CHAPTER SIX: UNITED WE FALL
"Heero."
He turned as she said his name, his blue eyes coming immediately to rest on hers. Her gaze flickered to the rest of the pilots as they moved away and towards the cars waiting to take them to the city and Lady Une. They seemed to accept what Xiran had said. But something about the girl still bothered Relena. She had to tell him that, and also--
"Relena." His eyes were questioning. She stared for a moment longer into the depths of them, letting her mind wander to times in the past when she had thought she had seen something in them that was truly him. His identity now was still a mystery to her, but she had seen glimpses past the soldier in him to what lay beneath. Whatever that was, watching her behind the ice of his cobalt eyes, had somehow...
His eyes moved sharply to something at her back, just over her right shoulder. Xiran stood there silently. Relena didn't acknowledge her, and returned her gaze to Heero. He was still holding Xiran's dark gaze. The girl said quietly, "Good luck Heero. May your mission be successful." A sudden wry grin pulled at her mouth. He uttered a little derisive laugh that was barely above a sigh, and Relena felt her eyes grow hard. She struggled to rearrange her face.
Heero had returned his attention to her, but she wanted this to be a private conversation. She turned to Xiran, "Would you please leave us? We have something to discuss." Xiran looked slightly surprised for a moment, then her eyes went from Relena to Heero and she moved away.
[Duo]
Duo looked out through the window of the car at his two friends standing at the entrance to the base. Relena's long hair curled in the wind, and Heero's hair didn't move at all. Xiran was a little off to the side.
"Well, Heero sure is pimping today ain't he?" He reported cheerfully. Quatre looked up suddenly, his normally pleasant expression surprised. "What are you talking about now?"
"Heero. He's being a whore," Duo laughed.
"What!"
"Just look at him there, with two gals, leading them both on...man he's good at it...unless he's so totally clueless that he doesn't notice..."
"Duo," Wufei said evenly from the back. "Shut. Up."
"You know, you could at least have a sense of humour."
"And you could shut up."
"Remember what I said about that pole?"
"Bite me. Hard."
"You only wish."
"Why you-- "
"Both of you, please sit back before I have to tranquilize you."
There was a brief period of silence.
"That was really good Trowa! Very believable. You almost had me going there for a second!"
"And the funny thing Duo, is that you think I'm joking."
Another silence.
"Now that, that was-- "
"Don't push it."
"Right."
[Heero]
He thought Relena looked worried. She had remained calm throughout the telling, but now, when he saw her alone, she looked anxious. He didn't know if she believed Xiran or not, but something in her face and voice told him she was more than a little suspicious. He gazed into her face, thinking suddenly how innocent she looked. Her hair was caught by the breeze, for a moment obscuring her beautiful blue eyes. He looked away. What's gotten into you? Have your teenage instincts kicked in for the first time? How inconvenient.
She said as quietly as she could over the wind, "Heero, I worried about you when you left. I sort of expected it in a way, but I didn't know whether you...were okay." She hesitated, and he saw her watching his expression, but he ddin't know what to do. "Now, it seems you've reappeared at my doorstep. It's like old times. Heero Yuy completing his missions, while Relena Peacecraft stays on the sidelines." Her smile was small. Heero chuckled without much humour. She was sad.
"On the sidelines... Queen Relena?"
"Barring that," she murmured. She still seemed distracted. He saw her gaze drift over to Xiran.
[Relena]
Xiran was watching them with her unreadable expression. It was starting to get on Relena's nerves. Just as she made eye contact, Xiran raised an eyebrow. Relena jerked her gaze back to Heero, who looked impatient, if that was possible. She said quickly, knowing that the wind was carrying her words away, away from that third person standing over there, "I still don't entirely trust her, Heero. We haven't got evidence to back up what she said. As far as we know, she could be working for these so called Genesis forces. And we havn't truly seen her fight before, not to her full capacity. She could still be a spy. There's something about her that is guarded, something she hasn't told."
He was watching her with a strange expression in his eyes.
"She deserves the benefit of the doubt, I suppose." He looked suddenly distant.
Relena murmured, "I know, but I can still worry can't I?"
"Do you want me to stay?" He didn't know how much she wanted to say yes.
"No. Lady Une still needs more protection than I do. Besides, there's no real reason for Xiran to kill me, is there?" It was a poor attempt at humour, and she knew it. It came out sounding fake. When she looked at Xiran again though, the girl had an amused look on her face, even though she was no longer watching them. It made Relena nervous, and irritated. Why was she letting Xiran bother her? There was no real purpose in it. Xiran hadn't actually even done anything to make her irritated. Relena sighed inwardly. Just pull it together.
Heero was nodding. He looked like he was going to leave. Then abruptly he stepped close to Relena and said quietly, "I'll be careful. Don't worry. We have connections to the security systems here. We'll know if anything goes wrong and if it does we'll be pounding up the front entrance within twenty five minutes at the latest." Relena was trying to ignore how close he was to her. She smiled at him, and said "Thank you, Heero."
Without another word, he turned and went down to the waiting cars. She stared after him, trying not to notice that Xiran was doing the same.
[Hilde]
"Bye Duo!" She waved as the cars pulled out, and saw the answering wiggle of his fingers outside on of the passenger windows. She turned back to the base as the cars pulled out of sight, her expression rather close to one of Heero's. Duo's eyes had that gleam again. There was excitement and intensity and self loathing in that gleam, and it hurt her to see his violet eyes so full of it. Shinigami. Yes she had seen him fight. It had been there in those days as well. But in these last months with her, she had seen his eyes full of something else, something that made her happy. She sighed. My Shinigami.
Hilde looked up as she mounted the steps to see Xiran and Relena also watching the cars out of sight. Xiran turned away first, moving back indoors, but stopped as she saw Hilde coming. She directed a hesitant smile at her. Hilde grinned back. Really, the girl wasn't so bad once you got used to her. It was just like the rest of the pilots...well except Quatre. Once you got used to them they were alright. Okay, more than alright in Duo's case, but he was an exception. Shinigami. The word flashed in her mind again as she met Xiran's gaze. He had seemed so strange this morning, so melancholy. She forced her smile to remain on her face as she fell into step next to Xiran, looking at the ground.
Dammit. He had gotten close to telling her something a couple of times, but he had never been able to finish. He needed to get it off his chest. He'd probably been holding it in for years, the stubborn asshole. Hilde frowned. Something to do with the church. And it made him so damn sad, it made her heart want to break.
Well, she knew ways to make him happy. Ah yes, she knew lots and lots of ways.
She found she was grinning again.
She wondered exactly what the term companionable silence really meant. She almost always felt the need to chatter, and even when she herself didn't feel like it, Duo would fill in quite nicely. She was walking next to Xiran now, had been for several steps, and was considering what she could say to the quiet girl. *I suppose Heero and Trowa can have `companionable silences', because silence for them is an actual form of conversation. But I can't...*
"So...what do you think of my shirt?" Hilde asked, trying to sound bright. Xiran looked surprised, and somehow relieved, and she said, "Oh this one?" Hilde nodded. Xiran suddenly laughed.
"It's great! Its really is. The irony is not lost on me," She chuckled to herself. "I suppose you got a kick out of sending it to Duo. Just what did he say about me?"
"Oh not much. Only that you were somewhat like a distorted girl version of Heero...and really, come on, I have always wanted to see Heero in a shirt like that!"
She laughed again. "Wouldn't we all? Though really, I can't see him being all that amused by it..."
"Of course, that's hardly the point. The point is that *we're* amused, right?" Hilde said, with a grin.
"Right!"
They laughed.
[Relena]
The both of them seemed to be having a good time up there. She wondered if either of them had the good etiquette to remember that she was back here too. Relena sighed, banishing those selfish thoughts. Hilde's probably just trying to make Xiran feel welcome, at ease. After all, Hilde had long since charmed Relena, and it this moment it was best to be allies with Xiran, rather than enemies. Still, there was some part of her that was fuming from the looks she had been given on the stairs. She looked up at them again, as they moved past the big doors into the base's front hall.
Relena thought, I was once someone that was admired. But what does that do for me now?
[Hilde]
"So Hilde. I didn't get any information about you. Tell me about the lone gundam girl." Hilde grinned at that.
"Well, there's not much to tell, really. I was born on the L4 Colony, and when I was old enough to enlist, I went under the forces of Oz. There's not much to it from there. Some of the things they did were questionable, but...questioning your whole way of life is hard, and it took a long time to register that Oz's motives were not my own. Even then it wasn't entirely me. Duo rather...exploded into my life, literally. He turned everything upside-down." She laughed. "Nothing's really been the same since."
"Yeah. It's a grand thing to challenge the system, isn't it?" Xiran said, with a trace of bitterness. "I had someone turn my life around too..." She stopped, but then after a glance at Hilde, went on. "He showed me how to live differently, that there was more to life than following orders. He showed me other paths to travel, away from what war had made of me. But the same things he was trying to protect me from, and the things that he was trying to get me to forgive, came for him anyway..." She looked so sad all of a sudden, it made Hilde want to give her a hug or something. She said quietly, "Hey, Xi, you don't mind if I call you Xi?--well you don't have to talk anymore. It's been a hard day for you, with these confessions and so on. You can lay off around me, unless you really want to."
Xiran turned her dark gaze on her. Her face was, oddly enough, readable. She was surprised, and yet grateful for Hilde's understanding.
They continued to walk in silence.
Behind them, came Relena.
The doors closed with a hollow banging sound, and locked.
[Relena]
Hilde had finally worked herself up to a good chattering mode, maybe trying to fill the uneasy space between Xiran and Relena. Xiran seemed amused and attentive to her constant string of words, but Relena was thinking.
How did the girl get to earth anyway? The thought hit her hard. In a mobile suit? A shuttle? A gundam? She bit her lip, and then stopped, remembering that such behaviour was unladylike.
"So anyway, after they infiltrated...."
Great. Hilde was relating the whole saga of how she helped the pilots with the war. Relena went back to her thoughts. If Xiran somehow had come in a gundam, where had she hidden it? Or if she was working for the other forces, or even the terrorists, how would she communicate? There were so many possibilities. She momentarily regretted sending all the pilots to get Lady Une. Then she shook herself. It will only be about an hour and a half. What could go wrong?
With some surprise, Relena realized that they had stopped. Xiran was looking up at a painting on the wall. Hilde was next to her, in respectful silence. Almost in awe, Xiran stepped forward and raised one hand, to run it along the edge of it. Relena remembered that painting well. It was one of her favourites.
"It's of the Pacific, somewhere in Canada. Its in the old style, hand painted and on real canvas."
Her words fell into space. Xiran seemed not to have heard them. Her head tilted up, to take in the whole picture, of the brilliant blue green wave curling in the surf, and the rising sun splashing its yellow and red tones along the surface of the water and the sand. Relena watched her as her expression changed from awe into gentle pleasure, and a slow smile dawned on her face.
"I have always wanted to see the ocean," she breathed, her eyes not leaving the painting. Hilde told her, "We'll go see it sometime together, okay? We can make a day out of it. You know, see the sights, swim, have a picnic... check out guys in tight bathing suits..."
Relena watched as Xiran's face carefully rearranged itself so that what emotions had been there were slowly buried. The girl turned to Hilde, and replied, "It's a date." Her smile was oddly sad.
Relena tried not to notice how her sadness and angst only made her more attractive. No wonder Heero and her shared that look, her mind whispered.
Relena decided quickly that it was time to have a security check, and reached for the console nearby. It was embedded in the wall, and she pressed the activation button.
"Rian, are you there? Rian." She paused. Her chief of security was never far from his communicator.
Xiran was looking at her suddenly with sharp, navy eyes. Relena fought to keep her face totally calm.
Xiran face slowly drained of expression, as if she had come to a decision.
"Rian?" Relena said into the speaker. She threw a quick glance down the hall.
"Ri--" Someone grabbed her hand and forced it away from the button. Relena looked up into Xiran's frighteningly expressionless face.
"Xiran, what are you..."
Xiran silenced her with her hand. Hilde had come up behind her, looking wary. Relena pried her hand loose from Xiran's grip. "What is it?"
"I heard something."
Relena wondered if the girl was hearing things. The hall sounded quiet to her. She looked to Hilde, who was also wearing a soldier's expression of concentration. Relena felt suddenly cold. It still doesn't change. A soldier I am not. I never have and I never will be. I can't help in a situation like this.
Xiran's pupils somehow seemed to have dilated, and she was totally on edge, listening for sounds that only she could seem to hear. Hilde came up next to her. "What do you think is going on?" she whispered.
Xiran didn't say anything for a long moment, unmoving, her face utterly blank with concentration. Then she turned to Hilde, saying quietly, "There should be some form of security in here, right? Well, for the last several minutes, there has been silence in this part of the base. In a place like this, there should never be that kind of quiet. I heard the sounds of people moving in here, just now, but the sounds were muffled, like they were trying to be stealthy. I think that we have some unwelcome visitors."
Relena turned back to the console. "Well then, shouldn't we just..."
"No," Xiran said quickly. "We can't risk it. Not over radio frequency, it could be monitored." She looked around the hall. "Did Heero say just how they would know we were in trouble?"
"No...but I think that Rian, my chief of security, would know."
Hilde had paused in thought. "I think that maybe they have direct connections to the security system here. So since we can't use the radio, we can activate the video monitors when we sound the silent alarm. Then they will be able to see what's going on." Xiran gave her an approving look. "Good job, Hilde."
She shrugged. "I haven't stayed alive this long without acquiring some minor thinking skills."
Xiran nodded. Her tone had become almost businesslike. Her words had a commanding quality that Relena recognized without much effort. After all, she had been around Heero for quite some time during the war.
"Relena, where is the security center in this building?"
She told her that the center was in the east part of the wing they were in now. Xiran frowned. "That's leading us close to the middle of the building," she mused. "I think they've started from the other side, so it will be cutting it close, time-wise." She looked at Relena again, her eyes holding that calculating look Relena recognized so well. "Where are the weapons in this place?"
"Most of them are in the security center. It's the guard's base of operations..." Relena's eyes went suddenly wide. "Of course," she said almost to herself. Her eyes came up to meet with Hilde's. "This is the time of afternoon when the guard's are changing shifts! The people you heard may be the new guards, or else we are in a lot more trouble than I thought."
Relena wondered for a moment if Xiran didn't know that already. Her face had not changed when she had told about the guard shifts, but then, faces such as hers were unreadable the majority of the time. *What if she's with the forces tracking us down?*
"Xiran, are they Genesis?" she asked suddenly.
Xiran had been talking with Hilde, perhaps making some plan of action. She looked up at that.
"Probably. We may have made a colossal mistake in thinking they would move on Lady Une first. I didn't think that Arcon would really perceive your part in the game until later. It doesn't seem like his style." A brief uneasiness came over her features, but quickly passed. "Come on. We're running out of time. Where is the garage here? Can we get out that way? No...they've probably got that and all the other main doors blocked, if I know them as well as I think I do. Relena, you've got to have an emergency door in here someplace!"
"Yes! I know where one is."
"Okay then, let's run. You can tell me along the way." They took off down the hall, Xiran in the lead. Relena thought, God help us if she's one of them.
[Hilde]
Now this was something she remembered. The tension, the thrill, knowing that you were both the hunter and the hunted. Infiltrating Oz's base for that disk...well that sure had been a kick. This...this was bordering on the perfectly insane. Not only did she not really know what was going on, she was being led by a mysterious girl whom Hilde did not entirely trust, who apparently had superhuman hearing. To make things that much worse, Relena was here too, and she would be utterly useless in a fight. Hilde knew that she was going into a situation blind, and it made her uneasy. Oh yes, and don't forget, they were also completely unarmed.
It was really turning out to be a hell of a day.
They sprinted down the nicely furnished and carpeted halls of the base, which was really just a meeting place with Relena in charge. They stopped at every hallway junction, pressed to the walls, looking about for intruders. Hilde's heart was pounding with the tension. Around every corner could be a fully trained and armed hybrid or human soldier.
They progressed quickly, Xiran keeping a breakneck pace, always in front and always on alert. Hilde thought, if she's leading us into a trap, we are so screwed. Then again, Hilde had a feeling in her gut that Xiran was not against them. She just didn't seem to be afraid, and that was what made her uneasy.
So unafraid...
Like Duo, Hilde thought suddenly. My Shinigami. The word seemed more like a prayer now than it had before. With a feeling almost like pain, Hilde thought, oh Duo. If I die here today, I don't think he'll--
"We're here."
The words stabbed through Hilde's rather morbid thoughts and brought her back to the present. Xiran was in front of the closed door. She made eye contact with Hilde. Hilde gathered herself and nodded. She put Relena behind her.
Xiran held up a hand towards Hilde, that meant, You stay here for now. I'll go in first.
Hilde nodded again, feeling tight and almost nauseous with apprehension.
Xiran slipped through the door.
For several long moments Hilde waited for the inevitable gunshot, but then nothing happened. Moving quietly, and motioning for Relena to stay behind her, she stepped into the room. It was a small dark place, like an antechamber, with nothing really in it except a storage closet and another heavy door, leading to the other room. The door was slightly open.
Hilde listened for any sounds, straining to hear anything, and her eyes darted to the closet. Someone could be hiding in there, or there might be a weapon of some sort. Yeah, a broom would make a super defense. Sure to strike fear into the heart of any soldier.
She motioned for Relena to open the door to the closet, and set into a fighting crouch. Oh yeah baby, anything coming out of there's going to have my foot up its ass.
The door creaked as Relena opened it. The blackness inside was dark as pitch, but she could still see the glimmerings of tools. Hilde let out a sigh of relief, then reached in a picked up a three foot long piece of replacement piping. It was about three inches in width, and had a nice, heavy feel. She gave Relena a hammer. The door creaked again...
But we didn't touch it.
Hilde whirled, bringing the pipe up, and faced the other door as a huge soldier came through. He was bringing his gun up, and Hilde knew it sights were focused on her. Too fast!
Someone leapt onto the soldier's back, and wrapped their arms around his head and neck. Hilde was sure he would have cried out if those same arms weren't choking him. Xiran raked one hand across the man's eyes and he tried to scream, raising his arms and trying to tear her off him. The gun dropped. Hilde rushed in with the pipe and hit him hard in the gut, driving it up into his ribs with all her force. He made a strangled noise, still thrashing, but she had hurt him, oh yes. Hilde brought the pipe back and her next swing started at the floor and ended in his unprotected face, as he tossed Xiran off into the wall. He went down, hands clutching his face, and Xiran reappeared at his side. She kicked him viciously in the spine, and he collapsed, but before he could utter a cry, there was a muffled sound and a spray of red as his brains hit the nearest wall. Xiran stood for a moment with the gun in her hands, breathing hard, then turned to Hilde.
"Thanks. I owe you one."
"Oh so now we're keeping score?" Hilde panted, still reeling from the quickness of the attack. Xiran, unexpectedly, laughed.
"I couldn't have done it without you."
"That's better," Hilde replied, with a tired smile. Xiran tucked the gun into her pants and took a step towards the door. She stopped, looking back over her shoulder. Hilde abruptly remembered, Relena. She turned to her.
The look she and Xiran were sharing was not a pleasant one. Relena's face was surprisingly cold. Xiran's expression remained impassive. Xiran slowly and deliberately turned back to the door.
"Where were you?" Relena's voice was quiet, but still held enough firmness to carry across the room. Xiran didn't turn. She said, "I got around him and was going to attack from behind, or give you guys some warning. Then he heard the closet door open, and he went to check. I didn't have time to reach him earlier, and I couldn't yell. Are you happy now?"
"Was he a hybrid?"
"What do you think?"
"Hey guys," Hilde said, trying vainly to get them to stop. "We have a mission to concentrate on here! Xiran, please just give her a straight answer. I'd like to know too."
Hilde thought she heard Xiran sigh. "Yes...he was. That's why it took so much to bring him down."
Hilde said, "Alright. Let's move. We don't have time to talk here."
They moved into the security room. It was hexagonal, most of its wall lined with sensors, buttons, lights, and screens, and in the front of the room, or what could be said to be the front of the room, was a swivel chair.
Relena put a hand to her face to stifle a gasp, but she didn't turn away. Hilde felt her own face become hard, and her hands tightened on the pipe. Xiran moved forward and gently closed the wide and staring brown eyes of the man in the chair. His Asian face was set in an expression of shock. Hilde heard Relena whisper, "Oh Rian." His throat had been slit, almost to the bone. Xiran quickly moved past the dead man and to the computer controls. She activated the video monitors. Six screens lit up, showing the inside of the building. After a moment she turned back to Hilde and Relena. She said, "There are at least fifteen of them. It's a mixed attack squad. I've activated the security alarm, but we don't have time to actually talk to the pilots. We have to move now. They're coming and they're coming fast. Relena, where is the secret door and where does it lead?"
"Out to the field. There's a bunker, bomb shelter thing there. As for the door, just follow me."
"No." It was Hilde this time. "You've got to stay behind us. Tell me where it is. I know this building."
Relena's eyes flashed.
"Right. Let's go."
They were once again running through the halls. They were still fleeing from an enemy that they couldn't see, they were still being led by a weird girl, and she still felt uneasy, but hey, Hilde had a gun in her hands that made an Uzi look pathetic. She was feeling a hell of a lot better.
They had raided the security's weapons with Relena's code, and were now making a mad dash back to where they had come, to a room that would lead them out into the field. Hilde still had some small doubts about Xiran, but she trusted the girl enough to hand her the same gun she now held in her hands. Hell, she'd probably even give her a bazooka if she had to. Xiran was better with guns than Hilde was, and Hilde knew it.
They were close now, and they hadn't seen anything yet, but the tenseness in Xiran's face was enough to make them run like rabbits. Hilde remembered the look in her eyes as she touched the dead man. Yes, as far as things went, she trusted Xiran. Liked her, even. It just might turn out all right, Hilde thought, as they entered the home stretch, with the room in sight.
Xiran suddenly darted into an open room. Hilde quickly followed suit, yanking Relena along with her. The body of a young man lay sprawled in the corner of the room, face down, his hazel eyes still open in an expression of shock. Hilde saw Relena's jaw clench. Xiran's face was grim, but not because of the body. "There is a group of them in the room," she said in the softest of whispers. "I think they're checking it for something. I don't know, they may suspect there is a secret door there. But whatever it is, we don't have time to wait for it. The others are almost on top of us." She looked straight into Hilde's eyes. "I'll go in and take as many out as I can. I don't want either of you to be involved. You have to stay back and watch my back, okay?" Relena said nothing. Her eyes were wide and afraid. Hilde tried to protest, but Xiran held up a hand. "It has to be this way. I have more experience with their tactics, and I work better alone. I don't want you to get hurt." Hilde
bit her tongue. You bloody idiot, she thought.
Xiran took out her backup gun, so that she had one in each hand.
"Wish me luck." For a moment she took a steadying breath.
Then she ran out into the hall. Half a second later, there were the sounds of gunshots and screams. Hilde thought, here we go again...
[Quatre]
The car ride was rather nerve wracking, even though most of the time car rides soothed him. He supposed that this was an exception because they were on the verge of another war, Lady Une, head of the Preventers, was in the seat next to him, Relena and Hilde were back at the base with an unknown girl, Wufei was within an inch of murdering Duo, and Trowa had been almost totally silent for the entire day. Quatre sighed. Now all that could happen to make this day much better is--
The alarm went off.
For a moment there was dead silence. Then Heero reached over and grabbed his laptop. He flipped it open, the screen at once flashing with images from the base. He tried the audio comlink. "Hilde? Relena? Hilde!" No response. Duo shoved his way next to Heero and glued his intense violet gaze to the screen. "Wait! There!" He jabbed his finger at the screen as one image flashed by. Then with a curse he got up and threw the driver into the passenger's seat. He got behind the wheel and drove the gas pedal viciously to the floor.
Quatre felt the car leap forward. He watched Heero as he isolated the specific cameras and directed his mechanical eye throughout the house. Then Quatre saw what Duo had seen: people dressed in black moving throughout the base, looking like a fully equipped attack team. *Oh no.*
Then Heero's face froze. The footage on the screen...
Quatre said tightly, "Duo. As fast as you can, go!"
[Xiran]
Four of them were down. Four! Only four. Bullets ripped through the wall around her. She ran, using every skill she had at her disposal to dodge the fire of the three still left. Two were human, the other, a hybrid.
There was no cover in the fucking room! She threw a small explosive and hurled the dining table hard onto its side. It was backed up with some sort of material, but she didn't know how long it could hold. She put her back to it, and then whirled out of its cover, her weapons blazing. The bullets impacted the smaller female human. She jerked with the force of the shots and fell. Explosions sounded next to Xiran's ear. Too close for comfort! She threw herself back into her shelter. One slug had grazed her calf. She reloaded in seconds.
Pounding footsteps! One of them was coming over the table at her! Xiran whipped to the side and brought her gun up as a soldier came over the table and on top of her. She got him through the leg, and he cried out, but that didn't stop him from coming down hard into her ribs and stomach. He ripped a gun from her grasp. They grappled for a moment, and he hit her hard in the face with his gun. She allowed his blow to put him off balance, and brought a small knife up from her waist. It was in and out of him six times before he could shoot her, and he went limp on top of her. Gasping, her vision blurry, she threw him off, only having seconds before she was sure the hybrid would be on her. She fired randomly at the area the hybrid had been in last and dragged herself into a crouch. Where was the hybrid?
She rolled as gunfire exploded into the wall around her, and into the table. Plaster and dust rained down on her. The table was kicked away. Shit! She fired, but the female hybrid dodged. The hybrid threw her own smokescreen, and then a chair came a Xiran's head. It clipped her injured shoulder and knocked the hand holding her gun.
"Don't move." The voice came out of the fog, hard and clear. "You know I won't have any qualms about shooting you."
The hybrid stepped closer, gun trained on her. She said, "Drop it." Xiran didn't move. Suddenly there was a bullet hole in the wall next to her head. She didn't flinch.
"Drop it now."
The hybrid cocked the gun.
Xiran raised her chin, her eyes strangely calm. "Kill me then." *I deserve it...I know I do. You should know that...* There was no way she could escape a bullet at this close range. Maybe it would be for the best. She felt her grip tighten on the handle of her gun. Not too many rounds left. But enough...enough for this one...and maybe herself.
Xiran locked eyes with the person standing across from her.
She saw the hybrid's hand tighten on the trigger.
She began to bring her own gun up--
NO!
[Duo]
Heero's eyes widened. Duo saw his face in the rearview mirror. "What is it?" he snapped. "What is it!"
*God, if it was Hilde...don't let it be Hilde...*
Heero looked up at him. "It's Hilde."
Duo thought, oh fuck.
[Relena]
Before she could shout a word, Hilde leaped through the door and threw herself in front of Xiran, gun raised and pointed at the hybrid. Xiran's expression of shock and surprise barely had time to register before the sound of two shots rang out.
"Hilde!" Relena screamed, raising her own weapon. If both those shots went into her, she's dead! Relena's mind yelled frantically. She saw Hilde jerk and fall back a step, and the hybrid staggered too. Then from behind Hilde, like an avenging angel, came Xiran, an expression of rage distorting her features. The hybrid fell with at least six bullets in her torso and skull. Relena stopped, heart pounding, and watched as Xiran steadied Hilde, who had one hand pressed to her chest. Hilde's face was pale, and Xiran's expression was full of such anguish Relena wanted to turn away.
Suddenly, Xiran's head jerked up and her eyes widened. She screamed, "The door!" Relena unthinkingly turned and threw her whole weight against the paneling of the door, and it slammed shut. She hit the bolt home. Several seconds later, they heard the sounds of people running in the hall.
She turned back and Xiran's face was once again blank, and she was tearing strips of cloth for Hilde's wound. "Come on, let's go."
Xiran looked up at her, and then nodded. Then she went and grabbed new guns and ammunition. Down the halls, Relena heard the sounds of doors being thrown open.
The secret door really wasn't really well hidden, but you had to know which part of the wood paneling to pull up to find the switch. A trap door lowered in the floor. They hurried as best they could through the old tunnel. It opened in a hillside about half a mile from the base itself. By this time, Hilde was covered in a sheen of sweat, and Relena was definitely worried.
The field they were in was mostly flat, but there were several ditches and holes that they could hide in. The grass was both long and short, and rustled in the wind. The clouds had crowded the uneasy sky, dulling everything into greyish tones. They moved from cover to cover, heading as fast as they could towards the shelter. They ducked down into another shallow ditch.
"Are we almost there?" Hilde asked tightly.
"Not yet." Xiran's voice was flat.
"Relena, how much longer until the pilots get here?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe twenty minutes."
"Too long," Relena heard Xiran whisper. "Too long..."
"Why?"
"Because they've picked up our scent. They've found the room already and at least five have reached the edge of the field by now."
"How can you be so sure?"
Xiran's look was irritated. "One, I worked with them for more than six years, and two, I can see three of them, right over there." She pointed. Relena said nothing, thinking some very unpleasant thoughts, most of them circling around the girl next to her. These thoughts, were however, banished by a sudden surge of relief. She pointed at the shelter. "We're there, Hilde! Don't worry," she said to the pale girl. "We're safe now." Relena studied the squat grey shape of the shelter, lying about twenty meters away, at the bottom of a long but shallow hill.
Xiran's cold gaze hadn't changed. She was watching the group of soldiers intently. "Okay," she said, "When I say go, we go on hands and knees to the high grass, and then down the slope."
Hilde sat up with a grimace. "Alright, Xi. On your word."
Xiran exchanged a look with Relena.
"On your command," Relena said coolly.
Xiran nodded. All three of them waited, listening to the rustle and sigh of the grass in the field, hoping perhaps, to see the cars pull up in the driveway, and the pilots leap out.
Relena hoped that Heero would get here soon.
Hilde wished for Duo.
Xiran said, "Go!"
[Hilde]
The sound of the door closing seemed like a wonderful thing, somehow close to the sound a gun makes at the end of a race. Hilde let herself sink back on the padded bench, trying not to dwell on the pain in her left side. The sudden relief of tension was like a breath of fresh air. She looked over to where Xiran and Relena were. Relena was rustling through the supply cupboards and shelves, looking for the first aid kit and possibly some snacks. Hilde was hoping for some hard liquor...but the chances of having some and Relena allowing her to have some were pretty slim.
Xiran was hanging back near the door, reloading. Hilde wondered if she was hurt, and opened her mouth to say something, but a sudden stab of pain obliterated that thought. She must have made some noise, because Xiran looked up and came over. Her expression seemed to soften as she approached, and her blue eyes were concerned.
"Hilde..." she said with a small smile. "You sure are one crazy woman, you know that?"
Hilde stifled her laughter, not wanting more knives in her chest. She smiled tightly.
"Damn straight."
Xiran laughed softly. Then her eyes became more serious. "How is the pain?"
Hilde shrugged. "I've been better. How are you holding up?"
"Fine."
"You sure?"
Xiran gave her an amused look. "I'm okay, really. I'm the one whose supposed to be worrying here, not you."
"So you're saying you're okay."
She laughed again. Hilde noticed how it brightened her face, made her seem almost...well, normal.
"Yes, already! But Hilde..."
"You'd probably say that if you were cutting off your own leg."
"...Hilde, I'm going back out. I need you two to stay here. Just remember not to open the door, not to anyone, or for anything, after I leave."
"You're not serious." It was Relena from behind them, holding a first aid kit. Xiran turned back to her. "Yes."
Relena drew her away to the door, but Hilde could still hear them.
"No. I won't let you do it. It's senseless Xiran, you could die for nothing. Don't throw your life away!"
There was a brief but icy silence.
"That's not what you really think. You just don't want me to go out there and talk to my 'comrades'. You think I'll come back and murder you in your sleep." Xiran's voice was totally cold. Relena didn't say anything, didn't deny it.
"I'll do my best to stay alive, but I can't stay here knowing that the chances of the pilots coming before they break down the walls of this place are close to nothing. I can't do that."
"I saw your face, back there in the room, Xiran. You didn't care if you died! I've only seen that in two people before... " she stopped painfully. "I won't let you go on a suicide mission!"
"And what if I was to die? I can't think of one person right now who would miss me. Or shed a tear. Not you, not Hilde. Even if the pilots cared, they would not cry. They are carved out of ice. The same mold as I was. It hasn't changed. I was bred to be this. And I can't escape it. "
"No. You know that isn't true."
"But do you? You don't know me. Do you really know them so much better? They can't show themselves to nearly anyone. All there is are actions, what they did. Do actions speak louder than words, Relena? Then again, perhaps I'm asking the wrong person."
"If you do become this thing you're so afraid of, then it will be your own fault. There is no fate that you cannot shape for yourself. Heero taught me that."
"Oh did he?" Hilde saw Xiran's bitter smile. "I'm sure he did. You couldn't take your eyes off him Relena, I saw you. So you love the ice cold soldier? Does the fact that he needs some beautiful, warm hearted girl to come and melt his heart excite you? Do you want to help him, heal his little booboos?"
"You mock me. But I can see right through you. What hurt you in the past to make you so bitter Xiran? Who hurt you?"
"Relena Peacecraft, you surprise me. Unnaturally perceptive you are. But you can' t know my life. Don't even try." She held Relena's angry gaze for a moment longer, her own eyes dark.
" ....I wouldn't want that for you."
With one glance back over her shoulder, straight into Hilde's eyes, she opened the door and left.
[Relena]
She clenched and unclenched her fists. That girl! Relena fought to keep her cool. No, no more comparisons to Heero in her mind. No, the girl was too much of a talker for that one. And the things she said...Relena's teeth ground together.
Xiran had left about ten minutes ago. The sound of gunfire through the heavy walls was hard to hear. Hilde was lying back, sleeping, beneath a blanket Relena had found. She would be alright, thank God. As long as the pilots got here soon.
Relena was still angry, but worry had also begun to filter in. What if Xiran needed help, was dying out there on the field? Even though her words had been harsh, Relena didn't want her to die like that. She really didn't want her to die at all. She only wanted to give her a good talking to. Or something like that. With a glance at Hilde, hardly knowing what she was doing, Relena picked up one of the guns Xiran had left and went to the door. With a quick breath, she opened the door and pulled it shut hard behind her. She heard the door lock. The sound chilled her.
The wind had picked up, and the sky was darker than she remembered, pressing down on the shifting grass of the field. Relena looked up the slope. The sound of gunfire shattered the air.
She ran, heart pounding, and lay flat at the crest of the hill.
There were holes in the soft dirt everywhere, signs of fast movements and scuffles. There were also larger blast holes, possibly from explosives. On the ground, were two human soldiers, staining the ground with red. There was another body also, lying twisted near the edge of a ditch. The last two standing were obviously hybrids, the first she had seen that actually had distinctly animalistic features. They had obviously regrouped, and now were in a defensive position on high ground, surrounded by ditches, and not fifteen meters from the shelter.
In a flash, something darted up out of the low ground. It was Xiran, her eyes coldly intense as she propelled herself towards her enemies. The unarmed hybrid saw her and yelled, and the other whirled, gun firing. Xiran went low and dodged in a movement so smooth that her stride was unbroken. Dirt sprayed up beside her. She faked to the side and closed the distance between them. The gun was knocked to the side and she hit the hybrid with full force, one leg in his stomach and an elbow to his head. As he went down she went for the gun, but the other was too quick. Xiran made a small sound as the hybrid's foot hit her. She fell. Her legs lashed out almost immediately, smashing the hybrid's knees. She was whirling to get up when the other hybrid grabbed her and twisted her arms behind her back. She thrashed her legs and was going for his crotch when the other rose up and delivered a full blow into her gut. She didn't have time to block. Her movements became less violent and the
second hybrid grabbed her legs. Xiran was suspended between them, gasping for breath, her eyes still wide and full of cunning.
"So now what are you going to do?" Relena heard her say roughly. Xiran's eyes suddenly fell on Relena at the crest of the hill. Recognition passed through them. Relena, with the gun sweaty in her hands, nodded.
Xiran suddenly smiled wickedly and screamed out, "Relena!"
The hybrids jerked, tried to turn, to look for an attacker, and Xiran sharply broke her legs free. The dull sound of her foot smashing into one hybrid's face brought Relena to her feet, and with trembling fingers she aimed and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshots nearly blew her ears out, and the backlash almost made her stumble. The hybrid tried to dodge her poorly aimed fire, but the bullets found him, and he jerked and hit the dirt. Xiran viciously twisted in the grip of the last hybrid, and turned on him as he tried to throw her off. Her knee went hard into his stomach and she fell down on top of him. Relena saw a flash of reddish silver. To her horror Xiran stabbed her knife hard into the hybrid's chest, right into his lungs. His legs jerked but Xiran straddled him and glared into his face. Relena started forward and heard Xiran say fiercely, "Who sent you? *Who*?"
The hybrid said something that Relena couldn't hear, and choked, blood coming from his mouth as he spoke. Xiran's face didn't change. Her eyes were as cold as an arctic midnight. She suddenly reached forward and took his face in her hands, and Relena saw her lips move. Then with no change in expression, Xiran yanked his head hard to the side with a powerful twisting motion.
Relena heard the sharp crack. The gun dropped from her fingers.
"Xiran, how could you? That was a human being," Relena cried. "How can you be so cold? Don't you care at all for the people you hurt? Or do you just enjoy their pain?"
Relena knew at once that she had made a mistake. Xiran had frozen where she knelt.
Relena gathered her will about her and prepared for a fight.
Xiran's face was expressionless. Relena could see nothing that betrayed the thoughts arrowing through her mind, not even the small flicker of emotion that Heero had in his eyes. It made her nervous.
It suddenly occurred to her that Xiran could easily kill her.
The wind suddenly blew a gust of chill air into the field, its icy breath swirling past them and ushering in the coming night. Xiran's hair curled like a living flame fed by the breeze, its undulating movements making her stillness seem all the more unreal.
Eyes like an arctic night met Relena's blue ones with a terrible intensity as the wind rushed by them once more with a hollow rustling sound that lifted both girl's hair and flung it over their shoulders. Strands hung in both their set faces and framed them with daggers.
Neither moved.
Relena wondered how long they could keep this stalemate before one of them broke, but she vowed it would not be her. If Xiran resorted to violence, she would not fight. She would stand up for her morals and be strong, as her father had taught her.
The air between them shifted uneasily.
Then Xiran's face darkened with anger, becoming a cold, ruthless mask of expression. It was a frightening thing to watch as her eyes, seemingly unchanged, suddenly glinted with a fierce light. Relena almost took a step back.
"Did you ever pause to think that maybe that's the only way I can deal with it?" Xiran said in a quiet voice, which was hard and even and held all the menace of the calm before a storm. She slowly straightened, leaving the soldier where he lay, and began moving in a slow, deliberate circle. The grass whispered and sighed around them.
Relena firmly stood her ground, even as Xiran slid out of her range of sight and to her back. What was she going to do? Relena wondered as the wind once more shook the grass and covered the sound of Xiran's footsteps. "Those are the kinds of actions that bring conflict and war down upon us all," Relena said.
Words suddenly struck her ears as Xiran threw them out into the restless rustling of the field.
"Don't be so righteous. You think that I am a horrible person for killing this man, but do you know how many soldiers died for the Sanc kingdom? They died for you, for your cause, and then you surrendered them to Oz, where they were drafted as front-line soldiers. You have no right, Relena Peacecraft, to call anyone cold when you have not truly experienced battle. Sure, you made decisions which cost lives, and you were forced to watch the destruction of thousands, but you did not snuff the life out of a person with your own hands!"
"It affected me in other ways! At least I can deal with my emotions without violence!"
"There is no time for tears in war, Relena. No time for softness, or emotion. War is cold metal against flesh, machine scraping against machine. It's death in your face every moment and it requires action, whether it be heartless or relentless, to slip away from its grasp. Call it what you will. Cold, cruel, brutal, barbaric, inhuman, or pitiless, it's the only way to survive. Some people deal with it differently, of course, but you already knew that. Heero became as cold as ice, Duo started laughing so he wouldn't go crazy, Wufei fell back on his honour to keep him sane, Trowa lost all feeling, and Quatre...Quatre remained the most emotional out of them all. But you witnessed what this cost him. He nearly lost his mind, he destroyed an entire colony, and he nearly destroyed Trowa."
Xiran stepped, in her unnerving silence, back into Relena's vision, her cold eyes still trained on hers. There was no outward display of emotion in her face, but her frame was as tense as a curled whip. Relena had the feeling that she was being hunted, studied to see if she was worth the trouble of a kill, and raised her chin. "And what did it do to you?"
Xiran suddenly stopped and let her head fall, turning her gaze to the ground. Her arms crossed and an almost bitter smile touched her lips. "I think I became oddly like Heero and Quatre together...except I--"she stopped. "I fell...lost direction, a purpose. Too much died for a mere idea..."She faded off, finding some memory that made her silent for a long moment. Gesturing suddenly to the fallen soldiers, she turned back to Relena.
"They died for a cause. For what the higher ranked wanted of them. They came out here with a death-wish, knowing that they were going to kill someone, or be killed in the process. It was either us, or them. Which you rather have had it been? It could have been you on the ground there, or me. Oh, but of course, you don't want anyone to fight, or die. It makes sense, Relena, it really does. But, it isn't always the answer.
They came out here to make a deal with death. They lost. We won. Surrendering would have flipped the coin, and they would not have shown us any mercy." At the mention of mercy, Xiran's face shifted almost imperceptibly, but it quickly returned to its blankness. Relena made a move forward and opened her mouth, to say that she didn't have to kill him, but Xiran saw and silenced her with her hand.
"Sooner or later, everything dies. In a war, it's the only definite thing. Almost no one expects to come out alive, and most people don't. Soldiers are expendable. Lives have meaning only in mass numbers. The final outcome is the only importance."
As she paused for breath, the wind whispered softly into the dusk, seeming to fill the field with unseen ghosts. The shadows shifted and lengthened into the shapes of distorted hands and bodies. The wind increased and the rustling noises of the grass sounded oddly like feathers. Xiran seemed not to notice. Relena said quietly, "You know that it isn't always like that. The gundam pilots stand as symbols of what the individual can do. It's not always as savage as your experiences were!"
Xiran stared at her. "Relena..." and looked away, turning back to her suddenly.
"They still had to be strong! It is savage in that way! Only the strong survive to live the combat one more time, and the others die. That is what war is about: death. When you start feeling for every soldier, or thinking about the blood on your hands, that's when your decision comes half a second too late. This coldness can be the only thing an experienced fighter has left...but it's a different kind of death..."
Xiran suddenly seemed weary, and for a moment she turned her face away to the approaching night. When she turned back she was once more the hunter in her domain as she stepped to the beginning of her circle and turned to face the girl opposite her.
"It did not have to end that way." Relena's voice was clear.
Blue gazes met across the cold, darkening clearing, and suddenly the wind ceased.
Xiran's eyes were shadowed as night crawled over the fragile silence, and there was a glint in them for a second, which then passed as the wind resumed its uneasy sighing. At her sides, her hands clenched into fists. "Perhaps...but then how will it end? By doing nothing, we solve nothing, and you have no right to judge me!"
Relena had the sudden feeling that she was seeing Xiran for the first time, the real Xiran. She suddenly didn't know what to think about this person who stood in shadow, who killed without expression, yet smiled so gently at a sunrise...and seemed to have a hold over Heero. She kept her voice even. "Perhaps it is you who has judged too quickly."
Xiran's voice suddenly cut across the grey silence, carrying with it barely contained hostility.
"When you have felt lives beneath your fingers, felt the power of the machine you wield wreaking destruction, felt the innocent needlessly suffer, felt your loved ones die around you, and still have a heart left, then come and tell me about how cold I am."
They suddenly stood eye to eye, and Xiran leaned in nearer, her gaze drilling into her.
"Until then, keep your goddamned mouth shut."
A voice. The sound was faint and tenuous, but there all the same. Both of them looked up. At the edge of the field, and closing the distance, were the Gundam pilots.
END
Well there's the end of this little escapade! Whew! I hope you all enjoyed that! Seven is coming by this week! I hope Xiran doesn't bother any readers. Is anyone guessing yet? I hope I'm not being too obvious... Ah well, it was fun writing, anyway. The next chapter has a lot of dialogue...so it won't be as fun, but hey, if it was all fighting, then it would be Dragonball and not Gundam.
"Heero."
He turned as she said his name, his blue eyes coming immediately to rest on hers. Her gaze flickered to the rest of the pilots as they moved away and towards the cars waiting to take them to the city and Lady Une. They seemed to accept what Xiran had said. But something about the girl still bothered Relena. She had to tell him that, and also--
"Relena." His eyes were questioning. She stared for a moment longer into the depths of them, letting her mind wander to times in the past when she had thought she had seen something in them that was truly him. His identity now was still a mystery to her, but she had seen glimpses past the soldier in him to what lay beneath. Whatever that was, watching her behind the ice of his cobalt eyes, had somehow...
His eyes moved sharply to something at her back, just over her right shoulder. Xiran stood there silently. Relena didn't acknowledge her, and returned her gaze to Heero. He was still holding Xiran's dark gaze. The girl said quietly, "Good luck Heero. May your mission be successful." A sudden wry grin pulled at her mouth. He uttered a little derisive laugh that was barely above a sigh, and Relena felt her eyes grow hard. She struggled to rearrange her face.
Heero had returned his attention to her, but she wanted this to be a private conversation. She turned to Xiran, "Would you please leave us? We have something to discuss." Xiran looked slightly surprised for a moment, then her eyes went from Relena to Heero and she moved away.
[Duo]
Duo looked out through the window of the car at his two friends standing at the entrance to the base. Relena's long hair curled in the wind, and Heero's hair didn't move at all. Xiran was a little off to the side.
"Well, Heero sure is pimping today ain't he?" He reported cheerfully. Quatre looked up suddenly, his normally pleasant expression surprised. "What are you talking about now?"
"Heero. He's being a whore," Duo laughed.
"What!"
"Just look at him there, with two gals, leading them both on...man he's good at it...unless he's so totally clueless that he doesn't notice..."
"Duo," Wufei said evenly from the back. "Shut. Up."
"You know, you could at least have a sense of humour."
"And you could shut up."
"Remember what I said about that pole?"
"Bite me. Hard."
"You only wish."
"Why you-- "
"Both of you, please sit back before I have to tranquilize you."
There was a brief period of silence.
"That was really good Trowa! Very believable. You almost had me going there for a second!"
"And the funny thing Duo, is that you think I'm joking."
Another silence.
"Now that, that was-- "
"Don't push it."
"Right."
[Heero]
He thought Relena looked worried. She had remained calm throughout the telling, but now, when he saw her alone, she looked anxious. He didn't know if she believed Xiran or not, but something in her face and voice told him she was more than a little suspicious. He gazed into her face, thinking suddenly how innocent she looked. Her hair was caught by the breeze, for a moment obscuring her beautiful blue eyes. He looked away. What's gotten into you? Have your teenage instincts kicked in for the first time? How inconvenient.
She said as quietly as she could over the wind, "Heero, I worried about you when you left. I sort of expected it in a way, but I didn't know whether you...were okay." She hesitated, and he saw her watching his expression, but he ddin't know what to do. "Now, it seems you've reappeared at my doorstep. It's like old times. Heero Yuy completing his missions, while Relena Peacecraft stays on the sidelines." Her smile was small. Heero chuckled without much humour. She was sad.
"On the sidelines... Queen Relena?"
"Barring that," she murmured. She still seemed distracted. He saw her gaze drift over to Xiran.
[Relena]
Xiran was watching them with her unreadable expression. It was starting to get on Relena's nerves. Just as she made eye contact, Xiran raised an eyebrow. Relena jerked her gaze back to Heero, who looked impatient, if that was possible. She said quickly, knowing that the wind was carrying her words away, away from that third person standing over there, "I still don't entirely trust her, Heero. We haven't got evidence to back up what she said. As far as we know, she could be working for these so called Genesis forces. And we havn't truly seen her fight before, not to her full capacity. She could still be a spy. There's something about her that is guarded, something she hasn't told."
He was watching her with a strange expression in his eyes.
"She deserves the benefit of the doubt, I suppose." He looked suddenly distant.
Relena murmured, "I know, but I can still worry can't I?"
"Do you want me to stay?" He didn't know how much she wanted to say yes.
"No. Lady Une still needs more protection than I do. Besides, there's no real reason for Xiran to kill me, is there?" It was a poor attempt at humour, and she knew it. It came out sounding fake. When she looked at Xiran again though, the girl had an amused look on her face, even though she was no longer watching them. It made Relena nervous, and irritated. Why was she letting Xiran bother her? There was no real purpose in it. Xiran hadn't actually even done anything to make her irritated. Relena sighed inwardly. Just pull it together.
Heero was nodding. He looked like he was going to leave. Then abruptly he stepped close to Relena and said quietly, "I'll be careful. Don't worry. We have connections to the security systems here. We'll know if anything goes wrong and if it does we'll be pounding up the front entrance within twenty five minutes at the latest." Relena was trying to ignore how close he was to her. She smiled at him, and said "Thank you, Heero."
Without another word, he turned and went down to the waiting cars. She stared after him, trying not to notice that Xiran was doing the same.
[Hilde]
"Bye Duo!" She waved as the cars pulled out, and saw the answering wiggle of his fingers outside on of the passenger windows. She turned back to the base as the cars pulled out of sight, her expression rather close to one of Heero's. Duo's eyes had that gleam again. There was excitement and intensity and self loathing in that gleam, and it hurt her to see his violet eyes so full of it. Shinigami. Yes she had seen him fight. It had been there in those days as well. But in these last months with her, she had seen his eyes full of something else, something that made her happy. She sighed. My Shinigami.
Hilde looked up as she mounted the steps to see Xiran and Relena also watching the cars out of sight. Xiran turned away first, moving back indoors, but stopped as she saw Hilde coming. She directed a hesitant smile at her. Hilde grinned back. Really, the girl wasn't so bad once you got used to her. It was just like the rest of the pilots...well except Quatre. Once you got used to them they were alright. Okay, more than alright in Duo's case, but he was an exception. Shinigami. The word flashed in her mind again as she met Xiran's gaze. He had seemed so strange this morning, so melancholy. She forced her smile to remain on her face as she fell into step next to Xiran, looking at the ground.
Dammit. He had gotten close to telling her something a couple of times, but he had never been able to finish. He needed to get it off his chest. He'd probably been holding it in for years, the stubborn asshole. Hilde frowned. Something to do with the church. And it made him so damn sad, it made her heart want to break.
Well, she knew ways to make him happy. Ah yes, she knew lots and lots of ways.
She found she was grinning again.
She wondered exactly what the term companionable silence really meant. She almost always felt the need to chatter, and even when she herself didn't feel like it, Duo would fill in quite nicely. She was walking next to Xiran now, had been for several steps, and was considering what she could say to the quiet girl. *I suppose Heero and Trowa can have `companionable silences', because silence for them is an actual form of conversation. But I can't...*
"So...what do you think of my shirt?" Hilde asked, trying to sound bright. Xiran looked surprised, and somehow relieved, and she said, "Oh this one?" Hilde nodded. Xiran suddenly laughed.
"It's great! Its really is. The irony is not lost on me," She chuckled to herself. "I suppose you got a kick out of sending it to Duo. Just what did he say about me?"
"Oh not much. Only that you were somewhat like a distorted girl version of Heero...and really, come on, I have always wanted to see Heero in a shirt like that!"
She laughed again. "Wouldn't we all? Though really, I can't see him being all that amused by it..."
"Of course, that's hardly the point. The point is that *we're* amused, right?" Hilde said, with a grin.
"Right!"
They laughed.
[Relena]
The both of them seemed to be having a good time up there. She wondered if either of them had the good etiquette to remember that she was back here too. Relena sighed, banishing those selfish thoughts. Hilde's probably just trying to make Xiran feel welcome, at ease. After all, Hilde had long since charmed Relena, and it this moment it was best to be allies with Xiran, rather than enemies. Still, there was some part of her that was fuming from the looks she had been given on the stairs. She looked up at them again, as they moved past the big doors into the base's front hall.
Relena thought, I was once someone that was admired. But what does that do for me now?
[Hilde]
"So Hilde. I didn't get any information about you. Tell me about the lone gundam girl." Hilde grinned at that.
"Well, there's not much to tell, really. I was born on the L4 Colony, and when I was old enough to enlist, I went under the forces of Oz. There's not much to it from there. Some of the things they did were questionable, but...questioning your whole way of life is hard, and it took a long time to register that Oz's motives were not my own. Even then it wasn't entirely me. Duo rather...exploded into my life, literally. He turned everything upside-down." She laughed. "Nothing's really been the same since."
"Yeah. It's a grand thing to challenge the system, isn't it?" Xiran said, with a trace of bitterness. "I had someone turn my life around too..." She stopped, but then after a glance at Hilde, went on. "He showed me how to live differently, that there was more to life than following orders. He showed me other paths to travel, away from what war had made of me. But the same things he was trying to protect me from, and the things that he was trying to get me to forgive, came for him anyway..." She looked so sad all of a sudden, it made Hilde want to give her a hug or something. She said quietly, "Hey, Xi, you don't mind if I call you Xi?--well you don't have to talk anymore. It's been a hard day for you, with these confessions and so on. You can lay off around me, unless you really want to."
Xiran turned her dark gaze on her. Her face was, oddly enough, readable. She was surprised, and yet grateful for Hilde's understanding.
They continued to walk in silence.
Behind them, came Relena.
The doors closed with a hollow banging sound, and locked.
[Relena]
Hilde had finally worked herself up to a good chattering mode, maybe trying to fill the uneasy space between Xiran and Relena. Xiran seemed amused and attentive to her constant string of words, but Relena was thinking.
How did the girl get to earth anyway? The thought hit her hard. In a mobile suit? A shuttle? A gundam? She bit her lip, and then stopped, remembering that such behaviour was unladylike.
"So anyway, after they infiltrated...."
Great. Hilde was relating the whole saga of how she helped the pilots with the war. Relena went back to her thoughts. If Xiran somehow had come in a gundam, where had she hidden it? Or if she was working for the other forces, or even the terrorists, how would she communicate? There were so many possibilities. She momentarily regretted sending all the pilots to get Lady Une. Then she shook herself. It will only be about an hour and a half. What could go wrong?
With some surprise, Relena realized that they had stopped. Xiran was looking up at a painting on the wall. Hilde was next to her, in respectful silence. Almost in awe, Xiran stepped forward and raised one hand, to run it along the edge of it. Relena remembered that painting well. It was one of her favourites.
"It's of the Pacific, somewhere in Canada. Its in the old style, hand painted and on real canvas."
Her words fell into space. Xiran seemed not to have heard them. Her head tilted up, to take in the whole picture, of the brilliant blue green wave curling in the surf, and the rising sun splashing its yellow and red tones along the surface of the water and the sand. Relena watched her as her expression changed from awe into gentle pleasure, and a slow smile dawned on her face.
"I have always wanted to see the ocean," she breathed, her eyes not leaving the painting. Hilde told her, "We'll go see it sometime together, okay? We can make a day out of it. You know, see the sights, swim, have a picnic... check out guys in tight bathing suits..."
Relena watched as Xiran's face carefully rearranged itself so that what emotions had been there were slowly buried. The girl turned to Hilde, and replied, "It's a date." Her smile was oddly sad.
Relena tried not to notice how her sadness and angst only made her more attractive. No wonder Heero and her shared that look, her mind whispered.
Relena decided quickly that it was time to have a security check, and reached for the console nearby. It was embedded in the wall, and she pressed the activation button.
"Rian, are you there? Rian." She paused. Her chief of security was never far from his communicator.
Xiran was looking at her suddenly with sharp, navy eyes. Relena fought to keep her face totally calm.
Xiran face slowly drained of expression, as if she had come to a decision.
"Rian?" Relena said into the speaker. She threw a quick glance down the hall.
"Ri--" Someone grabbed her hand and forced it away from the button. Relena looked up into Xiran's frighteningly expressionless face.
"Xiran, what are you..."
Xiran silenced her with her hand. Hilde had come up behind her, looking wary. Relena pried her hand loose from Xiran's grip. "What is it?"
"I heard something."
Relena wondered if the girl was hearing things. The hall sounded quiet to her. She looked to Hilde, who was also wearing a soldier's expression of concentration. Relena felt suddenly cold. It still doesn't change. A soldier I am not. I never have and I never will be. I can't help in a situation like this.
Xiran's pupils somehow seemed to have dilated, and she was totally on edge, listening for sounds that only she could seem to hear. Hilde came up next to her. "What do you think is going on?" she whispered.
Xiran didn't say anything for a long moment, unmoving, her face utterly blank with concentration. Then she turned to Hilde, saying quietly, "There should be some form of security in here, right? Well, for the last several minutes, there has been silence in this part of the base. In a place like this, there should never be that kind of quiet. I heard the sounds of people moving in here, just now, but the sounds were muffled, like they were trying to be stealthy. I think that we have some unwelcome visitors."
Relena turned back to the console. "Well then, shouldn't we just..."
"No," Xiran said quickly. "We can't risk it. Not over radio frequency, it could be monitored." She looked around the hall. "Did Heero say just how they would know we were in trouble?"
"No...but I think that Rian, my chief of security, would know."
Hilde had paused in thought. "I think that maybe they have direct connections to the security system here. So since we can't use the radio, we can activate the video monitors when we sound the silent alarm. Then they will be able to see what's going on." Xiran gave her an approving look. "Good job, Hilde."
She shrugged. "I haven't stayed alive this long without acquiring some minor thinking skills."
Xiran nodded. Her tone had become almost businesslike. Her words had a commanding quality that Relena recognized without much effort. After all, she had been around Heero for quite some time during the war.
"Relena, where is the security center in this building?"
She told her that the center was in the east part of the wing they were in now. Xiran frowned. "That's leading us close to the middle of the building," she mused. "I think they've started from the other side, so it will be cutting it close, time-wise." She looked at Relena again, her eyes holding that calculating look Relena recognized so well. "Where are the weapons in this place?"
"Most of them are in the security center. It's the guard's base of operations..." Relena's eyes went suddenly wide. "Of course," she said almost to herself. Her eyes came up to meet with Hilde's. "This is the time of afternoon when the guard's are changing shifts! The people you heard may be the new guards, or else we are in a lot more trouble than I thought."
Relena wondered for a moment if Xiran didn't know that already. Her face had not changed when she had told about the guard shifts, but then, faces such as hers were unreadable the majority of the time. *What if she's with the forces tracking us down?*
"Xiran, are they Genesis?" she asked suddenly.
Xiran had been talking with Hilde, perhaps making some plan of action. She looked up at that.
"Probably. We may have made a colossal mistake in thinking they would move on Lady Une first. I didn't think that Arcon would really perceive your part in the game until later. It doesn't seem like his style." A brief uneasiness came over her features, but quickly passed. "Come on. We're running out of time. Where is the garage here? Can we get out that way? No...they've probably got that and all the other main doors blocked, if I know them as well as I think I do. Relena, you've got to have an emergency door in here someplace!"
"Yes! I know where one is."
"Okay then, let's run. You can tell me along the way." They took off down the hall, Xiran in the lead. Relena thought, God help us if she's one of them.
[Hilde]
Now this was something she remembered. The tension, the thrill, knowing that you were both the hunter and the hunted. Infiltrating Oz's base for that disk...well that sure had been a kick. This...this was bordering on the perfectly insane. Not only did she not really know what was going on, she was being led by a mysterious girl whom Hilde did not entirely trust, who apparently had superhuman hearing. To make things that much worse, Relena was here too, and she would be utterly useless in a fight. Hilde knew that she was going into a situation blind, and it made her uneasy. Oh yes, and don't forget, they were also completely unarmed.
It was really turning out to be a hell of a day.
They sprinted down the nicely furnished and carpeted halls of the base, which was really just a meeting place with Relena in charge. They stopped at every hallway junction, pressed to the walls, looking about for intruders. Hilde's heart was pounding with the tension. Around every corner could be a fully trained and armed hybrid or human soldier.
They progressed quickly, Xiran keeping a breakneck pace, always in front and always on alert. Hilde thought, if she's leading us into a trap, we are so screwed. Then again, Hilde had a feeling in her gut that Xiran was not against them. She just didn't seem to be afraid, and that was what made her uneasy.
So unafraid...
Like Duo, Hilde thought suddenly. My Shinigami. The word seemed more like a prayer now than it had before. With a feeling almost like pain, Hilde thought, oh Duo. If I die here today, I don't think he'll--
"We're here."
The words stabbed through Hilde's rather morbid thoughts and brought her back to the present. Xiran was in front of the closed door. She made eye contact with Hilde. Hilde gathered herself and nodded. She put Relena behind her.
Xiran held up a hand towards Hilde, that meant, You stay here for now. I'll go in first.
Hilde nodded again, feeling tight and almost nauseous with apprehension.
Xiran slipped through the door.
For several long moments Hilde waited for the inevitable gunshot, but then nothing happened. Moving quietly, and motioning for Relena to stay behind her, she stepped into the room. It was a small dark place, like an antechamber, with nothing really in it except a storage closet and another heavy door, leading to the other room. The door was slightly open.
Hilde listened for any sounds, straining to hear anything, and her eyes darted to the closet. Someone could be hiding in there, or there might be a weapon of some sort. Yeah, a broom would make a super defense. Sure to strike fear into the heart of any soldier.
She motioned for Relena to open the door to the closet, and set into a fighting crouch. Oh yeah baby, anything coming out of there's going to have my foot up its ass.
The door creaked as Relena opened it. The blackness inside was dark as pitch, but she could still see the glimmerings of tools. Hilde let out a sigh of relief, then reached in a picked up a three foot long piece of replacement piping. It was about three inches in width, and had a nice, heavy feel. She gave Relena a hammer. The door creaked again...
But we didn't touch it.
Hilde whirled, bringing the pipe up, and faced the other door as a huge soldier came through. He was bringing his gun up, and Hilde knew it sights were focused on her. Too fast!
Someone leapt onto the soldier's back, and wrapped their arms around his head and neck. Hilde was sure he would have cried out if those same arms weren't choking him. Xiran raked one hand across the man's eyes and he tried to scream, raising his arms and trying to tear her off him. The gun dropped. Hilde rushed in with the pipe and hit him hard in the gut, driving it up into his ribs with all her force. He made a strangled noise, still thrashing, but she had hurt him, oh yes. Hilde brought the pipe back and her next swing started at the floor and ended in his unprotected face, as he tossed Xiran off into the wall. He went down, hands clutching his face, and Xiran reappeared at his side. She kicked him viciously in the spine, and he collapsed, but before he could utter a cry, there was a muffled sound and a spray of red as his brains hit the nearest wall. Xiran stood for a moment with the gun in her hands, breathing hard, then turned to Hilde.
"Thanks. I owe you one."
"Oh so now we're keeping score?" Hilde panted, still reeling from the quickness of the attack. Xiran, unexpectedly, laughed.
"I couldn't have done it without you."
"That's better," Hilde replied, with a tired smile. Xiran tucked the gun into her pants and took a step towards the door. She stopped, looking back over her shoulder. Hilde abruptly remembered, Relena. She turned to her.
The look she and Xiran were sharing was not a pleasant one. Relena's face was surprisingly cold. Xiran's expression remained impassive. Xiran slowly and deliberately turned back to the door.
"Where were you?" Relena's voice was quiet, but still held enough firmness to carry across the room. Xiran didn't turn. She said, "I got around him and was going to attack from behind, or give you guys some warning. Then he heard the closet door open, and he went to check. I didn't have time to reach him earlier, and I couldn't yell. Are you happy now?"
"Was he a hybrid?"
"What do you think?"
"Hey guys," Hilde said, trying vainly to get them to stop. "We have a mission to concentrate on here! Xiran, please just give her a straight answer. I'd like to know too."
Hilde thought she heard Xiran sigh. "Yes...he was. That's why it took so much to bring him down."
Hilde said, "Alright. Let's move. We don't have time to talk here."
They moved into the security room. It was hexagonal, most of its wall lined with sensors, buttons, lights, and screens, and in the front of the room, or what could be said to be the front of the room, was a swivel chair.
Relena put a hand to her face to stifle a gasp, but she didn't turn away. Hilde felt her own face become hard, and her hands tightened on the pipe. Xiran moved forward and gently closed the wide and staring brown eyes of the man in the chair. His Asian face was set in an expression of shock. Hilde heard Relena whisper, "Oh Rian." His throat had been slit, almost to the bone. Xiran quickly moved past the dead man and to the computer controls. She activated the video monitors. Six screens lit up, showing the inside of the building. After a moment she turned back to Hilde and Relena. She said, "There are at least fifteen of them. It's a mixed attack squad. I've activated the security alarm, but we don't have time to actually talk to the pilots. We have to move now. They're coming and they're coming fast. Relena, where is the secret door and where does it lead?"
"Out to the field. There's a bunker, bomb shelter thing there. As for the door, just follow me."
"No." It was Hilde this time. "You've got to stay behind us. Tell me where it is. I know this building."
Relena's eyes flashed.
"Right. Let's go."
They were once again running through the halls. They were still fleeing from an enemy that they couldn't see, they were still being led by a weird girl, and she still felt uneasy, but hey, Hilde had a gun in her hands that made an Uzi look pathetic. She was feeling a hell of a lot better.
They had raided the security's weapons with Relena's code, and were now making a mad dash back to where they had come, to a room that would lead them out into the field. Hilde still had some small doubts about Xiran, but she trusted the girl enough to hand her the same gun she now held in her hands. Hell, she'd probably even give her a bazooka if she had to. Xiran was better with guns than Hilde was, and Hilde knew it.
They were close now, and they hadn't seen anything yet, but the tenseness in Xiran's face was enough to make them run like rabbits. Hilde remembered the look in her eyes as she touched the dead man. Yes, as far as things went, she trusted Xiran. Liked her, even. It just might turn out all right, Hilde thought, as they entered the home stretch, with the room in sight.
Xiran suddenly darted into an open room. Hilde quickly followed suit, yanking Relena along with her. The body of a young man lay sprawled in the corner of the room, face down, his hazel eyes still open in an expression of shock. Hilde saw Relena's jaw clench. Xiran's face was grim, but not because of the body. "There is a group of them in the room," she said in the softest of whispers. "I think they're checking it for something. I don't know, they may suspect there is a secret door there. But whatever it is, we don't have time to wait for it. The others are almost on top of us." She looked straight into Hilde's eyes. "I'll go in and take as many out as I can. I don't want either of you to be involved. You have to stay back and watch my back, okay?" Relena said nothing. Her eyes were wide and afraid. Hilde tried to protest, but Xiran held up a hand. "It has to be this way. I have more experience with their tactics, and I work better alone. I don't want you to get hurt." Hilde
bit her tongue. You bloody idiot, she thought.
Xiran took out her backup gun, so that she had one in each hand.
"Wish me luck." For a moment she took a steadying breath.
Then she ran out into the hall. Half a second later, there were the sounds of gunshots and screams. Hilde thought, here we go again...
[Quatre]
The car ride was rather nerve wracking, even though most of the time car rides soothed him. He supposed that this was an exception because they were on the verge of another war, Lady Une, head of the Preventers, was in the seat next to him, Relena and Hilde were back at the base with an unknown girl, Wufei was within an inch of murdering Duo, and Trowa had been almost totally silent for the entire day. Quatre sighed. Now all that could happen to make this day much better is--
The alarm went off.
For a moment there was dead silence. Then Heero reached over and grabbed his laptop. He flipped it open, the screen at once flashing with images from the base. He tried the audio comlink. "Hilde? Relena? Hilde!" No response. Duo shoved his way next to Heero and glued his intense violet gaze to the screen. "Wait! There!" He jabbed his finger at the screen as one image flashed by. Then with a curse he got up and threw the driver into the passenger's seat. He got behind the wheel and drove the gas pedal viciously to the floor.
Quatre felt the car leap forward. He watched Heero as he isolated the specific cameras and directed his mechanical eye throughout the house. Then Quatre saw what Duo had seen: people dressed in black moving throughout the base, looking like a fully equipped attack team. *Oh no.*
Then Heero's face froze. The footage on the screen...
Quatre said tightly, "Duo. As fast as you can, go!"
[Xiran]
Four of them were down. Four! Only four. Bullets ripped through the wall around her. She ran, using every skill she had at her disposal to dodge the fire of the three still left. Two were human, the other, a hybrid.
There was no cover in the fucking room! She threw a small explosive and hurled the dining table hard onto its side. It was backed up with some sort of material, but she didn't know how long it could hold. She put her back to it, and then whirled out of its cover, her weapons blazing. The bullets impacted the smaller female human. She jerked with the force of the shots and fell. Explosions sounded next to Xiran's ear. Too close for comfort! She threw herself back into her shelter. One slug had grazed her calf. She reloaded in seconds.
Pounding footsteps! One of them was coming over the table at her! Xiran whipped to the side and brought her gun up as a soldier came over the table and on top of her. She got him through the leg, and he cried out, but that didn't stop him from coming down hard into her ribs and stomach. He ripped a gun from her grasp. They grappled for a moment, and he hit her hard in the face with his gun. She allowed his blow to put him off balance, and brought a small knife up from her waist. It was in and out of him six times before he could shoot her, and he went limp on top of her. Gasping, her vision blurry, she threw him off, only having seconds before she was sure the hybrid would be on her. She fired randomly at the area the hybrid had been in last and dragged herself into a crouch. Where was the hybrid?
She rolled as gunfire exploded into the wall around her, and into the table. Plaster and dust rained down on her. The table was kicked away. Shit! She fired, but the female hybrid dodged. The hybrid threw her own smokescreen, and then a chair came a Xiran's head. It clipped her injured shoulder and knocked the hand holding her gun.
"Don't move." The voice came out of the fog, hard and clear. "You know I won't have any qualms about shooting you."
The hybrid stepped closer, gun trained on her. She said, "Drop it." Xiran didn't move. Suddenly there was a bullet hole in the wall next to her head. She didn't flinch.
"Drop it now."
The hybrid cocked the gun.
Xiran raised her chin, her eyes strangely calm. "Kill me then." *I deserve it...I know I do. You should know that...* There was no way she could escape a bullet at this close range. Maybe it would be for the best. She felt her grip tighten on the handle of her gun. Not too many rounds left. But enough...enough for this one...and maybe herself.
Xiran locked eyes with the person standing across from her.
She saw the hybrid's hand tighten on the trigger.
She began to bring her own gun up--
NO!
[Duo]
Heero's eyes widened. Duo saw his face in the rearview mirror. "What is it?" he snapped. "What is it!"
*God, if it was Hilde...don't let it be Hilde...*
Heero looked up at him. "It's Hilde."
Duo thought, oh fuck.
[Relena]
Before she could shout a word, Hilde leaped through the door and threw herself in front of Xiran, gun raised and pointed at the hybrid. Xiran's expression of shock and surprise barely had time to register before the sound of two shots rang out.
"Hilde!" Relena screamed, raising her own weapon. If both those shots went into her, she's dead! Relena's mind yelled frantically. She saw Hilde jerk and fall back a step, and the hybrid staggered too. Then from behind Hilde, like an avenging angel, came Xiran, an expression of rage distorting her features. The hybrid fell with at least six bullets in her torso and skull. Relena stopped, heart pounding, and watched as Xiran steadied Hilde, who had one hand pressed to her chest. Hilde's face was pale, and Xiran's expression was full of such anguish Relena wanted to turn away.
Suddenly, Xiran's head jerked up and her eyes widened. She screamed, "The door!" Relena unthinkingly turned and threw her whole weight against the paneling of the door, and it slammed shut. She hit the bolt home. Several seconds later, they heard the sounds of people running in the hall.
She turned back and Xiran's face was once again blank, and she was tearing strips of cloth for Hilde's wound. "Come on, let's go."
Xiran looked up at her, and then nodded. Then she went and grabbed new guns and ammunition. Down the halls, Relena heard the sounds of doors being thrown open.
The secret door really wasn't really well hidden, but you had to know which part of the wood paneling to pull up to find the switch. A trap door lowered in the floor. They hurried as best they could through the old tunnel. It opened in a hillside about half a mile from the base itself. By this time, Hilde was covered in a sheen of sweat, and Relena was definitely worried.
The field they were in was mostly flat, but there were several ditches and holes that they could hide in. The grass was both long and short, and rustled in the wind. The clouds had crowded the uneasy sky, dulling everything into greyish tones. They moved from cover to cover, heading as fast as they could towards the shelter. They ducked down into another shallow ditch.
"Are we almost there?" Hilde asked tightly.
"Not yet." Xiran's voice was flat.
"Relena, how much longer until the pilots get here?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe twenty minutes."
"Too long," Relena heard Xiran whisper. "Too long..."
"Why?"
"Because they've picked up our scent. They've found the room already and at least five have reached the edge of the field by now."
"How can you be so sure?"
Xiran's look was irritated. "One, I worked with them for more than six years, and two, I can see three of them, right over there." She pointed. Relena said nothing, thinking some very unpleasant thoughts, most of them circling around the girl next to her. These thoughts, were however, banished by a sudden surge of relief. She pointed at the shelter. "We're there, Hilde! Don't worry," she said to the pale girl. "We're safe now." Relena studied the squat grey shape of the shelter, lying about twenty meters away, at the bottom of a long but shallow hill.
Xiran's cold gaze hadn't changed. She was watching the group of soldiers intently. "Okay," she said, "When I say go, we go on hands and knees to the high grass, and then down the slope."
Hilde sat up with a grimace. "Alright, Xi. On your word."
Xiran exchanged a look with Relena.
"On your command," Relena said coolly.
Xiran nodded. All three of them waited, listening to the rustle and sigh of the grass in the field, hoping perhaps, to see the cars pull up in the driveway, and the pilots leap out.
Relena hoped that Heero would get here soon.
Hilde wished for Duo.
Xiran said, "Go!"
[Hilde]
The sound of the door closing seemed like a wonderful thing, somehow close to the sound a gun makes at the end of a race. Hilde let herself sink back on the padded bench, trying not to dwell on the pain in her left side. The sudden relief of tension was like a breath of fresh air. She looked over to where Xiran and Relena were. Relena was rustling through the supply cupboards and shelves, looking for the first aid kit and possibly some snacks. Hilde was hoping for some hard liquor...but the chances of having some and Relena allowing her to have some were pretty slim.
Xiran was hanging back near the door, reloading. Hilde wondered if she was hurt, and opened her mouth to say something, but a sudden stab of pain obliterated that thought. She must have made some noise, because Xiran looked up and came over. Her expression seemed to soften as she approached, and her blue eyes were concerned.
"Hilde..." she said with a small smile. "You sure are one crazy woman, you know that?"
Hilde stifled her laughter, not wanting more knives in her chest. She smiled tightly.
"Damn straight."
Xiran laughed softly. Then her eyes became more serious. "How is the pain?"
Hilde shrugged. "I've been better. How are you holding up?"
"Fine."
"You sure?"
Xiran gave her an amused look. "I'm okay, really. I'm the one whose supposed to be worrying here, not you."
"So you're saying you're okay."
She laughed again. Hilde noticed how it brightened her face, made her seem almost...well, normal.
"Yes, already! But Hilde..."
"You'd probably say that if you were cutting off your own leg."
"...Hilde, I'm going back out. I need you two to stay here. Just remember not to open the door, not to anyone, or for anything, after I leave."
"You're not serious." It was Relena from behind them, holding a first aid kit. Xiran turned back to her. "Yes."
Relena drew her away to the door, but Hilde could still hear them.
"No. I won't let you do it. It's senseless Xiran, you could die for nothing. Don't throw your life away!"
There was a brief but icy silence.
"That's not what you really think. You just don't want me to go out there and talk to my 'comrades'. You think I'll come back and murder you in your sleep." Xiran's voice was totally cold. Relena didn't say anything, didn't deny it.
"I'll do my best to stay alive, but I can't stay here knowing that the chances of the pilots coming before they break down the walls of this place are close to nothing. I can't do that."
"I saw your face, back there in the room, Xiran. You didn't care if you died! I've only seen that in two people before... " she stopped painfully. "I won't let you go on a suicide mission!"
"And what if I was to die? I can't think of one person right now who would miss me. Or shed a tear. Not you, not Hilde. Even if the pilots cared, they would not cry. They are carved out of ice. The same mold as I was. It hasn't changed. I was bred to be this. And I can't escape it. "
"No. You know that isn't true."
"But do you? You don't know me. Do you really know them so much better? They can't show themselves to nearly anyone. All there is are actions, what they did. Do actions speak louder than words, Relena? Then again, perhaps I'm asking the wrong person."
"If you do become this thing you're so afraid of, then it will be your own fault. There is no fate that you cannot shape for yourself. Heero taught me that."
"Oh did he?" Hilde saw Xiran's bitter smile. "I'm sure he did. You couldn't take your eyes off him Relena, I saw you. So you love the ice cold soldier? Does the fact that he needs some beautiful, warm hearted girl to come and melt his heart excite you? Do you want to help him, heal his little booboos?"
"You mock me. But I can see right through you. What hurt you in the past to make you so bitter Xiran? Who hurt you?"
"Relena Peacecraft, you surprise me. Unnaturally perceptive you are. But you can' t know my life. Don't even try." She held Relena's angry gaze for a moment longer, her own eyes dark.
" ....I wouldn't want that for you."
With one glance back over her shoulder, straight into Hilde's eyes, she opened the door and left.
[Relena]
She clenched and unclenched her fists. That girl! Relena fought to keep her cool. No, no more comparisons to Heero in her mind. No, the girl was too much of a talker for that one. And the things she said...Relena's teeth ground together.
Xiran had left about ten minutes ago. The sound of gunfire through the heavy walls was hard to hear. Hilde was lying back, sleeping, beneath a blanket Relena had found. She would be alright, thank God. As long as the pilots got here soon.
Relena was still angry, but worry had also begun to filter in. What if Xiran needed help, was dying out there on the field? Even though her words had been harsh, Relena didn't want her to die like that. She really didn't want her to die at all. She only wanted to give her a good talking to. Or something like that. With a glance at Hilde, hardly knowing what she was doing, Relena picked up one of the guns Xiran had left and went to the door. With a quick breath, she opened the door and pulled it shut hard behind her. She heard the door lock. The sound chilled her.
The wind had picked up, and the sky was darker than she remembered, pressing down on the shifting grass of the field. Relena looked up the slope. The sound of gunfire shattered the air.
She ran, heart pounding, and lay flat at the crest of the hill.
There were holes in the soft dirt everywhere, signs of fast movements and scuffles. There were also larger blast holes, possibly from explosives. On the ground, were two human soldiers, staining the ground with red. There was another body also, lying twisted near the edge of a ditch. The last two standing were obviously hybrids, the first she had seen that actually had distinctly animalistic features. They had obviously regrouped, and now were in a defensive position on high ground, surrounded by ditches, and not fifteen meters from the shelter.
In a flash, something darted up out of the low ground. It was Xiran, her eyes coldly intense as she propelled herself towards her enemies. The unarmed hybrid saw her and yelled, and the other whirled, gun firing. Xiran went low and dodged in a movement so smooth that her stride was unbroken. Dirt sprayed up beside her. She faked to the side and closed the distance between them. The gun was knocked to the side and she hit the hybrid with full force, one leg in his stomach and an elbow to his head. As he went down she went for the gun, but the other was too quick. Xiran made a small sound as the hybrid's foot hit her. She fell. Her legs lashed out almost immediately, smashing the hybrid's knees. She was whirling to get up when the other hybrid grabbed her and twisted her arms behind her back. She thrashed her legs and was going for his crotch when the other rose up and delivered a full blow into her gut. She didn't have time to block. Her movements became less violent and the
second hybrid grabbed her legs. Xiran was suspended between them, gasping for breath, her eyes still wide and full of cunning.
"So now what are you going to do?" Relena heard her say roughly. Xiran's eyes suddenly fell on Relena at the crest of the hill. Recognition passed through them. Relena, with the gun sweaty in her hands, nodded.
Xiran suddenly smiled wickedly and screamed out, "Relena!"
The hybrids jerked, tried to turn, to look for an attacker, and Xiran sharply broke her legs free. The dull sound of her foot smashing into one hybrid's face brought Relena to her feet, and with trembling fingers she aimed and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshots nearly blew her ears out, and the backlash almost made her stumble. The hybrid tried to dodge her poorly aimed fire, but the bullets found him, and he jerked and hit the dirt. Xiran viciously twisted in the grip of the last hybrid, and turned on him as he tried to throw her off. Her knee went hard into his stomach and she fell down on top of him. Relena saw a flash of reddish silver. To her horror Xiran stabbed her knife hard into the hybrid's chest, right into his lungs. His legs jerked but Xiran straddled him and glared into his face. Relena started forward and heard Xiran say fiercely, "Who sent you? *Who*?"
The hybrid said something that Relena couldn't hear, and choked, blood coming from his mouth as he spoke. Xiran's face didn't change. Her eyes were as cold as an arctic midnight. She suddenly reached forward and took his face in her hands, and Relena saw her lips move. Then with no change in expression, Xiran yanked his head hard to the side with a powerful twisting motion.
Relena heard the sharp crack. The gun dropped from her fingers.
"Xiran, how could you? That was a human being," Relena cried. "How can you be so cold? Don't you care at all for the people you hurt? Or do you just enjoy their pain?"
Relena knew at once that she had made a mistake. Xiran had frozen where she knelt.
Relena gathered her will about her and prepared for a fight.
Xiran's face was expressionless. Relena could see nothing that betrayed the thoughts arrowing through her mind, not even the small flicker of emotion that Heero had in his eyes. It made her nervous.
It suddenly occurred to her that Xiran could easily kill her.
The wind suddenly blew a gust of chill air into the field, its icy breath swirling past them and ushering in the coming night. Xiran's hair curled like a living flame fed by the breeze, its undulating movements making her stillness seem all the more unreal.
Eyes like an arctic night met Relena's blue ones with a terrible intensity as the wind rushed by them once more with a hollow rustling sound that lifted both girl's hair and flung it over their shoulders. Strands hung in both their set faces and framed them with daggers.
Neither moved.
Relena wondered how long they could keep this stalemate before one of them broke, but she vowed it would not be her. If Xiran resorted to violence, she would not fight. She would stand up for her morals and be strong, as her father had taught her.
The air between them shifted uneasily.
Then Xiran's face darkened with anger, becoming a cold, ruthless mask of expression. It was a frightening thing to watch as her eyes, seemingly unchanged, suddenly glinted with a fierce light. Relena almost took a step back.
"Did you ever pause to think that maybe that's the only way I can deal with it?" Xiran said in a quiet voice, which was hard and even and held all the menace of the calm before a storm. She slowly straightened, leaving the soldier where he lay, and began moving in a slow, deliberate circle. The grass whispered and sighed around them.
Relena firmly stood her ground, even as Xiran slid out of her range of sight and to her back. What was she going to do? Relena wondered as the wind once more shook the grass and covered the sound of Xiran's footsteps. "Those are the kinds of actions that bring conflict and war down upon us all," Relena said.
Words suddenly struck her ears as Xiran threw them out into the restless rustling of the field.
"Don't be so righteous. You think that I am a horrible person for killing this man, but do you know how many soldiers died for the Sanc kingdom? They died for you, for your cause, and then you surrendered them to Oz, where they were drafted as front-line soldiers. You have no right, Relena Peacecraft, to call anyone cold when you have not truly experienced battle. Sure, you made decisions which cost lives, and you were forced to watch the destruction of thousands, but you did not snuff the life out of a person with your own hands!"
"It affected me in other ways! At least I can deal with my emotions without violence!"
"There is no time for tears in war, Relena. No time for softness, or emotion. War is cold metal against flesh, machine scraping against machine. It's death in your face every moment and it requires action, whether it be heartless or relentless, to slip away from its grasp. Call it what you will. Cold, cruel, brutal, barbaric, inhuman, or pitiless, it's the only way to survive. Some people deal with it differently, of course, but you already knew that. Heero became as cold as ice, Duo started laughing so he wouldn't go crazy, Wufei fell back on his honour to keep him sane, Trowa lost all feeling, and Quatre...Quatre remained the most emotional out of them all. But you witnessed what this cost him. He nearly lost his mind, he destroyed an entire colony, and he nearly destroyed Trowa."
Xiran stepped, in her unnerving silence, back into Relena's vision, her cold eyes still trained on hers. There was no outward display of emotion in her face, but her frame was as tense as a curled whip. Relena had the feeling that she was being hunted, studied to see if she was worth the trouble of a kill, and raised her chin. "And what did it do to you?"
Xiran suddenly stopped and let her head fall, turning her gaze to the ground. Her arms crossed and an almost bitter smile touched her lips. "I think I became oddly like Heero and Quatre together...except I--"she stopped. "I fell...lost direction, a purpose. Too much died for a mere idea..."She faded off, finding some memory that made her silent for a long moment. Gesturing suddenly to the fallen soldiers, she turned back to Relena.
"They died for a cause. For what the higher ranked wanted of them. They came out here with a death-wish, knowing that they were going to kill someone, or be killed in the process. It was either us, or them. Which you rather have had it been? It could have been you on the ground there, or me. Oh, but of course, you don't want anyone to fight, or die. It makes sense, Relena, it really does. But, it isn't always the answer.
They came out here to make a deal with death. They lost. We won. Surrendering would have flipped the coin, and they would not have shown us any mercy." At the mention of mercy, Xiran's face shifted almost imperceptibly, but it quickly returned to its blankness. Relena made a move forward and opened her mouth, to say that she didn't have to kill him, but Xiran saw and silenced her with her hand.
"Sooner or later, everything dies. In a war, it's the only definite thing. Almost no one expects to come out alive, and most people don't. Soldiers are expendable. Lives have meaning only in mass numbers. The final outcome is the only importance."
As she paused for breath, the wind whispered softly into the dusk, seeming to fill the field with unseen ghosts. The shadows shifted and lengthened into the shapes of distorted hands and bodies. The wind increased and the rustling noises of the grass sounded oddly like feathers. Xiran seemed not to notice. Relena said quietly, "You know that it isn't always like that. The gundam pilots stand as symbols of what the individual can do. It's not always as savage as your experiences were!"
Xiran stared at her. "Relena..." and looked away, turning back to her suddenly.
"They still had to be strong! It is savage in that way! Only the strong survive to live the combat one more time, and the others die. That is what war is about: death. When you start feeling for every soldier, or thinking about the blood on your hands, that's when your decision comes half a second too late. This coldness can be the only thing an experienced fighter has left...but it's a different kind of death..."
Xiran suddenly seemed weary, and for a moment she turned her face away to the approaching night. When she turned back she was once more the hunter in her domain as she stepped to the beginning of her circle and turned to face the girl opposite her.
"It did not have to end that way." Relena's voice was clear.
Blue gazes met across the cold, darkening clearing, and suddenly the wind ceased.
Xiran's eyes were shadowed as night crawled over the fragile silence, and there was a glint in them for a second, which then passed as the wind resumed its uneasy sighing. At her sides, her hands clenched into fists. "Perhaps...but then how will it end? By doing nothing, we solve nothing, and you have no right to judge me!"
Relena had the sudden feeling that she was seeing Xiran for the first time, the real Xiran. She suddenly didn't know what to think about this person who stood in shadow, who killed without expression, yet smiled so gently at a sunrise...and seemed to have a hold over Heero. She kept her voice even. "Perhaps it is you who has judged too quickly."
Xiran's voice suddenly cut across the grey silence, carrying with it barely contained hostility.
"When you have felt lives beneath your fingers, felt the power of the machine you wield wreaking destruction, felt the innocent needlessly suffer, felt your loved ones die around you, and still have a heart left, then come and tell me about how cold I am."
They suddenly stood eye to eye, and Xiran leaned in nearer, her gaze drilling into her.
"Until then, keep your goddamned mouth shut."
A voice. The sound was faint and tenuous, but there all the same. Both of them looked up. At the edge of the field, and closing the distance, were the Gundam pilots.
END
Well there's the end of this little escapade! Whew! I hope you all enjoyed that! Seven is coming by this week! I hope Xiran doesn't bother any readers. Is anyone guessing yet? I hope I'm not being too obvious... Ah well, it was fun writing, anyway. The next chapter has a lot of dialogue...so it won't be as fun, but hey, if it was all fighting, then it would be Dragonball and not Gundam.