfriend and bodyguard. Duo Maxwell became a mechanic on the earth. Trowa Barton had a shady past and equally mysterious present, but was having an okay life according to reports. Quatre Winner was an airline pilot. Cheng Wufei was a museum curator.
Relena decided to change her name afterward from Peacecraft back to Darlian, figuring she had nothing else to do for pacifism—she had already won. So she simply went on her jolly way to a high-power, high-stress job.
Darlian. Peacecraft. What was the difference anymore?
"Miss Darlian? Miss Darlian?" She found herself in her office, sleeping on the keyboard of her computer.
"Huh?"
"You have a package of some sort from a Mr. Wufei." It was a messenger.
"Oh, okay. Bring it in."
The delivery boy showed himself in, collected her signature, and dropped off what he had to give. It was postmarked from just outside of Chongqing, China. "Huh." It was not too big, just a foot tall and less than that in width and length, but it was heavy.
"An early birthday gift? A _really_ early birthday gift?" It was February, her birthday was two months away. "Well, maybe he was careful that it wouldn't come in late." Wufei was a Gundam pilot from long ago, during the war, one of Heero's allies. He was the intense kind, and the kind to arrive at a party eleven hours early. If he went at all.
"_You_ suggested to relax. I don't need to relax at all!"
"Oh my," Relena said to herself at the thought, as she dug around in her desk for a knife. When she found one, she cut the tape and the box unfolded on its own jolly self.
She looked down at what was now exposed and grimaced. "Ugh. Oh, Wufei." It was a black, pointy statue of a dragon, with red eyes and trimmings. "I thought that you had better taste than _this_."
She lifted it. "Maybe it'll make a good paperweight." Lifting the dragon revealed a note beneath.
She picked it up and began reading:
//Hello, Relena. I do hope that you are doing well. But I was sure you would understand if I did not send a gift for your birthday…I wanted it early if I did send one, just to get it behind me.//
"Well. What a charmer."
//Then Maxwell and his wife came into town.//
Relena strained to remember the last time she had seen Duo and Hilde Maxwell in Rome. The goofiest Gundam pilot and the similarly-tempered wife, also a soldier at one point.
//They insisted to use my hard-earned dough to go out and buy you a gift. A sort of "Good luck being queen of the earth" sort of thing. I immediately objected to their garish monstrosity that they came back with, but as long as you understand that it was not I who thought of it, I do not object it being on a desk ten thousand miles away. Cheng Wufei.//
"Gee. Thank you, I think." She took one more look at the dragon. "Yeah, this is pretty much what the work of Hilde and Duo would be. It _obviously_ came from two people who enjoy switching 'backward' and 'forward' on people's cars." She spoke from experience. "Ah, I suppose it was quite nice of them."
Relena held the gift like a live bomb, trying to find a reason not to put it on her desk or anywhere else an outsider could see it. She had nothing in her office that was garish enough to put with it. _I wonder if I could throw it away and tell them that it never came, but then they might get another,_ she thought.
It was then that Heero barged on in. "Hey Relena, there's a guy—this is Duo's work, isn't it?" He pointed to the statue. "I can almost see Maxwell in its red beady eyes."
"Don't be so cruel. He thought of me."
"You hate it, don't you?"
"God, where can I put it and not get it noticed? I can't hide it then have them come and find it hidden of in some corner. It would crush them."
"We're talking about Duo. The God of Death."
"What about Hilde?"
"She practically came back from the dead. Okay, so they wouldn't be _happy_ with it tucked away, but they wouldn't be crushed. It could be a gag gift for all we know."
"Yeah." She looked at it again and she again grimaced. "Maybe we could put it in our bedroom. It would be out of the wandering public eye"
"Except of the wandering public eye of that photographer that snuck into our room late at night a few weeks ago."
"He doesn't _have_ any eyes left, thanks to you."
"Hey. _I_ didn't know he wasn't trying to kill you, and he didn't belong in there anyway."
"Yeah. I'll put it somewhere in there." She got up, as Heero seated himself in the office, allowing her to decorate. She went to the bedroom, found the dresser, and deposited the dragon upon it. "Okay. What about that guy now?"
END PART ONE BEGIN PART TWO
BEGIN PART ONE
The world was burning around her.
OZ was taking over, flowing into the kingdom with their mobile suits, troops and other moving death factories. Death from the land. Death from the water. Death from the sky. Fire flew great distances, and buildings all around her were burning to charcoal.
People were all in the streets, looking for a way out, trying to run or to disguise themselves amongst the rapidly coming invaders. People sworn never to touch a weapon were dressing up as soldiers to save their own sorry skins.
She, the princess, could hear the screams and smell the smoke from not buildings, but people—people slowly dying in the inferno. Dresden for the new millennium. All this, from her balcony at the palace in St. Peter, the capital. She was standing, waiting to be taken captive and face God knows what at the hands of OZ.
Her standing there, in the heat of the battle, was supposed to rally people. It was not working. The panic of the OZ killing machines were too great. Everyone was convinced that they were going to die unless they fled as fast as possible from the destruction. No one helping the women and children, just everyone for themselves.
From the sea a large shell fired from a water mobile suit flew high into the air. The princess watched it, as it floated above the ground from the bay, toward the town. It moved lazily until gravity took it hostage and pulled it earthbound. The princess kept her eyes on it, observing it, gazing at it, until it finally landed at the base of the wall of the palace, right below her.
The wall crumbled, and the balcony became undone from the decaying structure. Her three story fall began.
Relena Darlian snapped her eyes open anxiously. She was in her bed, her boyfriend next to her, in her palace—in Rome, not in St. Peter. There were no shells in the air and no fires.
She sat up and covered her mouth with her hand, and shook some of her blonde hair from her face. The smell of burning flesh was still in her nose. She had to clamp her blue eyes closed to keep from gagging. She switched on a lamp on the night stand, and decided she needed to get her head back on straight.
She didn't die in St. Peter. She was a survivor, who was taken hostage, put up as a puppet ruler, then her and the Gundam pilots took the earth and the space colonies from OZ. She was the ambassador to the colonies from Earth, the greatest honor that anyone could hold.
All before she was thirty. A long time before that. She was still twenty-seven and was already The One for a decade. And she was the princess of the Sanc Kingdom for a year before that, when she was just sixteen. Her path of being spoiled brat to the most important person of the world made her grow up fast.
Very fast.
She needed a drink. And a step on the balcony.
There was a bottle of brandy on the shelf across the bedroom, and a couple of glasses. She poured herself a glass and went to the glass door outside.
One step out and the memories flooded back. She came back in and was sure she was going to throw up. "Gack." She decided to just go up to the window and sit on the sill. She opened it and gave herself a seat.
It was December, and rather cold. Despite her wearing only her nightgown, she minded that none. It seemed far too hot inside. An icy breeze made her feel much better, and calmed her down a little bit.
The scene of St. Peter's burning was eleven years before. The child of her died instantly then, and she still had to live with the demons. It was 206 years after colonies left the earth, AC 206, and more than ten years since war last made people suffer.
She herself still hadn't completely stopped suffering.
She returned over to the bed, deciding that the cold was a little much for her after all. She snuggled up next to her boyfriend, the hero of the previous war, Heero Yuy. A pacifist like her in love with a warrior like him. What a world. "Heero…Heero, wake up baby."
"Huh?" He gave an irritated grunt.
"I can't sleep, babe. I got the dream again."
His face made a tiny twitch that it always made when he was softening. As a warrior, he was shown how to give as little emotion as possible. He had been the number one player in the last war—pilot of the strongest mobile suits, the great fighting machines. The huge man-shaped weapons. Like the ones that laid waste to St. Peter and fought in every single battle of the last war. "Yeah?" He saw the drink in her hand. She had never bothered to put it down. "I dunno if alcohol is gonna help."
"I don't know if I want to go back to sleep."
"It's two in the morning and you have work to do, I think."
"Mmmmm." She looked at his spiky brown hair going all over the place, and into his brown eyes. "God, this is a tough life. You too. You had to kill from a young age and I had to do cleanup." After a pause, she added, "That did not mean to come out that way."
"Okay." Heero had nothing to say, as usual. The middle of the night was not a good time to have a philosophical discussion with him anyway. "Sleep well, Relena."
She looked at him for a second, then rolled back over and switched off the light. "You never have anything to say."
"You knew about that for a long time before you got the foreign- ambassador gig."
"You're like a wall."
"So you can lean on me."
She closed her eyes halfway. "Yeah. You're sweet." She settled in to drift back to dreamland.
The last war, in AC 195, was the result of the colonies sending out five super-strong mobile suits and their pilots to the earth to overthrow the oppressive government there. OZ, a secret society, decided then was prime time to overthrow the government, the Earthsphere Alliance, and take over the world and the colonies. Top leaders for peace in Earthsphere, including Relena's father, were killed. She then discovered she was not really one of the Darlains, but a Peacecraft, the princess of the Sanc Kingdom, a pacifist nation. She declared it as a separate country from OZ, then was overrun, since she had no army in the country.
Out in space, a third side called White Fang developed, wanting independence from OZ in a more violent way. It was controlled by Millardo Peacecraft, Relena's ex-OZ brother, and her friend Dorothy Catalonia, one of her many weird friends that were in places of power at the time.
In a final space battle, OZ was defeated and White Fang decayed. A new peaceful government was put into place, and Relena was ushered back into power. The Gundam pilots, the main players in the war, scattered. Heero was one—he became her boyfriend and bodyguard. Duo Maxwell became a mechanic on the earth. Trowa Barton had a shady past and equally mysterious present, but was having an okay life according to reports. Quatre Winner was an airline pilot. Cheng Wufei was a museum curator.
Relena decided to change her name afterward from Peacecraft back to Darlian, figuring she had nothing else to do for pacifism—she had already won. So she simply went on her jolly way to a high-power, high-stress job.
Darlian. Peacecraft. What was the difference anymore?
"Miss Darlian? Miss Darlian?" She found herself in her office, sleeping on the keyboard of her computer.
"Huh?"
"You have a package of some sort from a Mr. Wufei." It was a messenger.
"Oh, okay. Bring it in."
The delivery boy showed himself in, collected her signature, and dropped off what he had to give. It was postmarked from just outside of Chongqing, China. "Huh." It was not too big, just a foot tall and less than that in width and length, but it was heavy.
"An early birthday gift? A _really_ early birthday gift?" It was February, her birthday was two months away. "Well, maybe he was careful that it wouldn't come in late." Wufei was a Gundam pilot from long ago, during the war, one of Heero's allies. He was the intense kind, and the kind to arrive at a party eleven hours early. If he went at all.
"_You_ suggested to relax. I don't need to relax at all!"
"Oh my," Relena said to herself at the thought, as she dug around in her desk for a knife. When she found one, she cut the tape and the box unfolded on its own jolly self.
She looked down at what was now exposed and grimaced. "Ugh. Oh, Wufei." It was a black, pointy statue of a dragon, with red eyes and trimmings. "I thought that you had better taste than _this_."
She lifted it. "Maybe it'll make a good paperweight." Lifting the dragon revealed a note beneath.
She picked it up and began reading:
//Hello, Relena. I do hope that you are doing well. But I was sure you would understand if I did not send a gift for your birthday…I wanted it early if I did send one, just to get it behind me.//
"Well. What a charmer."
//Then Maxwell and his wife came into town.//
Relena strained to remember the last time she had seen Duo and Hilde Maxwell in Rome. The goofiest Gundam pilot and the similarly-tempered wife, also a soldier at one point.
//They insisted to use my hard-earned dough to go out and buy you a gift. A sort of "Good luck being queen of the earth" sort of thing. I immediately objected to their garish monstrosity that they came back with, but as long as you understand that it was not I who thought of it, I do not object it being on a desk ten thousand miles away. Cheng Wufei.//
"Gee. Thank you, I think." She took one more look at the dragon. "Yeah, this is pretty much what the work of Hilde and Duo would be. It _obviously_ came from two people who enjoy switching 'backward' and 'forward' on people's cars." She spoke from experience. "Ah, I suppose it was quite nice of them."
Relena held the gift like a live bomb, trying to find a reason not to put it on her desk or anywhere else an outsider could see it. She had nothing in her office that was garish enough to put with it. _I wonder if I could throw it away and tell them that it never came, but then they might get another,_ she thought.
It was then that Heero barged on in. "Hey Relena, there's a guy—this is Duo's work, isn't it?" He pointed to the statue. "I can almost see Maxwell in its red beady eyes."
"Don't be so cruel. He thought of me."
"You hate it, don't you?"
"God, where can I put it and not get it noticed? I can't hide it then have them come and find it hidden of in some corner. It would crush them."
"We're talking about Duo. The God of Death."
"What about Hilde?"
"She practically came back from the dead. Okay, so they wouldn't be _happy_ with it tucked away, but they wouldn't be crushed. It could be a gag gift for all we know."
"Yeah." She looked at it again and she again grimaced. "Maybe we could put it in our bedroom. It would be out of the wandering public eye"
"Except of the wandering public eye of that photographer that snuck into our room late at night a few weeks ago."
"He doesn't _have_ any eyes left, thanks to you."
"Hey. _I_ didn't know he wasn't trying to kill you, and he didn't belong in there anyway."
"Yeah. I'll put it somewhere in there." She got up, as Heero seated himself in the office, allowing her to decorate. She went to the bedroom, found the dresser, and deposited the dragon upon it. "Okay. What about that guy now?"
END PART ONE BEGIN PART TWO