Well that didn't work, so this will!!! Sorry about that!
-Greg
The Devil's Symphony
By Jon Hall And Greg Housley
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is owned by Rumiko Takihashi and Viz Video
and GundamWing is owned by some other guys, to the point we don't own or
claim any of this. It's all written in fun, so enjoy!
Visit our website for previous chapters
http://orca.st.usm.edu/~jthacker/Helix/HelixFictions.html
Chapter 4
She was lost. Lost in nothing but her own blank stare out into cold
space, where the stars stared back at her with equal interest. She had
learned to do this early on in her military career when she became too
stressed for the job. She would just stare at something and just let
everything else go black; her eyes, her mind, her senses, everything. She
would just let everything go and nothing would interfere with it unless she
herself willed it so. Which on many occasions it did.
"Lady Une, we will be arriving at the Winner Colony in approximately three
hours, just to give you an update as you had requested before we left." The
corporal had noticed her blank stare directed out of the window and feared
he had interrupted her personal thoughts. Her face seemed blank of any
expression, as if she were a statue locked in an endless poise. He sighed
with relief when she slowly turned her eyes toward him and gave him a slight
smile.
"Thank you corporal. Let me know when the next hour comes to pass."
The corporal saluted and turned back toward the cockpit walking faster than
normal, thankful that it wasn't a cold stare that he had received.
Lady Une's eyes moved back to the empty window beside her once again
and became lost in the black stare of space, wishing that it would just
swallow her up and take her away.
Reminded of her rotten luck with wishes, her thoughts then moved to
her present situation. She had been notified of a possible assassination
attempt on the President's life a week ago. Dismissing the idea of such a
thing, the President kept his original plan to have his speech at the Winner
Colony, the speech that was scheduled to happen in less than a day.
She had called ahead and notified Quatre to triple the guard at the
colony, hoping that it would be enough. She still hoped so. Something told
her that she had done as much as anyone could do in such circumstances as
this. Yet still something nagged at the back of her mind, as if there was
some detail that she might have overlooked. She finally convinced herself
that it was her worry talking and looked back out into the welcome darkness
through the window.
It would be good to see Quatre again; she thought anew, relieved to
get her mind off of her nagging dilemma. It had been a little over a year
since she had seen the young blonde Arabian. It had been when the daughter
of Mister Treize had tried to start another war between the colonies and the
earth. Since then, Quatre and his family had built a colony to call their
own, simply dubbed the Winner Colony, in which they could live in peace.
The President of the World Nation had seen it fit that he should give his
speech at such a splendid and remarkable "piece of tin."
Lady Une smiled when she remembered Quatre showing her the plans to
his colony, his new home. His old enthusiasm had flared back to life with
the knowledge that there would be no more war to fight. He seemed to be as
giddy as any boy his age would be, but Lady Une knew that the boy in him was
forever gone into the abyss, deep beneath the mud and sandrock.
As for all of the Gundam pilots, she thought of suddenly. Each one of
their faces came into her mind and she was glad that she had kept tabs on
their whereabouts over the last year. Trowa Barton, who had piloted the
gundam known as Heavyarms was still a wandering clown with his troop of
circus stars, going from earth to colonies performing their tricks to the
amazed public.
Wufei Chang and Duo Maxwell, the pilots of the gundams Shenlong and
Deathscythe, were still with the preventers under her command. Well,
technically, she added as an afterthought, if anyone could call theirself
commander of a gundam pilot. She smiled again at the acknowledgement.
Those boys basically did what they wanted when they wanted.
Like the final chapter to a story, the last pilot known as Heero Yuy,
the one who always seemed to be in the forefront of the earth/colony
confrontation, had virtually vanished off of the face of the earth and
colonies. She had tried to track him down many times in the last few
months, but disappointment followed her every step of the way. It was as if
the boy had never even existed.
She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly to release all of the pressure
and tension that clouded her mind and body. She looked down at the cup of
coffee sitting on the tray in front of her, its warmth floating through the
air to her face. She closed her eyes against it, her mind reverting back to
the nagging thoughts. She still couldn't figure it out. What was it that
she was missing? She was sure that Heero would have been able to figure it
out if he were here with her now.
Heero Yuy. The name of the man that once preached about peace between
the earth and the colonies; and now his name was being used to promote peace
once again, only in a different way. With the use of his wing gundam, Heero
Yuy had begun to promote peace through violence. Lady Une frowned at the
irony. If it took violence to promote peace, then would there ever really
be true peace? The daughter of Treize had called war an endless waltz,
peace and war always one after the other.
What was the point of war in the first place? It did nothing to solve
everyone's problems. All war ever proved was that people lost their lives
fighting for something that they could have approached differently. The
deaths that ensued could only be appreciated by the devil himself, she let a
hard sighed. Thinking over such matters would serve no other purpose than
stressing her further.
Deciding to forget the matter for now, Lady Une opted to simply make the
mental preparations necessary for the upcoming presidential speech.
*************************
"How's the entrances, people?" Commander Kagi's voice rang out over
the security team's commlinks. Each man in turn checked in to report that
nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Each of the entrances was manned
and all of the guests were checked as they entered. It was going to be very
hard for anyone to get any weapons in this building, the commander thought.
Still, he added, most of the guests had already arrived, and if nothing had
occurred so far, then what reason was there to believe that anything would
happen? He was missing something. If the President of the World Nation
were going to be assassinated, it would be at a time such as this. He
looked down at his watch and sighed. Twenty minutes until Showtime.
"Report Commander?" Lady Une's voice smoothly rolled its way to his
ears, his gaze turning to her instantly.
"Nothing out of the ordinary has been reported yet, Lady." Lady Une
gave him a sideways glance.
"You seem to be having some nagging thoughts as well, Kagi." His eyes
fell to the floor as he took a slow breath.
"It seems to be going TOO smoothly. There hasn't been anything
reported and most of the guests are already here. I'm beginning to wonder
if this rumor were true or not. What do you think, Lady?"
"I've been having some strange thoughts on the situation, myself. It
seems as if something is eluding our attention, some possibility that we
haven't thought of. But I truly hope that we are wrong in our suspicions."
"How's the President?" Commander Kagi looked back up at Lady Une.
"He seems pretty abound with things to say this evening. But to be
perfectly honest with you, Lady, I don't really care what he says; I'm just
worried about the aftermath. I'm worried about whether we'll be able to
protect him to our best abilities."
"You should learn to be more confidant, Kagi." Une gave the commander
a little smile. "In the end, it may prove more valuable to you than doubt."
"Yes, ma'am." Commander Kagi stood straight and gave Lady Une a
salute as she walked away.
**********************
"How's it hangin, Howard ol'buddy?" Duo lead the small group onto the
bridge of the Peacemillion only to find Howard the only person there for a
change. It was time for skeleton shift, as Duo had called it on their way
to the ship. Howard was sitting at the main computer console, going through
systems checks and layouts. He was in a particularly good mood when the
four arrived.
"Shriveled, short, and gettin pretty tuckered out at my age kid." His
face never lost expression as he stared at the computer screen in front of
him.
By 'good mood' Duo meant that his serious nature wouldn't let him joke
about much, and whenever Howard was in a good mood he would answer questions
with witty remarks and sarcasm. It was a good day if that ever happened.
Ranma was at the tail of the group and wide-eyed the whole time. He
was in his male form still, since all the others had seen the change at the
hotel. So there wasn't any point in trying to hide it anymore. He was more
interested in learning about his new surroundings, which Duo had been more
than happy to fill him in a little.
"Water and Justice are scheduled to be going into the earth HQ at any
moment. Lady Une is heading out to the Winner colony for the President's
speech, and I assume your end of the mission has been taken care of?"
It was then that Howard locked eyes with Ranma. They stared at each
other for a moment before Howard looked back at his computer monitor.
"I see we've even picked up a stray."
"Who are you callin a stray, old man?"
Ranma brought his fist up to aid the remark. His eyes, however, were
on the floor. Old man? He thought. I'm the old one here.
Duo reached in his pocket and pulled out the disk and handed it to Howard,
who stuck it into the port almost immediately. His eyes followed all of the
data until his found what the others had found a few hours ago.
"So this log entry was masked for some kind of shipment from the
company? But nobody knows what was shipped. Hmmm. Yep, this is starting
to look really suspicious."
"I found this in the lab where the log was entered."
Duo pulled out the small chunk of gundanium and handed it to Howard,
who took one glance at it.
"Those bastards are trying to build gundams, huh? Well, we should
have known that any sign of peace would be nothing but an illusion."
He sighed, looking back at the chunk of metal in his hand.
"Oh well, I guess peace has always been short-lived."
Ranma looked from member to member. All had somber looks in their
eyes. Noin's eyes gave the hope that the possibility could be avoided.
Hilde's eyes spoke of anger at the attempt at such a new threat. Duo's
eyes, however, had the same look that Ranma remembered having just before so
many fights. His eyes said, 'heh, it looks like it's time to kick some more
butt.'
Howard looked back at Ranma one last time before turning back to his
schematics again and resuming his checks.
"Why don't you take the new kid back and get him some clothes. He
looks like he's seen better days."
Ranma looked down at his clothes and realized for the first time that
his clothes were pretty much in tatters. The legs were barely even there
and thank the kami that the shirt was pretty much intact in the chest area.
Otherwise his little thaw would have been a little revealing. Another I owe
you Saffron, he thought with a grumble.
"C'mon buddy, let's go get you somethin fresh to wear. Ya know, like
somethin in THIS century."
Ranma somewhat annoyed at the comment followed behind Duo as he led
the way out of the bridge and into the corridors beyond. After about ten
minutes of corridor to corridor, they arrived at the locker rooms. Duo
explained that this room was where the guys had gotten into their suits for
piloting their gundams in space. After going through most of the lockers,
Duo found what he was looking for.
"Here, Ranma, you can wear this. It's Wufei's but he's never worn it.
I think both of you are about the same size so it should work out."
What Duo held up was a pair of black pants, white t-shirt with a black
and green jacket with patches all over it. The patch on the front of the
jacket read 'Preventers' and under it was the word 'Justice.' Ranma gave
Duo a questioning glance and Duo smiled back.
"That's what Wufei's call sign is while he's a preventor. He seems to
think that the word best suits him. I don't really care much for call signs
myself, just as long as I'm the god of death, that's good enough for me."
"God of death, huh? From what I've seen of you, you sound like a
pretty scary guy, Duo."
Duo smirked at the hint of sarcasm as Ranma took the clothes from Duo
and grabbed the pair of leather boots that were sitting in the bottom of the
locker and walked in the direction of the showers.
The hot water felt good as Ranma stood staring at the wall,
remembering being trapped within the ice wall all of those years, wondering
if there would ever be a release from the prison that Saffron had put him
in. Remembering the chill of the ice, Ranma turned up the hot water just a
little bit more.
"Hey, what's takin ya so long in there?" Duo stuck his head around
the corner toward the shower curtains.
"Nothin. I'll be out in a minute."
Once dried, Ranma started putting on the clothes, and surprisingly
enough, Duo was right. It all fit pretty snug. He would've liked to have a
little more free movement in the pants but he guessed that he wouldn't
really be doing anything that extensive right then. He'd probably start
back to training in the morning.
Together they walked back toward the bridge with Ranma fully clothed
and refreshed from the hot shower. Neither one of them spoke on their way
down the corridors, Ranma's eyes following the panels in the floor. Ranma
glanced over at Duo once or twice to see him wide-eyed and smiling, humming
some unknown tune that quite possibly Duo himself only knew. Then he all the
sudden began to sing aloud. "I am the boogey man boogey man that's what I
am!..."
Ranma rolled his eyes and kept walking, his mind focused on what his
situation would be now that he'd been gone for the past four centuries.
Pretty bleak, he thought with a mental sigh. Well the good thing about
this, he thought with a little chuckle, I won't have to deal with all of the
finance�s anymore. He sighed once again and kept walking alongside the
ever-humming/singing Duo.
They reached the bridge just in time to hear the panicked voices.
Noin was sitting at the computer console with Harold and Hilde over her
shoulder. Neither of the boys could see the screen for the three other
people standing in front of it, but they could distinctly hear a woman's
voice over the link.
"You're out of your damn mind, Water! Get back to base now, that's an
order!" Noin was on the verge of screaming as the video image of Water,
Sally Po, went blank.
"Dammit! She's gonna go in there alone and risk herself getting
caught! What the hell was she thinking!"
Just then all three turned and stared at Duo and Ranma as they stood
at the door as still as granite. Duo was the first to break the silence.
"Uh, did we come back at a bad time?"
*********************************
"I still don't see why I had to come daddy!" The young teenage girl moved
over to her father through the amass of people crowding the president.
"Mr. President, were on in ten! President Brown, did you want to present
the award before of after the speech? Mr. President, did you want to add the
Martian project to your speech as we had discussed? Mr. President, Lady Une
reports that all guest are accounted for and the ballroom has been sealed.
All are seated and eagerly awaiting your speech.
It seemed each person had something equally important to say to the world
leader as he tried in vain to straighten his tie, feeling the pressure of
his office and staff he simply waved him or her off with a flick of his
wrist. "People, I'm ready to deliver my speech, anything else will have to
wait. Now sweetheart," he turned to his daughter, she was at least fourteen
with long locks of brunette hair flowing around the narrow shape of her
face. Her high cheekbones seemed to accent her large brown eyes as she
stared up at her father disapprovingly, "I've told you already, it's your
duty to stand as a firm support to your father while he's in office. Now I
know it may not seem fair at times, but I have an obligation to this world,
and thus inadvertently bestow some of my burden onto you, I hope someday you
can understand."
'I won't have to.' The girl thought menacingly.
He reached for the bridge of his nose. Politics... He smirked to himself.
He had never felt quite at home with it, it simply seemed to fall into his
lap at the most inconvenient times, like when he was trying to take care of
a family. Being the first democratically nominated leader for the world
didn't help ease the pressure. He had campaigned rigorously to get where he
was, but still it had been more out of need than want. He knew what he had
to offer the world, it wasn't vanity or ego. It was a simple understanding
of who he was. He was smart, well educated, and knew how to maintain a
government. He had set such priorities since his early youth; he was a
decent, honest, and hard working citizen, and when he realized who was going
to be campaigning early on for the presidency he knew it was his obligation
to run. Not for personal gain, just simply to stand properly for the
collective people. And ever since he had been tipping through daisies. When
your dealing with a government as diverse and complex as the entire world,
you begin to realize you can't just rush in there and make the appropriate
changes. It just didn't work that way. And then there was Erin, his
daughter....
"Mr. President were on in three minutes..." His thoughts were interrupted
by reality once again.
"Charlie, good luck to you." Diana his wife whispered with a faint kiss to
the lips.
"How do I look?"
Her smile was warm, "Like a world class leader... Like my husband, whom I'm
proud of." He smiled at that. Diana was always his light in the dark, should
he ever lose her...
Applause could be heard just outside the room in which they stood, "Mr.
President, it's time!" Slowly, yet with years of pride, the world leader,
father, and husband...Charlie, made his way out into the bright lights of
the camera�s and into the faces of the billions of voters he represented.
********************************
"Lady Une, take a look at this, commander Kagi, announced as he approached
rapidly from off to her left. He presented her with a color photo of a
security officer. "We spotted him earlier with our camera�s after several
soldiers reported an unknown face patrolling the inner corridor's of the
outer perimeter of the ballroom."
"I see." Lady Une commented stone-faced.
"Lt. Gainstin, was supposed to report on post five but instead we got him."
"Did you ask the man who he was and what he was doing?"
"No maim we wanted to report with you first."
Lady Une seemed slightly unnerved at her commander�s lack of competence.
"Then get the hell over there an...
"Zzz Commander Kagi, camera�s eight and two are out sir, that's the same
area as."
"I know," the commander cut the voice over the radio off.
Lady Une snatched the radio from the commander's hands, "all soldiers,
converge on surrounding coordinates 655B, locate this unknown soldier and
have him apprehended at once." She glared at the commander, "Kagi your
better than this, you knew what to do... I've got to get the president out
of here now!"
"I'll take care of that Lady," A new voice made itself hastily known. Lady
Une snapped to see Quatre running from her towards the podium in a
controlled manner, probably been standing here the whole time she surmise,
"Thank you, Quatre! Kagi, with me, now!"
"Aye Sir!"
Quatre reached the podium with no difficulty and pardoned himself to the
stage, he quickly yet softly barked orders to the guarding personnel who in
turn grabbed the president by the arm. Startled, the president looked back
at his personal bodyguards with concern on his face. "I�m sorry sir, it's
for your own safety." Quatre went no further to explain. He approached the
podiums microphone and gently explained that the rest of the presidents
speech was regrettably canceled till a later date, He gingerly advised the
attentive audience to please leave without delay and exit towards the many
exits' located in the back.
The audience seemed confused by this turn of events and all Quatre could do
was assure them that everything was being dealt with.
Without warning a piece of the podium that Quatre stood at split open,
alerting him to the presence of the assassin, only those closest to him
seemed to notice the shot. Quatre had enough time to realize the gun was
silenced when a barrage of gunfire sounded from the above decks of the
ballroom. The majority of the audience still hadn't made it out and all went
to chaos as the bulk of those attending either dropped to the floor or began
to make a break for it as the shots rang out through the acoustically
ampliphied theatre. Quatre caught sight of a man as he dropped from the
balcony to the floor and shielded his eyes at the impact, when he opened
them he managed to catch sight of the president wording silently. 'I still
love you Erin.' They said wordlessly at the same time the two attending
bodyguards reached for their firearms.
Time seemed to lose coherence, almost as though things were in slow motion
and yet happening too rapidly to react. Events began to jumble together. A
gunshot. The President, flying off his feet backwards. Blood splattering
into the air and onto surrounding onlookers. Quatre wiping it from his eyes.
People running toward the podium as the President fell to the floor. A
second shot ringing through the chaotic turmoil...
The people in attendance became more frantic at the second series of
gunshots. Quatre caught sight of the culprit and almost froze in shock.
Erin? Things stopped making sense, all he could think to do was wrestle the
gun from her before the guards tore her body down into a mass of flesh. He
leapt at the younger girl, all the while detesting his actions; he was still
soaked in the blood of another man, and yet trying to rescue the attacker?
His body slammed into her just as the first shot was fired, it caught him in
the shoulder and he felt the cold sting follow through his veins like fire.
In the next instant his body crashed down ontop of her own and he easily
wrestled the gun from her fingertips. His blood and the blood of her fathers
washed down over her white dress staining her with the crime she had
committed. So much blood Quatre suddenly thought, too much blood. He turned
her own gun on her pointing it directly at her eyes. His own blood from his
torn shoulder flowing down his arm in a current, down the barrel, and onto
her nose and cheeks. He felt his ragged breath stagger. We need to get him
to a hospital, he heard somebody call. "There�s no time," he heard the
familiar voice of lady Une, "Quatre we have sound reason to believe a bomb
has been planted on this colony, we have to evacuate the residents and
guests immediately.
"How much time?" He asked, his gaze unwavering from the heavily breathing
girl beneath him. Her demeanor suggested strength, her eyes suggested fear.
"The assassin we found upstairs watch indicated, 20 minutes." Lady Une
responded ripping Quatre's shirt from his body and tying it tightly around
the open wound. Quatre winced, but never once dropped his gun from the girls
face.
"Have an immediate evacuation of all citizens and guest, as outlined in our
crisis 'c' code."
"Affirmative," Lady Une complied. She might be head of the preventers, but
this was Quatre's colony, and she wasn't about to go against his wishes.
"Kagi, your with me." She ordered the haggard commander as she walked
quickly to the control area of the ballroom.
"Have this... Thing taken aboard my ship!" Quatre spat the order with
despise. Quickly as though scolded, a couple of soldiers helped him up from
the girl while another couple pulled the girl to her feet and cuffed her
wrist.
Fifteen minutes later everyone in the colony was evacuated, both guest
and residents.
Quatre sat in his seat aboard the shuttle and stared out of the window
at his home. He kept a close eye on his watch, counting down the time
remaining. He hoped that his suspicions were correct in the possibility
that the bomb was a fake, for no one could find it. When it neared the time
of detonation, Quatre saw Lady Une sit down in the seat across from him.
"Do you think that it was an empty threat?" Lady Une's voice had hope
and sorrow intertwined to make it sound so strange that Quatre smiled.
"I can only hope..." Quatre's eyes were suddenly drawn to the sudden
light in his window. He turned to see his home explode in a soundless
flameball that just as quickly as it had come, disappeared into the cold
darkness of space.
********************************
So what did you think? Like it? Love it? Hate it? Despise it? We want to
know, send us your comments and critisisms, just simply reply to this post!
-Greg
<Greg Housley -
coldmatrix@hotmail.com>
<Jon Hall -
Kenoki_Jin@hotmail.com>
"I tell myself the same damn thing... Everyday... Everyting will be
alright!"
Visit our website for previous chapters
http://orca.st.usm.edu/~jthacker/Helix/HelixFictions.html
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators -
ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing -
ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`----
http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'