Sorry about the long wait! Life, (mainly calculus) got in the way!
Chapter 9; In dreams
Hotaru:
The first thing that one notices of the dream-scape is that there is no horizon, just a pale, dull grey that stretches out into eternity. I felt a gentle hand rest on my shoulder and jumped, whirling to face my companion. "Setsuna." I said, backing warily out of her reach. I hadn't forgotten the last dream (or was it warning?) that she had starred in.
"Relax child." Setsuna said, staring me down easily with her weighted gaze. "It is I."
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. "Prove it." I retorted, Setsuna looked surprised, then regretful.
"So, you have finally begun the merge." She nodded curtly. "Good."
"What?" I asked.
"I cannot explain, time will tell my child."
By then I fairly certain it was Pluto herself, not some nightmare simacularum. Only she was ever this infuriatingly vague. Still, I stayed out of arms' reach, after all, it was curiosity, not caution that killed the cat. "Why are you here?" I asked, still wary. Now that the shock of talking to the immortal spirit of my dead comrade-in-arms, I had begun to wonder what these visitations where about.
The spirit-Setsuna sighed. "I suppose you're wanting an explanation for all this."
I crossed my arms and nodded. "Yes. I am." I snapped, biting off the ends of my words. I had just gone through more emotional upheaval in the past few days than ever before in my life, been haunted by weird dreams and had my version of the world skewed first by this absurd 'war', then by getting pummeled by a youma, something that's not supposed to exist anymore! Right? Excuse me, but I think I have the right to be a little snippy.
"I suppose you have already pieced together how you came to be here." She began. I nodded.
"You opened a portal to the future." I replied.
She looked inordinately pleased, "Good! You figured that out on your own. I was afraid that you would believe me if I had to tell you. I suppose you're wondering why the scouts weren't all activated at the same time, aren't you?"
I nodded again, but she didn't reply, she wanted me to. Damn her, trying to make everything into a 'lesson'.
******
"I wish you would tell me what's wrong." Mina turned to see Quatre standing in the doorway, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket.
"Nothing's wrong, Quatre. I just miss my friends back home." She replied.
"That's why you've been crying all night?" His eyes locked onto hers and held.
"Who's to say I don't have allergies?" She replied, shrugging and turning away from him.
"Because I was watching you on the security cameras for more than an hour." He walking into the room, resting a hand on her trembling shoulder. "Mina, you can trust me, just please tell me what's got you so upset."
"I can... trust you?" She wiped a tear from her cheek and laughed softly. "You spy on me through your security system, then you have the nerve to come up here and tell me I can trust you?" He voice rose with every word, and she stomped out the door, red-faced and eyes blazing.
Quatre sighed and pounded his head gently against the door frame. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
*******
Hotaru opened her eyes slowly, wondering if she would ever get a good night's sleep. So the nameless enemy out there had some mental power and was tracking her through her dreams. That made sense, as she slept, her mental shields were weaker, not to mention the effect tumultuous nightmares had. She cleared the sleep from her eyes, yawned, and found herself face to face with Heero's gun. Shit. "I am really not in the mood for this," She grumbled. "Morning, Heero, we've got to stop meeting like this."
"Tell me who you work for." Heero replied. "And I want to know what you did back there."
Crap. Heero had seen her little stunt with the youma. He'd have to be told something to keep them in the house with a roof over their heads. She began to formulate and edited version of their powers in her head. First, no time travel, no reincarnation, no Crystal Tokyo, and NO SCOUTS. Okay, make that a near-completely made up story.
"Can you put the gun down first?" She asked, but he didn't move. She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, don't blame me when your arm starts to cramp, this is kind of a long story."
"Begin."
"Okay, okay. Well, as you've probably figured out, Mina and I aren't exactly normal. We've been genetically altered, don't ask how, because we don't know. We, and a few others, the ones Mina spoke of, were mostly used to test mobile suits. I think they tried to use the first of us as weapons, but the ones they let loose to fight broke free and escaped. I guess an unwilling weapon that can think for itself isn't the bast battle strategy. We were kept in the compound from birth, that's what the record said when Ami hacked them. I don't know how we ended up here either, I guess our program was terminated because suddenly a group of soldiers swarmed us, and, well, we woke up here." Hotaru tilted her head and shrugged again. "That's about it."
"Give me a reason not to kill you." Heero growled. A secret program for OZ! They were agents!
"Could you?" Hotaru asked, praying she could get her silence wall up in time if she was wrong.
"I could try it." He finger tightened dangerously on the trigger. "You have three seconds to tell me why you should live."
Shit. She was wrong, think Hotaru! Think! "Well, I'm pretty sure the corporation that made us thinks we're dead. I mean, if no one knows we're with you, we could be a secret weapon of sorts. We could help fight."
She could fight, he had seen ample evidence of that. Still, "Not good enough, you could be an agent."
A flash of inspiration came to her, "Cut my hand."
"What?" He looked vaguely surprised.
"Cut me." She repeated, "It'll be obvious in a minute."
His brow furrowed and eyes narrowed, but he moved his gun minutely and shot her outstretched hand.
"Sonova..." She cursed creatively for a few minutes. "You jerk! I said cut, not shoot!" She yelled, clutching her hand to her body.
"Get to the point." He pulled back the safety on his gun, another bullet ready to fire.
"The point," She gasped, trying to stem the flow with the bottom of her t-shirt, but it was already slowing naturally. "Do you think any tracking or controlling devices could be surgically implanted into my body?" She held out her hand to let him see the wound. The smashed bones and torn ligaments and sinew were knitting back together at an alarming rate. "That sort of surgery takes hours, there's not way they could keep me apart for that long, their controllers were collars. Which were, as you can see, removed when we were left of the roadside to die!"
"Who ever said agents needed to be coerced?" He shot back coldly.
Damn, she thought, I hadn't thought of that. She tried to look pained, though it wasn't too much of an act, "Do you think," She began, lowering her voice for emphasis, "That I would commit my life to an institution that used me as a gunea pig? That did dangerous experiment without my consent, that decided we were too darn expensive for our use so they decided to kill us all without mercy or warning. Well?" She demanded harshly, pouring her real grief into her false story, "Do you?"
Heero kept his gun trained on her for a few, tense moments then turned to leave. "Accepted." He said coldly.
Hotaru fell back onto her back, expelling a soft hiss of pain and relief. "Congratulations," She said softly, "You live to see another day." She rubbed her nearly healed hand with astonishment. It seemed her healing power had just kicked into overdrive, a good thing too. "Bastard." She kicked at the ceiling, visualizing Heero's face.
Much to her surprise, Heero returned a few minutes later, carrying a few smaller guns. "Changed your mind, Yuy?" She lifted her head from the mattress to glare at him.
"Get up." He ordered.
She rolled her eyes, as she rolled onto her feet. "Well, only because you asked so nicely."
"I'm going to teach you how to shoot." He compared the sized of various guns, finally tossing one to her. A slight smirk invaded his face as her eyes widened and she darted out of the way, letting the gun clatter to the floor. He bent to pick it up, "It's not loaded."
"Ah, I knew that." She replied, edging back towards to gun.
*******
Duo frowned, shaking his head. What was happening to him? He'd felt weird all day. He'd woken up strangely refreshed, for once his sleep hadn't been plagued with constant replays of the burning of the Maxwell Church, so instead of tossing and turning all night, he'd gotten a full night of rest. That couldn't have accredited the entire feeling, though. He'd been getting flashes of strange images all morning, like deja vu. Some instances were quite inexplicable. He'd gotten flashes of a childhood that he'd definitely starred in, yet wasn't his own.
He'd seen a palace and wonderful rolling purple mountains, and a little girl he played with.
He'd felt happy. It had been a long time since he'd felt so free. He wished he could return to that dream, but the unavoidable call of nature was rather insistent that he get up. He wandered absentmindedly to the bathroom, wondering why the little girl was so familiar.
It's kind of weird how a lot of great revelations occur in the bathroom. I don't think anyone would ever admit to having an epiphany on the can, but it happens. What else is there to think about while sitting there, other than your own problems, as shallow as they may be. It's probably an embarrassment because no one wants to think that they're at they're best with their pants around their ankles, except in the case of Archimedes who was in the tub when his great revelation struck, whose story is so well known. It so happens that Duo followed this trend of great bathroom thinkers.
"Violet eyes." He said, "The girl had violet eyes."
"You have violet eyes." His brain helpfully informed him. "So does Hotaru."
Duo frowned, then remembered who Hotaru was. "She had black hair too. Must have been her then." He shrugged, finished up and wandered back into bed, trying to reach back to his pleasant, playful dream. He wasn't a morning person by any stretch of the word, and, unless there was a mission, he wasn't vaguely coherent before at least noon, so he didn't notice that he'd just had a conversation with himself, and, someone had answered.
*******
"Why?"
Heero looked at her, puzzled.
"I mean, why are you teaching me how to shoot this? Wouldn't that just make me more dangerous?" Hotaru asked, a small line appearing between her brows.
"If you are to be a secret weapon," He grunted as he adjusted the target, "It would seem that your powers would have to be kept secret."
Hotaru rolled her eyes, "I know that. I mean, why are we fighters at all? Wouldn't it be less suspicious if we just were civilians?"
Heero shook his head minutely, "We are soldiers, if you were civilians, you would be dead by now."
Hotaru stepped back, "Quatre and Wufei would never have..."
"True," Heero interrupted, "But I would. They can't move faster than a bullet. Now begin your exercises and stop talking."
Heero watched her going through the movements of loading and disarming the gun, at first slowly, then with increasingly alarming speed. He wondered why he had decided to teach her how to use a gun. The logic had been obvious, the mission must be upheld, and this girl was their new weapon. Though anyone else could have taken the time to teach her how to shoot, since he was the best shot, he should do it, right? Can't have the secret weapon getting blown up before she's in the general vicinity of OZ, now could we? That thought comforted him somewhat, but still, somewhere in the back of his mind, something was bothering him.
******
Thwap! Thwap! Thwap!
"I," Thwap! "Cannot," Thwap!, "Believe he did that!" Mina's growls were punctuated by he fists hitting the punching bag. By some miracle, after she'd stormed out on Quatre, she'd ended up in the gym. She had weeks of pent up anger and frustration which she was venting on an innocent, defenseless sparring bag. She let out a fierce battle cry and the bag flew off it's chain to land in a pitiful heap on the other side of the room.
"Why?" She screamed, "Why? Why? Why!" She punctuated each 'why?' with a kick. "I was happy dammit! I was... happy." She glared at her reflection in one of the large mirrors that bordered the room. It glared malevolently back. The weight of her own glare pulled her down, as she threw a desperate punch to free herself, shattering the mirror. Collapsing, she held her mangled hand close to her body, "But I'm the happy one." She whispered, over a pain building inside her chest, "I'm not supposed to care, I'm supposed to be able to forget, I'm not supposed to hate myself."
Clutching her knees to her chest she looked up to find a dark shadow hovering over her.
"What is the meaning of this?" Wufei snapped, his slightly accented English becoming stilted with anger. Mina had no answer as she looked around at the mess she'd made, she'd felt so betrayed that she hadn't given a thought to anything but her feelings.
She shrugged, her seeming nonchalance infuriating Wufei even further. His face turned a purplish color as he struggled to control his temper. "Woman! Have you no respect, you are a guest here," Wufei began, trying not to raise his voice through clenched teeth.
Mina's head jerked up, as if her head was attatched to a string that had suddenly been pulled taut. "NO!" She hissed back, "I do not have any respect for you, nor any of your little friends!" Her spine straighted as she kneeled rigidly on the ground. Wufei's challenge had snapped her out of self-pity and back into full righteous anger. "I have no respect for those who have no respect for me! Spying on us? That's what you call respect here? Well, I have news for you," She snarled, "Where I come from, there's something called basic privacy, it would do you some good to learn about it!"
Wufei's face had become so deep a shade of maroon that if she weren't screaming at him, Mina would have laughed at the sheer impossibility of the color. "Onna," He began, his upper lip beginning to curl into a snarl. "I..." He was interrupted by Minako pushing roughly past him, catching him unaware and shoving him to the floor as she stormed past him and out the door. "Onna." He spat as he picked himself up, "A weak woman who can't even deal with basic security precautions shouldn't be anywhere near our base," He resolved.
******
Iria resolved to get to the bottom of what was bothering her little brother. It wasn't like him to mope, in fact, it was just downright scary. "Quatre, come talk to me." She called as she sat down on the rec room couch and padded the cushion next to her. Quatre just shrugged and sat down, still looking morose. "What's up?" Iria asked, "You've been acting really down."
He winced, rubbing at his collar bones. "I've just been having a bad day. I fought with Minako and I'm not feeling too well." He bit his lip, and continued to massage his chest.
"Oh?" Iria replied, beginning to shift into her doctor-mode, "What's wrong? Headache? Nausea?"
"No," Quatre replied, frowning, "It's these chest pains, like a dozen needles in my chest. It's been building ever since I fought with Mina. God, I'm stupid sometimes!" Quatre pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead against them. He took a deep breath and explained the previous few hours.
Iria winced, "That probably wasn't the best way to go about that Q."
"I know, It's just that I'm so confused about them, her. It was so simple, she wakes up, our eyes meet, and 'bam'! Instant connection, now things are all messed up."
"Quatre?" Iria interrupted, "I hate to break this to you, but things are never just that simple. She's a person for god's sake, not a doll! Things tend to get more complicated when you go any deeper than the surface. Besides," She shrugged, "She only woke up a week ago! I think you're reading a lot into nothing."
Quatre lowered his head sharply, again, to hit his knees, "I know," He groaned, " But I can't help but suspect them anyway, there was this really weird thing with the security cameras last night..."
******
Hotaru:
My palms were sweaty and blistered around my grip on Heero's .50 desert eagle, but I was still smiling slightly. The gun had surprised me at first. My first shot had floored me. Heero, probably for his own reasons of sadism, hadn't warned me about the kickback on the gun. You know, that rule in physics; 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." ? Well, the action of propelling a bullet forward at a deadly velocity, had the equal, yet opposite reaction of propelling me backward and wrenching my shoulder as the gun twisted in my hand. I swear he was smirking at me, those annoying blue eyes of his gleaming, for once, with something other than malice.
It was a bit of a struggle, but after a few more shots, I was able to control the gun enough to shoot fairly accurately. For all my strength, the gun still managed to twist in my sweaty grasp, hence the blisters. I could wield my glaive, a powerful magical artifact capable of focusing and amplifying my power enough to destroy the entire universe, then perhaps put it back together again, but I couldn't handle one measly piece on metal. Actually a rather powerful piece of metal that shouldn't be used to teach anyone, let alone me, a 5'5, hundred-or-so pound girl. The bastard it out to get me, I swear.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants, shifting the gun from hand to hand, then used my shirt to wipe my face. I set up the stance that Heero had showed me after my rather spectacular (and painful) first shot and aligned myself.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, click. Empty.
Heero had hot-loaded the gun, six in the round, one already loaded into the chamber, insisting that I practice shots in quick succession. I pressed the button to release the old magazine, and snapped a new one into place. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, click. Empty again. I looked at Heero, he shook his head. Thank God, we were done for today. As much as this new skill could come in handy, it was hot, I was tired and I'm sure, because I'd pretty much used up my total healing capacity for the day, I'll be sporting a stylish bruise tomorrow on my backside.
Heero studied my target, my shots were messy, but I was still pretty proud of hitting the target at all. He held out his hand, palm up and open, I reluctantly placed the gun into it. I wasn't particularly fond of it, but it meant he didn't trust me not to shoot him in the back. Not that I blame him, because I would do the same, had our positions been reversed, but it was, for some illogical reason, somewhat disappointing. He nodded curtly to me, apparently approving because without another word he turned on his heel and left for the heavenly air-conditioned confines of Quatre's mansion.
When he was safely out of sight, I collapsed, spread-eagled on my back, groaning to no one at all about how much cramping I'd be in for tomorrow.
*******
Trowa sat back in his chair, rolling his stiff shoulders and rubbing at his eyes. 'One last time', he told himself silently, flexing his fingers and letting them play across the controls for the monitor. His eyes narrowed, and a line appeared between his brows, the closest he ever got to a frown. I just didn't make sense. One moment it was not then, and the next it was. He wasn't even going to begin to think about what he had seen in on the screen as opposed to the tapes. Letting the tape repeat it's cycle, Trowa thought about what Quatre had said to him. Quatre's arguments of the girls', well. Minako's in particular had been emotional, but irrational. His friend seemed to have formed a dangerous bond with a potential enemy, (Mirii had taught him that much) , unusual for him. Quatre said his space heart told him that Mina was a good person, but Trowa was skeptical. Exhaling softly, he cursed his sister's pleading eyes that had led him to invite the girls into their home. He would do some research on behalf of his friend, find out exactly who, and possibly what, these girls were. Just as soon as he figured out that tape...
******
It was mid-afternoon by the time that Duo finally hauled himself out of bed. He stumbled into the kitchen, nearly tripping over Hotaru. Hotaru, who was sprawled face down on the cool tile, mumbled an apology and reluctantly rolled over. "Morning." She greeted, "Or should I say afternoon?"
Duo groaned and squinted at the numbers flashing on the mircowave, "Ugh, crap. Heero's gonna kill me for sleeping in this late, I was supposed to oil the gears on wi...uh...the jeep." He stumbled over the last few words, but Hotaru didn't notice.
Flopping back onto her stomach, she replied, "Heero's in the shower, I just had target practice with him."
Duo wrinkled his nose, holding out his hands in a doubtful gesture. "Why?" Hotaru shrugged, still on the floor. Duo shook his head and poured himself a glass of kool-aid from the fridge. Something in the back of his mind was bothering him, there was something he wanted to ask her... "You want?" He asked, holding up a plastic cup full of kool-aid, she looked up and smiled, "Yeah. That would be great."
*******
"We're getting close, stay in formation troops!" Commander Rafe Jung bellowed into his comm unit. He mentally forced the smile from his face, and the slight tremor of excitement from his hands. This was to be the greatest accomplishment of his career, if he could just get it right. Another tremble in his hands caused his mobile suit to falter slightly, but, cursing, he quickly regained control. This time it wasn't from excitement, while a successful defeat of the gundams would mean his promotion and company-wide renown, his failure could, WOULD mean the end of his career. Not to mention losing the only chance to get back to his home dimension. He adjusted his blue-furred claws on the controls, and focused on his goal. He was tired of the human captains treating his youma like cannon-fodder. They would get back to the negaverse no matter what it took. If killing the gundam pilots and capturing the remaining senshi to power their portal was what it took, then so be it.
******
"So," Hotaru asked, "What exactly do those big machines in your garage do?"
Duo choked and sprayed blue kool-aid all over the kitchen counter. He glared at Hotaru, "You waited until I took a drink to ask that." He accused.
Her eyes widened, the very picture of innocence. "I wouldn't do that. Come on! Answer the question!"
"You would too, Shi, and you know it! But if I told you I'd have to kill you."
The sparkle fled Hotaru's eyes, and the smile dropped from her face. "What did you just call me?" She whispered.
Duo's cheerful expression faded as well, "Shi, I-I don't know where that came from, I think I heard it in... this sounds stupid... in a dream?"
A line appeared between Hotaru's eyebrows, "Shi, I know that name."
"Did you grow up in a place with purple mountains and..." Duo began, talking slowly, confused.
"...and a blue sunset?" Hotaru finished, and Duo's jaw dropped, "No, I didn't. Unless... but that's not possible!"
"What?" Duo shouted, somehow even more confused and frustrated that before.
"Saturn has purple hills and a blue sunset. The saturn of many millenia past." Hotaru's eyes were wide and her breathing became erratic. Her eyes locked on Duo's for a very long second, then she tore away, spinning on her heel and bursting out the door.
She ran a few paces, then stopped abruptly, causing the pursuing Duo to slam into her back. Duo was a minor distraction, however, to the dozens of mobile suits massing on the horizon.
Thanks for the support from all my readers! Yes, the reviews do make a difference, without them, I'd never finish this! Anyone who wants this for their archives is welcome to it, just please e-mail me with the url so I know where I can go to gloat over the sight of my name =)
Luv& skittles,RA
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