07-Jun-2001
Title: He Was/He Is
Author: Kimmie (JaenKaeGW@hotmail.com)
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: angst
Pairings: None.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah.
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Spoilers: Lots of 'em.
Notes: This is part of what I'll be calling the "Zeitgeist" arc. There will be a total of 6 stories: one for each Gundam pilot, and one that brings them all together. They'll be told like a storyteller might tell them with bits and pieces brought in from several different sources. This is my attempt to piece together exactly *why* Gundam Wing began. I want to find my way around the characters' emotions as they begin Operation Meteor, but without doing POV. The stuff you'll find in this section may be pulled from my mind, PoJo's World "Gundam Wing" Special Edition magazine, the "Endless Waltz" Special Edition DVD, or an old book called "2000 Questions and Answers About the War" by the editorial staff of Review of Reviews (1918) about WWI. So, consider this a research paper of sorts with a "Once upon a time..." thesis statement. ^__^ I hope you enjoy!
Once upon a time, there was a boy who took orders well. Though most of the orders were to make him faster, stronger, more intelligent than the other boys, and most of the men, there were three big orders that he was to follow.
Order #1: Drop a floating Colony or two on Earth, causing worldwide destruction and panic.
Order #2: Send the Gundams to Earth to rough up everyone and render all military defenses helpless.
Order #3: Overthrow the Earth Nation unifying the Earth and the Colonies.
The boy was prepared to follow the orders. After all, he'd never been to Earth before. What could be so special about it? Millions of people who lived out a dull, dreary, unimportant existance. People grew vegetables for a living. Their lives could easily be terminated, just as any other soldier could be.
Yes, he knew he was a soldier. Even soldiers can be secret weapons. But, he wasn't just a secret. He was perfect.
He could shoot with deadly accuracy from an incomprehensible range. There wasn't a mobile suit he couldn't fly. He was overly skilled in the manufacture of deadly weapons of chemical warfare. If needed, he could kill off people who had never done a thing to him. In war, he would be a valuable asset and it was lucky for his trainers that they had never taught him to feel guilty, let alone make amends for the destruction he personally handled.
That is, until he found guilt on his own.
He was on a training mission. Destroy a mobile suit production plan. It had been a nice day. The sun was shining, and he was taking advantage of the warmth on his skin by letting his body free. He was running everywhere, jumping over fences, the tips of his toes barely touching the ground as he roamed.
Somehow, along the way, he tripped on a rock and went flying into a somersault, landing on his back. Without meaning to, he began to laugh. His back ached slightly from the jarring landing, and he couldn't seem to catch his breath properly, so he laughed. Without meaning to, he smiled, as well. The warmth of the air heated him better when he lay still. All of the hours in Dr. J's cold lab made him yearn for this warmth. It wasn't often that the colonies turned the temperature gauges up so high. It was probably a mistake; a problem with one of the vents on this part of the colony, but he didn't mind. He'd learned to work will with mishaps. This one just happened to benefit him.
He heard a noise and opened his eyes, almost regretting is as his head pounded. The artificial cloud cover moved on, and he could see the reflection of the buildings around him in the glare of the colony's sky. Suddenly, a girl in a white hat with a yellow band popped out over him. She was smiling, her lacy dress blowing in the barely existant breeze. Her hair was fire, her eyes water, and her smile was peace.
She giggled slightly at him. "Hi, there. Are you lost?"
He sat up, noticing that she had a small dog with her, it's pug nose and playful eyes all pointed toward him. He looked around, and she repeated herself. "I said, are you lost?"
He kept his gaze away from her. "I've been lost since the day I was born."
In his superior peripheral vision, he could see her place her hands behind her back, the dog's leash attached to one of her wrists. The dog meandered closer to him, questioningly. "Oh, that's so sad."
At that, the dog barked a bit, placing it's front paws on his lap.
The girl dropped to her knees, the pup jumped for her, it's paws catching in her hands. "Well, I'm not lost at all. I'm taking Mary out for a walk." She smiled and laughed as the dog licked her cheek. It was then that he noticed she had a small yellow flower in her hand.
"Hn." He kept his gaze on her, quietly wondering what exactly her deal was.
Suddenly, the girl stood and extended her arm to him. "Here. I'll give you this flower." The move didn't seem to be motivated by anything, so he accepted it.
As soon as he did, the dog barked and pulled the girl away, leaving him to stare quietly at the flower. The girl ran off saying, "Hey! Wait for me, Mary!"
He brought the flower up in front of his face where he could see it. The scent that wafted from the petals was pleasant. The girl laughed in the distance and he was reminded of the fact that he had a mission. How he had forgotten about it, he couldn't be sure.
He made his way into the factory and set up all of the explosives for that evening, the flower clenched in his hand the whole while. It wasn't a conscious effort to hold onto it. It just seemed like the thing to do.
Sweet yellow flower still in hand at nightfall, he pushed the detonator. The building was shortly destroyed. With a majority of the place still burning, he dropped his arms to his side, smirking a bit as he said, "Mission, complete." He turned to leave. He had a report to write on all of this and he wanted to get as much sleep as possible. They had trained him to the point that he no longer needed it, but it was nice to have, regardless.
He heard a rumbling behind him and turned. A suit had been propelled through the air, hitting another suit and sending it through the fence, hitting a civilian building: one that mission parameters addressed as a no-hit zone.
He threw down the detonator. His mission had failed. He never noticed that he still clutched the flower in his hand as he ran closer. What he was doing, he was unsure. Despite his strength, he couldn't exactly save a burning building all on his own.
He stayed the night there, watching the place burn from a distance. When the fire was out, he finally moved in. He stood by the wreckage, berating himself for not bothering to control the blast. Now, snow began to fall. It wasn't real snow. Instead, it was ash from the burning fire that had collected on the colony done. The temperature of the colony had been fixed overnight, and they were now cleaning the "skies", letting a soft, hot mist power away the soot and grime, letting it fall in a form that the citizens would enjoy: snow.
With eyes cold in disbelief, he looked around. A singed hankerchief hung from a pipe like a sign of surrender, a smoke-imbibed teddy bear lay on a piece of shattered concrete.
He turned again, seeing something out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a small dog, body still and soft, the scent of smoke and burning flesh still rising from it's limp flesh. His eyes widened at the sight. Mary. That was what the little girl had called the dog. Mary.
Without thinking, he knelt down and brought the dog into his arms, small yellow flower still locked in his firm grasp. The snow continued to fall, landing on the broken building in spots of wet ash, freezing in a mosaic of massacre. With eyes slowly killed over the years, he began to walk away. If nothing else, he had to bury the dog. He didn't know why, but it felt like part of the mission.
That night, he finally got back to the lab and typed up his report, reporting the civilian casualities as though they didn't matter. They shouldn't have, but they did.
After he fell into bed, he could hear Dr. J on the vidscreen with someone.
"That's ludicrous. You're suggesting the use of the Gundam as a tool for massacre?"
"This is war! It is no big deal sacrificing the general public. Got it? Now, retrain him at once. The humane use of kindness is unnecessary for our weapon."
"You're right there, but do you really believe Heero Yuy would be pleased if we obliterated mankind?"
Laying in his bed, a small yellow flower pressed to the bedsprings beneath his mattress, Heero Yuy, named after a victim of assassination "for a cause", began to feel guilt. He couldn't identify it by name, but he felt... sorry. He regretted his carelessness, and not just because he failed at his mission.
Operation Meteor would begin soon. He had orders to destroy Earth and its connections with the colonies. He'd never thought about it before, but every science text he'd ever read that discussed dinosaurs covered the big bang theory: the idea that a large piece of terrestrial material had hit Earth with such a force as to annihilate most of the species which lived on its planes and mountains and in its valleys and bodies of water. Should a colony hit Earth as was the plan, there was no doubt that more little girls with small yellow flowers to give would die. Placing a protective hand over the spot where he'd placed his own flower, he silently vowed that should such an order arise, he would disobey it, killing whomever necessary to follow his instincts.
Owari. -__-
Jenny&Kimmie
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