Disclaimer: I know, from traipsing through every store, mall, and boutique in the Greater Toronto Area, that nobody has Gundam pilots for sale. I even offered to pay retail instead of the supposed sale price, but they still said no. Therefore, I cannot possibly own these magnificent examples of manhood, or the chicks they hang out with. Do not sue me. I have no money except that miniscule amount reserved for presents.
Additional Disclaimer: This episode refers to a factual historical event, but also makes certain assumptions that are not substantiated in the real world. It's called artistic licence. Don't yell at me.
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Seventy-Six: The Assembly
"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." ~Proverbs, 26:12March 16th, 1903
To the surprise of some, having hundreds of people essentially trapped in a desert fortress did not cause widespread panic. When it became apparent to all concerned that they were going to have to make the best of it, that was precisely what they did. It was somewhat crowded, but everyone had at least an undisturbed rectangle of floor on which to sleep. The trio ended up sharing a servant's room, in the absence of the servant of course, with four other men, who graciously agreed to give Lucrezia the only bed in the room. With both Treize and Lord Jeffrhyss creeping around the place, however, Heero didn't get much sleep, and spent most of each night sitting propped up against a stone wall where he could see both the door and the window, and stop any intruder cold. He wouldn't have slept anyway...not without Duo.
Every morning at six, there was a strange kind of trumpet call, on an instrument none of the trio could place in their mental encyclopaedias of music. Meals were doled out in cafeteria fashion, and none of the really important people stood in line for it; they sent their servants to collect four, five, even six plates of food at a time, thereby slowing everything down for the commoners. Since there was nothing to do in the interim, decks of cards were sold at a premium, and some of the guests even organized a small penuchle tournament to pass the time. However, it was starting to feel like the missing member of Cinq would never arrive, and that they would be trapped there for weeks; no amount of card games would keep them all there indefinitely, and indeed, some agents of lesser importance left to attend to other duties.
Then, late in the morning of the sixth day, the final delegation arrived with more than enough personnel to occupy the vacant spots left by everyone else's missing men. Master Okada, an imposing, bald-headed figure on a horse with ostentatious armour and swords hanging off him, led a procession of agents and troops down one of the earthen ramps leading into the valley, and marched them straight into the citadel a little before noon. Hundreds of agents gathered on the parapets to watch, Heero included. It seemed a reasonable guess that Okada was the first member of Cinq to employ Wufei, and also the one who found him an inadequate worker and sold his contract to Jeffrhyss at a fraction of what it was worth. Guessing also that the meeting could begin as soon as Okada and his workers were settled, Heero returned to his friends with a news update, and they prepared themselves. Luggage would have to be left in the little room while the meeting was in progress, so anything they didn't want stolen, they secured to their dusty clothes with twine.
Very little happened until after lunch, when word quickly spread through the various camps that the meeting was about to begin. Column upon column of unbathed masses filed out of their dark corners and followed a handful of organizers in brightly-coloured clothes, being led through winding passageways, down stone steps, and finally into a large underground arena, lit by strategically-placed torches and pleasantly cool. The hum of voices filled the acoustically-correct meeting hall as people grabbed seats anywhere they could within their designated sections. There was a sunken arena floor with a rounded raised platform in the middle, with some seating, two podiums, tables carrying plentiful gas lanterns where people could supposedly place important documents, and all around were stairwells with iron handrails leading up through the gallery seating and out to the upper levels. The seating was divided into five sections marked off by the same coloured rags as were used up above, and each section filled up quickly with agents.
The only exception was the section that would have been reserved for Professor Giorgenson's mob. Instead, the hopefuls vying to take over his position sat there, filling up the front rows first and so on back. Heero and the others chose this section to haunt; they sat way at the back where it was darkest, and where they would have the best view of the people coming and going.
It was a good half hour before things settled down enough for the guests of honour to enter the forum. Down the emptied stairwells, surrounded by guards and agents, came the four key members, and they each were guided to special box seating in the middle of their pertinent section. Lord Jeffrhyss was easily recognizable to Heero and Lucrezia, in his dark, raggedy clothes, shadowy spectacles, and straw-like grey hair. Trowa spotted a tallish man with scraggly hair and a kerchief tied over the lower half of his sunken face and got a bit of a chill. Had Quatre been there, he would have known the fat, moustached Hassan, and the bald one that was most likely Okada, Wufei would have given some sour looks to. They all took their seats, at which point Heero noticed that Byron was located on Jeffrhyss' right hand. He reached across Lucrezia's lap to poke Trowa, then pointed it out to him, and the boy nodded in recognition.
There was an entrance at the arena level like one would use if one were a gladiator entering the ring with a hungry lion. Out of this entrance walked a dignified, balding man in a very smart suit, seemingly too smart to have been in the dusty desert for any length of time, carrying an attaché case in one hand and a strong box in the other. He was rather familiar, and after a few minutes and a quick conference, the trio decided he was the same man they saw at the coronation of Kind Edward. He had carried a little jewelled treasure chest on that day, and Giorgenson had given him a key which was placed inside. The strong box he carried now was slightly bigger than the treasure chest, which was a hint that it could have been sealed inside. The balding man took a position at one of the podiums on the raised arena floor and set the strong box on the ground, then opened his case and took out some papers, preparing to speak to the assembly.
Lucrezia elbowed Trowa, holding an open pot of face cream. "Moisturizer?"
"Uh.....no thanks." He declined, but watched her make the same offer to Heero, then massage a fingertip-ful of the cream onto each of her cheeks after it was refused a second time. Then she closed up the jar, slipped it back into her pocket, slouched, and sighed. "Bored?" asked Trowa.
"Just wish they'd get on with it."
Her wish was quickly granted. The balding man cleared his throat, then demonstrated the fine acoustics of the room by speaking from the podium and being heard clearly all the way to the back. "Due to the delays we have already experienced," he said in a light, crisp accent verging on being British, "the existing members have already voted to dispense with the usual formalities and get straight to it. Please skip to page six in your agendas."
Everyone skipped to page six. Heero, Trowa and Lucrezia looked down at their empty hands, then up at each other, for they had no pages to skip. Apparently just getting directions to the place didn't mean they got the whole welcome package that everybody else got.
"The charter indicates that any business pertaining to the replacement of absent members takes precedence over the yearly tally, but also that voting for the next member cannot begin until the end of the meeting. Therefore we shall commence with the presentations of the contenders in alphabetical order." Following that, the balding man took out a very long list and announced the first of many delegation names. There were no less than fifty teams challenging for the position, and they all had to be heard. What followed was a long and tedious process whereby each candidate took the podium opposite the balding speaker of the house and answered questions that pointed to their suitability to become Giorgenson's successor. Factors such as finances, fixed assets, intelligence, influence, and past deeds of notability were investigated at length, well into the night. During the proceedings, people tended to waft in and out for food or a bathroom break, but the four kings stayed put, listening. Their votes would eventually determine who played their game, and concentration was key.
Trowa was falling asleep by the time Treize took the podium, and Lucrezia elbowed him sharply. The Count was looking splendid in a red military-style long-tailed jacket with shiny brass buttons and gold braiding here and there. Pristine white riding pants and tall black boots made the ensemble even more imposing, and the white gloves were the perfect finishing touch. He had a few toadies with him, shuffling papers around and just generally looking subservient, and one appeared to be there solely for the purpose of making sure the Count's ceremonial sword and scabbard were hanging straight off the shoulder strap. "Allow me to express my sincerest gratitude at being able to add my voice to those of these other esteemed guests. I am truly honoured to stand in your presence."
Bootlick, Heero mocked mentally. Oily as ever.
"Yes...quite." The balding man merely took out a blank form and filled in a few notes on it, under Treize's name. "We have all seen your financial statement...we couldn't help seeing it, the way it mysteriously appeared on most everyone's breakfast tray three days ago..." A tittering chuckle ran through the crowd. Perhaps it paid to advertise. "...now, perhaps you'd care to tell us what else you bring to the table besides castles and Swiss bank accounts."
"Certainly," Treize agreed smoothly, grasping the podium authoritatively with both hands. "I believe in the force of pure will. If something you want to happen isn't happening, you don't want it badly enough. I believe that a strong enough will can create minute psychokinetic eddies in the surrounding energy field, and those waves spread throughout creation, becoming larger and more influential as they travel, and changing the universe to your benefit."
".....out...of his freaking...mind," Lucrezia said, slowly and quietly.
"And what feats have you accomplished to demonstrate this...power of yours?" the balding man asked, unconvinced.
The trio soon decided that he shouldn't have asked. Treize launched into a lengthy lecture about his history of crime, the banks he had robbed, the noblemen he had toppled, the businessmen he had put out of business, and the murders he had orchestrated, all without taking one sip of the water provided. It sounded very well rehearsed, but he undoubtedly would have liked to add procurement of the Peacecraft fortune to his list of mighty deeds. Trowa nearly fell asleep a second time, it took so long, and the balding man's stenographers had quite a task keeping up.
Eventually, the interview ended and Treize sat down with his entourage. Then several more candidates took the podium and made their own speeches, though few people could even reach the bar after the Count raised it. He sat very smugly near the front of his section, arms folded and legs crossed casually as a long stream of unworthy opponents trudged back and forth in front of him. The Count actually began buffing his nails on his lapel, thinking he had the position all wrapped up, until the balding man went down the checklist and asked for a candidate nobody expected. "Peacecraft!"
Treize shot straight up in his chair, with enormous eyes. So did Heero, Lucrezia, and Trowa, who was suddenly wide awake. They were the only members of the audience who gaped as a tall, slender man with a long mane of platinum blond hair and a khaki uniform of the British army stood up in the middle of the section and made his way down to the arena floor. It was Milliardo, and he had with him a single assistant, a woman draped in pale tan cloth, veiled and unrecognizable. She carried all of Milliardo's papers for him, which was a pitifully small bundle compared to what other teams had carted down. The pair stepped off the stairs and separated, the woman taking a seat and the man going to the podium. Lucrezia bit her lip and held her breath for awhile; this was a most unexpected turn of events.
"We have very little documentation on you, Mister Peacecraft," the balding man said matter-of-factly. "In fact, if your application had been received only a few hours later than it was, you wouldn't have been granted an audience at all. Do you intend to make a habit of thumbing your nose at the rules?"
"No indeed, sir," Milliardo said in his wispy baritone, being as polite and deferential as he could.
"Very well...perhaps you'd care to begin by listing your accomplishments to date," the balding man said, and he uncapped a fresh pot of ink in which to dip his pen and write out notes of his own.
Milliardo folded his hands on the podium and held his head up proudly. ".....none, sir."
The crowd rumbled disapprovingly, and the balding man leaned forward, as if he didn't hear the man quite right. "None at all?"
"I beg your understanding, sir," said the young soldier. "I've listened very carefully to everything that's been said, but unlike the rest of my colleagues here, I have also pored over the charter seeking clues as to what motivates the existing members in their quest."
"Oh?" the balding man hooted, sounding only mildly interested. "And what have you discovered?"
"That the esteemed members enjoy challenging surprises, above all else. They have lived long and seen much, and because of that, a good mystery is hard to come by." Milliardo made a sweeping gesture with one hand, pointing to all the others who had made their presentations before him. "Everyone else here has already tipped their hand. Now we all know exactly what they are capable of, and it will be much more difficult for any of them to surprise you...whereas I am a complete mystery to all. In my humble opinion, the game would be more entertaining if a wild card was introduced."
The murmurs of the crowd suggested that most people found the concept intriguing, but it wasn't necessarily indicative of how the four leaders would vote on Milliardo's suitability. "I see," said the balding man. "I also notice, from your application, that you yourself are not the leader of your delegation. You seem to take this air of mystery to extraordinary lengths, if I may say so."
"The person from whom I take my orders presently wishes to remain anonymous," said young Master Peacecraft. "I found nothing in the charter to indicate that this is against the rules...correct me if I'm wrong."
The balding man lifted his eyebrows as he looked down in thought. "This is permitted." He then allowed Milliardo a few minutes to address the assembly, just like everyone else, and the young man proceeded to make a brief speech about the merits of facing the unknown with a brave face. Afterwards, he and the veiled woman climbed back up into the stands and took their original seats, while other delegations stepped forward, one after another.
While the presentations continued, the trio huddled together for an emergency conference. "What do you make of it?" Trowa asked in a whisper. "Who do you think he's working for?"
"I'm not sure," said Heero. "At the moment, I'm more worried about who that woman is." They all looked down at the veiled figure, and to their surprise, at that very moment she turned around in her chair and looked directly back at them, somehow able to pick them out of the dimly lit back row.
Lucrezia's mouth hung open for a moment, and she shook her head. "He wouldn't..."
"I think he did." They sized the woman up from top to bottom, and she looked to be exactly Relena's size; not only that, but there was a larger blob sitting next to her now, and it looked an awful lot like Otto. It was insane enough seeing a Peacecraft in such a den of villains in the first place, but bringing his sister and house steward along would have certainly qualified him for a one-way ticket to the looney bin. Still, there was no proof of who the girl was, or even if it was a girl at all. For now, it was just a short blob dressed like a girl, with nothing showing except a pair of eyes. The blob eventually turned back around and settled back in 'her' chair, but at the back row, the debate continued.
Once the presentations by the Cinq hopefuls were concluded, the agenda pointed to the larger matter, that of who would walk away with the honours for 1902. It was the balding man's duty to listen to accounts of their deeds and decide which camp had made the greatest impact on the world in the past year. Lord Jeffrhyss, as last year's winner, would list his accomplishments last, and so the other three each made a lengthy speech in alphabetical order, assisted by their top agents. One after another, they recounted even more fanciful tales about hijacked ships, rigged stock exchanges, kidnappings for outrageous ransoms...things that one needed a vast network of spies to accomplish. Each leader conducted their business from within their private box seating, eliminating the need for them to travel down to the minor players' podium, and the meeting dragged on for another two hours at least. Then it was Lord Jeffrhyss' turn. He stood and pontificated about all the fantastic things he had done, the vast majority of which Heero knew nothing about. It was somewhat unsettling, being out of the loop for so long, but the boy reminded himself that he really didn't want to consort with these people anyway, and it felt better.
As Jeffrhyss wrapped up his presentation, which read like a five-inch-thick mystery novel, he adjusted his dark spectacles with his hook and gave a nod to his colleagues. "My opponents have made stunning efforts to best me once again, but this year's prize is to be mine and no one else's," he announced with his usual self-assuredness. "I shall turn the presentation over to my assistant, who will fill you in on the details of my triumph. May I congratulate you all on a fine effort once again...first class all the way."
In the back row, Heero twitched unpleasantly. He used to say that all the time, but he never recalled hearing his master say it in all their years together.
As Jeffrhyss sat down and the fair-haired youth next to him stood up, many people in the arena thought this was rather odd. When it was certain to him that victory was around the corner, His Lordship delighted in delivering the death blow himself, so no one could fathom why he would be passing the honour down to one of his agents. Nevertheless, Byron stood and arranged two or three pieces of paper in his hands, poised to make the grand presentation himself. "Ladies and gentlemen," he commenced regally, "in the past year, Lord Jeffrhyss assigned me to a small island in the Caribbean called Martinique, after receiving a tip from one of our lesser informants on holiday.
"This informant, who has since been promoted since his brilliant display of ingenuity, developed connections in various public offices and relayed information back to His Lordship virtually as soon as it became available. In early April of last year, a mountain on this island called 'Pelée' began to emit steam from its summit. Weeks later, shortly after my arrival on the 23rd of April, there were significant ground tremors, followed by rains of ash and pumice stone. By this point, the local authorities were quite concerned and were actually considering evacuation when the ash showers became continuous, something that hadn't occurred on such a scale in two hundred years of their history.
"And then," Byron said with his most fiendish grin, "they met me. Acting on His Lordship's instructions, I presented myself as a prominent student of geology and volcanology, looked over the evidence, and gave them the benefit of my advice. I told them that there was virtually no danger associated with the tremors and such."
Heero blinked, looking down quickly. He recalled skimming over something about this in the newspaper, but it was so many months ago that he wasn't at all sure what it was. It had been right about the time that Duo's adoptive parents had crashed town, though, so he'd had more pressing things on his mind.
"Lord Jeffrhyss saw a tremendous opportunity to win this contest in one mighty blow, and telegrams flew between us like lightning bolts getting the job done. With the informant's assistance, I personally suppressed reports, destroyed documents, bribed whomever required bribery and eliminated whatever resistance remained, by lethal means in the most severe cases. On May seventh, the mountain awoke with a roar and spewed a massive black cloud into the sky overhead. At this point, my assistant and I decided we had risked our own safety long enough, and fled to Trinidad, another island to the south. The next morning, Pelée erupted." The crowd began to murmur, and the trio stiffened with dread. Byron seemed sickeningly proud of himself as he recounted the story, and the way he punctuated it with catlike sneers gave Heero an awful chill.
"As proof!" Byron shouted over the growing noise of the crowd, holding the papers in his hand high above his head. "As proof, I have brought to you some of the very documents that passed back and forth between officials on the island, or would have, if not for my interference. His Lordship contends that because of our actions, the vital evacuation did not take place as planned, and as a result, when Pelée erupted on the 8th of May, the town of St. Pierre and it's twenty-nine thousand residents were quickly eliminated!"
The audience itself erupted next. The noises they made, however, were filled with awe and admiration instead of the horror felt by the trio. Most of Lord Jeffrhyss' section actually burst into cheers for their leader, knowing that they had most assuredly won. At the back row of the arena, though, it was a different story. Twenty-nine thousand people. Trowa involuntarily grasped Lucrezia's near hand where it rested on her knee, and Lucrezia grasped Heero's hand and pulled it to her, and Heero squeezed that hand without even knowing it. Twenty-nine thousand people. They could have lived if they had known enough to flee. They would have known if not for Jeffrhyss, and especially Byron, and they seemed proud of it. Twenty-nine thousand. It was unfathomable.
The balding man pulled a little gavel out of his podium and banged it a few times, and the crowd calmed themselves. He looked down at his paperwork and shrugged with his eyebrows, surprised, and perhaps less than approving of the feat, but it wasn't his place to pass that sort of judgement. His task was merely to determine which of the four had made the greatest impact on the world and declare them the winner. "Well...I think you'll all agree that this is a feat of unprecedented gravity...and that no one else has even come close. Lord Jeffrhyss, as always, has a strange sort of luck following him about, and it has served him well."
The winner had been declared, and there was only a small ceremony of congratulations left before the meeting could move on to the next segment in the agenda, but Heero suddenly couldn't stand to watch. He was feeling a little light-headed. "I need some air," he muttered to Lucrezia, and before he could see the worried look on her face, he was up and out of his seat, down the aisle and out the door. She and Trowa muttered back and forth about what sort of an effect the day was having on him, and confessed to each other that they both felt a bit ill themselves, all while the title-conferring ceremony went ignored. Jeffrhyss didn't even stand up to receive the adulation of the crowd, and the whole production that the town of St. Pierre had died for was over and done with in a matter of seconds.
"Now then," the balding man continued once the applause had abated, "voting will commence for the first round of eliminations, as dictated by the charter. I will ask the leading representatives of each visiting delegation to stand, and four votes will be counted for each, yea or nay. In the event of a tie, the affected delegation will proceed to the next round. Three 'nay' votes constitutes an elimination, and the affected delegation must leave forthwith..."
**********Heero staggered away from the great hall, feeling sick to his stomach. It finally hit home that he had wasted most of his life on a man who murdered innocent people for sport. Even more gut-wrenching was the thought that he followed that man willingly, blindly, though he never really had a choice in the matter. The sensation of physical sickness was added to by a bone-crushing guilt, as if plain horror wasn't enough; could he himself have been an active participant in the amusement killings without knowing it? Could some of his 'training exercises' have been real? Could he have been hunting down and capturing real targets instead of armoured instructors? Could he have been using live ammunition when they told him they were only blanks? Now that he really thought about it, in all those drills intended to desensitise him to killing, his instructors never specifically told him that it was all a simulation, and Heero never asked. He could have been a true murderer hundreds of times over.
He dragged himself up flight after flight of hand-carved stone steps until he reached the open courtyard. It was comfortably cool outside, a clear night with plenty of stars. Heero wandered around, gazing upward, and tried to breathe evenly while his rapid pulse slowed, until he stopped somewhere in the middle and lowered his face into his hands. Overhead, a nondescript bird flew by and let out a screech that made him jump about six inches, and his heart started to race again. The serenity broken, he rushed out of the courtyard and back into the covered areas of the citadel, almost trying to get lost there deliberately.
My nerves are in shreds, he thought, and even his inner voice seemed to tremble with anguish. Am I the only one? In the whole of the organization, is there no one else who can't stomach the thought of this sick game?? He stopped in a small stone hallway lit by a torch, with one wall carved out in a gaping archway to the courtyard, and had a good look around; he was alone. I guess not.
"Are you following me now?" a sweet but angry voice said behind him.
Heero whirled around in the corridor, again startled by sudden noise, and his flowing bone-white cloak swirled about his tense form, then settled. Both ends of the corridor were darkened, as the flaming torch was the only one in fifty feet or more of wall space, but a figure slowly stepped into the orange glow, a figure with the same long, golden hair that Heero had caught a glimpse of the day he arrived. She stopped, and let him register her presence for a moment, wearing a simple but feminine cotton dress of pale tan, so pale that she might have disappeared into the sand.
"...Relena..."
The girl seemed unimpressed with his powers of recognition. "Why are you here?"
Heero straightened up and drew on his internal calming resources to bring himself back under strict control. Moments earlier, he would have asked her the same question, but he was starting to understand more than she expected. He shrugged nonchalantly. "It's a free country, relatively speaking. I can take my vacation anywhere I like."
"You're not on vacation, you came here to spy on me!" Relena spat, stalking forward until she could have reached out and touched him.
That really caused a traffic jam between the boy's ears. If anything, he would have expected it to be the other way around. The suspicion showed on his face. "You think I'm here because you're here?"
"Uncle Treize told me what you were up to," she snarled, "and I didn't believe him at first, but you seem to be making his case for him with all your skulking about! Everything you've ever done in my house makes sense now. Right from the beginning, you saw a helpless girl and an inheritance up for grabs, if you could only get your foot in the door. Well, it's not going to work! My money is finally safe from prying hands like yours, and I've invested it in something far more important than whatever slothful, self-indulgent use a gold-digger like you would have squandered it on!!"
Relena sounded so far out in left field that Heero would have needed a giant catapult to reach her. He shook his head. "You've lost me completely."
Before she could accuse him of trying to worm out of trouble by playing dumb, a strange noise interrupted them both, a hollow, wooden clomping that slowly crept up from out of the dark corridor behind where Heero stood. The echoing sound made the boy's throat constrict once he recognized it, and a moment later, a gravelly voice made his blood run cold for good measure. "Forgive this boy for not understanding you, my child," the gravelly old voice said to Relena. "He used to be a great deal more attentive than he is now."
Heero slowly turned around and stared at the intruder with enlarged eyes, stepping back twice as slowly, driven by the instinct to protect the weaker party, namely Relena. He gradually tried to block her from the sight of the man, but she leaned away, actively gazing at him in horror. She had heard him described, from the scraggly white-gray hair and dark spectacles down to the hook for a hand and the pair of worn wooden legs, and she had spotted him vaguely from across the ominous meeting hall, but nothing truly prepared her for the experience of seeing Lord Jeffrhyss in person.
The first attempt Heero made at audible speech didn't make it past his throat, as the presence of his former master still petrified him, no matter how much personal progress he made in other areas of life. The second attempt, however, just managed to croak through. "Leave us alone."
Jeffrhyss stepped a bit closer, the fingers of his good hand twitching atop his heavy cane. "Such insolence, when I haven't even said my piece yet."
"I don't want to hear anything you've got to say," Heero growled, adding a brave edge to his voice. "Now, please...just go."
"Wait..." Relena slipped around to Heero's left side and glanced between the pair as they stared each other down. Here was the young cad she believed was trying to worm his way into her bank account, and here also was the acclaimed champion of Cinq's worldly dealings. Something was odd about the way they spoke. "You two...know each other?"
"My child!" Jeffrhyss admonished her in a superior tone. "...we are each other."
Suddenly, Heero felt sicker, and tried to take Relena's arm and scurry away from the man, but she savagely pinwheeled her arm out of his grip. "No!" she screeched at him. "What do you have to do with him!?"
Heero swallowed and actually shrank away from her furious gaze. If he'd had a choice, he wouldn't have let any of this happen, but it was years too late. "I'm sorry," he stammered softly.
If for no reason other than to punish him for his smart mouth, Jeffrhyss let Relena in on the boy's dirty little secret. "You've been cleverly duped, Miss Peacecraft," the old man began, almost delighting in the fright she displayed at hearing him speak her name. "He didn't find you by chance, I sent him to you, to infiltrate your household, and the information he provided me with was most invaluable."
Now Heero was looking shocked, and he leaned menacingly towards his master with an outstretched arm. "Now, wait a minute..."
"He's the finest agent an organisation has ever seen, and must be greatly looking forward to re-assignment once his official leave is over." Jeffrhyss seemed to be deliberately padding Heero's batting average, just so Relena would hate him more.
The more the old man lauded his young charge, the more she scowled in disgust, so it must have been working. "What did you tell him about us?" she snarled, backing Heero up a few steps with an absolutely livid exterior. The longstanding invasion of her privacy was almost as bad as the possibility that he had been creeping around Sutherby House in secret, and reporting back on their plans to join Cinq. "What does he know!? What have you told him!? How could you do such a thing!?"
"Let this be a lesson, my child, if your brother is serious about joining us," Jeffrhyss went on. "You need quality staff to get results, and without this young man at my side, so many of our efforts would have been wasted--"
"Stop saying that!" Heero burst out angrily, turning immediately to Relena with pleading eyes. "I never told him anything about you! I was after Treize right from day one! And I was terrible at it!" He wheeled back on Jeffrhyss. "Why are you lying all of a sudden!? I was lazy, and easily distracted, I dragged my feet, I disobeyed orders...I was a disaster at my job! A disappointment! You said so yourself! Tell her!"
Relena couldn't help being frightened at the display of temper, and she froze into complete silence, though her ears were quite open to the nuances flying about the corridor. Jeffrhyss was carefully studying Heero's reactions from behind his dark spectacles, proving that he never did anything without purpose. "Why? Why should I tell her? What is her opinion to you? She was nothing but a device to be used in the completion of your mission."
"So you just came out here to shame me, is that it?" Heero snapped haughtily after several seconds.
"You cannot be shamed, and that is precisely my point!" Jeffrhyss barked back. "When Byron informed me of your intentions to attend this gathering, I hardly believed you had the gall to show your face. But remember that I am always of a forgiving nature, and if you have any self-respect as an agent remaining, it's not too late to return to the fold."
So that's your game, Heero thought, glaring. Prove how much I need you before offering me my job back. He was being given a very quick choice, and it wasn't very difficult. There were numerous times when Relena hadn't treated him very well, but only because she was young and foolish, not purposefully cruel, and her innocence had slowly overridden his original programming with a notion of protecting her from harm. If he had any paternal instincts at all, they were telling him that it was more important to repair her hurt feelings than even acknowledge Jeffrhyss' offer, and so he tried. "Relena, listen to me..."
She indeed was suffering from hurt feelings, not just after being called a 'device', but from the utter rejection of herself as a woman. At least when she thought Heero was wooing her to bulk up his own wallet, there was the faintest glimmer of hope that he wanted to be with her, even if it was for a horrible reason. Being ordered to court her, however, was something of an insult, and adding that to the realisation that Treize must have put the idea of a gigolo into her head on purpose, knowing that it would hurt her twice, made her want to fall through the floor and die. Nevertheless, she was willing to listen, if only a little, and lifted her head with glossy, tear-soaked eyes.
Seeing those eyes confirmed Heero's fear, but one vital thing Duo had taught him was that there was a great healing power in the truth, so perhaps they would both feel better in a moment. ".....alright...I used you, I admit it...I've been lying since I met you, and if today hadn't happened, odds are I'd keep lying to you until the day I died, but.....no, forget that, there is no justification. Hate me if you need to, nothing I can say will stop you.....but you need to know this...that you were never dealing with me..." Without turning his head, his fire-lit eyes swerved to glare at Jeffrhyss. "...it was just a machine that looked like me."
This was perhaps the most animated emotion Relena had seen him display in a very long time, and it was quite compelling, despite having instructed herself for months that she no longer cared for him. Suddenly re-mesmerised by his energy, she didn't know whether to scream, cry, or even embrace him, and she felt more confused than ever. It froze her, and for awhile, she couldn't even breathe.
"Take a good look, Miss Peacecraft," Jeffrhyss rumbled as the youngsters stared at each other. "Tell your brother that this is the kind of conniving mind he will have to contend with, in the hundreds and thousands. There are many more like this boy, not only in my care but in the care of my contemporaries. When functioning properly, they can outwit anyone, from heads of state to army generals. This one, after rehabilitation, will be sent to trail the personal assistant of a Danish prince, whom I suspect of--"
"Stop talking like I belong to you!" Heero snapped suddenly. "I don't belong to anyone anymore!"
Jeffrhyss was still as a statue for a few moments after the outburst, calculating. "The damage is even more extensive than I realised. I regret not having had time over the past year to effectively treat your sickness, but now that--"
"No," Heero's throat crackled out, backing up a few steps. He was having an unusually strong reaction to it all, probably exacerbated by lack of sleep, and Relena, seeing the obvious distress he was in, moved closer, reaching out to his arm with one shaking hand, but never quite making contact. The boy was beginning to tremble slightly, overcome by rage and panic. "I'm not coming back, so just...find someone else to be your puppet."
"You're confused...I understand that." The tone Jeffrhyss used was eerily sympathetic, but it did nothing to disguise his creeping advancement towards the boy. "Overexposure to common society is creating a conflict with your default programming, but my senior advisors tell me the damage is not irreparable. You can come back."
"Are you deaf!? I said I'm not going anywhere with you! All I want is to be left alone!"
"Then it was a grave tactical error on your part to come here at all, was it not?" Jeffrhyss scolded in a slightly more menacing tone. "You are already surrounded by my best and brightest agents, and if I decide to take you with me, it's not very likely that you could fight them all off in your shattered condition. Besides...my advisors are all of the opinion that persuasion is pointless when there is an opportunity to take by force."
At the suggestion, however vague, of being carted back to Europe in shackles and brainwashed back into his old ways, Heero lost it. With his left arm, he shoved Relena strongly aside, and with a tiny squeal, she lurched backwards and collided with the edge of the giant archway, falling into a crouch. With his right hand, Heero instantaneously reached into his robes and drew his gun, aiming it shakily at Lord Jeffrhyss' head. He was pale and sweating, with a small but constant tremor flowing throughout his body, but his eyes remained fierce.
Jeffrhyss merely chuckled. "Little fool...do you think I would surround myself with dozens of armed agents and have no way to protect myself from unforeseen attacks? None of my employees can harm me in any way. There are scores of psychological blocks in place against insurrection, so you can squeeze that trigger as hard as you like. It won't do you any good."
Terrified and infuriated, Heero tested the theory, clenching his hand around the weapon and expecting the ear-shattering snap of exploding gunpowder followed by the soft thump of a body hitting the floor, but his fingers would only contract so far. He could feel the cold, smooth metal trigger, but as long as his master was lined up with the sights of the weapon, he was unable to move it. Frustrated, he clamped his other hand on the gun and squeezed with both of them, but it was as if an iron shield had been erected around the steel claw, immobilizing it. His breath was escaping in short gasps, as it was taking all of his energy to exert pressure that had absolutely no effect.
Squatting by the archway, Relena had pulled herself together and was doing some quick thinking. She saw that Heero was a pawn at last, and saw the hidden anguish he had been beaten down with since long before they even met. Forgetting London, and Marcus, and everything else, she just wanted to throw her arms around Heero and say whatever she could to soothe his agony, but at that instant, she also saw a chance to score some major brownie points with Lord Jeffrhyss. After all, if her brother was to capture the coveted fifth seat in the circle, Jeffrhyss' vote would carry him a long way. As painful as it was to prolong Heero's ordeal just when she was becoming fascinated with him all over again, she dried her eyes, leapt up, and rushed straight in front of him, stepping directly in the line of fire. She looked him very calmly in the eye, partially blocking Jeffrhyss from view. "Heero...put it down."
Heero's eyes bulged. "What are you doing!? Get out of the way!"
"No. Whatever's gone on between you two, there must be a better way of resolving it than this." The girl hoped that Jeffrhyss was paying very close attention to the risk she was taking on his behalf, but she had no idea that the old man was quietly backing away, caring nothing for the gesture or the boring chatter that went with it.
"You don't understand," Heero rasped, the gun still quivering in his hands. "This has to end now." It wasn't just for his own sake, either; it had to be done for the good of humanity.
"It won't be the end of your troubles, it'll be the beginning of new ones! You think there won't be any consequences in a fortress full of this man's zealots? Do this, and you'll never make it out of here alive."
Inwardly, Heero fumed at the girl. He firmly believed he could make it out alive, and protect his travelling companions as well, and who was she to suggest otherwise? In his eyes, Relena had hardly done anything except obstruct the path to whatever he wanted in life, and she was doing it again. So enthralled with many kinds of rage was the boy that even he didn't notice that Lord Jeffrhyss was gradually slipping back into the dark abyss of the corridor.
Unknown to either one of them, the meeting had been officially ended, and the participants were beginning to trickle out of the great hall. Those with the heaviest agendas left first, as they had the most to do in the least amount of time, and among them were Milliardo and loyal Otto, who strode up the carved steps and towards their guest quarters carrying massive bundles of paper. Their route would take them directly through the corridor where the deadly standoff was taking place, and as they rounded the corner and crossed the courtyard, the tense tableau was perfectly framed in the giant archway--Heero, Relena, and a flaming torch on the wall between them, illuminating the shiny surface of the outstretched gun.
Several things happened in only a few seconds. First, Otto and Milliardo stopped a good fifty yards from the great archway to the corridor, where all they could see were the two children, and the gun. Then, a shadow of fury fell over Milliardo's face, and he took off running towards the scene. Otto followed, but wasn't in the best of shape, and therefore couldn't keep up. While Relena continued to stare straight ahead, Heero became gradually aware of the six-foot-tall projectile about a second before it hit, and turned his head just in time to be tackled by a very angry brother. At the instant of the impact, Heero's concentration was broken, his hand twitched violently, and the gun went off. The shot echoed through the cavernous halls in all directions, accompanied by a little screech from Relena, emitted as she fell to the ground, momentarily obscured by a cloud of spent powder. It all seemed to take place in slow motion.
Before the echoing bangs died out, Milliardo had gathered himself up to his knees, then pounced on the stunned boy and began throttling him with both hands. Being pressed flat against the floor with a knee in his abdomen, Heero cringed and clawed at the massive hands crushing his neck, and would have remembered some clever moves to reverse positions with his attacker had he been in his right mind, which he wasn't. He'd shot Relena. He knew it.
Only a second later, Otto reached the corridor and fell down next to Relena's crumpled form, having to shout to be heard over the crowd's shocked rumblings, not to mention Milliardo's rampant stream of threats and curses. Strangers crowded in around the fallen girl, and still more encircled the two young men and tried to pry them apart, but without success. Behind the combatants, someone helped Otto gingerly turn Relena over, and everyone gasped at the sight of blood trickling from her neck. Another person immediately donated a cloth, and unknown hands pressed it to the wound while unashamedly searching the rest of her for more signs of injury. Within moments, her eyes blinked open, and then closed again as she realised she wasn't dead.
The people were still trying to pry Milliardo off Heero, but there were no breakthroughs until a dark-haired blur of beige came storming in, shoving folks aside left and right. It was Lucrezia, and upon seeing the man whom she could hear shouting from several yards away, she launched herself onto his back, tangled her arms up underneath his shoulders and around his neck, and exerted a secret choke-hold that finally broke his grip on Heero and sent him rolling backwards into the dirt. As Heero flopped over on his side, coughing and gasping for air, Trowa appeared through a gap in the onlookers and crashed down to the ground to help him, but Heero was only concerned with one thing--seeing past the thickening crowd that surrounded Relena.
As Milliardo hauled himself back to his feet and prepared to face his new attacker, Lucrezia swung back with one arm and slapped him as hard as she could, right across the face. It was more to get his attention than anything else, and it worked. Hunched over, hair sticking out in odd directions, and eyes blazing like a madman's, he looked up and really saw her at last. Ten kinds of shock flooded his veins at the very sight of her, for the young lovers had not laid eyes upon each other for months. The second the shock wore off, however, he forgot Lucrezia and hurried over to see what condition his sister was in. Lucrezia looked back and forth between him and Heero, still trying to piece together what had just happened, because nobody around her seemed to know, either.
Milliardo fell at Relena's side as she was being propped up by Otto and a helpful stranger. She was holding the cloth to the side of her neck on her own, and though she was pale and weak, she seemed quite coherent. "It's just a scratch," she said in a low, crackly voice backed by steely determination, and she pulled the cloth away to show him. Indeed, the bullet had grazed her neck and given her a fright, but nothing more.
"I'll kill him," Milliardo hissed. "I swear, I'll kill him!"
"No!" Relena dropped the blood-stained cloth and angrily grabbed a handful of the front of his coat. "You listen to me! You won't touch a hair on his head or I'll never speak to you again! If you love me at all, you'll do as I say!"
"Are you mad!?" Otto howled. She was sounding once again like a love-sick girl protecting her crush, and to an extent, that was true, but it was also very strategic. She knew that harming what Jeffrhyss still saw as his property could only hurt their chances for getting into Cinq.
Relena stood, refusing all help and lifting her head proudly. "Just take me to our rooms."
As her brother stood, he looked around for Lucrezia, but the brunette had mysteriously disappeared. Then, as much as it pained both him and his pride, he escorted Relena out of the corridor without any further fuss. Otto went with them at first, and there were lingering arguments over what to do about the apparent assassination attempt, after which Otto made his way back through the dispersing crowd to have one final word with Heero. During the in-between time, Trowa had snatched the gun up off the floor and tucked it into his clothes, grimly withholding judgement until he had all the facts. By then, Heero had stopped coughing and choking, and was merely rubbing his neck to get the circulation back, with his head hanging low from oxygen-deprived dizziness. Otto didn't particularly care what he was suffering from, however, when he stormed back into the corridor, shoved Trowa aside, picked Heero up by the front of his tunic and slammed him against the wall.
"I've never liked you," Otto snarled right in the boy's face, while Trowa watched in stunned silence. "I didn't want you in my house, I didn't want you anywhere near Miss Relena, and it's a pity she didn't listen to me because it turns out I was right all along. Now, I don't know what you said to scare her out of it, but she's already refusing to press charges. Personally, I don't think that's good enough for you. I don't think deportation to Siberia would be good enough for you, but it's not my decision, so this is as good as it's going to get. As soon as you set foot back on Bridlewood's property, you have exactly one hour to collect your things and get out, or I will have you arrested for trespassing. Got that!?" Heero couldn't seem to do anything other than glare tiredly at the angry bear, and the bear eventually lost patience, knocking Heero into the wall once more before letting go. He swung his furious eyes onto Trowa. "And don't you make one wrong move either, or you can pack your things as well!" Then he stalked off. When it sank in that he had just been sacked, Heero stared at the floor, wondering what Duo would say when he got home.
"Are you alright?" Trowa finally asked.
"I'll need to be very drunk on the way home, just thought I'd warn you," Heero said in a raspy tone. He also began rubbing his gut where Milliardo had impaled him, and then realised his hands were empty. He scanned the ground frantically. "Where's my--"
"I've got it," Trowa said quietly, patting a spot on his belt that was covered with cloth, while looking around for stragglers. They appeared to be alone, but it was best to be sure. "What happened?"
"It was Jeffrhyss," Heero warbled with another cough. "He goaded me into it...he was the one I was aiming at, not her! But she stepped right in front of..." Pausing to run a hand through his hair, he thought about how badly he wanted to turn the clock back, but couldn't decide on how far back it should have gone. Fifteen years might have been nice.
At the other end of the corridor, Trowa had located the spot where Relena fell and was slowly walking away from it, roughly along the path Jeffrhyss used to retreat. He was studying the ground very carefully. "Where was he? About here?"
Heero looked over and shook his head helplessly. "I suppose."
Trowa continued walking slowly down the hall, bending down further and further to look curiously at the floor. "Heero...there's blood over here. And here, too! It's all over the place!"
Again, Heero went a bit white and had an ugly feeling in his stomach. He started to follow him down the hall. "How much blood?"
"See for yourself."
The boys followed a trail of blood spatters that clearly led away from where Relena had been taken, so they couldn't have been hers. The droplets went down the corridor about thirty yards, rounded a corner, and suddenly stopped. Many scuffled footprints appeared where the blood vanished, but the owners couldn't be tracked very far. The new prints were erased by broom marks, to conceal their direction. It all suggested that the injured person was met by several servants, who practically carried him to safety while simultaneously tending to his wounds and covering their tracks. It was just the sort of rapid and heavy response Lord Jeffrhyss could have commanded.
"You got him," Trowa breathed.
Heero didn't answer. He was paralysed with dread. The bullet obviously continued on after striking Relena, and if the blood splatters and footprints were to be believed, Jeffrhyss wasn't swift enough to escape it. Even though Heero had pointed a gun at the man's head, he logically didn't really mean to shoot him, because Relena was right--killing him would have signed his own death warrant within minutes. It was impossible to tell whether the shot was fatal, or even if it struck Jeffrhyss at all, but Heero didn't fancy hanging around long enough to find out. "Go get Lucy and meet me at the stables," he said quickly. "We're getting out of here, now."
**********Lucrezia saw, at some point during the aftermath of the fight, that neither Heero nor Relena were in critical danger, and it was right then that she slipped away to think. After more dreadful months of separation from Milliardo, she found she didn't know what to say to him. The conundrum was awful. Still, as he took his baby sister away from the melée, Lucrezia followed at a distance, then hung around outside the hall leading to their guestrooms for awhile, forever working up the nerve to go and talk to him.
She leaned against the wall directly opposite the door she believed to be his and waited there for several minutes. Eventually, the wooden door opened and Milliardo stepped out, intent on fetching a glass of water for his sister and a few gulps of fresh air for himself, and stopped cold when he saw Lucrezia. He shut the door behind him, brushed a thick strand of hair out of his eyes, and gazed at her, fearfully and fondly. "You're looking well," he said after an extended silence. After she didn't answer, he scowled, and his voice turned a bit harsh. "I don't understand how you found this place...you must have come with that boy."
"'That boy' you nearly killed?" said Lucrezia. Milliardo immediately opened his mouth to defend his actions, but Lucrezia threw a hand up in front of his face, uttered some sort of curse in Greek, and stalked off, well aware that he was following closely on her heels. "I don't want to hear it! Whatever happened, there must have been a reason for it, and I can guarantee you that Heero's not the kind of person who kills innocent people, oh, and by the way, why in Heaven's name are you trying to associate yourself with the kind of people who are!?"
Milliardo grabbed her arm to stop her, and they skidded to a halt about twenty feet from Relena's door, and faced each other. He looked at the ground for awhile. "It's complicated."
"Oh, too complicated for me to understand? Have you forgotten who you're talking to? You used to respect my intelligence! How do you think it felt just now, finding out that you abandoned me for these reprobates!?"
"I was trying to protect you!" he shouted back in frustration. "I couldn't spare Relena from it, she was involved even before I was, but I couldn't bear to risk anyone else's life needlessly! You're absolutely right, these are horrible criminals, ruthless and without pity, so how could I have exposed my location to you knowing that any one of them could have been watching me!? Tell me that!"
Calmly, Lucrezia folded her arm and lowered her eyelids a tad. "This Jeffrhyss fellow...how well do you know him?"
"Not at all. Why?"
"Did you know he likes to gamble?" she asked in a teasing tone. "Or that he likes a spoonful of honey in his tea? Did anyone tell you that he prefers the lines of his memos typed in exactly straight columns or they're unacceptable? Were you aware that he always, always takes a half-hour walk after lunch, with armed guards around him?"
Milliardo squinted suspiciously. "How do you know all this?"
She looked away, the wandered a few steps back to the wall of the corridor, and leaned against it on one shoulder. "I suppose I should have told you from the start...but I had the same attack of selflessness. I didn't want to put you in danger, any more than you--"
"Wait a minute, what are you talking about?"
"I probably shouldn't do this.....no, I definitely shouldn't do this." She shook her head, bit her lip, and shook her head a second time. "I should drag you both out of here and make you promise never to have anything to do with these people again...but if you've gone this far, you must have a reason. See...I trust your judgement...even if you have difficulty trusting mine." As she bent her neck to look back at Milliardo, his bewilderment was clear. "I can help you."
".....Lu...what are you saying?"
He was frightened now, she could tell. She traced the silhouette of his face gently with one hand, thinking about the dangers she might have been committing herself to; if anything, that made her certain that the decision was the correct one, because she couldn't let her fiancée face those dangers unaided. "I should go find the boys...let them know I'm not going back with them." And she left him alone for a little while, just long enough to tell Trowa that she was joining Milliardo on his journey.
**********Duo shot upright in bed with a tremendous gasp, grabbing at his throat to tear away whatever was squeezing the air out of him. He panted and wheezed in the darkness until he had to believe what his fingers were telling him, that there was absolutely nothing clutching his throat. Sweat plastered strands of hair to his forehead, and he was shaking all over as he went from boiling hot to freezing cold in a matter of seconds. The blankets were half-hanging off the bed, and he quickly gathered one of them up and wrapped it around himself, shivering. He glanced all around the room, but saw nothing out of order; Shadow was curled up in her basket, there was no storm outside or any other disturbance, everything was outwardly calm.
.....nightmare...
It had felt so real. Someone was trying to strangle him. After that, he knew it was going to take another hour to get back to sleep, and it was awfully late already. A look at the clock confirmed that he had been asleep less than an hour when the nightmare came, and it was a terrible portent that the night would just be dragging on from that point.
Duo located his pillow on the floor next to the bed, where it must have fallen when he was thrashing around and struggling for breath. He picked it up, smushed it in half and buried his face in it with a sigh, curling up into a tight little ball of mouse. He wanted Heero back, to stroke his hair and tell him it was just a dream, to snuggle up to and be lulled to sleep by a steadier pattern of breathing.
Eventually, he went back to sleep, but it was hours later, and in between, the nightmare lingered.
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Seventy-Seven: While Quatre languishes in his fourth-floor prison, Heero and Trowa come home to an uncertain welcome.
I hope nobody finds it tasteless to talk about thousands of people being wiped out by a volcano while we're on the brink of war...it's just a story. *huggles everyone* Well, I'll get right to the point...next episode will be on March 25th. Bai-bai!