Shadows of Yesterday
CHAPTER SEVEN: WELCOME TO HELL
"...can't believe they're only nineteen and twenty-two..."
"...couldn't believe that they asked me to join a black-ops division..."
"...wasn't the one a Gundam pilot?"
"...who cares? Hell, that just makes it better..."
"...wonder where they are...or where we are..."
Duo had to grin as he heard the last comment, though luckily it was hidden beneath the brim of his ever-loved baseball cap.
Where they were was the finally revealed headquarters of the new division, a place that had finally told Duo and Sam just how long Une had been planning this for. In fact, they wouldn't be surprised if she had planned this even before the Preventer's were formed—right after the war.
They were underneath Preventer's headquarters, in a massive underground complex comprised of three floors and many twisting hallways. They still weren't quite sure how far it stretched horizontally, considering they'd only had a week to explore it.
Yes—after Duo finally woke up in the Preventer's infirmary, finished ranting about Une's insanity to Sam, who just smiled and nodded, accepted that it was really the only thing they could do and gave Sally a message to give to the scientists—which basically boiled down to, I hate you bastards, but unfortunately we need you. Therefore, do your job and stay the fuck away from me at all costs—Une had decided that was a good time to show them their new facilities before Duo lost it and went on a murderous rampage. And Sam joined him.
Unfortunately, she decided to be all "mysterious and shit" as Duo later put it, and simply walked into the infirmary, said "Follow me," and walked out.
They followed her—to the elevator. Upon entering, Une hit the emergency stop button, utterly confusing them.
"Lady Une, what are you doing?" Sam asked.
She didn't reply, because she was fishing a key out of her pocket. Then she said,
"This."
She stuck the key into one of the keyholes on the button panel, one Preventer's had always assumed was for the Fire Department or something.
She twisted it, and with a shudder the elevator began moving down.
And down.
And down.
"Lady, we were only on the second floor! Where the hell are ya takin' us?" Duo exclaimed even as the elevator continued to move down.
She only grinned—damn that shark grin—and even as Duo was about to verbally ream her out, he felt the elevator shudder to a stop.
Ding.
They the three of them merely stared at each other for a moment...and burst out laughing.
"Ding..." Sam gasped out between his chuckles. "Anti-climatic..."
Une shook her head, before going serious again—though they could see a smile twitching at the corners of her lips.
The doors slid open, and she said, "Welcome to the headquarters of the...whatever the hell you decide to call this division."
And so they gaped.
Like the fishes.
In front of them was a gigantic circular room, stretching upwards what appeared to be three stories—and high enough that the top was almost lost to shadow. To their right, a ramp stretched upwards to the first of the walkways that ring the room, another one high above it connected by another ramp. Around the floor they are already on, the entrances to four hallways are visible at the cardinal points, and they could see other entrances on the other levels. And in the center of the open area on the first floor was a large common area—chairs, tables, a couch or two, all clustered around a large circular metal ring that they couldn't tell the purpose for at that moment.
"Whoa..." Sam whispered. "Lady Une..."
"Just how long have ya been workin' on this, Lady?" Duo finished, also gaping.
She grinned. "Since right after the end of the war. This entire complex was finished in the first five months after the end of it, just barely though—the workers worked from dawn to dusk, every day, and were all sworn to secrecy. With generous overtime, of course. After that was when the main Preventer's building was constructed...I, Sally, and a few very high ranking military and political officials are the only ones who currently know of its existence."
"And now you and your division, of course," she added, almost as an afterthought.
They just stared.
Five seconds later Une was blinking, her buns flying in a sudden breeze. She just barely caught a glimpse of a flying chestnut braid and a shag of black hair vanishing down a hallway—shouts of excitement echoing behind them.
She sighed. Typical.
She really should expect this by now.
It goes unsaid that the underground headquarters was perfect. Everything that could possibly be needed for the training, living, and running of about fifty high-strung black-ops agents was there.
Down to the coffee and therapeutic paper shredders, specifically made to take special papers about half the size of a piece of paperwork, in precaution.
Duo smirked even harder as he heard yet another one of the candidate agents ask "where are the Commanders?"
Across the room, he caught the eye of Sam—disguised in knit cap and shaded transition glasses. They nodded at each other.
Show time.
A subtle signal to Howard, hiding in the shadows of one of the corners, and all the lights went out.
Mass pandemonium ensued.
In the chaos, Sam and Duo made their way easily to the front, dodging flailing and running bodies to stand on the small platform that had been set up.
"Sam?" Duo whispered.
"Here!" Sam whispered back, wincing at a particularly loud thud from somewhere in the darkness. He swiftly removed the knit cap, but kept the glasses—he thought they looked cool. Duo too took off his cap and stuffed it in a pocket.
"3...2...1..."
"ALL OF YOU, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" they shouted in stereo, the lights coming back up at that moment to reveal fifty people, tangled in heaps on the floor or blundering around like zombies, most looking confused.
"Well, that was your first test," Sam said, as casually as commenting on the weather, even as he gave a thumbs up to Howard in the corner, who grinned back and vanished out a door. The people began to embarrassedly seat themselves in their chairs once more, even as Duo continued to speak.
"And guess what?" Duo said next. "Ya all failed. Miserably. Completely. A failure of epic proportions. Honestly. We chose you lot as our agents? Sam, what were we thinkin'?"
"Dunno, Duo, I guess we weren't?"
"Obviously not."
"Well, fortunately for 'you lot,' as Duo says," Sam continued, grinning. "You're going to get a second chance."
"And a whole heap of other chances, if this is anything ta go by," Duo added, appearing to calmly examine his nails. "Shall we get down ta it, Sam?"
"We shall, Duo."
And suddenly, everything changed—and the nervous candidates felt it. The two were suddenly very serious, and very intimidating. The cheerfully sarcastic aura that had surrounded them up until now, the one every single one of them had noticed in their interviews, was gone; leaving behind two men who the candidates now realized, were entirely seriously about what they were doing, no matter what mask they presented to the world at large.
In Duo's case, you could see behind his carefully calm expression a shadow, the essence of the soldier he had been—and still was.
In Sam, that shadow was present, but not the same, and nowhere near as dark—the soldier he could have been, and...would eventually be.
"Two months ago," Duo began, and Sam just stepped back and let him talk. This was Duo's thing—that much they had agreed upon.
He could make them listen.
"Two months ago, I was nobody. I lived on L2, in a tiny apartment in one of the lesser neighborhoods, just another colony brat who'd never had anything to call his own trying to make it in a world he didn't understand—a world of peace. My only friend was, as sad as it seems, the boy I got my mail from every day.
I fought in the war. And when it was done, I didn't know what to do with myself. My whole life, I'd been fighting—and suddenly there was nothing left to fight for. And I had no one left to turn to, because the people I'd once considered my comrades left to find their own lives, and they didn't look back."
The mutters that had begun as Duo admitted his role in the war died away as the people began to realize just how much he was giving up to say what he was saying.
"Though I didn't realize it at the time, I was searching for something. And that something came in the form of the first mail I'd had in months—a letter from Lady Une, offering me my own division within the Preventers. It took me until now to realize that that offer was what I had been searching for—not the offer itself, but the promise of what it held.
A reason to fight, not because I had to, but because I wanted to—to be able to fight for a cause I'd decided for myself, to defend the peace I fought so hard to bring about in the first place. It was my second chance."
Duo paused to take a breath; the room was dead silent. His accent was utterly gone in the face of his complete seriousness.
"All of you chose to take our offer, for one reason or another. We don't care what those reasons are—a reason to fight, a way to escape, the promise of something new, or perhaps, like me, a second chance. The point is, you have a reason to give up your lives for this chance. You are willing to give up your lives to fight for a peace that many of you sat on the sidelines for as it was won. That means more than you can ever know. We chose you because we knew you could make that sacrifice, but it was up to you whether you would. And you did.
Right now, it doesn't matter who you are, or who you were. Whether you were OZ, or Romafeller, or rebellion. Civilian, soldier, or general. What matters is that you all made the choice to fight, and possibly—to die."
Duo's voice was beginning to waver, Sam noticed. This was getting to him. So, he stepped up and put and near-invisible hand to his shoulder, stilling his voice. Duo shot him a grateful look, and he knew he had done the right thing. He began to speak, forgetting for a moment that he had no idea what to say.
"That is what you will learn here, these next six months. You will learn to live—live together, by the moment, for the moment, within the moment. You will learn to fight—for your life, for your comrades, for peace, for everyone else who can't fight for themselves. For the innocent who will never know that you fight for them. And you will learn to die. To die fighting, to die living, to die knowing that with your death you spared another, even if they never know."
You will learn to kill.
Those words were unspoken. Yet everyone heard them, in the sudden, ringing silence. No one dared to breathe.
And then Duo smiled, and somehow all the tension went out of the room. His accent came back as he too relaxed...slightly. "Right now, though, you're here, and that's what matters. So...how'd ya like ta meet the people who are goin' ta be trainin' you for the next six months?"
A ragged, muted cheer went up throughout the room, interspersed with nervous laughter.
Duo grinned widely, and gestured at Sam, who called towards the back of the room.
"Oi, psychos! You can come out now!"
Sam had decided to try and get to know the scientists over the last few days. It was a choice he regretted immensely. Needless to say, he agreed with all of Duo's opinions on them. Thus, "psychos."
A voice came from the back of room. "Silence, young whippersnapper! Respect your elders!"
Duo smirked and called back, "Oh, admittin' your age finally? And since when do ya use the word "whippersnappers?"
"Because it is a most useful word," came another voice, "when used to describe one such as you, 02."
"I am so hurt," Duo mocked back, while all of the candidates looked on in confusion—there appeared to be a door at the rear of the room, but they couldn't see anyone!
Oh. There they were.
The room's collective thoughts at the appearance of the scientists, unknowing that they were imitating Sam from a week earlier; What the hell?
And so the scientists made their grand appearance. Grand used in the most sarcastic sense of the word.
They made their way towards the front of the room where the two smirking boys were standing. J managed to get one woman to squeak and hide behind the man next to her when he caught her staring at his hand and waggled it cheerfully at her.
They may be pre-black-ops agents, but honestly, what isn't creepy about an old dude with little goggles and a metal claw?
Not to mention the rubber nose.
And the scary mustache.
And the mushroom hair with the big nose.
Andddd the guy who was creepy just on general principle because he was obviously in with the rest of them. And he was huge.
Finally at the front of the room, G was the one to speak up. "These your agents, Duo, Tahary? I must say, they don't look like much."
Cue looks of indignation. Ah, the sound of numerous spines snapping straight.
Duo shook his head. "Why don't ya introduce yourselves first, ya crazy old geezers, before ya antagonize them and/or traumatize them."
"We were getting to that! Now, I am Doctor J," the doctor said, waving his metal arm at his audience. "Yes, this is a prosthetic metal claw-arm. Touch it and face some of my less...pleasant experiments on human beings."
"I am Professor G," the next man said. "I will warn you now. If I hear even a whisper about my appearance, you will all be running laps for the next century, while fending off numerous...dangers. Please remember that I am at least partially responsible for the thing standing next to me."
He pointed at Duo, who immediately cried, "OI!" He was ignored as S decided to make his introduction.
"I am Doktor S, not to be confused with Doctor J; my title includes a K. Yes, this is a rubber nose."
"I am Instructor H. I am perfectly capable of my job, despite appearances. Remember that."
"I am Master O." (As Duo and Sam had discovered, O was a very succinct person. He was most definitely the type to mince words. He almost painfully reminded Duo of Trowa.)
"Hey, where are Noin and Dorothy?" Sam asked suddenly as the candidates were digesting the oddities of their future trainers.
"Right here, Mr. Taharyyy!" a cheerfully insane voice sang from behind them, and Sam and Duo subtly shuddered.
Dorothy was singing. That was not good. It usually meant pain. Lots of pain. And it looked like the candidates could see that. They were all rather nervous and pale-looking right now.
SMACK.
"Ow! Miss Noin, what was that for?"
"Scaring the newbies. Do you want to scar them for life, Dorothy?"
"Yessss..."
Duo rolled his eyes as the two of them walked towards the platform from whatever door they had appeared out of (because there were always more doors. Dang complicated headquarters).
Typical.
He sighed. "Noin, Dorothy, get your asses up here before they all decide it's not worth it, or worse, before we decide you're not worth it."
Two seconds later found two women standing beside him and the doctors on the platform.
Noin gave the candidates a loose two-fingered salute. "Hey! It's nice to meet you all, and I'm sure the couple of you that come from this base recognize me from around the building. For those of you that don't, though, I'm Lucrezia Noin. You'll be seeing a lot of me because while those geezers over there are damn good at what they do, they unfortunately lack the ability to participate in practical demonstrations. I'll be one of your main trainers, and just to get this out in the open—I was an OZ military instructor at the Lake Victoria base, which is what qualifies me for this job. I don't care what you think of it; I'm long past it. But I look forward to teaching you all—it's been too long since I had any innocent young minds to corru—OW!"
Sam had elbowed her sharply, Duo doing the same from the other side. "SHHH!" Sam hissed. "She means mold ta become outstandin' soldiers, of course," Duo said loudly. "Dorothy?"
Dorothy sighed and stepped forward. "I'm quite sure you all know who I am. However, for those of you who live under a rock and don't know, I am Dorothy Catalonia. Yes, my eyebrows are forked. I am to be Head Interrogator and intelligence officer—meaning, be careful what you say around me or anyone who might even slightly be associated with me, because I will know. And you'll likely be learning interrogation and intelligence gathering techniques from me, as well," she added, almost as an afterthought.
She turned to Duo. "May I go now, Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Tahary? I was having ever so much fun with those lovely devices in the interrogation chamber."
"Yeah, sure, whatever—wait, what interrogation chamber?"
Duo and Sam were paling again. Dorothy + Torture Tools = DOOM. The mass of people chuckled at them, slowly growing used to the insanity that was their commanding officers.
But she was already gone, heading towards yet another door—they swore they kept appearing.
"You'll find out eventually, Mr. Maxwell," she called back in a decidedly cheerful voice, a voice that promised that he would indeed, find out, and it would not be by means of a tour.
"I believe we will head to our own places of work as well, 02, Tahary," J said, the other scientists nodding. "Best of luck with this lot."
They vanished as well.
"What about you, Noin?" Sam asked. "Going to abandon us as well?"
She grinned at him. "Nope, I think I'll stick around to watch the fireworks."
"Right," Duo replied, before turning to face the audience once more. "Now, what you've all been waitin' for—question time! So ask your questions, but tell us your name and home base first. Go!"
Dead silence. Sam snickered quietly. "Really, it's okay to ask. We're not going to bite you," he added.
A hand crept up near the back.
"YES! A volunteer! What is your name, young grasshopper?" Duo crowed excitedly. Laughter rang out.
Nothing like good old fashioned laughter to get through to people.
"Umm...my name is Nick Stonekey, I come here from the Francisco base in America, and I wanted to ask, what exactly are you going to be teaching us, Commander Maxwell, Commander Tahary?"
Sam decided to step up and take this question. "Well first off, Nick, let us remind you as I believe we reminded you in your interview—call us Sam and Duo, we're not that stinking old. To answer your question—here's the good part of all of this. While Duo and I here both have skills to offer and teach, neither of us are the black-ops agents we're trying to train you to be. So we're going to be going through a lot of your training with you."
A wave of murmurs swept through the room, just a hint of skepticism beneath them. Sure, they had all had their interviews with the two, but at the time most of them were still in a kind of shock over the job they were offered. None of them had ever really stopped to think about how qualified the two might be.
"Oi!" Duo yelled, effectively silencing the murmurs. "We're well aware of our flaws, thank ya very much. We're admittin' them, unlike a lot of other people. But the Lady chose us, so you'll just have ta get over it, yeah. Next question!"
Another hand came up, not nearly so hesitant. "Sasha Trafalgar, from New Sydney...Sam, Duo, are you single?"
Dead silence. Collective breaths were held as Sam's face twisted into the most interesting expression of shock and embarrassment, while Duo...raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I know I am, but I'm not sure about this guy over here. Love-machine, he is, can't stop him! How about it Sam; have ya been holdin' out on us? Any special ladies in your life?"
Flushing a shade of red that should have been physically impossible, Sam shook his head. "No..." he squeaked.
Noin snickered quietly in the background and from an unknown place pulled, yet again, the camera, even as the room burst into laughter and Sasha held her hand to her ears in a joking, "call me!" gesture.
FLASH.
They whirled. "Damnit, Noin, we destroyed that fuckin' camera! What the hell!" Duo exclaimed.
She grinned while looking at her new picture—Sam red as a tomato, steam almost visible rising from his face. Blackmailllll! "A woman never reveals her sources, Sam, Duo...and this is where I take my leave," she added quickly, as she saw Sam calming down and the two of them getting ready to lunge at her. "Bye!" she yelped, waving towards the crowd and vanishing faster than they knew she could move.
"We've got to find her stash," Sam told Duo, who nodded.
"Right! Movin' on! More questions! DAMNIT, STOP LAUGHIN', YA RATS!"
The questions continued for another half hour, people asking easily now that the tension had been broken. Sam and Duo traded off calling and answering, unless, of course, a question was directed specifically to them.
Sam could not believe some of the questions these people were coming up with—honestly, why would they need to know whether they wore boxers or briefs?
Duo was used to the stupidity, though. He remembered some of the press conferences after the war before things died down. God, the mass stupidity astounded him.
Everything came to a head though, about a half hour in, when the questions were finally dwindling. A hand raised in the back of the room, just slightly hesitant.
"Yes?" Duo called, pointing to the nervous looking young man with ginger hair and brown eyes.
"Umm...I'm Garrett, Garrett Hartley...I come here from the Smoke Valley base in Washington, and I wanted to ask; weren't you a Gundam Pilot, Commander Maxwell?"
Duo stilled, breathe hitching...before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. He had honestly expected someone to ask this question a while ago, but it still came as a shock. Even those who hadn't known would have probably figured it out rather quickly—the scientists had called him 02 at least twice.
"Yes," he said shortly. "I was Gundam pilot 02. I piloted Deathscythe. I don't care if ya have a problem with it, if ya do ya can find your own way out. I may often regret what I did, but I do not regret the outcome, and I would not change it. There's your answer, Hartley, and everyone else who was wonderin' but was too much of a coward ta ask."
He fell silent, and any remaining good cheer was effectively killed. The mood was somber and subdued.
It was at that moment Noin deemed to poke her head back into the room, trying to figure out if it was safe to go back in.
She blinked.
Duo was glaring at the silent group, and Sam looked...stricken, like someone had killed his puppy.
Or something along those lines.
She decided to step in before someone ended up dead.
"What'd you do, you guys, kill someone? I haven't seen this look on Duo's face since...well, I don't think I have."
Cue collective jump of nervous guilty people.
She chuckled before turning towards Duo...who was now glaring at her."Duo, I believe you heard me lecture Dorothy before about scaring the newbies; would you like me to do the same to you? And don't forget—I have the camera."
He and Sam both paled.
"Sorry, everyone," Duo hastily said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sensitive subject, yeah. Anymore questions?"
Helllooo, dead silence. Sam snickered as well. Blunt, much?
"Right, guess not! Well, believe it or not, you all are going ta get your first mission, right now!"
Everyone perked up immediately, and another wave of murmurs rippled through the room.
Sam grinned wickedly. Oh, they were going to love this. "And do you know what said first mission is?" he continued loudly.
"It is—"
"—ta find—"
"Your bunks!"
Cue crickets.
"Yup," Duo cheerfully exclaimed. "This headquarters is, ta be blunt, a fuckin' maze! Even we haven't explored it all yet! But as far as we discovered there are ten rooms situated around it, each made for five people, because you'll eventually be put into five person teams! So on each of these doors is a list with five people on it! Your goal is ta find the door with your name on it—but there's a catch! Ya can't go in until you've found the other four meant ta be in your room! So I hope you've been introducin' yourselves, otherwise it's going ta be really hard!"
"This not only tests your navigation skills, but information gathering, some people-reading, ability to work together, and most of all, it's a great icebreaker," Sam added.
"And the first group ta get all five people into their room—at the same time—wins—"
Duo paused. "...Sam, what do they win?" he whispered conspiratorially.
"I dunno, Duo, I thought you knew!"
"I thought you knew!"
They straightened. "Right, well, you'll win something," Sam said. "Moving on, should you fail to find all of your people and still enter the room, there will be consequences. Uhh...Duo, do we know those yet, or are those undecided too?"
"For now. I'm sure we'll figure out somethin'."
"Introduce them to Dorothy!" Noin called from where she had leaned against the wall to watch.
They both grinned widely. "Perfect! You'll go to Dorothy!" they said in synch. The audience shuddered—only a few minutes in the presence of the fork-browed woman was enough to scar them for life.
"All right, ya all have ten seconds ta figure out...somethin'. Whatever. Go."
And there goes the pandemonium again. Duo and Sam watched in poorly concealed amusement.
Ten seconds later—"FREEZE!"
They all froze. Some people fell over, but quickly picked themselves back up. It seemed most had been trying to introduce themselves to as many people as possible in ten seconds.
"In the words of a man from long before the colonies..." Duo began.
"Good luck—" Sam picked up the thread.
"—travel safe—"
"—and, well, he didn't actually say this part, but still—"
"Welcome to hell, chiblets," they chorused. "GO!"
...in the words of myself ten seconds ago, talking to my friend on facebook, "Holycrap I did it! It's done!"
Just warning you this author's note is going to be veryyyy long. I have a lot to say. Note—it's 10:28 P.M. I cannot be blamed for the coherency of this message.
First off, I apologize sincerely for the lateness of this chapter. It was, to be blunt, an absolute bitch to write. I wrote a lot, got stuck, and by the time I finally buckled down and wrote said bitch, it was late and it took foreverrr to write.
I know most of you were looking forward to the training...but putting all that in would have taken me another month and with all my procrastination already, I didn't think you'd want that. So I decided to hell with it and just chopped it off so I could give you guys something...and I managed to drag it out enough to make it as long as a regular chapter.
Notes of interest having to do with the chapter:
- The last bit is a random reference to The Amazing Race. "Good luck...travel safe...go!"
- As for chiblets, it got into my head and wouldn't leave. Thus, chiblets.
- Sasha Trafalgar—those of you who know anything about the French Revolution and Napoleon might recognize this. History class, enough said.
Please give lots of feedback on this chapter, I think it needs it.
Notes of interest having nothing to do with the chapter:
- Most of my GW stories are now backed up on gundam-wing-universe. Unedited Word versions though.
- I have, as nobody seems to have noticed, written a new GW oneshot called Life Without You. First attempt at shonen-ai, anyone? FEEDBACK, anyone?
- Most of this AN was written on graph paper in a VERY boring Honors FST block class. Don't ask me to explain that. The complexity of my school astounds me.
- Tried to use Duo as my topic for my semester website in Multimedia Tech. REJECTED. Too much violence, she says. Hetalia website, here I come...-sigh-
- School has indeed started. A month or two in and it's finally making sense...xD
Ummm...I think I addressed everything. Ask any question you have in reviews, I'll likely answer, and if I'm missing any spaces, remember it's 10:39 and my spacebar is being evil. Comment on anything, I can take it. I'm well aware this chapter is pretty bad. Oh, and the next update will either be sometime this month, if I get the inspiration, or sometime at the beginning of December because next month is National Novel Writing Month and I will be utterly focused on those fifty thousand words. Sorry, but that's the way it is. Keep hoping, though!
Ciao, look out for the next chapter that doesn't have a name yet...
—Erin