Duo and Hilde's Home
"C'mon
Duo, we're gonna be late again!" Hilde Maxwell shouted as she bustled to
get their three-year-old son ready.
"I don't want to be 'fashionably late' again!"
"I'm
hurrying! I'm hurrying!" Duo
replied as he searched vigorously for his collar and cross necklace. "Just one more minute! I promise!"
"Okay,
but the picnic starts in fifteen minutes!"
"I'll
be right down!" Turning his and
his wife's bed upside-down, he grabbed the missing accessories and held them
above his head. "The Great
Destroyer is victorious again!" he whispered to himself as he put the two
items on.
"You
okay? Thought I'd have to send up a
search party!" Hilde grinned as Duo quickly pecked her cheek with a kiss,
and took his very pregnant wife's hand and Adrien's as he walked past them.
With
a quick peck to the cheek, Duo asked, "So, how's my baby girl today?"
"Me,
or the real baby?"
Taking
an I-hadn't-thought-of-that look on his face, Duo blushed. "Uh, both."
"Well,
the real baby seems just fine. She seems to enjoy testing the strength of
my stomach's walls. Me, on the other
hand, well . . ." She looked at
Duo with a mischievous grin on her face.
"Next time, it's your turn to carry the kid."
"Boy
oh boy, sounds like fun." Duo
grinned back as the family walked to their shuttle. "So, when does this shindig start again?"
"In
about ten minutes. I don't think we'll
make it this time."
"Is
that a challenge, dear wife?" Duo
let a smile overtake half his face.
"Well?"
"Oh,
fine. Have your boyish fun and blast
this shuttle to Hell, if that's what you want."
"That's
what I'm best at! No sweat!"
Smiling
to herself, she made sure to strap Adrien in extra-tight as the shuttle took
off into the blackness of space.
"No
sweat for you, anyway. For the rest of
us, it's a different story."
"Hey!"
Newport City
"It's
good to see you all again," Relena started as more of her friends came
in. This time the "couple"
was Quatre and Dorothy, with Quatre's ever-present Maganac corps following
closely behind. Dorothy clung to
Quatre's arm as though she thought that letting go would detonate the park they
were picnicking in. Quatre simply
looked as though he had a homeless animal just follow him home and couldn't
find a way to shoo it away.
"Thanks,
Miss Relena, for inviting us," Quatre replied as he returned her hug.
"Yes,
thank you for inviting me as well, Miss Relena." Dorothy still addressed Relena like she did during the Eve Wars.
"It
was nothing. It's my pleasure to see so
many of my old friends again," Relena said as the group began to gather
around the food table.
"I
wonder where Duo, Hilde, and Adrien are?
Duo promised not to be late this time," Quatre wondered as he
looked at the crowd. Let's see.
There's Trowa and Catherine.
Hmmm... I wonder if Trowa's
found anyone special yet? Well, anyway,
there's Wufei and Sally. What
the-- Oh my! Sally's pregnant!
Quatre thought as he saw the two standing side-by-side at the far side
of the picnic table.
"Hey
everyone! Sorry I'm late!" Duo shouted as he walked over the hill to
the picnic area with his family.
"Told
you so," Hilde whispered smugly to her husband. Duo sent her a mock-glare, as though he were saying Not a word, please!
"That's
okay, Duo," Trowa said as he shook Duo's hand. "It's been a long time."
"Too
long," Quate offered to the conversation.
"Yes,
too long," Wufei added. "Too
long, indeed."
"Now
all that's missing is Heero," Quatre said glumly, knowing that he would
have to be the one to mention the missing pilot's name at the picnic. "It's just too bad, you know? I was never expecting Heero to be the first
one of us to come up MIA."
"Yeah,
no kiddin'." Duo patted Quatre on
the back softly. "C'mon. There's tons of food and not many people
here to eat it. Let's dig in!"
Lunar Base
"At
long last!" the black-haired man shouted as he powered up his rebuilt
mobile suit. "After such a long
time, alone even! I alone have fixed
it!"
Fixed
it he had. Using the leftover parts for
the Virgo mobile dolls, spare parts for the Vayeate and Mercurius, and parts he
had found in the abandoned and critically-damaged Epyon found at the abandoned
base, and the hulk of the original suit that had plummeted to Earth's surface
from space, he had done it.
"Get
ready Earth! You once punished me for
being me. Now I shall punish you for allowing this perfect suit, this
Gundam, to be destroyed!" His
insane laughter filled the cockpit as he blasted away towards the blue sphere
before him on hyper-Vernier engines.
"All
shall feel the wrath of the Wing Gundam Vengeance!"
Outer Earth
Atmosphere
Above Former
Sanc Kingdom
At
the controls of his mobile suit, a young man in his mid-twenties finally
allowed himself a smile--the first one in many, many years.
After all this time, it's finally over. Finally. . .
Pushing
a lever to his right, he made the suit change form from a sort of aircraft-type
shape to the familiar humanoid mobile suit mode that so many had come to know.
And fear, the young man thought to
himself. So many OZ soldiers learned to fear this suit. Now they will have nothing more to fear at
all.
Setting
coordinates for the Sanc Kingdom's Newport City, the young man actually laughed
to himself.
Now, Heero Yuy, you are home.
Newport City
Rushing
out to the airfield, Relena Peacecraft paid the air techs no heed as she ran to
the landing mobile suit.
He's home!
He's home! He's finally home!
As
the Wing Zero touched down, it did so quite majestically. Landing on its feet, the mobile suit waited
until the twin Verniers shut down before it moved. Setting the twin buster rifle down very carefully, the suit,
which had been reconstructed back to its original specs after another
Treize-wannabe gathered up some mobile suits, kneeled on its left knee, its
right arm resting on its elevated right knee.
The
seals on the cockpit hatch hissed as they opened, allowing the pilot to climb
out of the black room. Display panels
powered down, taking the greenish glow away from the pilot's silhouette. The eyes and the green orb on the suit's
chest similarly ceased their incandescent glow. Using the winch to his left, the brownish-haired man lowered
himself to the pavement.
"HEERO!" Relena shouted as she
nearly knocked him over with a fierce hug.
"Don't you ever leave my
sight again, do you understand?" she mock-scolded him. "Every time you take your toy out, you
or it comes back broken in some way."
"The
damage is not extensive," Heero replied in his maddeningly-emotionless
tone. "The repairs I will make
will not be very long."
"Wait
a minute, Heero! We agreed! Once you came back, we were going to get rid
of your Gundam once and for all!" Relena growled as she took on a serious
expression.
Heero
knew better than to try and argue with her when she had that look. "Very well. I will take care of it myself." As he passed by the other pilots, he added, "And I'm not
sending it into the Sun this time."
Earth
Eastern
American Seaboard
New Buffalo
The
timers ticked down. Three . . . Two . . .
One . . . Fire!
The
blast from the buster rifle shot out toward the town, incinerating every
building it touched with its deadly caress.
Once
again, the hot-blooded youth laughed wickedly as he destroyed building after
building, occasionally using his suit to smash fleeing civilians as they tried
to run away from his Gundam.
"Fools,"
he said as he let loose with another blast from his buster rifle. "They're all fools!"
Using
his Vulcan machine guns mounted on the mobile suit's head, he annihilated a
hundred-story skyscraper's foundation, collapsing it onto a neighboring city
block.
Building
after building, road by road, person by suffering person, he destroyed the
once-bustling metropolis, with one thought in his head.
Where is my enemy?
L2 Colony
Duo and
Hilde's Home
Yawning
loudly as he streched his arms over his head, Duo walked through the open
doorway of his home. Hilde and the
napping Adrien had already gone inside.
As
Hilde put Adrien to bed, Duo switched on the TV.
"I
tell you what, Hilde. That was one fun
picnic!" Duo said as he relaxed on their fold-out futon. "I haven't had that much fun in a long
time!"
"Is
that so?" Hilde countered with a look of mock-pain through the
doorway. "I seem to remember you
having plenty of fun with me last night."
"Oops,"
Duo slouched down as far as he could, taking the look of a frightened animal
that was cornered. That made Hilde
laugh.
Plopping
down on the seat next to Duo, she laid down, her head on his lap. "'Oops' is right, Shinigami."
"My
god!"
"Well,
I didn't think that that comment warranted such a response." Hilde
responded after hearing that exclamation.
"What's wrong? Duo,
what--"
Then
she saw. Right there, on the TV, was
footage of a winged mobile suit destroying a large city. Except that it wasn't any ordinary mobile
suit.
"That's
Heero's old suit! The Wing Gundam! But how did it--"
The
TV managed to overpower the last bit of Duo's sentence, as the newscaster
screamed out in terror.
"IT'S
THE MOBILE SUIT! IT'S HERE!" The man had a brief show of horrifying agony
as a golden light blasted the back half of him into vapor. The front half of the dead newscaster slumped
forward, steaming. The camera then
panned right, to the monsterous hole in the studio wall. Through that hole, the camera showed the
reconstructed Gundam as it moved toward the building.
"Oh
my god, it's coming this way!" the cameraman shouted. The suit had seemed as though it was going
to simply plow through the building--even though the building was up to the
suit's waist level--when it suddenly stopped.
The main hatch was hovering just centimeters away from the giant hole
when it popped open and a man Duo's age hopped out in front of the camera.
"We
interrupt your regularly boring newscast for this lovely show of my
power!" the young man said with maniacal glee as he positioned the camera
back to the dead newscaster's smoking corpse.
Jumping back in front of the camera, he made sure it took him in.
"I
am known as Two to a certain person out there, probably in the Sanc
Kingdom. Do you remember me? The man who should have piloted this suit for Operation Meteor? Yes, me!
I'm talking to you, Heero Yuy, as you are known. To me, you will be forever known as
One. Remember that name, Heero Yuy? I would think you would."
He giggled once again with maniacal glee as he shoved the dead
newscaster's body off of the chair behind the desk. Plopping down with a contented sigh, he leaned forward, his hands
folded in front of him.
"Listen
to me, people of Earth," he said with a measurable amount of pure contempt
in his voice. "There is only one
person I want. That man is named Heero
Yuy. Bring him to me, and no other town
will suffer the same fate as New Buffalo."
"We
gotta warn Heero and Relena!" Hilde said, but Duo was already up and
dashing towards the phone.
"Damn! Looks like the colony-to-colony
communications are down again! Kuso,
this is not good!" Duo
exclaimed, rushing to the family's shuttle, the TV broadcasting the insane
pilot's wicked laughter the entire time.
Colony L3
Circus
Backstage
"Now,
Trowa, remember. We have to give the
audience the best performance ever!
This seems like a pretty small crowd this time, but last time we did
this, you ended up finding some 'entertainment' of your own!" Catherine
said, looking through the tent's flap.
"Sure. No problem." Trowa's usual response.
"Aargh! Why do you always do that, Trowa?" Catherine scowled as she shot a look back at
Trowa.
He
grunted a reply.
"Aaarrrgh! I give up!"
Then
the ringleader's voice picked up.
"And now, with an amazing show of uncanny knife-throwing, agility,
and speed, here is Catherine and Trowa, the world's most dispassionate
clown!" His arm outstreched to
where the two were, he waved them in.
Trowa came out first in a very quick series of backflips, cartwheels,
and handstands. Catherine followed in a
fast walk, taking her time. After
Catherine, a man wearing a brown leather outfit and a bullwhip led a monsterous
lion out to the center ring.
Not
needing a cue, Trowa jumped up, spun a few times in his trademark move, and
landed on one hand on the lion's back.
The lion's roar drowned out much of the applause, as well as frightening
a few young ladies in the front rows.
Catherine,
for her part, was ready the whole time.
With five knives in each hand, she separated them as though they were
cards in her hand, so the whole audience could see. As the lion and its rider circled the center ring, Catherine
threw each dagger, one at a time, at Trowa.
Showing an incredible amount of speed, agility, and balance, he caught
each blade in his hand before they could hit his face.
Applause
echoed so loud that not even the lion could overpower the sound.
After
the show, Catherine, Trowa, and the ringleader were sitting down at a local
cafe, discussing the performances.
"I
tell you what, I don't think there was a person in the house that wasn't amazed
with your performance," the bearded man said, looking down at his cup of
coffee.
"Thanks
a lot, but it was Trowa's idea," Cathy responded, giving Trowa the credit,
as usual.
"The
audience size should pick up, after that," Trowa replied in his
emotionless tone.
"I
really hope so," the ringleader said, running a hand through his brown
(and now partly gray) hair. "It
seems like ever since that whole mess with Mariemaia's troops and the Eve Wars,
nobody wants to go to the circus anymore." Sighing, he took a sip of his steaming black brew. Immediately after he set the cup down, he
grimaced. "Boy oh boy, that's
strong. You know, when I was about your
age--"
He
was unable to get any further than that, when the waiter walking by dropped his
tray, staring across the road to the giant TV monitor on the side of a
building. The shatter of the coffee
cups brought everyone's heads up, staring at the hapless waiter. Trowa, for his part, was busy watching what
the waiter was--footage of a mobile suit destroying a large city.
"That's
Heero's old Gundam. The Wing
Gundam," Trowa said, this time in full-blown disbelief.
"What? I thought they had all been destroyed!"
the ringleader's voice said beside him.
"Trowa, you told me--"
"I
know. Somehow, somebody either got
ahold of the plans for the Wing Gundam or simply built a suit to just look like
it." Trowa stopped there, as
though his maximum amount of words-per-day had been reached.
"Well,
with all the other mobile suits destroyed, how is anyone going to stop
him? By the time anybody got a suit
made, it'll be too late!" Catherine's desperate voice seemingly pleaded
against whatever gods may exist.
"I
have to go," Trowa said simply. He
got up, walking away.
"Oh,
no you don't, Trowa Barton! Not
again!" Catherine demanded.
"What will you do, since you don't even have your Gundam anymore?"
"I'll
find a way to stop him. No matter
what."
Newport City
As
Heero marched down the hallways of the Newport Academy, with a scowl that he
always assumed when he had to dress in anything other than his traditional green tank top and black shorts, a group
of students ran up to him.
"Hi!" One girl's pure, well, bounciness startled Heero, reminding him quite a bit of Duo. "I understand that your name is Heero
Yuy, right?"
"I
am Heero."
"Well,
my name is Jen, and I'm the chief editor of the Academy Star, our school newspaper! I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"
"No,
you may not."
That
answer startled Jen. "Are you
sure? You see, I have to do this report
on the Eve Wars, and who better to report on than the man who was the real winner?"
"I
did not 'win' the Eve Wars. Go pester
Relena. She had more to do with winning
than I did."
"Well,
uh," Jen looked as though she were on the brink of crying. "I just wanted to, well . . ."
By
that time Heero had already walked past her and into Relena's office.
"You
wanted to see me?"
"Yes,
Heero, I did," Relena responded.
"Please, have a seat."
She pointed at a chair in front of her desk. He simply moved to the nearby bookshelf, leaned up against it,
and crossed his arms.
"You
want to talk to me about disposing of my Gundam." It was not a question.
"Yes,
Heero, I do. I wanted you to
self-destruct this one, like the others did eight years ago, but recent events
cause me to hesitate."
"What
events?" Heero peered up at her
through his mossy hair.
"It
seems that a young man, your age, has been seen in your old Gundam. He seems to have quite a grudge against
you. He single-handedly destroyed the
New York city of New Buffalo in that suit." Relena looked haggard when she told him the news.
"So
now you need me to try and stop him."
Once again, a statement, not a question.
"I
hesitate because my ideals and everything I believe in say to try and negotiate
with this man. My gut feeling, on the
other hand . . ." She trailed off,
implying the rest.
"Let
me guess. He calls himself 'Two'."
"Yes,
he does. How did you know that,
Heero?"
"Long
story. No time to tell it."
"Well,
Heero, considering this is you that he's after, I'm not about to be put into
the dark again. Make the time. Tell me, or I'll have your Gundam
impounded." A dangerous look came
over her eyes, and Heero knew that, if push came to shove, she would carry
through with that threat.
Swearing
to himself for agreeing to park his Gundam in the only hangar bay with a password-sealed,
neo-titanium alloy door, he sat down in the chair.
"It
started when I was ten years old. I was
being trained with four other children my same age. Whoever did the best in the training would become the Wing
Gundam's pilot. I was the only one who
made it. Three of the others died
mysteriously, while the other went completely insane by his own anger and sense
of vengeance. That boy was code-named
'Two' and I was code-named 'One', primarily because our code-names differed
with how well we were compared with the others," Heero explained as Relena
became fully engulfed in his story.
"So
this 'Two' that is coming for you, he was the second-best person in the
group?"
"Yes,
he was my primary rival. He saw the
others as threats, so he rigged the simulators they used do hurt them if he did
better than them in the programs. He
ended up destroying every suit except mine, thereby killing the
others." That comment made
Relena's jaw drop, pity and a little bit of concern bubbling up in her eyes.
"Needless
to say, of course, but I assume you defeated him in those simulations?"
She
couldn't tell at first, but she could swear by her father's grave that she saw
hints of a smug smile tug at Heero's mouth.
"Every time. He grew so
consumed with jealousy and anger that he literally went out of his mind."
"So
you don't think that negotiations are possible?" Relena asked.
"With
Two behind Wing Gundam's controls, whatever shreds of sanity that he had are
now nonexistant. No, negotiations will
be completely impossible. Unless . .
."
"Unless
what, Heero? Unless what?"
"You
said that he was gunning for me. The
only two ways to stop him will be to kill him outright, or to give him what he
wants. I plan on doing both."
