A/N: Hi! I'm back. This is a story that my very. First. Gundam. Fic. Feel special. I love it. It takes place in a jungle, mostly(try ninety percent of the time) and is loosely based on a dream I had. Uh… originally, Anjyl *wasn't* a character, but she became one when I discovered how fun my people can be if they're complete evil against their will! Anyway, enjoy and wait patiently for the sequel, since this one just kinda leaves off. Love you all!!
Btw: I don't feel like fixing the italics. Long story behind the reason, but mostly, I'm just too lazy. If you see a happy little '*', it means emphasis. Love ya'!
The General's Daughter
Chapter 1
Duo stumbled from his mobile suit, blood pouring from a gash on his head. He had made it as far as the jungle, but he didn't know how long it would be until Oz found him. And he had no idea where he was either. Everything faded away to a darkness blacker then night...
Jian reached up carefully and picked a piece of fruit from the tree. She dropped into the bag across her shoulder, inspected the other fruit on the branches and saw another ripe one more towards the top. She pulled herself onto the lowest branch and had to keep going to get to it. Suddenly, the branch she was holding and the one beneath her snapped simultaneously. She hit the ground and rolled, crushing the bag under her. When she stopped, dark purple juice stained her legs and arm and her belt knife was gone.
"Damn it," she swore, brushing dead leaves from the sticky liquid. Then something caught her eye. Just as she was about to go back and find her knife, she realized there was an odd shadow on the ground. She turned slowly on her heel and gasped.
A huge mobile suit towered over her. She knew very little about mobile suits, since her father considered them another evil of the outside world that she shouldn't be around, but there was something different about this one...
Her foot hit something soft when she took a step forward. A body lay on the ground, blood soaking into the dirt around him and remarkably enough, her belt knife was stuck in the ground next to his arm.
"You're one lucky bastard," she said, sheathing the blade. "If you're still alive." As she felt for a pulse in his neck, he groaned and tried to lift his head. She jumped back and took a fighting position, knife raised, before she realized he couldn't hurt a stick anymore then he could her. "Just stay down," she told him, tearing the handle from her bag. She knelt down carefully and wrapped it around his head. "Can you talk?"
"My head," he moaned, trying to sit up again.
"Apparently you can. Hey! Don't move! Do you want to kill yourself?" She gently pushed his shoulders back to the ground and held them there. There was a low growl in her ear as Nusama came in from the bushes, as silently as he had always been. "Good. Nusa, go find Mijan. Bring him here as soon as possible." For a third time, the injured pilot tried to sit up. "For the love- shizaine culf," she swore at him in German. "If you don't lay back down, your head is going to be the least of your worries," she warned, pushing him back down gently. "Now, what's your name?"
"Duo," he said, slightly angry, even if he knew she was right. "Duo Maxwell."
"I'm Jian," she told him, binding his broken wrist against the sheath of her knife (which she *had* removed from her belt, just so you don't get confused). "You must have been part of a really bad battle for you to end up like this."
"I don't remember much," he lied. "Just that I barely made it here and there'll some people trying to find me." She shrugged.
"That doesn't mean squat until you're well enough to leave," she said. "Trust me. We've lived out here for years and nothing has made it through."
"Where is here?" he asked, feeling another wave of dizziness overcome him. He passed out just as Mijan came through the trees.
"Jian," he muttered. "We'll have to leave him. We can't have *them*," he added, motioning to the intensely damaged mobile suit. "Coming into our land." Jian picked up the unconscious fighter, one hand under his knees and the other his back, and glared at her brother.
"I won't let anyone die that doesn't deserve it," she said firmly. "He's obviously got a cause, Mij. And maybe the goddess of destiny has finally brought us our way to contact the outside world. We've lived in seclusion too long. Besides-" She smiled. "He's too cute to die."
* * * * * * * * * * *
Jian tossed in her sleep, confusion on her face. She didn't understand what was going on. Everywhere she turned, a silver wolf blocked her way. Its coat gave of a reflection of some unseen light and looked almost like it was made of metal.
"What do you want?!" she finally screamed, wishing she had her own guardian wolf, Nusama, to protect her. The other beast snarled and lunged, it's claws sinking into her leg. She screamed and bolted from sleep, ultimately falling from her bed.
At edge of the village, Duo froze, hearing someone yell in half terror, half pain. Suddenly, from the nearest cabin, stumbled the girl he recalled from his brief stint of awakening earlier that day. She collapsed in the dirt, her leg bleeding
"Hey, are you alright?" he asked, kneeling down to help her. She shook her head, then looked up at him.
"You're awake," she said, fear a knife's edge in her voice. But it wasn't fear of him, he was sure of that. Three men came approached them from the direction Duo had been heading, two with crossbows leveled at his head and the third with a large blade.
"Release miss Jian," he said coldly. She climbed to her feet and glanced at all of them.
"Return to your posts," she instructed. "I'm alright, I promise you." The two with crossbows lowered them and retreated to the shadows, but the other one didn't seem to want to leave.
"Little sister..."
"I'm fine, Mijan," she assured him. "Now hurry up, before father comes out. And you," she said, turning to Duo as Mijan followed his comrades. "If you think you are well enough to leave, then I'd like to talk to you first." She vanished into the cabin, limping painfully on her injured leg. He hesitated, then followed. Once inside, he found Jian wrapping a clean white cloth around the wound, then pulling on a knee high boot to cover it. She rose to her feet and picked up the other boot. "First of all, I don't know much about pilots, having never met one, and for a guy, you're pretty damn stubborn, but I know once a guy has made his decision, it takes a lot of time and energy to get him to change his mind." She put on the other boot and gently tugged on a bookcase against the back wall. It came free, revealing a path into the woods. "We have neither, but at least let me help you get to your suit."
"Why do you want to help me?"
"I jumped to conclusions," she explained. "I thought you were the one fate had chosen to end this isolated life that my people and I live, but..." She trailed off as a great shape moved and growled. "Nusama, there you are."
"What is *that*?" he asked, taking a step backwards.
"Some kind of cross between a wolf and carnivorous moose," she said, good naturally scratching behind the animal's ears. "Don't worry. As long as you don't attack me, he won't hurt you, right Nusa?" Nusama looked up at his mistress, gave a frustrated snort and sauntered back into the trees. Duo relaxed only a hair. "Don't worry. He'll distract my brother and the other two guards."
"Distract them?"
"Didn't you know?" she asked with genuine concern. "My brother and seven others guard this place at night. They shoot anything and everything that tries to enter this village. And leave as well. I thought my father would've at least told you this."
"I... never talked to anyone." She rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh.
"Guys. Too bullheaded to think one clear thought," she muttered. Something nagged at the back of Duo's mind, but he couldn't figure out what. "Come on. We have only six hours until sun rise and I have to be back before that."
Chapter 2
Jian walked from the trees, happy she had done something good with her life. The sun's rays were just now reaching the edge of the village. She froze. Something wasn't right. There should've been people, starting they're days...
"Father?!" she yelled, walking to his cabin, just a few feet from hers. When she opened the door, a cry blocked her throat. "Father..." He lay dead on the floor by his bed, blood still running from a gunshot wound in his temple. "No!" Duo stalled, his fingers inches from the start. What was wrong? Then he realized what the nagging had been. If Jian hadn't come from her cabin, he would've been killed. She had saved his life twice and not known it. Okay, so that took of one problem, but what was the cold pit in his stomach?
That's when he heard it. The sound of mobile suit carriers flying overhead. But hidden in that, Jian yelling again. Was she yelling for him?
"DUO!" She tore free from the claws of the branches and faltered on her bad leg. He jumped down from the cockpit of his Gundam and barely managed to keep her from falling. "Duo! They killed everyone! There's no one left! Everyone... is dead..." The dark awareness of this apathetic fact hit home and she paled. "No...god, no, I beg you, bring them back..."
"Your whole village? But how?" Then he put two and two together. "Jian... I'm sorry. This is my fault... Oz followed me here and if your entire village is anything like you, they wouldn't tell them where I went." Red replaced white on her cheeks and she angrily got to her feet.
"They didn't know!" she raged. "They didn't even know you were gone! How can someone be so heartless?!" Everything she had grown up knowing about the human spirit was being contradicted. What had happened to the trust and faith in the individual she had been taught existed in all beings? "How can this be happening? What did they do to deserve this?!" she yelled to no one. "They had never hurt anyone!" Duo didn't know how to comfort her, but just as he was about to say something, there was a great crashing sound. Four of five mobile suits, completely different from Duo's, broke through the trees.
"Run!" he shouted at her. "Go back to the village!"
"What about you?!" she asked.
"I'll be fine! Just go!" He shoved her away as one of the suits brought down the end of its weapon to crush them. She got up only after she had made it into the trees. *I'll be back,* she promised. *Just hold on until I do.*
* * * * * * * * * * *
The soldier stood up from his looting as Jian opened the door. She gasped, then growled.
"It's bad enough you kill my family and destroy all life that I've known, but now you come in as though they were nobody," she snarled, drawing her knife. "I've had enough of your kind defiling the serenity of this jungle."
"The serenity of death will be your next stop," he threatened. pulling a gun from his back pocket. "Do you really think that play toy came kill me?" She flipped her wrist before he could say anymore and closed her eyes against his dying cries. Then something else caught her ears. The knife, which had gone straight through his chest, had slammed into a bookcase, producing a metallic clink. Her curiosity got the better of her anger and she tried to pull out from the wall. Failing that, she turned to taking the books from the shelves, then taking it apart. What she found was not what she had expected. A metal door was built directly into the wall with a keypad in the middle of it. What could be so important that he would need to take such measures?
"Father," she whispered, bending next to his body. "I have to know, especially if I can help Duo. Please, tell me your secret." She closed her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks and forced herself to remember times she had shared with her father...
*"Look!" said a seven-year-old Jian excitedly. "I found all of the herbs Biera wanted!"
"Good job, my yellow haired wolf," said her father with a small smile, giving her head a slightly distracted pat...
FLASH!
"Anjyl!! That's mine!" She dove for her sister, her hands just missing her legs.
"Anjyl! Give your sister back her bow," ordered her father sternly. Anjyl did as she was told, grumbling the entire time. "Now, my yellow wolf, show me your perfect shot again."...
FLASH!
Jian dodged the enraged buck easily, taking an arrow from her quiver and landing a shot in the animal's heart. She always liked to hunt, but unlike her less humane siblings, she didn't enjoy watching her prey suffer.
"Wonderful, yellow wolf," said her father when she returned to the village. He made no attempt to help her carry the thing to the center square, since she wasn't even having trouble. "You've done well for your first hunt alone.".... Jian opened her eyes and laid her father's limp hand on his chest.
"Thank you," she said softly. *I will *always* be your yellow wolf,* she told him silently, punching in the password. *Even when death parts are souls, I am still the hunter.* She slowly walked down the stairs into the dark cavern. Motion sensors caught movement after so many years of lying dormant and turned on the lights. It wasn't as big as she had expected, but some sort of mobile suit was standing at the far wall, covered by a large white tarp. She approached, then stopped and picked up a small brown notebook from an abandoned computer console.
*January fifth, A.C. 182
I am General John Bishop. I work for an organization known as Oz. We have set up a secret military base deep in the jungles of South America, bringing supplies to last us a year, thirty men, varying from soldiers to my lieutenant and friend, Christopher Richards, and their families. I myself have a wife and two children. A four-year-old son, Mijan, and three-year-old daughters, Jian and Anjyl. They don't know what's going on, but they still love our new home.
My mission here is to prepare for the destruction of the Earth's Sphere Alliance, set to happen in twelve years, on the date of my Jian's sixteenth birthday. She will know nothing of it, nor will anyone that isn't part of Oz.
In coming here, we met a strange old man who gave us no name I, or any of my men, can recall, and strange blue prints for a new mobile suit. On closer inspection, we discovered they were plans for a suit made of Gundanium metal, a powerful metal that is also rare. We have found much in the mountains and have started what I call "Project Yellow Wolf"* There was nothing written on the next pages other then sketches of the blue prints for the WolfClaw Gundam, things Jian barely understood, and then came another entry.
*November 23, A.C. 190
It has been seven years since the start of "Project Yellow Wolf" and the Gundam is finally complete. Now that we have it though, we have no idea what to do with it. So we will be sealing it away in this underground hanger until it is time for the obliteration of the Alliance.
December 25, A.C. 192
My wife has died. Mijan, Jian, and my youngest son, Nicholas, are scared and upset. They don't understand that their mother's death was not an accident. Alliance soldiers were spotted near our village and my wife, not caring about her own safety, went to stop them, taking four other men with her while I was gone on a hunting trip with Jian. She was the only one killed.* The entries ended there. Jian remembered her mother's death well enough, since she had been close to nine years old. Her father had told them that she had been attacked by a wolves while looking for food...
"You lied to me," she said coldly. "My whole life is a lie. This isn't where we've lived for generations. We haven't even lived here for twenty years!" Her hand slammed against the computer console and suddenly, the white tarp fell from the Gundam. Jian looked up, her mouth set in grim determination. *I am the hunter,* she thought, heading for the stairs that lead to the catwalk by the cockpit. *I hunt to survive, kill what I need to live and never waste any of it. My heart is one with the animal's I have killed and now, I have found a prey worth destroying completely from the face of this world.*
* * * * * * * * * * *
Duo blocked the energy from one of the opposing dolls, but his suit was too damaged to keep it up much longer. Suddenly, there was an explosion from behind him, far from the village. A mobile suit came from the dust, a Gundam, almost exactly like his, save for the three blades attached to the left arm, resembling a claw, and the way it walked, almost as if its pilot was uncertain.
"What the heck?!" he heard from one of the suits. "It's another Gundam!" The other pilot seemed to get his bearings and sliced open the remaining four suits.
"Who are you?" asked Duo, opening his cockpit and stepping from it. He waited, half patiently, for the other cockpit to open, but he got the surprise of his life when it did and Jian rose from the shadows. Her face was stained with blood and tears, but there was a darkness in her eyes.
"My father always said hidden beneath the surface are things you don't see until circumstance shows it to you," she said quietly. "I grew up believing that there was no death as violent as my people have suffered and now I believe that there is only one group of people who will survive the war amongst ourselves: those that are strong enough to fight the blackness in their own souls." And then she collapsed.