TITLE:  Returning (4/?)

AUTHOR: Tari Gwaemir

PAIRINGS: 1+6; implied 6+13/13+6, 5+13, 3+4/4+3, 2+1

ARCHIVE:  Email me at tarigwaemir@hotmail.com first, but I always say yes.

DISCLAIMER:  Gundam Wing doesn't belong to me, but is owned by Bandai, Sotsu, Sunrise and other big companies, whose names I do not remember.  I make no money from this piece of fanfiction, nor do I intend to.

SUMMARY:  A Gundam Wing tribute to the narrative style of The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

COMMENTS:  Er…the story continues.  Or jumps backward, to be more precise.  Hopefully, people have got the hang of the story by now.

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Chapter 4: Self-Destruction

Once upon a time, in the middle of a duel, a knight saw the face of the dragon he was battling. And he was amazed to discover that beneath the reptilian scales, the hideous fangs, the flame-dripping nostrils and the glowing eyes, there was only a human boy.

So young, Zechs thought as he stared at the small figure standing defiantly on the cockpit door. So, this is the pilot that destroyed the pacifists of the Alliance and killed so many of my men. Why was he so young? During the few dramatic seconds before Heero Yuy pressed the self-destruct button, time seemed to slow to the pace of smooth honey, and Zechs scrambled to magnify the image on his screen, to get a closer look at the face of his enemy. Surely it was just a mistake of his eyes, that short, slender body, and if he could only sharpen the image, the boy would turn out to have a man's face, old and hardened after all.

He caught a glimpse, just before Wing Gundam exploded in a blossom of heat and light, of blue eyes under brown locks of hair. Although Zechs didn't know it, the face wore the same expression that he himself had had in the photo of his graduating class at Victoria. But he saw nothing more than the intense eyes before the small body was flung away from the door of the cockpit to lie in a pool of its own blood. Zechs inhaled sharply and leaned back in his seat. Was this...this boy the monster he was fighting?

Suddenly the cockpit seemed too small for him, and he wished he could fling himself out of the crazy machine, throw off his heavy mask, and just breathe in the cold Siberian air for a moment. Then perhaps he could think clearly again, freezing the shock, the self-doubt, the uncertainty that lurked at the corners of his mind. He held nothing back. He was willing to die. Are you? Can you? He angrily shook his head, but the thoughts crept back. How can you live in such dishonor?

One of the gundams approached and delicately picked up the pilot's slender body in one of its hands. An abstracted part of Zech's mind marveled again at the incredible technology that had gone into these mobile suits--how could such a huge machine be so responsive to the pilot's slightest movements?--but he was still locked in his thoughts as the gundam stepped back and waited warily. He lifted his eyes and saw the glowing green "eyes" of the enemy stare at him, questioning, testing. Even they can see through me. Beneath this great metal shell, I am nothing, a coward hiding behind a mask. He snarled at the silent gundam, "Go! How can I possibly fight you now?"

Perhaps that pilot understood, because the suit almost seemed to nod in acknowledgment and turned back into the shadows. Zechs too moved away from the battlefield, his hands resting limply on the controls, as he leaned his head back on the seat and stared up at the ceiling of his small cockpit.

"I am a soldier of OZ. I will obey my commander," he whispered out loud. Perhaps if he never stopped saying that, it would come true. He repeated the words again and again to himself as he flew back with the troops to the nearest Siberian base, where Treize was waiting.

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