Author's Note: I don't own Gundam Wing, if you happened to miss all my
other disclaimers. Oh yeah, if you haven't read at least my fic entitled
'The Awakening,' you should read that first, Otherwise, you won't get this
one.
~ Skeletons in the Closet ~
Part 4
By Zero's Wings
Revelations 9:1
Relena, Quatre, and Trowa hesitantly opened the door to Heero's apartment, trying in vain to prepare themselves for whatever might be behind it. Much to Relena's surprise, it was neat and organized, showing no signs of Heero's tantrum earlier that morning. All of the furniture was back in its rightful place, as was the clothing that had been thrown around. The only change was a group of three large, metal suitcases arranged in a perfect row. Heero was standing over the suitcase closest to the three of them, undoing the final latches.
"What's in the case, Heero?" Quatre asked in an unsteady, fearful voice.
"Very...bad...things." Heero pressed a button on the side of the right latch, and the suitcase split into separate compartments. It was filled up in a neat, organized fashion every kind of weapon and ammunition imaginable. The weapons glistened of copper and steel. Heero started pulling out several different guns, taking apart their barrels, and cleaning them in a painstaking fashion.
"Heero, I don't want you doing anything dangerous," Relena pleaded. "The fighting is over. We can work everything out."
"It's too late for that, Relena. Emulat is alive, and now I have to kill him." He ignored the rest of her protests, now busy constructing a compact, Czech-built M6I Submachine gun. He would end it now, end it forever. Emulat would not survive this time. Of course, he was unsure of how Emulat had survived so many times in the past, but none of that mattered to him now. He was unstable back then; he felt he had a clearer view of the world now.
"Heero, I won't let you fight again." Relena said defiantly, grabbing his collar and pulling him up until their eyes met. "I don't care who it is that you think you have to kill, I'm not letting you go off on some vendetta when you could get yourself killed." For a moment, she saw his eyes grow warm and caring again. He almost smiled, almost spoke. Almost. An unseen force reached up from inside him and buried that softness. She saw only coldness in his eyes again.
"This is what I am, Relena. Live with it, or don't. I'm never going to change." His words were like cold hammers upon her heart.
"I simply refuse to believe that, Heero. I've seen you change so much over these past two years."
"This? This is nothing," he said indifferently. Relena drew away from him, unable to stop tears from running down her face.
"How could you say that?" she whispered in between sobs. He ignored her, turning back to his weapons. She stumbled back, defeated, into Quatre's arms. Quatre gave her a little smile of sympathy, knowing it would not help.
Heero sheathed the weapons that dangled from his body in a leather jacket. He casually dropped a few grenades into each pocket; pulled the jacket's zipper up, put his hands in his pockets, and put his collar up. He was now wrapped in leather and gun metal from his waist to his chin.
Heero sauntered toward the door until Trowa moved in like a roadblock.
"Relena's right," Trowa said in his soft, concealed intensity. "You should stay with us. The preventers will take care of this. There is no reason to go get yourself hurt doing something stupid." Heero looked up at Trowa, who had grown just a few inches higher than him in the past few years. He thought Trowa would understand his motives better than Relena in this case, Trowa had been like him once before. Apparently he was wrong.
"I'm not doing something stupid and I'm not going to get hurt," Heero said, trying to contain the anger, the bloodlust that had resurfaced since his conversation with Emulat. In truth, he had been conscious of it building inside him for weeks. A catastrophic event like this had brought it out in full force, squashing his dream-world of an idyllic lifestyle. He felt regret and impotence as he looked upon his friends and his lover, conveniently assembled in the same room to stand trial over his murderous instincts.
"Now I'm asking you to step aside Trowa." Heero said in monotone. He was pleading to his friend as a fellow soldier and Gundam pilot, hoping that he could find some level ground to relate to the stoic, near-silent figure before him.
Trowa's eyes narrowed as his response came.
"Not a chance in hell." Trowa said with rare confidence and empowerment. He rose up and became a more imposing and threatening impediment to Heero.
"Sorry about this," Heero muttered. He extended the palm of his hand and broke Trowa's nose in one blurringly fast motion. Trowa took a step back, dazed, and held out a hand to receive the crimson cataract from his nostrils. Heero gave him no time to recover, barreling into his chest and sending him into the far wall. He turned around and bode farewell to Relena, who shook with fury and outrage.
"Heero, if you leave now, you will never see me again!" she cried out at him. He stared her down icily. In an instant, he loosened that cold, clinical composure, but only to shrug at her, uncaring.
"That is your decision, not mine," he said in a crescendo of callousness. With that, he walked out, his feet crashing to the ground silently, his mouth screaming soundlessly, his mind in a state of tranquil conflict.
*****
A black 308 Ferrari darted in and out of traffic at ninety miles per hour. Heero checked his watch, then punched each of the four red buttons on his steering wheel. Each injected a large amount of Nitrous Oxide into the car's eight cylinders. The car exploded forward in an orgasm of acceleration, and Heero blew past cars as they frantically swerved out of his way. He reached the Sanc harbor docks a few minutes later, breathless and energized. He walked out to block nine, and saw an old, rusted steam tanker sitting in the first slip. Its name was Revelation, just as Emulat had said.
Heero walked onto the deck of the boat, taking note of its rotting, barnacle-laden hull and creaking floorboards. An armed guard gestured for him to go inside the boat, down a small set of stairs. Heero proceeded, and the guard did not follow, or even seem interested by his presence. He didn't even search me for weapons, Heero thought. Such lax security. Needless to say, Heero was slightly unnerved by the fact that everything had been so easy. He would've rather been fighting every step of the way.
Heero walked into a surprisingly spacious room below deck; it seemed to have been some kind of dance hall. Now, there was only a single table in the center of the room, with a bright, white spotlight shining down upon it. Seated at the table was a man that Heero had dreaded for his entire life, a face that he had never hoped to look upon again. Even after destroying that face by his own hand, Heero still feared Dr. Octavian Culex Emulat. The man was an old nightmare who had been reformed. Heero was living out his most terrible dreams, and his most terrible, scarring, childhood memories.
"I've been waiting for this meeting for a long time, Heero Yuy." Emulat grinned; it was the grin of a predator toying with its prey. He had a pair of lavish meals set out before him. "I've started dinner without you. How inconsiderate. I hope you'll accept my apology, Heero."
Heero said nothing, but ventured a single step forward. His hands twitched involuntarily. The veins were pulled tight over his knuckles and wound through his metacarpals in black, red, and blue gossamer patterns that were visible right through his pallid, sweat-covered flesh. It took all the mental and physical energy Heero had to control the hatred building up in the pit of his stomach. Finally, he regained control, and found he could speak normally again.
"The harbor block number and the slip number, they're supposed to be chapter and verse, right? It was obvious enough with the boat's name being Revelation."
"Yes, you've always been a quick one," Emulat said in a self-congratulatory tone. "Revelations 9:1...and I saw a star fall from heaven onto the earth: and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. Your favorite passage if I recall correctly."
"I haven't read any scripture in a long time," Heero said. "You were still in my head back then." The young pilot shivered. Those memories were buried in the darkest corners of his mind. Those early years of his life had marked his soul with scars, and they ran deeper then any of the scars that decorated his body. It left Heero with more skeletons in his closet than anyone truly deserved to have.
"You were always my favorite. My best work." Emulat smiled, and Heero thought he saw a small flicker of sentimentality in the man's eyes. "Sorry about your life, though. When you are so far advanced beyond everyone else, you don't fit well into the human social structure." Emulat sat back in his chair and struck a match to light his cigarette. "No great loss, though," Emulat said, exhaling a gray wisp tail of nicotine. He held the match out and let it burn down until the small, yellow flame reached the tips of his fingers, then he pinched it and dropped the smoldering ashes and bits to the floor.
"I have a normal life," Heero said, almost with a bit of pride. Emulat looked up with a raised eyebrow.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I have many friends." Heero could not contain a triumphant smile. "And a lover." Emulat stared at him silently for a long time. After several seemingly interminable moments of stillness, Emulat broke into a chuckle. It was a thin, raspy chuckle, and it was soon borne in full as a thin, raspy laugh.
"You almost had me fooled," the wiry scientist said, still laughing. "But I can see it in your eyes. That cold, blue fire...the killing fires. You have not changed as much as you might think. Your life is filled with delusions. Only you and I are real."
"I'll kill you," Heero said hoarsely.
"That's the spirit! That's my son!" Emulat cried out joyfully. "In any case, you won't. You can't, I assure you." He smirked and downed the last of a glass of red wine.
Heero reached for the two pistols holstered beside his ankles, intending to prove otherwise. Emulat's eyes gleamed with morbid fascination.
Heero moved incredibly quickly, so quickly that he didn't even notice the red laser sights that were crawling over his body. His mind was caught in an impenetrable fog, the mind-killing haze of adrenaline.
Heero was violently brought out of that haze by a gunshot, not his own, that thundered with white sheets of noise and pain. The smell of burning flesh and blood wafted up from the exploded portion of his left shoe. Heero's body went limp in shock and his guns, unfired, fell from his hands. Heero's vision slowly began to darken. He was plunged into darkness from the lion's den. His departure was heralded by a distant volley of gunfire, as distant as his last tangible screams in pain.
End part 4
Author's Note: So, how do you like the fic so far? How is this part compared to the others? Tell me everything.
~ Skeletons in the Closet ~
Part 4
By Zero's Wings
Revelations 9:1
Relena, Quatre, and Trowa hesitantly opened the door to Heero's apartment, trying in vain to prepare themselves for whatever might be behind it. Much to Relena's surprise, it was neat and organized, showing no signs of Heero's tantrum earlier that morning. All of the furniture was back in its rightful place, as was the clothing that had been thrown around. The only change was a group of three large, metal suitcases arranged in a perfect row. Heero was standing over the suitcase closest to the three of them, undoing the final latches.
"What's in the case, Heero?" Quatre asked in an unsteady, fearful voice.
"Very...bad...things." Heero pressed a button on the side of the right latch, and the suitcase split into separate compartments. It was filled up in a neat, organized fashion every kind of weapon and ammunition imaginable. The weapons glistened of copper and steel. Heero started pulling out several different guns, taking apart their barrels, and cleaning them in a painstaking fashion.
"Heero, I don't want you doing anything dangerous," Relena pleaded. "The fighting is over. We can work everything out."
"It's too late for that, Relena. Emulat is alive, and now I have to kill him." He ignored the rest of her protests, now busy constructing a compact, Czech-built M6I Submachine gun. He would end it now, end it forever. Emulat would not survive this time. Of course, he was unsure of how Emulat had survived so many times in the past, but none of that mattered to him now. He was unstable back then; he felt he had a clearer view of the world now.
"Heero, I won't let you fight again." Relena said defiantly, grabbing his collar and pulling him up until their eyes met. "I don't care who it is that you think you have to kill, I'm not letting you go off on some vendetta when you could get yourself killed." For a moment, she saw his eyes grow warm and caring again. He almost smiled, almost spoke. Almost. An unseen force reached up from inside him and buried that softness. She saw only coldness in his eyes again.
"This is what I am, Relena. Live with it, or don't. I'm never going to change." His words were like cold hammers upon her heart.
"I simply refuse to believe that, Heero. I've seen you change so much over these past two years."
"This? This is nothing," he said indifferently. Relena drew away from him, unable to stop tears from running down her face.
"How could you say that?" she whispered in between sobs. He ignored her, turning back to his weapons. She stumbled back, defeated, into Quatre's arms. Quatre gave her a little smile of sympathy, knowing it would not help.
Heero sheathed the weapons that dangled from his body in a leather jacket. He casually dropped a few grenades into each pocket; pulled the jacket's zipper up, put his hands in his pockets, and put his collar up. He was now wrapped in leather and gun metal from his waist to his chin.
Heero sauntered toward the door until Trowa moved in like a roadblock.
"Relena's right," Trowa said in his soft, concealed intensity. "You should stay with us. The preventers will take care of this. There is no reason to go get yourself hurt doing something stupid." Heero looked up at Trowa, who had grown just a few inches higher than him in the past few years. He thought Trowa would understand his motives better than Relena in this case, Trowa had been like him once before. Apparently he was wrong.
"I'm not doing something stupid and I'm not going to get hurt," Heero said, trying to contain the anger, the bloodlust that had resurfaced since his conversation with Emulat. In truth, he had been conscious of it building inside him for weeks. A catastrophic event like this had brought it out in full force, squashing his dream-world of an idyllic lifestyle. He felt regret and impotence as he looked upon his friends and his lover, conveniently assembled in the same room to stand trial over his murderous instincts.
"Now I'm asking you to step aside Trowa." Heero said in monotone. He was pleading to his friend as a fellow soldier and Gundam pilot, hoping that he could find some level ground to relate to the stoic, near-silent figure before him.
Trowa's eyes narrowed as his response came.
"Not a chance in hell." Trowa said with rare confidence and empowerment. He rose up and became a more imposing and threatening impediment to Heero.
"Sorry about this," Heero muttered. He extended the palm of his hand and broke Trowa's nose in one blurringly fast motion. Trowa took a step back, dazed, and held out a hand to receive the crimson cataract from his nostrils. Heero gave him no time to recover, barreling into his chest and sending him into the far wall. He turned around and bode farewell to Relena, who shook with fury and outrage.
"Heero, if you leave now, you will never see me again!" she cried out at him. He stared her down icily. In an instant, he loosened that cold, clinical composure, but only to shrug at her, uncaring.
"That is your decision, not mine," he said in a crescendo of callousness. With that, he walked out, his feet crashing to the ground silently, his mouth screaming soundlessly, his mind in a state of tranquil conflict.
*****
A black 308 Ferrari darted in and out of traffic at ninety miles per hour. Heero checked his watch, then punched each of the four red buttons on his steering wheel. Each injected a large amount of Nitrous Oxide into the car's eight cylinders. The car exploded forward in an orgasm of acceleration, and Heero blew past cars as they frantically swerved out of his way. He reached the Sanc harbor docks a few minutes later, breathless and energized. He walked out to block nine, and saw an old, rusted steam tanker sitting in the first slip. Its name was Revelation, just as Emulat had said.
Heero walked onto the deck of the boat, taking note of its rotting, barnacle-laden hull and creaking floorboards. An armed guard gestured for him to go inside the boat, down a small set of stairs. Heero proceeded, and the guard did not follow, or even seem interested by his presence. He didn't even search me for weapons, Heero thought. Such lax security. Needless to say, Heero was slightly unnerved by the fact that everything had been so easy. He would've rather been fighting every step of the way.
Heero walked into a surprisingly spacious room below deck; it seemed to have been some kind of dance hall. Now, there was only a single table in the center of the room, with a bright, white spotlight shining down upon it. Seated at the table was a man that Heero had dreaded for his entire life, a face that he had never hoped to look upon again. Even after destroying that face by his own hand, Heero still feared Dr. Octavian Culex Emulat. The man was an old nightmare who had been reformed. Heero was living out his most terrible dreams, and his most terrible, scarring, childhood memories.
"I've been waiting for this meeting for a long time, Heero Yuy." Emulat grinned; it was the grin of a predator toying with its prey. He had a pair of lavish meals set out before him. "I've started dinner without you. How inconsiderate. I hope you'll accept my apology, Heero."
Heero said nothing, but ventured a single step forward. His hands twitched involuntarily. The veins were pulled tight over his knuckles and wound through his metacarpals in black, red, and blue gossamer patterns that were visible right through his pallid, sweat-covered flesh. It took all the mental and physical energy Heero had to control the hatred building up in the pit of his stomach. Finally, he regained control, and found he could speak normally again.
"The harbor block number and the slip number, they're supposed to be chapter and verse, right? It was obvious enough with the boat's name being Revelation."
"Yes, you've always been a quick one," Emulat said in a self-congratulatory tone. "Revelations 9:1...and I saw a star fall from heaven onto the earth: and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. Your favorite passage if I recall correctly."
"I haven't read any scripture in a long time," Heero said. "You were still in my head back then." The young pilot shivered. Those memories were buried in the darkest corners of his mind. Those early years of his life had marked his soul with scars, and they ran deeper then any of the scars that decorated his body. It left Heero with more skeletons in his closet than anyone truly deserved to have.
"You were always my favorite. My best work." Emulat smiled, and Heero thought he saw a small flicker of sentimentality in the man's eyes. "Sorry about your life, though. When you are so far advanced beyond everyone else, you don't fit well into the human social structure." Emulat sat back in his chair and struck a match to light his cigarette. "No great loss, though," Emulat said, exhaling a gray wisp tail of nicotine. He held the match out and let it burn down until the small, yellow flame reached the tips of his fingers, then he pinched it and dropped the smoldering ashes and bits to the floor.
"I have a normal life," Heero said, almost with a bit of pride. Emulat looked up with a raised eyebrow.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I have many friends." Heero could not contain a triumphant smile. "And a lover." Emulat stared at him silently for a long time. After several seemingly interminable moments of stillness, Emulat broke into a chuckle. It was a thin, raspy chuckle, and it was soon borne in full as a thin, raspy laugh.
"You almost had me fooled," the wiry scientist said, still laughing. "But I can see it in your eyes. That cold, blue fire...the killing fires. You have not changed as much as you might think. Your life is filled with delusions. Only you and I are real."
"I'll kill you," Heero said hoarsely.
"That's the spirit! That's my son!" Emulat cried out joyfully. "In any case, you won't. You can't, I assure you." He smirked and downed the last of a glass of red wine.
Heero reached for the two pistols holstered beside his ankles, intending to prove otherwise. Emulat's eyes gleamed with morbid fascination.
Heero moved incredibly quickly, so quickly that he didn't even notice the red laser sights that were crawling over his body. His mind was caught in an impenetrable fog, the mind-killing haze of adrenaline.
Heero was violently brought out of that haze by a gunshot, not his own, that thundered with white sheets of noise and pain. The smell of burning flesh and blood wafted up from the exploded portion of his left shoe. Heero's body went limp in shock and his guns, unfired, fell from his hands. Heero's vision slowly began to darken. He was plunged into darkness from the lion's den. His departure was heralded by a distant volley of gunfire, as distant as his last tangible screams in pain.
End part 4
Author's Note: So, how do you like the fic so far? How is this part compared to the others? Tell me everything.