January 27, 2001
Sequel to 'Have You Ever...'
Standard Warnings and Disclaimers apply.
He pressed his ear to the door, pulling back and grinning when he heard the rustling of bodies from within. He slapped a slab of C4 into place, yelling to stay clear from the door. Seconds later the lock on the door went "boom!" and Duo peeled it back to peek inside, grinning in expectation of the expression he was betting on being on Heero's face.
What he saw, wasn't what he'd expected, and he slammed the door shut again, leaning back against it and thinking, 'Oh fuck! Why me?'
Her blood boiled as she stood watching the blond boy. "Out of all the Gundam pilots," she spat, "You are the one most unsuited."
Quatre flexed his hand, momentarily stunned from having his pistol shot out from his fingers. He looked up in time to see the blonde girl slip a helmet over her head. He felt a cold calmness try to steal over him, to steal his will away.
"This room..." he whispered, his voice hoarse.
"Is the Mobile Doll Control Room!" Dorothy announced with pride.
Quatre shivered. "No..." he replied, his frown increasing. "This place... feels like the Zero System..."
"That's correct!" Dorothy beamed at him from beneath the visor. "The Zero system and the Mobile Doll controls are directly connected," she took pleasure in telling him. "You should know then that the Mobile Dolls are under the control of *my* fighting will now!"
She launched a saber towards the blond boy, missing him by inches. "What are you saying?" Quatre cried, pulling away.
"Duel with me, Quatre Winner!" Dorothy hissed. "In a straight Zero-system fight, I lost; but I wonder about this time... You decided to fight of your own free will, didn't you?" She toyed with him, her heart racing in her chest; excitement swelling in her throat. She could almost taste it.
"I'd rather not," Quatre bowed out, "if it's at all possible..." Then his face took on a resigned look. "But if I don't, you won't surrender, and this war won't end."
"That's correct!" Dorothy tensed--she could feel it, the system, feeding into her, melding into her... becoming a part of her. "Let's see which is superior, unenhanced human reflexes... or Zero System optimized!"
"And if I won't agree?" Quatre dodged the blade soaring straight for him, tucking, ducking, and rolling until he was standing opposite of the long-haired girl, saber in hand.
***~~~Flashback~~~***
The thirteen-soon-to-be-fourteen-year-old bounced into the room, literally jumping up and down in her excitement. 'Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!' she sang, pouncing on the older teenager in the bed.
Jack strangled back a sharp cried, but couldn't prevent the painful whimper that escaped. Carina gave a distressed cry when the sheets slipped off her sister's shoulders, revealing the ugly bruises that mottled her face and shoulders.
'What happened?' the golden brown girl cried, jumping off the bed, and thus, off her sister's battered body.
A pained look crossed the older girl's face as she cleared her parched throat. 'Nothing,' she replied in a hoarse whisper, reaching for the glass of water and two red-and-yellow tablets on the nightstand. And then, after a glance at the girl, she added, 'I just ran a simulation program that I couldn't beat, that's all.'
Carina frowned, sitting more carefully back on the bed. 'You shouldn't do that, you know. You might really get hurt one of these days.'
The older girl managed a small laugh, wincing when the pain became too much. 'Yeah,' she whispered. 'I know.'
He could feel the hatred bubble up inside him. He encouraged it, depended on it. Out of all the inconsistencies in his life recently, he knew he could count on this... this hatred for all that was evil and wrong and unjust.
"Why don't you use your dragon?" his opponent called out to him.
"I want to fight you fair!" Wufei shouted back, repositioning his trident for optimal offense and defense. On his screen, the ginger-haired man smiled.
"That isn't like you at all! Are you holding back?"
How dare he presume to know me! "And you?" he spat. "Why didn't you kill me back then?" His anger, his humiliation, his need for vengeance. 'It was his right to kill me...'
"I couldn't kill one of the few people who understand me," Trieze told the other pilot, his voice soft with uncheck emotion.
"Don't mock me!" Wufei screamed. "I hate you!" And he did. He hated the man who had made him weak, who had defeated him so early in the game.
"Then don't hold back!" Trieze shouted.
***~~~Flashback~~~***
'You've been doing it again,' she accused, frowning at the older girl laying in the bed. She handed Jack the medicine Doce had asked her to bring to the girl. 'I don't know why you keep doing this to yourself.'
'You don't need to know,' Jack whispered, taking the pills from her sister, grateful for the release they would bring, and the protection they ensured.
Trowa felt the burning urgency from the depths of his being. He didn't understand why, but he knew he had to find Quatre. The blond boy was in danger and he needed to--
'But wouldn't it be easier for him if the boy died?' a dark voice questioned. 'No loose ends...No confusion. Besides, he was a big boy; he could take care of himself...'
Trowa paused on the railing where he'd landed, having jumped free from HeavyArms' cockpit. He looked back at the large gundam, and then turned away, racing down the corridor. He had to find Quatre.
***~~~Flashback~~~***
'Don't question her.'
'What?' Carina looked up, surprised to see her sister Blaire standing over her study table.
'Don't question her,' the blonde girl repeated. 'Just know she has your best intentions at heart and leave it be at that.'
He stared at the gaping hole through the center of the magnificent blue and white suit, as if he couldn't believe it was really there, as if he wasn't the one who'd put it there.
"That was glorious, Wufei..." Trieze's voice fed in through his speakers, though the image of his opponent had flicked out of existence.
"Trieze! You--" Wufei swallowed the bitter words, angered confusion crushing his lungs. He stared in horror as the damaged Tallgeese drifted away from him.
"Everyone must compensate for their sins," Trieze's voice surrounded him, sounding calm, accepting. "Even my death is not devoid of meaning. Wufei..."
The Chinese boy smashed his fists against his control console.
"My eternal friend... I'm honored to have fought you..."
"I... This... This... I won't accept this!" Wufei screamed, the words tearing from his throat as he watched the last constant in his life turn variable.
"Milliard... I'm going on ahead of you..." were the last words he heard before the suit exploded before his eyes.
He tried to bottle it up, to contain it--everything was gone now. Everything--but he couldn't. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he cried out to the universe.
She was surprised when she heard her brother's voice--but not as surprised as when she saw Valdeon hit her sister. Actually hit Jack. Carina was sure she must have gasped or cried out or something--but the other two must not have heard her. And then her brother attacked her sister.
She was frozen, couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't shout. Her throat was swollen, her lungs screaming, her heart starving, her eyes stinging. She was lightheaded and dizzy, staring in shock, disbelief, confused.
Bone crashed against bone as his fists rained down over the dark-haired, unmoving girl. Bright reddish bruises already beginning to color--her cheeks, her shoulders, her arms... Jack crumbled to the floor, Val following her.
And all Carina could do was stand there and watch as he brother beat the living shit out of her sister; Jack doing nothing to stop him--just a dead corpse, laying there, unresisting.
'Was it in vain?' she asked herself, visible wilting against the console. 'Was it all for nothing? All the planning, all the sacrificing? For this? Why, Trieze? Why?'
"Commander Une," one of the lieutenants called. "Commander... your orders?"
She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath--it did nothing to elevate the aching hollowness within her chest. "Inform White Fang of the Earth's Nations surrender," she said without emotion.
"Commander!" one of the ensigns cried.
Her face steeled, her body tensing. "Do not make me repeat those disgraceful words again," she bit out, before turning away.
"You were glorious," she whispered, "Trieze-sama..."
It was the whimper that broke her stupor. Jack, her big, indestructible, courageous, wonderful sister; whimpering beneath a man she didn't even recognize anymore.
Carina's knees almost collapsed under her. She stumbled into the make-shift office, her lips and mouth moving, her hoarse cry no more than a desperate whisper.
"No. Stop. Please, stop. Val, stop. What do you think you're doing. Stop."
Her golden brown eyes flew about the room looking for something--anything--that could help her. She tumbled towards the far wall, reaching up and yanking on one of the decorative broadswords hanging there, falling back when it finally came free.
The heavy weight pulled on her arms--even in the lesser gravity on the satellite--but she struggled to raise the sword off the floor, shouting to her brother to stop, her voice growing stronger and more forceful with each cry.
"Stop, Val! Stop!"
He didn't hear her, or chose not to listen, his hands wrapping around Jack's throat and smashing her head into the metal floor repeatively. "Die, bitch!" he shouted, never seeing the second girl behind him as she lifted the heavy sword and let gravity do what it does best.
~What goes up... ~
End of Part 30: What Goes Up...
Andrea Readwolf
Please send comments to: andrea_readwolf@hotmail.com