Part Three
I’d like to say I’m surrounded by idiots, but it really isn’t true. Mainly I’m surrounded by one idiot, with extremely long hair. If he doesn’t stop bouncing around, I may have to kill him. The other three seem to be perfectly reasonable people. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think Duo is the idiot he’s pretending to be. It’s an excellent cover; I’m sure he gets ignored and underestimated on a regular basis. However, why does he have to keep being an idiot in my vicinity? He could go off and bother Quatre, who seems to like him just fine.
I asked him once. He replied, “Quatre is social enough. Quatre doesn’t need help. Besides, Quatre is busy trying to get Trowa to talk to him.”
I’m having trouble faulting his logic.
Even worse, he’s starting to grow on me. All right, you may laugh, but after listening to someone chatter for an hour without stopping to breathe, the room seems awfully quiet once he finally gives up and bounces off to annoy someone else. It’s not even that he’s being that inane. He’s not. He talks about OZ and kicking their ass and about his doctor, who he calls Pestilence for some weird reason and different things he can do with his Gundam. I must admit at times I was taking notes. He appears to be an incredibly skilled pilot. Eventually, however, he tired of my monosyllabic replies and wandered off muttering something about ‘Quatre’ and ‘dinner.’
And now he’s wandering back in. “Hey, whatcha doin’?” is his opening line.
I tell him I’m writing in my journal.
“No kidding! Pestilence made me keep one of those damned things too.”
I’m curious. Why does he keep calling that man Pestilence? Against my better judgment, I open my mouth and ask.
He looks shocked to have received a full sentence from me. A voluntary question, no less. “I’m Shinigami. He’s Pestilence. It’s a . . . Biblical thing. Sort of. Well, not really. You know, Four Horsemen? Never mind.”
I’m well aware of who the four horsemen are, and tell him so. “Why are you Shinigami?”
“Sore wa himitsu desu!”
Apparently he knows Japanese. I know I must look confused. “How do you know Japanese?”
“That’s a secret too!” He grins. “Nah, Pestilence thought it would be a good idea if I was fluent in a few languages. You speak English. Your doc must’ve thought the same thing.”
He’s right. I feel stupid.
Seeming pleased with himself, he wanders out of the room again, before I get a chance to ask any further about his self-appointed title of Shinigami.
****
A little careful hacking has provided us with our new target. I found it first, but Trowa stumbled upon the same information less than an hour later. Apparently the generals of OZ are having a conference about us and the Colonies.
That many head members in one place . . . it’s simply too good an opportunity to pass up. Almost like it was gift-wrapped for us. That’s rather disturbing. But we’ve checked and double-checked the information. None of us can find anything that indicates this is a setup.
Apparently OZ is just that stupid.
****
I’m not sure how to write this.
We have made a terrible mistake.
Quatre keeps telling me that it wasn’t my fault, and deep down I know he’s right. I feel guilty anyway. If only we’d checked the information more carefully. If only we’d realized something was wrong when we were there.
If only . . .
But if onlys do us absolutely no good now. The harsh truth of the matter is that we’ve destroyed the only chance for peace. The war will now continue . . . because of us.
The gathering was not of OZ generals, though there were some there. It was a collection of peace advocates from both Earth and the Colonies. The only chance we had of ending the war. And we killed them. We didn’t know it was them, of course, but that’s no excuse. There’s no room in this war for mistakes.
Obviously someone knows how we’re getting our information and our targets. Trowa quietly suggested that we hide our Gundams and disappear. Wufei - who seems a little worse for the wear after meeting up with Treize - agreed. None of us asked what happened to him, but I don’t think he would have answered anyway.
Even Duo is acting subdued. He’s also impressed with the way I prevented the entire base from being blown up, with us along with it. His admiration makes me feel a tiny bit better, but not much.
****
“What should we do?” The five pilots were gathered around the same table they’d been eating meals at regularly for the past week. Quatre was the one who finally asked the question.
“I think Trowa had a good idea,” Duo said uncertainly. “Ditching the Gundams and going underground, I mean. Presuming that we can all find a place to hide them, and ourselves.”
“Well, I can stay with the Maganacs, and they can hide Sandrock for me,” Quatre said.
“I have a place to go,” Trowa said, and offered no more information than that.
Duo squirmed. “Well, I can leave Deathscythe with Howard, but I don’t know where I’d go . . . what’re you gonna do, Heero?”
“I can hide Wing,” Heero said, and hesitated. “I suppose I can go undercover in a school again.”
“Yeah, that’s a great idea!” Duo enthused. He smiled slyly and asked, “Mind a little company?”
“Hn,” Heero replied.
“I’ll take that as a no!” Duo said, grinning. “What about you, Wu?”
“My name is Wufei.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Duo said. “Where are you going to go? And what about your Gundam?”
Wufei shrugged. “Weaklings don’t belong in battle.”
“What?” Duo apparently decided not to wait for an explanation, because he immediately proceeded onto, “Shut up!”
Quatre hid a snicker, vowing to remember that phrase. “Wufei, there’s no reason for you to leave the battle.”
“I lost a battle to Treize Khushrenada,” Wufei said stiffly. “I have been proved to be weak. I don’t belong in battle.”
“Who the hell cares?” Duo spluttered. “You can’t expect to win all the time. Treize is what, ten years older than us? So you lost. Just keep fighting until you can win.”
Wufei seemed uncertain how to reply to that. He chose to say nothing.
“There, that’s settled then.” Duo sounded satisfied.
Wufei opened his mouth for a second, then shut it again, looking gloomy.
“Got a place you can hide your Gundam, Wu?” Duo asked.
“I’m sure I can find something,” Wufei said irritably.
“Man, maybe you ought to loosen that ponytail just a little - ” Duo reached out for Wufei’s hair and withdrew his hand hurriedly as the other pilot glared at him. “Kidding, kidding. I’m protective of my hair, too.”
“Where are you going to go, Wufei?” Quatre asked. “You can come with me, if you like.”
“Or you can go with me and Heero!” Duo offered.
Wufei looked between Duo and Quatre. “I’ll go with Quatre.”
“I knew you would say that,” Duo said, pouting. “Nobody loves me . . .”
“And we’ll all keep in contact, right?” Quatre asked anxiously.
“Of course, of course . . .” Duo said, grinning. “Right, guys?” He gave them all a meaningful glare.
“Hn,” Heero said.
Trowa surprised everyone by looking directly at Quatre and saying, “I’ll keep in touch with you.”
“Hey, hey, what are the rest of us, chopped liver?” Duo asked as Quatre turned a delicate shade of pink. “Something going on between the two of you that we don’t know about?”
“Baka,” Heero said, rolling his eyes.
“Possibly,” Trowa said, stood up, and left the table.
“What?!” Quatre squeaked. “Hey, Trowa! Wait!” He got up and hurried after the green-eyed pilot.
The three remaining pilots looked at each other.
“You get the impression that we missed something?” Duo asked thoughtfully.
Wufei rolled his eyes.
“Hn,” was all Heero replied.
****
“What did you mean by that?” Quatre caught up with Trowa in the kitchen and hoped none of the other pilots had followed them.
“I thought it fairly obvious myself.”
Quatre blinked. “Um . . .”
“I certainly wasn’t about to tell you in a room full of people, either. Besides, I wanted to see what you’d say.” Trowa’s one visible eye sparkled with uncharacteristic mischieviousness.
“So you’re, um . . .” Quatre tried to think of a word, and tried to stop blushing. “Interested?”
“Possibly.”
“Trowa!”
“What?”
“Stop stringing me along!”
Trowa bit back a grin. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re adorable when you’re flustered?”
Quatre threw his hands into the air in frustration with a strangled noise.
Trowa laughed. “I’m surprised it took you so off guard.”
“Well, you’ve only spoken about three sentences to me the entire time we’ve known each other,” Quatre pointed out, calming down a little.
“I’m not a talkative person.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Quatre muttered under his breath. “Well . . . now what? I mean, we’re all going our separate ways. We have no idea what’s going to happen.”
“Now we master the fine art of letter writing.”
Quatre couldn’t help but laugh. “But . . . what if something happens?”
“Then we deal with it then.”
Quatre flopped into a chair. “I’m just worried is all. Where are you going to go?”
“I have some friends,” Trowa said. “I can bring Heavyarms with me.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you.”
Trowa hesitated. “You’d laugh.”
“I would not laugh!”
“You can’t say that until you know where it is.”
Quatre sighed. “Where are you going, Trowa?”
“The circus.”
Quatre blinked. “Circus?”
“Precisely.”
Quatre considered this for a long minute. “What in the circus do you do?”
“I’m a clown.”
Quatre bit his lips.
“I told you that you’d laugh.”
“I’m just having trouble picturing you as a clown. You’re not the clown type.”
“I also work with a girl in her knife throwing act.”
“Now that seems more like you!”
Trowa blinked, then simply shook his head.
“Come on. You’re a Gundam pilot. Of course you seem more a weapons type than a clown type.”
“Good point.”
“I mean, if Duo told me he was a clown, that I could picture . . .”
“Also a good point.”
“How far away from me will you be?”
“It depends. The circus travels. Don’t worry, I’ll be safe there.” Trowa gave Quatre a reassuring smile that made Quatre want to melt. Trowa pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.
“I feel like something terribly monumental just happened,” Quatre said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t talk,” Trowa said, reasonably enough, leaning towards him.
It was at that point that Duo walked in to get a cup of coffee. He stopped and gaped. “Hey! You’re kissing!”
Quatre turned the color of a tomato. Trowa ignored Duo entirely.
Heero came around the corner. “You’re right, they are.” He grabbed Duo by the braid and hauled him out of the room.
“Thank you, Heero,” Trowa called after him, and went back to what he’d been doing.
****
You would think if I’m the head of such a huge organization, I could find someone else to do my paperwork. But even my Lady Une, who claims she would die for me, will not do my paperwork. It’s a sad world.
What’s also sad is that rather than doing my paperwork, I’m sitting here and musing about why I can’t make anyone else do it. I must have something better to do with my time. You’d also think I’d know better than to put my thoughts down on paper where someone might stumble onto them. I trust Une to protect my interests and my office, however.
Everything seems to be going well, for the time being. (Though I know now that I’ve said that, I’ve put a curse on myself.) Noventa’s . . . removal went as planned. OZ is in control of the Federation. The troublesome Gundams seem to have disappeared entirely.
I think it’s this latest which disturbs me the most.
Five pilots that dedicated and skilled are not going to give up. They simply back away to regroup and come up with a plan. Whatever they come up with is probably going to be impressive. They know that they can’t trust any information on the OZ network. I doubt they will allow this to stop them.
Zechs has brought in three men he claims are Gundam specialists. As he’s been working on - and obsessing over - the Tallgeese, I don’t doubt his word. He says he’ll assemble a team and work on finding where the Gundams have been hidden.
I think the Gundam pilots misunderstand my intentions. I don’t want a war. I want to unify the world in peace. It’s not as if I would rule with an iron fist. Well, not after everyone had accepted my leadership. If the Gundams would only accept this, there would be no reason to fight.
Somehow, I don’t think they’ll see it that way. It would be nice, though. I’m allowed wishful thinking in my journal. However, if we can get to their Gundams and . . . remove them, that would solve the problem quite nicely.
I’m going to do my paperwork.
****