Bred for Destiny, a Gundam Wing fanfic by Raberba girl
Act 21
A/N: ...Hi, guys. As you have probably figured, I can't finish this story properly. :/ But here's a little bit more that I managed to squeeze out before I gave up. I'll explain more at the end.
0-0-0
It had been shockingly easy.
There they had been, tensely planning their escape, and in the end all it took was keeping close to that boy, Wufei, and joining him in the Elevator. Sally had been wonderful at that part, bossily throwing around orders for all the soldiers and technicians to get back, and insisting on her official supervision as the Gundam pilot made his exit. Then it had just been a matter of calmly stepping into the Elevator with him at the last minute, and a minute later, there they were Otherside. At last, Relena was home...though with her father gone, it almost did not even feel like home anymore.
"Thanks for the ride," Sally said, appreciatively clapping Wufei on the shoulder.
He did not acknowledge her. Indeed, she wondered if he had even heard. The boy set off at once in a swift, loping stride, soon disappearing from sight.
"Let's go," Sally murmured to Relena, "before they start asking questions."
Sure enough, the Elevator techs were looking at them with confusion bordering on suspicion. "Who are you?"
"Escorts for 05," Sally told them confidently. "Didn't you get the memo?"
"We, er, did get authorization for 05's Elevator use, but-"
"Good, well done," Sally said smartly. "Carry on. Come, Relena, there's much to do." Like getting out of here intact! her smile seemed to add.
Relena followed obediently, feeling lost and out of her depth. Now that she was home, what was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to start revolutionizing the world for peace? Right now, all she wanted to do was go home, except that...home wasn't home anymore. Not without her father, the man she at least thought of as her father, to make her feel safe and loved. Still, she had not lost quite everything the way those poor Gundam pilots had.
"Sally, I want to see my mother."
0-0-0-0-0
By the time Wufei reached his home on foot, having no Otherside currency for transportation fare, that woman was gone. The surviving Alliance soldiers had gotten their injured hive queen to safety, removing themselves and their fallen comrades from the area before Otherside gawkers and authorities could move in.
"Wufei! Oh, my poor darling!" The middle-aged woman who lived three doors down ran to throw her arms around Wufei, rocking him like he was a child. "Oh, my dear Wufei, I am so, so sorry..."
"My grandmother," he demanded, pulling back. "Is she still alive? Did she-?"
The look on the woman's face was answer enough, but Wufei could not bring himself to accept it. He pushed past her and ran toward the remains of his home, which was swarming with police officers and firefighters. Off to one side, a still figure lay on a stretcher. "Grandmother!" Things got hazy after that.
0-0-0-0-0
"Quatre-sama! Is it really you?!"
"Hello, Ahmad," came the low, tired response.
"Where are you?! I'll pick you up right away!"
"I'm at the secret MS hangar near Enix High School..."
"How in the world did you get all the way over there!?"
"Forgive me, Ahmad. It is a long story, and I would prefer only having to tell it once."
"Yes, sir. Stay right there, Quatre-sama, we're coming for you!"
They found their young master sitting on the shoulder of a strange Gundam, his body hunched in despair, looking far older than his fifteen years. He seemed glad to see them, but his eyes were full of tears even as he smiled, as if he was greeting them at a funeral. They hovered around him protectively all the way home, up until the moment when all thirty-nine remaining Maganacs and many of their families were gathered around Quatre to hear his story.
"I have so much to tell you all..." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "First - do you all want to go home?"
They were already home, weren't they? Everyone looked around at the walls in confusion, until someone realized what Quatre meant. "You mean, to the future?!"
"I can only take one person at a time...and you can't bring very much with you...but-"
"Wait a minute, Quatre-sama. How exactly do you mean to do this?"
Quatre smiled humorlessly. However, before he could explain, the man continued.
"Because you do realize that we have our own time machine now, don't you?"
Quatre stared. "You- What?!"
0-0-0-0-0
Catherine Bloom squinted through the rain, trying to see if that really was a kid and not a lump of garbage sagging there behind the trash cans. "Hey...hey, are you all right?"
No response. She was just about to turn away when the thing suddenly shifted. The dark lump at the top proved to be hair, as it slid aside just enough for a sliver of face and a single green eye to become visible.
'Please, please, please don't be some kind of psycho.' "Do you need any help?"
The bedraggled young person made a soft grunt, which could have meant anything.
"What's your name?"
No response.
"Where do you live?"
Nothing.
"Do your parents-?"
Then he slipped to the ground, where he lay motionless.
"Hey!"
Two months later:
We were at a carnival or a circus or something, though not the one I worked at. I let Quatre drag me from one game or ride to another. He seemed as excited as a puppy at getting to finally spend some downtime with me.
"Look, Trowa, a ball toss! Try it, try it, let's see if you can beat me!"
I gamely laid down some money and picked up one of the balls. The game was rigged, of course, but with our enhanced abilities, Quatre and I quickly earned our way to the huge, gaudy stuffed animal prizes.
"Whoo hoo, I got a pink puppy! Choose that elephant, Trowa!" It was a shade of orange so offensive that it should have come with a warning label, but I picked it anyway. I knew it wouldn't matter. Sure enough, we ended up giving the prizes away to a couple of kids with longing expressions.
"The bumper cars next, Trowa! Come on, pleeeeaase?"
"I'm here for you, not me. We can go wherever you want."
"Yay!"
Five seconds into it, a black car came crashing out of nowhere, slamming into Quatre so hard that his vehicle slid several feet. "Duo!" Quatre shouted happily. "I'm gonna get you!"
"Ya think so?" Duo laughed, his eyes glinting with mischief. With a twist of the wheel, he disappeared.
That didn't seem to matter when Quatre zoomed into the empty space determinedly; sure enough, Duo yelped back into sight, then growled playfully and slammed his foot on the acceleration pedal.
I let them duke it out, choosing instead to cruise along the edges of the attraction, looking out at the colorful crowds.
There was suddenly a commotion, as people began to run and yell in panic. My eyes shot to the sky, where a huge shadow came swiftly approaching. Within seconds, it was dropping to earth, and I braced myself against the impact when a dragon came down for a heavy landing, crushing a popcorn stand from which its owner had fled, screaming, just seconds before.
I sighed and got out of the bumper car when I saw Hiiro come sliding down his strange mount and marching up to where I waited with a wide-eyed Quatre and Duo.
"We have a new mission," he announced brusquely, but I held up my hand.
"No, Hiiro. I'm done with this. I won't do the Alliance's dirty work anymore."
"Has to be you," he insisted stubbornly. "The target is Catherine Bloom. Shoot her with this." He handed me a candy cane.
I stared at it. "Um. Hiiro. I think there's a mistake."
"No, no!" Duo insisted gleefully. "It's OZ's new weapon, check it out!"
"Try it, Trowa, try it!" Quatre urged. When I did nothing, he grabbed the candy cane from my hand and fired it. The shot blasted a hole in the universe; I could see open sky beyond.
"Let's go!" Duo crowed, but a hand reached out to hold him back.
"Idiot. You can't fly without wings," Wufei said contemptuously, tossing a stack of them on the ground.
Then we had jumped through the hole and were flying, the five of us soaring through the air, except that our wings were made of Gundanium, and were far too heavy to keep us aloft.
"Help me!" I cried, reaching up for Quatre. For some reason, he and the others were able to hover there, watching me curiously as I fell.
"Flap your arms, Trowa!" Quatre urged, demonstrating. "Like this!"
"FLAPPING MY ARMS WILL NOT HELP ME FLY!" I screamed, but it was too late; I was plummeting faster and faster, falling and falling...no, time-traveling-
"WAKE UP, TROWA!"
Trowa groaned, wincing without opening his eyes as someone shook him enthusiastically.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up!"
"Triton, go away..."
The boy laughed and grabbed his arm, pulling mightily until Trowa finally climbed to his feet.
"C'mon! Cathy's making blueberry pancakes for breakfast."
"You didn't have to drag me out of bed for that..."
*permanently incomplete*
How the story ends:
It turns out that the G-boys' and Zechs's superpowers come from being synched with Gundams, which is different than being synched with normal mobile suits.
The ZERO system allows whatever MS it's installed in to time travel. (During the battle, the ZERO system in Trowa's suit had accidentally been activated, sending him back to Otherside where he has amnesia and got taken in by Catherine, like he does in canon.)
Treize and Lady Une make up.
Once everyone's ready, the Crisis happens when MS from the future invade the past. There's a big Final Battle, during which Treize and Midii get killed (Trowa was their biological son, btw, and Triton is the real 03 who'd been secretly sent to the past), and Zechs goes missing, presumed dead. (Zechs also, btw, happens to be a direct descendant of Hiiro & Relena.)
Oh, wait, my notes say that Midii helped Lady Une found the Preventers. Whatever. *sweatdrop* And did I ever get around to mentioning that Lady Une is one of Midii's clones (Midii had volunteered for an experiment)? Or that Midii's hair is blonde because she dyes it? Also, Midii is another descendant of Hiiro & Relena, which is why Trowa had the ability to pilot a Gundam.
The good guys end up winning, and Relena & Quatre pretty much take charge of things, she in the past and he in the future. The time machine was destroyed by the five scientists during the Final Battle, leaving Hiiro & Relena in the past, and the other four G-boys in the future.
At one point, Hiiro realizes that he and Relena were the same Hiiro & Relena who'd been assassinated in the history books he'd studied. He's eventually able to pull off some really complicated, multi-step mission involving time travel (remember that scene where he burst into the Elevator unexpectedly?), stops his child self from assassinating his future self and future Relena, and returns safely, where he kisses Relena and freaks out the Duo & co. from the past. XD
There was a lot more, but I don't think it's important, and my notes are a super-confusing mess, anyway. *sweatdrop*
Lol, I actually wrote what was supposed to be the very last line of the story, Hiiro heading home again after thwarting the assassination of himself and his wife:
For the last time, he activated the device, intending to destroy it when he got back. He smiled even through the Elevator's nausea, because all was now right with his world and he was heading back home, where Relena waited.
o.o.o
Author's Notes: I wrote Trowa's dream a looooong time ago, long long long before the rest of this chapter. And yes, that is Wing the dragon from Searching for the Sun Lands, making a cameo in Destiny.
So. Basically, I've been obsessed with Kingdom Hearts for three-and-a-half years, which is WAY longer than any of my other fandom phases have lasted, and my love for that series has shown no sign of fading. I can only assume that I've found my True Fandom or something - Kingdom Hearts is a perfect, generally high-quality blend of Disney, anime, speculative fiction in general, platonic love, crossovers, interesting characters and story, humor, overall good music, and adventure, which are pretty much the recreational things I love most; it's like I don't need any other entertainment when I've got Kingdom Hearts. Other phases have come and quickly gone in the meantime, but my obsession with KH has remained a constant.
What this means for my fandom life is that I've gotten to the point where I've simply lost interest in any fanwork, including my own, that's not Kingdom Hearts. *sweatdrop*
As for Bred for Destiny specifically, I've made repeated attempts to finish this story, because I HATE leaving things unfinished and I feel like I owe it to my readers to complete what I started posting. The thing is, I can't. My muses for everything except KH are all dead, trying to write anything non-KH feels like a huge chore, and it's difficult, there is no flow or inspiration. It's particularly difficult with Destiny because the plot is so frickin' complicated, it's a nightmare just trying to figure out where all the important characters are and what they're supposed to be doing next, much less keeping track of all the tangled threads and trying to resolve every subplot. Basically, I can't do it. :/ I have to give up; and for that, I apologize very much...
On one hand, I'm kind of mad at myself for starting Bred for Destiny - before that, I had retired from fanfiction, and I wish I'd stayed retired so I could focus on my original stories. Unfortunately, one thing led to another, and I'm now obsessed with writing Kingdom Hearts fanfiction, and have a very difficult time seeing myself able to retire from fanfiction again, even though I surely won't be writing fanfics even when I'm middle-aged and/or elderly, will I? o.O I hope not...
Aside from that, though, I am glad for the experience. Working on Bred for Destiny taught me that fantastic as time travel is, it's also SUPER-HARD to write. XD Next time I do time travel, I will definitely pay much closer attention to what I'm doing and plot it out very well, and in a very organized fashion, ahead of time. I can't let it get hopelessly out of control the way it did with this story. I did learn a lot from working on this fic, for which I'm grateful.
I'll probably be doing something similar with Searching for the Sun Lands, ending the fic prematurely by tacking on a lame conclusion. Sun Lands is nowhere near as complicated as Destiny is, but I still don't have the energy to finish it properly. Sorry, guys...
My final message to you readers is that I very much appreciate all your interest and support! You have my deepest apologies for failing you. I hope that the Gundam Wing fandom treats you well, and I wish you all the best in your own writing endeavors!