Things Are Not as They Seem3
The Year was After Colony 200
Man Kind has lived peacefully, under the support of Preventers and The Earth Sphere Unified Nation, led by Relena Darlian.
Chapter Three:
Tro and I walk down the streets to this woman's house, Miss Simons and her birthday party. We're both armed incase something were to, you know, go wrong like we were thinking. Trowa has the paper that had invited us as we walk up the steps and at once I hear the dogs bark through the door. I knock and a woman opens the door.
She looks about as confused as we were. "Can I help you?" she asked.
"We're here for miss Simons birthday," Trowa said and showed the woman the letter. She looked it over briefly and then moved to the side and allow us in.
"Come in and enjoy yourselves, the gathering is in the backyard," she said and led us to the back. The dogs barking and rubbing up against Trowa begging for his attention.
Trowa may be silent, but I am the life of the party. I'd have to say about ten minutes after we got there I had a small gathering of women and men around me listening to me tell my tale as Trowa watched silently from the sidelines. Talking to a couple of random people.
"So then what happened?" I hear a woman asked.
"We jump outta the building," I answered. "Of course we had parachutes, but the idiot didn't seem ta want ta pull his. So he slammed hard against the rock and broke his leg."
"I bet it was exciting!" said the same woman, I shrug.
"Nothin I aint useta," I say and wave my hand.
"You fought in the war huh, a kid like you?" said a man to my left.
"Oh yeah, glad we finally got peace though," I reply.
"What side did you fight on?" he asked again.
"Well ya know, it changed often durin the war," I respond, I didn't want to tell the man or the others that I had been a Gundam Pilot, that may not go so well. I look over at Trowa as he nodded his head to something a woman was saying to him. The man that had asked turned and looked at him also.
"Was he your partner?" the man asked.
"Was?" I asked back. "He still one of my partners and friends." The man nodded.
"You sound like you're from L2," said a new woman that was dressed nicely for this being a casual dress party. Her hair was fixed up and she looked like a bitch.
I grin, "yep! Oh-two Scrap owner and member of the Sweepers!" I say happily. The woman frowned at me. Oh well cant please them all.
"I see," she said and turned to Trowa and then back to me. She walked past me and started to talk with Miss Simons. I can tell Trowa didn't miss the woman either as he had angled himself to watch her carefully while still listening to a conversation with a man and a woman. The three dogs laying at his feet.
The rest of the party went kinda like that as Tro and me worked our way around the people, trying to get a feel for them, maybe figure out which ones are part of this Pegasus group and which are normal civilians. I am fair at reading people, but honestly I couldn't tell if any of them were or weren't part of Pegasus. I believe they all are, but that's just my gut.
"Any ideas?" was the first thing out of Tro's mouth when we got back to the hotel room.
"Couple," I replied as I plopped down on my bed. Trowa sat beside me on the edge. "Some of em have things ta hide," I said and shrugged a shoulder. "But who don't."
Trowa closed his eyes. "I think the whole colony is part of Pegasus," Trowa said. I sat up on my elbows. "Have you noticed that there are no children here?" Honestly I hadn't thought of that. "That would be how Cameron figured out we were here, the people in the docking bay. The Hotel clerk knew our names, and I bet he knows I am from preventers."
"I don't think he knows ya from preventers, your not dead yet," I said and then turn over on my side facing him. He folds his arms over his chest and gets his thinking look on his face. See unlike Heero Trowa talks to me about the missions we're on. I know it's kinda silly, but its somethin that I like.
"We're going to have to get into Pegasus," he said after a moment.
"Yep," I respond. I already had a feeling. Trowa likes plain sides like that. He did it in Oz and in the Mariemaia army.
Now a couple of days later Duo was flipping through the channels when he stopped and sat up in the bed. This movement caught Trowa's attention and he moved over to look at the screen with Duo. There was a podium and microphones, behind was a royal blue drape with a horse with wings design in white.
"Trowa," Duo started and Trowa nodded. This was when the man would declare war or independence or something. And sure enough Careman Blackwell walked to the podium. He wore dark blue with the white crest on each arm. His blond hair was pulled back into a small ponytail and his brown eyes looked into the camera.
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen," he said into the microphones. "I am General Cameron Blackwell. There are sayings that tell of how it is human nature to fight, that we live for conflict. True as it is, the human race also likes to be controlled. I am not declaring war, I am not declaring independents. I am declaring a take over. Mariemaia almost had it correct. Dekim Barton should have waited longer. Long enough for the Preventers to eliminate the mobile suit factories on the Colonies and on Earth, long enough for the Gundams to be destroyed." He waited a moment. Duo was gripping the bed cover in his hands tightly. "Now that there are no more mobile suit factories, or Gundams, I can bring the Colonies and Earth under a new different rule. Relena Darlian preaches about peace through pacifism, where no one owns any military might. It was a good idea of a child of sixteen, and has somewhat worked with the aid of the Preventers and former Gundam Pilots. However, this is not the human way, this isn't natural." Cameron opened his arms out to the public. "As you can tell pacifism isn't working."
Behind him a screen came on and Relena's angry face appeared.
"What you are doing is wrong, people are living in peace," she said.
"Really?" Cameron question, he turned slightly to look at her image. "Then miss Relena, tell me why a band of men crossed a boarder into another country and proceeded to destroy several government and world piece buildings? Yes it is true that the Prevents had taken care of the act three weeks later, but that is because there weren't a standing military. What I propose miss Relena is that countries and the colonies have standing armies so that it doesn't take the preventers weeks to accomplish one thing."
"If we have militaries again war will break out." Relena said.
"Maybe. shouldn't countries governments be allowed to deal with their own problems instead of having to rely on the Preventers?"
"I suggest that the counties or colonies that have this issue put people into Preventers to help keep accidents from happening."
"Miss Relena, let me ask you something. If you love your country so much you are willing to lay your life down for it, would you rather join that country's military, or the Preventers which could, most often than not, move you away from your country and help another leaving your loved homeland, the land and people you wanted to protect." Cameron inquired. Relena narrowed her eyes.
"This seems like an attack on Preventers," she said. Cameron looked back towards the image. "Preventers try and help all nations and colonies."
"All I am asking is that the nations and colonies be allowed their military back," he held up a stack of papers. "Accounts and reports of countries being attacked by rogue factions and other countries because of history of hate towards each other. Half of these reports say that there are countless dead because they didn't get there in time, the other nothing was done because there wasn't enough man power or it was already over with. And as we all know, the victor writes history," he said. "These reports will be available to viewed by the general public at fifteen hundred hours."
"You can't do that!" a woman yelled coming on the screen with Relena.
"Ah former Lieutenant Noin," Cameron smiled at her. "Shouldn't reports like this also be showed to the people? Not just the successful ones."
"General Blackwell," Relena was fully in the picture again. "Your plan of a take over will be in vain just like all the others before you. As you said the mobile suit factories have been destroyed."
Cameron smiled then. "It seems Preventers have missed a few."
Trowa's cell phone rang then, he opened it and placed it to his ear.
"Have you found anything?" Une asked.
"Negative," Trowa said and watched the screen.
"My miss Relena that sounds like a declaration of war."
I am not sure what to think really. Yeah it had been a long time since the last person declared any type of war, that was Mariemaia, but we still had mobile suits and our Gundams then. We don't have that now and this Cameron Blackwell claims to have Mobile suits. Yes that's why Tro and I are here to see if that's true, seems it is now. He also seems to know a lot about what happened before too. Wonder if he'd know if Tro and I are former Gundam pilots. If we're able to get hold of a few mobile suits then it should be fine we can take out several bases when them. Trowa doesn't look too happy, at least from where I am sitting. He's at the small table and I am sittin on one of the beds watching him type something.
"So," I start, unlike Heero he pauses in his typing and looks up at me, I grin. "What's the plan now?"
"We go in undercover into Pegasus," Trowa replied.
"So that plan hasn't changed," he shook his head and went back to his typing. I got up from my seat and move over to him. Looking over his shoulder I see that he's typing an e-mail to Quatre, Heero and Wufei. What makes this e-mail special is that he's claiming to leave preventers and attempt to join up with the Pegasus military. He also says he's taking me with him. In the war we had to get e-mail to each other and they couldn't come right out and say, Hey I'm a Gundam Pilot and I'll be here on this date because of something or another. So we got smart and coded our messages with phrases and stuff. Helped if we had to call one another too. He let me read it and make sure it wasn't too cheesy else we wouldn't be allowed to join. Though I had a bad feelin on how Tro was going to get us into Pegasus.
I lean on the back of his chair as he sends the e-mail and he sits back crossing his arms over his stomach. Trowa turns his head and looks at me with one green eye for a long moment. "What?" I asked.
"How did you manage to keep your hair during the war?" he asked him. That about knocked me off my feet.
"Luck I guess," I reply. I had been captured in the war and somehow I managed to keep my braid. Trowa hums lightly when his phone rings. He answers it.
"Trowa." I still lean against the back of his chair as I try and listen to who is on the other side. But the volume is too low for me to hear. "Yes," Trowa responds. "Yes that is correct." A pause. "You don't understand Quatre." I back away from Trowa then, I had always thought that he and Quatre were a pair in the war, but with Quatre marrying that woman I guess I had been wrong. Again now I am not so sure. Trowa looked at me, I shrugged a shoulder and leaned my hip against the table. "Quatre, I am a soldier, always have been… I need this. Good luck with your marriage."
I understand the plan now. He hung up the phone and set it on the table.
I had a bad habit of playing things by ear. I am just lucky that I have Duo as a partner, we had partnered before and it worked out well, I just hope that he can read me just as well as before, I silently hoped that he could read me better than before. I watch him from the seat beside the table as he sits on the bed surfing the channels again. After my phone call with Quatre I think he understands the plan of action. I hadn't informed him completely yet. I plan on telling General Blackwell that we are former Gundam pilots. I hope that that will get us into Pegasus a bit easier. I move over to him as he lands on the channel he wants and takes his wet hair out of the towel. I grab the brush from the bed beside him and sit down behind him and start brushing his hair.
"Um, Tro what are ya doin?" he asks his voice uneasy.
I hum gently, "brushing your hair," I reply. I start at the tips and work my way up, I can tell at first that he's nervous, but after a bit he calms and relaxes into it.
"Ya know," Duo started, "that feels good." I nodded my head at what he said, my fingers running through the damp newly washed hair after the brush. All tangles gone I could stop.
I don't.
Duo's shoulders are relaxed and he is breathing easy. I then started to braid his hair. "Tro…" he whispers and lets out a breath. I hum to let him know I was listening. He doesn't say anything else. I finish braiding his hair and move to go take my shower.