Follow Your Heart
by YamiHikari
Disclaimer- Again, I don't own anything but my original character or characters later, so don't sue.
Author's Note- Well well, seems I've lured more people into my little evil cliffhanger plot. BWAHAHA- erm, never mind. I'm thinking about having you people choose the end, like, send me an e-mail or say it in a review. Keyword: thinking. I'm not really sure, so don't get your hopes up. on with the darn story!
- - - - - - - - - -
Two weeks after she had been admitted into the hospital, Tajima was released. Quatre had offered to let her stay with him, and he could hear her complaints and the weary but persistent nurse valiantly trying to keep her in the wheelchair as hospital policy required.
"Let. Me. Out. Of. This. Thing."
"I'm afraid that's not possible, it's a wheelchair, and would you please stay in the chair?"
Thud.
"Next time, I'll tie you down!"
Duo grinned. The rest of the pilots, excluding Trowa as he had left earlier to practice his act for the circus, had come with Quatre. "Poor girl."
"The nurse or Tajima?" Quatre asked him.
"The nurse, obviously," was the reply, accompanied by a chuckle and a nod in her general direction. "I'd hate to be in her shoes."
"Get back here!" A panicked yell made everyone turn in that direction. Tajima had abandoned the wheelchair and was carefully walking towards the waiting limousine.
She raised an eyebrow. "A limo?"
The nurse came racing up with the empty wheelchair, pushing so her escapee fell back into the seat.
The unwilling patient twisted around to glare at the nurse, who steered her the last foot to the sleek black limo. "She's all yours now," the nurse said with some relief.
"Finally," Tajima grumbled. She easily got off the wheelchair and slid in the limo.
The nurse leaned down for one last warning. "Don't push it too hard. You're still recovering."
"Shut up."
Used to her patient's moods, the other laughed. "You forgot these," she said, handing Tajima her armguards and headed back towards the hospital.
The four pilots got into the limousine as well, Wufei sitting as far away from Tajima as the available space allowed. Duo was in the middle of the seat, facing her, the better to talk and maybe even annoy, Quatre next to him and leaving Heero next to her. A slightly tense silence ensued, broken by Duo.
"You said that we're gods in your time. Uh, how's this possible and what's the story behind it?"
Another silence followed the question. Tajima slipped her armguards back on thoughtfully; they felt almost foreign after their long absence. After five minutes, during which the limo began to head back to the Winner's mansion, she answered slowly, "I'll tell you later."
The American pilot hmphed, slightly put-out that his question had not been answered immediately. He recovered from it fairly quickly though, and asked another question. "What're those made of?" He pointed at the armguards.
She shrugged. "It's been so long since anyone knew. It's rumored that they are made from the remnants of the Ghundas."
The four others stared in shock. Their ride pulled up into the driveway of the mansion, and as the fact that they had slowly registered, the group piled out. Quatre, ever the polite aristocrat, offered a helping hand to Tajima. She ignored it and got out unaided. Then nearly tripped over her own feet as she was slightly disoriented from not being able to move for the past two weeks. Luckily, Quatre hadn't withdrawn his hand and was able to keep her from falling flat on her face. When she had regained her balance, Tajima muttered something profane under her breath.
Duo burst out laughing when he managed to catch the gist of it. Quatre looked confused. "What happened?"
Tajima cut in smoothly as Duo opened his mouth. "You don't want to know," she said, adding a glare in Duo's direction as she straightened, implying that what she really meant was 'you don't want to know what will happen if you repeat just one word of what I said'.
Duo gulped, and kept quiet. He had learned of her ability to make people very sorry they had said anything she didn't want them to say these past two weeks, even if bedridden. He rubbed the back of his head. 'I swear, that pillow had a brick in it.'
She glanced back at him. "Wimp. I didn't even throw it that hard."
He made a face at her. "Oh shut up." Duo then hastily covered his head as Tajima's hand came near a little too close for comfort. "I'M SORRY!!" The hand withdrew.
"It'd be nice if we could get moving in the next century or two," Wufei snapped.
Heero leaned indifferently against the limo, Prussian blue eyes scanning the sky above. "It's going to rain about five minutes," he remarked softly.
After the others had glanced up at the gray clouds above, they could hear a rumble of thunder in the distance.
After it had stopped, Tajima looked slyly at Duo, with whom she had developed an "I-can-do-anything-you-can-do-better" relationship. "Bet I can get to the door before you get within ten feet of it."
He glanced at the door, which was no more than twenty feet away. "Yeah right. You're on!"
As he started to run, she dropped to the ground and tripped him. Then she set off at an easy sprint that took her to the door in as much time as it took Duo to get up and yell indignant comments in which "cheater" was repeated many times. It also took as much time for him to do that as it did the three other pilots to simply walk the distance.
The door was opened by a dignified butler who stepped respectfully out of the way. "Welcome back, Master Quatre," he murmured. "How many should we expect for dinner?"
"Uh." Quatre looked over his shoulder. "Just tell the maids to only set the table for five"
"Very good, sir." The butler bowed and glided away to navigate the long hallways and notify the kitchens.
Duo started jogging over to the group when the heavens parted and let loose a torrent of rain, right on the unfortunate braided American's head. "Aww man!" he complained, and increased his pace from easy jog down the street in the morning to bat out of hell. He smacked into the doorframe, groaned, and made it into the Winner mansion, sopping wet, with a sore nose, and definitely much the worse for the wear. He still managed an expectant grin and a cheerful, "Does anyone know what we're having for dinner?"[1]
After dinner, Quatre remembered that Tajima had been eyeing the many different types of silverware like so much road kill. Sighing mentally, he decided he'd have to teach her various customs since it was more than likely that they would all have to attend something fancy where it was needed. Personally, he didn't really mind and thought it was completely unnecessary. But some person might begin to spread rumors of a guest being uncivilized and it would be a black mark on his name, which could be dangerous in the higher classes, and especially to a former Gundam pilot. 'Or Ghunda Pylot,' he thought wryly. He glanced across the room to meet Tajima's eyes, cold, gray, and calculating. She arched an eyebrow as if to ask what he was thinking. Quatre smiled, and stated, "Remember when you called us gods in your own time?"
After she nodded, he continued, "There must be some sort of legend about us if we were that. Would you mind if-"
"I told it to you?" she finished. "Why not? It's not like I can go anywhere or have anything to do."
"Yes, but would you mind if I recorded it. I think Trowa would want to hear this too."
"Very well then."
After a tape recorder had been procured, the four pilots gathered in a rough circle around her. Quatre pressed "Play" as a voice seeming to come from the years past that they barely managed to recognize as Tajima's filled the room.
The legend
Years, decades, and even centuries ago, there had been something called "peace". People lived alongside each other. Minor battles broke out from time to time, but always, this peace came back to the people.
But there were those who wished to disrupt this peace, and make themselves rulers of all humanity, since humanity dominated at that time. These people began to gradually corrupt the military, and with it, the government. People began to believe their lies, and eventually, they did rule.
Some resisted, though, unhappy under the harsh rule of the Alyance[2]. Mechanical angels were built, with their gods to control them. Wing, Hel[3], enigma, desert noble, and dragon were ruled over by perfection, death, mystery, compassion, and justice. Or yuro, xellod, atrow, nerba, and fein[4]. They came down from the heavens and landed on earth. They fought the alyance, but were soon portrayed as the evil ones, and as thus, the enemy of erda[5]. Their angels were destroyed more than once, but always came back stronger, never completely annihilated. After they seemed to have won peace for the people, a new adversary appeared, the white fangu. The endless dance[6] had to continue, or history and life would disappear with it. War had to come after revolution, which will always come after peace.
The last battle was long and the creators of the angels helped the enemies of the gods to build stronger demons, which were controlled by their own gods[7]. An ancient demon was awakened by merkais[8], which would be called eclyon. Wing and eclyon battled for the safety of erda, the true home of the people. As a meteor hurtled down, merkais knew he had to protect the citizens on his honor as a knight of the lost kingdom. He destroyed a ship that was to help the meteor obliterate all life on erda. Yuro flew wing down to stop the other and destroyed it, nearly dying in the process. But he had a will to survive, to see that they truly had achieved peace, for a while, anyway. The gods never found a need for their angels again, and they gradually disappeared in the sands of time as their gods did.
Quatre carefully clicked the tape recorder off. "So. that's what they say about us in the future. Or of Heero, rather."
Tajima sighed. "Lyska could have done it better," she said regretfully. "And this was only the version people of the sect- 01 are told. A-" she stopped speaking.
Duo blinked. "What?"
Tajima said abruptly, "Nothing. I never said anything but that our Remebrancer[9] could have done better." She rose and left the room. In the hallway, her hand came up to wipe away the tear that had fallen and slid down her face.
- - - - - - - - - -
[1]- I have absolutely nothing against Duo, if anyone was wondering. Except that he shot Heero, that little- hehehe. mostly it's that Relena could have died. Relena could've died. But nooo- erhem, I'll shut up now.
[2]- I had to mess around with the spelling of "Alliance". Hey, I think it looks cool!
[3]- That's. Norse spelling, I think. Y'know, Vikings, Thor, Freya, that whole can o' worms.
[4]- Yeah, I had to mess around with the names. "Yuro" is the "ro" of Heero and the "yu" off Yuy. Duh. "Xellod" is "xell" from Maxwell and I took off the "d" and "o" from Duo. Yeah, yeah, I admit it, I took a little bit from Slayers with the entire Xellos thing, but hey! I don't own that! "Atrow" is an anagram of Trowa. "Nerba" is a mix of the "ner" from Winner and the "ba" from Raberba. And "Fein" is simply the "fei" from Wufei and the "n" from Chang. Let's see, pronuciations. I think Yuro would be pretty easy, so I won't bother. Uh, "zell-load" for "Xellod". "Ah-trow" for "Atrow". Nerba is pretty easy too. and "Fein" would be like "pain" except with an "f" instead of a "p"
[5]- Erda. I got this from The Book of Earth, so I don't own it, don't sue, yadda, yadda. It means "earth" I believe. Again, duh. That would be what they call good ol' earth in Tajima's time.
[6]- Well, I couldn't use Waltz, since that would mean something made it through all those centuries, and then I'd have to abandon all my hard work of thinking up funky spellings and names. So there.
[7]- Yeah, I decided that if the pilots were the gods, then the Gundams are the angels. Geez, that's like Angelic Layer. I DON'T OWN THAT EITHER!! DON'T SUE!!
[8]- "Eclyon" and "Merkais". Obviously Epyon and Merquise seriously distorted by time.
[9]- *sigh* Yes, Divine Guardian, you ought to recognize this. So should everyone who reads Garth Nix. It's from Lirael, and I just thought it fit, y'know, memory and remembrance. I also don't own that. Again, don't sue. Gee, you must all be getting tired of me saying that.
Author's Note- Hmm, should I add humor in as another genre? And don't tell me, you're all like "Well, that's fine and dandy, but WHEN THE HELL'S THE ACTION AND ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE GONNA KICK IN!?" That sound familiar to you, Divine Guardian? Heh, it ought to. Oh yes, and my birthday was on May 30th. Let's have a little contest. Divine Guardian, you can't enter, you actually know me. And you still haven't gotten me a present, now have you? Okie, no asking Divine Guardian, that's not fair, alright? The question is: How old did I turn and what gender am I? The first prize is: you get to be written into the story with your favorite G-boy or G-girl! G-boys do not include Heero, okay? If you win, just send me a short description of yourself or how you'd like to be, a name, and the character. Consolation? Uh. you can just give me your e-mail and get a short little note about how grateful I am you actually cared enough to try! ^_^ Or not. the choice is yours. DAMN THAT WOMAN!! Oh, and just so I won't get wild crazy guesses like "as old as dirt" (that's my math teacher people, not me!) I'm between 10 and 50. Good luck!
P.S.- If no one gets it right, I'll take the closest answer and proclaim that person the winner. If there's a tie, uhh. we'll cross that bridge when we get to it! Ja ne! .
by YamiHikari
Disclaimer- Again, I don't own anything but my original character or characters later, so don't sue.
Author's Note- Well well, seems I've lured more people into my little evil cliffhanger plot. BWAHAHA- erm, never mind. I'm thinking about having you people choose the end, like, send me an e-mail or say it in a review. Keyword: thinking. I'm not really sure, so don't get your hopes up. on with the darn story!
- - - - - - - - - -
Two weeks after she had been admitted into the hospital, Tajima was released. Quatre had offered to let her stay with him, and he could hear her complaints and the weary but persistent nurse valiantly trying to keep her in the wheelchair as hospital policy required.
"Let. Me. Out. Of. This. Thing."
"I'm afraid that's not possible, it's a wheelchair, and would you please stay in the chair?"
Thud.
"Next time, I'll tie you down!"
Duo grinned. The rest of the pilots, excluding Trowa as he had left earlier to practice his act for the circus, had come with Quatre. "Poor girl."
"The nurse or Tajima?" Quatre asked him.
"The nurse, obviously," was the reply, accompanied by a chuckle and a nod in her general direction. "I'd hate to be in her shoes."
"Get back here!" A panicked yell made everyone turn in that direction. Tajima had abandoned the wheelchair and was carefully walking towards the waiting limousine.
She raised an eyebrow. "A limo?"
The nurse came racing up with the empty wheelchair, pushing so her escapee fell back into the seat.
The unwilling patient twisted around to glare at the nurse, who steered her the last foot to the sleek black limo. "She's all yours now," the nurse said with some relief.
"Finally," Tajima grumbled. She easily got off the wheelchair and slid in the limo.
The nurse leaned down for one last warning. "Don't push it too hard. You're still recovering."
"Shut up."
Used to her patient's moods, the other laughed. "You forgot these," she said, handing Tajima her armguards and headed back towards the hospital.
The four pilots got into the limousine as well, Wufei sitting as far away from Tajima as the available space allowed. Duo was in the middle of the seat, facing her, the better to talk and maybe even annoy, Quatre next to him and leaving Heero next to her. A slightly tense silence ensued, broken by Duo.
"You said that we're gods in your time. Uh, how's this possible and what's the story behind it?"
Another silence followed the question. Tajima slipped her armguards back on thoughtfully; they felt almost foreign after their long absence. After five minutes, during which the limo began to head back to the Winner's mansion, she answered slowly, "I'll tell you later."
The American pilot hmphed, slightly put-out that his question had not been answered immediately. He recovered from it fairly quickly though, and asked another question. "What're those made of?" He pointed at the armguards.
She shrugged. "It's been so long since anyone knew. It's rumored that they are made from the remnants of the Ghundas."
The four others stared in shock. Their ride pulled up into the driveway of the mansion, and as the fact that they had slowly registered, the group piled out. Quatre, ever the polite aristocrat, offered a helping hand to Tajima. She ignored it and got out unaided. Then nearly tripped over her own feet as she was slightly disoriented from not being able to move for the past two weeks. Luckily, Quatre hadn't withdrawn his hand and was able to keep her from falling flat on her face. When she had regained her balance, Tajima muttered something profane under her breath.
Duo burst out laughing when he managed to catch the gist of it. Quatre looked confused. "What happened?"
Tajima cut in smoothly as Duo opened his mouth. "You don't want to know," she said, adding a glare in Duo's direction as she straightened, implying that what she really meant was 'you don't want to know what will happen if you repeat just one word of what I said'.
Duo gulped, and kept quiet. He had learned of her ability to make people very sorry they had said anything she didn't want them to say these past two weeks, even if bedridden. He rubbed the back of his head. 'I swear, that pillow had a brick in it.'
She glanced back at him. "Wimp. I didn't even throw it that hard."
He made a face at her. "Oh shut up." Duo then hastily covered his head as Tajima's hand came near a little too close for comfort. "I'M SORRY!!" The hand withdrew.
"It'd be nice if we could get moving in the next century or two," Wufei snapped.
Heero leaned indifferently against the limo, Prussian blue eyes scanning the sky above. "It's going to rain about five minutes," he remarked softly.
After the others had glanced up at the gray clouds above, they could hear a rumble of thunder in the distance.
After it had stopped, Tajima looked slyly at Duo, with whom she had developed an "I-can-do-anything-you-can-do-better" relationship. "Bet I can get to the door before you get within ten feet of it."
He glanced at the door, which was no more than twenty feet away. "Yeah right. You're on!"
As he started to run, she dropped to the ground and tripped him. Then she set off at an easy sprint that took her to the door in as much time as it took Duo to get up and yell indignant comments in which "cheater" was repeated many times. It also took as much time for him to do that as it did the three other pilots to simply walk the distance.
The door was opened by a dignified butler who stepped respectfully out of the way. "Welcome back, Master Quatre," he murmured. "How many should we expect for dinner?"
"Uh." Quatre looked over his shoulder. "Just tell the maids to only set the table for five"
"Very good, sir." The butler bowed and glided away to navigate the long hallways and notify the kitchens.
Duo started jogging over to the group when the heavens parted and let loose a torrent of rain, right on the unfortunate braided American's head. "Aww man!" he complained, and increased his pace from easy jog down the street in the morning to bat out of hell. He smacked into the doorframe, groaned, and made it into the Winner mansion, sopping wet, with a sore nose, and definitely much the worse for the wear. He still managed an expectant grin and a cheerful, "Does anyone know what we're having for dinner?"[1]
After dinner, Quatre remembered that Tajima had been eyeing the many different types of silverware like so much road kill. Sighing mentally, he decided he'd have to teach her various customs since it was more than likely that they would all have to attend something fancy where it was needed. Personally, he didn't really mind and thought it was completely unnecessary. But some person might begin to spread rumors of a guest being uncivilized and it would be a black mark on his name, which could be dangerous in the higher classes, and especially to a former Gundam pilot. 'Or Ghunda Pylot,' he thought wryly. He glanced across the room to meet Tajima's eyes, cold, gray, and calculating. She arched an eyebrow as if to ask what he was thinking. Quatre smiled, and stated, "Remember when you called us gods in your own time?"
After she nodded, he continued, "There must be some sort of legend about us if we were that. Would you mind if-"
"I told it to you?" she finished. "Why not? It's not like I can go anywhere or have anything to do."
"Yes, but would you mind if I recorded it. I think Trowa would want to hear this too."
"Very well then."
After a tape recorder had been procured, the four pilots gathered in a rough circle around her. Quatre pressed "Play" as a voice seeming to come from the years past that they barely managed to recognize as Tajima's filled the room.
The legend
Years, decades, and even centuries ago, there had been something called "peace". People lived alongside each other. Minor battles broke out from time to time, but always, this peace came back to the people.
But there were those who wished to disrupt this peace, and make themselves rulers of all humanity, since humanity dominated at that time. These people began to gradually corrupt the military, and with it, the government. People began to believe their lies, and eventually, they did rule.
Some resisted, though, unhappy under the harsh rule of the Alyance[2]. Mechanical angels were built, with their gods to control them. Wing, Hel[3], enigma, desert noble, and dragon were ruled over by perfection, death, mystery, compassion, and justice. Or yuro, xellod, atrow, nerba, and fein[4]. They came down from the heavens and landed on earth. They fought the alyance, but were soon portrayed as the evil ones, and as thus, the enemy of erda[5]. Their angels were destroyed more than once, but always came back stronger, never completely annihilated. After they seemed to have won peace for the people, a new adversary appeared, the white fangu. The endless dance[6] had to continue, or history and life would disappear with it. War had to come after revolution, which will always come after peace.
The last battle was long and the creators of the angels helped the enemies of the gods to build stronger demons, which were controlled by their own gods[7]. An ancient demon was awakened by merkais[8], which would be called eclyon. Wing and eclyon battled for the safety of erda, the true home of the people. As a meteor hurtled down, merkais knew he had to protect the citizens on his honor as a knight of the lost kingdom. He destroyed a ship that was to help the meteor obliterate all life on erda. Yuro flew wing down to stop the other and destroyed it, nearly dying in the process. But he had a will to survive, to see that they truly had achieved peace, for a while, anyway. The gods never found a need for their angels again, and they gradually disappeared in the sands of time as their gods did.
Quatre carefully clicked the tape recorder off. "So. that's what they say about us in the future. Or of Heero, rather."
Tajima sighed. "Lyska could have done it better," she said regretfully. "And this was only the version people of the sect- 01 are told. A-" she stopped speaking.
Duo blinked. "What?"
Tajima said abruptly, "Nothing. I never said anything but that our Remebrancer[9] could have done better." She rose and left the room. In the hallway, her hand came up to wipe away the tear that had fallen and slid down her face.
- - - - - - - - - -
[1]- I have absolutely nothing against Duo, if anyone was wondering. Except that he shot Heero, that little- hehehe. mostly it's that Relena could have died. Relena could've died. But nooo- erhem, I'll shut up now.
[2]- I had to mess around with the spelling of "Alliance". Hey, I think it looks cool!
[3]- That's. Norse spelling, I think. Y'know, Vikings, Thor, Freya, that whole can o' worms.
[4]- Yeah, I had to mess around with the names. "Yuro" is the "ro" of Heero and the "yu" off Yuy. Duh. "Xellod" is "xell" from Maxwell and I took off the "d" and "o" from Duo. Yeah, yeah, I admit it, I took a little bit from Slayers with the entire Xellos thing, but hey! I don't own that! "Atrow" is an anagram of Trowa. "Nerba" is a mix of the "ner" from Winner and the "ba" from Raberba. And "Fein" is simply the "fei" from Wufei and the "n" from Chang. Let's see, pronuciations. I think Yuro would be pretty easy, so I won't bother. Uh, "zell-load" for "Xellod". "Ah-trow" for "Atrow". Nerba is pretty easy too. and "Fein" would be like "pain" except with an "f" instead of a "p"
[5]- Erda. I got this from The Book of Earth, so I don't own it, don't sue, yadda, yadda. It means "earth" I believe. Again, duh. That would be what they call good ol' earth in Tajima's time.
[6]- Well, I couldn't use Waltz, since that would mean something made it through all those centuries, and then I'd have to abandon all my hard work of thinking up funky spellings and names. So there.
[7]- Yeah, I decided that if the pilots were the gods, then the Gundams are the angels. Geez, that's like Angelic Layer. I DON'T OWN THAT EITHER!! DON'T SUE!!
[8]- "Eclyon" and "Merkais". Obviously Epyon and Merquise seriously distorted by time.
[9]- *sigh* Yes, Divine Guardian, you ought to recognize this. So should everyone who reads Garth Nix. It's from Lirael, and I just thought it fit, y'know, memory and remembrance. I also don't own that. Again, don't sue. Gee, you must all be getting tired of me saying that.
Author's Note- Hmm, should I add humor in as another genre? And don't tell me, you're all like "Well, that's fine and dandy, but WHEN THE HELL'S THE ACTION AND ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE GONNA KICK IN!?" That sound familiar to you, Divine Guardian? Heh, it ought to. Oh yes, and my birthday was on May 30th. Let's have a little contest. Divine Guardian, you can't enter, you actually know me. And you still haven't gotten me a present, now have you? Okie, no asking Divine Guardian, that's not fair, alright? The question is: How old did I turn and what gender am I? The first prize is: you get to be written into the story with your favorite G-boy or G-girl! G-boys do not include Heero, okay? If you win, just send me a short description of yourself or how you'd like to be, a name, and the character. Consolation? Uh. you can just give me your e-mail and get a short little note about how grateful I am you actually cared enough to try! ^_^ Or not. the choice is yours. DAMN THAT WOMAN!! Oh, and just so I won't get wild crazy guesses like "as old as dirt" (that's my math teacher people, not me!) I'm between 10 and 50. Good luck!
P.S.- If no one gets it right, I'll take the closest answer and proclaim that person the winner. If there's a tie, uhh. we'll cross that bridge when we get to it! Ja ne! .