Disclaimer: I don't own GW, I don't claim to own it. If I did, certain of my friends would kill me for only making 49 eps. ;)
Brink of the Valley
by: Epyon Zero
As the battleship Peacemillion moved through the infinite blackness of space, one of its occupants was on a journey of his own. Duo Maxwell floated in one of the observation lounges, looking out into space and into his own mind. He had quite a lot to think about.
In just less than 24 hours he and his fellow Gundam pilots would go out into the biggest battle in all of human history. The problem was that they were basically stuck between the two sides. On one side was the Earth, led by Treize Krushrenada. On the other was White Fang, led by Zechs Merquise, a.k.a. Milliardo Peacecraft. The Gundams and their allies were stuck in the middle. As if this wasn't enough there was also the fact that some of Duo's fellow pilots had some unfinished business with people in both sides of the brewing storm.
Heero Yuy, the suicidal pilot of Wing Zero - and Duo's best friend - had a long-standing animosity toward Zechs that was mutually reciprocated. Both men were mobile suit pilots in a class by themselves, even Duo could see this and he knew that he was a suburb pilot. Both of them possessed piloting skills of a like never seen, and both of them also possessed Gundams that had the Zero system. The ability of both of them to control the dangerously unpredictable system showed, more than anything, just how good they both were. "Those two" Duo muttered "Are going to kill each other and whatever the hell else gets between them."
Heero wasn't the only pilot who had business to complete. Wufei, the hide bound pilot of Altron, also had a score to settle, but his score was with Treize. That one too went back a way. Just after OZ had started to take over the world Wufei had tried to take Treize out. He'd accepted and lost to the man in a sword duel. That hadn't gone over too well, since the Chinese boy was a bit high strung on that sort of thing. So that had festered for a long time and Duo suspected that it would come to a head fairly soon.
The last problem related to the pilots had nothing to do with a person, per se, it had more to do with something that had happened. Quatre had been acting funny since he'd had to use the Zero system to help them beat the Mobile Dolls. Something during that battle had affected the blond, and no one was sure just what, not even Trowa, who seemed to share a lot with the little Arab.
Duo shook his head again, the braid swinging in the zero gravity environment. It was just their kind of luck. Not only did they have to fight, they had to fight both sides but they'd picked fights with the leaders of both sides. To top things off there were the numbers. Earth had about 45 thousand mobile suits, the centerpiece being Treize's Tallgeese II. White Fang had around 25 thousand mobile suits, but theirs were upgraded Virgo Mobile Dolls, they also had Libra backing them up. That piece of work was covered in weapons, and had a beam cannon that could fry a colony. The centerpiece for the White Fang though was Epyon. The red suit had been built by Treize and piloted by Heero, until he'd traded it for Wing Zero. Duo had fought against the devil suit and it hadn't been pleasant. It had seemed as if the suit was alive, some great demon come to wreak havoc on the universe, not a piece of human crafted technology. Against this, there were the five Gundams and Peacemillion, although the space battleship had no weapons whatsoever. Those were long odds by any standard.
Looking down at the chronometer built into the arm of his flight suit Duo floated out of the lounge and into the corridor. He had some things to do and almost no time to speak of.
"What put me here?" Duo thought. "Was it destiny, fate, or something else that caused me to be in this situation?" Some of it he knew to be sheer luck, some misfortune and some, some was of his own doing. The earliest memory Duo had was of hunger. A deep, craving hunger that only a homeless orphan could experience. He'd wandered the streets of L-2 for the first seven years of his life, until the day he'd stumbled into the Maxwell Church to get away from the vendor chasing him for robbing a loaf of bread. He smiled as his braid hit the back of his head as he slowed down to let one of the crew pass. He'd gotten it from Sister Helen, the nun Duo considered his surrogate mother. She'd tried to cut it at first but after seeing how attached he was to his hair, she braided it for him, and showed him how to braid it and take care of his hair. That was the first kind thing anyone had done for him.
Duo tried hard to not remember the last time he'd seen the kindly Sister and Father Maxwell, but his mind showed him anyway. The church and all the people in it had been killed because someone from Earth had said it was a meeting place for seditious colonists. That one incident more than anything else in his life would haunt him until the day he died. Now, eight years after the fact he still woke sweating from nightmares. That was one of the reasons why he fought too, to prevent anyone else from having to go through what he had.
Looking up Duo saw that he'd reached his second to last destination, the infirmary. Slipping into one of the rooms, he looked at the person lying nearly comatose in the bed. Hilde Schiebecker, had saved Duo's life. He'd also saved hers, recently. She'd gone on her own into Libra and taken out vital schematics on the battleship. She'd nearly been killed though by the Mercurius and Vayeate Mobile Dolls White Fang had sent after her. Duo had killed the dolls and taken the shot up remains of Hilde's Taurus back to Peacemillion. Now she lay there, looking nearly lifeless, only the constant beep of the heart monitor told him she was alive. It unnerved him. Hilde was a friend and a damn good pilot, yet she'd nearly been killed by dolls. Even though he'd saved her still felt guilty, since she'd done it to help him
"Don't worry Hilde. I'll get those bastards back for hurting you." Duo uttered his voice just above a whisper. "I promise." The boy shook his head, why was he talking anyway. She was in a coma and she couldn't hear him.
As he headed for the launch bay Duo's thoughts headed down darker roads. Here he was, on the eve of the greatest battle in history and who was to say he'd survive. "Can't start thinking that way." he berated himself. "If I do it'll stick and I'll make a mistake and mistakes in this line of work lead to one place." Entering the bay Duo nodded to the scattered techs he saw around the room. Reaching the massive form of Deathscythe Hell he took a hold of the zip line that ran to the cockpit. From the gantry he saw Heero just across from him making last minute checks on his Gundam. For a few seconds violet eyes met Prussian blue and both pilots said more to each other than could be verbally expressed. Both eyes said "Don't die on me now."
Getting into the seat Duo flicked through the startup sequence and felt his old buddy come to life around him. As he did a memory came unbidden from his days at the Maxwell Church. It was a passage from the Bible that he'd once heard Father Maxwell read.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.
all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord for ever
Duo smiled as he the ancient words echoed through his mind. "Well old buddy" he said to the suit around him, "It looks like I'll be fine, I've God to watch my back and I don't have to worry about Death since I'm Shinigami!" With a grin on his face Duo headed for the yawing darkness of space to embrace his destiny, with a smile on his face.
The End.
Author's Notes: Ok peeps do you like? First off I took a lot of the background stuff for Duo from the Episode Zero manga(if you didn't know that). As for Psalm 23, well that's property of whoever wrote it, and in this case King James for doing this version. That's all. Ja!
Omake:
From the gantry he saw Heero just across from him making last minute checks on his Gundam. For a few seconds violet eyes met Prussian blue and both pilots said more to each other than could be verbally expressed. Both eyes said "I love you, don't go out and die on me, since that'll ruin the fun for the victory party." Both of the Gundams sweatdropped at the blatant homosexuality of their pilots.
I couldn't help it! I really couldn't. This came to me when I wrote the passage.
Epy-chan