Disclaimer - I do not own Gundam Wing. But perhaps someday I will...
Wufei: ::looking incredibly doubtful::
Hey! A girl can dream, can't she!!
Warning!!! - Heero is *EXTREMELY* out of character!! You have been forewarned.
New Mobile Suit Report: Gundam Wing
"Heart of Space, Dove of Peace"
a Miss Chang Po Production 3
Chapter 18
"Two Sides of the Coin"
Wing Zero was in top form, destroying dolls with relevant ease as it flew through
the air. It came so easily; destroying the enemy… A mobile doll would appear,
and then it would be defeated. Any pilot with this amount of skill would have
been pleased with their abilities.
Heero's focus however, was not entirely on the battle. Even as Scorpio dolls
exploded before his eyes, his thoughts still lingered the past events rushing
through his head. The memories still haunted him; the faces of past enemies in
their last moments of life flashed before his eyes, making his mind reel. Land
was laid to waste at his feet, while all he did was laugh maniacally at his own
success.
"No… that's not me…" he kept telling himself, like a mantra. "I'm not like that…
I'm… not a monster anymore!"
A faint voice echoed in his head. ~ You were a soldier… the Perfect soldier…~
Light cobalt eyes darkened in confusion. "What…?" Heero blinked, staring at
the ground below him. Though many of the buildings had managed to remain
intact, much of the plant life had been scorched and lain to ruin. Instantly,
everything around him warped and twisted, replacing the sky around him with
a barren field he had visited in one of his nightmares.
~ Wars don't just kill people… They take away life itself…~
A Scorpio cut through the haze of his vision, knocking his beam saber out of
his hand. He managed to crush its head unit, but two more appeared in its
place, showering his hull with a shower of bullets. Heero let out a grunt as
Wing collided with the ground.
"Damnit… this is getting me nowhere!" He looked up, his eyes widening in
terror as the oncoming Scorpios took the form of the metallic monster that
appeared in his dreams. It's green eyes glowed dangerously, sharp teeth
gleaming in the darkness as they sunk in for the kill.
"N-NOOO!!" Heero whipped out his buster rifle, sending the apparition into
oblivion. His vision clearing, he let out a ragged sigh, releasing his hold on
the controls. He placed a hand over his chest, trying to slow the rapid beating
of his heart.
"I can't…" he panted heavily, his head bent low. "I can't keep doing this…" He
clenched his eyes shut. "I can't keep going like this… Why am I still fighting? Someone tell me!"
Suddenly, his cockpit filled with bright light, monitors beeping and whirring as
they came to life on their own. Heero started, looking around in confusion.
What was going in? Staring at the white monitors surrounding him, he couldn't
help but feel that this was slightly familiar.
As if something were calling to him, Heero closed his eyes as straining to hear.
A low whirring sound filled his ears, as if whispering words that only he would understand. Strangely enough, he did. Heero opened his eyes again, clarity
returning to him. "Zero…"
As soon as the word left his lips, the light around him vanished, leaving only
total darkness.
~*~*~*~*~
Heero's first reaction was alarm. It was as if he were floating in an abyss, the
weight of the cockpit's restraints no longer present. He could still hear the
whirring of machinery, but as he looked around, it was as if there was nothing
around him for miles in every direction.
He frowned slightly. "What is this…?" he wondered aloud.
"This is your mind."
Heero turned around to see a little girl standing before him. A small dog was
clutched tightly in her arms, yapping happily. "It's you…" he began. "But…
I killed you…"
"It was an accident…" the girl answered, the innocent smile never leaving her
face. "I was a casualty in a war…"
"No… you shouldn't have died!" Heero exclaimed. "You were too young… You
weren't supposed to die that day!"
"It is not yours to decide who lives, Heero," the girl chided slightly.
"Nor is it my decision to decide who dies." Heero whirled around, finding
himself face to face with an exact duplicate of himself.
"What… what's going on?" he backed away towards the girl, putting himself
in a protective stance in front of her. "Who are you…"
Littered with scrapes and bruises, his double was dressed in light denim jeans
and a green tank top. "I should think that's obvious…" he replied dryly. Heero
look confused. "I'm you… and yet I'm not." He paused, noting the look on
confusion on his counterpart's face. "Heero… I'm the Perfect Soldier in you."
"I don't understand…"
"Yes, you do," the little girl took his hand gently, leading him over towards
his double. "You two are different, and yet you're both parts of a whole." She
gestured towards Heero. "He is the part of you that was created to fight. He
was the one destined to engage losing battles, so that mankind would realize
the sorrow caused by wars, and move towards a peaceful world."
"But war is something that will always exist," Heero replied, remembering the
conversation he had had with the woman in his dreams.
"This is true." his double responded. "So long as the urge to fight remains in
the heart of mankind. The weak will have to be protected, and therefore, people
like me will always exist."
"I still don't understand," Heero exclaimed, his head throbbing within everything
he had dealt with up until now. "How can you be me?"
"Don't you remember yet, Heero?" the girl asked him, her eyes boring into him
pleadingly. "Your fight with the Scorpio Gundam! You've got to remember!"
"Scorpio Gundam…" Heero closed his eyes, bidding the images to come back
to him. He vaguely remembered a black mobile suit attacking him. But why,
why was he fighting? Something about a mission; just who was he fighting for…?
Before he knew what had happened, a white light had flashed before his eyes
and he had been unable to attack. Before he knew it, there was darkness.
"What… what happened to me…?"
"This Gundam," the young girl replied solemnly. "It has the ability to control
its victims, paralyzing them so it can manipulate them like puppets. However,
you were injured while fighting it…"
"…And suffered amnesia…" Heero finished; Sally had explained this all to him
once he had been diagnosed. But what did that have to do with anything?
"You lost your memories…" the girl explained. "Everything that made you
what you were… a soldier, a Gundam pilot… all of that was stripped from you,
locked away where you couldn't reach it. You were no longer the infamous
Perfect Soldier, you were just Heero."
"Still, even though you couldn't remember, events from your past still continued
to plague you… Even though you thought you wanted to remember, deep down
your heart kept your memories away from you, trying to save you the pain of
remembering--"
"That I was a murderer," Heero finished bitterly.
"I fought losing battles so that others would be spared," his double replied.
"Spared?? You killed on command!"
The Perfect soldier would not be deterred. Somehow, he had to make him
understand. "I went from being just a tool for destruction, to being a protector."
"A protector…?"
His double frowned lightly. "Have you forgotten already? Why you're here in
the first place? What have you been searching for this whole time?"
"My humanity…"
"You already have that," his double replied impatiently.
"Because of Relena…" Heero felt his heartbeat quicken. What had caused him
to think of her at a time like this? Had he really found his humanity in Relena…?
It made sense, but how could it be true? Being around her made him feel things
he had never felt before; when she was near, he was at peace, and when she was
sad, he felt pain. Was that what it truly meant to be human? Is that what he had
been searching for all of this time?
Heero's double made a noise that sounded remotely like a snort. "It's ironic that
I'd been denied something for so long, only to stumble across it by accident."
Heero frowned in confusion. When his double made no move to explain, the
young girl stepped in.
"Heero," she replied gently. "The reason you were so formidable as a Gundam
pilot is because you were trained only to fight." A look of sympathy passed over
her cherubic features. "Your emotions were stripped from you, so that you would
have no distractions to deter you from your mission - to fight in the name of the
Colonies."
"But, all of that changed when I met Relena…"
"In the beginning, I'd thought of Relena only as a nuisance because she was a
distraction from my mission." Heero's double looked troubled for a brief moment,
but soon the stone mask slipped back into place. "But I soon realized that she
was the one thing that kept the fight alive in me, in everyone. She believed in
what I was fighting for - what all of us were striving to achieve.
"In some ways, she was just like me, thrown in to a war she had no business
being in, but fought with everything she had to ensure peace for us all." He
paused, a strange gleam appearing in his cobalt eyes. "When it looked as
though I had nothing left to fight for, I decided that I would fight to protect
instead."
Images of Relena and the other Gundam pilots appeared before Heero's eyes.
Noin, Zechs, Hilde, Sally… Duo, Trowa, Quatre, Wufei, Relena… these people,
along with all the others, weren't just faces that had appeared before him. These
people were soldiers, just like he had been. They'd all taken different approaches
to the same task, ultimately coming together to achieve their goal.
Understanding was slowly coming to him. "I was fighting… so that they wouldn't
have to…" he replied. "They'd found new lives for themselves… peace… I didn't
want that to be wasted."
"But no one can live like that forever," the young girl exclaimed, looking up at him.
"You deserve to have peace in your heart - just as much as they do!"
"I can't have peace…" Heero replied. "Not with all the things I've done weighing
on me." Milliardo's words came back to him. ~ Atone for the sins of the past,
to make way for your future… ~ "That's right… I have to keeping fighting… I
have to protect them."
His double scoffed lightly. "They don't need someone to protect them," he
replied. "They need someone to stand by them… to be an ally. You've never
been able to do that. Heero Yuy fights alone - that's what got you into this
mess in the first place."
Heero scowled back at him. He'd had enough of being lectured; he'd wasted
enough time already. "I don't have time for this. What's your point?"
"We didn't bring you here to lecture you, Heero," the girl said.
"Then why did you bring me here?" he shot back, only vaguely aware of the
fact that here was only in his head.
"Why do you think?" his double replied impatiently. "You're going to be going
up against a Gundam that has already bested you."
"I have Zero now," Heero countered. "I won't be beaten again."
His double hmphed, "Only a Gundam pilot can defeat another Gundam pilot."
"I am a Gundam Pilot." he snarled.
"No," the little girl interrupted, shaking her head. She gestured to Heero's
double, who almost looked smug. "He is the Gundam pilot… the part of you
bred for fighting. The only way you'll be able to defeat the Scorpio Gundam is
if the two of you-."
"No."
The girl blinked, startled at his sudden reaction. "No…?" Her brows furrowed
in confusion as she glanced back and forth from an angry Heero to his
disappointed, but none too surprised, double. "What do you mean…?"
"He doesn't want to be whole again." his double replied. "He doesn't want his
memory back."
The girl looked at Heero to confirm this, but he offered no response. "But you
have to!" she exclaimed. "You won't be able to beat the Scorpio otherwise!"
"I will," Heero answered. "Even without those memories… I'm still the same
person."
His duplicate gave a cruel laugh. "You think so?" he asked.
Heero gave him a cool glare. "I don't want you back," he replied evenly. "I don't
want to be shut away in darkness again… in the cold…" He paused a moment,
but looked up to glare again at his doppelganger. "Without you, I can be human."
The look he received was just as icy as the one he gave. was the
eeroreply, "But you'll never be whole," His double paused; an almost wistful look
passed over his face as he chose his next words carefully. "If you think
remaining the way you are is fine, just think what will happen if you're defeated-"
"I won't-"
"Just think!" His double's eyes were gleaming once again, only this time with -
Heero paused - fear…? "I understand why you want to keep me locked away…
Hell, I've been doing the same thing to you for years…" Heero blinked at this.
"You may be lucky in defeating your enemy this time, but what about the
enemies Relena faces every day? All you see is the woman who offers you
smiles and reassurances about your own problems… you never see the woman
no one else sees - the one she never lets anyone see."
Heero paused, watching his duplicate in awe. Just a moment ago, his face
had been a mask devoid of all emotion. Did Relena bring out this sort of
reaction from him?
"She's strong… stronger than I could ever be," his double was saying. "But
she slips… she loses hope… As many people there are that love her, there
are those that hate her - try to hurt her. They knock her down, and yet she
pulls herself up on her own… But I know she won't hold out forever - no one
can." He looked up at Heero. "How will you be able to protect her if you can't
even face your own demons?"
"I won't…"
"I won't let you fail her!" His double exclaimed.
~End of Chapter 18
Wufei: ::looking incredibly doubtful::
Hey! A girl can dream, can't she!!
Warning!!! - Heero is *EXTREMELY* out of character!! You have been forewarned.
New Mobile Suit Report: Gundam Wing
"Heart of Space, Dove of Peace"
a Miss Chang Po Production 3
Chapter 18
"Two Sides of the Coin"
Wing Zero was in top form, destroying dolls with relevant ease as it flew through
the air. It came so easily; destroying the enemy… A mobile doll would appear,
and then it would be defeated. Any pilot with this amount of skill would have
been pleased with their abilities.
Heero's focus however, was not entirely on the battle. Even as Scorpio dolls
exploded before his eyes, his thoughts still lingered the past events rushing
through his head. The memories still haunted him; the faces of past enemies in
their last moments of life flashed before his eyes, making his mind reel. Land
was laid to waste at his feet, while all he did was laugh maniacally at his own
success.
"No… that's not me…" he kept telling himself, like a mantra. "I'm not like that…
I'm… not a monster anymore!"
A faint voice echoed in his head. ~ You were a soldier… the Perfect soldier…~
Light cobalt eyes darkened in confusion. "What…?" Heero blinked, staring at
the ground below him. Though many of the buildings had managed to remain
intact, much of the plant life had been scorched and lain to ruin. Instantly,
everything around him warped and twisted, replacing the sky around him with
a barren field he had visited in one of his nightmares.
~ Wars don't just kill people… They take away life itself…~
A Scorpio cut through the haze of his vision, knocking his beam saber out of
his hand. He managed to crush its head unit, but two more appeared in its
place, showering his hull with a shower of bullets. Heero let out a grunt as
Wing collided with the ground.
"Damnit… this is getting me nowhere!" He looked up, his eyes widening in
terror as the oncoming Scorpios took the form of the metallic monster that
appeared in his dreams. It's green eyes glowed dangerously, sharp teeth
gleaming in the darkness as they sunk in for the kill.
"N-NOOO!!" Heero whipped out his buster rifle, sending the apparition into
oblivion. His vision clearing, he let out a ragged sigh, releasing his hold on
the controls. He placed a hand over his chest, trying to slow the rapid beating
of his heart.
"I can't…" he panted heavily, his head bent low. "I can't keep doing this…" He
clenched his eyes shut. "I can't keep going like this… Why am I still fighting? Someone tell me!"
Suddenly, his cockpit filled with bright light, monitors beeping and whirring as
they came to life on their own. Heero started, looking around in confusion.
What was going in? Staring at the white monitors surrounding him, he couldn't
help but feel that this was slightly familiar.
As if something were calling to him, Heero closed his eyes as straining to hear.
A low whirring sound filled his ears, as if whispering words that only he would understand. Strangely enough, he did. Heero opened his eyes again, clarity
returning to him. "Zero…"
As soon as the word left his lips, the light around him vanished, leaving only
total darkness.
~*~*~*~*~
Heero's first reaction was alarm. It was as if he were floating in an abyss, the
weight of the cockpit's restraints no longer present. He could still hear the
whirring of machinery, but as he looked around, it was as if there was nothing
around him for miles in every direction.
He frowned slightly. "What is this…?" he wondered aloud.
"This is your mind."
Heero turned around to see a little girl standing before him. A small dog was
clutched tightly in her arms, yapping happily. "It's you…" he began. "But…
I killed you…"
"It was an accident…" the girl answered, the innocent smile never leaving her
face. "I was a casualty in a war…"
"No… you shouldn't have died!" Heero exclaimed. "You were too young… You
weren't supposed to die that day!"
"It is not yours to decide who lives, Heero," the girl chided slightly.
"Nor is it my decision to decide who dies." Heero whirled around, finding
himself face to face with an exact duplicate of himself.
"What… what's going on?" he backed away towards the girl, putting himself
in a protective stance in front of her. "Who are you…"
Littered with scrapes and bruises, his double was dressed in light denim jeans
and a green tank top. "I should think that's obvious…" he replied dryly. Heero
look confused. "I'm you… and yet I'm not." He paused, noting the look on
confusion on his counterpart's face. "Heero… I'm the Perfect Soldier in you."
"I don't understand…"
"Yes, you do," the little girl took his hand gently, leading him over towards
his double. "You two are different, and yet you're both parts of a whole." She
gestured towards Heero. "He is the part of you that was created to fight. He
was the one destined to engage losing battles, so that mankind would realize
the sorrow caused by wars, and move towards a peaceful world."
"But war is something that will always exist," Heero replied, remembering the
conversation he had had with the woman in his dreams.
"This is true." his double responded. "So long as the urge to fight remains in
the heart of mankind. The weak will have to be protected, and therefore, people
like me will always exist."
"I still don't understand," Heero exclaimed, his head throbbing within everything
he had dealt with up until now. "How can you be me?"
"Don't you remember yet, Heero?" the girl asked him, her eyes boring into him
pleadingly. "Your fight with the Scorpio Gundam! You've got to remember!"
"Scorpio Gundam…" Heero closed his eyes, bidding the images to come back
to him. He vaguely remembered a black mobile suit attacking him. But why,
why was he fighting? Something about a mission; just who was he fighting for…?
Before he knew what had happened, a white light had flashed before his eyes
and he had been unable to attack. Before he knew it, there was darkness.
"What… what happened to me…?"
"This Gundam," the young girl replied solemnly. "It has the ability to control
its victims, paralyzing them so it can manipulate them like puppets. However,
you were injured while fighting it…"
"…And suffered amnesia…" Heero finished; Sally had explained this all to him
once he had been diagnosed. But what did that have to do with anything?
"You lost your memories…" the girl explained. "Everything that made you
what you were… a soldier, a Gundam pilot… all of that was stripped from you,
locked away where you couldn't reach it. You were no longer the infamous
Perfect Soldier, you were just Heero."
"Still, even though you couldn't remember, events from your past still continued
to plague you… Even though you thought you wanted to remember, deep down
your heart kept your memories away from you, trying to save you the pain of
remembering--"
"That I was a murderer," Heero finished bitterly.
"I fought losing battles so that others would be spared," his double replied.
"Spared?? You killed on command!"
The Perfect soldier would not be deterred. Somehow, he had to make him
understand. "I went from being just a tool for destruction, to being a protector."
"A protector…?"
His double frowned lightly. "Have you forgotten already? Why you're here in
the first place? What have you been searching for this whole time?"
"My humanity…"
"You already have that," his double replied impatiently.
"Because of Relena…" Heero felt his heartbeat quicken. What had caused him
to think of her at a time like this? Had he really found his humanity in Relena…?
It made sense, but how could it be true? Being around her made him feel things
he had never felt before; when she was near, he was at peace, and when she was
sad, he felt pain. Was that what it truly meant to be human? Is that what he had
been searching for all of this time?
Heero's double made a noise that sounded remotely like a snort. "It's ironic that
I'd been denied something for so long, only to stumble across it by accident."
Heero frowned in confusion. When his double made no move to explain, the
young girl stepped in.
"Heero," she replied gently. "The reason you were so formidable as a Gundam
pilot is because you were trained only to fight." A look of sympathy passed over
her cherubic features. "Your emotions were stripped from you, so that you would
have no distractions to deter you from your mission - to fight in the name of the
Colonies."
"But, all of that changed when I met Relena…"
"In the beginning, I'd thought of Relena only as a nuisance because she was a
distraction from my mission." Heero's double looked troubled for a brief moment,
but soon the stone mask slipped back into place. "But I soon realized that she
was the one thing that kept the fight alive in me, in everyone. She believed in
what I was fighting for - what all of us were striving to achieve.
"In some ways, she was just like me, thrown in to a war she had no business
being in, but fought with everything she had to ensure peace for us all." He
paused, a strange gleam appearing in his cobalt eyes. "When it looked as
though I had nothing left to fight for, I decided that I would fight to protect
instead."
Images of Relena and the other Gundam pilots appeared before Heero's eyes.
Noin, Zechs, Hilde, Sally… Duo, Trowa, Quatre, Wufei, Relena… these people,
along with all the others, weren't just faces that had appeared before him. These
people were soldiers, just like he had been. They'd all taken different approaches
to the same task, ultimately coming together to achieve their goal.
Understanding was slowly coming to him. "I was fighting… so that they wouldn't
have to…" he replied. "They'd found new lives for themselves… peace… I didn't
want that to be wasted."
"But no one can live like that forever," the young girl exclaimed, looking up at him.
"You deserve to have peace in your heart - just as much as they do!"
"I can't have peace…" Heero replied. "Not with all the things I've done weighing
on me." Milliardo's words came back to him. ~ Atone for the sins of the past,
to make way for your future… ~ "That's right… I have to keeping fighting… I
have to protect them."
His double scoffed lightly. "They don't need someone to protect them," he
replied. "They need someone to stand by them… to be an ally. You've never
been able to do that. Heero Yuy fights alone - that's what got you into this
mess in the first place."
Heero scowled back at him. He'd had enough of being lectured; he'd wasted
enough time already. "I don't have time for this. What's your point?"
"We didn't bring you here to lecture you, Heero," the girl said.
"Then why did you bring me here?" he shot back, only vaguely aware of the
fact that here was only in his head.
"Why do you think?" his double replied impatiently. "You're going to be going
up against a Gundam that has already bested you."
"I have Zero now," Heero countered. "I won't be beaten again."
His double hmphed, "Only a Gundam pilot can defeat another Gundam pilot."
"I am a Gundam Pilot." he snarled.
"No," the little girl interrupted, shaking her head. She gestured to Heero's
double, who almost looked smug. "He is the Gundam pilot… the part of you
bred for fighting. The only way you'll be able to defeat the Scorpio Gundam is
if the two of you-."
"No."
The girl blinked, startled at his sudden reaction. "No…?" Her brows furrowed
in confusion as she glanced back and forth from an angry Heero to his
disappointed, but none too surprised, double. "What do you mean…?"
"He doesn't want to be whole again." his double replied. "He doesn't want his
memory back."
The girl looked at Heero to confirm this, but he offered no response. "But you
have to!" she exclaimed. "You won't be able to beat the Scorpio otherwise!"
"I will," Heero answered. "Even without those memories… I'm still the same
person."
His duplicate gave a cruel laugh. "You think so?" he asked.
Heero gave him a cool glare. "I don't want you back," he replied evenly. "I don't
want to be shut away in darkness again… in the cold…" He paused a moment,
but looked up to glare again at his doppelganger. "Without you, I can be human."
The look he received was just as icy as the one he gave. was the
eeroreply, "But you'll never be whole," His double paused; an almost wistful look
passed over his face as he chose his next words carefully. "If you think
remaining the way you are is fine, just think what will happen if you're defeated-"
"I won't-"
"Just think!" His double's eyes were gleaming once again, only this time with -
Heero paused - fear…? "I understand why you want to keep me locked away…
Hell, I've been doing the same thing to you for years…" Heero blinked at this.
"You may be lucky in defeating your enemy this time, but what about the
enemies Relena faces every day? All you see is the woman who offers you
smiles and reassurances about your own problems… you never see the woman
no one else sees - the one she never lets anyone see."
Heero paused, watching his duplicate in awe. Just a moment ago, his face
had been a mask devoid of all emotion. Did Relena bring out this sort of
reaction from him?
"She's strong… stronger than I could ever be," his double was saying. "But
she slips… she loses hope… As many people there are that love her, there
are those that hate her - try to hurt her. They knock her down, and yet she
pulls herself up on her own… But I know she won't hold out forever - no one
can." He looked up at Heero. "How will you be able to protect her if you can't
even face your own demons?"
"I won't…"
"I won't let you fail her!" His double exclaimed.
~End of Chapter 18