Disclaimer: I don't own anything! I have given up all my cash for my manga obsession.

Chapter Four

Battles

Heero adjusted the booster pack, fidgeting to make sure he wouldn't fly off the junkyard's vast area. After believing that his adjustments were done, his eyes fell upon the young woman before him, rolling her eyes at his movements.

"Ready?" He nodded. She flicked a switch only on her bag, the packs tightening against them. "Good. Truth is I like this game. Just the fact that you're my father makes me like it even more." Véro grinned (or smirked) a demented smile, pulling down the goggles. "I'm giving you two minutes to figure out everything. As soon as the second hand hits the twelve at the end of the second minute, I'll return for your sorry ass." She jumped into the air, the boosters igniting. "Your time starts now."

Heero slipped the eyewear over his eyes, watching as the junkyard became buildings that have crumbled and flames he had spent years trying to forget. The mission scrolled before his eyes, the storyline being of a past event:

'You are the Wing Zero pilot, Heero Yuy. The threat

you face today is unlike every other one- remnants of OZ

has taken control of the Sank Kingdom, capturing the

princess and her students. It is your job to save the kingdom.

Your operator and you must work together for this goal.

God speed.'

"Funny, I thought she hated me. Now I know she's using me for a game character", the man mumbled. "And what's this about an operator?"

A small picture in the corner of his eye appeared, the face familiar to him. "Hey, buddy. I'll be your operator today. Please keep all hands, arms, and feet working or else you'll end up dead. Thank you and please enjoy this game."

Heero rolled his eyes. "Funny, Duo. Now, tell me what weapons there are before I hurt you."

The picture waved his arms in fright, the hair on the back of his neck somewhat noticeable. "Hey, hey. No need for hurting the braided haired man. What's he done to you?" He earned a stare that, if looks could kill, he'd of been run over by a semi truck fifteen times after being shot. At this time, he shrunk in his chair, laughing nervously. "Good point. Okay, remember everything you had?" The Prussian eyed man nodded. "It's there, plus an army knife. The same kind on Trowa's." He nodded again.

The Perfect Soldier jumped into the air, testing out the boosters, which ignited while in the sky. "Alright. Give me a saber."

"Reach behind you until you feel it."

Heero followed orders, feeling out the air. How would something be there? How could something he knew wasn't in existence be there? That was, until he felt the handle of the blade. He pulled it out, detonating it inside his hands.

"I get it. She places feeling and sight into your mind, just to make everything seem real." The picture in the corner nodded at his words. "She attached the booster to your spine, and then it sends the feeling signal up through the nervous system." The Deathscythe Hell pilot nodded more vigorously, chuckling to himself about how it took Heero less than a minute to figure it out whiles it took himself over a month to know. And that was after she had told him.

Heero's feet touched the top of a junk heap, landing finally from his jump before. He could do this. He could beat her at her own game.

He jumped down, taking cover behind the same pile of metal trash. She was there; he could feel it in his bones. "Why do you hate me?" he questioned loudly, hoping she'd answer him. "Is it because I left and was unable to return?"

Véro twitched at his question. How dare he ask her that? Her blood was boiling. She knew that she's loose herself to her emotions soon, but at least now she had a good reason to go ballistic. She jumped up, aiming a kick where she thought he was, missing him as he took to a run to hide someplace else. "Do you really have any idea? You left my mother when you had it good!" Her blind rage took hold. "Did you really even care about her? Do you even know how many nights she has cried for you!"

"No, I don't know how many times she's cried", Heero whispered from behind her. How he had done that, she had no idea. But there he was, beating her as Duo always claimed that he would.

"Do you know how many nights I dreamed of meeting my own father?" She yanked the goggles off, making Heero do the same. He watched his blonde daughter with interest, watching as tears leaked from her eyes. "Do you know how it feels to have something missing in your life, a hole in your heart that grows every time you're reminded of it?" The Prussian-eyed pilot opened his mouth, ready to speak, when she took off to the house they seemed to have wandered from.

"Does she really hate me? Or love me?" He sighed, rubbing his temples. He was so confused. The former pilot began to walk back.

Véro hadn't spoken to him in days, ever since that day back at the junkyard. Well, they spoke only when Relena put them in a room together, trying her hardest to let a father-daughter bond form. Nothing worked. Nothing would EVER work. She felt betrayed by both him, for leaving, and herself, for allowing her emotions to overwhelm her voice.

The doctor (though really surprised that none of the nerves in her arm weren't destroyed by their little battle) told them that she'd be fine in another week or two, then replaced the bandages and gave her a sling once again.

As they exited the hospital, Heero stopped his lover and daughter in their tracks, one gaze cold and the other loving. It was strange to him how similar they looked and how different the mother and daughter acted.

"Yes, Heero?" Simple, yet so filled with love.

"What do you need?" Angry, eyes narrowed in hate. How could this child hate him so?

He sighed, closing his eyes. "Relena, do you mind if Véro and I talk a bit- alone?" Four eyes watched him in confusion. "We need to get something settled."

A smiled appeared on her lips. She nodded, taking out her cell phone and asking the limo driver to pick her up. Soon, the woman was gone, leaving the two to their own devices. Véro began to walk away, hands in pocket, aiming herself towards home- a seven mile walk, not even counting what was inside the walls of the Sank Kingdom. He quickly took his place beside her.

"I know how you feel", the man started, gaining a look of shock and confusion, as if she didn't know what he was talking about. "How you feel about having something missing in your life, to have a hole in your heart that seems to grow." He lowered his head, allowing memories to flood his mind. "My whole life is a bottomless pit. I started my life as an orphan, and then got mentored into the art of assassination by the man who murdered the first Heero Yuy. I found out much later that he was my biological father, my mother a one night stand who had been learning under Pacifist Yuy."

"What does that make me?" she questioned with dark eyes. "A conceived child on a two week stand?"

"You have a right to be angry", Heero agreed. "I left because I got scared that I might have actually enjoyed what I was doing." Véro raised an eyebrow. "Not that I wasn't already", he admitted with a smirk. "So, I went to go find someone that might have been able to help me understand what I felt, someone that could have explained why for so many years, I was alone. With Quatre's help, I had been able to track down my parents by taking apart a couple of my chromosomes within my cells and researched who had the same. When I spoke to my mother, I learned that my father had taken me in an attempt for him to save face. That way, no one would have been able to find him, to arrest him for the noble leader's death." He stopped, waiting for the girl to spit at him or something. To his surprise, she didn't say a word.

"Go on", she chimed suddenly after they walked for about five minutes in complete silence. "I want to hear your excuse for not coming back." Something struck him as he watched the girl beside him. Was she… smirking?

"I told my mother what I did in the war, shocking her that I was the boy named after the pacifist; that I was the war hero whom everyone had been talking about. I told her about Relena, and I guess that sparked an interest about me. We got to talking about your mother so much that it didn't hurt that much to be away from her. Soon, she wanted to meet the woman who had caught my attention. When I heard that there would be a press conference soon, she offered to go with me when I returned back to Relena, to the Earth. My mother understood my want to protect her, as a lover and as a bodyguard. We went that day, but never made it. Our ship was destroyed by something in sector L1-T45. I can't remember much about that day, other than pushing people to the back and me surviving somehow after the explosion. I ended up in a coma."

They walked in silence once again, Véro staring grimly ahead of them. What was her problem now? She had heard the truth, even some of the bits and pieces that he himself couldn't understand, but she had heard it. What in the name of Hell was wrong?

"Bullshit", she murmured angrily, her left eye slightly twitching in annoyance. "That is complete and utter… bullshit", she said a little louder, fuming slightly as the words formed from her mouth into the air. "Do you really expect me, your own child who you've never had the balls to see before now, to believe that crap? You probably didn't even care about the fact that I was yours, or let alone care about my mother at all."

Heero turned around, taking large steps toward her, facing the young woman he didn't quite understand just yet. He pulled his hand back, throwing it quickly forward across her face.

His eyes narrowed, obviously angry about what she had just said. "I loved your mother like she was a woman who deserved the world, let alone own it. If that Goddamn coma didn't happen, if that stupid ship didn't blow up, that hole in your heart wouldn't be there, growing with each passing moment. I would have been there for your childhood if I could have, made sure that you didn't go through all the things I did. If I can say anything to you right now about what you just said, it'd be something that I'd only slightly regret." His anger had changed into anguish by now, unable to retain any of the hatred he felt towards his own child at that moment to the blows of the current thoughts that currently plagued his every thought now. His Prussian eyes averted from hers, unable to look at her straightly as the words came out of his mouth. "She… She healed me. She gave me a reason to be. I loved her for being who she was, for changing me enough so people could actually interact with me without getting their heads blown off." His seemingly endless orbs once again met hers, a new ferociousness within them. It was a hope that she'd understand him, a hope that she'd be less like him at this point. "Let me repeat- I loved her." He gave her a smirk, cocking his head with a small laugh. "And I still do. Always will, too."

Véro stared at him, not quite sure what to say to him now that she heard him. She knew that he wasn't lying to her- it was only noticeable through his usually emotionless Prussian spheres, along with his want for her to understand him. True, she had gone too far when she had said that he had slept around before her birth. He was right to slap her as hard as he did.

Truth is- it still stung. Nothing lasted longer than a second or two before she felt the pain numb, but it wasn't numbing up right then.

Was she telling herself to allow this perfect stranger be called 'daddy'? Did she really want the hole in her heart to fade away? Didn't that make her a better fighter? Having something missing and kicking someone's ass in order to numb that pain?

She was confused. Why did her heart and mind want to open up to this man who she only knew as her biological father?

Véro looked away from him, her eyes darting from thing to thing as she tried desperately not to look at him. She gave him a sound that instantly reminded him of his years as a Gundam pilot that usually meant 'yes', 'fine', or 'whatever'. Obviously, she believed him, much to his relief.

They began the walk once again, silent, careful not to speak whatever was on their minds. People watched by in speechless awe, gawking at the father and daughter one last time before noticing them take off in a run at the sound of a far-away gunshot.

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orokid: (Dum Dum Dummmmm…) Could Relena be in trouble? Could she be dead? What do the Gundams have to do with all of this stuff? And… WHAT! The colonies have decided to wage war again! WTF!

NEXT CHAPTER: BLAME