END PART ONE BEGIN PART TWO
*Hey, Relena. Lena, talk to me baby.*
"What? Where am I? And why am I dressed like this? And why, exactly, am I floating?"
She was in a desolate plain, as far as she could see. Purple and orange swirled in the sky, and a gentle wind came from behind her. Instead of wearing formal minister's clothes, or her nightgown (she was dreaming…right?) , she found herself in a white tank top and cargo pants.
"No answers? Well, fine. Then the guards are going to find you and toss you into prison." She winced at how weak that sounded.
*We ain't in Rome, you know. We are in my playground now.*
"Uh, while that's all good, I would love to come home. As much as I would like to stay, I got to start to have some more normal dreams. And maybe do some sleeping—I _am_ a VIP as you must know."
*Well, hell! Of course I know that! I am you, you know.*
"I am pretty sure that I do not have a voice nearly that deep."
*Okay, so I an not _exactly_ you as your linear mind could conceive yourself, you naïve fool. Jeez, regular people's minds are so tiny.*
"Well, it would be quite a favor if you would be so kind to introduce yourself. Maybe then I would seem to be such a moron to you."
*I _told_ you. I am you. I am Relena Darlian, the minister of the earthsphere. I protect the people from wars by settling disputes through discussion and concessions. Are you happy?* The intro had been done in a fake, mocking female voice.
"Well, excuse me. So, don't you think that it could be good for me to know part of me you are? I didn't know I had a pissed-off guy deep inside of me."
*I'm your kidney. No, no, no more screwing around. I am a part of your inner brain. I am something that keeps a good eye over you, dig?*
"All right, you are my protector-thing in my brain."
*Good! Now you have had a sort of a rocky life. The other parts of us not including me haven't taken good care of you. Look at you! You're engaged to some guy who kept on threatening to kill you! And you told him to, for Christ's sake!*
"Heero has changed."
*No, he has not. Well…that part of him is dormant. He probably won't kill you, with things being what they are.
*But this is a meeting of a different meaning.*
"Is that right?"
*It is. Close your eyes, you are going to have to see something that I don't wanna show you. But I gotta.*
"Yeah? That bad?" She closed her eyes, willing to follow directions so she could get herself away from herself.
The world changed from flat plain to the middle of what was _once_ a city. There were smoldering wooden structures all over, and nothing was alive—no birds, no dogs, no cats. All of the trees and grass was dead. "St. Peter!" cried Relena.
*You never got to se this, remember? OZ wanted you as a puppet so they flew you out as soon as you surrendered. I planned that, did you know that?*
"What? You did? How?"
*My secret. No, wait, you will find out. Look around. Is it St. Peter as you remember it? Take your time. Look around at your surroundings, if you van. It looks like a hurricane hit it, doesn't it? But think. What is it like? Nay—what _is_ it?*
Relena looked all around and detected that she was not in the Sanc Kingdom. It was the same and it was different. It hit her not in the mind, but in a feeling. "Oh, great Jesus Christ. This is Rome."
*Good, you found out. Don't go up the street to your left, if you don't want to get hit in the stomach.*
"By what?" She went left and walked a block. There was the wreckage of what seemed to be some sort of a mansion. "Oh, my house. Oh, my God!"
*Don't get too close…warned you…sorry I had to do this, but you gotta warn yourself, you know?*
She wasn't listening. She was holding what she had seen under a thin layer of dust—the body of Heero, mangled from a fall and from fighting. Hugging him close, she choked out, "Why the hell are you doing this to me? He is not dead or I would be too. Or am I dead? If I dug a little, would I find myself?"
*People take advantage of people like us. Pacifists can't fight back so others see us as a good target. So they think they can do anything. People with guns are people with power in mankind, and it will be for as far as I can see into the future.*
"No," she sobbed. "I've won. Pacifism has won. It will never be like this again. Too many people have died for everyone to forget the suffering!"
Someone was walking up. He had a cape, and was short, with short- cropped brown hair and greenish eyes. He had the voice or Relena's tormentor. "Listen. I am sorry. But that is all I can be. This is going to happen if you sit and make speeches on how nice peace is. No one will listen." From his cape, he pulled out an automatic rifle and gave it to her. "This will help when hell comes, I promise."
"I refuse to fight."
"So do I—I'm you! But you _have_ to do this. It is sad reality but the bigger the weapon the more important you are. This was the world before 195 and it will be the case in 666 hours. Twenty-seven days, sixteen hours, if you don't want to figure it out in your head. God always wins but sometimes Lucifer sometimes flares up."
"I don't believe you."
"I am quite sorry that you feel that way." He laid the rifle at her feet, and she kicked it away, him jumping up to avoid it. "You will need it, and as soon as you do—I'll protect ya." He walked away, leaving the minister and all the dead, suffering souls behind.
For Relena, she held her dead lover a few moments longer. Then the world around her morphed again, until she was lying on her couch, again in her office. It was in the middle of the night and she was dressed for bed, so why was she there? "I have never sleep-walked before—maybe I need a doctor." She returned to the bedroom and glanced at the dragon on the dresser.
The voice returned. *Don't worry. If war begins I will always make sure you live. I live by your breathing. You must be saved to save me.*
"I don't know if I want you saved."
It was four days later, and Relena was in her room, putting the finishing touches upon her suit she was to wear at the summit between the earth and the colonies.
The dragon spoke up again. *Just twenty-three days and six hours left, and you're doing nothing? Don't come to me if war breaks out and you are left behind, babe.*
"Shut the hell up. There will be no war and I do not call myself 'babe'. This is just a simple meeting between me and some earth governors and a few colony governors. Nothing will happen."
*Ah, so optimistic and so very wrong.*
The dragon had not stopped talking since it decided it had found an ideal place to stay. It told her to call it Al, and to tell it every single thing that had happened in the previous day—every single time. She had been caught once by Heero and she had to convince him not to call a doctor or the police. But it was not often like that—Al usually was able to tell her the story of her day once she was halfway through. She thought she was being watched, but he insisted, *No, you are falling into the trap! Don't stay going like this, pull out of the tumble.*
"You think that you can see into the future, don't you?"
*I _know_ that I can. I am a part of the 90% of the brain never used. Think of all the things that people can do with all of their brains.*
"My head is strong enough to see into the future."
*You are just one person in a network of souls. A thousand souls together can do some pretty impressive stuff. If all of the parts got together in a casino, we would walk away big winners and that would be it for that casino.*
"Well, fine. So what is going to happen?"
*One of the colony governors are going to insist that they deserve independence. You try to put the idea down and you offend him. So tension gets out of control, and in about three and a half weeks, the next great war starts.*
"I think that I would be a better diplomat than to do that."
*Everyone slips up. Just be very very careful about what you say, and maybe the war never starts. We check the future constantly so if something _you_ do alters it, we know.*
"I see."
*Good luck*
The summit was served with a side of pasta, over lunch. No restaurant was going to be asked to shut down so a few people could discuss, so it was held in the mansion itself. It went fairly well—no one was a klutz and spilled something on something else, which very well could have started a war, considering how expensively dressed everyone was. The same could be said for the servers.
It was all lightness and honey, everyone raising everyone else more than discussing problems. There were very few to be mentioned. War was gone, crime was dropping to a level not yet seen in all of history, and the air, water, and land were cleaner than ever.
The dessert cart came, and with it some storm clouds. As the rolling stainless steel table with 97% chocolate content came its way toward the guests, a colony governor by the name of Hailerot stood and tinkled his fork against his champagne glass. "Ladies and gentleman, it has been such a _wonderful_ afternoon and I am quite afraid the some would find their day spoiled by my next proposal, but I fell that I must proceed. And I shall."
Everyone else in the room—Relena, her five governors on earth, the four other colony governors—fell into a silence. The servers continued to bring out the chocolate cake noiselessly. "I do feel that the peace of these last eleven years have been quite wonderful to everyone, and I do not wish to ruin it with my proposal." The aging diplomat took a sip of his champagne and continued. "One of the reasons that peace stayed _immediately_ after the great war of AC 195 as that the was but one nation—the earthsphere. There was no one to rip the nation into civil war instead of Mariemaya Barton, and she was but a child of eight with a front behind her and she was defeated.
"There was no way of war but civil war and that was eliminated. So I propose to you all today a plan, for maybe a five or ten year timeline, to bring the colonies out of that title the earth shall remain one nation. The colonies, all of them combined, would be a second. There is nothing but good nature between the two now and it would seem that it would not end with celestial independence. And it only seems _natural_ for there to be two nations—the colonists have to be a different breed from earthborn. Not better necessarily, if anyone born on earth is offended by that, but different." After a second sip of the glass, he turned to Relena and said, "Minister, I would like to hear your feedback at this. I believe it to be a fine idea, don't you?"
She was scooping at her chocolate cake idly. She decided that he was too wise to suggest an idea that could bring strife, so she thought of it as a joke. "Why, Governor, you must be jesting."
"What?"
"Or perhaps you have had a bit _too_ much champagne." She smiled to herself and poured herself another glass. "Shame on you! See this? It is only my second glass. Ooo, your family will not be happy when I tell them! 'Hailerot, you have got some 'splaining to do!'" With her best Desi accent, she finished with gusto and laughed, almost pitching into her cake.
It had been more than two glasses of champagne. Many more.
Hailerot rose. "Why, I have never before been more offended! Minister Darlian, this is no longer in your hands—we will get independence if your permission or not!" He swept out of the room, followed by his other governors.
The earth governors looked at Relena. She, in a stupor, said, "What?"
Heero had been watching the whole thing as a bodyguard and went over to her. Lifting her up and carrying her out, he said, "Okay, Chuckles. I think it should be naptime for you. Then you get some of Duo's magic stop- hangover drink."
"Ewww, it's nasty."
"You'll want to drink it as soon as you see yourself."
END PART TWO BEGIN PART THREE
*Hey, Relena. Lena, talk to me baby.*
"What? Where am I? And why am I dressed like this? And why, exactly, am I floating?"
She was in a desolate plain, as far as she could see. Purple and orange swirled in the sky, and a gentle wind came from behind her. Instead of wearing formal minister's clothes, or her nightgown (she was dreaming…right?) , she found herself in a white tank top and cargo pants.
"No answers? Well, fine. Then the guards are going to find you and toss you into prison." She winced at how weak that sounded.
*We ain't in Rome, you know. We are in my playground now.*
"Uh, while that's all good, I would love to come home. As much as I would like to stay, I got to start to have some more normal dreams. And maybe do some sleeping—I _am_ a VIP as you must know."
*Well, hell! Of course I know that! I am you, you know.*
"I am pretty sure that I do not have a voice nearly that deep."
*Okay, so I an not _exactly_ you as your linear mind could conceive yourself, you naïve fool. Jeez, regular people's minds are so tiny.*
"Well, it would be quite a favor if you would be so kind to introduce yourself. Maybe then I would seem to be such a moron to you."
*I _told_ you. I am you. I am Relena Darlian, the minister of the earthsphere. I protect the people from wars by settling disputes through discussion and concessions. Are you happy?* The intro had been done in a fake, mocking female voice.
"Well, excuse me. So, don't you think that it could be good for me to know part of me you are? I didn't know I had a pissed-off guy deep inside of me."
*I'm your kidney. No, no, no more screwing around. I am a part of your inner brain. I am something that keeps a good eye over you, dig?*
"All right, you are my protector-thing in my brain."
*Good! Now you have had a sort of a rocky life. The other parts of us not including me haven't taken good care of you. Look at you! You're engaged to some guy who kept on threatening to kill you! And you told him to, for Christ's sake!*
"Heero has changed."
*No, he has not. Well…that part of him is dormant. He probably won't kill you, with things being what they are.
*But this is a meeting of a different meaning.*
"Is that right?"
*It is. Close your eyes, you are going to have to see something that I don't wanna show you. But I gotta.*
"Yeah? That bad?" She closed her eyes, willing to follow directions so she could get herself away from herself.
The world changed from flat plain to the middle of what was _once_ a city. There were smoldering wooden structures all over, and nothing was alive—no birds, no dogs, no cats. All of the trees and grass was dead. "St. Peter!" cried Relena.
*You never got to se this, remember? OZ wanted you as a puppet so they flew you out as soon as you surrendered. I planned that, did you know that?*
"What? You did? How?"
*My secret. No, wait, you will find out. Look around. Is it St. Peter as you remember it? Take your time. Look around at your surroundings, if you van. It looks like a hurricane hit it, doesn't it? But think. What is it like? Nay—what _is_ it?*
Relena looked all around and detected that she was not in the Sanc Kingdom. It was the same and it was different. It hit her not in the mind, but in a feeling. "Oh, great Jesus Christ. This is Rome."
*Good, you found out. Don't go up the street to your left, if you don't want to get hit in the stomach.*
"By what?" She went left and walked a block. There was the wreckage of what seemed to be some sort of a mansion. "Oh, my house. Oh, my God!"
*Don't get too close…warned you…sorry I had to do this, but you gotta warn yourself, you know?*
She wasn't listening. She was holding what she had seen under a thin layer of dust—the body of Heero, mangled from a fall and from fighting. Hugging him close, she choked out, "Why the hell are you doing this to me? He is not dead or I would be too. Or am I dead? If I dug a little, would I find myself?"
*People take advantage of people like us. Pacifists can't fight back so others see us as a good target. So they think they can do anything. People with guns are people with power in mankind, and it will be for as far as I can see into the future.*
"No," she sobbed. "I've won. Pacifism has won. It will never be like this again. Too many people have died for everyone to forget the suffering!"
Someone was walking up. He had a cape, and was short, with short- cropped brown hair and greenish eyes. He had the voice or Relena's tormentor. "Listen. I am sorry. But that is all I can be. This is going to happen if you sit and make speeches on how nice peace is. No one will listen." From his cape, he pulled out an automatic rifle and gave it to her. "This will help when hell comes, I promise."
"I refuse to fight."
"So do I—I'm you! But you _have_ to do this. It is sad reality but the bigger the weapon the more important you are. This was the world before 195 and it will be the case in 666 hours. Twenty-seven days, sixteen hours, if you don't want to figure it out in your head. God always wins but sometimes Lucifer sometimes flares up."
"I don't believe you."
"I am quite sorry that you feel that way." He laid the rifle at her feet, and she kicked it away, him jumping up to avoid it. "You will need it, and as soon as you do—I'll protect ya." He walked away, leaving the minister and all the dead, suffering souls behind.
For Relena, she held her dead lover a few moments longer. Then the world around her morphed again, until she was lying on her couch, again in her office. It was in the middle of the night and she was dressed for bed, so why was she there? "I have never sleep-walked before—maybe I need a doctor." She returned to the bedroom and glanced at the dragon on the dresser.
The voice returned. *Don't worry. If war begins I will always make sure you live. I live by your breathing. You must be saved to save me.*
"I don't know if I want you saved."
It was four days later, and Relena was in her room, putting the finishing touches upon her suit she was to wear at the summit between the earth and the colonies.
The dragon spoke up again. *Just twenty-three days and six hours left, and you're doing nothing? Don't come to me if war breaks out and you are left behind, babe.*
"Shut the hell up. There will be no war and I do not call myself 'babe'. This is just a simple meeting between me and some earth governors and a few colony governors. Nothing will happen."
*Ah, so optimistic and so very wrong.*
The dragon had not stopped talking since it decided it had found an ideal place to stay. It told her to call it Al, and to tell it every single thing that had happened in the previous day—every single time. She had been caught once by Heero and she had to convince him not to call a doctor or the police. But it was not often like that—Al usually was able to tell her the story of her day once she was halfway through. She thought she was being watched, but he insisted, *No, you are falling into the trap! Don't stay going like this, pull out of the tumble.*
"You think that you can see into the future, don't you?"
*I _know_ that I can. I am a part of the 90% of the brain never used. Think of all the things that people can do with all of their brains.*
"My head is strong enough to see into the future."
*You are just one person in a network of souls. A thousand souls together can do some pretty impressive stuff. If all of the parts got together in a casino, we would walk away big winners and that would be it for that casino.*
"Well, fine. So what is going to happen?"
*One of the colony governors are going to insist that they deserve independence. You try to put the idea down and you offend him. So tension gets out of control, and in about three and a half weeks, the next great war starts.*
"I think that I would be a better diplomat than to do that."
*Everyone slips up. Just be very very careful about what you say, and maybe the war never starts. We check the future constantly so if something _you_ do alters it, we know.*
"I see."
*Good luck*
The summit was served with a side of pasta, over lunch. No restaurant was going to be asked to shut down so a few people could discuss, so it was held in the mansion itself. It went fairly well—no one was a klutz and spilled something on something else, which very well could have started a war, considering how expensively dressed everyone was. The same could be said for the servers.
It was all lightness and honey, everyone raising everyone else more than discussing problems. There were very few to be mentioned. War was gone, crime was dropping to a level not yet seen in all of history, and the air, water, and land were cleaner than ever.
The dessert cart came, and with it some storm clouds. As the rolling stainless steel table with 97% chocolate content came its way toward the guests, a colony governor by the name of Hailerot stood and tinkled his fork against his champagne glass. "Ladies and gentleman, it has been such a _wonderful_ afternoon and I am quite afraid the some would find their day spoiled by my next proposal, but I fell that I must proceed. And I shall."
Everyone else in the room—Relena, her five governors on earth, the four other colony governors—fell into a silence. The servers continued to bring out the chocolate cake noiselessly. "I do feel that the peace of these last eleven years have been quite wonderful to everyone, and I do not wish to ruin it with my proposal." The aging diplomat took a sip of his champagne and continued. "One of the reasons that peace stayed _immediately_ after the great war of AC 195 as that the was but one nation—the earthsphere. There was no one to rip the nation into civil war instead of Mariemaya Barton, and she was but a child of eight with a front behind her and she was defeated.
"There was no way of war but civil war and that was eliminated. So I propose to you all today a plan, for maybe a five or ten year timeline, to bring the colonies out of that title the earth shall remain one nation. The colonies, all of them combined, would be a second. There is nothing but good nature between the two now and it would seem that it would not end with celestial independence. And it only seems _natural_ for there to be two nations—the colonists have to be a different breed from earthborn. Not better necessarily, if anyone born on earth is offended by that, but different." After a second sip of the glass, he turned to Relena and said, "Minister, I would like to hear your feedback at this. I believe it to be a fine idea, don't you?"
She was scooping at her chocolate cake idly. She decided that he was too wise to suggest an idea that could bring strife, so she thought of it as a joke. "Why, Governor, you must be jesting."
"What?"
"Or perhaps you have had a bit _too_ much champagne." She smiled to herself and poured herself another glass. "Shame on you! See this? It is only my second glass. Ooo, your family will not be happy when I tell them! 'Hailerot, you have got some 'splaining to do!'" With her best Desi accent, she finished with gusto and laughed, almost pitching into her cake.
It had been more than two glasses of champagne. Many more.
Hailerot rose. "Why, I have never before been more offended! Minister Darlian, this is no longer in your hands—we will get independence if your permission or not!" He swept out of the room, followed by his other governors.
The earth governors looked at Relena. She, in a stupor, said, "What?"
Heero had been watching the whole thing as a bodyguard and went over to her. Lifting her up and carrying her out, he said, "Okay, Chuckles. I think it should be naptime for you. Then you get some of Duo's magic stop- hangover drink."
"Ewww, it's nasty."
"You'll want to drink it as soon as you see yourself."
END PART TWO BEGIN PART THREE
