Title: "Furikazasunda Namida"
Author: LegolasLover2003 aka Ashley
Category: Anime - "Kidou Senshi Gundam 00"
Genre: Angst/General
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to "Kidou Senshi Gundam 00".
Author's Note: The story takes place during Season 2 and, be warned, could be considered AU.
振りかざすんだ涙
Furikazasunda Namida
{[( Brandished Tears )]}
Chapter IV
"You really did a number on yourself this time."
Sighing, Neil Dylandy stretched his left arm out, wincing slightly as Regene sprayed disinfectant on a few of his new scratches.
"Yeah well, falling through a tin awning will do that." the man replied, idly watching the Innovator clean and bandage the cuts. "But the man's dead, for whatever good it'll do... Is it just me or,"
"Other arm." Regene spoke, to which Lockon lowered his left and raised his right.
"Is it just me or is Almark sending me on rather low priority missions?"
The purple-haired Innovator tilted his head, thinking over the proper response. "Low priority depends on your way of looking at it. I mean..."
"Why am I not taking aim at Katharon or whats left of Celestial Being?"
Silence.
Regene stopped moving, if only for a fraction of a second. But when he resumed cleaning the wound, he was shaking his head.
"You're not ready for them yet."
The Irishman couldn't help but laugh, "Ready? I'm the best sniper you've got! I never miss! I mean sure, sometime I get seen and have to run like hell... but I never miss." reaching out, Lockon took Regene's chin in one hand and tilted the man's face up so that green eyes met a redish purple gaze. "I. Never. Miss."
"You never miss." the Innovator agreed. "But if Ribbons doesn't think you're ready then..."
Sighing, Neil moved his hand away. "Meanwhile, they keep doing more harm than good." he spoke, standing from the chair he had been sitting on and pacing the room. Clad in only dark slacks, red cuts and scrapes criss-crossing his usually fair skin, the Irishman looked as if he were pissed. "Have you guys maybe considered planting someone in their inner circles? I mean... at this rate, they're going to destroy the A-LAWS along with all of you and then where would I be, ne?"
Regetta stood, brushing his hands off on his pants. "I'll speak with Ribbons about it, though I doubt he'll agree with your own plan. You're much more valuable to us here, taking out the threats which could unite with our enemies."
"Taking out the small fry..." Neil replied, waving away his own sarcasm. "Wakatta yo... you're just following orders. Aren't we all?" [(I know...)]
With a slight smirk, Regene nodded. "Ribbons will probably have a new mission for you by the end of the week. Just get some rest." he picked up the small first aid kit. "And stay off that ankle, Neil Dylandy. That's an order."
Laughing, Lockon plopped down into another chair. "Yes sir!" he teased with a smirk and a mock salute.
However...
Once Regene Regetta had left the room, Lockon Stratos sighed and tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling.
"I wonder... do you hate me now, Tieria Erde? Or... by some miracle... do you understand that by doing this, I'm doing everything I can to protect you? To protect all of you?"
Small steps, light and delicate, harkened the approach from behind the Innovator.
Ribbons Almark turned his head slightly to regard Regene Regetta as the other man descended the stairs.
"Is there a problem?" Almark asked, seeming rather skeptical about Regetta even being there.
When the purple-haired Innovator nodded, it came as a surprise. "Dylandy is... complaining."
"Of?"
Regene sighed. "He wants to be sent after Katharon or Celestial Being."
"Send him."
"I..." blinking, the other man froze. "Wait, what? I can't send him! This is an experiment, Ribbons. One that is going quite well. Lockon Stratos has no memory of being a part of Celestial Being. He recalls the name of 'Lockon' but he can't remember why, and the mere mention of it throws him into a bout of anger. It's unwise to simply let him go and..."
Turning, Ribbons stared directly at Regene, cutting off the other Innovator's words. "I want to see if the experiment was a success or not. If he can confront Celestial Being and not recall where he truly belongs... then it has worked. Has he shown any signs of..."
Regene shook his head. "None. I think it's still too early to be..."
"He's been taking the damned things for what, two years now?" came a gruff voice, and while Almark didn't turn, Regene did. "His memory should be putty by now."
Rolling his eyes, Regetta shook his head. "A human's memory is delicate and..."
"Delicate delicate delicate... it's a memory." Ali Al-Saachez spoke with a wicked smirk, tapping the side of his head with one finger. "Memories can be easily forgotten. If he doesn't remember Celestial Being, why would he want to snipe against them? If he doesn't remember them... hell, why would he even be here right now? Wouldn't he have run first chance he got?"
Nodding Ribbons turned to the two. "If we can pinpoint where Celestial Being will turn up next, we can send Dylandy out in one of our new suits, one of the GNZ-005 Garazzo suits... I've had a sniper rifle developed as an attachment, anticipating this."
"But, Ribbons! He..."
Holding up a hand, the green-haired Innovator cut his comrade off. "If he could pilot the GN-002 Gundam Dynames, then he should easily be able to handle an Innovator machine as well. He will need to be taught the basics, of course." saying this, Ribbons looked directly at Ali Al-Saachez.
"Teach a sniper to fly?" the mercenary asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Teach a sniper that I 'killed' once to fly... to fly and possibly kill the Krugis Punk... hmm..." smirking, Al-Saachez nodded. "Let's just hope I don't break him... again..."
"Yo!"
Rolling his eyes, Tieria kept walking, completely ignoring the man who ran up the corridor behind him to catch up.
"Hey, Tieria! Look, I don't know what I did but I'm sorry about it." Lyle Dylandy spoke, getting in front of the young man and blocking his path. "Can't you just accept my apology?"
Sighing, the purple-haired pilot looked off to the side. "I should be the one apologizing. I snapped at you last night. It wasn't your fault and..."
"Damn right it wasn't." but then the Irishman softened a bit and smiled. "I was worried about you, sensei." he teased... all in good fun.
Again, Tieria rolled his eyes. "Sensei ja nai." [(I'm not a sensei)] he returned before nodding. "I just had a bad dream last night. That's all. You, of all people, coming to the door just... startled me."
If that didn't give away the contents of said dream, nothing would.
Nodding, processing this information, Lockon frowned. "My brother dying?"
"Not... quite..." Tieria maneuvered around Lyle, continuing down the hall.
But the Cherudim pilot wasn't about to give up.
"Then what about him? I know it had to be Neil you dreamt of... so..."
Another sigh, but this time, Tieria couldn't face his fellow pilot. Not about this...
If he let Lyle know... if he told him that his older brother was really alive...
"What do you think... when you think of Neil?"
The question suddenly caught Tieria off guard and he immediately turned, "What do you mean? He was a very important person and a Gundam Meister and..."
"And a show off." Lyle finished, arms crossed over his chest.
A guarded posture... even Erde could see that.
"He was always the best, always the person you could count on, and yet he went and got himself killed. Apparently he wasn't the best. Apparently not the person to count on. And apparently..."
But the Irishman never got to finish his sentence... because Tieria had slapped him... hard.
Silence rang out in the corridor, and Lyle could only stand there, a hand on his reddening cheek, watching the younger man.
"He may have been your brother but you know nothing of what he sacrificed." Tieria hissed coldly. "He saved us. All of us. And if it weren't for him, you wouldn't be here right now."
Turning away, the Seravee pilot continued down the hall, mentally cursing Lyle Dylandy all the while.
"If you knew what he was still sacrificing... just so we could all continue to survive!"
He had to find Lockon... the true Lockon...
Thankfully, Sumeragi was sending him back out into town for more supplies...
つつく
Tsutsuku
{[( To be continued… )]}
Translations:
Furikazasunda Namida – Brandished Tears
Wakatta yo... - I know...
Sensei ja nai - I'm not a sensei (teacher)
Tsutsuku = To be continued
Story Notes:
- Story title comes from the lyrics to the Tieria Erde image song, "Elephant".
- So yeah, we're jumping back and forth in time. This chapter happens after the events in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 was kind of an uber flashback of things prior to Chapter 1.
Author's Notes:
- I wrote this chapter today because I was in a Gundam 00 mood (obviously). I was watching the Season 2, Episode 14 commentary and Mamoru and Keiji were just cracking me up... so now I want to use Ali Al-Saachez more because of the whole, "He's clenching! Keiji's butt is clenching!" joke from the commentary. Cracks me up every time I think about it! Also, I finally ordered my Season 2: Part 2 and Season 2: Part 4 dvds (I only had 1 and 3 cause I could never find 2 at the store) so I'm really looking forward to completing my Gundam 00 dvd collection (least until the movie hits the shelves, hehe).
- Also, I learned today that Lockon probably didn't die from the explosion itself at the end of Season 1, but from space decompression (his faceplate shattered from the explosion). I saw a YouTube video of the PS2 game stuff, and they showed his corpse floating and yeah, the look on his face was totally not that of 'Died from Injuries' but more of 'HOLY HELL MY INSIDES JUST EXPLODED!'... so yeah... However, for the sake of this story... that didn't happen. Hehehe.
I ASK THAT YOU DO NOT SUBMIT REVIEWS ABOUT HOW YOU DISLIKE JAPANESE BEING IN THE STORY!
I love getting reviews, but it puts me in a sour mood whenever I see a review that's all about how you don't like there being Japanese dialogue in the story. I'm sorry, but it's not disappearing any time soon (look below for my generic response about it). So please, to keep me happy and to keep me replying to reviews, just don't nitpick about it (unless there's something I did uber wrong, then you can because I may go back and fix it if I see the error). Thank you.
GENERIC RESPONSE TO THOSE WHO DISLIKE THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE TEXT: (mainly pertaining to my anime/manga stories)
-It seems every story I write that's based on an anime... I end up having to say the same thing.
-I took 9 semesters of Japanese in college and did multiple 30min weekly study groups for the first years for two semesters.
-I know it's not always right (what I have in my stories sometimes that is) but BECAUSE this is a fanfiction that is based off of an anime, and because I watch anime in Japanese and very very rarely dubbed in English, I pick up voice habits of certain characters (such as Lockon's "oi").
-Since Lockon really wouldn't be speaking Japanese to begin with since he's Irish... and Setsuna would probably speak Arabic and Allelujah Russian... (Tieria could speak anything for all we know really), then even the show should be distracting at this point to anyone because there they go, speaking Japanese.
-I know some people don't like Japanese interjected into stories, and to placate them I started putting the translations directly at the ends of the Japanese sentences (I used to just have a translation section at the end of the story, which is still there just because it helps me go back and see what I've used quicker than scanning the entire story).
-I'm not going to stop putting Japanese in my stories that are based off of Anime or Manga (or Japanese Dramas or Movies either, cause I've got Japanese in my "Moon Child" story too).
-You will, however, never find Japanese in any of my LOTR stories or any other fandom that I write unless there is a character that speaks it (like random Korean in the SG-1 story) on a normal basis.
