It was her again. That ghostly figure he saw in his nightmares and his dreams. She was innocent and he killed her. She showed him kindness, when others treated him like an object. A weapon. The perfect soldier.
She gave him a flower and he killed her…
His mission: destroy an Alliance base in the L-1 colony cluster. There had never been peace, not even when the first colony was being built and under construction. Then something went wrong. It wasn't a tactical error, something must have involved fate. A chain reaction was sent through the mobile suits and in the end, the city was destroyed along with it.
Just because of that girl and her dog, Mary, he let his perfect mask slip. He didn't show his emotions, but he buried the dog and placed the flower on the gravesite. Dr. J heard of this on the report and same for the others in the project. "Retrain him! Human kindness in not needed in a weapon! Emotions are useless in a battlefield! Retrain him!" There was pain this time. There always was. They took away his humanity. His emotions, he had nothing. No fear, no pain, no dreams. Nothing. Everything was gone.
She haunted him. This was the nightmare, as was all his memories though they did not scare him. With her came the memories of the gashes he received during training. The trainers made him go through every training process and worst case scenario over and over again until it became almost normal. The blood still spilled but the pain was gone. It, like kindness, was a useless thing. It was obsolete.
A light came into view as Heero passed through the silent castle, the moon showing the shadows of the vases and statues that adorned the hall. It came from a slightly ajar door and it was coming from Dorothy's room. "Dammit!" He muttered. "Leave her to still be awake." He muttered angrily. Cursing his luck he made his way even more carefully past the door, but stopped when he heard typing on a computer and a muffled voice that sounded like a man and also Dorothy's hushed voice.
"Someone took a disk, was it you?" He stared at door, able to hear everything crystal clear. His senses had been improved from training and such. 'So, whoever she's talking too might have my disk, huh?' He thought, clenching his fist.
"Yes, but OZ has found his location and tried to-"
"Yes." Dorothy hissed. "I know. I heard it. I'm in their little cliché, remember?" She said snidely.
"Yeah, whatever, just thankful are doing this for you." A man's voice said.
"Alright. We'll give you the disk in the front of the building tonight. Meet there in five minutes. HWAL(1)." The officer said, and the line disconnected in a bleep. The screen went blank, as the room was almost plunged into darkness, except for the small table lamp Dorothy sighed heavily and the squeaking of her chair was loud as she went to the dresser to look for a jacket.
'Alright. 'Kay, I have no idea what the last word was, but it's probably their class and unit of soldiers. So, they have my disk, eh?' He thought as he crept to the door, opened it and was staring strait at the face of an evilly grinning man.
"Wha-" Heero was about to yell, but a man behind his placed a cloth forcefully over his mouth and nose so he inhaled, the chloroform making his drowsy, and eventually fall asleep, dropping his things. The other soldiers rushed up, Dorothy following behind them, leaving a note pinned the door a knife. They grabbed his stuff and drove off with the screeching tires on the cement soon to wake the three Gundam pilots, Relena, Sally, Noin, and Milliardo.
A little before the disappearance of 01's pilot in the castle, the silence wasn't broken and people dreamed quietly, except for one.
Relena was already wide awake from listening to Heero's Evanescence CD through the night, hearing each more than once, all of them were about pain and death. It seemed he didn't care about dying or anything but his mission and he when he was done with his missions and he wasn't needed, he would kill himself. How could anyone be so cruel as to bring up a child like that and turn him into the person he was today?
She had found another disk, hidden between the Evanescence CD. That's why it wouldn't play, he hadn't planned on anyone finding both of the disks.
She put it into her DVD player, figuring that it d work, which it didn't and she went to her lab top and the disk, which was a film began to play. Someone was filming Heero and he didn't know it. It showed him laughing and rolling on a grassy hill. She smiled when she saw him like this. She had never seen him so happy. The screen went static and then the view zoomed in when a girl appeared and two voices appeared on the line.
"Are you lost?" A young girl said, with a dog by her side.
"Hnh?" Came Heero's voice as he opened his eyes to look at the girl.
"I said, are you lost?" The girl asked again, still sweetly like the first time.
Heero looked away. "I've been lost ever since I was born…" Heero said.
Relena wanted to cry when she heard this. 'This must be something of his past…' She said, thoughtfully looking at the screen.
"Oh, that's so sad…I'm just taking Mary here for a walk." Static filled the screen again and it showed her giving Heero a yellow flower.
Static again…now it showed Heero setting off a detonation switch and a base behind him going up in flames, but then the unexpected, an explosion bigger than the others hurtled a mobile suit towards another and set off a chain reaction, demolishing the town nearby. It showed Heero stunned…looking at the decimated town.
Static again, only voice could be heard of the snowy-screen. "Human kindness is not needed in a weapon. Retrain him!"
Another voice, "Emotion is an obsolete requirement for a perfect soldier!"
Dr. J's voice appeared. "You'll be taking away his humanity! That's what emotions are."
"So?" The voice snarled. "Emotions are one less thing needed."
Static again, then it cleared, showing Heero in a training session, with wounds all over his body. "Where is the Gundam?" A voice said angrily. Heero spat into the man's face as he was suspended by shackles.
The man smiled. He waved his hand and Relena shut her eyes as she heard the sound of whips tearing through his skin. She looked at the screen after the cracks stopped. "Well?"
"Baka yaoru…" He snarled and then the torture began again until a timer went off.
"That was a good training session." The commander said, unshackling Heero and letting him get his balance, his wounds still bleeding. "Go to the infirmary." He commanded.
Heero shook his head. "No." He said, emotionlessly. " I'm not allowed. I'm not suppose to sleep, get medical attention, or eat anything." He stated, reaching for the door handle.
"That's inhuman." The commander said.
"That's how I'm suppose to be." Heero said, picking up a clean shirt, then took some bandages and wrapped it around his back. Then put his shirt on.
"I thought you weren't suppose to-"
"They don't want me to die, do they?" Heero broke him off. "I can't go to the medical center. They want me to sharpen my survival skills." He said, then opened the door and left. The door clicked and the disk stopped playing.
Relena was about to turn it off when it came back to life. "Huh?" A screen appeared, it showed Heero. He was in a hospital, doctor's voice could be heard. "Blood loss, exhaustion, and stress." One murmured. "He's in a coma…When they took away his emotion's, they took away his will to live. Poor kid…"
"How old is he?" One doctor asked.
"He's thirteen…." A doctor said, sorrow in his voice.
"God…" One whispered. "What have they done?"
"They have done what they wanted. They created a perfect soldier." A different doctor said.
Then it showed another screen in a different place, Heero was standing near a grave with a flower on it, the same yellow flower the little girl gave him. He had rocks placed their and wrote on it, using another rock 'Mary'. Relena looked at the screen in horror. Tears fell down her eyes.
The screen focused on the grave, then Relena saw something fall on the grave. It disappeared, leaving a dark spot on the dirt. The screen jerked up to see Heero crying a few tears, though he wasn't making a sound. He cried one more tear, then turned to look at the rubble where a teddy bear lay with a red ribbon on its neck.
By instinct, Relena looked at the bear Heero had given to her for her birthday, reached for it, and looked from the bear on the screen to the one in her arms. Heero grabbed the teddy bear, whispering something. Then turned and left. The screen went blank again.
Relena stared at the screen, the music of the CD filling the room lightly. She had it on 'random' so everything was all jumbled around in song order. Soon it played 'Taking over Me'.
Relena looked at the music player and then the next song played, one of the three she was growing fond of, no matter how much she hated how they were all so depressing. 'My Last Breath' began to play.
The last verse rang into her ears sweetly, yet at the same time rather hauntingly.
"Closing your eyes to disappear, You pray your dreams will leave you here, But still you wake and know the truth. No ones there, Say good night, Don't be afraid, Calling me, Holding me, As you fade to air…"
Relena faded the music out of her mind and she turned it off, tired of the depressing aura flowing through her.
"Heero." Relena whispered so soft that it as if it was made of glass.
She heard the screeching of tires that was impossible to miss. She walked out of her room, in her baby blue silk pajama's, which were baggy pants and a cotton tank top, a mouse sleeping on a cheese crescent moon.
Noin open her door that was across the hall from Relena. "What was that?" She heard Relena ask, Noin herself shook her head, not knowing other than a car screeching away anything more than Relena.
Sally came running over to the both of them, the other Gundam pilots running close behind her, looking wide awake in their clothes. "Heero's gone." She said, panting, placing her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath.
"What?" Relena asked quietly. The words slowly seeped into her. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Tears fell, but then they stopped as realization hit her. "Sally." She said slowly, looking at the golden haired woman who was wearing her normal clothes consisting of a green combat outfit.
Sally looked up at her. "Huh?" She asked, looking at the young world leader.
"Heero doesn't own a car." She said slowly, letting the words dawn on her also. Sally opened her eyes wide too.
The other Gundam pilots raced towards the door, where they saw the note with a knife pinning it down to the heavy wooden door.
Quatre ripped it off the door and read it aloud:
"Miss Relena and company. I would like to thank you for helping Heero get better. It was so kind of you to do. I will relieve you of this burden and take care of him myself. When I'm through with him, he won't even recognize your name. Or any of you. And Romefeller will have what they want, after all OZ went through such a trouble to wound, capture and do all this while he was alive. Too bad Romefeller's locked Trieze up in a castle. When they heard he was wounded, they were going to kill him, but striking a deal with them is just as easy as it was for me to get OZ's help. Ta!
PS- Maybe you all should go on a trip. Perhaps my dear Grandfather Duke Dermail with let you see your precious 01 soon.
-Dorothy"
"Damn! It was Romefeller! We should have known if it was Romefeller since Dorothy's grandfather is a founder of it or what ever." Wufei seethed, anger seeping out of him by getting tricked by the OZ and Romefeller bastards. "OZ helped too…" He said, clenching his fist. "I'll get you, Trieze."
"Cut the crap, we need to get Heero back, if anyone one of us works for the enemy by some forceful means, especially him, we're in over our heads." Duo said. "We don't have a lot of time!"
Quatre nodded at this, "Yes Duo, but Trowa and I didn't bring our Gundam's." He said.
"Quatre, you should always come prepared. I brought mine. You follow in Noin's Taurus suits, while Noin and Relena stay with a space ship ready for take off." Duo said.
Relena squeaked with joy. "I actually get to come without having to beg you guys and stuff?" She said happily.
Trowa looked at her, nodding with Duo in agreement. "We don't have time for this. You go and get in a shuttle with Noin. Sally, Quatre, Duo, and me will take in mobile suits. Luckily, Duo thought that he would wake up and escape so he put a tracer behind his ear." Trowa said quickly, taking off towards the under ground area where Noin kept mobile suits incase the Sanc Kingdom was under attack.
"Okay!" Relena called down from the other direction where she was walking with Noin. "Let's go!" Relena said quickly, running in her pajamas with Noin to the special shuttle Noin had (the blue one with the cool laser guns that can penetrate mobile dolls' beam shields).
(1) HWAL- 'He's watching and listening'
