A Gundam Wing Fanfic: Twilight's End
by Celestialmew
Disclaimer: I receive no money or profit of any kind by this endeavor except the satisfaction of writing. All Gundam Wing trademarks belong to their respective owners. (You lucky persons, you...) Suing a poor, starving artist will not be in your best interest, and make you unpopular. My work may be distributed as long as my name and e-mail address (sorka318@aol.com) is included.
Author's note: A tip of the hat to the careful fan who figured out some of the Gundam pilots' histories on his or her own... Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone! (It's the real millennium! There is no Year "0".) If you have comments, found a typo or plot hole, intelligent flames, or critique, don't hesitate to send a review in.
CHAPTER THREE
The escape pod docked in a terran airport. The first rays of sunrise spilled across the hard, uninviting concrete. The spacecraft touched down, and the passengers spilled out. A woman with a clipboard took their names in turn.
"Your names?" she asked, when Hilde and Duo came up in the line.
"Duo Maxwell," the boy with the braid answered swiftly.
"Hilde Maxwell," the girl replied when the lady looked at her. Hilde arranged the little girl with them in her arms more comfortably. She tapped the child on the nose with a smile.
"What's your name, honey?" she inquired warmly. The dark-haired girl blinked shyly. She spoke very quietly and with a slight lisp.
"Allissa...," the girl replied and paused before adding, "Gartinez."
Duo came forward with an explanation. "They were our coworkers, but died by suffocation. We'll be caring for her."
"Noted," the woman said perfunctorally, "Move along."
The couple made their way through the airport's crowd and eventually arrived at the gates. Hilde was going to protest Duo's brash statement as he had not consulted her about it, but was too weary to argue. They were forced to share a room in a nearby hotel with another person off the L3 colony.
They had nothing to unpack. The trio went down to the lobby for the breakfast they had missed, and invited the man politely. He nodded vacantly, and followed them. Everyone ordered their meals and sat down at a name.
"So," Duo said between mouthfuls of pancakes, "What's your name, buddy?"
"Joseph Yhetto, but you can just call me Mr. Yhetto," he answered politely. The man picked at his eggs without much hunger. His story came tumbling out after a few minutes of awkward silence. They hung on his words.
"I worked as a custodian on the L3 colony. One minute, I was doing my job, the next, boom! We had crashed into another colony. Everyone went haywire trying to figure out what was happening. I was cleaning up in the science station, I was. Found some odd-ands-ends and took them before getting the hell out of that thing," Joseph said. He looked around to make sure no one was looking, and dug in his pocket for the objects.
He set out a strange tool, a crumpled note, two very small disks and a box no bigger than a quarter. "I had my suspicions when those phony technicians came in, and I stuck around to see what was up."
Allissa watched all this silently without saying anything. Hilde picked up the items, turning them over and around. "I run a scrapyard business. I can tell you what they are. This is a welder, and this disk is blank. They go into the main core of a colony."
Duo unfolded the note, reading it while she sorted through the objects. "This doesn't make any sense at all."
Note:
prjct rthqk cmplt. 32 dn fr. prjct strm t b cmpltd. CT 5 0 1. cslnr rbt dn fr. KT.
"That's what I thought," Joseph replied, shaking his head.
Hilde tapped the second disk with her finger lightly and announced, "This one does have something on it though. The adhesive is dark inside. I can't open the box and it doesn't rattle."
"Can we keep these items, Mr. Yhetto? They might be important to us," Duo asked, turning to the other man.
"Sure. Won't do me a bit of good," he said.
Hilde smiled at him, "Thanks."
He nodded, stood up, and went back to the room. The couple turned to each other, unsure of what to make of their latest discovery or what to do about it. Hilde took the items in her hands and the trio headed back up to the room. Alissa trailed behind them, still strangely mute.
Unbeknownst to them, a boy with green eyes and pale hair had strained to overhear the conversation at the other table. His eyes widened, and he left the hotel quickly.
Heero followed behind Relena down the stairs to the landing. He had touched their stolen escape pod down near a building and into an empty garage-like room. He shut the large door and locked it with a tapped code. They were in the middle of a town and he wanted them out of view as soon as possible.
He went up to the door and reached out to open it. Relena moved alongside him, wanting to just get inside a building.
There was the crack of gunfire. Heero spun around, looking for the attacker. Relena gasped, clutching at her ribs, her breathing with a labored edge of pain to it. He swore, seeing her collapse and caught her before she fell to the ground.
A movement caught his eye, and he saw a person sprint down the street wildly. He wasn't sure whether the shot had been intended for her or for him. Heero crushed down his urge to run after the hitman, stifled an anger that rarely showed itself. Relena needed his immediate attention.
He worried if the bullet had punctured her lung or not. The blood that stained her nice dress said it was too low to have hit her heart. He picked her up in his arms, and put her on a couch hurriedly. This was an acquaintance's house he had secured in case there was an emergency. He got a cellphone out of his pack, and dialed 911.
Relena wheezed and coughed weakly. He turned her head to face him to see if there was any blood. Thankfully, there was none. Heero got out a first aid kit that he had remembered to put in his backpack at the last minute. He got out bandaging tape.
"Heero...?" she asked quietly.
"Sshhh. Breathe evenly and don't move around or panic," he said evenly, "It'll inflame the wound."
He ripped the dress near the wound was, and peeled the bloodstained fabric away. He wrapped the bandaging around her midsection, being careful not to jostle her too much. He applied pressure with his hands to try to stop the bleeding, and waited. The seconds ticked by in an eternity.
"Did you give anyone a cause for shooting at you?" he asked.
"I can't think of one..." she mumbled, her eyes closing.
Heero grabbed his wrist with his hand, feeling for her pulse. Still strong. He looked relieved and leaned over her protectively. He could hear multiple sirens wailing in the distance. Within a minute, a medical team came in, and moved her onto a stretcher. A doctor interrogated him as he followed them.
"It's a bullet wound, near her ribs... yes, I applied first aid myself, and I know what I'm doing... my name is Heero Yuy," he answered flatly, "No, I didn't see what the attacker looked like."
He ignored the rest of the persistent doctor's questions, and stepped into the ambulance along with the medical team. A few assistants gave him sharp looks, but didn't protest. Heero stayed near her, his eyes straying to the instruments they were using to monitor her. Her heartbeat was normal.
The ambulance's engine came on again, and it rolled down the street toward the hospital.
The air was thick and a balmy breeze swept through a circus tent. Only a few lights were up still to pierce the darkness. Trowa sat on a bench in the audience, his elbows on his knees. He was deep in thought.
Catherine came up behind him. He didn't acknowledge her right away. She sat down beside him quietly.
"Is something bothering you?" she asked, breaking the silence.
He flinched at the noise. Her voice seemed very loud in the dusky twilight before dawn. "Maybe."
"What's on your mind, Trowa?" she pursued further.
He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes full of mixed emotions. Everything seemed to be trying to hit him at once suddenly, and he found his dark past bubbling up to meet him again. I used to be called Nanashi, no-name, before I took a dead man's name... Then I found out I had a blood relative I never knew about, Quatre snapped at me, I found out some disturbing information, and I'm not sure how I feel about anything anymore.
He wanted to say that, but all those words didn't make their way out. Her kindness urged him to say something though. "A friend pushed me away, that's all. And I just have some things on my mind..."
"Like what?" she asked brightly. Her warm voice was a sharp contrast to his melancholy one.
"Finding out I had a sister was something of a shock," he replied.
"Oh," she said.
They were quiet for a long time. Both were looking at the sun peek out over the horizon, painting the sky in colors of pale white and yellow and a rosy pink. Catherine fidgeted, uncomfortable. She knew he wasn't telling her something; he'd been avoiding it for years. "Anything else?"
"You know I stayed with mercenaries when I was young... that was all I knew. It was hard and brutal, but I didn't let it affect me. When I was ten, someone - t-they..." he had started out at a whisper, and now his voice dragged on until it was barely audible. She had to put her head close to his to catch the words.
Her eyes shimmered with both pity and sympathy, and she couldn't say anything for a while. All those times he had been so reluctant, and quiet, afraid someone would hurt him again... Catherine put her arm around his shoulders and squeezed him. "I'm sorry, Trowa."
"You can't change history," he said, accepting the inevitable, and stood up.
She nodded to that, and stayed seated.
Wufei was living a quiet, uneventful life back in China. He had a roomy house and dwelled in it himself aside from a rather neglected cat. He balanced a job of sorting through texts and books, writing manuscripts or reports, or acting as a clerk for different people who hired him. He lived near the village of his youth. No one would have guessed that he would have ever been a clan leader or a Gundam pilot. That was the way he wanted it.
A stack of papers, a calculator, and various tomes and essays littered his desk. He had woken up early that morning, and was currently fixing breakfast himself. Eggs sizzled on the stove.
He turned on the television and let it play on in the background as he walked back to the kitchen, silently mouthing the words to the report in his hands. A cat trailed at his heels, mewing for attention. Wufei flipped over the egg and slid it onto a plate. He was still reading the paper to himself when some words from the television caught his attention.
"Last night, the two colonies of L2 and L3 were found to have collided with each other. Scientists have declared this impossible, and say a malfunction in the engines that guide it may have occurred. We know now that as many as 200,000 have lost their lives, and the count isn't final yet..."
He hummed musingly to himself and thought, huh! That's odd. I'll have to look into that sometime.
Wufei sat down at his desk, still carrying his paper and his breakfast. He slid some of the clutter aside and ate, focusing on his work again. The ordeal didn't even cross his mind again for the rest of the morning.
Heero put his hand against the glass that separated him and Relena. They had chased him out while they were performing surgery. He had obstinately refused to stay in the waiting room, and an exasperated staff left the boy undisturbed.
He rested his head against the glass and murmured her name, as he had many times during his years. It helped keep him going, gave him some spark of inspiration.
He turned at the gait of someone else coming down the hallway quickly. Milliardo Peacecraft came up beside him, and eyed him with both wariness and speculation. They may have fought as allies last time, but challenges died hard.
"What are you doing here, Yuy?" he inquired, his words lacking warmth.
Heero's expression became wooden. He looked at the man he had known as Zechs in a time before. He said without a tremble in his voice, "If you are suggesting I hurt her, your suspicions are misplaced. I love her."
Milliardo took a step backward, clearly startled. His long blonde hair swayed around his knees. But his gaze did not lose its edge nor its doubt.
"If you did... anything to my sister, you'll never - " he began angrily, before being cut off by the arrival of a docter. He hissed softly, "If I find out you tried anything funny..."
Heero sighed, and gave Milliardo a flat look. He wasn't intimidated by unspoken threats or this man although he had no doubt he was dangerous. An irate relative is the last thing I need to deal with.
"I'll protect her as you would," he said mildly. You, who attempted to destroy her before as I have, overcome by your urge for glory, for repentance in your actions, and only ended by making them worse. I'm a hypocrite, no better than you.
They stood apart from each other, both accepting the unspoken truce if unhappily. Milliardo sighed, and pulled up an uninviting metal chair to sit in.
"Tell me what happened," he said and not as a request.
Heero said in monologue, "We got off the L2 colony once the L3 crashed into it. An assassin was shooting at either her or me, and I got her medical help as soon as possible."
"Do you know why?" he asked.
Heero turned to him then, a wry, ironic smile on his lips. "Grudges last a long time, and we aren't exactly popular. You should know that, Milliardo."
Milliardo crossed his arms, and made a "humph" noise. It wasn't a satisfactory explanation to him, but he accepted it. For the time being.
He turned back to Relena, his thoughts swirling. Try as he might, Heero hadn't yet untangled the problem, and that bothered him incessantly.
Quatre couldn't stand being in his own home. As large and well-furnished as his mansion was, it also appeared empty aside from him. There were many places someone could hide or avoid one - and that was exactly what his sisters were doing. Or they found some excuse to leave the room.
He sat in a plush crimson chair, staring out a window that showed the expanse of the desert. Iria has always stood up for me, and little Yasine always trusted me unconditionally... where did I go wrong? I was born out of a test tube, and I'm a newtype. An unlikely and unwanted mutation.
The Maganacs aren't around anymore. They left their 'Master Quatre' after the war ended. He was a well-off member of the Winner family, anyway, and lived with two of his loving sisters. What need have he of friends? Well, Rashid visits every once in a while. Quatre sighed.
He was feeling out-of-sorts and depressed. He carried a burden on his soul; that of neglect of knowledge. He was partly responsible for a lot of things. For example, he knew the Zero System had been reproduced and used even though the Windzero Gundam was destroyed.
He also knew of an underground organization that trained newtypes, and had said nothing of that either. And he knew something had come of it. His mind wandered on an occurrence of years past...
Quatre was looking out through a panel of glass on the shuttle pensively. He had always felt an affinity toward space and those it held, felt it beckoned to him. It was just his wild imagination, he knew.
A Maganac came in and stood near them. He smiled at him and asked, "Have you heard of a newtype before?"
If it were anyone else but Quatre, he would have been offended. He had received a thorough education in history. "Of course," he answered.
"Good," the soldier nodded to himself, pleased. The duster on his fezz bobbed. "I'd like to introduce you to someone. Quatre, meet Kito."
A boy with blonde hair so pale it was almost white stepped into the room shyly. He dusted off his labcoat self-consciously, and bowed a little. His dark green eyes seemed to hold some deep secret or grief, but his smile seemed real. One of his hands was clenched into a fist, and held behind his back.
"Hi," Quatre said, not sure of what to make of the other. His body language was all conflicting.
The Maganac continued and said, "Kito is a registered newtype."
The boy's smile seemed to broaden slightly, and he moved a lock of hair behind his ear. "I'm eleven. I accidentally killed two men in training by making them brain-dead. They said I was advanced for my age."
"That's nothing to be proud of!" Quatre gasped, "Who trained you?"
The man who had introduced them quietly left the room. He remembered later on that the man's name had been Azeli, and he had died in battle after that.
"You're right," Kito said, "It's terrible. But they were hurting me and made me cry. I didn't control myself. I can teach you to control yourself."
"What do you mean!?" he said, not liking this at all.
The other boy sat down in a chair, his smile fading. His eyes twinkled with amusement though. He knew when he had an avid listener. "You're a newtype too."
Quatre pushed his goggles back onto his forehead. His first impulse was not to respond. He had always known something was off, but could never put his finger on it. Now he wished he had never learned. Kito leaned closer. "Don't deny it, Quatre."
"I'm not," he protested.
"You were going to," the boy pointed out, too close for comfort. Quatre rubbed his hands together, put off-balance.
"Hey, tell you what, I'll let you think on what I said. You could learn... the organization will accept you and you can help us with many things..." Kito said, smiling timidly. He was still leaning close as if hoping to convince the other boy though.
Quatre looked at him, horror and pity warring in him. "No! Say nothing more and let me be."
"Just think about what I said, Master Quatre," the boy said with mock cheer and passiveness, exiting the room.
It was early noontime. Hilde softly sang a lullaby to Allissa, and the little girl fell asleep a few minutes later. The child was exhausted and grieving inside. Mr. Yhetto had gone out to deliver his and their resumees to prospective businesses.
On the edge of the other bed, Duo sat studying the note, a dictionary open in his lap. It was a poorly designed code with only the vowels taken out, and the handwriting was written fast and sloppily. Someone had been in a hurry when they wrote it.
"Here's what I've got so far, Hilde," he said, showing her a separate piece of paper.
Project rthqk complete. 32 dn four. Project storm to be completed. CT 5 0 1. cislunar rbt dn four. KT.
"Change the 'four' to 'for'" she said, catching that quickly, "It's 'done for.'"
"I should have seen that..." he said, correcting the mistakes, "The 'r-t-h-q-k', '32' and the 'KT' baffles me."
"Kite or kit?" Hilde offered.
"I'll try it," he said, scribbling the possible choices down on paper. He tossed the pencil down, and picked up the hotel phone. "Ah, I'll come back to it later. Come on, let's get something to munch on from room service."
"We don't have any money," she pointed out.
"Refugees are getting free meals here. Someone else is paying for it," he said with a smirk and ordered their lunch.
She made a noncommittal noise, and wrapped her arms around him after he was done. Duo looked down at her, his relaxed attitude that was his mask slipping for a moment as he remembered everything.
At least he still had his wife, alive. He had no idea if Heero and Relena were okay. He remembered seeing them together, and would have ordinarily been grinning and teasing him not-quite friend about finally getting his act together. His brown eyes showed his worry, but he comforted Hilde with a smile and casual, careless words and jibes to distract her mind.
She smiled with him, and for a moment he didn't have to pretend at optimism or good cheer.
"I'm so happy you're with me, Hilde," he said quietly, "I love you."
"I love you too, Duo," she replied, looking up at him.
The little girl had sat up now, and was crying. The couple had reminded her that she never heard her parents say that, and how her parents were gone. Duo was there before Hilde was, and rested Alissa on his shoulder, rocking her side to side. He patted her back gently.
"Sshhh, sshhh, it'll be OK. We'll watch after you. Everything will be OK, just cry all those annoying little fears out of your pretty little head," he murmured to her. The child's sobs quieted down after several minutes.
Hilde stood off to the side, and held her arms out for the little girl. He handed her to her and, Hilde tucked her back into bed. Duo went over to stare out the window as Allissa fell back asleep. He had on his cheek, lost in thought. His wife joined him for lack of anything better to do, and said nothing.
They sat like that, their shoulders barely touching, watching the traffic and the people roam across the streets.
To be continued...