The Necessary Evils
Part 4
By: Random Artemis
notes: sorry this part took so long to come out, and thanks for all the wonderful reviews! They mean so much to me! I have been in reach ahead (yes people, that's summer school . . . ugh . . . never again!) Anyway, I've been working on this, but I haven't had time to post, so there will be much posting in the next week or so, so keep checking back! I've finished part 5, but I just need it edited.
REVIEWS ARE OUR FRIENDS, they make me happy and write faster, and then there's more stories for you to read . . . ahh . . . I love win/ win situations like this!
SPECIAL THANKS to everyone helped me with this story! And who have been ever-so graciously beta-reading for me!
Enough babbling, on with the story!
HOTARU:
Where am I? It was misty . . . and cold, really, really cold. Was this hell? God knows I deserved it for abandoning the others, but I'd always thought hell would be hot. I couldn't feel the rest of my body, only a searing, stabbing cold that almost burned. Actually, now that I thought about it, the fires of hell might be quite pleasant compared to this. It was dark, and cold, and I was miserable and lonely, and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I started seeing the dead. I thought I would have been used to seeing and talking to ghosts by now, but my skin still prickles and tingles, almost as if in protest every time it happens. That is, it would have been if I could still feel my skin.
A figure slowly advanced and solidified as it drew nearer and the mists parted for her.
"Setsuna . . . " I whispered, and crumpled, sobbing. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I clung to her ethereal legs bawling, and begging her forgiveness. I expected her to admonish me, to punish me, to lay the rightful deaths of the senshi on my shoulders. The last thing I expected her to do was to gather me up in her arms and stroke my hair gently until I had finished crying. Once I had regained my wits, she straightened, once again aloof and distant.
"Saturn," she intoned. Not Hotaru, not Firefly, but the formal Saturn. I straightened and wiped away the remains of my outburst from my cheeks. "Saturn," she repeated, "Yes, you turned your back on us, and it might have been a mistake, but a choice you were given, and a choice you have made. There is no undoing of the past." A pained look crossed her face, "The battle was fought, and we were to be defeated, it is the course of time."
"I'm sorry Setsuna . . . I'm so sorry . . . " I murmured, looking shakily down at my mist-enshrouded feet, perilously close to tears. "I... it's my fault."
Setsuna shook her head slightly, "No, it is the course of time, your decision was a choice I gave you. Life or death, I pass no judgement, I was simply the keeper of time, sometimes catastrophes cannot be averted. You simply chose not to die, and brought a comrade in arms with you, whether or not you made the right decision rests entirely in what you make of this new life."
I don't know at what point it Pluto's speech that I started to cry again, but I did. "No! It wasn't right! It'll never be right! I should have died with you! Doing my duty, protecting...protecting my Queen . . . "
Setsuna merely shrugged, "If you truly need to atone, fight the evil I feel in this world, become their protector. Save their lives and their world, just as you did for ours countless times." She began to fade from sight, ". . . and little Saturn, there is no crime in choosing to live."
I turned away and whispered, "If I saved the world so many times, why couldn't I save the only people whoever mattered to me? I could only save one." I turned back to Pluto, but she was already gone.
"Wake up little Firefly," Setsuna whispered across my mind, and spoke one final time. "Goodbye."
She had left me again. I was alone again. "Noooooooooooooo!" I screamed, jolting upright in bed, causing me to rip the I.V. out of my hand. My eyes snapped open and I panted, trembling from the force of my dream . . . no, my vision.
A wet sensation stirred me from my shock. I watched in near fascination as a thick black-purple oozed slowly from my hand, where the I.V. had been torn from it. Since when did I bleed purple?
I wrinkled my nose in confusion, then remembered to turn off my Othersight, and suddenly it was back to a normal crimson. Well that was a relief. I slipped quietly out of bed and scanned the small complex quickly. Good. No one in sensing range, I began to creep out of the room, then realized I was wearing one of those gods-be-damned open backed hospital gowns. There was no way I was gonna make my grand escape in something like that. I searched all the cupboards in the room, but the best I could do was a large pair of dark-blue hospital pants that I had to roll up and pin several times to allow myself to walk without tripping over them, or them falling down, and a small T-shirt that could have belonged to the nursery. They fit, barely, though the T-shirt did put a slight amount of uncomfortable pressure on my broken ribs it was many times better than the billowing gown I had worn earlier. I slipped easily out of the complex and headed down the hall, it was then that I swiftly got lost.
Quatre carried Minako through the winding corridors of his mansion, glancing down at her periodically in concern. She stared blankly forward in shock, looking a bit green around the gills, even though he was sure she had nothing left to throw up. She whimpered every time they passed a window, burying her face in his chest, as if trying to hide. Not that he minded. Compared to the rest of the pilots, it wasn't often he got to play the strong, protecting hero. Even if he didn't exactly understand what he was protecting her against . . . perhaps she had partial amnesia or something of the sort. He would have shrugged, but he didn't want to disturb Minako, who seemed to have finally dozed off. She was a sweet, funny, beautiful girl. Sweet, but seriously odd.
As they reached the lab, the entire building began to shake slightly, accompanied by harsh metallic grating. Quatre winced, the lab was right beside the gundam hanger, and the noise and vibration of the roof lifting and ramp lowering was especially loud here, where in other areas of the house it would have been barely noticeable.
Minako woke with a start and stared up at him with wide, scared and confused eyes. "Please, please tell me I'm hallucinating and the house isn't squealing and vibrating worse than a junky motel room magic fingers bed?"
Quatre chuckled, "Don't worry, it's just the hanger bay doors opening."
"You have a hanger in here?" Minako said incredulously, "What else do you have, a bowling alley?"
Quatre blushed slightly and Minako cracked up, the laughter was a bit hysterical, but genuine.
Once she regained control of herself, she gasped, "Oh God, thank you Quatre, I needed that." She smiled brilliantly up at him and let herself be lowered gently to the ground to walk into the lab unassisted.
Quatre glanced over his shoulder, wondering if it was Heero and Duo coming back from their mission, and if so, how to explain the situation without Heero killing either of the girls or him.
*************
"Mission completed." Heero said, his voice void of emotion as he yanked his manically giggling partner away from the scene of destruction they had created. Duo was usually enthusiastic about his work, but this was just unnecessary. About a few minutes ago, his cold mask of Shinigami, the god of death, his battle persona, had cracked a huge smile and began to babble excitedly about how death had awoken and his sister in soul, the Shi no Tenshi, the ultimate destroyer of worlds had finally come. That was five minutes ago, right now he was prancing about in deathscythe singing ecstatically, protesting strongly as Wing Zero grabbed Deathscythe HELL and forcibly removed him from the scene.
Heero, if he dared show any emotion, would have sighed, he knew Duo was crazy, but this was even weirder than usual. He didn't notice that Duo had become very quiet until they arrived back at Quatre's stronghold. He exited his gundam, and when Duo didn't follow, he climbed up Deathscythe and opened the cockpit. Duo was staring blankly ahead of him. Okay . . . Heero was beginning to become a bit worried.
"Duo? Duo? Snap out of it!" He shook Duo, and when there still wasn't any response he slapped him sharply across the face.
"OW!" Duo exclaimed. "Fuck, Heero, what the hell was that for?"
"Hn."
"Fine," Duo grumbled as he blinked a few times, "Don't answer, as we all know, stupid Duo can just be beat up for no reason whatsoever and no explanation is needed." He scowled at Heero.
Heero, however, remained unfazed. "Duo, who . . . or what, is this Shi no Tenshi?"
"Huh? Shi no Tenshi? Angel of Death? I have no idea." Duo replied, thinking Heero had finally gone off the deep end.
"You don't remember?"
"Remember what?"
"Remember the Shi no Tenshi, the ultimate destroyer of worlds, the soul sister you were babbling about for a good ten minutes while I had to pull you away from the mission." Heero said exasperated.
"Heero? Are you feeling alright?" Duo asked.
"But..." Heero began, then let it drop, either Duo really didn't remember his rather odd rant, or he wasn't going to tell him. Instead, he noticed something more interesting. A trail of what looked to be blood on the pristine white floor of the hanger, leading behind Heavyarms.
*******
I had wandered into some sort of hanger complex, but the machines contained where like nothing I'd ever seen before. They were huge, humanoid robots, each nestled in an alcove in the wall. There were three of the huge machines, followed by two empty alcoves... Fascinating. "Where did you send us Setsuna?" I wondered out loud, then cringed as my voice echoed in the huge hanger bay. Not a very subtle escape, girl. Where on earth (or wherever the hell we were) was Minako? I had been looking all over this place and had found neither exit, nor companion. I winced as I wavered slightly, my vision fading in and out. Apparently it was not a good idea to go traipsing all over a mansion built like a fortress when one had just woken up from a coma. I leaned up against giant robot closest to me, leaving a blood smeared hand-print on one of it's legs. Damn, the place where I'd ripped the I.V. out was still bleeding. I looked behind me, I'd inadvertantly left a little trail of blood droplets behind me. I groaned inwardly, I may as well have constructed a huge neon arrow. "Escaped medical patient here!" I had never been a fast healer without my powers, and right now, my lifeforce was so low that I could not even heal a small cut on my hand. I had left myself helpless when I gave up so much of my power to let Minako live, but then again, I hadn't really expected to live through this anyway. I leaned on the leg of the giant machine, sliding slowly down to a sitting position behind the huge thing. The blood loss hadn't really helped my energy level any.
Suddenly, the roof of the building lifted, and a long ramp was extended from the top of a wall. Two more of the machines walked into the complex. A white one, half-dragging, half-carrying a black one. Well, this was interesting. They stomped over to the other side of the room, their weight causing the floor to vibrate, making me feel nauseated and very, very glad I was already sitting down. When the huge thing's chest sprung open and a teenaged boy leapt from the platform, landing nimbly almost three stories below , I finally passed out from shock.
******
Mina lay back on the x-ray table, as Iria operated the various machines. Results from another machine began to spew out of the printer, Iria rushed over to gather them before they spilled onto the floor. She glanced at the results and paled. Quatre, seeing this, rushed over from the chair where he had been sitting. "What is it Iria? What's wrong with the results? Is Miss Star alright?" He whispered, an faint tinge of panic that he couldn't quite explain edging into his voice. "What's wrong? Is she sick?"
Iria cleared her throat slightly, trying to clear the lump that had formed there. "No, not exactly." She glanced over at the oblivious Minako who was absentmindedly playing with her hair. Fidgeting at she waited impatiently. Iria didn't believe the results. She just looked so normal. Clearing her throat again, she turned back to her anxious younger brother. "I don't believe this."
*******
Heero stalked over to Heavyarms, Duo following a few paces behind. Heero rolled his eyes, expecting another dummy, maybe of Trieze or Zechs, that Duo had rigged as a practical joke. What he found however, was a blood-spattered teenage girl, breathing shallowly and bleeding all over Heavyarms. He frowned, civilian or not, she had seen their Gundams, unfortunate, but she still had to die.
He pulled his gun in a movement too quick for the eye to follow. Just as quickly, her eyes snapped open and her supernatural strength crushed the barrel as Heero was pulling the trigger.
Their eyes locked coldly and held, each refusing to admit defeat.
Heero looked at the crushed gun in his hand. It was gundanium. "You're not human." He intoned
Her eyes narrowed, refusing to give any ground, "Neither are you." She replied quietly, her eyes breaking away from Heero to study Duo with a hard, incriminating stare, "Neither of you are."
to be continued..... so? So? SO? *eyes water pathetically* is it okay?
Please review! Thanks so much!
