Title: Self-Destruction
Author: Stacey-Marie
Pairings: 1+2
Warnings: POV, shonen ai,
Disclaimers: Gundam Wing and all of it's characters, mecha and other miscellaneous stuff isn't mine so don't sue me because you have a better chance of finding a live cabbit in my room than something of value.
Note: after the intro scene this whole thing goes into Heero's POV
Self- Destruction
::::the Earth and colonies hold their collective breaths for a single eternity of a second as Lady Une gives the signal for their destruction should the five rebel pilots continue their attack. A blurred and crackled vision of an old man appears on the screen giving silent orders to his ultimate creation, wrought in flesh this time instead of Gundanium. Heero Yuy, pilot 01 accepts all missions. Opening the hatch he stands before his dueling partner armed only with a little red button.::::::
I don't really mind that I have to do it. I've always known that my mentor never expected or planned for me to live out the war and as such he has kept me as a reserve weapon; one that he can simply blow up at any moment should the situation call for it. I know all this and I don't care. I was prepared for this at every turn since the day I agreed to go with J that day on L1. I had hoped I would get to best Zechs before I had to go though it would have been interesting, for the both of us. As soldiers and as humans it would have been interesting to see just how far we could have pushed our suits before we died. I have no doubt that neither one of us would have been able to openly kill the other through the destruction of their mobile suit. I mean how long till the suit killed us, till our hearts and heads bust from the strain and pressure of the forces at work. It would have been a grand battle; probably the only one I really looked forward to and would savor and enjoy. Without a single sigh I give it up, that last final battle between the only knights left at Camelot, all for the sake of a little red button. It's not bad really, the blinding heat scorching my flesh for that split second before I am driven away. Thrown by the blast for the closest thing a person can experience to flying without metal assistance. After I hit the ground the first time I can't feel anything, but when I stop I see them again: the colonies, the stars. People once said that the sky was the limit we have breached that, and for their sake I'm dying. The people up there don't know that I die for them nor do they care that my world is fading to black.
//I spent a day by the river//
//it was quiet and the wind stood still//
Have you ever really looked at the beauty of the Earth? No probably not. Most people who don't live in space know that the Earth is beautiful, but only on that sublevel. The kind that is just a nagging at the back of your consciousness, they know it's beautiful but not why. They have never been confined to steel walls and engineered plants that are trying to re-created what is under their very noses. It's interesting that I'm here, I don't know exactly where here is but I know I should be somewhere else. Somewhere that benefits the Mission. I should be polishing guns and knives, and tuning up a suit that will sooner kill me than save me in the next assault on Oz. Ah, death I am so eager to meet it, it's not that I am weary of life or what I do, I am not plagued by guilt or regrets. I am looking for that challenge that will finally undo me that one that can beat me I haven't found it yet and I want to lose. I don't really know why on a whole but I need it I crave that losing feeling. No, not the kind that I was greeted with after the New Edward's base. No I'm talking about that kind that is left in those forgotten tales where the hero tries and tries and almost makes it before the villain destroys the world by a bare stretch of a hair. That is the kind of defeat I long for the kind where I give it my all and still find myself short. This war is nothing but a petty game to that end, even when I was a child I needed this challenge that I why I went with Dr. J. I shouldn't be here.
//I spent some time with nature//
//to remind me of all that's real//
Sometimes I wonder what this war is really about. People are dying by the hundreds because me and my fellows have taken up the cause of five tired old men, men who are in actuality the real root of the problems between the colonies and Earth to begin with. Then I find myself being shot at like so many times before, and see innocent slaughtered in the streets for no reason except that we need "examples" to learn from. I really am no better than they I have killed innocents too, not on purpose but they still acted in the same way they would of if they had been calculated attack plans. This war really is for the children, it is so that never again will me and the other Gundam pilots have to be created out of the ashes of their innocence.
//it's funny how silence speaks sometimes when you're alone//
//and remember that you feel//
Once when I was young someone told me to always follow my emotions, it's funny because very soon after that I buried them all. Oh it wasn't any big feat mind you I was young and in constant pain all for the sake of my quest for death, even then that was what drove me. I have always been fighting, even before I can remember I have fought side by side with Odin, I could barely lift a gun or write, yet I refilled his clips of ammo. It's calm here a sanctuary of sorts, I know I shouldn't be idle but I have the feeling I am waiting for someone. Waiting, ha, I should be out there finding them first so that I won't be vulnerable should they turn on me.
//again I stand against the faceless man//
Ever feel that small put just at the back of your head that demands that you look up, you have no reason to do so, but suddenly you have to. Like it's some programmed mission orders that have only now taken effect because of some hidden trigger. That's what I feel now, but looking up I see someone they are familiar is someway. There are details that should help me immediately recognize this person, they are my salvation and I cannot see their face fully or pick up what normally would shout at me this person's identity. Their arms are open for me, but I don't want them. Strange I know this is who will be able to take up my challenge and win, but I don't take them up on it. Then in the same moment, he is gone and I am alone again: waiting.
//now I saw a face on the water//
//it looked humble but willing to fight//
The water ripples as I turn away from the spot where he once stood, a reflection not my own begins to appear. He is dressed in white, I can recognize him in someway the same as with the figure who had vanished not so long ago. His stance immediately suggests to me that he is a soldier like myself: one who daily has to fight for his life and conceal the burning hatred inside himself so that he may stay undercover to accomplish his missions. I remember something about him now, about the reason why he fights. It's for his wife Merian, he loved her deeply but could never be the warrior she wanted of him until she died. Not that she didn't love him just as much, it's just that he had be content to sit and let fate happen while she was running off full steam to change it's course. He has always blamed himself for her death because maybe just maybe she would have lived if he had truly listened to her ideals. He believes himself unworthy of the weapon he now fights with to avenge her because he thinks that it should have been hers.
//I saw the will of a warrior//
//His yoke is easy and burden is light//
He fights now with only one main goal in mind: to seek justice in all things. Wufei is a very good fighter and it comes natural to him. This war is nothing but a small test to him of strength and ability. He has never been troubled by the blood of the soldiers on his hands because in his mind a person who fights needs to be able to die and acknowledge the stronger fighter. The weak have no business fighting to him and if they try he is merely granting their death wish.
//He looked me right in the eyes direct and concise//
//to remind me to always do what's right//
Ah, my friend he always speaks of justice to me. He is fun in that way because even though no one would have ever guessed it we hold long debates sometimes about whether certain acts were justice or not. It can be interesting. He speaks now. I can hear him and it is just above a whisper carried across the waves. He tells me that I have sets of rules that were laid down in me long before I had started this war or anything else. Those are the standards I must always live by. Emotions, he says, emotions are the key. The person who you looked up to most in life and the only one who ever truly loved you once told you that the only way you could truly live a good life was based on your emotions. Now tell me, he says, what have you done those wondrous things that hold the key to your enjoyment of the life you lead?…with that final question he is gone, fading like ripples of sunlight.
//Again I stand against the faceless man//
I am armed for battle again. I don't know how this sudden change has happened, but now I am here dressed in mail and armed with a battle sword. It seems fitting is so many ways that I who am always following a quest for death have now been placed in the stead of a knight. Slowly as if I am coming out a blood red haze of battle lust the world begins to show itself. All around me the ground it littered with the dead and dying. A slow fog has wrapped the far end of the battlefield in mystery. A dark figure penetrates the fog to make his presence known. He is the last challenger, strangely I know him. Yes! This is the man who I have fought long and hard against. This is the one who can't fully defeat me, but is able to kill me and himself in the effort. And he will do it; I smile and beckon him to me.
//'cause if the face inside can't see the light I know//
//I have to walk alone//
The glint of silver of his mask is a bright light through the fog coating this place. I know he brings with him my death as he walks across the field. In a strange way it is comforting that though I am going to die and fulfill my quest, but that I won't be doing it alone. Maybe that is what I have been truly searching for this whole time: a person who would walk with me into the cold arms of death even as we killed each other. He stops the second this crosses my mind and drives his blade into the ground at his feet. The disbelief is crushing, that I have finally found the only thing I have ever wanted, and now when it is so close it is being denied to me. A look of aged sadness crosses his face for a moment then the fog lifts just enough for a streak of sunlight to pierce our world of destruction and death. The light strikes his helm and in that blinding flash he is gone. Only the light remains, the field and its corpses have dropped away as I rush forward in a hopeless attempt to regain what I have lost. To take back that champion who would have bested me even as I bested him. As I reach the spot where he once stood the light has grown to a sickening brightness.
//and if I walk alone to the other side I know//
//I might not make it home//
As I stand there, sightless due to the intensity, I begin to have thoughts of death. Maybe this is my death, maybe I must go alone to this final place. That thought in itself terrifies me: being alone truly alone. Turning in circles I run at a frantic pace looking for a way out.
//Again I stand against the faceless man//
The light dims for a minute, but in that time I can see him again, the one who is to be my salvation. I run to him overjoyed that I won't be alone anymore. He pulls me to him with open arms as I begin to sob on his shoulder. Murmuring soft words of comfort, and stroking my hair he gently brings me out of my hysteria. In those few moments that we stay like that I realize that is I what I have truly needed all my life not death by some masked man, but comfort and the chance at never being alone again.
//next time I see this face//
//I'll say I choose to live for always//
Even though I am sure he will vanish again, I risk a look at his face. I should have known all along who it was, he has always been there for me. I was to walk to my death on my own and here I have found it: Duo. He is death incarnate when he needs to be but at any and all other opportunities is the embodiment of life and laughter. Yes he holds a place of darkness within him, but all of us have that. Knowing him now, the words he crooned in my ear as I cried come back to me. 'I am here, you're not alone and I will protect you from yourself' how right those words are. Only someone who has been through hell and survived it to become such a vibrant soul, one that is able to love and aid, could ever know what being alone means to me. I don't need to die anymore I have found my death, my Duo and I won't give that up for anything.
//so won't you come inside//
//and never go away//
Pain, blinding pain is what registers first to me. A girl then brings to me one of my fellow Gundam pilots. I know what has happened then, I didn't die for a reason. Duo saved my soul by keeping me alive 'til I could realize just what life meant. Love. That is what I have learned and I won't give it up. I must pay for my past sins before I seek out my savior, but when I do find him I never want to lose him. From death and this day forward my soul, my love are all Duo's for the taking.