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"Lost Soul"Written By: Pyrzm Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, written for
fun not for profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, lemon, Dark, Angst, Psychological,
drama, fluff. Pairings: Mainly 1x2x1, 3x4x3, 5x6x5 but multiple
pairings also. Summary: A prequel to Broken Warriors and explores Trowa's life before Warriors and how he and Quatre came to be together. Notes: to new readers and those not so familiar
with GW in all its complexity: "Lost Soul" is based very
loosely on the manga, the TV show, and on the 03 background given
in the movie Endless Waltz. Those of you needing more detail, I'm
including it at the end of this chapter. P. Feedback welcome!
"Lost Soul"
Ch. 28: Scattered
Heero was not lonely. Logic dictated that in order to miss a person, one would have to form some emotional attachment to them, and Heero was specifically conditioned not to do that. It served no purpose. Such attachments were nothing more than useless distractions from the mission. As the world came apart around him, Heero needed no such distractions. He had acclimated completely to the Zero system, which, as it turned out, was calibrated to not only maintain but to accentuate his neural conditioning. Although it had been months since his last session with Dr. J, he was still in prime mental condition. J was gone, it seemed and Heero was on his own, but even without externally generated mission assignments to guide him, he found he had no problem adapting to the rapidly shifting political situation. Living in Wing, exposed for long periods to the effects of the Zero system, his mind achieved a remarkable level of clarity and detachment. Because of this, Heero was somewhat perplexed by the dreams he was having. Perhaps it was a side effect of the system, but they were more vivid than any he'd ever had before. By day he was passionless, focused, the perfect soldier. But at night he was haunted by memories of the time he'd spent with the other pilots. It was unsettling, a distraction. It wasn't that he'd disliked any of the other pilots. Trowa and Wufei in particular had been easy company, as focused as he was, and as devoted to the mission. They'd understood each other effortlessly, as warriors. He'd even enjoyed Wufei's poetry. Quatre and Duo had been more unsettling. They thought too much, felt too much, and talked too much, especially Duo. In his dreams he revisited all of them, reliving moments he'd spent in their company. He often dreamed of the cell at the moon base. He also relived the night he'd comforted Quatre. The ones that came to him the most often, however, were about Duo. Sometimes he dreamed about the night he'd been dragged out of the cell and hurt so badly that he'd cried. Duo might be a lot of things, but soft wasn't one of them. He'd never said what had been done to him, and Heero had never found an opportunity to ask Trowa about it, but it must have been very bad for him to break like that, even for a little while. He felt helpless in those dreams, just as he had that night, when he hadn't been able to protect or rescue him. Those dreams weren't the worst, though. Not as bad as the ones about Finland. Some started out well. He was naked with Duo in that ruined silo, holding him close, touching his skin and hair. The level of sexual arousal was so real and clear that he sometimes climaxed. A wet dream. Time and again he saw Duo turn to him, those violet blue eyes full of feeling, acceptance, warmth, and felt those soft full lips press to his own. He could feel Duo's thin body press to his. But more often than not, the dream ended as badly as the real event, with his own failure of judgment and Duo's violent response. //You almost raped him.// Heero woke from those dreams with his heart pounding, overcome with the same terrible guilt, shame, and panic he'd felt that night, and more often than not, sticky with cooling semen. That made him feel even worse. What sort of person was aroused by such things? No, that would never happen again. He would never allow himself to lose control like that again, with anyone. Not that he'd ever felt such impulses with anyone else. Now and then, however, the dreams of Duo were different. Heero would be swimming naked in the lake alone, and he was out very deep. The water was warm, not freezing as it had been that day. For some reason he suddenly began to sink, drown. No matter how hard he tried to swim to the surface, he could make no headway. He sank fast and deep, like a Gundam in the ocean, and he could feel the pressure of the water squeezing his burning lungs. He knew he could not hold out much longer. He'd have to take that fatal breath of water and that would be it. In these dreams he feared death in a way that he never did awake. As the pressure and fear closed in around him, a lithe, dark shape came swimming to him from the murky depths. As it came closer he saw it was a mermaid, like the ones he'd seen as a child in the Peter Pan book. It was a beautiful creature, pale and slender, with a sinuous, glittering blue tail. As it swam closer, he saw that it had Duo's face and his long, flowing hair, streaming like fine seaweed around his shoulders. The mermaid smiled at him and pressed his mouth to Heero's, filling his lungs with air. Then he put his arms around Heero and carried him up. Heero's head broke the surface of the water and he dragged in huge lungfuls of cold, sweet air. The mermaid remained under the surface, but Heero could feel him swimming around him, the brush of his body and silky hair and fins. Then his hands were on Heero again, caressing him. The hands moved down over his chest to his hips, then a hot mouth closed over his cock, sucking, licking . . . He woke up sticky from that dream every time, too, and even more confused. He put such dreams and thoughts completely out of his mind during the day, dismissing them as some sort of stress reaction. That was a concern. If J had been available, he would have reported them to see if further conditioning could make them go away.
He easily infiltrated the Romefeller Parliament the day Relena was to speak there, and taken up a position in the great auditorium there, with ever intention of assassinating her. He had her in his sights, a clear shot. But then the crowd reacted to her address in a way he had not anticipated. She turned the tables on Dermail and the others, offering a vision of the future that seemed to hold out hope of peace in space and on earth. Mission scrubbed. Time to fall back and regroup. As he was leaving the building, a worldwide address came on over every vid screen. And there was Zechs Merquise, calling himself Milliardo Peacecraft again, announcing his own declaration of war against the Earth. New mission parameters clicked into place in Heero's brain. He even understood; he'd flown the Epyon, experienced it's Zero system, so like Wing's. Peacecraft had been shown a different future and he was acting on it, boldly and decisively. His vision was in direct conflict with Heero's but he still admired the man's spirit. Heero knew his enemy, but he admired the warrior, too. Raising a hand at the screen, finger pointed like a gun's muzzle, he growled, "Mission accepted." #
He was almost ready to load when a familiar voice said, "Well, I thought I'd find you here?" Heero whirled around, weapon already drawn, and found Sally Po grinning at him. He kept his finger on the trigger as he demanded, "What are you doing here? How did you track me?" She just laughed. "Hey, you're not the only terrorist hacker around, you know. Besides, it wasn't hard, given all the fighting you've been doing, being the last Gundam on Earth and all. You've cut quite a swath. I figured when Zechs made that declaration, you'd go after him." "Why come looking for me?" he asked, still baffled. "I thought you might want to help me deliver this." She pointed to a huge transport truck that had just pulled up. The shrouded cargo on the flatbed had the unmistakable look of a Gundam. The workmen helping her released the cables and the canvass fell away. "Heavyarms! You found it." "Want to help me take it back to him?" "Him? Take back-" For an instant Heero could only stare at her as he tried to let the words sink in. "You-you mean Trowa's turned up? Alive?" "This wouldn't be much good to him otherwise, now would it? Duo found him a month ago, on one of the colonies, and Quatre went and got him later. He has amnesia, apparently, but Noin says he's still operational as a pilot. Dou's with them now, too. You mean you haven't been in touch with any of them?" "No." It had never occurred to him that the others might be keeping in contact. Duo. Trowa. Quatre. All of them alive and together. Something tried to penetrate the hard shell of conditioning around Heero's heart. It hurt and he dismissed it. He joined her because it was the logical thing to do. He was not lonely. # Wufei fought to drive the forces of war from space. He fought to prove his integrity. He fought because there was nothing left for him to do but fight. He entered colonies only long enough to restock his life support and armament systems, and found it difficult to interact with other people. He had no home, no roots, no connection to anyone. In every battle, he secretly prayed that he would meet his match and find peace at last, but it was no use. No one could stand against him, and because of that, he destroyed them without mercy. He filled his heart with hate and fury. Without that, he could not keep the pain at bay. Even so, he was not blind to his own failings. He attacked White Fang's Libra battle satellite and was driven back, not by the mindless dolls, but by their heavy armaments. Perhaps it was too much to expect, for a Gundam to take on an entire fortress, but he would not forgive himself for his failure, or his survival. He felt a spark of hope when he faced Zechs Merquise there. The man was brilliant, if mad, and he flew a mighty new Gundam, the Epyon. Wufei came alive for a little while, fighting him, but in the end Merquise failed him like all the others. First he tried to convince Wufei to join his cause, and then he broke off the combat and left without resolution. Again. It took hours for Wufei to master his frustration and his racing heart. His whole body ached with it. Exhausted, empty, he fought on until Nataku was a battered, malfunctioning wreck. Out of ammo, out of food, his water supply dwindling, Wufei was left floating in space with bare life support. A useless death, and all he deserved. When he intercepted Merquise's transmission, declaring war on the Earth, he hardly had the will to care, much less the strength to do anything about it. Perhaps the spirits of his ancestors took pity on him at last, unworthy as he was. Out of the darkness, a huge transport approached piloted by Heero Yuy and Sally Po. The docking bay opened and he maneuvered Altron into a bay. There were several other suits stored there, and he glanced at them curiously as he made his way up to the cockpit. Po was piloting and smiled back over her shoulder at him. Yuy just scowled and grunted. "So you're still fighting?" Wufei said, crossing his arms and looking at the two of them. "You took the words right out of my mouth," Sally chuckled. He'd forgotten how maddeningly flippant she was with him. "That suit I saw in the bay was Merquise's, wasn't it? Are you flying it now, Yuy?" "Yeah." "What about that other one. It looks like Heavyarms. Where's Barton?" Yuy told him how Winner had gone Zero in a powerful new suit, and how he'd attacked not only a colony but Barton and Yuy as well, while they were piloting OZ suits. Wufei was surprised at Yuy's lack of anger at Winner. He gave little beyond the bare details of the incident, but there was an odd look in his eye, especially after Sally added that Barton had been found alive recently. Yuy seemed colder and more distant than he had in the prison cell they'd shared, yet there was a hint of deeply buried emotion in his eyes. "Where are you heading?" he asked. "Libra's in the opposite direction." "We're heading for the Peacemillion. Noin is waiting there, and she has the three other Gundam pilots with her." Wufei scowled. All he wanted to do was refuel and resupply and get back to his solitary war. Sally read his mind. "We're almost out of supplies here. On Peacemillion they've got everything you need, as well as engineers who can repair your Gundam. You can go attack Libra any time after that, right?" "You want me to join you?" He glanced at Heero, but he said nothing, gave away nothing. It looked like he could care less what Wufei did. For an instant that bothered him. During those long, empty days in that cell they'd become friends, or so he'd thought. Heero seemed like a stranger now. Sally, on the other hand, seemed to know that he had little choice and was enjoying it. "You can use Peacemillion as a base for your own agenda if you want. Hell, I thought this was an offer you couldn't refuse." Wufei snorted and sat down, smoothing the front of his white tunic. "Wufei?" she chided, as if he was some rude child. "Thanks for your kindness, but I'm not making any deals," he shot back. Wufei had no intention of doing that, any more than he'd considered Merquise's offer. The very thought made him feel even more cold and dead inside. No, he would repair his suit and go back to his lonely battle. "Wufei!" "Just drop it," Yuy muttered. "He does things his own way." //Well, at least we still understand one another,// thought Wufei.
"Don't let the Zero system disorient you," he warned, showing him the cockpit. "I need no help!" Wufei snapped, climbing in. He was surprised that Yuy would stoop to letting a computer system control him. "Why are you doing this?" Heero just shrugged and said, "While you're piloting the Zero, it will tell you who your true enemies are." The Zero was built on the same plan as the other Gundams, but with improvements almost identical to those on his Altron. "Come on, Zero. Show me what you've got!" he cried as he burst from the shuttle and fired a test round. The Virgos and dolls were on him at once, and he waded in, hacking with the beam saber in close combat. //The road I'm taking is the correct choice!// he thought as they fell before him, as always. IN the midst of the battle, however, something happened. A bright golden glow filled the cockpit, blinding him, and he felt a strange, drugged sensation. "No!" he cried, fighting the system. "I'll fight alone, on my own, until the day I die!" He had no way to control it, however, and when it took over, it truly was like a drug. His senses expanded. Suddenly he seemed to see in 360 degrees, and the suit became like his own body, it's metal skin his skin, sensitive to every change in battle. It was wonderful. But then something happened. The Zero system engulfed his consciousness, took over his mind, showing him a confusing muddle of images. There were flashes of battles, including those he'd fought with Treize and Zechs. He saw Kushreneda again, saw a new battle, their suits clashing and dancing against the stars. It thrilled him as nothing had in months. His whole body tingled, as if they were really fighting. "You are my destiny," he whispered. "You will be my death. That is my future!" But then the image was replaced by something else. He saw the faces of the other four pilots there before him against the backdrop of space, and they were woven into his destiny, too. This was less welcome, but no less strong. Zero showed him, in unequivocal terms, that he must swallow his pride and work with them, that they were the only ones in the entire universe he could ally with and not lose honor. In fact, they needed him. In the midst of this, his com channel brought him Milliardo Peacecraft's declaration of war against the Earth. Floating in space, surrounded by the debris of his latest victory, Chang Wufei bowed his head. "My enemies are Treize Kushreneda and Milliardo Peacecraft. I will defeat them. That's what I must do!" He returned to the transport chagrinned and thoughtful, and grudgingly muttered that he would stay. Lying in the narrow bunk they gave him hours later, he could not sleep. He missed the con chair and the comforting confines of his Gundam. It was hard to relax, lying in a real bed. He felt exposed and vulnerable. The thought that he was not in charge of the controls of this craft brought on something very like panic. He closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, trying to escape into a meditative state. The image of Kushreneda came to him behind his eyelids, but as he'd been that day of the disastrous dual. He was standing over Wufei, and he was smiling as he promised that they would fight again. It was almost as if he'd known what Zero had shown Wufei, back then. He gave up and went to the suit bay, thinking to spend the rest of the sleep cycle in the cockpit. He found Yuy there, tinkering with Wing's external guns. Wufei grunted a greeting and started for his own suit. "Chang?" He stopped and found Yuy still staring down at the parts he'd been working on. "Yes, what is it?" Yuy looked up at him, and Chang noticed for the first time how terribly tired he looked. Not weak, or beaten, just used up. "Do you dream?" Wufei blinked in surprise, ill at ease with the question. "Yes," he snapped, and moved on to his suit. He had no desire to be reminded of his dreams. They were all of death, destruction, and his own numerous failures. He comforted himself with the vision Zero had shown him. He would meet Kushreneda again, and this time it would be a proper battle against a worthy opponent. He would have his peace.
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