"Yay! A circus!" Basim said, laughing slightly. Kiyoshi rolled his eyes and Lian looked uninterested. Lyla had decided to stay back at the Pod Hopper, but had insisted that Heero, Quatre, and Wufei take Duo with them. Duo sighed as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"What's an old guy like me supposed to do around here?"
"Watch the trapeze artist." Max said as he came up behind the seven. "When of course the big top opens… though now I recommend the side shows." He continued. Kiyo and Lian nodded, and they and Basim slipped away, Max leaving his uncle Trowa to take care of the adults.
They entered through a side door and Kiyoshi's eyes grew wide at the sight…
Scarlet stood there wearing a slightly skimpy suit, black in color with violet sequins in a bird pattern on her chest. She flew through the air, doing aero-acrobatics effortlessly.
Kiyoshi felt his jaw drop… Scarlet had a pretty nice figure.
*~*
Treize Kushrenada heaved a sigh as he glanced out the window, gazing over the colony; the Emperor had asked him, as well as Lady Une, to attend a circus with him in hopes that it would… cheer his spirits.
He laughed slightly, and Lady Une, the retired (or, rather, out-of-work) Preventer glanced at Treize.
"What's so humorous, sir?" she inquired.
"I was just thinking of Nicole… brave enough to fly a Gundam… but scared of rats."
Une smirked slightly.
"I heard a different version… if you are talking about the boathouse."
"I am. Go on, I would like to hear it also."
"Well… she didn't try to burn it down. It was one of the guards… he's deathly afraid of rats, and he was going to burn the place to the ground. Scarlet came across him trying to light it, and well… dispatched his idea. As it turned out, she rather likes rats."
*~*
The grouping of Gundam pilots sat together, both old pilots and new as Max and Christine finished up the knife throwing act, Christine in a bright red outfit that nearly mimicked Catherine's.
"She's very good." Quatre remarked to himself.
Heero glanced over, recalling the month and a half he had spent in Trowa and Catherine's care.
"Let's just hope for Max's sake… that she makes better soup." He thought dismally to himself.
Duo grumbled about food, and said the word "Scarlet" in it, so Wufei, who was sitting next to him, decidedly thought that Duo believed that Scarlet was a gourmet chef.
The middle ring was cleared, and the ringmaster stepped out into the spotlights.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, it is a great pleasure to introduce to you our newest addition and seen for the first time anywhere. This girl, the foundling in space where her wings were broken, has healed and flies again! This magnificent woman, whose hair is as red as fire and has a soul to match! I introduce to you - THE RAVEN!"
All eyes looked up as the spotlights searched for the girl, finally resting upon a platform where a girl wearing a skin-tight suit, black and violet in color
She stood with her arms outstretched, one leg poised as if to leap off the edge of the platform, her chin tilted back and her hair billowing around in falsified curls tied back with a black bandana. There was a diamond on her stomach, showing her navel, reaching from the bottom of her chest bone to the middle of her hips, black ribbon ending it.
One of the legs in the pants suit was black, the other one violet like the chest piece she wore, sequins making a bird in flight on her hip.
The chest piece itself was daring, two cups to hold her breasts in place as she soared through the air, reaching to the point where the top of the diamond made its lines reaching for each other at the bottom.
This costume also had no back to it.
The girl brought her head forward, her eyes alluring, mysterious - deadly.
Duo's heart leapt at the sight
"Scarlet…?"
*~*
Treize Kushrenada's eyes opened wide as they set upon the daring girl on the platform, her chest heaving as she took a fresh gulp of air before him.
It was Nicole! Scarlet! But… Raven? Yes… yes it was possible…
"Mr. Kushrenada, I did not expect to see you here. Yes… yes she is a fine looking young rat, don't you agree?" he heard a voice say behind him, accompanied by a louder than needed smirk
"Scorpion…" Treize said softly…
"Emperor Scorpion, yes, yes it is me, Treize." He smirked as he took a seat near Kushrenada, Lady Une sat at the other side casting an odd glance at the two young men who sat behind her, who were making crude jokes of the young girl.
Treize worried for his dear Nicole's well being.
And he wasn't talking of the trapeze that had descended from the ceiling that she was taking a hold of.
*~*
The techno music started as Raven let go of the trapeze… there was something wrong, something in the audience that unnerved her, but she couldn't give into fear now. Giving into fear, she thought, a lead to pain… leads to the end… leads to… to darkness.
There was a gasp as the girl leaped from the platform to the trapeze, taking a hold of it to introduce more propulsion. She knew what she was doing; she had tried different things out.
She had tried different things out over a safety net.
Now there was no net.
Raven felt her curls catch in the wind as she loosened her hands, swinging her knees up over the bar and hanging upside down in a single movement, she waved to the crowd and blew a kiss.
How the crowd liked kisses.
She noticed three boys in particular that liked the kiss.
Her body moved in beat to the heavy music as strobe lights of different colors flashed off and on, shining off the sequins sown onto her outfit and the sparkle she had put onto her cheeks to help hide the freckles. She had decided she didn't want them.
But then there was something else about her name… Raven.
Of course… she remembered nothing as far as she knew, of her former life, of that other girl she was before. That girl with the fiery temper who had punched someone simply because they stated a generalization about women.
That girl that was supposed to be a Goddess of Death.
That girl that was supposed to be fighting in a battle.
In a war.
Of course, Raven didn't know any of this. All she knew is that Ravens are supposed to fly.
So she is.
*~*
Everyone was enjoying the trapeze act, the girl was amazing, executing finely tuned spins when catching onto various trapeze swings, blowing kisses and winking devilishly to the crowd.
She loved all the attention she was getting, obviously.
With a triple spin horizontally, she landed on the opposite platform, and just as she gave her bow a gunshot rang out.
There were screams as the trapeze artist looked up, alarmed, the gunfire bringing back something devastating that she remembered.
An explosion…
Pain. Sorrow.
"MISTER MAXWELL!" Raven cried out, then with a look of pain, her eyes went blank and the body toppled to the ground.
The moss-green haired boy held the bleeding trapeze artist, his eyes calm…
And in the stands, a skinny man, looking like a skeleton lowered the gun again, a grin that could send shivers down even Heero Yuy's spine plastered to his face.
