Chapter Four
By Wing_zero_pilot
www.geocities.com/wing_zero_pilot195
Nope,
I don't own Gundam Wing or anything else already owned by Sotsu Agency and its
affiliates. And all those other people
who claim to own Gundam Wing. If I did own GW, I wouldn't be writing
this. It would be a full-feature
movie!!!!!!
A.C. 189
L1 Colony
Secret
Gundam Pilot Training Camp
That blasted boy is at it again! Doctor
J thought as he raced down corridor after corridor, trying to muster up enough
pilots to fight off the attacker who was trying to board the colony.
There's no doubt about it. That's Two attacking! Doctor J frowned. He must be after the Gundam!
Sprinting
down the hallway came One, headed towards the Gundam's hangar bay. Doctor J smiled as he thought of what would
happen next.
Waving
at a passing lieutenant, Doctor J assumed a serious tone. "You, over there!"
"Yes,
sir?" The twenty-year-old officer
saluted him.
"I
want you to cancel the orders for deployment of all the pilots, except for
One."
"Uh,
are you sure that's wise, sir?"
"Absolutely. Contact One and tell him to report
immediately to Hangar Zero-One-Alpha. Tell him to use his own suit."
"What? His own suit?"
"He'll
know what I mean."
"Hey,
you! One!" The young officer soon flagged down the
ten-year-old pilot. It wasn't that
hard, considering he was the only
ten-year-old in the secret installation.
"What
is it? I'm busy." The young child's tone was completely devoid
of emotion, save for a hint of annoyance.
"It's
Doctor J. He's ordered all other pilots
except you to not engage the target attacking. He wants you to use, uh, your
suit. I believe that was his
message." Shifting his weight
about awkwardly, the lieutenant obviously found it strange to be ordering
around a ten-year-old, much less saluting one, which he did as soon as he
stopped talking.
"Understood." Turning around on the heel of his right
foot, he sprinted away towards the Zero-One-Alpha hangar bay.
"I
truly hope that kid knows what he's doing."
A.C. 204
Former Sanc
Kingdom Capitol Newport City
"Are
the repairs finished yet?" Heero
looked up from the medical cot he was lying in at Relena. His entire torso and right arm had sustained
significant wounds during his fight with Two a few days ago.
Smiling,
Relena sat down at the foot of Heero's bed.
"No,
not yet. The technicians say they'll
need your help for a majority of the repairs. You've changed so much of the inner workings of the suit that the
original plans don't really apply anymore. At least that's what they tell me."
"Well,
it is Duo who's heading the repair process. It sounds like something he would say." Looking out the window to avoid Relena's puzzled gaze, he turned
his attention on a pair of birds chriping away incessantly on a nearby
branch. One of the birds was trying
over and over to get the other's attention, but to no avail. The other bird just kept on looking away at
the sky.
I know how you feel, poor bird, Relena
thought to herself. Unsure of whether
Heero had just tried to tell a joke or not, she quickly changed the subject.
"What
do you plan on doing, when the repairs are finished? Are you going to wait for the Earth Sphere Intelligence Agency to
get data on what kind of forces this Two has in store for you and the other
Gundam pilots?"
"Considering
the ESIA's name is more of a contradiction with what it is in charge of, the
answer is no. We have to act now,
before he can rebuild any more forces than he already has."
That,
of course, was referring to the massive amounts of Taurus, Virgo, Virgo II, and
even Serpent mobile doll troops had suddenly appeared around the once-abandoned
Lunar Base from OZ's glory days. It was
very surprising, considering there was only one person responsible for the
reconstruction, reprogramming, and reconditioning of that many suits in such
little time.
"Yes,
I suppose you're right." Trailing
off, Relena watched in amazement as the two birds finally began to chirp
together, side by side, outside the window.
A premonition, perhaps? Or is it merely a glimpse of what I hope to
happen between Heero and myself?
"I
know how you are about battles, Heero. I know you won't hesitate to use the self-detonation on your mobile
suit."
"What
do you mean?"
"I'm
having the self-detonator in your suit removed, Heero. I won't have you killing yourself just to
settle the score with this enemy from your past."
"Hmmm
. . . You were right about one thing,
Relena."
"What
was that, Heero?"
"In
the past, I wouldn't have hesitated to self-detonate. Now, however, after going through it twice, I've been having
second thoughts about it."
"What? Do you really mean that, Heero?"
"Yes,
I do. After this battle, if we win, I
will have something to come back to, something guaranteed to me."
"What's
that?"
Turning
back to face her, he gazed into her eyes with his own Prussian-blues.
"Peace."
After
getting out of his medical bed, Heero went directly to the primary repair
hangar, underground. Upon seeing the
sheer number of technical crews hard at work trying to figure his single suit
out, he became very annoyed.
What a waste of manpower. I'm only 24 years old, and it would take me
less than a day to finish all these repairs. The only parts damaged were the arms, torso, and battle computer
systems. It's not as though I'm
rebuilding the whole thing again.
Frowning,
he pulled one of the senior techs aside.
"I
want you to send these men back to something they know how to do," he said to the man impatiently.
"Sir?
These are among the best technicians
and engineers in the Earth Sphere."
"I
don't care," Heero replied dispassionatly. "I will finish the repairs myself."
"Are
you sure--" Then, looking at
Heero's death-glare for a while, the man simply left it at that. He ran off, issuing orders as he went. Flagging down another senior tech, he looked
back at his damaged suit as he spoke.
"I
want to know exactly what you have
done to this suit so far."
"I
tell you what, that Heero is something else!" Duo said as he stretched out
in the hallways outside of Relena's office.
"What
do you mean by that, Duo?" Hilde asked from the bench where she sat. She motioned for him to sit next to her.
Duo
happily complied. "Well, first, he
just got out of the medical bay, right? So, right after the doctor tells him to go
home and get some rest, he marches straight into the repair bay, orders all of the techs out, and tells me to
scram! Talk about being
ungrateful!" Slouching, he put his
elbows on the back of the bench. Leaning
his head back, he shut his eyes, frowning.
"You
know as well as I do that that's just the way he is," Hilde
countered. "You knew that he would
do just what he did. Face it. You were asking for it!"
"Well,
you're a lot of help."
Both
heads turned as the door to Relena's office opened. From her meeting with Quatre's Maganac Corps, she did not look happy. The thirty-odd soldiers looked as though
they had just been through a rough interrogation, Rasid especially.
"Hey,
what's up guys? What's the matter? You look pretty bad." Duo tried to help, but the Maganacs didn't
seem to want any help getting cheered up.
"Relena
happened," answered Abdul, looking morose. "She sure blistered our ears for keeping our mobile
suits! If I were you, I'd run before
she gets ahold of you!"
"C'mon
guys! It's Relena, for God's sake! How bad could it have been?"
It
wasn't long until Duo had to eat his words. After getting called into her office, Relena paced about in front of the
massive windows that made up an entire wall of the room. She was quiet, but forceful. Very
forceful.
Walking
through the corridor, waiting for Relena, Heero only caught bits and pieces of
her lecture to Duo and Howard.
"I
would hate . . . this to you . . . if . . . ever find . . . you've . . . mobile
suit . . . arrested. Understood?"
Heero's
eyes widened. Never, ever had he heard
Relena threaten anyone with arrest before. She'd never even so much as spoken a single bad word about anyone, save for certain OZ soldiers, but
now she was threatening Duo and Howard--two of the people she trusted the
most--with arrest!
Times certainly have taken their toll on
Relena, Heero thought. She certainly isn't as naive as she was when
I first met her.
After
the door to her office opened wide, Duo, Hilde, and Howard marched out of the
room. Duo's eyes were opened very wide
and Howard's jaw still hadn't quite yet recovered from the shock. It still hung open.
"Enjoy
your talk with Relena?" Heero asked casually, tossing a glimpse at the
three poor souls.
"Smartass,"
Duo answered. "You're lucky. Your suit was sponsored by the Earth
Sphere."
"I
never thought the girl had it in her, to be honest." Mouth still agape, Howard pushed his
sunglasses back up to the top of his nose.
"Even
I know better to go behind Relena's back nowadays," Heero said
matter-of-factly.
"Hey! I had nothing to do with the reconstruction
of my suit! It was all Howard!"
"I
know."
"What?" His jaw dropping even more, Howard looked
straight at Heero. "How did you
know? It was just me and my crew
working on that suit! We had maximum
secrecy!"
"It
wasn't your security. When Duo came in
his Gundam, I knew that he couldn't have rebuilt it without bragging to
someone. Thus, the only other people
with access to the complete technical readouts on the Gundams were the five
scientists, Dekim Barton, Cannes, Treize Kushrenada, who are all dead, myself,
and you, Howard. I remember when you
pulled the technical plans to the Wing Zero on the Peacemillion. I didn't have to think very hard to believe
that you had done the same with the rest of the Gundams, as well."
"Well,
how did you know I pulled the plans?"
"Nothing
gets by my notice when it comes to accessing my Gundam's database."
"Oh. I wondered what that unaccessable algorithm
was in your computer. Must have been
one of those non-erasable recording programs that show everything accessed on
the Gundam's computer. I remember installing
something like that in the Peacemillion."
"Except
mine wasn't easy to hack into."
"Yeah--Hey!"
Before
Howard could yell at him any more, Heero entered Relena's office and shut the
door.
"You
wanted to see me?"
Looking
up from her laptop monitor on her desk, Relena smiled wearily. "Yes, Heero. I want you to look at this."
Walking
over to her desk, Heero turned the laptop around, looking intensely at the
screen.
"Two."
"Yes. He's attacked another metropolitan
area. This time it was Brussels. The Earth Sphere President made it out with a
few scrapes and bruises, but the rest of the population wasn't so lucky."
"How
many casualties?"
"Nearly
two and a half million. This time he
used a twenty-five Virgo mobile dolls and fifty Serpents."
"He
relies on mobile dolls as the primary part of his offensive and defensive
forces. He's no better than OZ or White
Fang."
"Heero,
there's something different about these mobile dolls. Their capabilities don't match those of the past mobile doll
systems. In fact, they are much, much
higher."
That got Heero's attention. "What do you mean?"
"Well,
one of the mobile dolls landed hard enough on the ground that the legs were
damaged. It couldn't lift off or even
walk. We managed to get a good look at
it before it self-detonated. Somehow,
it knew that it had been captured. It
thus took certain actions, for confidentiality purposes, I believe."
"What
did the crews find?"
"I
don't know how he did it, but he managed to adapt something vaguely similar to
the ZERO system into the computer systems of the mobile dolls. Don't ask me for the details. I only know what the senior technician said
in the transmission before the suit went off. Its explosion killed the entire work crew, so his transmission was the
only data we have on these advanced mobile dolls."
"Hmmm
. . . ZERO system and mobile
dolls." Standing straight again,
Heero looked straight at Relena. "I need to ask a favor of you, Relena."
"Absolutely,
Heero. Ask anything." Hope filled her eyes as she looked back into
Heero's.
"I
want you to call the other Gundam pilots. Tell them that I'll be going alone on this mission. They are not
to accompany me."
"What?! What if you become injured? What if those advanced mobile dolls damage
your suit to the point where you can't fight Two? He'll kill you!"
"Perhaps. Also, I want you to have a full spread of
cannons and beam weapons prepared."
"Heero,
you know I can't--"
"Listen. Should I fail, you will be forced to
completely raze the moon's surface. Nothing else will stop Two. Not
even the other pilots."
"Are
you sure Heero? Are you certain that
the others can't--" Looking at his
icy-cold stare, she trailed off.
"Do
you really think the others would stand a chance against me in the Wing Zero
with a full complement of those advanced mobile dolls at my disposure?"
"Oh. I see."
"I
believe you do. That's why I'm asking
you, Relena. Only you and I can truly
see Two's destructive capabilities with that kind of firepower. Do what you must, but be sure to be
prepared. Given the fact that he has
already defeated me once, it's highly likely that he'll do so again. You must be ready."
"I
will, Heero. I promise."
Ploping
himself down on the nearest bed, Quatre sighed contently as old memories of the
last time he stayed there flooded his mind.
It's been such a long time since then. It almost seems like a dream, like it
happened to someone else.
But it didn't happen to someone
else. It happened to me.
Getting
up and turning off the air conditioner, he let an easy smile bloom onto his face.
So much has changed! Last time I was here, OZ still existed, we
were constantly in one battle after another . . .
He
let his mind trail off for a while, thinking of what times were like those nine
years ago.
KNOCK KNOCK!
His
smile began to wane. Sighing, he knew
who it was before he even answered the door.
And Dorothy didn't follow me everywhere I
went. Then again, she was pretty much
obsessed with stalking Heero at the time, so it's no wonder she never noticed
me until after the wars.
Opening
the door, he had to muster up as much of his diplomatic prowess as he could to
avoid shutting the door in her face.
After such a long day, I'd hope to find some
peace, to nap for a while.
Looking
at her eyes gleaming below those eerie split-eyebrows of hers, he forced
himself to smile.
Then again, if I can't get rid of her by
living in the desert, how can I expect to lose her here on the shorelines?
"Yes
Miss Dorothy?"
"Hello
Master Quatre. I noticed that it has
been a long day for you. I fixed you your
usual herbal tea, just like you like it." Holding a tray with a steaming cup in a [trembling?] hand out in
front of her, she smiled.
"Thank
you, Miss Dorothy." Stunned,
Quatre took the cup off the tray.
Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong
point of view, he thought. I know she's not out to annoy me. I'm just . . .
His
mind searched for a word to properly describe how he felt around her, but
couldn't find it right away. Smiling
back to her, he sipped at the tea in his hand, leaning on the doorway with his
right shoulder.
"Mmmm
. . . What blend is this? I don't believe I've had this kind
before."
"It's
a special plant, found only in this area, Master Quatre. I took the liberty of preparing it
myself."
Realization
dawned on Quatre. Wait a minute! I know what
she's been trying to do!
"Thank
you, Miss Dorothy. You have been more
help today than you know."
All this time, I thought she was trying to
outdo the other employees of the company, when, in fact, she was trying to
impress me!
"If
that's all, then, I'll be on my way," Dorothy said, turning around. Quatre thought he saw a glimmer of liquid at
the corners of her eyes, but he couldn't be sure. Placing his cup of exotic tea on the nearest table in the room,
he walked behind her.
"Wait,
Dorothy."
"Yes,
Master Quatre?" she asked, not daring to turn around, lest she reveal her
weakness.
"Would
you like to take a walk? Together?" Smiling, he put
his right hand on her left shoulder.
"Yes,
yes I would," she replied, turning back around. Tears began to trace lines over her face, but they were not tears
of sadness.
Offering
her his arm, he walked up beside her. As she slipped her arm underneath his, she smiled bravely.
Then,
at that exact moment in time, Quatre noticed something. In all the time he had lived, nothing had ever seemed just so right to him.
"Dorothy?"
he said to her, almost at a whisper.
"Yes,
Master Quatre?"
"You
can stop calling me 'Master.' If you
want to, of course."
