Hey everyone. It took me awhile to get this chapter to work the way I wanted it to. I realized that in my writing that I had a slight brain fart and had written the original version of this chapter with a major continuity problem, and so I had to go back a rework the entire thing from the ground up. All in all this has turned out to be one of my favorite chapters to write so far, and I am starting to get a bigger feel for the tone of this story. A couple of more chapters, and I should have it down the way I want it to be, so I hope you enjoy it, and I'd like to thank all of you who read and review.
He stood there staring amidst the cold and hallowed air of the hanger, surrounded by the things which he considered unneeded and unwanted in this world; so much like himself. All around him was the makes of nothing but the darkest parts of mankind's hearts, and yet it was to those very things that they looked to to be their salvation from darkness. It was an irredeemable part of being human, and he could only wonder how humanity as a whole could have become so drowned in its own darkness that it had to depend on a deeper darkness to free itself. That was how he saw it, and she was sure of it. She could tell from the expression on his face, by the tightness that encumbered his chest; it was as if he were facing his most disgusted person in the world: as if he was looking in a mirror.
He stood before a fallen angel, a demon that had been gifted with angels' wings. It was a soulless machine, one that had but only one purpose, and it had been something which had consumed it since the day of its creation. An angel of death, some would say, a tool created for no other purpose than to end creations most precious gift: life. He saw himself as a harbinger of war, and nothing more; his reflection was what he looked at before him. These were his thoughts, his torments. It quenched at her heart to know that these were the truths he saw. Inevitably the world had led him back to what he had never wanted to become, and she saw in his eyes that he recognized the world's worst monster, and that he knew that he looked at it every time he glimpsed his reflection.
She stood only a slight distance away, a sigh escaping her. It had been an eventful journey getting to where they were now, but now that they were here she could begin to feel the pressures that were soon to be placed on her. Sparing Heero one last look, Relena moved back to exit the hanger she had been in. She could see that facing Wing Zero and inevitably the ZERO System itself was something that Heero was going to have to physically face alone. It had been a quagmire for her to learn that only her brother and Heero were able to face that system. Although their nicknames on the battle field did give rise to the reason why; they were titled the Perfect Soldier and the Lightning Count. She was hardly aware as to how they had gotten the names, but she was more than aware that they lived up perfectly to the titles.
Breaking free of the hanger, she absconded away to the room she had been given when they had finally arrived here at the Siberian base. The Maguanac Corp.* Commander had been very accommodating, even when she had refused the most lavished rooms that the base had to offer. He had insisted that she be given every comfort that the base could offer. It had already been two days here, and she was finding it hard being around all these people; especially when she knew they were looking at her all the time. She was used to the fact that more people knew her as "Relena Peacecraft", or "Vice Foreign Minister Darlian", not to mention the prestigious title she held as "Queen Relena", but she was saddened to learn that most people wished to stay away from getting to know just plain old Relena. People made the mistake of idolizing her, and they expected far more than she could really give. It crushed her every time she saw a face turn as she passed them by, and that face light up with a brightened hope. They would never understand that the hope she emitted was gathered from six brave men who took on the burden of carrying the worlds crimes on their shoulders; that at the center of her courage and hope rested the courage of a man who saw himself as a tool for a massacre. What he had yet to understand was that eve though it was the machine he worked though, it was because of him that the avenging angel was quelled and pointed in a direction that was for the betterment of humanity; in the colonies and on earth itself. Though the machine was a demon, it was his purity that gifted the demon with angelic providence.
Stepping into her room, she looked around at all the things she had acquired since they had arrived. The people here had been very generous when they had learned that she had come with nothing but what she had had on her at the time. In the fluxing of a few hours an entire wardrobe had been presented to her, and she had embarrassingly accepted all of the gifts. It was weird to be around the people like this, she had realized back when the Mariemaia incident had occurred that she held an impressing amount of trust with the people. It was a mystery to her why the people put so much faith in her, but it was a goal for her to make sure that she never failed them.
Her hand hiding her eyes, she didn't notice the woman who was in the room with her until she finally looked at her. Without reproach, she relaxed and sat down on the bed in the room, letting her trusted friend continue sitting in the chair.
"You look very tired Relena." The soft voice came across the room, and she could only smile at the slight motherly tone that was in her voice—it was closer to the concerns of an older sister.
"Am I that easy to read Noin?" Her answer was to come over to the bed she was on and to lay Relena's head on her lap to rest.
"Don't worry, at the moment you have every right to exhausted. You've been through quite a bit since the last time we were together." Relena smiled as Noin continued to pat her head. It was moments like these that she treasured. These solitary moments with her family that allowed her to relax. It had been a good while since she had been alone with anyone that she knew. Having recently been freed from the new Oz organization, there hadn't been much time when she was being held by the organization that she had had to herself. No one there had been friendly toward he, and she had, at best, been tolerated by the people that were there.
Remembering the time she had spent in their hands made her shutter. It also brought something else to mind though, something that, in the rushed whirl of the past few days, she had ever gotten the chance to ask. Just how had they managed to free her from the organization? From what she knew, her location at the time had been completely random. Since she foresaw this as one of the few down times she would have for awhile, she decided it would be spent asking the questions that she had been compiling ever since Duo had rushed the guard at the door to the car she had been being transported in.
"Noin, how did you guys manage to free me? I thought that all my locations and movements were kept so random that it would be very difficult to track me."
"Well, it was hard at first, but when Heero found out that there was going to be an opening in their defense he rushed into a plan without thinking. Luckily at the time Quatre had been with him, so he was able to convince Heero not to barge into Lake Victoria without some backup." Readjusting herself for more comfort she continued on.
"We only had a few hours to prepare, and it was very organized. This was one of the few times that we relied more on luck than on the individual skills. When we set everything up we took a lot of risk and chances. We were very lucky that none of us were killed in the attempt, and that I knew the base so well; the operation would have been a little too close to the neck otherwise, and we most likely would have ending up with a dead Heero, although your freedom would have been something that we still would have gotten."
It slightly shocked Relena to have the details told to her so bluntly, in days past they would have tried to put the best light on things for her, but things had changed a lot more in the past five years, and she was no longer a child.
"What about you and my brother? The last time I had any contact with the two of you, both of you were still on the Terraformation project. What happened with that?" Noin looked at Relena with a slight look of shock on her face; it was a mystery to Relena why she was looking at her that way. She awaited Noins answer, fearing the truth that was about to be told.
"You weren't allowed much information while they were holding you were you?" Her response was quick.
"Every now and again someone would be forgetful and I would be able to pick up a little information here and there, but most of the time everything I saw or did was monitored."
"I see, then that would explain why you don't know." Moving away from Relena and getting in a position where they could both see each others faces, Relena was very attentive as Noin began.
"After you were captured, and the Preventers basically annihilated, the Organization moved quickly to try and track every one of us who had played major roles in the former wars down. As you can most likely imagine, it didn't take long before they decided to look in the most hidden places of the Earths Sphere." Relena noted that Noins face seemed to shroud over with memory as she continued on with her reminiscence.
"We were just getting things up and running, the people who had volunteered beside us working as hard as they could to get a small but efficient Side built. It was half way finished, and we were able to live and work on it. The people there were satisfied with the world simply forgetting they existed, but it seems the world didn't want to forget about us.
"They traced Zechs and I to the place, and when they attacked us, they hit us hard. It was only because the other soldiers there that we were able to make an escape. Apparently a few of the ones that had been working under Zechs and myself were former Oz and White Fang soldiers who had a deep respect for either Zechs Marquise or Milliardo Peacecraft. They helped us to escape and saw to it that we wouldn't be followed.
"It took us awhile to completely loose their trial, but when we finally did we turned to Quatre to help us, since all of our resources were spent, and we had no where else we could go. When we got to Quatre's we discovered that the other Pilots had turned there as well. Wufei and Sally had been there since the destruction of the Preventers, and Duo had gone there to make sure that Hilde would be safe, Trowa and Catherine had gone there at the dawn of the Organization, it seemed the only one that had been missing from there was Heero.
"It didn't take us long to track him down, Duo was very efficient in tracking him down for some reason, and when we cornered him he joined up with us." The tale was captivating as Noin continued to explain the events that had led up to them freeing her, how Duo had been tipped off from some friends he had made within the organization, and how when Heero had discovered the location they had immediately planned the operation. It was all told with a great sense of sorrow.
It wasn't until the end that something clicked for her to ask.
"How did Quatre escape the scrutiny of the Organizations checks?" It was the first time since the conversation that Noin had cracked a humorous smile.
"We have a dear Lady Dorothy to thank for that; because of a small relationship the two had kept up, she had managed to make the Winner foundation completely immune to the searchers, marking it as apart of the former foundation. Another of the reasons is because aside from us, most people consider Quatre to be an effeminate playboy with loads of cash." Relena couldn't help the laughter that escaped along with Noins as they shared it at the expense of Quatre.
"Well, that just goes to show how well informed they are about the Pilots, to actually use the word Playboy in the same sentence as Quatre's name is just ridiculous." Their laughter calmed down after a little bit, and they sat in silence for a moment, before Relena just lay back on her bed and completely relaxed. It was late already, and more time than she had realized had passed while her and Noin had been talking. She knew that there were plenty of things to do, but for the moment, she just wanted to spend some more time with a person who could understand the situation she was in.
Noin was looking like she was getting ready to leave, but Relena quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the bed.
"Don't leave yet Noin; just wait a little bit longer, please?" The older woman looked back, and could understand why she would want someone with her. She had been isolated from everything she knew and loved for a good while, finally being around those things again must seem like a dream…
"Alright Relena, I'll stay for a little longer." Time passed, and Noin watched as the brightest hope they had swiftly fell asleep. It was good to see that when she dreamed she could smile. It lightened the pain she felt to know that even through all this betrayal and hate that her and those spectacular young men were still able to remain so pure. It certainly made her more secure in the fact…
Heero looked at the screen in front of him, the system that was being displayed before him was more complex than anything he had every seen. The cockpit system named ZERO. He had messed around with it only twice before, once when he had first ran into the system, and another time when he had copied off apart of it and let Quatre use it. Aside from those two times, the only contact he had ever had with it had been direct.
The information and data that had been displayed to him across the possible outcomes in battle had been massive; he still saw it as a miracle that he had been able to overcome the influencing pulls of the system itself. Memories that had been pulled up by the system had stayed in his mind for so long, from the images of the little girl and her dog, to Relena giving her most memorable speech ever. Flashes of memory passed before him before he finally cut the link to the system.
It's not that he needed to be desensitized to the system, it wasn't something that you ever lost the…feel of. Even after so long, some of the effects of the system still stuck with him; the constant calculating for one thing, that had never left him. His enhanced senses were made even more so by the knowledge of such a system. It disgusted him. A virtual demon that could toy with the souls of humanity, it was the cruelest of jokes.
Sitting back in his chair, he tried to relax, releasing muscles in his body that were still tense. It had been non stop work since they had gotten here. New designs were being drafted already, and the people here had been working nonstop to have suitable appliances waiting here. There would have to be a couple of missions that he and the others would have to take care of himself, but for the most part, all they had for the moment was to plan what would be the next couple of moves they would make.
Having Quatre with them here was a good advantage, since his sisters were able to provide information for them from all over the earth and colonies. The corp. was also a good stockpile of information, not to mention the leftover remnants of the Preventers agency. It hadn't taken long to lean that the fallen organization had quickly been reformed by Lady Une into a full scale rebellion/information organization. It was no surprise to him to learn that she had survived; it was almost as if nothing could stop that woman's resolve to bring about the true dream of Treize.
"It looks like everyone's burning the midnight oil." Heero looked up at Zechs as he walked into the room. The old…events still harbored some emotions to come up, but his respect for the soldier in front of him and past being past helped to cool over those emotions.
"There's no one else that I can trust to do this." It was obvious what they were talking about. The Zero was the one thing that the two of them knew they could let no one else every get near. It was most likely the darkest thing they could reintroduce the world to, but it was looking like they had no choice but to do it.
"Understood." With that they both sat down. The conversation they were about to have would be a long one. It was good that everyone else was busy, because the comparative visions of the Zero system were not something that anyone else needed to be privy to.
After all of their hard work, after all of the sacrifice to maintain the peace that they had fought so hard to obtain, even after removing both of them from society, a future that the ZERO had anticipated had still come to be; they were going to have to figure out what they had done wrong, and then see any possible way to change it with as little blood shed as possible. And that seemed near improbable…
Well, that's chapter seven. I have a strong suspicion that my chapters should start getting longer and longer as I have more of the story to tell and relate. I know most of you most likely hate me for the cliff hanger I'm leaving you with, but believe me, it was needed, and you'll see why soon. I would also like to point out that although this is being told from a predominantly Heero/Relena POV that there will be times when I will write from other characters as the story see's fit. I know in my last chapter that seeing Catherine used in that context was ind of weird, but you'll have to forgive me. I'm doing the best I can to take already developed characters and bring them past a point where I can begin to farther the development that the show began. I hope you'll bear with me on this.
And if you have it in you, please excuse the big time lapse that exist between my updating. My life is slightly busy, and I do the best I can with these updates.
I remain always, however,
Divinitas Intereo
* A big thanks to 2ScarletRibbons for seeing the mistake and letting me know. Again, appreciate it.
