My first fan fiction! I have worked long and hard on the plotline for this, so please don't take anything. A full summary is here: Jeminie Kinde was just your average girl in the war-torn world of Gundams, Mobile Dolls, and the OZ corporation. Although these things, for the most part, have been destroyed, there is still an evil afoot. What is it about the X Force that makes it so powerful? Why have they assassinated Releena Peacecraft? What does this have to do with Jem and her dead twin brother, Jonathon?
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of its respective characters and plot.
Please read this, it's actually quite good despite it's angsty beginning. And I know a lot of people don't like those things called "Mary Sues", but this is not your typical Mary Sue where everybody loves her except the enemy type of thing. It is not your typical new character thing, and you really don't know what to expect.
Orbs of Emerald
Chapter 1: Lost a Losing Battle.
***
Oh...Jonathon! Jon! We had been together...we had been one for such a long time. Why did you have to leave me, brother? We were born, only minutes apart. My little twin brother. Jon, why did you have to go? Why did you have to...die? I said to wait for me, Jon. I told you not to go to the colonies.
"But did you listen to your sister?" I asked his coffin softly, grimly, angrily, bitterly. "Did you listen to me, Jonathon!? NO!" Sinking to my knees, I cried. And I cried into my hands. Never had I felt so alone. Never in all my life.
Fifteen years old...Jon, why did you have to die? You were only fifteen, brother! As was I! Why did you have to leave me, Jonathon? You were my brother, my only blood. My only support. No friends for Jeminie. No friends for me. Nothing left for Jem, save a house burned to the ground, mere ashes.
"Be the phoenix," I laughed bitterly at Jon's old saying. "Rise from the ashes into a rose, for you are Jem." I grunted as I kicked his casket angrily. He was one in the thousands of young men who had been recruited by military to fight the colonists. One of thousands who'd been killed in a massacre.
"Jon..." I sobbed again. "Jonathon, why did you have to go?! You didn't have to, Jon, you weren't old enough, you didn't have to go! Jon, no!"
"You lost a loved one too, I see," said a young man beside me. I growled at him bitterly.
"Leave me alone, I don't know you."
"I can't do that," he shook his head softly and turned to me.
"Just leave me alone," I muttered and stalked off rapidly. The boy grabbed my arm tightly in his and kept me there. "Let me go." My eyes were murderous as I glared at him from beneath dusty-blond bangs. It swung, shoulder length, around me as I shook my head then glared at him straight in the eye.
"You have beautiful green eyes," he said, loosening his grip on my arm but not releasing me. "What is your name?"
"I don't have to tell you anything!" I raged and yanked my arm from his grasp. "Leave me alone, you conceited jerk!" I was seething inside now. No one treated Jeminie Kinde like this! Nobody!
"You have it all wrong, miss," he said, chuckling at my anger. "I want to ask your help. My name is Duo Maxwell. I used to pilot a Gundam called Death Sythe, way back when."
"Death Sythe?" I asked, fuming. "You're that crazy maniac?! The one who destroyed what little life I had left when the colonies proposed war!"
"From that point of view, I suppose so," he said, laughing. His long brown hair waved near his thigh as he smirked at me now. "But we were trying to find peace, miss, not more war."
"Well, I suppose you're method was what was the problem, then," I smiled, though it lacked all warmth a smile should have. It was a cold, bitter smile, showing only the ironic nature that I had to endure now. "Now will you please leave me in peace, I have nothing left because of you and your little toy and this stupid war, and now that it's over, I'm going to start over and be whatever I wanna be."
"If you can find anything to be," Maxwell jested. "Most people don't hire girls who don't have an education."
"Hey!" I protested, my face alit in deep crimson. "Just who do you think you are, I can find a job if I want to!"
"Not with the way things are right now," he shrugged pathetically.
"Oh, and I suppose you, an ex-soldier, will be able to find a decent job in a peaceful place?" I asked, my tone mocking.
"This place isn't as peaceful as it seems," he muttered under his breath quietly toward me. I noticed that he kept his tone very hushed and his eyes sort of darted around. "Look, I need help, girl, and I think you're perfect for the job. How about it?"
"I think not," I said offhandedly. "Even if I was desperate, I wouldn't take a job from such a conceited jerk such as yourself."
"Hey, I'm not conceited," he protested good-naturedly. "I'm just asking if you'd like a job, miss."
"Name's not 'miss'," I jested with a smirk. "It's Jeminie, but most people call me Jem."
"Well, I'm very glad to meet you, Jem," he bowed lightly. He looked at the casket which contained what little remained of my twin and bowed to it as well. "And I apologize for your loss. I'm certain I would be just as angry as you are if I had been interrupted from mourning a loved one."
"Hn," I grunted. "Jon doesn't need your sympathy. He died in place of my father, who died anyway of a heart attack, so his sacrifice was in vain." A scowl played on my lips as I stared down at my brother's casket again.
"Please, help me, Jem," Maxwell said, his voice gentle and pathetic. Something in it made me stop short. What was it? What was it about him that made me listen to him, regardless of the fact that he was a stranger, mostly, and that he had killed several people I loved. Or should I say, had loved.
"What exactly do you need help with?" I asked, turning around and facing him again. If he could do what he said he could, then I'd listen, but only if he could justify his remarks.
"My friend Heero just lost a very good friend of his, someone I think he was close to," he said, ignoring my question. He kept glancing about nervously. "Releena Peacecraft."
"You mean the one who was assassinated a few days ago?" I asked, surprised. Everyone had been shocked by the sudden assassination of Peacecraft, including myself, but everyone simply thought it was the work of radicals. A small group that would be easily destroyed.
"Yeah," he groaned and put his fingers to his temples, rubbing them like an old dog might. "It's a big mess. There's a big huge problem with the assassination. The five of us think that there are more than just a small group of these radicals."
"And what evidence do you have that could suggest that?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest indignantly.
"You don't miss a beat, do you?" he inquired slyly. "Anyway, we received a private message to our home on one of the colonies just yesterday. It said 'We are many and we are strong, the X Force will conquer all. The largest obstacle has been slewed and time is of the essence. You will never defeat us, Gundams, so don't even try.' The others sent me down to find someone I thought could help us out."
"And you think that someone is me?" I asked, incredulous. "You're nuts! I'd rather stab myself right now than try and stop some ghost!"
***
"I can't believe I let him talk me into trying to stop the stupid ghost," I mumbled under my breath on the shuttle Maxwell had brought me, or rather, dragged me, to once he'd convinced me to come with him.
"I'm pretty persuasive, aren't I?" he asked, sounding once again like a conceited jerk.
"And by the one type of boy I hate," I growled so he could hear.
"Awe, now that's not fair, Jem!" he protested.
"Well, this dang world ain't fair anyways, so what're you whining about?" I scowled at him and watched the Earth disappear beneath us, looking like a ripe little blueberry.
"Heh...I guess that's true," he smirked and shrugged, nearly at the same moment. Stupid boy totally irked me. I slid down the seat again, wallowing in my own self-pity. Why did he have to go? Why did Jon have to leave me?
**FLASH**
"What do you mean, you offered your help to the cause?!" I yelled at my twin. "Jonathon, you idiot!!" How could he do this to me, he hadn't even asked me if he could go! He was supposed to talk to me about everything! He was my brother, why did he decide all of the sudden to just throw his life away?
"Sis, listen to me," Jon said gently. "I may not come back. I want you to know that I will do my best to win this battle so freedom and peace will be ours."
"Jonathon, you imbecile, you stupid little brat, what were you thinking?!" I barked at my twin, hopping mad. How dare he do something so stupid?! "Do you realize whatsoever that you've signed your own grave, you nitwit?! Jonathon, talk to that stupid recruiter and take your signature back, change it somehow and say that someone posed as you, because you don't want to go and fight this war. This isn't our battle, Jon!"
"Jeminie, you listen here and you listen good," Jon said firmly. "I am going to fight and you cannot stop me. You are my twin, my blood, and my sister, but I have to leave you. I have to fight, Jem. This is my battle and my fate. But yours is different from mine. I have to go, you have to stay. I won't be coming back, Jem. I know it in my heart. Goodbye, sis."
"Jon...please," I cried to him, hugging his broad shoulders tightly in my grip. "Don't go. I don't want you to die, Jon."
"I know. And it will be painful, for both of us," he smiled at me. "But I want you to promise that we'll always be friends, even after I am gone. I love you, my sister."
"Jon..." I whispered.
"Now go to the shelter and stay there, Jem. You are my prized jewel, you won't die, not until you are old and wrinkled and have had at least one kid," he smirked at me, his old devilish one. "You pass on the bloodline of the Kinde and be happy for the rest of your life. Mine is already gone. Bye, sis!" He waved and ran. I dashed as fast as my legs could carry me. But he'd always been just a little faster. Just a little stronger. Just a little better, physically. I sighed and stopped.
"You behave yourself, Jonathon Kinde!" I called after him. "I know you!"
"Of course, Jeminie! I will see you in heaven, you beautiful angel, you!" he called back and was gone. I walked slowly back to the underground shelter that he had built for us and crawled inside. Once there, I curled into a feeble ball on the cold, hard concrete floor and sobbed quietly.
Then and there I decided that I'd never love anyone again. I would not marry and have kids, like Jonathon had told me to, and I would do it just to spite him when I got to heaven. Grunting to myself as the tears continued to fall, I fell asleep only when I had cried my eyes out completely.
**FLASH**
"I will see you in heaven, you beautiful angel, you," I whispered the last words my brother had said to me. He'd called me an angel...a beautiful angel, no less. All my life, I'd wanted to be called an angel, just once, just one time, to hear someone call me an angel, a pure creature with breath-taking white wings. And he'd fulfilled my dream, but in the worst way possible. The last words he breathed to me before his untimely death.
"That what he said to you?" Maxwell inquired, breaking me painfully from my thoughts. "Your boyfriend, right?"
"B-boyfriend?" I sputtered, and would have fallen out of my seat in shock had I not been strapped to it. "Jon was my brother!"
"Oh," he laughed nervously. "Sorry, about that. Heh, I guess I can be pretty dense sometimes." He rubbed the back of his head, laughing. For a split second, I saw...I saw Jon in him. The careless way he talked about death, the joking way he said he was air-headed, the shiny brown hair, slightly darker than mine...
I gave myself a mental punch in the face. What the hell was I thinking, this guy was nothing like Jon at all! Not only that, but he was an absolute jerk!
"Shut up, Maxwell," I growled again, turning back to the window, where I could see that we were approaching a small colony, probably a single-family one. I grit my teeth in anger and my eyebrows caved downward in a bitter frown. Stupid colonies...they were the whole reason for this darned war. If Earth hadn't made these ridiculous places of machinery and organic cities in space, this war would've never happened and Jon and I would be living our lives on Earth to the fullest, not living in fear of getting killed by the Gundams or even our own military.
"You've got to understand, Jem, these colonies were not the cause of the war," Maxwell revealed quietly. "It's the greed that all humanity has bred into themselves." It was as if he'd read my mind. I thought this over and nodded, my facial features loosening.
But only just a little.
"Unidentified transport, reveal yourself or be killed," said a cold, cruel, indifferent voice on the radio. He sounded like I felt. "You have five seconds."
"Wu-man, how's everything hanging?" Maxwell cried into the radio happily. "I found someone, guys!"
"Maxwell, shut up before I kill you," said another voice. This one, too, was cold and indifferent, but I could sense just a little bit of underlying mourning behind that voice.
"Heero, I didn't know you were in the radio tower!" Maxwell greeted yet another of his "friends". "Long time no see, bud! Hey, where do I land, guys?"
"Your normal place, idiot," the one Maxwell had called "Wu-man" answered dejectedly.
"Are all your acquaintances like that?" I inquired as he hung the radio on the hook once again. "If so, I do not want to meet any of your friends."
"They are my friends," Maxwell answered goofily, a crazed grin on his face. "They're a lot better in person, too!" He landed and I heard the hatch opening.
"Just kill me now," I muttered to myself, sinking into the seat with a hand over my eyes.
"That can be arranged," said another voice, and I opened my eyes to have a gun barrel pointed between them. I grit my teeth and prepared to be killed. At least this way, Jon wouldn't scold me for killing myself. I stared at this new boy, studying him so I could describe my killer to Jonathon.
I could see the boy's hesitation but at the same time his seriousness of the situation. He had wild brown hair, a little darker than Maxwell's, and strange ice-cold blue eyes. I noticed that he was wearing tight black pants and a loose green muscle shirt that showed his defined muscles effectively.
"Go on ahead and do it," I growled at him angrily. "I don't have anything else to live for."
"Heero!" called another, much kinder-sounding voice, but all the same angry. "Leave her alone, that's no way to treat our guest."
"If you weren't of use to us, I would kill you right now," the boy the others had referred to as Heero said to me, his cold eyes boring into mine contemptuously. The other boy, a blond with pretty blue eyes, took the gun away from my forehead forcefully.
"If you don't stop scaring women like that, Yuy," another boy, with black hair pulled into a tight ponytail and black eyes, said, "You won't ever find a new girl."
"I don't want a girl, period," Heero said indifferently. "And I never had a girl in the first place." I could beg the difference from the look upon his face, though. But I didn't press it.
"If these are your friends, Maxwell, I'd love to meet your enemies," I smirked sarcastically.
"I'm afraid you already have, miss," laughed the blond. Another young man, seemingly the silent one in the group, entered seconds later. He too had brown hair, but it was brushed neatly to cover his right eye.
"For the last time," I growled, extremely annoyed. "My name is Jem, not miss!"
"I'm terribly sorry," the blond said, chuckling lightly. "Jem, was it?"
"Yeah," I nodded, my indifferent attitude setting in. "Now what in this crazy universe did Maxwell drag me all the way up here for?"
"Why don't we discuss that over lunch?" Maxwell said, grinning still like a maniac. While Duo was preparing a lunch of sandwiches, the blond introduced himself and the others. I found out that the blond was named Quatre Winner, and was actually a lot nicer than the other three Gundam pilots. Killing people does that to you, I suppose. Father used to tell me about that when he was still alive.
I found out that the mostly-silent brown-haired boy was called Trowa Barton. I also found out later that he had stolen the name because he had lost his memory several times over. The young black-haired man, who seemed intent on killing Maxwell every once in a while (and who wouldn't?) was called Wufei Chang. Maxwell's nickname for him was Wu-man, but I don't think he liked the name very much.
The last one in the five was the trigger-happy one who'd had his gun between my eyes when Maxwell had landed the ship I'd come in. His name was Heero Yuy. I found out later that he had actually been hit pretty hard by Releena's assassination, despite all of his denials he made almost constantly.
"What exactly did you guys drag me up here for?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. "I mean, like you really need the help of a person on the edge of killing herself anyway."
"We need to infiltrate the X Force's base without being noticed," Quatre said, setting the plate of sandwiches in the middle of the wooden table. I waited until all five of the boys had seated themselves, then took the last chair. Just my luck, Maxwell was to my right and Heero was to my left. Trigger-happy and Just-plain-happy. How ironic can one setting be?
"Lemme guess," I said, smiling sweetly and looking from one to the other to the next as I spoke, about every two words. "You guys wanted to find a nice, pretty girl to sneak in and attempt to get herself into a position of power in the X Force."
Quatre and Maxwell seemed overly surprised by my jest, but Wufei seemed just irritated I had suggested such a thing. Heero merely blinked and Trowa...well, Trowa remained himself, not at all reacting in any way. Jeez, Maxwell had some weird friends, if he could even call them that.
"Don't be stupid," Wufei said, looking amused, but no where near smiling, let alone laughing. "We would never send a weak girl inside enemy territory."
"What did you say?!" I shouted, my tone warning. How dare he! Standing up as my throat growled, my hands lashed out at thin air as I raged at him. "You've no idea who you're messin' with, you Gundam freaks! You five are the reason my brother is dead, the reason this stupid war was dragged out, the reason for every thing that's ever happened to my family, and you dare insult me for my simple GENDER?!" My breaths came out ragged and uneven as I stared at the Chinese boy, a wild look clear in my eyes. "I may be a girl, but there is nothing short of being a fighter, no matter what you may be!!!" I sat down in the chair, my adrenalin pumping and my heart racing. My face set in a scowl as I looked at them again.
"Now what the hell did you five drag my carcass up here for?" My face felt like it was steaming, it was so red hot. In short, I was peeved off, and nothing got in my way when this little girl got mad.
"Well, I think that answers our question," Quatre said, his mouth twisted in surprise and his eyes wide.
"You said it," Maxwell agreed, absolutely shocked. I knew he was, because his mouth had been hanging on a hinge a few seconds earlier, and his eyes were still attempting to leave their sockets. Or were they trying to return to them instead?
"What question?" I growled under my breath.
"Don't worry about it," Maxwell said.
"What'd you bring me up here for, and tell me straight-up this time," I scowled even deeper as Quatre blushed and turned away, while Maxwell simply stared at the ceiling. Wufei and Heero looked thoroughly amused, however. Trowa had remained himself the whole time, as though he was oblivious to every sound we made.
"Well?!"
"Umm....well....we....uh...." Maxwell and Quatre's speech overlapped, but I heard right.
"Lemme take another stab at it," I said, smirking as I leaned over to rest my elbows on the table, then smiling sweetly as my chin rested on the back of my joined fingers. "You want me to be your little housemaid and keep this place all nice and clean for you when you get back, am I right there?"
Two boys visibly gulped and nodded.
"Maxwell!" I shouted, then spoke through my teeth haltingly, making him jump at nearly every word I said. "You get back on that space craft and you fly me home right this instant, you pipsqueak!"
"Uh....ya see...we can't really....what I'm trying to say...." Quatre stuttered out.
"You can't go home," Heero interrupted, looking highly amused at this turn of events.
"What?!" I yelled, then slammed my palms onto the table. "I sure as hell am going home, because I sure as anything am NOT going to play housemaid to five idiots who cost my brother his life and nearly cost me my own!" My chest heaved for air as I glared at each of them in turn. Wufei and Trowa stared blankly back at me, Maxwell and Quatre apologetically, and Heero...he seemed to just think the whole thing was a big joke, or something, because he just smirked right back at me.
"You try to escape, girl," he said, his voice a monotone, but I could tell he was taunting me. "I get to kill you."
"Go on ahead, I don't care!" I yelled at him. "Take out the freaking gun and shoot me! Go ahead and do it, right now, Mister! At least then I don't have to be the only Kinde left in the whole darned universe!"
True to his word, Heero removed his gun from his pocket (though I didn't really see how, nor did I really care) and pointed the gun toward my chest, backing up about six feet away. I clenched my teeth and stood firm. At least now I had gotten not only a good visual of the kid for my brother, but I could also tell Jon what he was like. Which was cold, ruthless, and unforgiving, as he found pleasure in pointing his gun at nearly everything that moved.
"Heero, put the gun away, she hasn't done anything to you!" Quatre pleaded with the brown-haired boy.
"Let him do it, Winner," Wufei said. "It will be one less aspect we have to worry about."
"Go on ahead, unless you're too scared," I taunted him boldly, the waiting making me anxious. He seemed to hesitate one second, then he fired. And all went blank.
***
Did he already kill her? Think again. But things will start heating up and I do mean in every aspect. Jem may or may not get tied to Heero, you'll just have to wait and see. Come on, come back for chapter two, it'll come really soon. The plot will thicken.
But for now? Jeminie Yuy is signing off. Peace out! ~.^V