Author's Note: I don't own Gundam Wing, if you happened to miss all my other disclaimers.
~ Skeletons in the Closet ~
Part 14
By Zero's Wings
Drawn Circlet"Why are you doing this?" Relena asked in a quiet, defeated voice. She sat in a small, foldout chair in Emulat's office on colony Lx- 12110502
Emulat stared crookedly at the cold, sparkling expanse of space through a massive, elliptical porthole. Glowing murals line the walls, covered with Latin writing and arcane symbols. The symbols split from an oak tree, and the trunk of the tree is formed out of a milagro, a burning heart with a single, open eye staring from its center.
Emulat designed this office himself, wishing to be at the center of the universe's design when he molded it to his own shape. The symbols referenced various religions and cultures to create a singular blueprint for all existence, and Emulat had placed his desk in the center, at the level of the superego, from which he could destroy the plague known as human consciousness, and replace it with his own, beautiful creations. He was startled over his fog when Relena asked her vexing, meaningless question yet again.
"Why are you doing this?" she yelled, now frustrated and angry. Emulat considered sinking back to a human level, lashing out to frighten her back into silence, but he decided to ignore her instead. She was immeasurably beneath him in his mind, and that was all that mattered.
Emulat loved the stars; they were cold, impartial, and immortal. Everything he aspired to be.
*****
Heero Yuy, the last creation of a horribly maladjusted genius, or an incredibly adept madman, jammed the throttles of Wing Zero until the engines threatened to overheat. He was the passionate son, the child who could cry.
Zero's engines whined in protest as they expelled incredible flames, overworked and overloaded, they still devoured fuel in their insatiable greed, and blue and white flames erupted forth from them and arced across the night sky. Black bile flooded Heero's throat and then dropped, boiling and furious, back into his stomach as he cleared the atmospheric ceiling.
"Mission Accepted," he growled. There was a definite sense of finality here; the end of his conflicts would be the beginning of a glorious new life, full of love and friendship. He was almost complete, and he had to return to his past to find his future.
*****
Zechs and Noin, in two of the spare, unmodified land Tauruses, scoured the desecrated landscape of Varazdin for the missing Gundam pilots. Through the fog and snarled patches of mutilated buildings, they caught sight of a weak, flickering green light accompanied by similarly colored plumes of smoke. It was a sulfur flare that the pilots constructed themselves out of their campfire. Noin and Zechs touched down and the pilots gathered around their suits, cheering and waving.
Noin stepped out of her cockpit, tow cable in hand. "Heero called and gave us your location, I expected him to be with you," she said worriedly, taking note of only four pilots.
"He's on his own now," Quatre said in a low, morose tone.
Duo stepped forward. His eyes were narrowed and he was unusually somber and quiet. "This is his fight," he said definitively. "We'd be best off not getting involved."
Noin bit her lip, not enjoying the prospect of simply abandoning Heero. Still, if Duo and Quatre are willing to let him go, then I should do the same. They know Heero better than anyone. She sighed heavily, at last resolved.
"Very well then."
*****
Heero floated in the interminable void of space, a great ebony plain encrusted with the brightest white diamonds. Emulat is beset by these stars as well, he thought. This beauty is too good for him. He deserves nothing but ugliness. Heero could feel the bile boiling back up inside him, but he was not aware that he had clutched the throttles even tighter, and was pushing Zero's engines even harder. They had nearly drained their reserves, and now they were being forced even further into the red. Very quietly, without any great warning or conflagration, the containment plates surrounding the core reactors began to melt. Heero felt only a slight bit of turbulence from this. Of course, there is no turbulence in the vacuum of space, but he was too focused on Emulat to think of this.
*****
Emulat dragged Relena by the arm as if she were a piece of luggage. He left his baroque office and headed down a series of hexagonal corridors punctuated by automatic, hydraulic-powered shielding doors, ultimately reaching an enormous silo. This great, metallic shaft descended right into the heart of the colony. From their precarious walkway, Emulat and Relena could see deep into the core of the massive satellite, where lightning from a thousand generators danced and flashed, each bolt a twisted, arthritic finger of glowing plasma.
Resting in a cradle of glowing sterling spires was a giant of a mobile suit. It had strange, bulbous armor with massive, pore-like cavities that gave it a decidedly organic appearance. Its armor was emblazoned with a bright splash of sapphire.
"This is Ymir," Emulat said with a grand, sweeping gesture. His face was unusually full of life and excitement, pride even. "He is my greatest creation, my last child."
"It's a mobile suit…" Relena said, unsure of what Emulat had become so excited about. Of course, the construction of mobile suits was outlawed now, but Relena had grown up around them, and yet another suit was hardly anything special to her.
"You know nothing," Emulat said, a tinge of anger creeping into his voice. "Ymir is much more than a mobile suit. His endoskeleton is composed of living tissue. He can think, reason, and procreate. For all practical purposes, he is a living creature, and his kind will populate this world when I have rid it of its miserable infestation."
"Miserable infestation?" Relena said, unable to believe what she was thinking. "You mean us? Humans?"
"That is correct."
Relena yelled out, terrified, her mind racing, "So you're going to commit mass genocide because you prefer the company of mobile suits to humans?"
"Don't be dense," Emulat said haughtily. "You can't possibly understand my reasons, and you honestly don't deserve to hear them either."
"Why not?" Relena asked angrily.
"You are vapid, juvenile, and graceless."
Relena stood up and clutched the collar of her dress with her right hand. Her eyes were filled with a strength and defiance that surprised Emulat. "You don't even know me!" she cried indignantly. "You pass judgment on everyone else without even thinking of examining your own actions!"
At that moment, Emulat's cold outer shell melted, vaporized by a raging inner fire. He pulled a compact, derringer pistol out of a holster just above his sock. He shoved the gun right in her face, so that she felt the cold metal of the barrel on her forehead. Relena didn't flinch this time. Emulat's face contorted with burning wrath. His index finger caressed the trigger dangerously. I could kill her now, he thought. It wouldn't make any difference.
Relena stood completely still, her eyes cold as granite. "I hope this doesn't disappoint you, but I've looked down the barrel of a gun several times before," she said with a smirk.
"That doesn't mean it won't be your last," Emulat spat mordantly.
Suddenly, klaxons exploded forth with wailing, vociferous cries and flashing red lights. Emulat dropped the gun to his side, having forgotten completely about Relena. He rushed to a console and punched up a visual scan of the perimeter, where a proximity alarm had been breached. Sure enough, there was Wing Zero. The huge suit looked quite docile on the screen, wrapped up in its majestic silver wings, it almost seemed to be sleeping there in the icy void of space.
"He's here. He's finally here." Emulat said, overflowing with excitement. "He has returned to his only home."
A moment later, there was an earsplitting crash, a rush of white light into the screen, and then nothing but static. Emulat stared, mystified, at the screen.
Zero's engines had just exploded.
End part 14