Story by Lady Dante
"My name is Milliardo Peacecraft and I declare that we will eliminate the Earth, the force that conflicts with Space…"
Lucretzia Noin watched the vidscreen, listening in disbelief
as the former OZ officer—her best friend—threatened the population of an entire
planet.
He couldn't be serious. There had to be something more happening. Zechs would never do this. Noin turned on her heels and strode off the bridge of Peacemillion, determined to find out what was going on and why he hadn't contacted her. The puzzled young woman made her way to the hanger bay and quickly pulled on an environmental suit. As Noin grabbed her helmet and started for her mobile suit, Quatre called to her. The boy tried to reason with her, talk her out of leaving, but failed. Noin was determined to speak to the man calling himself 'Commander Milliardo.' She needed an explanation. Zechs owed her an explanation.
Noin watched the Epyon fly away moments after confronting the rebel leader. It took every ounce of power in her Taurus to physically hold Zechs as he attempted to pursue Quatre and Duo. Straining against the suit's controls, the young woman demanded an explanation from her former comrade. His response was little more than an angry jumble of nonsense. He barely acknowledged her identity. Noin struggled to make sense of his brief speech, trying in vain to project some method onto her friend's madness.
"Damn it, Zechs. How could you?"
Noin whispered into dead air as Zechs sped towards fortress Barge, knowing the young man would never condescend to explain. Why had she bothered? He rarely explained himself, even to her. There had been a time when it wasn't necessary. She understood Zechs then. This new person fighting under the guise of Commander Milliardo was a stranger.
He was serious. He was actually serious. It wasn't some secret plan to stop the war before it started. It wasn't an attempt to once again free Sanc from the grip of tyranny. There was no one holding a gun to his head--or worse, to Relena's head--forcing him to say those things. He was serious. Zechs wanted war. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn't fight him…could she? No. She could never fight Zechs, but she couldn't join him either. He was wrong. This was all wrong.
~ Burning that trail to the Promised Land
It finally happened. He snapped. Noin had become increasingly concerned about
Zechs' mental state since the young man started piloting Wing Zero. His
messages had become more and more erratic since going to space as Ambassador
Milliardo. The destruction of Tallgeese and his hijacking of Wing Zero marked
the beginning of the end of his fragile mind. No, before that. He hadn't been
the same since exacting his revenge against the general who massacred his
family. Something died in Zechs that day. Noin watched it happen, helpless to
stop it. The signs had been there, but she ignored them. She wanted to believe
him. She wanted to believe in something. He lied to her. He used her…and Noin
allowed it because she needed to believe.
Zechs had always been obsessive. His objectives outweighed the cost, but his goals had been noble once. So had he. Hours after learning of his new purpose, Noin once again confronted Zechs ensconced in the menace of Epyon. She stood her ground, unable to bring herself to hurt her childhood confidante, yet unwilling to risk allowing him to pass. Perhaps the delay her presence caused was enough. If she could keep Zechs occupied long enough, Peacemillion could ram the battleship Libra. He shouted, demanding she move. Noin held her position, answering him with a half-hearted warning. Epyon's speed increased.
He couldn't be that far gone, could he? He wouldn't kill her. Noin couldn't believe he would kill her. As Zechs plowed towards her, beam saber raised, Noin found her trust in him wavering. He was going to do it, she hadn't thought it possible, but the man she loved was going to kill her. The young woman closed her eyes, preparing to die. Noin wasn't afraid of death. She was afraid of living in a world where the person she held most dear was capable of killing her. She would rather be dead.
"Zechs," she whispered, a final plea to a troubled friend.
At the last moment, just before Epyon delivered a killing blow, Zechs veered away. Noin gasped in relief and sorrow. Her friend was still there somewhere. At least, some small part of his frenzied mind still valued friendship enough to spare her life. As his mobile suit faded into the distance, Noin allowed herself a tear for her beloved friend.
She was useless now. Noin could not
Noin sat in the discomfort of her cold mobile suit and waited for this all to end. When her comlink sounded, she ignored it. She wasn't interested in answering any pleas for help, any frantic questions regarding her inaction. The shocking news of Treize's death blared across the communications links of every pilot in the sector and still Noin remained silent. She waited and watched and hoped. The comlink once again interrupted her silent prayers and Noin finally deigned to respond.
The image of Lady Une flickered on the screen as Noin responded to the colonel's greeting with reserve. The Lady's request to relay images of the duel was met with a stiff reminder that Noin was no longer under the colonel's command. Surprisingly, Une smiled sadly and asked again…as a favor. Something about Une's tone or perhaps the sad resolution on the Lady's face touched Noin and for the first time she saw her former commander as a kindred spirit. They were both caught up in events far beyond their control and following men determined to cleanse the world with their own blood. Both women were trying to make sense of the senseless deaths surrounding them. Noin hesitated only a moment before activating the vid relay.
Noin gritted her teeth as she observed the Epyon and Wing Zero fly into Libra. She gripped the controls of her own mobile suit, anxious to follow, but understanding her presence was not needed. She waited. The sudden inactivity gave Noin the unwanted opportunity to think about what was happening, of what had become of the man she loved.
Zechs betrayed everything he professed to believe. He betrayed her as well. Noin fought with him, for him and he simply changed his mind and took a different path without warning. He didn't have an excuse for that and she wouldn't make one for him anymore. This was wrong and she was certain he knew it. He just didn't care anymore. Zechs wanted his miserable life to end and he was going out with a bang. Still, like a lovesick child, Noin pleaded to stay by his side, knowing…knowing that he had no intention of surviving.
Noin watched from a distance as the once proud battleship Libra exploded in waves of fire. Acting only on instinct, the young woman ignited the thrusters on her mobile suit, preparing to fly right into the middle of the inferno and find Epyon. Only Quatre's quick action stopped her as he used Sandrock's superior size to pin the smaller suit. Noin increased power, hoping to blast free, but soon gave up. It was useless.
~ Scream about hurting
Well, he finally succeeded. Zechs was gone and left Noin to clean up the mess.
He wanted to be a martyr. No. He just wanted to be dead. Zechs took the easy
way out. Noin let her head fall back against the seat, a cynical laugh breaking
through her dry lips as she realized what a coward Zechs truly was. He couldn't
live up to the impossible goal of total pacifism, so he simply gave up.
Noin had never believed in total pacifism. She believed that it was sometimes necessary to fight. Freedom wasn't free. It should be fought for, to demonstrate its worth. There was only one problem with that idea. Freedom was subjective. Noin sat in the cockpit of a perfectly space-worthy mobile suit, free to fly to Earth or any one of a hundred colonies, yet she felt trapped. Chained to that bit of airless space, enslaved by her own emotions.
~Scream about something
"How could you do this?" Noin screamed at the blank comlink screen, pounding on
it in shocked frustration. "HOW COULD YOU!?"
Her screams dissolved into choked sobs as the young woman finally let loose her pent up fury. She and Zechs had been fools. They threw away everything. Everything they were, everything they could have been…everything they might have been to each other. Noin had followed him, believed in him, loved him with every fiber of her being and Zechs didn't give her a second thought. He should have killed her when he had the chance.
How did she get here? This was not how it was supposed to
be. They were supposed to save the universe from the Alliance. Give the
oppressed a second chance to live in freedom and peace without the mistakes of
the past. They were all fools. Noin was the biggest fool of all. She lost her
faith in OZ long before she deserted, but remained for him. She believed in
Zechs, as a friend and a leader. Romefeller's objectives might not have been
particularly benign, but she and Zechs could still fight for what was right.
She idealistically believed that the purity of her intentions would somehow
lead her to the right course of action. Instead, good intentions led her
straight to Hell.
I find them all hard to believe ~
Noin and Zechs weren't alone as they walked that path to damnation. Like the Roman emperors he studied, Treize Kushrenada had created a wasteland and called it 'peace.' Noin had the gnawing feeling that His Excellency had planned this from the beginning. The details might not have been what Treize intended, but the result was exactly what the young general maneuvered towards from day one. He wanted to save the world, but first he had to create a threat. That was why he led the troops. Treize had foreseen his death--counted on it--making certain he would be remembered as the hero. The chivalrous knight defending Lady Earth. Offering himself up in a duel of honor. Man to man. Of course Zechs refused, he was supposed to reject the antiquated gesture. Treize was setting the scene. Rewriting the textbooks. His Excellency would always be remembered as Earth's savior, not the architect of a war no one wanted.
All Noin ever wanted was to be a good person, to do the right thing and perhaps leave the world a little better than she found it. Like her parents. She didn't remember much about them and what she did know was remembered through the adoring eyes of a 7 year old, but Noin recalled enough to know her parents were good people. Teachers. They dedicated their lives to making the world a better place by teaching children right from wrong. In another life, Noin would have been a teacher as well. Not a military instructor, preparing soldiers to follow the cause of another, but a real teacher. Opening up the world to young minds, encouraging free thought and self-determination. Noin never had the chance to make that choice.
I just want to scream ~
Little Lucretzia Noin had been part of the military establishment since she was 10 years old. Orphaned at a young age, she was sent to live with a great uncle who had neither the time nor inclination to nurture a small child. The first boarding schools she lived in were expensive, all-girl institutions designed to train young girls for socially acceptable marriage partners. Her incredibly high marks caught the attention of an Alliance recruiter, who convinced the young girl's uncle that his niece would be an asset to the government. Eager to be rid of his burden, Noin's uncle sent her to the furthest military academy he could locate. Though she continued to receive highest class ranking, the little girl hated her new school and made no attempt to hide her resentment. Enter Treize Kushrenada of the Specials.
~ There you go with all your might
Noin was a year into Specials training before she was informed of the true
nature of the elite group. They were not merely an exclusive division of the
brutal Alliance Military machine, but rather, a secret order dedicated to
freeing the world of Alliance domination. The Order of the Zodiac, she was
told, would set the world free and Noin could be part of that extraordinary
event. Seven years later, she bore witness to that, 'extraordinary event,' the
final purge meant to rid the human race of its will to fight.
But God you'll never be ~
Noin searched for the remains of Epyon for days, but found only small scraps of the suit's left arm. Finally resigned to the fact that he was gone, the young woman simply stopped. She allowed her Taurus to float aimlessly as she watched scores of young soldiers begin the arduous task of collecting survivors and bodies from the battlefield. Noin remained there for hours as she watched countless rescue and retrieval craft pass by. She kept her comlink open, eavesdropping on stray conversations. Most spoke of the death of their beloved leader, Mr. Treize, and their aim to carry on his ideals under the guidance of Lady Une. None of them realized what really happened here.
Noin couldn't fault their blind devotion to His Excellency, she had fallen under Treize's spell once upon a time. There was something about the young man that inspired intense loyalty, even from Zechs. Noin bought into the illusion of grandeur Treize represented. A return to the gracious past, full of hope and freedom. She followed the man with as much devotion as any of his other officers, at least at first. She had become disillusioned much earlier than Zechs, yet she still followed. Treize had that inexplicable quality that draws one to his illusion of greatness. He fancied himself the world's protector, defending Camelot against the mystical foes slinking in the shadows. The man could give one damned fine speech, encouraging even the most battle-hardened cynic to believe his rhetoric.
The streets were crowded with joyous people, noisily rejoicing the end of the Eve War. Noin watched a celebration from the safety of her hotel room. After ending her search for Zechs' body, she decided to lay low for a while, uncertain of how to proceed. Relena had attempted to contact her, but Noin avoided the calls. The recently appointed Vice Foreign Minister no doubt wished to employ her former Imperial Guard captain as an aide, or bodyguard, or some such nonsense. Une had requested the ex-lieutenant's assistance in dismantling OZ, an equally odious proposition to the weary Noin. So, she was hiding out.
At least, she was trying to hide out. The populace, high on
pacifism, was caught up in the party to end all parties. All around the young
woman, citizens of the newly peace-oriented Earth Sphere were joyously toasting
to the new treaty with the Colonies. Happy, shiny people, singing to a new
dawn. Their naïveté turned her stomach.
The peace everyone prized was an illusion. No…a delusion. A fantasy. Noin knew better. She knew the truth, but no one wanted to hear it. They still wanted to believe what they were building would last. Let them. They could run around, basking in the glow of their newfound peace and pretending it was unbreakable. It would break as easily as everything else and there would be no one to pick up the pieces. She sure as hell wasn't going to do it. Not anymore.
Noin had given her life to clean up other people's messes and she was tired. Sick and tired and used up. It was all so useless…she was useless. She didn't want any part of the charade. Zechs and Treize believed that an all-out holocaust would change the hearts of human beings for good, that the survivors would undergo some miraculous metamorphosis into saintly beings capable of total pacifism. Maybe there was a time when she also thought such a transformation was possible, but no longer. Humanity would never change. History was littered with equally horrific displays of barbarism, none of which ever left a permanent mark on human nature. People were flawed creatures with the capacity to kill and love in equal measure.
There would always be someone who wanted chaos and disorder.
Ignoring them wouldn't make the threat go away. Ignoring the possibility would
breed new tyrants.
Relena still believed, just as she should. She was young. Hope is for the young. Noin simply couldn't lie to herself anymore. She couldn't buy into the idea of the indestructible human spirit any longer. She had nothing left to give. She was used up and angry, an old woman at the ripe old age of 19. Noin surrendered her childhood, her beliefs, her soul and she had nothing to show for those sacrifices. Yes, she made the sacrifices willingly, but under the assumption that there would be a new life waiting for her on the other side. Some ray of light leading her to the true beginning of her life and away from the false existence she had endured since being recruited to OZ at the age of 12. There was no new beginning. Instead, Noin received betrayal and emptiness.
There was nothing but the anger welling up from the pit of her stomach. Nothing but her own heartache and broken dreams stirring an ever-present resentment. Nothing but the cold, hard truth of it all. They all died for nothing. Her young students, the idealistic soldiers and their charismatic leaders…all dead and for what? A debris field hundreds of miles wide orbiting between the Earth and Colonies. It was all pointless and she was the only one who could see that one essential truth.
~ Scream about hurting
Une called again. Noin had no idea how the woman kept finding
her, but Une kept calling. This time she wanted Noin to help plan the funeral.
Treize, Zechs, and a thousand others were to be honored in a memorial cemetery
located on Sanc soil. The idea sickened Noin. She would not help make heroes of
such misguided and duplicitous men. The young woman leapt to her feet and
started pacing angrily. She would not contribute to such hypocrisy. Nor did she
deserve to participate in such a ceremony. She made no real contribution.
~Scream about something
She found herself in the small bathroom, staring into the mirror. Noin didn't know what to do, where to go now. She had nothing left to fight for and nothing in which to believe. She was a wasted life, screaming for consolation and finding only silence. Disenchanted by the truth. The truth, which was supposed to set the soul free, trapped Noin in a prison of cynicism and disillusionment. Unable to contain her anger any longer, Noin slammed her fist into the mirror and screamed. A scream emanating from her fractured soul, the plaintive cry of the girl she was and the woman she should have been. A scream that echoed through the small room, bearing witness to the young woman's pointless life.
The last tribute to Lucretzia Noin.
+++++++++++++++ The End +++++++++++++++++++++
Ok, so I was angry when I wrote this and it got a little melodramatic. Well? What do you think? Too angry? Depressing? So much drivel?
This is actually #1 in a songfic series. #2 is 'Forgiveness'; #3 is 'It's Been A While." All are Zechs and/or Noin related fics (of course! Do I write anything else?)…this is the shortest Author's Note I've done since ch. 11 of 'Lilac Princess'…don't worry, won't happen again…
The Disclaimer Cha-Cha: …Don't own 'em…1,2,3…I don't charge…1,2,3…please don't sue…1,2,3…