Same ole' Disclaimers… if you forgot, look at the Prologue
Ahem…. … … I'm rating this chapter alone "R" for the simple fact that it contains some disturbing events.. … … I'll make it so you can skip this chapter and still understand chapter 6 … …. … if you think you don't want to read it… …. I'll hold nothing against you if you don't … …. …. But you have been warned
I think it's just fine but have to be careful around here… again… fic is PG-13, this chapter rated R as a precaution
This chapter is entirely a dream sequence!!!!!!!"Chapter 5 ~ Crimson Coma"
A succession of shrill screams and gunshots drew me back from the peace of dreamless slumber. I reached for the waistband of my jeans where my gun should be positioned only to find the 9mm missing. Furthermore my surrounds seemed unfamiliar. I glanced down at my hands to discover no trace of the calluses I'd earned from piloting, they had become petite and childlike.
Another shot rang out through the darkness and the world around me dissolved into a small room. I instantly recognized a tall man standing with a readily aimed gun at a stout woman cowering in the corner.
Odin Lowe, a resourceful hired assassin and my long dead guardian, towered stories above me. [1]
"Do whatever you want me, just please don't hurt my child!" The woman called out in a fanatic voice.
Odin smirked, " Why does everyone always say that? Trust me lady, I'm only doing my job."
The woman struggled to stand and moved into toward Odin, the light accentuating her Asian features. The realization dawned on me that I was gazing upon the face of my departed mother. Something inside my chest clenched in fear of the events I knew were about to transpire. Fire raged through my limbs and every instinct began to push me forward to protect my parent. However some otherworldly force held my feet locked to the floor. I had never known the woman before me, but the mixture of love and pain in her eyes, backed by determination, twisted my heart with empathy.
Tears streamed down my cheeks and I attempted to cry out, but the only sound my lips produced was that of an incoherent child's whimper. Here I stand, before my mentor and a woman with the strength of a soldier, helpless. I know she's fighting a loosing battle and every bone in my child-like body screams for her to turn and run. I want to protect her. She is my mother after all.
" You can get your job done, only after you promise me my son will live."
Odin grimaced at her sudden belligerence, and lowered his aim. She stood inches from him, poised with hands planted firmly on her slender hips and eyes intently locked on his.
So that's where I get my glare.
" I will haunt you for the rest of your existence if you so much as touch a hair on his head. Promise me."
Baffled by the situation, Odin turned in my direction and eyed me curiously. Part of me was reprimanding him for hesitating, another part was screaming for my mother's sake. Torn, my feet glued to the floor, I could only watch helplessly as the man that would become my only father figure raised the barrel of his gun to my biological mother's temple.
"Promise me." She requested, her voice hardly audible and stricken with grief. It was amazing how she still sounded threatening, her body seeming so fragile.
Running out of time, Odin let out a defeated sigh; " You'll owe me in the next life sister."
The pistol discharged with a resounding 'bang' and I winced as my mother fell lifelessly onto the beige carpeting that quickly stained crimson.
Tears began streaming down my cheeks and fell upon the protruding bloodstain. Sirens wailed off in the distance and the smell of sulfur filled the air. Odin moved over and offered me a hand.
" Come on kid, I'm a man of my word."
But something inside just wouldn't reach out for him, instead I stumbled back and the floor seemed to give way. I began to fall into a vast chasm that appeared from nowhere.
Instinctively, I attempted to brace myself against the murkiness that I fell into helplessly. Laughter swarms around and echoes mockingly in my ears as I descend. My body panics and I tumble over an over as my legs search for solid ground. My heart races with the speed of a mustang and a cold sweat covers my skin. I must be dreaming but everything seems existent; even the blackness seems tangible. I reach out for something to grasp on to; but as substantial as the darkness is, there is nothing to latch onto. Fear rocked my body, causing it to shake uncontrollably. In an attempt to clam myself, I forced my eyes closed as a wind beat against my face; I was moribund into the night below.
***
" Gundam zero- one; target confirmed!"
That smell … …. … gun powder?
" Heero watch your ass!"
Duo!
I open my eyes to gaze at Wing's vid screen with a com link open. Panicked violet eyes are glaring at me intensely. Duo appeared alive and healthy, although he had a gash across his temple and seemed engulfed in the heat of battle. Inwardly, I let out a sigh of relief. Mechanically my hands firmly gripped on the controls, but my reaction came too late.
A blast rocked the flight deck and sent my body flying free of the pilots harness and limply I hit the dash. The interior lights flickered. Duo's voice continued to crackle over the link.
" Heero what the hell are you doing? What's your status?"
A dull ache spread over my midsection as I pried my flaccid body off the flashing control panel. The gunpowder smell, it's all over my clothes. The darkness surrounding me as I fell has been transformed into a space battlefield. I've lived through this before; I remember this battle from the first war. None of this is real; I'm having some kind of flashback.
" Heero respond! You've got two mobile dolls coming in six o' clock high. WAKE UP!"
Slowly a sly smile works its way across my lips as Duo's image reappears through the static. Flashback or no; may this nightmare never end as long as I can gaze into those eyes.
" Damn it Heero! What the hell are you smiling about? We've got company! Damage report!"
Another, weaker hit knocks me from the left side and causes my gundam to lose thrusters. I unresponsively continue to gaze at his wavering image over the com.
Kami, he looks so worried. I don't know how I missed the pain in his eyes back then. Now, I see straight through his battle mask down into the fragile boy from L2 who is frantic over the thought of loosing his comrade.
It's touching really.
He turns to deal with a few stray Leos, all the while my eyes wide, watching the screen. Vociferously singing along to the radio in his cockpit the entire time, Shinigami makes short work of the pests. They are only insects to my god.
" I've missed your voice." I mumble out huskily and receive a completely dumbfounded look.
"WHAT??!! Heero what's wrong with – ?"
A second link opens on the vid screen.
"Maxwell!" Wufei hollers; he's currently conducting aggressive negotiations with an entourage of mobile dolls. " Pay attention! You've got a beam cannon locked on your reactor!"
Duo's violet orbs cloud with panic.
"SHIT!!!"
Realizing that regardless of the fabrication of this situation, Duo is in critical danger.
I turn my attention to the control panel and work on restoring propulsion, the thrusters whine and scoff as the engine fights my every attempt.
God damn it!
This sort of situation is precisely one of the reasons why I installed those wings on Wing Zero during the second war. Yes they allow glide on planetary re-entry but they are also flexible enough to provide movement without the damn thrusters!
Finally, I manage to transfer enough power from the shield to get the engine moving and my buster rifle into range of the Leo currently riding Duo's ass.
With Deathscythe's short-range weaponry, Duo is essentially left with only two options; lunge at the offending Taurus with the beam scythe, or run away.
Surprisingly, he's chosen the latter.
"DUO! STATUS!" I call over the com.
" I can't transfer enough power to the scythe without loosing propulsion! Shields down! The jammers are dead and I'm running out of time over here buddy!"
Fucking hell, how does he get into this much trouble! For a damn good mechanic his machinery sure fails a lot.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Target confirmed. Tick, tock …
Coming into range. Tick, tock, follow the clock…
Buster rifle charging. Time ticks away slowly, ne?
23%
47%
" Yuy! If you're gonna do something do it fast!" I heard Wufei scream over the ticking sound in my head.
62 %
Target in range. Then again, doesn't time fly when you're having fun?
73 %
"HEERO!"
Shit, that damned Taurus is gonna fire and Duo's headed straight for a line of mobile dolls! I'm out of time!
Target locked. Maybe time flies a bit too fast to catch …
Wing's rifle fires on the offending Taurus… ten seconds too late.
I reach out for the screen, screaming Shinigami's name hoarsely as the image of my petite braided love vanishes...
An all-encompassing white light spreads across the battlefield as Deathscythe's nuclear reactor explodes. There's no place left to run, and my eyelids drop shut over the flooding tears. "Gomen nasi, Duo-kun."
***
I return to consciousness and find myself floating amongst the wreckage of Wing, Deathscythe, and many Oz mobile suits. Surprisingly, I appear to have no physical injuries. Even more to my shock, I realize I am not wearing a space suit, yet breathing normally even without oxygen.
The backdrop gradually began to transform from the battlefield of war. The stars draw together at center point and gave off a radiating luminosity. The darkness of space solidifies into a floor and I find myself standing in owe of the brightness as a figure emerges.
" I knew you'd fail."
Gravity restored, I falter backward slightly. The slender form continues to approach until his glowing Prussian blue eyes come into view.
" You couldn't protect him. I knew I couldn't trust you. "
The light behind him melds away and slowly water begins to flood over the ground. A low moan echoes from behind the ' other' one and my eyes come to rest on Duo's limp body naked in the ever-expanding puddle. Intuitively, I burst into a run brushing past my other self and falling to the floor where Duo lays.
His blood exits the large gashes across his mid-section and mixes quickly with the ever-rising water level. The sight sends a wave of numbness over my body but my heart aches with grief. I take his wilted form into my arms and burry my hands in his long wet locks.
Eyes closed.
No voice.
No heart beat.
Lifeless.
My Duo lies dead in my arms.
That bastard will pay for this.
I turn back toward the object of my aggression.
"Soldier! Why did you do this?!"
He smirks. A familiar smile wines it way across his lips. "I didn't touch him! I trusted his welfare to you! You let him die!"
" I did no such thing!"
" Then why didn't you fire?"
"I didn't have the chance!"
"Failure! You couldn't protect him because you hesitated! I was a fool to listen to you!"
I only hold his lame form closer as the other's words shoot daggers into my already aching heart.
"There won't be another war." I choke " He won't need me to protect him like that."
"How do you know? Humans can be pathetic creatures who disrupt harmony out of pure bloodlust. If the situation arises, could you kill him? To defend peace could you kill him?"
The light catches a sleek sliver object lying below the waterline. My gun. I reach for it with my right hand still clutching Duo with my left.
" He's already dead. Shoot him."
My eyes widen in absolute shock as I lock my gaze with my parallel representation. I'm attempting to fathom how this sadistic person had become part of me. Could I have ever been so cruel or callas? Is this man truly the Heero Yuy my comrades had known?
"What good would that do? I thought you said you loved him! WHY DO YOU WANT TO SEE HIM DEAD?!!!!"
My hysteria drives up the rage in him and he approaches my useless boy which sits huddle with my love's corpse in the icy stream.
"Lets make one thing clear. I love him with all of my soul; however, if he were to compromise the mission then I would have to remove him like any other obstacle."
"Stop talking like that! He's not an object you remove, he's a person!"
"In times of war –"
" Damn it there is no war!"
The water level had risen to cover most of my body and it was becoming difficult to keep Duo's head above water. His icy stare weighed me down as if to drown me and end my existence.
" We are one person, damn you soldier! You cannot kill me without killing yourself!"
He arched an eyebrow, " Fine, kill me."
He must be joking.
"You have the gun, what are you waiting for?" He opens up his arms in a welcoming gesture. My eyes rake over his strong body as I internally question his motives. His form is a mirror of mine in every way. I notice something along his right arm that causes me to stare dumbfounded. The scar I acquired from the self-destruction of Wing. Suddenly, I appreciate the extent of our connection. We are more than just two people in the same mind. What damage is inflicted on one must also be inflicted upon the other.
" I will put a stop to this madness." I assure him and bend to whisper in Duo's ear, "I will never leave you; I love you with all my heart."
Before my eyes, the blood in the water underwent a metamorphosis in tiny rose petals. [2] They dance around the resting Shinigami and brush against his soft skin, entangling in his auburn hair. Even in death hid beauty cannot be surpassed. The blood-red petals complement the deep red undertones of his locks, causing his delicate complexion to appear even more porcelain. Blood no longer runs from the deep wounds; instead the gashes close magically and the last few droops of crimson liquid turn to blossoms.
I release Duo's body into the stagnate water and raise the 9mm to my temple. His eyes widen I horror as he realizes I've discovered the solution.
" Goodbye, Pilot 01." [3]
TBC … … …
[1] For those of you who haven't read Episode Zero, Odin Lowe assassinated the diplomatic leader Heero Yuy on April 7 AC. 175. I BELIEVE from what I've read online that also killed Heero's parents ( if I'm wrong flame my ass later) anyways, he adopted Heero at some point in early childhood and gave Heero that ' follow your emotions' line that he gives to Trowa in the anime… … …
[2] Umm can anyone say 'utena movie?' * sweat drop *
[3] CLAM DOWN!! NO ONE'S DEAD!! Sheesh
A/N: ok so now were getting somewhere… next chapter "Fight the Dragon," I promise no Wufei's will be harmed….
As far as that battle scene, I pulled it outta my bum… didn't feel like re-watching all of GW just to pick one…kinda unrealistic I know, I made waaaay too much of that up…..i'm a lover not a fighter
And for all those frightened, schitzo Heero is gone now… … … …
So if you read it, review it!
Thanks again to my reviewers! Love you all! * hugs *
