END PART THREE BEGIN PART FOUR
She was dressed in the full military garb from ten years ago. She was never a soldier, a leader or held any sort of militant position like that, but it had always made an impressive impact upon her audience. She sat in a chair in a broadcasting room in the BBC Studio, readying herself to send her message to all of the world. A producer walk on over and said, "We are getting everything ready—the cameras and microphones and such. The TelePrompTer has all of the lines that you need in it. Some guys are also throwing up a background, so people'll see you next to the—like a—Coliseum."
"That all sounds wonderful. Thank you much, sir." As he walked away a screen flicked on as the camera in the Green Room were activated. Workers were putting finishing touches on the pseudo-Coliseum. "Might as well make my way to the Green Room now."
She left the room, down a little hallway, and over to a narrow door. The last of the workers came on out. "Everything's up, ma'am. You're set to go."
"Okay." She seated herself, and a voice came from a megaphone. "Ten seconds. Just talk when the TelePrompTer starts." A moment later words flooded onto the screen and Relena began.
"Good evening, all. I have been aware of the lack of public knowledge on the subject of the conflict between the Earth and the colonies. The networks have been kind enough to provide me time to give you light on the matter.
"The conflict, which is about three weeks old now, concerns the demand of the colonies to leave the Earthsphere after ten very prosperous and peaceful years. They are now wishing to attempt to leave the Earth's bound and make it on their own."
Duo and Hilde Maxwell were seated at home in L2, watching Relena. "there is something that is so different about her," said Duo, "but I just can't get a finger on what."
"She looks old," said his wife. "Like she burned away from the inside and nothing was left."
"Not a day of these ten years was it that humanity took a step backwards. People have grown better, more educated and healthier. People are now living longer, more cooperatively, and happier. It stands that the colonies do not wish this: they wish for war and the Dark Ages."
"What?" said Cheng Wufei, alone in his home. "Crazy onna."
"The colonies want the world to go back I time, to regress in time, so they alone would stand as pillars of civilization. They want us to have not even the gift of fire. Hey want to bloody up the planet until they are left—they see the Earth as backward, inferior romantics, not wanting to see their world. Their world, where space and space alone—damn the old home—is the future.
"And so it is how me must fight."
The Preventers HQ, in Luna City, buzzed with excitement. Trowa, Quatre, and Zechs were all there. As well as Une and Lucy Noin, all the old Scientists of the Gundams, Howard, Sally Po, Dorothy Caledonia…the list went on and on. "So," said Une, a carton of duck-on-rice in her hand and chopsticks in the other, "is she insane, or just possessed?"
Howard mumbled something, his mouth full, but then he shoved some of General Tso's chicken home and said, "She died and replaced by a duplicate. Hell, it's easy to build one."
"The poor baby must have gone insane from being so nice for so long," said Noin.
"Nothing on the Earth—the Old World to them—is good enough. The universe is not big enough for both the Earth and the colonies, is the common thinking." Relena was continuing on. "The universe is big enough, but adding mobile suits and conflict and war—then the universe is shrunken. Then, perhaps, only one could be a survivor. The current conflict was stirred up by the colonies, for they sure so sure, in their arrogance, to the 'fact' that they could and would win any war against I—'the old pacifist'—and all of you on the Earth." Her voice took on a harsh tone. "If all of us bend to the slavery of the colonies, then we shall only be proving all of them right. That is not a world I want my life to be lived in. I know that Relena Darlian and slavery are too big to exist in one universe, so if the latter comes, the other need not exist. I will make sure of it, through pills or a rope or a pistol."
"I wish to live and all of you to be free. I hate war, which all of you must know by now, but I see no other choice but to strike now, as there is an opportunity."
"Relena Darlian taking up war, rousing up the masses?" said Dorothy on Luna City. "What a world." After pausing, she said, "If only she was around ten, 'leven years ago. OZ versus the Sanc Kingdom…what an epic…."
"There are steps to be taken toward this. A draft must be conducted, and all young men and women who are able-bodied must register. There must not be any disunity amongst the leaders of this new war, and so I have taken it upon myself to declare a unrestricted national emergency, and take the dictatorial powers invested upon the aforementioned situation. It is but a start, however. All must take part in the war, from the child down the street to the grandfather rocking his afternoons away."
"My town's elders would never do something so useless as 'rocking the afternoons away,'" Wufei told his television. "They are _busy_ ."
Relena was approaching the end of her address. "All must be subject to rationing and increased security everywhere. It will be uncomfortable times. But it is far better to be uncomfortable to be a slave to a colonial master, working one's life into the dust, then having to face some common hardship for three months, or four.
"If you love me, or your country or your home, if you love yourself and your being able to live as you want to—join the masses. Hold on for but a little while, and we can be free from chains forever."
An announcer then popped up onto the screen. "That was Foreign Minister Relena Darlian in her address of the conflict—"
The TV was switched in the Maxwell House. "Well," said Hilde, "That was…definitely very surprising." She looked at Duo. "So what are we doing now? Sounds like we have a war that's going to start."
"We got to lock this place up and pack. Then we pack and volunteer for the colonies. God, she has turned to a mad woman. She must be stopped."
Cheng Wufei switch his TV off after a few minutes of after-speech commentary. "This is the real home." He packed, and called the volunteering phone number that was displayed right after the speech. "Hello, I would like to join the Earth Forces."
The television was switched off in the Preventers HQ and silence followed. "Dudes," said Howard, "What are we going to _do_?"
"Prevent," said Sally. "It's all we do and can do."
Relena reclined back in her chair and sighed. "Well, it's all said. Gotta get back to Rome in tree-quarter time now." A tiny voice, barely heard even by her, sounded in the back of her skull.
*Hey, Relena. You did great.*
"Why do you have to be with me so much?" she asked Al. She—they—were in a secret elevator running up the back of the foreign minister mansion in Rome. It was Al's idea, or really Al's fault. It was not enough that she had to be a slave to a demon—she had to become paranoid because of her possession. "I follow all of your instructions. I do every little thing that you ask of me that I can do. I just want to be left alone for a little bit. Don't you respect any privacy, at all?"
*You are a tricky one. You have to be watched to make sure you do not do any funny stuff.*
"Why don't you and all of your spirit friends that 'see' that I have to be so militant just possess me and completely take over my mind so I don't have to think about anything anymore. Maybe then I won't have to be watched and not think I had anything to do with killing babies once this is over and done." She spat the last part out. "I dare you, 'babe'. Come see if you can beat me. After I see the Heero-dying film 10,000 times, it isn't so bad."
*I got a lot more power than you think I do.* She fell. *I have all the control over all of your muscles. Here, check out this.* She could again more her legs. She tried to breathe a sigh of relief—and started to gasp for air. *Can't breathe, Foreign Minister? Don't worry, I'll save you.* Oxygen flooded back in.
"Stop that. You're scaring the hell out of me."
*This is scarier, baby.* Nothing happened for a few seconds. Relena was starting to think that his grip was reducing until a pain was felt by her o the left side of the chest. Twenty seconds later it was unbearable. *I can even stop your heartbeat. Your life is in my hands. I won't kill you, though. A corpse is useless.* Slowly her pain faded. *God, this elevator takes forever. Aww, is little baby Relena shaking? Is she scared by a bunch of dead people?*
"Stop it! I can't take this shit!" She was leaning against one wall, sobbing. "What's to keep me from just slicing my wrists to end this nightmare?"
*I can control your muscles—you won't get a knife in your hands if I have a word in it.*
The elevator stopped and the door opened. Gravity helped Relena out. *Just get your stuff and go to the Sanc Kingdom air base. If any of the senators give you any crap about them losing their jobs, just tell them to go home or be drafted. They will get the picture if you give them a military order to relax.*
"That is what you want me to do. I'm looking for a knife in my desk." She remembered she had one an eternal three, four weeks ago, opening the dragon gift from the Maxwells. "Yeah, that would work just fine." She paused to consider that her feet were not moving as she wanted them to. "Let a poor woman die, won't you?" she screamed.
"Who are you speaking to?" Heero turned a corner. "You doing okay?"
"No. I'm going crazy and no one can help me."
"Relena, what is going on?"
"I can't control me anymore. People from the outside are in control now." She looked up at the skeptical Heero. "You don't believe me?" she shrieked. "You do not have to live with a voice in your head. You can live without smelling death or watching children being tortured as they called for they mothers and there is not a shit to do about it because you can't—they are the ones doing this to you. It's so goddamn real that it rips your bleeding heart out, Heero. And that is why I have been Queen of the Damned for however long I have been in Hell. I am a slave. I am under the control of some dead guys who like war and there is not a goddamn thing you can save me because they are too strong. They can kill me and torture me and if you try to get me away they will rip you from me. I have seen you die in my dreams a hundred times—don't you see me with my nightmares?-- and I will not live with you being dead in the real world. And they don't care. I'll live for eternity with my grief if they can, and they can. They love torture, they love death…Heero, save me. Get me out of this hell." She squeezed Heero so tight he was having trouble breathing. "Oh my God…I…nothing is left…all hope is lost…."
"It's fine. 'S okay." He held her and saddled up to a messenger. "Call Dr. Po and try to find a number from her for a psychiatrist."
END PART FOUR BEGIN PART FIVE
She was dressed in the full military garb from ten years ago. She was never a soldier, a leader or held any sort of militant position like that, but it had always made an impressive impact upon her audience. She sat in a chair in a broadcasting room in the BBC Studio, readying herself to send her message to all of the world. A producer walk on over and said, "We are getting everything ready—the cameras and microphones and such. The TelePrompTer has all of the lines that you need in it. Some guys are also throwing up a background, so people'll see you next to the—like a—Coliseum."
"That all sounds wonderful. Thank you much, sir." As he walked away a screen flicked on as the camera in the Green Room were activated. Workers were putting finishing touches on the pseudo-Coliseum. "Might as well make my way to the Green Room now."
She left the room, down a little hallway, and over to a narrow door. The last of the workers came on out. "Everything's up, ma'am. You're set to go."
"Okay." She seated herself, and a voice came from a megaphone. "Ten seconds. Just talk when the TelePrompTer starts." A moment later words flooded onto the screen and Relena began.
"Good evening, all. I have been aware of the lack of public knowledge on the subject of the conflict between the Earth and the colonies. The networks have been kind enough to provide me time to give you light on the matter.
"The conflict, which is about three weeks old now, concerns the demand of the colonies to leave the Earthsphere after ten very prosperous and peaceful years. They are now wishing to attempt to leave the Earth's bound and make it on their own."
Duo and Hilde Maxwell were seated at home in L2, watching Relena. "there is something that is so different about her," said Duo, "but I just can't get a finger on what."
"She looks old," said his wife. "Like she burned away from the inside and nothing was left."
"Not a day of these ten years was it that humanity took a step backwards. People have grown better, more educated and healthier. People are now living longer, more cooperatively, and happier. It stands that the colonies do not wish this: they wish for war and the Dark Ages."
"What?" said Cheng Wufei, alone in his home. "Crazy onna."
"The colonies want the world to go back I time, to regress in time, so they alone would stand as pillars of civilization. They want us to have not even the gift of fire. Hey want to bloody up the planet until they are left—they see the Earth as backward, inferior romantics, not wanting to see their world. Their world, where space and space alone—damn the old home—is the future.
"And so it is how me must fight."
The Preventers HQ, in Luna City, buzzed with excitement. Trowa, Quatre, and Zechs were all there. As well as Une and Lucy Noin, all the old Scientists of the Gundams, Howard, Sally Po, Dorothy Caledonia…the list went on and on. "So," said Une, a carton of duck-on-rice in her hand and chopsticks in the other, "is she insane, or just possessed?"
Howard mumbled something, his mouth full, but then he shoved some of General Tso's chicken home and said, "She died and replaced by a duplicate. Hell, it's easy to build one."
"The poor baby must have gone insane from being so nice for so long," said Noin.
"Nothing on the Earth—the Old World to them—is good enough. The universe is not big enough for both the Earth and the colonies, is the common thinking." Relena was continuing on. "The universe is big enough, but adding mobile suits and conflict and war—then the universe is shrunken. Then, perhaps, only one could be a survivor. The current conflict was stirred up by the colonies, for they sure so sure, in their arrogance, to the 'fact' that they could and would win any war against I—'the old pacifist'—and all of you on the Earth." Her voice took on a harsh tone. "If all of us bend to the slavery of the colonies, then we shall only be proving all of them right. That is not a world I want my life to be lived in. I know that Relena Darlian and slavery are too big to exist in one universe, so if the latter comes, the other need not exist. I will make sure of it, through pills or a rope or a pistol."
"I wish to live and all of you to be free. I hate war, which all of you must know by now, but I see no other choice but to strike now, as there is an opportunity."
"Relena Darlian taking up war, rousing up the masses?" said Dorothy on Luna City. "What a world." After pausing, she said, "If only she was around ten, 'leven years ago. OZ versus the Sanc Kingdom…what an epic…."
"There are steps to be taken toward this. A draft must be conducted, and all young men and women who are able-bodied must register. There must not be any disunity amongst the leaders of this new war, and so I have taken it upon myself to declare a unrestricted national emergency, and take the dictatorial powers invested upon the aforementioned situation. It is but a start, however. All must take part in the war, from the child down the street to the grandfather rocking his afternoons away."
"My town's elders would never do something so useless as 'rocking the afternoons away,'" Wufei told his television. "They are _busy_ ."
Relena was approaching the end of her address. "All must be subject to rationing and increased security everywhere. It will be uncomfortable times. But it is far better to be uncomfortable to be a slave to a colonial master, working one's life into the dust, then having to face some common hardship for three months, or four.
"If you love me, or your country or your home, if you love yourself and your being able to live as you want to—join the masses. Hold on for but a little while, and we can be free from chains forever."
An announcer then popped up onto the screen. "That was Foreign Minister Relena Darlian in her address of the conflict—"
The TV was switched in the Maxwell House. "Well," said Hilde, "That was…definitely very surprising." She looked at Duo. "So what are we doing now? Sounds like we have a war that's going to start."
"We got to lock this place up and pack. Then we pack and volunteer for the colonies. God, she has turned to a mad woman. She must be stopped."
Cheng Wufei switch his TV off after a few minutes of after-speech commentary. "This is the real home." He packed, and called the volunteering phone number that was displayed right after the speech. "Hello, I would like to join the Earth Forces."
The television was switched off in the Preventers HQ and silence followed. "Dudes," said Howard, "What are we going to _do_?"
"Prevent," said Sally. "It's all we do and can do."
Relena reclined back in her chair and sighed. "Well, it's all said. Gotta get back to Rome in tree-quarter time now." A tiny voice, barely heard even by her, sounded in the back of her skull.
*Hey, Relena. You did great.*
"Why do you have to be with me so much?" she asked Al. She—they—were in a secret elevator running up the back of the foreign minister mansion in Rome. It was Al's idea, or really Al's fault. It was not enough that she had to be a slave to a demon—she had to become paranoid because of her possession. "I follow all of your instructions. I do every little thing that you ask of me that I can do. I just want to be left alone for a little bit. Don't you respect any privacy, at all?"
*You are a tricky one. You have to be watched to make sure you do not do any funny stuff.*
"Why don't you and all of your spirit friends that 'see' that I have to be so militant just possess me and completely take over my mind so I don't have to think about anything anymore. Maybe then I won't have to be watched and not think I had anything to do with killing babies once this is over and done." She spat the last part out. "I dare you, 'babe'. Come see if you can beat me. After I see the Heero-dying film 10,000 times, it isn't so bad."
*I got a lot more power than you think I do.* She fell. *I have all the control over all of your muscles. Here, check out this.* She could again more her legs. She tried to breathe a sigh of relief—and started to gasp for air. *Can't breathe, Foreign Minister? Don't worry, I'll save you.* Oxygen flooded back in.
"Stop that. You're scaring the hell out of me."
*This is scarier, baby.* Nothing happened for a few seconds. Relena was starting to think that his grip was reducing until a pain was felt by her o the left side of the chest. Twenty seconds later it was unbearable. *I can even stop your heartbeat. Your life is in my hands. I won't kill you, though. A corpse is useless.* Slowly her pain faded. *God, this elevator takes forever. Aww, is little baby Relena shaking? Is she scared by a bunch of dead people?*
"Stop it! I can't take this shit!" She was leaning against one wall, sobbing. "What's to keep me from just slicing my wrists to end this nightmare?"
*I can control your muscles—you won't get a knife in your hands if I have a word in it.*
The elevator stopped and the door opened. Gravity helped Relena out. *Just get your stuff and go to the Sanc Kingdom air base. If any of the senators give you any crap about them losing their jobs, just tell them to go home or be drafted. They will get the picture if you give them a military order to relax.*
"That is what you want me to do. I'm looking for a knife in my desk." She remembered she had one an eternal three, four weeks ago, opening the dragon gift from the Maxwells. "Yeah, that would work just fine." She paused to consider that her feet were not moving as she wanted them to. "Let a poor woman die, won't you?" she screamed.
"Who are you speaking to?" Heero turned a corner. "You doing okay?"
"No. I'm going crazy and no one can help me."
"Relena, what is going on?"
"I can't control me anymore. People from the outside are in control now." She looked up at the skeptical Heero. "You don't believe me?" she shrieked. "You do not have to live with a voice in your head. You can live without smelling death or watching children being tortured as they called for they mothers and there is not a shit to do about it because you can't—they are the ones doing this to you. It's so goddamn real that it rips your bleeding heart out, Heero. And that is why I have been Queen of the Damned for however long I have been in Hell. I am a slave. I am under the control of some dead guys who like war and there is not a goddamn thing you can save me because they are too strong. They can kill me and torture me and if you try to get me away they will rip you from me. I have seen you die in my dreams a hundred times—don't you see me with my nightmares?-- and I will not live with you being dead in the real world. And they don't care. I'll live for eternity with my grief if they can, and they can. They love torture, they love death…Heero, save me. Get me out of this hell." She squeezed Heero so tight he was having trouble breathing. "Oh my God…I…nothing is left…all hope is lost…."
"It's fine. 'S okay." He held her and saddled up to a messenger. "Call Dr. Po and try to find a number from her for a psychiatrist."
END PART FOUR BEGIN PART FIVE
