The last thing Heero remembered was them jamming a needle into his neck and then—
Darkness…
—and suddenly a brief flash of blinding, golden light. He'd seen that kind of light before, when Aoi had attacked him after jumping out of her meteor. When he piloted Wing Zero.
Memories.
Only this time, they were not his own.
"You have a big brother, you know."
A woman stroked his head, no— not his—
A head of silvery white hair, strands like thin fiberoptic cables.
Heero couldn't remember when he'd seen such a warm expression on his mother's face. The love there was plain, even as she looked down at her daughter laying inside the tiny sterilized chamber, her gloved hand fitted through one of the ports in the side.
"We haven't told him yet because you're so tiny. I know he'd just be worried. But OZ has the finest doctors. You'll be home before you know it, little one."
Behind her, the door to the room opened, and a man stepped through. Seis. He closed the door quietly, coming around behind his wife and placing a hand on her shoulder.
"I keep thinking." His mother's voice was tight. "I keep thinking that if I'd only be able to carry her the whole time…."
Seis's grip tightened. "It's a miracle she's survived this long. If they hadn't used the artificial womb, you both would have been in serious danger. Come on, we should let her get some rest. Let's go talk to Doctor F. I'm sure he has some optimistic news."
Resignedly, Aoi nodded her head, standing shakily from her chair. Before they left, she turned, just briefly, to give her daughter a watery smile before turning out the lights.
A helpless passenger, Heero could only watch on as the room shifted.
"Good girl," a curly haired woman soothed, as she picked up a small, thin arm.
The girl, his sister, was older. What he was seeing must have been after Aoi and Seis were already dead and he'd been picked up by Odin.
Aoi had died believing that her second child was gone, unaware she's be incorporated into an OZ experiment…
The little girl watched as a long syringe filled with a viscous, transparent gel was inserted into her arm. As the plunger depressed, the door to the exam room opened, and in walked a boyish-faced doctor with a clipboard.
Ferox.
Doctor F.
A fire tore through the memory, licking at the edges of the image, increasing as the liquid in the syringe bulged under the skin.
Ferox walked up and snapped his fingers, but the girl didn't react to the stimuli.
"The dosage has increased?"
His words came from far away; echoing.
"Yes, sir," the nurse replied, finishing up and pulling the needle out. "The electrode binders are now forty-three percent of the current solution."
"Increase it to fifty by next week."
"But sir, that might—"
"The girl can handle it. Increase the ratio to fifty. In the meantime, we need to schedule her for surgery. The lab has her neural link ready for installation."
"Of course, sir."
With each flash of memory, with each prick of the needle, Aoi's vision became hazier and less defined. It was a wonder she could function at all with all the chemicals they pumped into her, but her ability to perform in Ferox's mobile suit simulator was astounding.
They asked her to do the impossible and she did it. Though it tore at her body, she persisted. She survived. Thrived. Exceeded anything Heero had ever been able to accomplish in his initial training. Every movement of her body, every reaction, was masterfully fluid. She and the cockpit system, connected by their neural link, lived as one.
A perfect weave of mobile suit and its pilot.
They'd even tried to implement a beta version in other suits…
But the other scientists had mothballed the project once Dekim's true plans for Operation meteor had been discovered. To protect his work, Ferox had left her sleeping in that pod. Sleeping, and learning. Waiting for Ferox to pick up where Dekim had failed.
What must she have dreamt during all those years floating through space?
Earlier, at Preventers Headquarters…
They'd been exceedingly, unimaginably lucky. Though Aoi had blown up the Assembly building, the ESUN delegation had been adjourned for the weekend. There had been casualties of course, but the vast majority of key political players had been spared. Including the President.
On the television, volume muted, Dorothy Catalonia was addressing the people, ticker of emergency alert systems information scrolling across the bottom.
"Had to assign Trowa to her security detail since no one could find you."
Wufei stood from where he was leaning back against a desk, turning from Dorothy's speech to see Sally in the office doorway. She nodded to the television.
"Good," he said, arms crossed over the chest of his Preventer's jacket. "I'm glad to have that woman taken off my hands."
Sally chuckled. "She's that bad, huh?"
"What do you think," he muttered, turning back towards the television, brows knit.
"You were the one who asked for that assignment," she pointed out, moving further into the room. It had happened a handful of months ago, seemingly out of the blue. She hadn't admitted to herself how much it had confused her, hurt her, that her partner of so many years had picked up the temporary position without a word of warning.
"I did," Wufei confirmed with a curt nod, still looking at Dorothy speaking on screen.
For years they'd been inseparable. Nowadays, their time together was more than halved.
"Didn't know working with me was so terrible," she said, a forced lightness to her voice as she came to stand alongside him, bracing herself against the desk as she leaned back against it.
At that, Wufei cut his eyes toward her, something tight in his jaw, gaze boring into hers.
"It wasn't. That was the problem."
Sally felt pinned by his intensity, having to look away towards the television to quell the flutter in her stomach. This wasn't the time, she chided herself. They still had to figure out what the hell they were going to do.
They had already mobilized all the local police and security forces against the small blips of disturbance popping up around the capitol. Flights inbound and outbound off-planet had been grounded. The Nova Gundam had been tracked to a defunct resource satellite between the Earth and Mars. Trowa was with the President and Quatre was running diagnostics on Aoi's pod for any info on potential weak spots in the new Gundam. Duo was getting patched up downstairs.
Their biggest problem? How to pull off a covert rescue mission in space without any mobile suits.
"You've got that look in your eyes," Wufei remarked quietly, pulling her out of her machinations. The pinch between his brows was gone, gaze somewhat soft. "You have a plan?"
Sally shook her head. "Not unless you've got more mobile suits stashed up your sleeve."
His mouth pulled up at one corner. "I'm afraid just the one."
"Where did Noin even stash that hunk of junk, Wufei?"
"You expect me to give up all my secrets," he chided with a sigh, though the words lacked venom.
Despite the chaos raining down around them, time seemed to have stalled, just for this moment. Sally clung to it, knowing it wouldn't last, knowing they had a job to do. They'd soon a call from Une, once they'd done remote recon on Ferox's satellite and once Relena was confirmed safe. Plans set into motion, flurries of activity. This quiet bubble would break.
"Well, you were right," she said at length, Dorothy now taking questions from a small press pool on the screen before them.
Wufei huffed a soft chuckle. "As usual."
Sally rolled her eyes. "About the girl," she clarified. "Aoi being our enemy."
"She's just a pawn," he allowed. "A kid, like Yuy said. I just didn't agree with prodding her. We should have treated her with more suspicion. Kept her in medical quarantine. Not paraded her around the city."
"Like I said," Sally nudged his shoulder with her own. "You were right."
She felt him stiffen at the contact; saw him swallow tightly.
Inwardly, she cursed. Why was she always like this? He'd mellowed a little after joining the Preventers, but she always had a knack for pushing his boundaries. No wonder he asked for another assignment on the side…
Her thoughts stuttered to a halt at the feeling of his fingers coming to rest just slightly against her own where she clutched the edge of the desk. The barest of contact; it almost wasn't a touch at all.
"Focus on the mission," he said, firm but quiet, though he had the gall to say so when he was standing so close, initiating contact when heneverinitiated contact. "We can talk about… everything else later."
The words he'd said in the patrol car with Duo and Relena sprung to life in her memory.
He should know, by now, how to separate his professional and personal life.
And Duo's:We can't all work with ourgirlfriends, ya know.
She knew the other pilot's words were in jest to needle Wufei. Sure, she and him were practically attached at the hip, but they weren't— she wasn't—
Good to have you back,she'd said to him. But there was so much more shewantedto say. When he'd stormed out of Une's and taken their Preventers cruiser, she honestly hadn't known if she'd even see him again. The relief at having Wufei back at her side shocked her at its intensity.
Sally looked up at him. He'd been watching her the whole time, tilted slightly into her space, expression singularly focused.
"Wufei…"
A sudden noise had them jumping apart as a whirlwind, braid flying, careened into the open doorway and nearly banging off the frame.
"We got a— big problem!" Duo was breathing hard, bandage around his upper arm already dotted through with red. "It's the Princess! She's gone!"
Sally wanted to be surprised, but really, they should have seen this coming.
Duo's gaze darted between them, perhaps subconsciously aware he'd interrupted something, but said, "Do you think she's gone into space? After Heero?"
Wufei closed his eyes briefly as if preparing for an oncoming headache. "What do you think?"
Sally took a deep, grounding breath.
"We need to get Une. And radio Mars base.Now."
Blair holstered his pistol, taking a seat across from Relena as the shuttle made a quick getaway from the stranded transport craft. She looked up from the tablet in her lap as the young man frowned at her.
"You knew the Preventers would send Tallgeese, didn't you?"
Relena crossed her ankles. "I suspected that once my absence was realized, the Preventers would mobilize their closest assets."
Blair's lip curled.
"Quite the contradiction, advocating for the decommissioning of all mobile suits and yet leaving one in your back pocket to protect ESUN's mining assets. Afraid of the public backlash?"
Relena set her jaw.
"The Preventers are an independent security force we've contracted to ensure the safety of our mining and terraforming colony on Mars. They are not my personal army and the project on Mars isnota military instillation."
Still, she heard Ferox's words…
Oh my dear… out of all the things I hate, I loathe lying most of all.
Ferox must have known Milliardo was on Mars somehow, providing security for the project.
And shehadlied. Not outright, but enough.
Howwouldpublic react if they knew?
"Well, your little gamble paid off," Blair huffed. "You wanted to go see Ferox? Now you will. We'll reach the satellite soon. Hopefully we have enough of a head start to get behind the turret line before Tallgeese intercepts us.
Milliardo wouldn't destroy the shuttle, but she wasn't about to correct Blair's assumption that it was a possibility.
"Perhaps you truly meant what you said earlier," Relena said, typing on the tablet as she spoke, "that you really believe Ferox's prophesies. Perhaps not. In either case, even if you become that man's private army, you won't get what you want. You won't get peace. You may have helped mobilize his terroristic plans on Earth, but Ferox will have no problem sacrificing you and others like you to gain the power that he wants.
Blair pressed his lips into a thin line.
When he didn't answer, she passed the tablet over to him. "Here."
She'd edited the treaty document. The headline now read:
Treaty of Peace Between the United Earth Sphere and the Mars Federal Government.
Blair stared down at it.
"Of course, some of the language, the terms, will have to be altered," she acquiesced. "Mainly in the sections concerning trade and—"
Blair laughed, a huffing sound of incredulity. "Just what are you playing at? There's no federal government on Mars."
"Not yet. But there could be. Sanctioned by arealESUN treaty if only—"
He made the connection.
"You want me to double-cross Ferox. But why should I trust you? Why should the people who trust me trust you?"
"Because I know who you are," she said. "Heero is a veteran too. He's fought and bled doing what you spoke about earlier— fighting for his ideals. Those ideals may have changed as he grew as a person, but he always fought for them, whatever they were." Her smile turned towards melancholy, eyes lowering to the ground. "I never asked him if he wanted to stay on Earth, but he stayed anyway, because I was determined to craft the new government and he would always stay by my side. What if…" Her heart ached. "What if he needs to find his own place on the frontier. Escape all the places and the... the people who remind him of his fighting.
"Perhaps what you seek," she continued, "what you desire, is the correct course of action for those of us who created this new world. But you will have no peace with Ferox leading you. If you take Mars by anything even considered coercion or force, ESUN will find a way to fight you. But ifIam your advocate, they will listen. Only, I won't do it with that man as your leader."
Blair's mouth lifted into a smirk. "My, my, Foreign Minister. You're trying to incite a coup."
"Bloodless, preferably." She pursed her lips. "You don'treallytrust him, do you?"
Her captor said nothing.
Relena reached out and tapped a finger decisively on the tablet's surface. "Choose to survive, before Ferox turns you into fodder for his own gain."
As if waiting on her words, their ship suddenly lurched violently to one side. Both she and Blair clung to their seats to avoid being pitched right out of them.
Blair leapt up, bracing himself with a hand against the overhead compartments. "What the hell is going on?"
"We've been shot at!" One of the two pilots called back from the cockpit, voice rife with disbelief. "But he missed!"
Milliardo doesn't miss, Relena thought solemnly. He'd given them a warning shot.
"Doesn't the fool pilot realize you're on board?" Blair said as he stalked toward the cockpit. Relena stood from her chair, grabbing the tablet from where it had been thrown onto the seat, and followed him.
In the wide view screen, she could see satellite MO-VII growing larger as they approached.
"It's no use!" The co-pilot slammed a fist onto the control board. "We've got the thrusters pegged! He's going to catch us before we even reach the docking bay!"
As he spoke, a glittering beam of energy shot past them, barely missing the nose of the ship.
"Alright you two, move." Blair swiveled the pilot's chair around, ushering the masked female pilot away and taking her seat. "Will you both escort the Foreign Minister back to her chair?"
"I'm not going anywhere." Relena said firmly, wrenching her arm back from the co-pilot, who'd reached for her. "You're going to help me apprehend Ferox. It's your most tactical choice."
She could save him, save them both. Heero and the girl…
Blair made a noise in the back of his throat, eliciting a gasp of surprise from Relena when he took a strong hold of her arm, wrenching her around and pushing her into the empty co-pilot chair. Relena teetered, caught by surprise, catching herself enough to elegantly stumble into the seat.
"Then sit," he growled, moving to fiddle with the controls and take the steer joystick in hand.
Relena buckled herself in, giving a start as a piece of metal was tossed into her lap.
His mask.
She glanced up at Blair, who'd stripped the thing from his face.
"This is going to get tricky. And I can't fly with that fucking thing on." He glanced her way, and Relena could see one piercing grey-blue eye, the other healed shut under a deep scar as long as her palm.
She clutched the tablet in her lap, thinking fast. "Agree to help me capture Ferox and you and your men, no matter their previous affiliations in any previous conflicts, will be free to live on Mars without the threat of ESUN extradition. You will be free to form your own governing body and rights to a portion of the mining operations there. You have my word." Her voice hardened. "You will not receive a better deal from the lunatic you currently serve."
Blair growled.
"Call off your attack dog. Call him off and I'll agree."
Relena gripped the control panel, the comms button.
"Perusing mobile suit," she commanded, "cease immediately."
There was static over the line, and then—
"Affirmative."
An ache bloomed in her chest at her brother's voice. It had been so long since she'd heard it…
On the radar, the rapidly approaching blip began to fall back. He'd no doubt take up a patrolling position outside the sector's perimeter.
Relena sat back and smiled with grim determination as the hangar drew closer.
I'm coming, Heero.
Heero awoke in a room little bigger than a holding cell, quiet save for the hum of the life satellite's support systems. Dimly lit and cold.
He felt clammy, uncomfortable; a combination of the drugs they'd used on him and the unsettling nature of his dreams.
With a groan, he tried to sit up from the concrete pallet on which he lay, but found he was held fast by smooth metal restraints around his ankles and wrists and neck.
Damn, he thought. They knew to take precautions. At least they weren't sticking him with injectors any longer…
Staring up at the grey ceiling, he began to map the refurbished satellite's layout out in his mind. Granted, he hadn't seen very much of it on his way to Ferox's office, but most Federation-made satellites followed the same general specs.
Heero twisted his head to the side as best he could, able to glimpse the top portion of the cell's door.
They would come for him eventually, and when they did, he would strike. Then, he'd make his way to wherever they were holding that Gundam and destroy it. If the satellite was far enough from Earth, the debris field created wouldn't results in too much damage. If not, he'd jettison the mobile suit and sequence a self-destruct in space.
Either way, he wouldn't be leaving Ferox with a functioning Gundam if it was the last thing he ever did.
His ruminations stuttered to halt at some distant sound: the faintest of footsteps along the floor down the hall, and they were coming closer.
Heero closed his eyes, keep his breath even and steady as he willed his body to relax. If they thought him still asleep, he'd have an extra element of surprise.
With the whispered hiss of compressed air, the door of the cell slid to the side, disappearing into the wall as it retracted.
Soft footsteps entered the room, the door closing again as they drew closer. By the sound of it, newcomer was barefoot.
Heero opened his eyes to see a pale face staring down at him, eyes bright and inquisitive, a halo of silvery hair cascading down around them both.
How was he not surprised.
"What are you—"
Aoi put the whole of her hand over his mouth, shaking her head back and forth.
That look in her eyes… it wasn't as vacant as he remembered, but nowhere near as fierce as they had been during their battle.
Perhaps the effects of being integrated with Nova lingered within her…
He lay there, still as stone, as the girl's face disappeared again, icy fingers slipping from his face.
"I'm surprised Ferox would allow you access to this part of the ship," he said in a whisper.
"Papa didn't," she replied in an equally hushed tone, quite to his surprise. So, she'd sought him out of her own free will?
Ferox was a fool, he thought as she moved about the room, fiddling with the controls to his restraints. She was no doll; no shell. She'd just been abandoned, become feral.
He saw so much of himself in her, of what could have become of him. It made him almost sick to think about it.
The metal cuff around his neck retracted, as did the ones on his arms and legs. Sitting up, he rubbed at his raw skin, and saw that Aoi was connected to the room's wall terminal via a small strand of conduit. Her eyes glowed faintly.
The girl smiled thinly.
"We can speak now," she said. "We are in the computer, with Nova. They think you are still asleep."
Heero cocked an eyebrow. She'd embedded herself in the onboard computer?
Of course… the neural link. Just like inside her Gundam. Could she do that to any system network?
Despite the man's unhinged intentions, Heero couldn't deny that Ferox had succeeded in a truly impressive breakthrough: the intermeshing of man and machine. What had been tried with the ZERO system. Aoi moved the Nova Gundam as if it were her own body because itwas.
He eyed her, suspicious. "You sound different. Have you been faking this whole time?"
Aoi shook her head. "Before, we were incomplete. Files had been stored inside Nova, and we could not gain remote access."
"And now?"
"All files are here," she whispered, touching her heart. "But it is easier for Papa to not know. Easier for us to move around unnoticed."
Heero frowned, swinging his legs over the side of the table and letting himself down onto the floor. When they'd arrived at the satellite and she'd been pulled her from her Gundam, Aoi had appeared as frail as when he'd first met her… but that been an act. It made sense. Ferox thought she was still docile, and because of that, she'd given the man the slip.
Which meant Ferox didn't know how much linking up with Nova had changed her.
"Why are you helping me?" he asked. "You tried to kill me, back on Earth."
Aoi shrank back. "We were… overwhelmed."
"That right?"
Heero had to admit, he'd witnessed something similar before, like with Quatre piloting Wing. Experienced it himself piloting Epyon. He wondered if, in her weakened state, connecting with Nova, hearing Ferox in her ear, being shown all the battle plans and simulations and whatever files she'd been missing all in one instantaneous download… if she'd simply lost control. It wasn't impossible.
He took a grounding breath. "And that's changed, has it."
Aoi stared at him, still connected to the ship by the cable at the base of her skull.
"We were shown the truth."
"Huh?"
"Our mother."
Heero's jaw tightened.
So, the girl now knew…
Suddenly, Aoi looked away, as if she could see through the walls of the small chamber.
"They're here."
Heero frowned.
"Who is?"
"The man."
She put her hands over the top of her face, spreading her fingers just far enough for her glowing eyes to peek out.
A mask? Could be Zechs. It wouldn't take him long to reach the satellite from the Mars base, but he doubted the man would be scrambled out of hiding just because of him.
Heero cast his gaze about the room for a possibly weapon, but it was bare.
"Can you take me to the shuttle bay?"
Aoi shook her head. "Not yet."
"Why?"
"She's here too."
Heero turned slowly to look at her, cold fire in his eyes.
"She?"
He wanted to believe Relena couldn't possibly be that foolish, but he knew better.
Danger was a siren's call to that woman…
Heero moved to the door on instinct, but it would not open. He turned back toward the girl, unease tightening his movements.
"If you decide keep me here," he stated coolly, "youaremy enemy."
Before he could advance upon her, force her to open the door via the terminal, she spoke.
"Do you remember sleeping at the bottom of the ocean?"
Heero froze.
"You were fighting another," she added. "Another like you."
She meant Wufei.
"I remember," he said.
"And Zero woke you."
Then it donned on him. How could she have known that?
Aoi smiled, but her eyes were expressionless, still connected to the terminal; looking past him to the wall.
"Whoareyou?" He asked.
"We told you before. Back at the beginning, but you didn't believe us."
Heero frowned, but then—
A perfect weave of mobile suit and its pilot.
They'd even tried to implement a beta version in other suits…
"The ZERO system," he said slowly, connecting the dots; the pieces of memory he'd seen while sedated. The images of her life. "During your training… your consciousness became the ZERO system."
"We were fragmented before," she confirmed, holding up a pale hand as if marveling at its wholeness. "But we are together now, whole, and we remember. Everything."
Heero looked away from the girl before him, his own blood, her mind fractured and her profound abilities used to create an interface that drove even the most skilled pilots mad.
Had a piece of her really been beside him in that cockpit the whole time?
"If you have all of Zero's memories then you know why the Nova Gundam can't exist. Why I can't let Ferox escalate this conflict into a full-fledged war."
Even if his own life was forfeit, he thought but did not say.
Aoi nodded, reaching back to disconnect from the terminal.
"We understand now," she said quietly, the unnatural glow of her eyes slowly fading. "But Papa's soldiers still long for somewhere they can rest. Papa promised them a place to start anew."
Heero's frowned, thinking.
"Relena's here to try to broker peace."
"Yes."
That could buy them time. If Ferox's attention was focused on Relena, he could get to the Nova Gundam and take it far away from the satellite. Assuming he could figure out how to pilot the thing, once they were far enough away, he would destroy it.
He looked at his sister with a level gaze.
"If you help me," he said, "you can return to Earth."
Aoi perked up slightly. "We don't want to be alone anymore. We liked it there. With you. And her."
A smirked pulled at the corner of his lips.
Relenadidhave that effect on people…
"Then we have to go," he said, gaze flicking to the cell's entrance. "Take me to Nova. Now."
Aoi nodded and pressed a hand to the control panel
The door swished open.
AN- I just had to put a little 5xS scene in here. They might be my second favorite pairing; I just love them. I know there's a lot of conflicting info around Sally's age— some sources list her as 19 in the anime and some sources have her at 27. We're going to just split the difference here and assume she was 23 in the original series. As this story takes place 5 years after Endless Waltz, all the pilots are 21, so Sally would be 29.
Thanks for reading!
