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 5
By Zero's Wings
Loss Before the Flood
Heero opened his eyes and found himself in a grassy field. The sky was an impossibly bright blue and laced with playful white clouds. He saw Relena sitting under a great, antediluvian oak tree. Her back rested against the smooth bark of the trunk. Her legs were curled up and her small, shapely feet rested in a patch of new grass. As he approached her, the pale, golden light from a morning sun came through the tree's crowded branches. Relena was completely unclothed; and that seemed so natural, so appropriate. He had seen her without her defenses, with all her truth and vulnerabilities before him, and now his mind could not produce her in any other way. He was vaguely aware of being aroused by her nakedness, but the field and the tree and Relena seemed to be growing further and further away from him. Relena called out to him, but she was already to far away to be heard. The last thing he remembered was a single, crystal tear spilling down her powder face.
Heero was in a room now, a cold metal box. The morning sun was a bright set of lights on the ceiling. Their light was hostile and glaring. It was concentrated white. The dream's inebriating effects had worn Heero's mind down to a dull razor.
Heero was lying in a bed with stiff, uncomfortable sheets. His clothes were in a pile beside the bed. Lying there, quite innocuously, was his massacred left shoe. A moment later, Heero became aware of a dull pain coming from his left foot. Heero frantically pulled away the bed covers to see his foot, but he found it wrapped up in layers of bandages. He tore the pieces of cloth away from his foot furiously, his pulse racing. As he stripped away the bandages, he saw that each layer had progressively darker and larger crimson stains. Wincing in agony, Heero ripped free the final bandages, which were sopping with blood, and stared at his mutilated foot. His heart skipped a beat. Two of his toes were gone. Blown off.
"I really am sorry about that," a filmy croak said. "An unfortunate accident." Heero looked up at the slight, crooked figure in the brightness of an open doorway. Of course, it was Emulat. Heero burned with rage seeing that horrible face, but Relena was still fresh in his mind, and her presence always tempered his violence.
"It was not my intention to cause you harm, Heero. In fact, you are essential to bringing about a new age."
"What are you talking about?" Heero demanded, choking on the fury in his throat. Heero couldn't stand looking into Emulat's venomous gaze, but it was preferable to looking at himself. He had to resist the urge to pass out each time he saw those two bloody stubs in place of toes.
"I can't tell you anything about Project Ymir until my associates in Croatia are positioned. Just to be on the safe side, you understand. However, perhaps you deserve something in return for you injury. I'm sure you've been wondering how I have survived your various onslaughts, hmm? The truth is, I didn't." He grinned, then took a moment to stare at his hand up the length of his arm with a weird sense of awe. "Remarkable technology," he said with a breathy gasp of wonderment. Emulat focused his attention back on Heero.
"The process of genetic engineering is a painstaking and tedious job, but the reward for your toils is nothing short of immortality. With the original Emulat's DNA codes and brain wave patterns locked away in a secure computer hard drive, which even I don't know the location of, my essence," he drummed a finger against his temple, "will never be completely destroyed."
Heero was beginning to feel nauseous and light-headed. He bit his lip to distract his body from the pain of his disfigured foot. He found it increasingly difficult to follow Emulat's lecture, but it confirmed one fear of his: Emulat could not be defeated by any of the conventional means that he had been so comfortable with. It was in his blood to kill in such a way. He was uncomfortable with this elaborate game of chess that Emulat had created as a shield. Heero was a sponge to information, but he wasn't a complex thinker. Trowa had always been the analytical one. Besides, it was difficult enough to think in his present state.
Heero stopped biting his lip and swallowed a mouthful of viscous, salty blood. It tasted neither good nor bad, just intensely familiar. He closed his eyes and slumped back under the covers of his bed. Within moments, he had either passed out or fallen asleep, he wasn't entirely sure which it was, but he did not dream of Relena or anyone else. He had simply fallen into a void, where he was tricked and teased with lancing spikes of pain.
Heero tossed and turned restlessly in his bed. When the last pretenses of sleep faded, he opened his eyes hesitantly. Once again, there was a figure standing in his doorway, encompassed in bright light. This figure was shorter and had a more muscular build then Emulat. The man was draped in a black coat and there was a shiny object hanging from his neck. Heero focused his vision upon that flicker of light and it became the clear image of a gold, Anglican cross.
"I sure hope you feel better than you look," said a familiar voice. Heero could not stop a wide grin from spreading across his face. Duo Maxwell's big, jovial face emerged in the room's sparse light. "Man, I travel all the way from L2 to find Trowa in the hospital, Relena hysterical, and you badly in need of some rescuing." Heero's smile grew even further as he was almost overwhelmed by relief and gratitude. At the last possible second, he managed to bury it all under a cold stare.
"I don't need to be rescued," Heero said abruptly. Duo scratched his head, chuckling to himself. Damn! he thought. Almost had him. Ah, well. Duo offered Heero a hand flashing his warmest and most inviting smile. Heero ignored him, turning away to gather up his clothes. He slipped his socks and shoes on quickly, trying to conceal his wound from his friend, but when he stood up, fully dressed, he saw Duo's eyes as wide as saucers and his face plastered with a look of disbelief.
"What happened to you?" he demanded. Heero cursed under his breath. Now everyone would know. Relena...
"Duo," he pleaded, "I don't want anyone to know about this. I promised Relena I wouldn't get hurt." He let out an inhuman, animal cry and beat his fists against the cold, steel floor. "Everything's gone wrong," he yelled in frustration. "I've lost her. I've lost everything I fought for."
"Come on, Heero!" Duo said, putting his hands firmly on his friend's shoulders. "Pull yourself together. You messed up. Maybe for the first time in your life when it actually mattered. But it's okay. Both of you are still alive, and you still have a chance to get her back. But to do so, you have to stop living like this. You have to give up the mission; you have to give up the killing. You have to start your life." Duo knew he was being harsh, but part of it was the anger he felt toward himself. He should've been here. He had felt sorry for himself long enough, after his breakup with Hilde. He should've been here for his friends, just as they were at his side when he had been shot.
"I can't start my life," Heero said, pointing an accusatory finger past Duo. "Not until his memory has been wiped from existence." Duo turned around to see the man who had shot him in the Spice Islands less than two weeks ago. He reached in-between the fold that bisected his priestly garb and drew his weapon of choice, a Desert Eagle .50, from a custom-made spring-clip. Duo drew and pointed his gun sideways, training it on the heart of the wicked figure standing before him. He spoke to Heero without turning his head.
"What's this motherless fuck's name?" Duo said hatefully. His eyes were focused with an uncharacteristic rage; the recessive yet vicious warrior side of the young man had emerged.
"Why does it matter to you?" Heero asked in a dull, obnoxious tone.
"He's the one who shot me," Duo answered in a quick, clipped tone. The gun in his hand was shaking; his fury could not be contained.
"My name is Octavian Culex Emulat, young Duo Maxwell. It is a pleasure to see you once again."
"Can't say I feel the same way," Duo growled. Emulat released a thin chuckle. The sound made Heero's blood boil. Emulat's presence was worse than ever before, because Heero now knew that he was hopeless before the scientist, more so than ever.
"Come now, my child. I shot you, but your death was as necessary then as it is now. You have no reason to hold such imperatives against me. They are some of the few definites in life, and they run through my head as a constant stream. Your friend, Heero, can relate, if he hasn't buried all those awful memories.
"So you're Emulat," Duo said gruffly. "I should kill you right now."
"That would be a pointless gesture," Emulat said, rolling his eyes in exasperation.
Duo's finger pulled the trigger. The gun roared and bucked in his hands, punctuating Emulat's sentence with a dramatic bang and a flash. Whether he had fired because of an involuntary twitch, an act of physical emergence from his subconscious, or a conscious action based on a conscious decision, Duo would never be sure. His intentions made no difference to the shrieking bullet, with it's copper hornet's head and twisted tail of molten fragments. Emulat reeled back, blood oozing forth from the hole in his upper chest.
Duo's second shot was definitely intentional; he had never been surer of anything in his life. Ironically, the bullet that he had loaded with purpose was also the one that missed Emulat initially, instead skating across the metal floor and leaving a sterling track of lead in its wake. The bullet ricocheted up off the floor and caught Emulat under his chin. Blood came up like a geyser out of his flat, greased back hairline.
Duo slumped to the floor, issuing a soft whimper in shock. "Heero," he said, trembling, "I've never killed anyone outside my Gundam." Heero nodded sympathetically.
"It's a lot different, isn't it?" Heero helped Duo back onto his feet, and the two walked out, each favoring the other as a crutch. Duo could not control the violent shuddering of his body, and Heero's left foot felt clumsy and foreign without two of his toes. Duo shuddered as he passed Emulat's body, the scientist was wearing a grin from ear to ear.
"Does he know something I don't?" Duo asked, regarding the corpse's awful smiling face. Heero nodded, also shuddering.
"He'll be back," Heero whispered. Duo was about to question what Heero meant; the man was as dead as Julius Caesar, no doubt there. He did not ask simply because of the sureness of Heero's tone; it was so definitive, so absolute. From that instant on, he believed Heero's statement unquestionably. That man would be back. Somehow, he would be back.
*****
Duo and Heero left the Revelation without incident. The guards who had patrolled the deck of the old boat where lying around like empty paper bags, limp and unconscious from blows to the head and jaw. Duo looked at his work with a mixture of satisfaction and aversion. The two Gundam pilots left the boat with a thankful, collective sigh.
To Heero's shock, Relena was waiting for him on the dock when he finally emerged from the rotting tanker. Emotions cascaded throughout Heero's gut, mixing tides of pleasure and sadness confused and overjoyed him. "She followed you here." Duo said apologetically. "That's how I found you." But Heero didn't hear him. He was already running toward Relena's open arms. The world was lost in his glorious high. Everything melted into a white light, and only Relena's face remained. Heero embraced her, then buried his head in her shoulder and sobbed in joy. He didn't care that Duo saw him crying. He was beyond caring for anything, anything except her.
End part 5
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 5
By Zero's Wings
Loss Before the Flood
Heero opened his eyes and found himself in a grassy field. The sky was an impossibly bright blue and laced with playful white clouds. He saw Relena sitting under a great, antediluvian oak tree. Her back rested against the smooth bark of the trunk. Her legs were curled up and her small, shapely feet rested in a patch of new grass. As he approached her, the pale, golden light from a morning sun came through the tree's crowded branches. Relena was completely unclothed; and that seemed so natural, so appropriate. He had seen her without her defenses, with all her truth and vulnerabilities before him, and now his mind could not produce her in any other way. He was vaguely aware of being aroused by her nakedness, but the field and the tree and Relena seemed to be growing further and further away from him. Relena called out to him, but she was already to far away to be heard. The last thing he remembered was a single, crystal tear spilling down her powder face.
Heero was in a room now, a cold metal box. The morning sun was a bright set of lights on the ceiling. Their light was hostile and glaring. It was concentrated white. The dream's inebriating effects had worn Heero's mind down to a dull razor.
Heero was lying in a bed with stiff, uncomfortable sheets. His clothes were in a pile beside the bed. Lying there, quite innocuously, was his massacred left shoe. A moment later, Heero became aware of a dull pain coming from his left foot. Heero frantically pulled away the bed covers to see his foot, but he found it wrapped up in layers of bandages. He tore the pieces of cloth away from his foot furiously, his pulse racing. As he stripped away the bandages, he saw that each layer had progressively darker and larger crimson stains. Wincing in agony, Heero ripped free the final bandages, which were sopping with blood, and stared at his mutilated foot. His heart skipped a beat. Two of his toes were gone. Blown off.
"I really am sorry about that," a filmy croak said. "An unfortunate accident." Heero looked up at the slight, crooked figure in the brightness of an open doorway. Of course, it was Emulat. Heero burned with rage seeing that horrible face, but Relena was still fresh in his mind, and her presence always tempered his violence.
"It was not my intention to cause you harm, Heero. In fact, you are essential to bringing about a new age."
"What are you talking about?" Heero demanded, choking on the fury in his throat. Heero couldn't stand looking into Emulat's venomous gaze, but it was preferable to looking at himself. He had to resist the urge to pass out each time he saw those two bloody stubs in place of toes.
"I can't tell you anything about Project Ymir until my associates in Croatia are positioned. Just to be on the safe side, you understand. However, perhaps you deserve something in return for you injury. I'm sure you've been wondering how I have survived your various onslaughts, hmm? The truth is, I didn't." He grinned, then took a moment to stare at his hand up the length of his arm with a weird sense of awe. "Remarkable technology," he said with a breathy gasp of wonderment. Emulat focused his attention back on Heero.
"The process of genetic engineering is a painstaking and tedious job, but the reward for your toils is nothing short of immortality. With the original Emulat's DNA codes and brain wave patterns locked away in a secure computer hard drive, which even I don't know the location of, my essence," he drummed a finger against his temple, "will never be completely destroyed."
Heero was beginning to feel nauseous and light-headed. He bit his lip to distract his body from the pain of his disfigured foot. He found it increasingly difficult to follow Emulat's lecture, but it confirmed one fear of his: Emulat could not be defeated by any of the conventional means that he had been so comfortable with. It was in his blood to kill in such a way. He was uncomfortable with this elaborate game of chess that Emulat had created as a shield. Heero was a sponge to information, but he wasn't a complex thinker. Trowa had always been the analytical one. Besides, it was difficult enough to think in his present state.
Heero stopped biting his lip and swallowed a mouthful of viscous, salty blood. It tasted neither good nor bad, just intensely familiar. He closed his eyes and slumped back under the covers of his bed. Within moments, he had either passed out or fallen asleep, he wasn't entirely sure which it was, but he did not dream of Relena or anyone else. He had simply fallen into a void, where he was tricked and teased with lancing spikes of pain.
Heero tossed and turned restlessly in his bed. When the last pretenses of sleep faded, he opened his eyes hesitantly. Once again, there was a figure standing in his doorway, encompassed in bright light. This figure was shorter and had a more muscular build then Emulat. The man was draped in a black coat and there was a shiny object hanging from his neck. Heero focused his vision upon that flicker of light and it became the clear image of a gold, Anglican cross.
"I sure hope you feel better than you look," said a familiar voice. Heero could not stop a wide grin from spreading across his face. Duo Maxwell's big, jovial face emerged in the room's sparse light. "Man, I travel all the way from L2 to find Trowa in the hospital, Relena hysterical, and you badly in need of some rescuing." Heero's smile grew even further as he was almost overwhelmed by relief and gratitude. At the last possible second, he managed to bury it all under a cold stare.
"I don't need to be rescued," Heero said abruptly. Duo scratched his head, chuckling to himself. Damn! he thought. Almost had him. Ah, well. Duo offered Heero a hand flashing his warmest and most inviting smile. Heero ignored him, turning away to gather up his clothes. He slipped his socks and shoes on quickly, trying to conceal his wound from his friend, but when he stood up, fully dressed, he saw Duo's eyes as wide as saucers and his face plastered with a look of disbelief.
"What happened to you?" he demanded. Heero cursed under his breath. Now everyone would know. Relena...
"Duo," he pleaded, "I don't want anyone to know about this. I promised Relena I wouldn't get hurt." He let out an inhuman, animal cry and beat his fists against the cold, steel floor. "Everything's gone wrong," he yelled in frustration. "I've lost her. I've lost everything I fought for."
"Come on, Heero!" Duo said, putting his hands firmly on his friend's shoulders. "Pull yourself together. You messed up. Maybe for the first time in your life when it actually mattered. But it's okay. Both of you are still alive, and you still have a chance to get her back. But to do so, you have to stop living like this. You have to give up the mission; you have to give up the killing. You have to start your life." Duo knew he was being harsh, but part of it was the anger he felt toward himself. He should've been here. He had felt sorry for himself long enough, after his breakup with Hilde. He should've been here for his friends, just as they were at his side when he had been shot.
"I can't start my life," Heero said, pointing an accusatory finger past Duo. "Not until his memory has been wiped from existence." Duo turned around to see the man who had shot him in the Spice Islands less than two weeks ago. He reached in-between the fold that bisected his priestly garb and drew his weapon of choice, a Desert Eagle .50, from a custom-made spring-clip. Duo drew and pointed his gun sideways, training it on the heart of the wicked figure standing before him. He spoke to Heero without turning his head.
"What's this motherless fuck's name?" Duo said hatefully. His eyes were focused with an uncharacteristic rage; the recessive yet vicious warrior side of the young man had emerged.
"Why does it matter to you?" Heero asked in a dull, obnoxious tone.
"He's the one who shot me," Duo answered in a quick, clipped tone. The gun in his hand was shaking; his fury could not be contained.
"My name is Octavian Culex Emulat, young Duo Maxwell. It is a pleasure to see you once again."
"Can't say I feel the same way," Duo growled. Emulat released a thin chuckle. The sound made Heero's blood boil. Emulat's presence was worse than ever before, because Heero now knew that he was hopeless before the scientist, more so than ever.
"Come now, my child. I shot you, but your death was as necessary then as it is now. You have no reason to hold such imperatives against me. They are some of the few definites in life, and they run through my head as a constant stream. Your friend, Heero, can relate, if he hasn't buried all those awful memories.
"So you're Emulat," Duo said gruffly. "I should kill you right now."
"That would be a pointless gesture," Emulat said, rolling his eyes in exasperation.
Duo's finger pulled the trigger. The gun roared and bucked in his hands, punctuating Emulat's sentence with a dramatic bang and a flash. Whether he had fired because of an involuntary twitch, an act of physical emergence from his subconscious, or a conscious action based on a conscious decision, Duo would never be sure. His intentions made no difference to the shrieking bullet, with it's copper hornet's head and twisted tail of molten fragments. Emulat reeled back, blood oozing forth from the hole in his upper chest.
Duo's second shot was definitely intentional; he had never been surer of anything in his life. Ironically, the bullet that he had loaded with purpose was also the one that missed Emulat initially, instead skating across the metal floor and leaving a sterling track of lead in its wake. The bullet ricocheted up off the floor and caught Emulat under his chin. Blood came up like a geyser out of his flat, greased back hairline.
Duo slumped to the floor, issuing a soft whimper in shock. "Heero," he said, trembling, "I've never killed anyone outside my Gundam." Heero nodded sympathetically.
"It's a lot different, isn't it?" Heero helped Duo back onto his feet, and the two walked out, each favoring the other as a crutch. Duo could not control the violent shuddering of his body, and Heero's left foot felt clumsy and foreign without two of his toes. Duo shuddered as he passed Emulat's body, the scientist was wearing a grin from ear to ear.
"Does he know something I don't?" Duo asked, regarding the corpse's awful smiling face. Heero nodded, also shuddering.
"He'll be back," Heero whispered. Duo was about to question what Heero meant; the man was as dead as Julius Caesar, no doubt there. He did not ask simply because of the sureness of Heero's tone; it was so definitive, so absolute. From that instant on, he believed Heero's statement unquestionably. That man would be back. Somehow, he would be back.
*****
Duo and Heero left the Revelation without incident. The guards who had patrolled the deck of the old boat where lying around like empty paper bags, limp and unconscious from blows to the head and jaw. Duo looked at his work with a mixture of satisfaction and aversion. The two Gundam pilots left the boat with a thankful, collective sigh.
To Heero's shock, Relena was waiting for him on the dock when he finally emerged from the rotting tanker. Emotions cascaded throughout Heero's gut, mixing tides of pleasure and sadness confused and overjoyed him. "She followed you here." Duo said apologetically. "That's how I found you." But Heero didn't hear him. He was already running toward Relena's open arms. The world was lost in his glorious high. Everything melted into a white light, and only Relena's face remained. Heero embraced her, then buried his head in her shoulder and sobbed in joy. He didn't care that Duo saw him crying. He was beyond caring for anything, anything except her.
End part 5
Author's Note: So, how do you like the fic so far? How is this part compared to the others? Tell me everything.