Shattered Reality Part 25
Life or Death
By
Sailor Janus
The rage in Hotaru's heart built to an immeasurable level as she streaked through the sky in the reformed mobile suit. She knew she was in for one hell of a fight and there was no way she'd die before Stanz did.
Hotaru closed her eyes a moment and thought of how she had gotten there to begin with. It was only a few days ago that she was programmed to assassinate the five ex-gundam pilots. Once the program however malfunctioned thanks to a blow to the head, she found herself regardless, teamed up with her former enemy, or so she thought. After that, her reality had completely shattered as they found themselves framed for the murder of Relena Peacecraft, prompting Iron Fist to hunt them down with ease. From there, she was unclear as to what else has gone on, knowing only that Stanz was trying to pull their strings.
She had to wonder if the others were okay or if they had already been executed. Hotaru shook her head with a scowl. She couldn't think like that. They had to still be alive or all her effort will just be in vain.
Hotaru froze as her radar picked up on five mobile dolls headed her way. With her teeth gritted she fired a shower of bullets at one then swung in with her saber and sliced through another one. Suddenly her mobile suit began to shake as a shower of bullets from the other two dolls pummeled it from behind. She gritted her teeth and reminded herself that she was not in a gundam. She sucked in a breath and spun the machine around d and fired a missile at the offending dolls. A loud explosion greeted her next as that missile met its target.
"I have to get out of here damn it and find the others." Hotaru said to herself. "I don't have time for games!" She quickly shut down the flight mechanism and plummeted towards the hard earth blew.
The two remaining mobile dolls followed nonetheless, their sole duty to destroy Hotaru Tomoe.
However as Hotaru nearly crashed to the ground, she swiftly switched the flight mechanism back on and pushed with all her might to accelerate upwards, or risk meeting a bone shattering death.
She shoved the lever up with both hands but it seemed to be stuck. "Don't do this to me, please don't do this to me." With one last hard push it rose to the top level, violently throwing the mobile suit upwards. Hotaru's head snapped back, slamming into the back of the seat as she rose towards to sky as she tried to focus on the radar to prevent from being sick.
Only when the mobile dolls crashed to the ground, did she release the breath she had been holding, and began once again to race off to Stanz's headquarters.
The halls seemed endless as a nine-year-old Hotaru Tomoe trailed down them with the light of innocence still evident in her violet eyes. She had wanderer these halls for as long as she could remember. Blank, and as white as a fresh sheet of paper, they seemed like a blur against the gray tiled floor.
Hotaru sighed, bored with the tests training, all for what seemed like nothing. Often it seemed like her memory was disappearing days at a time. She could remember fully what she did last week or last month. At times, she didn't really know who she was. She wasn't normal. Didn't go to school like other kids her age, instead she was tutored in what was pretty much a home school, only it was in the lab. She also didn't have a family like other kids did. The professor did his best to care for her, but with Stanz there, it made life if anything, worse.
She was push beyond her abilities in everything, from the physical to the mental yet still it wasn't good enough. She heard the praises he spoke of about some ten-year-old boy they had found a while back, but she couldn't remember who he was or even his name.
Despite the fact that they seemed to be rivals, she'd more than anything like to have a friend, perhaps his friendship. Sometimes if she thought really hard, she could remember a glimpse of what the boy she saw for a split second when she was younger looked like, but it was so hazy that she was still unclear whether she had actually saw him or if it was her imagination.
"Hotaru, what are you doing?"
The young girl gasped and spun around staring wide eyed at the black haired man who glared disapprovingly down at her. She gulped and looked at her shoes. "I was bored so I decided to walk around a bit."
Nitol Stanz shook his head. "You know you're not allowed in this wing of the building, young lady."
"I know, but there's nothing to do."
"Then go train or study. I don't want to even see you in this part of the lab ever again, do you understand?"
Hotaru sighed. "Yes, sir."
Stanz slapped her across the face and growled. "Don't use that tone with me. Go to the training room immediately. It's evident you have not been disciplined enough by the professor.
Hotaru touched her cheek in shock and looked at him in horror. She could feel tears well up in her eyes but refused to cry.
The man glared at her and pulled out a gun from his pocket and placed the barrel against her temple. "You are more dispensable than you may believe, child. So don't you even have the slightest idea that you are safe here. The professor is not running the show, I am. Now get that stupid look off your face and get moving." He withdrew the gun and slipped it back in his pocket then continued down the hall as if nothing had happened.
Hotaru bit her lip and took off running down the hall. 'He thinks I'm too weak and worthless. I need to change.'
With that thought firmly in her mind, Hotaru returned to the training room for her most brutal training session so far. All just to prove she was more that they expected her to be.
Hotaru shook her head, trying the clear the memory from her mind. There were more important things to consider than reflecting on the past. A split second later her radar flashed, revealing yet another group of enemies in hot pursuit of her.
A curse erupted from her throat as she slammed a fist on the arm of her chair. "WILL YOU, FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!" Hotaru shifted the mobile suit into hyper drive and blasted through the half dozen dolls, slamming into the shoulder of one in the process. Sparks and the grating sound of metal against metal deafened her ears. Suddenly she crashed into yet another doll, throwing Hotaru roughly forward, the only thing keeping her from smacking into the cockpit was her shoulder harness.
Hotaru, regardless of the lack of distance between her and the doll, backed up and shot a missile into it. The explosion, however blasted her backwards into another group of dolls before she crashed to the ground below.
The solid white walls reminded Deidra of a hospital, making her sick to her stomach. She looked at Duo briefly, who was being dragged down the corridors and dropped her head again with a sigh.
She supposed they were being taken to a holding cell until they found the opportune time to kill them or take them into the custody of the law enforcement for the murder of the Relena Peacecraft.
The sound of a squeaking metal door brought Deidra out of her thoughts as she was shoved into the small, dimly lit room followed by the other L2 gundam pilot, sending both teens crashing to the floor. The door quickly slammed shut and the guards marched away chuckling to themselves.
"Well, this is great. Heero and the scientists are dead and we're gonna follow shortly!" the burgundy-haired girl whimpered, throwing her shackled wrists up in defeat, as she remained where she landed without a thought of climbing to her feet.
"We'll be okay, Deej. You won't believe how many times I've been thrown in the slammer and got out alive. A few cuts and bruises, yeah, but I still survived," Duo reassured her, gathering himself painfully off the dirty floor.
Deidra bit her lip. "But Heero and Hotaru are dead. Hotaru's mobile suit blew up and Heero was crushed and we don't even know if the others are still alive or not!" She shook her head sorrowfully as tears flooded her jade green eyes. "We're good as dead."
"You have to remember to hold onto hope. Without it, you are defeated before you even enter the battlefield," a calm, familiar voice said from the shadows.
Duo and Deidra spun around and gasped at the sight of their missing comrades. "You're still alive!" Duo stared, bewildered at his friends who were leaning against the far wall in the tiny room. "Damn, we really can survive through anything."
Deidra smiled as well, but it didn't last long when she noticed Trista's head lying in Trowa's lap and that the rest of her body was very still. He looked at her solemnly and she frowned. "Trista? Is she okay? What happened?"
Quatre sighed as Wufei looked away. Both were worse for wear, but not nearly as bad as the female gundam pilot guarded by Trowa. Despite everything that happened from when they found her in the destroyed mobile suit to now, she still had yet to awaken.
"She crashed and still hasn't woken up yet. I suppose she may have hit her head harder than we thought." Trowa closed his eyes but remanded as still as a statue.
"She'll wake up, right? Right?!" the unconscious girl's friend inquired as her voice went higher.
It was Wufei's turn to answer her. "You will do her no good to go off into a panic attack. It does nothing more than show weakness so keep your head, and perhaps she'll return to hers."
"Hey! Watch how you're talking yourself, Wufei!" Duo glared at the Chinese teen who merely shook his head.
"I was not being insulting. I am only trying to keep her in the right mindset of survival rather than fear. We need all the strength we have to get out of here alive."
Duo stared at Wufei for a moment before he too nodded in agreement. "Well, picking the locks is out of the question. They did a thorough search of us before dumping us here. I don't even have a freaking paperclip."
"With Trista out of commission, it'll make our task even more difficult," Trowa said nodding at the girl.
Quatre glanced at him in understanding, knowing full well that he would give up his own life for hers, yet would live on if she requested that instead. It seemed like everyone was growing and changing. "I don't think too many of us can fight too well anyway. Trista is unconscious, Duo's leg and arm seem to be badly injured and Deidra doesn't seem too much better."
Deidra gave him a sad smile. "Then what do we do?"
"The only thing we can do, we wait," Wufei simply said. "If Yuy and Tomoe are the same Yuy and Tomoe we have seen fight, then they won't die as easy as most would expect. They're survivors and will somehow beat Stanz."
"But, we saw the ceiling panel fall on Heero! It fell on him. Even Stanz was convinced he was dead," the burgundy haired girl argued. "There's no way he could have survived."
"If Heero can survive self detonating, he can survive anything," Trowa quietly said, earning a bewildered look from Deidra.
"Self-detonate? He blew up in his gundam and survived?!"
"He was in a coma for a few months, but yeah, he survived," the green eyed L3 teen nodded.
Duo scoffed. "Now, you see why I keep saying the guy is not human."
Deidra closed her eyes briefly in thought. "Then perhaps if Hotaru is anything like him, then she is still alive as well. I know I didn't get a chance to meet her, but I don't want her to be dead. We've already lost too much as it is."
Duo nodded and placed his good hand comfortingly around her. "Then all we have is hope, otherwise we might as well already be dead."
The others agreed, knowing that they were at a disadvantage this time around and that all they could do was wait and see what happens next and hope that Heero and Hotaru were indeed, still alive.
A groan escaped Hotaru's throat as she touched her hand to her head and swore as pain followed the touch. It was evident that she would definitely have to see a doctor when everything was over with, breathing or not. Hotaru's eyes shot open and blinked as a sudden realization hit her hard. She knew exactly where she was now. "It's about time."
She recalled the mobile dolls almost immediately after that and quickly and pushed down on the eject button, releasing the hatch to the cockpit and marking her freedom from the machine.
Unfortunately just as Hotaru set her feet upon the worn soil, she heard someone clapping behind her. Her heart skipped a beat as she spun around and found Nitol Stanz flanked by a group of armed soldiers, all with rifles pointed in her direction.
"Very lovely show, my dear. Quite… entertaining," Stanz sneered, nodding at the young assassin.
Hotaru studied his face and took a step back. "You were just playing with me. You never planned on killing me. Despite the malfunctioning of the damn program, you still need me."
Stanz chuckled then raised took a gun out of his coat pocket and fired, causing the bullet to graze Hotaru's left arm. She bit her lip but continued to stand defiantly before him as blood trickled towards her wrist from the fresh wound.
"Scare tactics don't work with me. They haven't for a very long time," his female prodigy softly said, meeting his cold eyes with her own.
"Oh, but the threat of your friends' lives will be a more appropriate method to persuade you along."
Hotaru flinched, "I don't care."
"Really? So you wouldn't bat an eye if I dragged each of them out here and sent a bullet into their brains right in front of you. Tsk, tsk. Hasn't that been the one thing you had always hoped for? A friend?" Stanz mocked her, enjoying the fact that she was slightly squirming.
"People change and you know damn well I have."
Just then rapid footsteps interrupted the confrontation as Prof. T raced towards Hotaru. "Stanz, stop this, this instant. You have gone too far," the older man shouted angrily.
The power hungry leader however snorted at the scientist. "So Professor. You have finally unchained yourself from your precious laboratory, I see."
"Your mockery does not amuse me, Stanz." Prof. T narrowed his eyes at the man through his spectacles. "I want you to leave my daughter out of this!"
"Daughter?" The female gundam pilot choked as she stared at the scientist in shock. Her brain immediately shut down as the white haired man turned to her and smiled.
"Yes, Hotaru, you are my daughter and I am your father Souichi Tomoe. I am sorry about everything and love you dearly. I always have."
Hotaru gazed up into his apologetic eyes and felt a rush of calm wash over her. "Papa?"
Prof. T nodded, but the enduring scene shattered as the gun in Stanz's hand fired, shooting the professor in the head. Hotaru screamed as her father fell to the ground and blood gushed out of the hole in his head.
"Papa," she whispered unconscious of her own voice as her father's words echoed in her head. Whether time froze or not, Hotaru couldn't tell. She didn't know she was holding her breath or even feel the hot tears sliding down her cheeks as she stared at her father's corpse. It seemed like the world itself stood still.
"One annoying Tomoe down, another to fall," Stanz snorted as he cocked his gun and aimed it for Hotaru's still form.
"Firefly, move!" An urgent voice shouted as something knocked the dazed girl off her feet. A split second later the gunshot followed, sending the bullet whizzing overhead.
Hotaru however stared at the ground and shook her head. "Leave me be. There is nothing left." The cloaked figure however gently lifted her head up and placed a gun in her hands. Sapphire met Amethyst and Hotaru found herself unable to breathe once again.
"Yes, there is. You still have the others…. And me."
"Heero."
"Finish this once and for all," Heero nodded towards Stanz as the dictator fired another shot at them. Hotaru quickly threw herself at Heero, grabbed him by the shirt and rolled with him out of range of the bullet. "You have to fight, Hotaru. Then we'll be free of this shit."
With her jaw firmly set, Hotaru nodded. "This has to end, now." She carefully gathered herself off the ground. The surrounding guards cocked their guns but she did not react and instead faced Nitol Stanz. "The man you see before you is not a leader. He is a coward. He was the one who arranged the death of Relena Peacecraft and framed the heroes of the Eve Wars. Following him will only lead to your demise. Whatever he promised is only a lie. After all, look at how he thanked my father for his many dedicated years of service. Don't doubt he'll do the same to any of you."
Heero closed his eyes but remained on the ground, partly concealed by his heavy cloak. "As soldiers you should know which path is the true one. The decision is yours."
The Iron Fist soldiers hesitated as if contemplating whether what Hotaru and Heero spoke of was in fact the truth. Then one by one they laid down their guns.
Nitol Stanz chuckled as he addressed the men. "Do you think turning your backs on me now would save your sorry hides? You are all wrong." Just then he pulled out a trigger device and positioned the button under his thumb. "Just the tiniest push and this whole base will go up. All it takes is pressing down this button."
Heero swore as Hotaru tightened her grip on the gun. "I was right. You are a coward.
"And your friends are dead," he smirked as she fired her gun, but at the same instance, he pressed down on the button and the entire building exploded with a deafening roar.
Hotaru screamed and fired a long stream of bullets into the maniac's body then fell heavily to ground in the same instant he did. The cold metal slipped out of her fingers and only when Heero grabbed her arm did she look up and notice that his right arm was wrapped with a t-shirt and held to his chest by use of a makeshift sling. His leg didn't look much better. Hotaru bit her lip and watched as the building collapsed in a fiery haze.
"It's over," the Perfect Soldier whispered, receiving only a numb nod in response.
"But we still lost," Hotaru said soberly.
"Lost what?" a familiar voice said behind the melancholy couple.
Heero and Hotaru both turned around and couldn't believe their eyes. Standing a few feet from the burning building was Lady Une and Sally Po and a large group of Preventers as well as the rest of the gundam pilots. "You're still alive. All of you."
Lady Une nodded. "We had to make you believe that we died as well, which made Iron Fist believe that they had the upper hand however they failed to realize how resourceful you all are, even without your Gundams.
"That makes perfect sense," Hotaru replied, still dazed by the previous events. "And if you tried to contact us, they would have known that you two were alive after all."
"Exactly." Sally smiled and gestured to the group. "We better get all of you in medical care. I have no doubt at all that there is some story to tell."
"Then you better make sure there is plenty of coffee because it's gonna be a long one," Duo sighed between Wufei and Quatre who were helping him stay up right. "But before, I'm gonna need a very long nap."
"Trista still isn't awake yet, but Sally says she should be okay…. Not that you know who she is Hotaru…. Or who I am…. Um, hi, I'm Deidra Robert and Trista is the girl Trowa is carrying." Deidra giggled then abruptly began coughing from the smoke.
Quatre smiled at Hotaru. "Don't worry, we'll make introductions later but right now, we should go home."
"Um, Quatre, speaking of home…" Lady Une began but was interrupted by Deidra.
"That's right. Our apartment blew up. Damn Iron Fist. THEY NEED TO PAY LITERIALLY OR I'M GONNA SUE!" Deidra winced as she realized everyone was staring at her then shrugged. "Well, they do."
Duo chuckled. "Don't worry, babe. You can stay with us."
"Really?"
"Actually, Duo, no she can't," Sally softly said.
Duo head jerked up and he frowned. "What? Why not? I mean we stayed at her apartment and if you mean-"
"No! You see, your apartments have been destroyed as well. The same goes for Quatre's mansions," Lady Une sighed sadly. "I'm sorry but everything is lost."
"Gone? Everything? Injustice!" Wufei stomped the ground then began rambling in a string of Chinese.
"We'll replace as much as we can and have already provided three apartments for you all to share, three bedrooms each to start with."
"Right," Sally said. "We've already decorated the girls' place and need to finish the other two."
"You mean we all stay together?" Trowa inquired.
Lady Une nodded. "Temporarily, but for as long as you need. And Preventers is also providing all of you compensation as well."
"A new start. Might be worth a try," Hotaru shrugged. The others nodded in response.
"Let's go home," Heero said. Hotaru nodded and helped him off the ground then together along with their team, they left the colony, to seek out what the future would bring them next. But knew whatever it would be, they would not face it alone.
Author's Notes: All I can say is this chapter was so hard to put out considering all the things going on right now in my life, but I did it despite the depression I was going through before. So yay. This is the last chapter. The Christmas one wasn't flowing the way I wanted it to so I scrapped it. However, there is a sequel planned I just don't know exactly when it will be put out.
Update: The sequel which I was planning has been postponed until the completion of at least Haunted or Tragic Rain. I have had a lot going on the past few years so working on fanfiction has been a bit more trying than usual. I may post a teaser chapter at some point if there is a demand on it. The teaser would basically be one chapter with the next being posted at a later date.
Happy Holidays.
SJ