"Behind Every Successful Man..."
a seriocomic Gundam Wing fanfic

by the Princess

BEFORE:

BEEP BEEP YAOI ALERT!! No, I just like seeing the homophobes jump in fear.

Seriously... Although it's weird, it's also somewhat probable when you think about it. It does explain some of the phenomena that seem to occur in the show, and proves that when they talk to their Gundams, they're not actually batshit. If you're a Relena fan, then you need to run away screaming right now. If you don't like shounen-ai or foul language, you need to follow the Relena-groupie's examples. Let me know when and where I fuck things up and everyone's lives will be happier. This one goes out to Rio, my own personal Muse, who also believes that men would be nowhere without the other half of the species...

[Although the Gundam Boys seem to get along just fine without women--but look at their choices!]

***

~One~

In the hangar, the hissing voices bounced and echoed off the walls:

/Takai! What'd ol' Queue-boy have to confess this week?/

/Oh, Karite honey, you wouldn't believe me if I told you!/

/Come on, gossip goddess! Wha'd your old man have to say?/

Singsong: /I know something Suna don't.../

Whining: /Pleeeeeeeze! Tell me it has something to do with Trowa getting supremely humiliated!/

/Omoi, you're the only one here who actually hates him for no good reason./

/Yeah, well, with an ugly mug like *that*, who could like him?/

/Quatre!/

Emotionless: /Tell us about it, Takai./

/Ow! Owowowowow! Mercy! Mercy! Cripes, you're meaner than a damn snake! OK ladies, Wufei says that.../

The tittering voices were hushed as Takai hissed her stories to them. Every so often, one of them cried out in shock, only to be hushed by the others:

/Duo did WHAT to Rashid's new chihuahua?!/

/That's it. Hiro's getting an extra-good scrambling next time he hooks into Zero./

/I knew Trowa was putting something weird in his hair, but THAT?/

/My little angel's a kinky sex pervert! I'm so ashamed.../

/Guess who's running out of ammo extra-early next mission?/

/How can Hiro be such an asshole?!/

/Years of dedicated practice!/

Suddenly, the voices were cut off as a Maganac menail entered the hangar. He stared at the five Gundams suspiciously. He could have sworn he'd heard voices in here, but...they had sounded like women's voices...

The mecha-suits stared back with dead, glassy eyes.

Shaking his head and mumbling something about the TV blaring too loud, the mechanic retrieved his monkey wrench and left the hangar. Almost immediately, the female titters began in earnest:

/My little blonde Arab does NOT make Trowa pant like a dog!/

Hiro read over the email, his cobalt eyes passive as they flickered over the words on the screen. His apt soldier's mind absorbed every word the first time through, but due to the bizarre contents, he had to read it over twice. Once he was positive that he wasn't hallucinating, he deleted the message, turned off the laptop, and went to find the others.

They were on call again, and he was not happy about it. It wasn't that he resented being a soldier in the war; that would have meant resenting himself. He accepted that, being the perfect warrior, it was his duty to fight with, well, perfection. But being on missions almost always meant that he'd have to share quarters with Duo, never a pleasant prospect. The Bigmouthed Wonder would be babbling deep into the night when they should be sleeping and regaining strength. He'd ask moronic questions and keep right on talking without pause for an answer. He'd be joking, friendly, open, and--Hiro had to admit it--quite flirtatious.

>Hell, last time he--<

(Shut up. I'm not going to think about it.)

"Hn," he grunted as he made his way to the hangar. It helped him clear his head of those pesky voices.

Instead of wasting more energy on Duo, he considered the email. It actually made a bit of sense. He'd been thinking that something had been missing of late... And he had certainly noticed the conspicuous absence of a certain blonde-haired screeching weasel. As for the others... Well, it could be true. He hadn't really noticed. The other pilots would know better than he.

He found Duo up to his ears in motor oil, in the process of dissecting Deathscythe. Hiro guessed that the fool had been on one of his junk-trips, and was re-outfitting his Gundam. Duo was lying on his back on a rolling board, his body hidden under his Gundam's shadow, and he was merrily singing: "Ma-cho, ma-cho maaaaaaaaan...I wanna be...A ma-cho man..."

>Kawaii!<

(No one asked your opinion!)

Hiro kicked the other boy, who screamed out. "Don't shoot, I'm--oh. It's you." He rolled out from under his Gundam. "You know, saying 'hello' is a more accepted form of getting someone's attention. 'Duo, I need to talk to you' is another one. Even 'ne, asshole' is better than getting kicked in the head. Then again, since you've got your head up your laptop all the time, you probably don't work too much on public relations--"

Hiro gritted his teeth. This is what he hated about Duo: the never-ending stream of chatter! "We've got a mission," he said tonelessly.

The goodwill and cheer vaporized from Duo's violet eyes. His whole face crumpled. "Aw, damn it! Just when I started hoping that Trieze had drowned on one of his drinks from the toilet!... What's the mission?"

"Weird," Hiro replied without thinking. "It's weird. I'd rather wait until we're all together before getting into details."

"OK, where's everybody else?"

"Wufei is practicing his martial arts, and Quatre and Trowa are having a..." he thought for a second "... 'jam session'?"

"Kakkoi!" He hopped up, nearly losing his balance on the rolling board, and brushed his filthy hair out of his face. "You get Wufei--I ain't getting near him when he's doing his ju jitsu shit--and I'll retrieve our musicians."

"Who said anything about music?"

"Oh, *those* jam sessions!" Duo said without missing a beat, although Hiro noticed the embarrassed blush that jumped into the other boy's cheeks. "Then you go get Wufei and I'll make Rashid retrieve our lovesick puppies." He wiped oil and grit off his hands onto his pants, and ran off to go find the Maganac 'leader'.

(Well, if he finds Rashid, then the mission will be over.)

>Damn! That means no--<

(Piss off!)

Thirty minutes later, the Gundam pilots were all gathered in the hangar. "What's going on, Hiro?" Quatre asked. He was sitting on a railing and kicking his feet.

The Wing Zero pilot was blunt. "I recieved an email from the professors yesterday. I only got it this morning, though. They think Relena's been kidnapped."

He was cut off as the other four pilots (except Trowa) burst into callous laughter. "And we give a shit *because*...?" Duo managed to stammer, wiping tears from his eyes.

As though no one had interrupted, Hiro plowed on with the list: "Relena... and Dorothy... and Zechs... and Noin... and Hilde... and Une... and Sally Po... and Catherine... and Rashid."

"I still don't see why we care," Wufei put in.

"Naw, that ain't cool!" Duo cried. "Some of 'em were on our side!"

"In fact," Hiro continued, "rumors are that Trieze might also be gone... And while you idiots were screwing around, I checked up on the professors. They've all vanished as well."

"Oh, no," Quatre murmured. His kawaii eyes were huge with shock and sadness. "How'd they get Rashid without my noticing...?"

"They wanted us to investigate and see what we could do."

As the pilots discussed their options, a female voice whispered: /You don't think--/

/Oh, but I do. Who else could it be?/

/Come on, Karite, you're not serious!/

/Urusai and listen...!/

***

~Two~ [warning: this is more depressing than I can normally maintain at one time-Princess]

Glad that the meeting was over and he could squeeze in more work on Shinigami, Duo immediately scuttled off. He did his best to continue his work, but most of the new parts seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet. He searched fruitlessly for a half hour, then gave up as his stomach began growling for attention.

Resigned, he went to the kitchen, where he found Quatre reading a Reader's Digest and eating popcorn. "Hi, Duo, what's up?" he asked, picking popcorn out of his teeth. "You ready for the mission?"

"I'll be more ready tomorrow. I'm trying not to think on it too hard." He started going through the fridge.

"You're not cooking, are you?" A thread of panic wove its way through Quatre's cheerful voice.

He grinned. "Occourse not! I learned my lesson that one time with the chihuahua!"

The blonde turned green at the memory. "I still can't believe you did that."

"I still haven't figured out how it got in the fridge." He selected a block of cheese, and held it up for his friend's inspection. "Does this look like a dead Mexican dog to you?"

"No..."

"Good, because I'm gonna fucking eat it."

There was an awkward silence as Braid-boy retrieved a knife [well, to be fair, it was more of a bayonet than a kitchen knife], sat down at the kitchen table, and hacked away.

"So!" Quatre said, keeping his blue eyes focused on the article in front of him. "What happened between you and Hiro?"

Duo, busy cutting his block of cheese into hunks, cleanly missed his aim. The knife clunked harmlessly onto the table, a half an inch from Duo's own fingers. "What makes you think something happened?" he said, with a huge and fake grin.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"I guess." He gave up trying to look cheerful and interested in the cheddar. He set the knife down and stared at its silver edge despondently. "Just me being stupid. That's what happened, I mean. On the last mission. We were sharing quarters like always, and I was feeling especially talkative... But Hiro was asleep. So I started talking to him, even though he wasn't awake to tell me to shut the fuck up, or 'Omae o korosu'. I was just talking to hear my voice, at first. I told him I thought it got too hot here in the summer. I made up some scenarios where Relena died a grisly death--"

Quatre laughed a little.

"I was just babbling, you know? And then, I found myself talking about him. About how I thought he was beautiful. How I loved his eyes, even though they never looked at me with a bit of love or kindness. How I thought that if he gave himself a chance, he could be so much warmer and kinder. And finally, I told him that I loved him more than anything I'd ever loved before." His voice was starting to shake, almost inperceptible.

"Uh-oh," the blonde said, starting to guess where this was leading.

"And after I said that, he suddenly sat bolt-upright in bed. He'd... He'd been awake the whole time. Just lying there and listening to me. Maybe he'd started drifting off, and snapped back awake when I started talking about him. I don't know. But he was wide awake when I said... that I loved him. And he stared at me for so long, I thought that he was going to... I don't know what I thought he'd do. And finally, he said... he said..." His words were becoming lost in his tears.

"Go on," Quatre said, gently prodding.

"He said that he didn't love me. That he never had and never would. That I was stupid and romantic and clueless. That I was a liability as a soldier, letting my feelings get in the way. And... that anyone who ever loved me, who thought I was worthwhile, would have to be even stupider than I was. He actually said that I wasn't worth the space I take up. Can you fathom that? Being told something like that by the person you love?"

The blonde tried to picture Trowa's mouth saying those words, and couldn't. "God, Duo, I'm so sorry," he said, putting a comforting arm around the weeping pilot. "Tell you what. I'll talk to Hiro about it, OK? I'm brewing some orange spiced tea right now. So you and me and Trowa can have some tea--"

/And then fuck like rabbits!/

The disembodied, ghostly voice came from nowhere, but there seemed to be only one culprit.

"DUO!" Quatre gasped, yanking away, his face going pink. "How could you say something like that?!"

"Say what? I didn't say that!" the pilot protested. "Swear to Shinigami!"

"You can't take anything seriously, can you?!"

"I was! I was! I don't know where that came from! It wasn't me, dammit! I have SOME tact!"

"Then who said that?"

Trowa entered the room at that second. He returned the other pilots' accusing gazes with a puzzled stare. "What?"

"You're sick!" Duo cried, returning to his cheese. "Fucking like rabbits--no grace whatsoever!"

/That didn't even SOUND like Trowa!/

/Who cares, let 'em think it was him./

/You're mean, Omoi!/

/What're you guys doing here?! We've got a bloody mission coming up!/

/ITAI! OK!/

While Trowa, Quatre and Duo argued and pointed fingers long into the night, Wufei was alone in his quarters. He had just hopped out of a three-hour soak in the tub, and most of him was still damp. His hair was still wet, and hung loose and thick around his face, like an ebony rendition of water. He lay on his bed, naked except for the blanket that covered what was important, and stared at the ceiling hard. His breath was deep and regular as one who was asleep, but he was wide awake.

>Unfortunately,< he thought bitterly at that last, then squelched the idea.

Were one watching him closely, one might assume that he was thinking very deeply. He was in such a brown study, his breath and eyes so steady, that one could imagine the wheels in his head grinding into fifth gear. But it would be an incorrect assumption, because Wufei wasn't thinking at all. He was trying to avoid his thoughts as much as humanly possible.

Had he been thinking, his mind would have drifted back to Hiro's words about the mission. He would have repeated the list of captives over and over in his head, always with a note of disbelief when he reached Trieze's name. Wufei was past denying that he wasn't slightly attracted to the OZ general, but the thought of actually *doing* anything left him with a certain sense of horror. He was bound and determined to kill Trieze, for one thing. For another, it was dishonorable to sleep with the enemy. The difference of their ages also left him with a sort of excited nervousness, not something he cottoned to at all.

And most importantly, there was Nataku to consider--

>Dammit! Stop dwelling on it!<

Right, he wasn't thinking. So he wouldn't consider what whoever-it-was was doing to the captives, to Trieze. He wouldn't consider that he was going to lose the general [not that he cared; he just wanted to duel with him in honorable combat, not let him die in shame!!] as he had once lost Meiran. He wouldn't consider how much he missed Meiran, her strength and her determination. And he certainly wasn't going to dwell on his own failure--how he had failed his wife, his colony, and himself. How--

>Stop it! STOP IT!<

Wufei suddenly exploded into action. He leapt to his feet, losing the towel somewhere along the way, and took up a battle stance instinctively. Every muscle in his body was tense to the point of screaming, of snapping. "SAAAAAAA!!" he screamed, cocking his head back like he was howling at the moon. But he couldn't drown out his anguish with his voice, and he collapsed on the ground in a shuddering pile, naked in more ways than one, and weeping with all of his soul. And as he sank to grief, his last thought [non-thought, actually; remember, he wasn't thinking] was that he thought he heard the whisper of women's voices... but like everything else, they faded and disappeared.

/How you torment yourself... If only I could--/

/Here you are! We've been looking for you. The mission's tomorrow night; we need to prepare./

/...Yes. Prepare. Right. Are you--/

/Don't I always? Haven't I already?/

***

~Three~

After a hearty breakfast--Duo knew he wouldn't be able to eat any dinner that night, not without getting nervous and puking, and so he stuffed as much food as possible down--the Deathscythe pilot continued his search for the new parts. Not only were the ones that'd disappeared yesterday completely gone, but many of the other tools and supplies had vanished as well. He finally gave up after a thorough cleaning of the hangar, and resolved himself to an afternoon of his two favorite pastimes: watching bad movies, and frustrating Hiro!

He strategically placed himself in front of the TV in the living room. He had just gotten to the part in "The Evil Dead" when the girl is pinned down by the tree, when Hiro passed through. "Ne, Hiro," he said, "check this part out! It's right up your alley!"

A questioning look on his face, Hiro glanced at the television screen, and quickly regretted it. A weird look passed over his face, a hybrid of disgust and perverse laughter. He seemed to want to laugh and scream all at once. "Great, now I can't get into Heaven," Hiro murmured, actually fleeing the room.

Duo laughed at this reaction so hard that he nearly pissed his pants. "P-priceless!" he stammered. "Worth watching the whole d-damn movie... Never SEEN Hiro so freaked before--"

Suddenly, the television exploded.

About this time, Quatre was killing time in the kitchen. He had been flipping through one of the many cookbooks there, and had stumbled across a recipe for some pudding desert called 'flan'. He couldn't recall ever eating flan before, and decided that it sounded positively yummy. He busied himself among the pots, pans, oven, and fridge.

[The reader has three seconds to cringe in anticipation of the coming mess.]

Around an hour later, he had the custard--a huge confection of milk, sugar, and eggs which was a wobbly foot tall--safely inside the oven. "Should be ready in a while," he whispered to himself as he got his Reader's Digest and flipped to a new article. "Then we can all have a nice dessert before going out on the mission! I hope that the captives are OK... Not even Mr. Trieze deserves the shame of being a prisoner."

He sat himself down at the table with a Diet Coke and peacefully read... until all hell broke loose.

About the same time that a delicious, sweet scent started wafting through the air, a weird bubbling noise was emitted from the oven. The Arab looked at the oven curiously as the popping, crackling noise got ever louder and suspicious. Like a natural-born sucker, Quatre abandoned his soda and magazine, and went over to the sizzling kitchen appliance.

"What in the world--" he started, reaching to turn off the oven. As his fingers brushed the power button, the machine screamed in protest, and appeared to open its mouth and puke flan all over the hapless pilot.

Hiro sat in the bathtub, going over his skin for the fifth time with a loofa scrubber. He was starting to lose his epidermal layer of skin, but continued to scrub with all his suicidal tenacity.

(Still not clean... Still tainted with the awful images...)

>Oh, come on, Hiro. Are you acting so revolted because you saw a chick get nailed by a tree, or because you know that Duo almost got you to laugh?<

(I thought I told you to piss off!)

"Hn!" he snorted. He normally didn't have this much trouble with himself.

Finally feeling purged of the movie--and Duo's influence over him--he wrapped a towel firmly around his middle and went into his room to retrieve his clothes.

But he stopped dead.

On his bed was a video camera. The thing had been aimed at his open bathroom door, had apparently been watching him the entire time he'd been bathing. The little red light was on as it busily recorded his every move.

Hiro instinctively reached for his gun, but since he wasn't wearing his magical Spandex, it was not to be. He grabbed at nothing and wound up dropping his towel around his ankles. Now supremely humiliated, he scrambled for his lost towel, all the time turning a marvelous shade of maroon.

As he did, the camera sang: "Smile! You're on Candid Web-Camera!"

Trowa studied the bookcases in the safehouse's library, occasionally plucking a book from its place and glancing over the cover. He finally selected one entitled: "How to Piss Someone Off in Japanese--Twenty Easy Lessons!"

>What the hell. It could be amusing.<

He sat down at one of the library's many tables, and opened to page one.

#Lesson 1-The basic volcabulary

The following are words you will be using in all your lessons:

Urusai!-Shut up!

Baka!-Idiot/asshole/dumbass/jerk

Kuso! [alternatively, k'so]-Damn/shit

Hentai!-Pervert!

Busu!-Bitch!#

He moved on to other lessons, smiling in his gentle way. It wasn't that he wasn't familiar with the terms... It was just too funny to see them in lesson form, like someone would actually sit and try to commit gutter-Japanese to memory--

His surprise was complete when a nearby bookshelf fell on him.

Wufei fluidly moved from fighting position to fighting position, with all the grace of a wild panther. Practicing, constantly practicing, helped to keep the plague of thoughts from overcoming his mind and soul.

Transition... Transition...

Attack!

His eyes snapped open. With a guttral cry, he sprung into attack, reducing the imaginary enemy to a bleeding lump, leaving 'him' begging for mercy before 'he' disappeared in Wufei's mind.

>That's right. Just trying to block the thoughts. But is this an enemy whose blows I can counter? How do I combat *myself*?<

He screamed the idea away, and vaulted himself into another combat routine... but he found himself sliding along the ground faster than he should have been--

In the infirmary, Duo sat on one of the treatment tables and allowed the resident nurse to tape up his cuts. He'd gotten more than a few lacerations from flying glass when the TV had exploded. "Hey, I thought Sally Po was supposed to be here today," he said, then stopped himself. "Oh, yeah. She's gone. Stupid me. ITAI!" He swatted at the nurse, who had been applying peroxide to a deep cut. "That hurt, you tunnel-digger!"

The nurse sweatdropped. "I-I-I'm sorry, sir," he stammered, "but this one's nasty. It needs to be disinfected."

"Aw, hell! I've been through worse!" Still, as the cleanser burned into his skin, he had difficulty remembering just *when* he'd gone through worse...

>How about the way you feel inside, right now? Compared with the misery in your heart, how can a little cut hurt that bad? And how can you even feel any pain through that mask you wear?<

"And worse than this, my movie's ruined!" he griped as the orderly applied bandages. "I have to buy it AGAIN! I can't imagine a worse injustice than that--hey! Maybe I can pay Wufei to avenge my lost video tape! Whadaya think?"

"What movie?"

"'The Evil Dead'."

"Not likely."

"DAMN! What the hell is honor and justice for when you won't avenge such a willy-nilly-fun-fun movie like 'Evil Dead'?! Useless, I tell you! I'm telling you, man--"

"DUO!"

"E?!" Both patient and nurse glanced up at the doorway, and froze in oh-shit-all-of-these-bad-men-have-come-to-staple-my-ass-to-a-wall-with-a-rusty-stapler fear.

The other four pilots, in various states of chaos, were standing in the doorway. Hiro, soaking wet and wearing only his Spandex, was the color of a sunset after a nuclear explosion. Quatre was covered from head to foot with a mushy, yellow, gelatinous substance. His baby-blue eyes were the only distinguishing feature in his face, and they were boiling mad. Trowa had two black eyes, a bloody nose, and plentiful bruises and cuts. He looked like he'd been bitch-slapped by King Kong. As for Wufei... He, like Quatre, had had an unpleasant run-in with foodstuffs. His clothing looked soaked in water, but once you smelled and touched it, you realized he was actually covered in bacon grease.

The pilots screamed again in unison: "DUO!"

"E?!" he repeated, scrambling backwards, putting the nurse between his person and the psychotics coming in at close range.

"You rigged my flan to explode!" Quatre shrieked.

"You set up a web-cam to film me bathing!" Hiro growled.

"You pushed a bookshelf on me!" Trowa said angrily.

"You greased my workout-room floor with bacon grease and left a big vat of the stuff at the end of the trail!" Wufei declared.

"HUH?!" the befuddled American cried. "No, I didn't! I've been here for the past fifteen minutes! The TV exploded and I had to get patched up! Tell 'em, whatever-your-name-is!" he begged the nurse.

"It's true," the orderly said cautiously. "He's been in here with me. The television in the living room actually exploded. It was a miracle he didn't get it worse than he did."

"But... But..." Wufei stammered. "Duo's the only one devious or stupid enough to come up with pranks like that!"

"Yeah, and I cut myself up to make it all the more real," Duo said dryly.

"But if not you," Quatre said, "then who?"

/Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUN!/

/Christ! Here you are! You should already be in your place!/

/OW! Leggo my ear!/

***

~Four~

Despite the general turmoil and accusations going on, the pilots managed to get themselves together for their mission. The coordinances that Dr. J sent before his capture were all they had to go on. In the hangar, Quatre went over the plans for everyone:

"The place where the captives are being held is a fortress-type building the size of a super-mall. There aren't any mobile suits, since it isn't run by OZ, and as far as we can tell, OZ forces are too disorganized without their titular head to act. Without Trieze, Zechs, Noin and Une, they're incapable of functioning. So we should be able to break in and out without much concern over getting attacked by Aeris or Leo or anything.

"The enemies seem to be armed with standard non-mecha weapons, but we don't need to worry about those too much. They can't even destroy a typical suit, much less our Gundams."

"So how the hell do these people intend to keep their prisoners, if anyone could break in?" Duo cut in.

He shrugged. "Don't know. It's something that's been bothering me, too. This person [or people] was able to kidnap a collection of the best military personell on Earth and the colonies, and they apparently did it without any type of mobile suit. But the why or how isn't what we're worried about; what we need to focus on is our mission.

"The thickest concentration of soldier posts are on the eastern side of the fortress. Duo and Wufei are going to take them out. This should be quick and easy combat for you guys. Trowa and I are going to raid from the south, where the live soldiers are fewer, but there are a lot of automated arms--laser cannons and that sort of thing. Hiro is going to drop in on that huge room right there--" he pointed at the map before him "--the one tucked into the southeastern corner. While we three are distracting the defenses, Hiro will blast his way through the ceiling. It's the only room big enough for you to land Wing Zero in, which you need to do, since we won't be able to protect it for you. Once he clears out any soldiers inside, he goes here--" he pointed again "--and starts releasing the prisoners. Once release, we have no way to transport them, so we can either commandeer a transport plane to ship them away, or just leave them on their own. They're all capable people, so I don't think we'll have to coddle them...

"And that's basically it. We hit them hard and fast, and leave them wondering what just slammed into them."

"Question," Hiro said flatly. "What about whoever's behind this? Shouldn't we be concerned about an enemy capable of capturing the collective head of OZ, the professors, and a few of our closest men right under our noses?"

"Yeah, they *did* sort of snag the whole supporting cast," Duo agreed.

"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," Wufei replied stiffly, cutting Quatre off. "We're soldiers, not gods. Just mortals."

"Then I guess we'd better hurry," Trowa said in a rare moment of sarcasm, "before we all die of old age..."

/Here we go again.../

The attack went as sceduled for the most part. The poor soldiers, having no clue of what they were up against, merely stood and became Gundam fodder. Duo and Wufei decimated the troops on their side of the fortress, raking them with thermal blades and dragon's flame. Both forgot their inner pains and worries in the moment, in their battle cries and victories, drowning their pain in the enemies' blood.

Trowa and Quatre had a fine time trying to disable the laser cannons on their side. While Sandrock wiped out the ground forces, Heavyarms brought a hail of missles and bullets down onto the fortress's armaments, until the cannon crumpled like tinfoil. When he finished with them, he was all out of ammo, but was still more than willing to help Quatre in exterminating the soldiers.

As this was going on, Hiro gently lit on the appropriate area of the roof, and used his thermal sword to cut his way through. He dropped down inside the building with a loud, screeching noise, and swore to himself. Too clumsy--

Sure enough, the huge room--apparently some kind of ballroom--quickly began to fill with Goomba-esque soldiers. Not wanting to risk blowing up the prisoners and his friends, he refrained from using his blaster, and instead relied on sword and shield to crush the pitiful soldiers like the bugs they were. All the while, though, he was getting more and more nervous. Something was wrong. Nothing was ever this easy. It was almost like a voice was trying to tell him something, something vastly important, but he was incapable of recieving the message. And the gut feeling that something was fishy in L1 was enough to freak him out.

>This is a trap,< one of his selves panicked. >It's a bloody trap. There's no way that it could be so simplistic as this. You've never been this lucky before.<

(Shut up. The mission will go the way it's supposed to. There's nothing to panic over.)

/Oh, but there is./

He blinked. That was a new one.

/There's enough firepower in this building to send all of your Gundams to hell... even your little angel of Death. He's in danger more than anyone. Better hurry, or he's toast./

"Nanda--" he started, looking around in blind fright, and saw no one who could have spoken those words. It was stupid to react to them, but without really thinking about it, he clicked on his radio system and shouted into it: "There's a trap of some sort. All of you, get out, now!"

Duo glanced at his radio system as it gave a dying squawk. "Dammit!" he cried, smacking it uselessly. "Stupid cheap thing--did anyone pick that up?"

"No, I thought it was interference," Wufei replied.

"No interference... It sounded like Hiro's voice..."

"Do you think he's OK in there?" Quatre piped up worriedly.

"I'm gonna find out!" Duo replied resolutely. Deathscythe leapt on top of the building and hopped inside through the hole Wing Zero had made, and after a second, the others followed his lead.

When Hiro saw the other pilots coming in behind him, the alarm increased tenfold, into panic.

>Something's wrong here, something's wrong, oh God something's so wrong--<

"You baka!" he bellowed at Duo. "What the hell's the matter with you? I just told you guys to get the hell away! Something's wrong here; it's a--"

Hiro's voice was abruptly severed as the noise of ripping metal filled the room.

The hole in the ceiling slammed shut, trapping them inside.

It had been a door.

/Oh, dear./

/TOLD you he wouldn't listen! A soldier to the end!/

/It's not his end yet. The mission is not yet complete./

***

~Five~

The five Gundam pilots looked warily at the eastern wall, which was opening wide at an alarming rate. "What the shit--" Duo started, but cut himself off.

The entire wall was the barrel of a titanic gun.

Over an unseen speaker system, a nasal voice proclaimed: "Gundam Pilots! What you see before you is the Bishie Blaster 9000. It is capable of destroying both you and your Gundams in a single shot. Unless you have an interest in becoming a human/mecha patè, get out of your suits with your hands up and disarm yourselves!"

None of the pilots made a move. Duo and Quatre were too bullshit with fear to think of moving, while the other three were set with determination. Wufei snarled: "I'll die before surrendering Nataku to any enemy!"

"You said it," Hiro growled, his fingers already clenching his detonator.

The grim conviction in their words was unshakable as iron. It seemed as though the entire bloody rebellion was going to be ended at the barrel of a ridiculously huge cannon, when...

/How stupid are you?! Are you going to let yourself die for idiotic pride?!/

>Who are you?<

"I should warn you," the nasal voice continued. "All of you must surrender. If one of you does not give up, then all of you will be destroyed." The voice's owner seemed to sneer. "Your Gundams, of course, will be deconstructed and studied... But you all will be set free."

"Bullshit!" Duo spat.

/Do you want the others to die? What about Trowa?/

>What are you?!<

/Let's say that I'm your better half. You need to trust me on this. They trust your judgement, Quatre. If you surrender, they will too. Believe me, there will be no destroying of Gundams or pilots today. Just go with what I say./

>How can I trust you? I don't know who you are! 'My better half'? What's that supposed to mean?<

/It means, my angel, that this is you speaking to you. You know that the Gundams have a new fail-safe program; why not use that?/

>But--<

/No more bloody arguments!/

"Stubborn unto the end," the voice sneered. "Very well. Commence the firing sequence!"

"NO!"

Everyone's attention focused on Sandrock. After a second, the hatch popped open, and the short blonde pilot jumped out.

"Quatre," Trowa breathed.

The Arab, gentle features firm, removed his pistol from the cheater's holster and dropped it on the ground. He then held his hands up, in the universal sign of the white flag.

"Ah, the plot congeals," the voice said, pleased. "What now, pilots?"

A beat later, Heavyarms's hatch opened, and Trowa slid to the earth. He disarmed and held his hands up. Finally, he was followed by all the others: Duo dropped his pistol, Wufei abandoned his sword, and Hiro took ten minutes to clean his pants of every weapon he had stashed in there.

"You could take over a third world country with the weaponry in your Spandex, Hiro," the voice said appreciatively. Two doors--one on the northern wall, the other on the southern--slid open. "Now, follow my directions exactly. Wufei must go through the southern door. It leads to the outside of this facility. He is set free. The other pilots will go through the northern door, which leads to the interrogation hall--"

"No fair!" Duo whined.

"I won't dishonor myself by running like a coward!" the Chinese pilot interrupted vehemently.

"Suit yourself," the voice said. "Either dishonor yourself by accepting the opportunity of freedom, or dishonor yourself by causing the death of your teammates and the destruction of the Gundams. Your choice."

"No," Wufei growled.

"Get out of here," Quatre begged. "Save yourself."

"We're dead anyhow," Trowa added.

"No," he denied, the word hitching in his throat.

"It's too weird," Duo mused. "Why the hell would they--"

"Who cares?" Quatre interrupted. "Get out, Wufei!"

"No..."

"No?" the voice said carelessly. "All right, then. Re-activate the firing sequence--"

"NO!"

Again, everyone's attention was drawn to a screaming pilot. Wufei, his ebony eyes burning with shame, muttered "I'm sorry..." and ran away, darting out through the southern door.

"Beautiful," the voice said happily. "The rest of you may exit through the northern door." It stopped, as though anticipating rebellion.

"Come on," Hiro said harshly, furious at being captured, leading the way.

When Wufei finally made his way out from the complex, he kept on running. He ran until his lungs were scorched and his body screamed for rest. He ran so fast that the tears of humiliation flicked out of his eyes, not having the time to run down his cheeks. He ran so that the thoughts of failure and injustice couldn't quite catch up.

Finally, he tripped over the night air, and willfully collapsed on the damp, rotten earth. Everything caught up with him at once. He doubled over, weeping harshly, the hot tears stinging his face like molten razors. And the mantra started repeating over and over in his mind: >Failure, you're a weakling, you're a failure, you broke your promises to the dead, you left your friends to die, you left Nataku behind--<

"I'm sorry!" he screamed at the impassionate stars. "I'm sorry! I tried! I couldn't! I failed! I'm sorry, Nataku... Meiran! I failed all my promises to you! I failed everybody! I..."

/No./

At the numinous, so-familiar voice, Wufei stopped short. He immediately jumped to his feet, his sharp eyes scanning the area around him, seeing nothing. "How...?" he whispered. "I heard..."

/Yes. You heard me, Wufei, my love. You never failed me, or anyone./

A silver light, removed from the thumbnail moon and stars, started to pulse in the night sky. It gently set down to earth, and slowly began to take a form.

"MEIRAN?!?!"

***

~Six~

The first thing Duo became aware of on wakening was that his body was incredibly uncomfortable. The second was that there was an annoying light in his eyes. The third was that he was not at home in bed, like he'd dreamed he was. And the fourth was that a deep, silken, worried voice was calling his name: "Duo... Duo, are you alive? Did she--"

"Huhn?" Duo opened his wide violet eyes, blinking the light out of them, and looked around. He was chained to a cold metal wall in a spread-eagle position. The room he was in was small, about the size of a small apartment, in a perfect square. Each of the other four captured pilots were chained in similar positions on the other four walls. The light was a spotlight that had been affixed to the ceiling, so that it shone specifically on him.

The voice calling him was Hiro's.

"What's... going on?" he muttered, trying desperately to stretch. The muscles in his arms were cramping like all hell.

"That's right, he doesn't know," Quatre (to his left) said. "He got knocked out right away. Never saw what hit him."

"What're you running off at the mouth about?"

"We've been captured," Hiro said tonelessly. It was a stark contrast to the way he'd been calling Duo's name. "You got knocked out first, and the rest of us right after. We think we've been chained up for only a few hours."

"Is that why I feel like I got chewed up, swallowed, and then puked up by Godzilla?"

"Something like that," Quatre said. "We still don't know who our captor is, but he/she doesn't like you, Duo. The guards kept on beating you up after you were knocked unconscious."

"Lucky, lucky me."

"If you think you're lucky now," Trowa said suddenly, "then just look at where you are on the wall..."

Curious, Duo craned his head to look at the wall he was on. A look of horror came over his kawaii features. He stared at them all with growing panic. "Please tell me that I'm not in the center of a gigantic target..."

"OK," Hiro sneered. "We'll let you figure that one out on your own."

"SHIT!" He banged his head against the wall. "Shitshitshit! Here I am, pinned to a target, at the mercy of someone who hates my steaming entrails! Why is it always me?!"

"Maybe it's your charming personality," Hiro supplied.

"Wow, Hiro, you're in a rare mood," he snapped. "Normally you reserve your comments to 'I don't give a shit' or 'Omae o korosu'. I don't think I've ever seen you in full-blown Smartass Mode before."

"Don't fight, guys!" Quatre cried fruitlessly.

"Why not?! We're all gonna die, and Deathscythe's gonna become spare parts! If I catch the bastard that lays a finger on Shinigami--"

"The Gundams are already gone," the Arab said soothingly. "Don't you know? They're the latest models. 20-CD changer, AM/FM radio, power windows, Internet access, ten gears, leather interior, rust-proof paint, and... autopilot." He grinned. "I managed to access their autopilot systems through my pocket pilot before I got KO'ed. They're all already at a nearby safehouse."

"At least Wufei got away," Trowa pointed out. "He'll think of some way to help us."

"Are you delusional?" Duo griped. "He couldn't think his way out of a wet paper bag! He couldn't find his ass if he had both hands tied behind his back and an industrial flashlight! He--"

"SHUT UP!" the other three all cried at once.

"What's going on?!" Wufei said shakily as he stared at his dead wife. He had been raised within a culture very open to supernatural phenomenon, but that didn't mean that he'd actually *encountered* anything before. His insides felt like they had been tossed into a cuisinart on high.

Meiran smiled, gentle and understanding. /I can't explain everything to you now, my little dragon. I can tell you that your friends are now in grave danger, and if we are to save them, then we must act quickly./

"I can get behind that!" he bellowed. She was right; explanations could wait. If she was going to help him rescue his friends and save him from the ultimate dishonor... He was willing to wait for reasons. "What do we do?"

/First, we hand out introductions. Wufei, I'd like for you to meet Wing Zero, Deathscythe, Heavyarms, and Sandrock./

"Ah, my little boy-toys... How lovely to see all of you tied up."

"Oh. NO." Hiro recognized that evil, shrieking voice anywhere, despite its conspicuous silence of late. Though he had committed mass murder via Gundam without even batting an eye, he now visibly cringed as their captor entered the room [through the door on Quatre's wall].

"RELENA!" the other pilots screamed. Even Trowa raised his voice beyond the usual monotone.

The Barbie-girl-esque bitch nodded and smiled. "That would be me, yes."

"Why are you doing this?!" Quatre gasped.

Immediately, she turned as pink as her dress. "Because of what you've done to Hiro!"

"Oh. GOD." Hiro moaned.

"What'd we do to him?" Duo protested. "We're his friends, for God's sake!"

She turned furious blue eyes on the braided pilot. "Shut up, you! It's all your fault, anyhow! You made him what he is!"

Hiro felt like someone had pulled a plug inside him, and all his guts were pouring out of him through his belly button. He stared at Relena in abject horror. "No. You're. NOT."

"And what is he?" Duo said, confusion glowing in his violet eyes.

"He's in love with you, you--you WHORE!"

Quatre paled--if that was possible. Trowa's one visible eye got wide and rounded with shock, and his jaw actually went slack. Hiro, amazingly, turned the color of a fine burgundy wine.

Duo, by contrast, laughed long and loud. It was the riotious, maniacal laughter he normally reserved for wiping out clumps of OZ suits. "Oh--please! Tell me another! That was a rollicking good time! Hiro--in love with me!" He laughed some more. "As Wufei would say: Stupid woman! Hiro hates the ground I walk on! In love--HA!" Suddenly, he realized that no one else was sharing in his good fun, and he sobered up. "What? She's kidding, right? Hiro, why are you blushing?"

"Shut. Up. You. Barbie. Bitch." Hiro was now the color of a blackberry merlot.

"In love with you," Relena repeated. "Trust me, you SLUT, I know. I see everything. I've seen the way he looks at you when he knows no one else is looking. I've seen how he reaches for you as you run out of the room. I've heard the countless times he's mumbled your name in his sleep. I saw the look of pure elation on his face when you told him you... you *loved* him. And I know that when he spends the night hacking away at his laptop, he's not checking up on missions or keeping track of OZ." Her words were scathing. "He's writing a love letter."

"Oh, hell," Duo whispered, staring at the Wing Zero pilot.

"Stop. It." No one could believe it, but Hiro was actually begging Relena, rather than threatening to kill her... and he looked like he was going to cry. "Please."

"Hiro--"

"It's all right," Relena said soothingly. Her face was placid, peaceful. "You don't know any better, lover. I'm going to kill these three, and everyone else who was responsible for your misguided... 'feelings'. And then we'll live happily ever after, just like in the fairy-books."

"I'll give you a happy ending--" Hiro lashed out.

"Wait, why're you holding Trowa and Quatre hostage?" Duo interrupted. "What'd they do?"

"It was their example that put the idea into my lover's head!" Relena bitched. "If their... their SICKNESS... hadn't tainted his mind... The idea might not have even entered his head!"

"'Sickness'?!" Quatre's baby blues were shining dangerously, like stars threatening to go nova. "How dare you--"

"'Sickness'?!" Trowa said at the same time. His eyes--well, eye--had narrowed down to emerald slits. His words were slow and venemous. "You think you can--"

Hiro didn't like it, but he was beginning to see Relena's logic behind her kidnappings. If the doctors hadn't invented the Gundams, then he never would have met Duo. If Trieze and Zechs and their women hadn't continued the war, he wouldn't have met Duo, either. If Rashid hadn't protected Quatre, then Quatre might never have met Trowa; hence, they woudn't have fallen in love; hence, he wouldn't have had an "bad example". If Catherine hadn't cared for Trowa in her own way, then he'd never have his "bad example", either. If Sally Po hadn't been running a hospital, then he would never had been captured there, and wouldn't have had to rely on Duo to break him loose [and use him as a crutch]. If Hilde hadn't been there flirting with Duo 24/7, then he might not have gotten jealous enough to admit his feelings to himself.

>And if God hadn't created the universe, then we'd never have been born. Why isn't He here?<

"What about Dorothy and Wufei?" he asked suddenly. "Why capture one and release the other? How does that fit in?"

"Well... I'll admit, I couldn't find any dirt on Wufei. He's the only one that never got involved with you enough to influence you. If anything, he might have helped you to realize the perversion of your ways," Relena said. "And Dorothy? She damaged my self-esteem by calling me an idiot. If she hadn't, I might have had the charisma and self-confidence to win you over some other way. But this is it, I guess." The Bitch-Queen of Pinkdom shrugged. "I let Wufei go because I am, after all, an advocate of peace. I wouldn't kill someone without good reason."

"Oh, that makes perfect sense," Duo snapped. "You are, after all, a raving, drooling hebephrenic."

"Piss off, you little shit!" Relena growled. From the pink jacket she'd thrown on over her pink dress, she withdrew a .44 Magnum and jammed its barrel against Duo's temple. "One more smartass remark and I blow a hole in your head the size of the English Channel!"

***

~Seven~

"All of these women...?"

/Yes./

/Take this, skinny-boy. You'll need to arm yourself./

"Skinny?! INJUSTICE!"

/Honey.../

"Sorry."

/Come on! She's gonna blow Duo into next AND last week if we don't haul ass!/

"Be honest, Hiro." The Magnum barrel dug into Duo's skin, making him squeak. Relena's eyes blazed with goodwill and love. "I'm going to kill him either way, but please, tell the truth. I'll know if you're lying, and what's more, *he'll* know, too. Tell me how you think you feel about Duo, lover."

All the spit in Hiro's mouth evaporated.

Duo quivered and whimpered.

"Look into his eyes, Hiro. Those big, pretty purple eyes. Look him in his face, and try to tell me that you don't THINK you love him. Tell me. Yes or no?"

"Leave him alone!" Quatre cried.

"Zip it, fairy-boy, you're next!"

"Hiro." Duo was crying silent tears. "Don't say anything. Don't buy into it. I understand. Don't--" His words were cut off as Relena cold-cocked him with the pistol, and he saw stars.

She held the dazed pilot's head up by the hair, still aiming for his brain. "YES--OR--NO?!" she screamed.

"yes," Hiro whispered. The words were almost inperceptible in the dead-silent room. Even if they hadn't heard him, though, they could see it in his eyes. Those cobalt orbs, normally so flat and passionless, were shimmering with emotions long buried and neglected. "god, yes. yes. i love him."

For some reason, instead of outraging her, this seemed to placate her. Relena smiled serenely. "There. That's good, Hiro. The first step is always admitting that you have a problem."

"Hiro--" Duo started.

"And the second step," she continued as though Duo didn't exist, "is to remove the cause of temptation. Goodbye, Maxwell."

"DROP THE GUN, YOU STUPID WOMAN!!"

The sudden harsh command frightened Relena into compliance. The wicked onna dropped her gun with a squeak and promptly wet herself. The other pilots all brightened considerably as the owner of the voice ran through the door, bearing a fully loaded Uzi and looking very pissed at the fact that Relena was still alive.

"Wufei!" Quatre said happily.

"I let you go, you idiot!" Relena cried, trying to maintain her composure despite her now-wet groin. "What're you doing here?"

"You think I'd actually let such an injustice come to pass?" he sneered. "You're dumber than you look, woman! Now, unless you want to bear a resemblance to Swiss cheese, you're gonna put your hands on your nappy head and surrender!"

"Of course," she said, slowly clasping her hands behind her head. "Absolute pacifism, that's me. Law and order. Meanwhile, Wufei, my other captives are due to be massacreed if I am killed. There's no way you would be able to rescue them all in time. Little loophole in the cycle of life, don't you know."

Wufei's eyes got wide. The other captives--? Then Trieze--

Relena took immediate advantage of his hesitation. She reached into her pink jacket, quicker than thought, and withdrew this time a long dagger. Holding the wicked knife to Duo's throat, she hissed: "Now, one more captive will die before your eyes unless you drop that weapon now!"

"Well-armed for a pacifist," Wufei grousled, dropping the Uzi and holding his hands up in surrender.

"Now then, little BITCH," Relena purred, slowly dragging the knife over the soft skin of Duo's neck. "Get ready to meet the REAL god of Death."

/And here she is now!/ A green arch of light wrapped itself around Relena's neck. /Let's have a big round of applause, ladies and gents, for the REAL god of Death, the one and only Shinigami!/

Wufei couldn't help but smirk like a smartass at the looks of stunned confusion on everyone's faces. He watched, infinitely amused, as the ghostly woman stepped out of the wall. She was a short, young thing, no more than fifteen. She had blondish-brown hair in a braid halfway down her back. Her eyes were like star sapphires set in her pale, cynical face, hidden behind the black veil she wore over her face. She was dressed in a loose black dress over blue jeans and black boots. Criss-crossing her hips were two belts, each with a pistol holster. Around her neck was a rosary, made of garnet beads and ending with a silver cross.

The green arch of light was the blade to her scythe.

The ghostly woman grinned cockily at Wufei. /Told you it'd take us a minute, asshole,/ she said admonishingly. /Why didn't you wait? You in that much of a hurry to fuck things up and get killed?/

"Nonsense," he responded. "Deathscythe."

"What the bloody hell is going on?!" Quatre cried, very distressed.

/Drop your weapon, little bitch-snake,/ Karite said gently to Relena, who was not stupid enough to rebel.

/Now then,/ another voice said, /to release our boys.../

Four other woman-figures passed through the walls, and began to release the binds on the chained pilots. One was incredibly short and petite, with cute red curls and big, sweet green eyes. If she was more than twelve, then Wufei would kiss his own ass. She was wearing a lacy child's dress and white dress-shoes, and her curly hair was tied back with a white ribbon. Like Karite, she had pistols strapped around her waist [with a white belt], and bound to her back were two swords almost bigger than she was. Little golden sparkles seemed to dance around her round, freckled face. /I'm Sandrock,/ she said sweetly as she unbound Quatre. /Glad to meet you in person at last, my angel./

"You--" the blonde started.

One of the women was much taller than the rest. She had slicked-back, jet-black hair to her shoulders. Her face was extraordinarily pale and angular. Her eyes were a clever, sharp sky-blue. She appeared to be dressed completely in black, but deciding that was hard, since her black trenchcoat covered everything but her feet. Her only decorations were a silver thumb-ring in the shape of a wolf on her left hand, and black lipstick and heavy mascera on her face. /I'm Heavyarms, and I hate you,/ she said as she released Trowa.

"That would explain a lot," he said dryly.

Hiro was released by a medium-height woman with short, silver-colored hair in a bob. Her eyes were a dark, stormy, flat brown that gave away nothing of her thoughts. She was wearing an exact copy of Hiro's clothing--a green tank top and black Spandex shorts with sneakers. She was harshly, blindingly pretty, in the way that snakes and Venus flytraps are pretty. One look at her, and you knew you were dealing with no mere teenage girl, but a lethal, dispassionate killer. She had no visible weapons, but being who she was, that meant nothing. /Wing Zero,/ she said tonelessly as he dropped out of his chains.

"Hn," he replied.

The four loosed Gundam pilots watched, three confused and one highly amused, as the four Gundams gathered around Relena and Deathscythe.

/Poor little bitch,/ Wing Zero hissed.

/Didn't know what--/ Sandrock started.

/She was getting into,/ Heavyarms finished.

/But that's all right,/ Shenlong said gently. Hiro, Trowa, Quatre and Duo noticed her for the first time. She was a shortish, Oriental woman, with black hair and teasing ebony eyes. She was fine and pale, more like an ink painting on white silk than a real woman. She was wearing a loose white kimono with no decoration but her obi, which was knotted to the left and woven of electrum threads. Tucked into said obi was her gun and the sheath of her sword. Her left hand appeared to be mechanical, oddly enough; it was the only truly substantial thing about her.

/You've seen us,/ Deathscythe said, the thermal blade of her scythe pressing closer against Relena's neck. /And anyone who sees us has got a date with her maker!/

"That's MY line!" Duo griped from his position on the wall.

/Where do you think you got it from?/

"Oro? Uh--damn!"

Things were looking grim indeed for our least favorite blonde-bitch of all time. Relena looked from Gundam incarnate to Gundam incarnate with equal horror in her eyes. "Now, let's not be hasty," she stammered. "We can always talk out our problems--"

/The negotiation tables are closed,/ Wing Zero stated. /War has been declared. Mission accepted./

"Then I guess the bombing sirens should be going off," Relena said cryptically. Before they could torture an explanation out of her, she cocked her head back and SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMED!!!!

The groupies heard, and they came flocking.

***

~Eight~

"Goddammit, woman, what'd you do NOW?!" Wufei screamed, his hands still clutched over his ears. All he could hear was a white ringing noise.

"She called her dogs!" Trowa hollered. His fingers were plugged into his ears, and he was looking rather pained.

"That's right!" Relena cackled. "My people are approaching this room in droves! They'll wipe out you and your little girlfriends quicker than 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' bombed at the box office!" She crowed with laughter, despite that she had a thermal scythe pinning her to the wall by her neck.

/That's a shame,/ said Wing Zero, the only person in the room who had been able to withstand the siren's keen. In a very familiar gesture, she reached into her Spandex shorts and pulled out a pistol. /I guess we're going to have to kill them all off... Ladies?/

"What about--" Quatre started.

/Don't worry, we can handle it!/ Sandrock said, grinning sunnily. She took out her pistol and took up a battle position. /You guys always take care of us--/

/So I guess we have to return the favor,/ Heavyarms said, not happy at protecting Trowa. She flipped open her trenchcoat. She was, indeed, wearing all black underneath it. Not to mention that she had bandoleers of ammo and strings of guns encircling her entire body. She looked like an airport security guard's worst nightmare, or Neo from the lobby shootout in "The Matrix". She produced a double-barrel shotgun and pumped it. /Okee-dokee.../

Shenlong unsheathed her laser sword from her obi, nodding grimly at the others. Deathscythe jammed her thermal blade deep into the wall, pinning Super Bitch helplessly against it, and skinned both her pistols. /Hiro, get Duo down from the wall,/ she said, /and then you guys go cower in the corner! It's OUR turn!/

The five pilots gaped as their Gundam incarnates made mincemeat of the invaders. It went something like this:

The first wave of Relena's groupies charged into the room without thinking. They didn't even have their weapons up and ready. They were taken out by a wall of gunfire. The second clot of groupies charged more cautiously, then froze when they saw their massacreed comrades. They soon joined them on the ground, choking on blood and bullets.

At this point, the Gundams ran out of ammo. All five tossed their guns casually aside. While Wing Zero and Heavyarms reached for more firearms, Shenlong, Deathscythe and Sandrock got their specialty weapons. The third wave of enemies was met not only with gunfire, but with three swords and two small hand-scythes, and they collapsed in little bloody pieces.

Though our boys were used to violence and bloodshed, all were in awe of the women's abilities. Their skill and efficiency were second to none--certainly not Relena's flunkies.

The fourth group of invaders were far more cautious than before. They could see the piles of bodies building up in the doorway, after all. Instead of charging, they fired carefully around the corner and hoped that they hit their targets. This tactic couldn't hope to compete with Heavyarms. She somehow pulled a bazooka out of her trenchcoat and, after backing up considerably, fired at the door. The fighters behind the door were turned into human pudding, but there was an explosion of shrapnel from the destroyed wall. It looked like the pilots would be liquefied, but suddenly Wing Zero had produced her shield from her shorts, and dodged to cover the boys just in time.

Without any reprieve, soldiers poured through the newly shot hole in the wall. Shenlong and Sandrock fought back-to-back, one with her sword, the other with her hook-blades. They cut a swath of bodies through the groupies' ranks. Meanwhile, Deathscythe--laughing maniacally, of course--wove her way through the confused enemy ranks, cutting people in half at random and having a grand old time. Wing Zero, having taken it upon herself to protect the pilots, fought with both shield and laser sword. Heavyarms abandoned her bazooka and kept to small arms, mowing down the stupid soldiers in herds.

The Gundams seemed incapable of taking damage. The soldiers fired at them constantly, but none of them seemed to ever get hit.

And all the while, Relena was SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMING!!!!

Finally, finally, the Gundam-fodder was wiped out. The five women all sheathed their respective weapons, looking like they had taken a light morning jog, rather than slaughtered over three hundred soldiers. They looked to the five pilots, who were cowering in the corner with eyes like frightened chibi-kittens.

/Not too fuckin' shabby, huh?/ Deathscythe said cheerfully.

Wing Zero threw back her head and allowed herself a psychotic laugh.

/They should've surrendered,/ Sandrock said sadly. /We could have spared them./

/No way,/ Shenlong denied hotly. /They were brainwashed by Relena, for God's sake./

/Point.../

/Taken,/ Heavyarms finished.

A stunned Duo spoke for all the pilots when he stammered: "J-Jesus Christ on a flipping bicycle!"

After Relena was summarily beheaded and Deathscythe retrieved her weapons, the pilots and Gundams scurried out of the interrogation room. They released the other prisoners without ado and were out of the awful place in less than five minutes; and were never happier to be outside in the fresh night air. Though the boys were dying to ask what the fuck was going on, they had the sense to wait until Relena's fortress was far behind before bringing it up.

"So you chicks are, what?" Duo finally asked. "The spirit of our Gundams?"

/In a fashion,/ Deathscythe said. She smiled behind her black veil. /When the Gundams as you know them were first created, it was found that they were too complicated to be run on their own. They were so huge and cumbersome, and so much information would have to be interpreted by the pilot, that it actually caused mental breakdowns in many of the testees./

/None of the programs at the time could filter down all of the information the Gundam provided,/ Sandrock continued. /The suits were too sophisticated for their time. So, the five 'doctors' decided to give the pilots a helping hand./

/After they selected their pilots,/ said Wing Zero, /they scanned through their databases to find five women compatible to the pilot's personalities. It was determined that women, used to making extremely complicated and elaborate decisions, would be best for the operation./

/That's where we come in,/ Heavyarms said, smiling rakishly. /Sandrock's real name is Suna. She was chosen because of her optimism and determination. Wing Zero was originally Hane. She was picked for the job due to her cold-fish personality and warrior instincts. Deathscythe is really Karite. As you can tell, she's a trickster with a weird sense of humor, but a resolute fighter. As it must be obvious, Shenlong is Nataku, or Meiran. We've always called her Takai; it's a sort of pet name. She was picked because she was Wufei's wife in life, and they felt she could best guide him on his path. My name is Omoi. I was selected for Heavyarms because.../ Her blue eyes studied her feet.

"Go on, why?" Trowa asked, curious despite himself.

/She wasn't,/ Shenlong-Nataku-Meiran-Takai said sadly. /She was originally meant for Shenlong. Her personality--loud, bitter--was a perfect compliment to Wufei's. But in the end, I was bonded to Wufei's Gundam. Omoi was too good at what she did, though, to be simply given up, and so they gave her to Heavyarms. She hates Trowa for it; that's why he's always running out of ammunition at the most 'convenient' of times./

"That DID always seem sort of rigged..." Duo said.

/Anyhow,/ Deathscythe-Karite continued. /This is where the story gets sort of supernatural. All of us women were alive, except for Meiran. After we were selected, we were taken to the different colonies, where the Gundams were being built. They then performed a ritual which was practiced in the early days before Christianity, a sort of 'soul transfer'. Our spirits were transported from our bodies to the Gundams and sealed inside. Then, to prevent our escape, our bodies were destroyed./

"Soul transfer?" Quatre asked.

/Well, yes. Ancient shamen and 'voodoo' magicians would transfer the soul of a human into an animal, or the spirit of a dying person into a new body. Sort of the opposite of exorcism: instead of casting out a foreign spirit, the soul is being moved into a foreign body./

/It didn't hurt,/ Sandrock-Suna said meekly.

/It was more difficult in my case, but only slightly,/ Shenlong-Meiran said. /They had to summon up my soul before binding it to the Gundam. Mine and Wufei's people believe in ancestor worship, so the rite was performed by one of our priests. In any case, we became one with the Gundam. We filter through the information and give it to you in chunks, so that your minds won't choke./

"What about the Zero System?" Hiro asked.

Wing Zero-Hane grinned coldly. /That's the only fun I ever get./

/When that turns on,/ Suna explained, /she slowly relinquishes her control over the flow of information. Then you have to sort through everything on your own./ She smiled mischievously. /But she likes to reach inside your head and give your brains a stir./

"So we have Hane to blame for Quatre nearly killing everybody that one time?" Duo pointed out.

Karite pinked. /Actually, that was me,/ she said sheepishly. /I wanted to try it out just once./

"You bitch!" he laughed approvingly.

"So let me get this straight," Trowa said slowly. "You five are basically what keep us from having mental breakdowns every time we go online. Then what about Tallgeese? Is there a spirit in there, too?"

Omoi paled, if that was possible. /Guuzoo,/ she whispered.

/The only thing we waste our energy fearing,/ Hane said, quiet respect in her voice. /She was the spirit of an OZ general notorious for not taking human life into consideration. She won some fantasic victories, but at the cost of entire phalanx of soldiers. She was the only member of OZ to ever be tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity. She was executed in a rather unpleasant manner./

/She was cut apart,/ Karite said. /Slowly./

/And she's still bitter,/ Suna said softly. Then she perked. /Any more questions?/

"Yeah!" Duo cried, suddenly self-righteous and pissy. "Which one of you freaks was pulling all those pranks earlier?! I'll have your hide!"

Karite looked confused. /Pranks?/

/SUNA?!/ Omoi said accusingly, casting an ice-blue glare at the little girl.

Suna delicately blushed. /OK, so I'm a prankster. Sorry about that./

"SEE?!" Duo waggled a finger at her. "It was HER fault! Not mine!"

"For once," Wufei commented. "So... What happens now?"

/Well.../ Meiran said thoughtfully. /We're bound to your Gundams. So we continue to guide you and safeguard you in your battles. When your suits go offline for the last time, then so do we. Pretty simple./

"Does that mean we can't hang out?" Duo whined.

/That depends,/ Karite said mischievously. /Are you going to microwave another chihuahua?/

"DUO!" Wufei cried in horror, looking at the braided pilot. "My God, that was YOU that stuck Rashid's pet in the microwave?!"

Duo turned a color normally reserved for cherry-flavored Jello. "I found it in the fridge!" he cried. "I thought it was a baked potato!"

"In the *fridge*?! How'd a chihuahua get in the fridge?!"

/I don't know,/ Hane said, a teasing note almost entering her deadpan voice. /Ask Hiro./

All eyes turned to the Wing Zero pilot, who slightly blushed and said: "It was barking at three o'clock in the fucking morning..."

***

~Nine~

>Tell him.<

(NO!)

>But you already have!<

(...)

>Show him the letter. Give up. It's over.<

(...)

/Quit being so goddam stubborn. He's right, you know./

(...I don't do this of my own free will.)

Hiro found Duo sitting at the kitchen table, eating a midnight snack of Cocoa Pebbles. The American, not having the patience to do dishes, was eating from a Tupperware bowl using a tablespoon. Hiro barely kept himself from smiling at the scene.

"'Sup?" Duo managed to say through a mouthful of cereal. "Burnin' the midnight oil?" He referred to the other pilot's laptop, which was firmly tucked beneath Hiro's arm.

"Something like that,"he said, sitting down at the table and opening the laptop up. Duo wasn't stupid. He wasn't ignorant, or deaf. Both of them vividly remembered everything that had gone on when Relena had held them at gunpoint.

>yes... god, yes... yes. i love him.<

And while Relena was an ignorant bitch, and a hateful bitch, and a spiteful bitch... She had been right about one thing.

>When he spends his nights hacking away at his laptop... he's writing a love letter.<

Something like that, anyhow.

He brought up the relevant file on the computer screen, then turned it so that Duo could read it. "I've got something for you to read," he said, trying to keep his tone even.

Both understanding and uncomprehending, Duo's violet eyes flickered over the words typed on the screen. Hiro didn't have to read along to know the entire thing by heart:

Duo,

I hate you.

I hate the way you're always running your mouth. You can never shut up, even when it's important. No one ever gets a word in edgewise, and no one ever gets any peace. I hate the way you're always trying to be a spin doctor and make everything better again. You can't make everything better with a wink and a smile, baka. And no one ever won a war by laughing their life away. I hate the way you look at me when you think I can't see you. I hate your violet eyes. They say too much, they have too much emotion. Soldiers don't need emotion. I hate your hair. It's dangerous to have such a stupid, cumbersome hairstyle. I hate your smile and your laughter. They keep me awake at night.

Fuck. I can't even write. I don't know what I'm trying to say.

I hate you because you are the photo negative of myself. I have dedicated myself to becoming this perfect soldier, no emotions, no feelings, no laughter, no love. And then I meet you. You are this shining diamond in my life. You are everything I set out to destroy in myself. You are a wonderful soldier, but you're also a wonderful human being. You have emotions and feelings and laughter and love, and the guts to wear your hair any goddam way you want to, and fuck whoever thinks it's a liability. I hate you because you're brave and I'm a coward. You were brave enough to save your SELF from the war. I didn't have the courage to do anything but sacrifice my SELF on this altar of a war.

I hate you because I hate myself. Or my non-self. Whichever.

I hate you because you torment me, in my dreams. When I wake up and I know what I was dreaming about, and I want to kill myself more than ever, because I know it's weakness and soldiers have no feelings WE HAVE NO FUCKING FEELINGS!!!!!! And you come to me in my dreams, and you make me realize that my feelings are still there, I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO CARE!!!! SOLDIERS HAVE NO FUCKING FEELINGS!!! THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS FEELINGS!!!

I hate you because you ruin me. You make everything I've worked for into a lie. You try to make me live again, with your smiles and your shining violet eyes, and I hate you for it.

I hate you because...

Because...

Because I love you.

Yes.

I hate you because I love you. Because you force me to care. Because I know you love me, and I don't know why on earth you'd want to. When you told me those things that night, when you thought I was asleep, and you said you loved me... I don't think I have ever been quite that happy before or since. My entire existence was hinged on your every word. I hate you because you have the power to make me so miserable that I can't live without you. Because you have such power over me.

Mostly, though... I... I hate you because I don't hate you at all. I can't hate you, no matter how many times I try to tell myself that I do. I'm incapable of ever truly hating you, because you're this priceless black diamond that I feel unworthy to even look at. Look how many times I've tried to tell myself that I don't love you in this letter. I'm sorry, Duo. I'm sorry that I ever hurt you, ever made you cry, ever made you feel like you were something less than the angel you are. So sorry...

I don't have anything left to say except that I love you more than I could ever love my non-self...

-Hiro

When Duo looked back up from the laptop screen, his amnethyst eyes were flooded with tears. "H-Hiro..." he whispered.

Hiro, who hadn't moved a muscle since Duo had started reading, turned an unprecedented shade of purple. "I'm sorry. You're crying. I didn't want that. I'm sorry. I'm stupid. I..." He realized that tears were also overwhelming his eyes, his mind, and he choked back a sob. "It took me four months to write that damn thing--"

Duo shook his head, his braid whipping in the air. "Shut up. Don't take it back. Don't think I'm sad. This has made me happier than anything in my life. I love you, asshole."

They held each other, and found their other half.

Trowa was reading casually on the bed when Quatre finally came back to their bedroom. He glanced up at the other pilot and smiled in his gentle way. "Did you find your ice cream?" he asked.

"Noooo..." Quatre, looking very pouty, all but collapsed into a recliner. "Duo took all the Moose Tracks. I'm very pissed about it."

"I can tell. You've got that sulking look again."

"Leave me alone. I wanted the chocolate very badly."

"C'mere, you."

The blonde flushed. "Why?"

Trowa set his book aside. There was a mischievous glint in his eye. "Because you're so sexy when you're mad that I've just gotta get you in bed."

The light flush ripened to deep red. "Trowa! For God's sake!" Still, he wasn't complaining as he got out of his chair and curled up on the bed. He snuggling next to his koi, resting his head on Trowa's chest.

Trowa gently ran his fingers through that baby-blonde hair. "You're worried about Wufei, aren't you?" he whispered.

A troubled look set on Quatre's features. "Yeah. I mean, finding his wife after losing her... and dedicating his life to her... I'm worried about how he's taking it."

"Wufei's a big boy. He can take care of himself." He paused. "Me, now, I need constant protection."

"You don't need to worry about protection. I'll kill your ghosts for you." There was a vicious note in the gentle boy's voice which was almost surprising. "No one is going to hurt you ever again."

"Except for you."

"ME?! I would never hurt you!"

"Yes... you would, and you do..." He laid a butterfly kiss on Quatre's forehead. "You kill me every time you leave my sight..."

/It was Guuzoo, wasn't it? Taking a vessel./

/Shh. Don't say such things. Sleep./

/Do you love him?/

"...I don't know. And even if I did, I wouldn't act on it. He's an enemy."

/Don't sacrifice for me./

"..."

/Wufei... You have done so much more than I'd ever imagined you would. I'm sorry I was always ragging you for being a weakling./

"I'm sorry for being a weakling."

/Shh. Let me stay with you tonight. As your wife./

"What about 'as my love'?"

/I thought that was a given./

~OWARI~

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Disclaimer

The Gundam Boys and anything pertaining to Gundam Wing belongs to its creators, not to me, no matter how hard I wish. They are being used without permission for fun, not profit. If you don't know this, then you are a sad sack of shit. Go crawl under a rock and wither up and die. Like I said, I probably got plenty of stuff wrong, but I like this one.

In contrast with the characters I've borrowed, Hane, Karite, Omoi, Suna, and any characters/places not belonging to the Gundam franchise are mine, and may not be used without my permission. And for once, my original charas don't DIE in the end! Yea yea yea!! ::does a little dance:: "Dingdong, the bitch is dead, which old bitch, the Relena bitch..." But NOT the cool bitches!

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Dude! This one really kicked some ass! I ain't kidding! It was a lot mushier than I normally do, but I love it I love it I love it! Heeheehee!

Hane-wing, Karite-reaper, Omoi-heavy, Suna-sand, Takai-long/tall

From the scene in question in "Evil Dead": The girl gets raped by the tree. It pins her down on the ground, and suddenly SHOONK! A branch shoots out of nowhere and... you know. I had to put it in here, even if it was exquisitely perverse.

I know nothing of the preparation of flan. Send me a recipe if you do.

'Tunnel-digger' is one of my brother Jordan's many 'euphemisms' for gay men. Much of the more vulgar terms from my fics ["In & Out" springs readily to mind...] are from his creative-but-stuck-permanently-in-the-gutter mind.

hebephrenic: a schitzophrenic person who has made a complete break with reality. They may or may not hallucinate, and are incapable of communicating using a logical thought process and sentence structure. The stereotypical lunatic. Look it up and there's a picture of Relena next to the definition.

This is how I've pictured Meiran. I have yet to find any pics of her. If I'm wrong, then feel free to tell me.

Guuzoo-idol

Sequel forthcoming... yes... But what will I do, now that Relena is dead? Oh, well, there's always Noin, and Hilde... the Bitch triumvirate!

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