Chapter 5
"Kira? Are you alright?"
"Hn." Duo stiffened and went back to eating his toast. Geez, he was beginning to act like Heero already. If that were true . . . testing . . .
"So, Kira-chan-"
"Don't call me that." Duo laughed.
"Yep, total Heero mode." Kira sighed and rolled his eyes while Luna giggled.
'What should I do?' Kira wondered miserably. 'Take it . . . or leave it. What should I do?' he thought miserably, chewing some toast. It was morning on the next day, all of them had returned to the secret base to begin training.
"Kira?" Luna asked softly, Kira had stopped biting his toast. In fact, he had only nibbled at it in the first place.
'I don't know what to do . . . . . is sacrificing my humanity a fair exchange to become the perfect soldier like my father? Wait. . . . that's not right. Like my father WAS? But if I don't . . . they'll keep targeting my family, because of me. I have to take the chance . . . but . . .'
- Flashback -
"It's your choice Kira." Trowa said calmly. Kira stood by the machine, a copied design of the cockpit of Wing Zero . . . complete with the Zero system. Arms folded, Trowa's eyes were calm, observant. Kira was nervous, contemplative, and confused.
"I . . . I don't know . . ."
"Allow me to help. Using the Zero system is like a drug, once you use it, you'll never be the same again. But in return, the system will make you ruthless, unafraid, thus, you will be the perfect soldier, to be specific; it eliminates your humanity." He said easily. "However, prolonged exposure to the suit may cause a permanent loss of sanity, in summary; every time you use the system, a little bit of your humanity, and sanity will be worn away. Eventually, you will be enveloped with the delusion that everyone is your enemy." Kira felt sweat run down his temple as he looked at the open door to the deceivingly harmless cockpit.
"And if I don't use it? What are my choices then?" Kira asked softly. Trowa blinked. Paused, then answered.
"Simply, you will have to gain a lifetime's worth of training in a few short weeks. Very rarely that can be done, but people with aptitude to the systems can do it. It's all a matter of will and hard-work." Kira sighed, those did not sound like good options. In the end it all came down to one simple choice;
Risk losing humanity for perfection? Or risk perfection for humanity?
Even though it had been summarized, and he held all the outcomes. . . the problem, was choosing the right one. As if reading his mind, Trowa suddenly said;
"There is no right choice Akira Yuy." He said calmly. "There is only YOUR choice, and the effects of it." Kira looked at Trowa, his eyes filled with fear and confusion, then turned back to look at the cockpit.
'Choose the right choice for YOU. . .' Trowa thought silently. 'Don't be a fool, realize that perfection is not worth losing everything you hold dear, do not make your father -my friend and companion on the battlefield- lose you twice over.'
- End -
"Kira?" Kira blinked and snapped his head up to look at Luna who stared at him curiously.
"Oh, sorry, yes?" Luna smiled softly.
"I apologize . . . I didn't mean to disturb you. You just looked . . . ." She trailed off uncertainly. Kira blinked. She gave a tiny laugh. "I'm sorry, you just looked like a lost child right now." Kira blinked, before grinning softly.
"Well, that'd be a first for me." He said calmly. Luna smiled at him.
"Ugh, please you two. Get a ROOM for god's sake!" Solo cried from the other end while tossing a chunk of bread at the two.
"Solo! Don't waste food that way!" Duo scolded, before grinning. "Do it this way!" And he tossed a spoon of beans at Heero which smacked him on the forehead. Duo laughed.
"See? Do it with sticky stuff, it's sticks better and-!"
SMACK!
Heero smirked at him and calmly went back to eating his soup. Duo glared.
"You did SO not just throw 'Cream of Mushroom soup' at me! I don't even like that crap!" Duo snapped. Solo laughed. Kira felt something coming up, after all, from what he'd seen of Duo, he was not one to say 'Forgive and forget'. No, his saying was; I don't get mad, I get mad AND even.
"Uh . . . you might want to duck." He said to Luna.
"Wha-?" She began when he forcibly shoved her head down and him closely following as a half eaten waffle went flying overhead. Duo had chucked it at Heero, who had been expecting it, and had ducked.
"FOOD FIGHT!" Yuki cried laughing and tossed her egg at Solo.
"ACK! YUKI!" Solo snapped and threw his bit of sausage at her, who in turn ducked, and it instantly hit Wufei. Wufei glared at Solo who 'eep'ed.
"KISAMA!" He snapped and threw an apple slice at Solo, who in turn also ducked. That unfortunately drew Wufei's own son, Sen into the fight. Sen was shocked for a moment, before grinning at his dad. It was on.
"N-now come on you guys! This is incredibly immature of you all!" Quatra tried vainly. But was forced to duck as an orange peel went flying overhead. Kira laughed and jumped while grabbing a bun and tossing it at Solo.
"Oh- it's on boy!" Solo called laughing and threw an unpeeled orange at him.
"Oh c'mon you two!" Luna said, as exasperated as her father, but shrieked when she had to dodge a spoon of syrup. Insults were called, food thrown, clothes desecrated, and Trowa calmly sat at the table, still drinking his coffee cup, oblivious to all that went around him. When a bottle of syrup was thrown in his direction, he calmly caught it and set it down. It was then immediately taken by Yuki who started squirting syrup with it.
---
By the end of breakfast, it was already time for lunch, and Quatra had angrily ordered EVERYONE to clean up the mess. Duo, once explaining what had happened with Quatra the one and only time he had gone Zero, everyone was eager to clean up. This included themselves, and the entire eating area in the base. Of, course, Solo was still eager to get back at Kira for that bowl of runny eggs he had tossed at him. It was payback time.
"Hey, Kira?"
"What?"
"Payback!" Solo had grabbed the sink faucet, and had pulled it out, (it was one of those that had the extra tubing.) and let loose a torrent of water on Kira.
"Oh come on! Not again!" Duo said angrily, and was immediately swamped with water. Trowa, on the sidelines smirked while Quatra, who was next to him sighed.
"I give up."
"You brats! Cut it- EEK!" Yuki began, but was forced to duck when Solo aimed at her.
---
After wrestling for the faucet for several dozen minutes, it was finally back in the possession of a VERY angry and VERY upset Quatra.
"Can't you two behave for more then five minutes?" He asked of Kira and Solo who were the soggiest of the whole group. The two looked at each other through sopping wet bangs and grinned.
"Nope."
---
"Alright, since so much time was wasted this morning, we'll have to make up double for it. First lesson, strategic warfare. Anyone falling asleep in this area, I guarantee will be doing 60 laps, non-stop." Wufei pronounced. The lesson proceeded calmly, no notes were taken, just simple talking, the five new pilots memorizing this all, and then came the hard part.
"Alright, now, I want all of you, to write down all the important information we just said, anything missed will cause you to have to study the entire thing from a textbook."
"You have 5 minutes." Trowa said calmly.
"WHAT?" Solo demanded. "No human could right it in that amount of time!"
"Precisely, you're aiming to be better then humans." Wufei said calmly.
---
"Alright, basic training. This is private property under the Peacecraft name. Here we're going to start warming you up in stealth techniques. Just think of all those hunting trips you've been on." Duo said cheerfully. "I'm your teacher in this area, since I'm the best. Heero gets kamikaze lessons."
"Duo . . ." Heero said warningly.
"Just a joke just a joke!" Duo quickly said. "Heero's actually survival. God knows he's got that down pat."
"Drowning, falling off cliffs, shooting him, explosions, Heero lives through it all." Quatra said cheerfully ticking off his fingers.
"Don't forget self-detonation." Trowa added in dully.
SMACK!!
SMACK!!
"Ow . . ." Quatra grumbled rubbing his head, Trowa was on the ground with swirls for eyes.
"Dad. . . what did we say about the violent moments?" Kira said dully. Heero grinned.
"What you said? Or what I said?"
"Dad . . ." Kira said warningly.
"Okay, okay."
"Well, now that Heero's little homicidal craze is over-" Duo began cheerfully when Heero glared at him from the corner of his eye. "Or almost over, shall we begin? You're objective, is to reach a building 45km roughly from here. What you have to go through is a forest, marshes, fields of grass, then another forest. The forest area has sensors which, if you make the slightest noise, will go off. Ready? You have 3 hours to complete this. Get moving." He said cheerfully, then he and the other 4 pilots walked away.
"But- hey! Is that all you're going to tell us?!" Wufei shrugged.
"In some missions you'll get even less information about the objective."
"WHA-????" Solo gaped. "You can't be serious!!" He snapped.
"Yes we can. You've wasted 3 minutes, you now have 2 hours and 57 minutes to finish the mission." Heero said easily and with that, all 5 pilots vanished. The kids were left there gaping.
"I don't believe this!" Yuki cried. Luna shook her head.
"Oh dear. . . this isn't good."
"So. . . now what?" Sen asked looking at Solo and Kira. Solo sighed and shook his head.
"Trust my dad to pull something like this." He said dully. Kira shrugged.
"Okay, let's get this over with." Kira said briskly. "Solo, I want you to take the east side, Yuki, you've got left. Sen will take the north side, me and Luna will take the South. Solo and Sen, your job is to cause a distraction, my guess is we'll have to find some sort of supplies from the environment around us." Kira commented observing their area. Solo gaped at him.
"Dude, where are you coming up with that stuff?!" He demanded. Kira shrugged.
"Yuki works at a circus, it's almost a given with the way her body is shaped that she's an acrobat. I remember coming across a few old blue prints I found in the hideout, and I have a vague idea which building this is. Since she's an acrobat, I'm trusting her to have the ability to get into the building easily. Sen and Solo, judging by the people you grew up around, I'm going to assume you know how get attention, and easily. Once again we'll be gathering what we can from our environment. Luna, since your father is the owner of a large computer company, it think it's safe to suffice that you're knowledgeable in computers and technology correct?" Luna nodded.
"My father said I can break an encryption in 3.7 seconds. . ." She said calmly, before blushing, then she looked at her feet. "I'm sorry, I was bragging." She mumbled. Kira smiled.
"Not really, this is good, because since we're going in through the main gate at the South, I'm going to need a computer hacker while I keep a watch out for whatever those. . . people we call parents have planned for us." He chuckled. Luna smiled.
"Alright, let's tackle this."
---
"You were right Heero, he's a natural leader." A voice commented through the speakers. Heero and Duo were in a jeep, heading towards the designated base.
"What makes you think that S?" Duo asked cheerfully.
"He's adapted to the situation perfectly, I think he's honestly going to be a good pilot."
"Well of course, he is Heero's son after all." Duo said with a grin at the 01 pilot who snorted. The voice on the other side chuckled.
"Alright. I'll meet you flipside, point c."
"Roger." Duo said and let the walkie-talkie drop from his mouth area. He was silent for a moment, before looking at Heero.
"You sure you're okay with them fighting?" Heero didn't make and sign to show that he had heard his companion, but sighed.
"I think Kira will be fine."
"Think? Not know?"
"No Duo, I honestly don't know for certain."
---
Akira and Luna were skipping from tree to tree, finding the branches a much better means of transportation when they had come across three trip wires in the first 10 steps of the forest, each one nearly invisible. If it hadn't been for that falling leaf landing on the wire and getting cut into pieces, they'd have lost their ankles down. Neither one of them talked, the job was to keep optimum secrecy. Suddenly Kira stopped on his branch and signaled for Luna to get back, she stopped on her branch and jumped back one step. Luna sent him a question in sign language.
What-is-it?
Kira shook his head, and pointed. Luna glance, and saw, nearly invisible against he foliage, two soldiers. And these were the fool around guys, these were professional, hard-core killers. She gulped.
Is-it-safe?
Kira glanced at her worriedly and hand signaled her back.
No.
Luna felt worry creeping into her emotions and tried to force it down.
Why-not?
Kira hesitated, before leaning against the trunk, in an attempt to hide himself.
Our-dads-wouldn't-arrange-something-this-dangerous.
What's-so-dangerous-about-them?
Kira paused. Finally he glanced at her worriedly, fear etched into his features.
. . . They-have-real-guns.
Disclaimer: I own plot and original chars. That is all.