Freeze My Love, a guilty gear fanfic

TITLE: Freeze My Love
AUTHOR: Athena Asamiya <empresskatzy@hotmail.com>
SERIES: Guilty Gear
TYPE: Part 1/1, short Sol-Ky alternating POV fic.
RATING: PG-13
WARNING: Shounen ai implications - Sol x Ky, o'course ^_~ - as well as a heavy spoiler warning if you haven't beaten the first game [with Sol].
SETTING: At the end of the tournament of the first Guilty Gear game. Or at least, this is my rendition of what happened...^^;;;
THEME: "Beautiful Goodbye" by Amanda Marshall.
COMMENTS: This is actually an extension of a scene originally written for the now-cancelled Push, which I nixed due to the fact that I really didn't like how it was turning out -- except for one crucial scene near the end, which I decided to make into its own short fanfic that isn't part of the Amor continuity. ^^;; This is my telling of what happened at the very end of the first Guilty Gear's tournament, and what happened when a certain Holy Knight found out the secret that kept - and still keeps - his former lover from him...come on, you didn't honestly expect me to write a GG fic WITHOUT Solky, did you? Of course you didn't. And it ended up being fluffy -- again. >_<;; Someone beat the WAFF muses off with a stick, please. And just so you know, Sol's parts are in bold text, and Ky's parts are in italic text. Reviews and comments please! Enjoy~

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It was over.
I had started it, and I had ended it.
The air was still heavy with the smell of death and smoke, and my wounds were still hurting and dripping blood, but somehow, it felt like an eternity had passed since I dealt the final blow, straight through his heart. Or lack of heart, I'm not sure which.
Justice. Gear-01...ironically, I had killed my own brother.
He lay dead on the ground before me, the body armour of his twisted corpse slashed with deep gouges from my blade and scarred with fresh burn marks. Never to breathe again, never to command his armies of Gears in rampages of chaos and murder. It was over now...I had destroyed the greatest threat to the world, and to the human race. There would be no second Crusades. The knight had slain the dragon.
A small, bitter smile touched my lips. No one would have expected the saviour of mankind to be a monster as well.
But this had been my goal, and I had achieved it. None had been able to stop me, none of the other contestants in this pathetic excuse for a fighting tournament that wasn't actually meant to be a tournament at all. Not even he...the boy...had been able to defeat me. For a brief second, it had almost been like old times between us, as he fell to the floor and I was announced the winner. But if it really had been the old times, he wouldn't have given me such a sorrowful gaze, and I wouldn't have felt such pain in my chest at remembering what we had been, and what we had meant to each other, once.
No. No recalling the past. He, too, had suffered a loss at my hands in this sham tournament. I didn't give a damn that I had shattered dreams and destroyed the ambitions of others in doing so. No, I didn't care at all. I knew I was selfish that way. I was a bastard and I knew it.
But I had won.
I had finally beaten my past. The past that had haunted me ever since my creation, for the last 150 years. And it still mocked me now, as my eyes finally moved away from Justice's body to focus on my headband, smashed to pieces under his claws. That headband had been the only thing keeping my actual identity a secret from the rest of the world...keeping it a secret from him. But Justice had known, just as that freakish gothic excuse-for-a-Gear had known, that I was one of them.

'You are a Gear, like us!!'

'You are a Gear as well! You have the emblem on your head...the mark on your forehead is proof!'

There was no escaping my true being. I had learned that the hard way.

I ran one hand through my bangs, finally free of the headband's restraint, and felt the symbol's throbbing heat underneath my palm. Proof of my forever-damned existence, a worthless past and an unknown future. Justice's words still echoed through my head.

'Once again I kneel prostrate at your feet, Flame of Corruption!'

I never wanted to hear that name again.

'Why? HOW can you disobey!?'

I wish I could have said that it was because I wasn't one of you...I'm not like you...

'If only we could have talked one last time...just the three of us...'

I won't stop until I kill him, too...that man...

I dimly became aware of the wet feeling on my forehead, and drew my hand away to see that my glove was still saturated with blood. Not all mine, I knew; most of it was Justice's, from when I had used the last of my strength to rip him apart...summoned all of the magic I could gather as a Gear to combine with the power of Fuenken...given in to my Gear instincts so completely...

Fuck it all. I couldn't deal with this.

I felt the urge to scream, and I didn't entirely know why.

I glanced down at both my hands, streaked with Justice's still-warm blood, and wondered how it had all come to this.

My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I rushed up the stairs of the ravaged castle, lungs burning for air with every step. That fool, that absolute, utter FOOL...Justice, the most fearsome and formidable fighting creation the world had ever known, had been successfully resurrected, and that stubborn idiot had ran off to face him alone. I berated myself over and over again for having not seen this tournament for what it truly was, a malicious plan to sacrifice all of the participants and begin a second Crusades...

No. I could never let that happen. In God's name, I was bound by His holy duty of protecting mankind, and I was determined to uphold my mission. I had to stop Justice for a second time, before he could spread his seeds of corruption across the world...

Before he killed him...

Do not be dead, please, please do not be dead...Sol...

Although my ascent hardly slowed, my heart skipped a beat at that unbidden thought. I only half-wondered why I was so worried about that barbarian, who had not hesitated to defeat me in the final rounds of the tournament. Even when we had fought side by side in the Seikishidan, he had always annoyed and aggravated me to no end. He was a rude, vulgar, and disrespectful excuse for a human being. He was the foe I could never defeat, the barrier I could never overcome. My hated nemesis and despised rival.

And yet I could still not comprehend how I fell in love with him.

This was my cause of concern. I knew from experience just how powerful Justice was, and although Sol was strong enough to be my equal, I had my doubts about him being able to destroy Justice. It had taken all the power of my Furaiken to do so...and although he wielded Furaiken's match, the Fuenken, I knew for certain that he did not know how to use it. After all, he had no proper training with that magical sword -- he HAD stolen it from our organization. He was a thief, and a rogue, and probably a murderer besides...

But I did not want him to die.

Merciful Father, please do not let him die, please do not let me be too late, I repeatedly prayed as I dashed up the seemingly never-ending stairs. But out of nowhere, a flash of light blinded me, and after the spots dancing before my eyes had faded, I realized that I had reached the top of the castle.

Stretched out in front of me was a medium-sized platform that obviously served as some sort of battle arena, the architecture around it crumbling to pieces and fresh blood staining the floor. The stairs continued on past me, all the way up to a pair of large, crooked doors that led to nothing, as far as the eye could see.

And it was then that I saw him, standing over the ruined body of Justice, staring at his bloodstained hands, dark hair falling free from its ponytail and wildly cascading in all directions. His back was turned to me, and he was so still that I was not entirely sure what to do. I heard my voice say his name, and even though it came out as hardly more than a whisper, his head raised slightly. I knew he had heard me. He knew I was there.

Slowly, he turned around, face and expression blank. I realized that his headband had also broken off, lying in pieces on the ground near him, and spiky bangs were partially obscuring his face.

But not enough to hide the twisted, glowing red mark on his forehead.

My stomach lurched at the sight of it, knowing exactly what it was, what it meant -- what he WAS. Not just a bounty hunter, not just a former Knight, not just a HUMAN...not a human at all.

A Gear.

Sol was a Gear.

Time seemed to stop, everything came to a halt around me -- around us. Our eyes met-

-and I couldn't say anything, left speechless by the look in those beautiful blue eyes. Seeing that combination of shock, fear, horror, disgust and hatred in his eyes made me feel like I'd been struck dumb. For what had to be minutes but felt more like hours, we just stood still and silently stared at each other. I felt like I couldn't breathe, being acutely aware of the pulsating feeling in the middle of my forehead, where that damned mark had been branded onto me. Setting me apart as a Gear -- a monster, one of the enemy. One of the manmade demons that had rampaged under Justice's control, committing massacre and destruction all over the world.

Not the same, but similar enough.

And now he knew. He knew what I had never wanted anyone to find out, especially him. In fact, that was the very reason why I left him, not many years ago. I didn't want him to find out the secret that I carried, tried so hard to cover up and deny.

But it was over now. Love did not exist - could not exist - between human and Gear.

He knew that as well as I did.

I couldn't take this, those eyes. Finding that I could move again, I turned to leave and-

-I cried out at him, unable to keep my silence any longer. At first, all I said was his name. That was enough. He stopped and turned around, our eyes meeting again. And even from the distance I was standing, I could see every emotion reflected in his eyes, one now blood-red, and the other wild yellow. But what startled me the most was what I could clearly see, the feelings standing out above all the others.

Despair and shame and pain. It made me feel like I was going to be sick.

I did not know what else to say to him. Really, what could I say? I must have relived that scene over a hundred times in my mind since then, saying something different to him each time, but at that very moment, nothing came out. He expected me to say something, I could tell. And I knew I must WANT to say something; why else did I stop him?

(Because I wanted answers?)

Answers because it made no sense to me. Even then, my mind was reeling in confusion. He was a Gear, and yet he showed emotion. I had seen it. In the years that I had known him, he had shown a multitude of emotions -- anger, hate, rage, boredom, laziness, impatience, and many more on top of that. But Gears were not supposed to have feelings, they were just supposed to be empty robots, monstrous shells with no free will of their own...

It made no sense. None at all.

But the questions wouldn't come, so I just stood-

-watching him, seeing the confusion and questions in his eyes and on his face. I knew what he wanted to ask, and dammit, he deserved answers, but I wasn't sure I wanted to tell him anything. What COULD I tell him?

About how I had been an experiment, a test subject?

A corrupted creation of humans?

A success?

A failure?

Hell, I didn't even know what I was. What could I say that would even begin to explain everything...?

A cold breeze passed between us, ruffling his clothes and tossing strands of my hair across my face. Again exposing the Gear's emblem, again causing his eyes to widen in astonishment.

I couldn't hide it any more.

I shifted my weight, feeling uncomfortable in spite of myself. "So you know now," I said, my voice sounding distant and hollow. "You know what I am." The tone of my voice in what I said next surprised me -- it sounded so casual, so unconcerned.

"What are you going to do about it...?"

-he said to me, tone of voice almost challenging in a way. For a brief instant, it reminded me of days long past, when he had briefly been a Holy Knight of the Seikishidan under my order. Then again, it was not like I had ever been able to control him -- his brazen attitude and personality remained unbound and forever in contemptuous mockery of me. But now...now it was different. It sounded more like he was daring me to try something, to say something...but my mind was still in a state of shock, my eyes fixed on the Gear stigma. With all my sudden questions and confusion, I could not think of anything to say.

He knew this.

He is going to leave if you do not say something, quickly! my mind screamed at me, finally snapping me out of my stupor. I just couldn't let him leave, not without answers...

In the end, I had to force myself to speak to him. I asked the only question I could say aloud.

"What...are you?"

The words came out before I knew it. "Gear-00, prototype." I paused, the name from another time feeling so distant and foreign to me. But it was my name, my FIRST name, so I said it anyway. "Frederick."

"What?"

"That's my name." I exhale. "It sounded too human."

He continued to stare at me, eyes round and speechlessness forgotten with the sudden realization. "So you're...YOU'RE the prototype, Frederick?? But...but if that's true, then...you're over 150 years old....!"

Any other time, I would have come up with some snarky comment in return, but I just couldn't find the words. He knew what I was. I couldn't love him now, so everything else was worthless, meaningless.

My life, again, had no meaning.

But he didn't understand that. His eyes were transfixed on me, confused and questioning and still horrified, so horrified. And just as I thought he would turn away from me, instead, he slowly swallowed and asked-

"..What about...what about us?" My voice came out sounding so small and pathetic. But I could not help it now; I only wanted to know that it had not been a lie. Everything we had done, all the emotions we had shared, the love and the hatred and everything in between...perhaps it was nothing but a simple illusion that I had fallen for so easily. Perhaps he had felt nothing at all for me. He was a Gear, and therefore unable to feel emotion--

But...he was obviously not a normal Gear...so there was still a chance...

At this point, I was hardly caring that he was not of my own race, but rather one of the demonish monsters that I had fought against for so long. I think I truly surprised myself by overlooking that. I was too used to seeing him as a human. Even now, I could only see my rival, not a devil.

And I wanted to know that his feelings were not a lie.

I bit my lower lip, barely able to get the words out. "I...Sol...you are a Gear, and yet...I...well, what I meant to say is...did...did you actually feel anything...for me?"

That question struck me so hard I was sure I winced, and the silence that suddenly rang between us was goddamn uncomfortable. I avoided his gaze, knowing that if I saw his face now, I wouldn't be able to hide anything. However, as I opened my mouth to answer him - Christ, boy, of course I did, of course I DO, what the hell do you think, I've never felt this way about anyone - nothing came out. Even without looking at him, I could tell that he couldn't find anything to say either, so I sighed quietly and just said, "I can't answer anything else for you. But believe me, I..." Something tinged in me at that moment, an emotion I had only experienced once before, when I had left him for the first time and threw away anything we may have had. The emotion was surprising, though not completely unexpected, and as I looked back up at him, our eyes meeting, I knew it was reflected in the small, painful smile on my face.

It was sadness.

"...I think, with you, I...felt something real."

I turned and left.

A single tear slipped down my cheek as I watched him go, unable to say anything that would make him stay.

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Use in whole or in part of this fanfiction without permission is prohibited. If you wish to use this songfiction for any purpose, please obtain permission prior to doing so.

<empresskatzy@hotmail.com>

rest easy baby rest easy/and recognize it all as light and rainbows/smashed to smithereens and be happy...

~ heaven.coming.down ~