PART 13 - Crystallise
Sally...
He had to purge his fury. The horror of what he had nearly done only turned burning rage to chill anger, and could not excise it. Overhead, there came the rumble of artificial thunder, the flash of synthetic lightning from volleys of fire and return-fire. It was the call of battle, and only battle would assuage his inner chaos. Chang Wufei would summon the Preterid from the depths of the water, where it was hidden.
With the saffron twilight mirrored on the lake, the Preterid was as a statue rising from a crucible of molten metal. Yes, the Preterid had been forged to bring order to the world. Order that would last for generations.
It was a ten-kilometre-wide strip encircling the capital city, known as the Brussels Perimeter. Embedded with surface-to-air missile launchers and beam nets, this was the first line of local defence that Acting Commander Yonoi was depending on. Conversely, it was the first major obstacle for Quatre's Desert Corps.
They approached in formation, pushing the Tauruses at top speed and at high altitude up to the very boundary. Wing Zero was at the very fore, barrelling past the pillars of light that erupted from the ground, The beams followed its flight path like hungry searchlights; chasing, crossing, barring. In the cockpit, Quatre's brow furrowed with the effort of concentration, his thin hands shifting the sensitive controls by millimetres to achieve the minute movements that allowed him to avoid the deadly pursuit. There was but a moment to lament the absence of the beam buster rifle in Wing Zero's weaponry. This of all days was not one for regrets.
At least there was the ZERO system, drawing the input of his senses - sight, hearing, touch - and feeding him predicted missile trajectories. They appeared as a hybrid of the tangible and virtual, the coloured tubes snaking through his mind followed by the billowing trails of the real missiles themselves.
Now they landed, destroying the Perimeter defences. Point, fire. Point, fire. The precision came seemingly without a need for aim. Missile launchers exploded into smithereens, and nearby beam generators ruptured with the impacting shrapnel, spilling their delicate components -
The unprecedented explosion from behind Wing Zero flung the Gundam forward - it skidded ten metres and landed heavily on its right knee. Quatre jerked his head round by reflex, as if Wing's head would turn in synchrony, and the movement pulled one of the ZERO advectors away from the skin above his brow. In a split second he reattached it and brought Wing Zero to stand again.
"Freedom! The Leader - " The voice frothed over the communicator as Wing Zero moved swiftly to the fallen Taurus; the imperfection of a damaged communication unit, or the sound of blood bubbling through the lungs of a dying pilot? A launcher had toppled over before discharging its lethal package; the Taurus had strayed into its path at the last moment.
The first fatality in Quatre's group.
"Farraj - " Quatre knew that the dead boy was far from the battlefield now. "The first. But I fear, not the last..." Already there was a prickling on the back of the Arabian pilot's neck, a familiar side effect of the ZERO system. It heralded the arrival of the enemy Serpents.
Wing Zero stepped away from the mecha carcass, Quatre assessing the positions of the newcomers while simultaneously transmitting directions to the mobile suits of his own corps. Then he stood proudly amidst the debris field Brussels Perimeter, a beacon of challenge. Waiting.
For surely, amongst the approaching mecha of the 1st Mobile Suit Division, there would be Chang Wufei.
In her ear, quite clearly: "Farraj - The first. But I fear, not the last..." The words came through the earpiece with an almost intimate closeness.
Beside her, Bram was looking up from the tiny screen strapped to his left wrist. "The bulk of the 1st MSD have left to engage our mobile suits." He had no idea that Dorothy could hear every sound from the interior of Wing Zero, including the muffled sounds of the conflict. "Are you ready to move in, M'z Wescott?"
A decisive nod.
They had started at a point on the Senne, travelling along miles of abandoned waterworks and train tunnels according to a route scouted out months before, passing under the pentagonal Old Town of Inner Brussels. Now they were about to break the surface at the very edge of the Dictatorial Palace. The egress was tiny, a maintenance shaft two feet across that only one person could squeeze through at a time. Without the aid of the diversionary attack led by Quatre Winner, this attempt at infiltration would have been an impossibly risky option.
Dorothy was the last of the fifty to exit, Bram's strong brown hand hauling her up. Bifurcated brows pinched together as she scanned their surroundings. They were in some sort of large storage room, rolls of expensive Persian rugs leaning against a stack of ornate gilt chairs.
"Bad news." Bram fanned away the dust which made his eyes water. "We should have hit the conservatory. Or at least, the adjoining gardens..."
Dorothy's heart was a leadenweight in her chest. "So the building plans are inaccurate. Or we have gone astray. But if we are working blind, at least we are already within the building." In her left ear there was the sudden hiss of Quatre's breath, both reassuring and worrying at the same time. "Wait. If we contact Central Directorate, Zechs Merquise might know enough to guide us."
Bram shook his head. "We can't get a strong enough signal here with our medium transponder. We could attempt to get through to Wing Zero and crosscom that way, but it's unlikely that Commander Merquise is familiar with any section besides the North Wing."
"Bram..." The door of the storage room opened and one of two scouts who had been sent ahead stepped up. "There's something very strange going on... The place seems to be empty. Not a sign of anyone anywhere."
The second scout entered behind his fellow. "The lift lobby down the corridor seems to indicate that there are five basement levels, and we're on B1."
Dorothy's eyes flashed with the realisation. "Five basement levels... We are in the outer shell of an underground complex beneath the Palace. There must be a proper reinforced bunker further below us. That is where everyone has been evacuated to now that the city is under attack."
Bram hammered his right fist into his open left palm. "Of course, how stupid of us; we should have considered it before!"
"All important personages of government will be there. We have to find - " Dorothy suddenly grimaced, her sentence unfinished. The earpiece had begun to transmit a strange sawing sound which penetrated to the core of her brain; it quavered on discordant notes for a few seconds, then abruptly pitched upwards. Over the sawing came Quatre's voice.
"Where... are... you...?"
"M'z Wescott, are you alright?!" The other men anxiously began crowding round her. Dorothy backed away from them.
"Wufei... where... are... you?!" The words were in themselves quietly spoken, but there was a stilted rhythm to them which hinted of... hinted of...
"You owe me - you owe it me to be here..."
Listening to this, Dorothy was gripped by a frenzy. She had to find and neutralise Mariemaia. Soon. Before she was forced to use the self-destruction key which hung around her neck, as heavy as a millstone. Darting past Bram's concerned face, she broke for the open door, uncaring of her own safety.
Quatre - hold on, hold on, hold on...
Chang Wufei was not among them. No Altron, no new Gundam of the rumours.
No way to finish it quickly.
Quatre drew a long, shuddering breath. The controls were slick with perspiration, yet his hands clung on with a deathgrip. Around him his men were being slaughtered in contest with the ANATEXIS-bearing Serpents. The complex simplicity of it, the simple complexity of it, spiralled into his mind in ever diversifying patterns, patterns upon patterns like ferns and feathers and fractals - ANATEXIS seen in the ZERO system was incredible in its hideous beauty. Quatre's mind was a vessel filled to overflowing.
Yet over this roiling tumult stretched a thin wire of calm. Wing Zero stepped over yet another fallen comrade, picking out one of the many Serpents as its target; this seemed to be the head of the unit. As the two suits engaged, it was no mere duel between machines, or systems, or sides, or even leaders. It was man against man.
"Turn back from Brussels." The voice was a stranger's; young, slightly hesitant despite the edge of determination.
Was Quatre reminded of himself, the seventeen-year-old who had taken Sandrock into this very city years before? Perhaps the fifteen-year-old who had descended to Earth to find that it was so unbelievably beautiful... "Surrender," said Quatre, though the odds were against him, and his force was fast dwindling. "Surrender, pilot of the 1st Mobile Suit Division."
The Serpent jolted to the side as if to scan Wing Zero's body armour from a different angle. "I am Captain Ken Yonoi, Acting Commander."
Acting Commander. The confirmation of Chang Wufei's absence. Had he deemed Quatre Raberba Winner an unworthy opponent?
Somehow, there was an even deeper well of galling bitterness that Quatre had not known lay within himself. He tapped it now, its oily darkness the slippery feel beneath his fingers, the foul taste in his mouth. Its pressure burst through the conduits of the ZERO system; burst through his brain and into the limbs of the Gundam.
Now there was a struggling; like a fish flopping in a slimy, fast-evaporating pool of muddy water. Desperate to escape the torment.
Filth. No, it was the Serpent, its limbs flailing in a sequence of moves. Wing Zero delivered a final blow that pierced through all its motion, and the Serpent flew backwards, spinning from the torque generated by unequal thrust in the damaged engines. Then it shuddered as it fell, its armour cracking away, tumbling, tumbling to finality.
"Filth - " Quatre said it aloud now. During the course of combat the mobile suits had moved over the city. The fires from the exploding Serpent were engulfing more buildings than those demolished in the impact itself. Wing Zero's merciless gaze took all this in, settling on the urban landscape. It saw not human lives, but soulless drudges. Mariemaia's servants, responsible for their own misery.
"Is this worth saving?"
Wing Zero was the sole survivor from the Desert Corps. The Tauruses had all been destroyed. Alone, it made its progress towards the heart of Brussels on foot, the weight breaking the tarmac of the roads - its giant wings ploughed into low rooves and glass-fronted office blocks. A slow and deliberate traverse.
And above it circled dozens of Serpents, vultures awaiting their moment to attack.
"M'z Wes-cott!" Bram sprinted after her, frightened. She had already reached the lift lobby, disappearing through the doors of the elevator, her long hair glinting in its doubled up braid. He shouted again: "We must keep together!" but it was to no avail.
She had taken the lift down to B5, and Bram entered the second lift, his heart racing. Everything was going wrong, everything...
And then, as the lift doors opened, he heard a gunshot.
Charging out into the wide passageway, he heard a second and third shot over the background hum of hydraulics. He could see a massive door sliding shut, and Dorothy stood ten metres before it, firing her gun through the rapidly narrowing gap. On the other side of the door were faces, some calm, some frightened, but it was of no importance to Bram at that moment.
"M'z WESCOTT! You're in a beam field!" He had seen the strangely shaped nodes on the walls - as soon as the door of the bunker was fully closed, those nodes would activate, creating crisscrossing beams. She would be killed -
He sprang forward, dragging her backwards; she resisted, and he forcibly wrenched her from her position. They both fell to the floor in the struggle, only just clearing the danger zone.
"She's in there!" Dorothy pressed her forehead to the cold tiles in anguish. "I saw her - she was there - Mariemaia..." They had locked stares through the closing door. The girl Dictator's face had been so soft in its youth, so hatefully mocking... "Do you hear me, Bram? I shot. I missed..."
Bram did not answer.
"Why did you pull me away? If I had been closer, Bram - even death would have been worthwhile!" She raised her head slowly, aware that a searing red beam floated inches from her shoulder, and rolled away from it to safety.
Bram did not follow.
"Bram?"
In falling, the beams had slain him silently. A coal-black burn-trail climbed up his right leg and continued unbroken to his abdomen. No blood; the wounds had been instantly cauterised. Seeing this, Dorothy remained pronate, feeling a heat build at the back of her skull. Bram's death had been her fault, but they were all as good as dead now. Mariemaia rested safe behind ten inches of gundanium. She would command from the bunker, and within minutes forces would be recalled to Brussels to butcher the rebels. They had failed.
Through the earpiece Quatre's voice murmured on.
"I shall. I shall. We all deserve death."
Dorothy wept.
"Come in, Desert Corps."
Zechs Merquise waited with diminishing patience and increasing anxiety. Not a word, not even the fizzle of a poor signal. "Quatre Winner, this is Central Directorate. Come in, please. Update us on your situation."
Noin tapped the control panels urgently, bringing up several subscreens. "They should be able to hear us - and they MUST be told."
"Yes." Zechs dried the perspiration on his cheek with the back of a glove. The rebels attacking the Amman base had been dealt a crushing defeat. Free of the harassment, army reinforcements were on their way to Belgium from the Middle East. They were expected to reach the capital within the hour.
"The Chinese group hasn't replied, either," Noin added quietly.
"The focus is Brussels. And even should the worst happen at Chengdu it is still farther from Brussels than Amman. It will take the enemy longer to get there, especially if they need to refuel."
Noin leaned over to the comm unit. "Quatre. Whether you can answer or not, listen: The Amman reinforcements are approaching you, fast, projected arrival in forty-eight minutes. Choose a defensible point at which to face them NOW. I repeat: Enemy reinforcements expected within forty-eight minutes."
Once again, no reply. Zechs and Noin zoomed in on the green blips that represented the enemy mobile suits from Amman; they seemed to be in two clusters, one behind the other.
"Is it time to send our reinforcements?" Noin asked. It was a halfhearted jest.
Zechs returned a grim smile. "You and I alone make poor reinforcements." Then his smile disappeared as the screen caught his attention. He caught Noin's sleeve. "Look - "
The clusters were merging, yet the size of the combined group seemed to decrease. In Zechs' experience, it could mean only one thing. "A battle. They are in combat with each other."
"Infighting?" Noin blinked. "What does it mean?"
Zechs put a hand to his chin, frowning. "'Help unlooked for'. Whether they are all of Mariemaia's army or not, their numbers are reduced."
"If they've aided us, then we should make contact with them," said Noin, reaching for the communicator once more. Zechs stopped her.
"We cannot be sure of them, Noin. If they truly are our allies they will make their intentions known at Brussels."
Noin conceded. Yet had they endeavoured to establish a link to the mysterious cluster of mobile suits, they would only have received static. For they were mobile dolls, controlled by two figures which floated silently in faraway New Guinea.
Sally dreamed.
Night, layered with the crackling of flames. Tongues of fire licked at the edge of her vision. Twisted grey-white lumps of metal, like so many pieces of bone, littered the valley. And rising above them, backlit by the orange incendiary glow, there was a silhouetted shape even darker than the fabric of the sky...
There was fear, but it was a distant dread that could not mar the comforting warmth she felt. She was lying in the soft, long grasses, free from her bonds, and now she could hear a low murmur, a voice which drifted to her above the noise of crisping leaves. It had the tones of poetry - the words filled with the music of sadness.
Truth.
~
The others made their way on the other side long ago. They were content, they had found happiness, they had found Truth.
Heero's truth was regaining his humanity, finding his heart again... Duo's truth was his freedom to do as he pleased, to be lost in the simple mundane pleasures of life. Trowa's truth was to realise his own value, to recognise his self-worth through self-sacrifice. And Quatre's truth was a love of all things, the love of creation and nurturing. No more destruction...
They found their answers in each other.
And I - ? I could not find mine, as they had. No-one could show it to me; if I did not reach out to grasp it for myself, it would forever be denied me. Because I was never meant for friendship or joy - ephemeral things which slipped irretrievably through my fingers. The only permanent things in my world were the questions - war or peace - life or death - past or future.
Good or Evil...
I was consumed by the quest to seek out the roots of Evil, the reason why it kept returning. Was there peace after the Eve Wars of 195? I almost believed there was. Yet with Sogran's appearance I realised that you could not destroy Evil simply by killing one of its servants. Evil had to be battled in some other way, and to do that I had to comprehend it. I had to turn to it.
Had I always been destined to be its agent? Mariemaia extended her hand to me. To Chang Wufei, who had fought and destroyed her father under the sign of 'Good'! It was unbelievably ironic, poetically preordained. Under her banner, I fought those who had been my comrades. In that moment of combat with Heero, there was exhilaration... there was the challenge of a powerful opponent. His talk of history repeating itself only showed me how wrong he was. You cannot lay aside your own weapons and hope for all others to do the same. For conflict is human nature, and to suppress it is futile!
There was a time when I thought that it was honourable to fight on equal terms.
But when opponents are too similarly matched, there will always be contest. The only way to end fighting is if the weaker side recognises that it CANNOT muster arms against an enemy who is insurmountably strong! In this way is order preserved; through total domination. There must be dictatorship if the petty wars are to cease -
Treize, nearly a decade has passed since you told me that I understood you. Now I stand here beside the Gundam Preterid, the fragments of the rebel Tauruses scorching the landscape, and I hear your words once more. Let there be meaning in our actions. Let there be a purpose to our limited time on the stage.
Angels' wings only seem the whiter against the darkness, and the world MUST always have a Treize Khushrenada. For there must always be Evil. It cannot be destroyed. I will take my place amongst those who have worn its cloak over the years, knowing that I have served my purpose. Knowing that it was a role that only I could play. To be the counterbalance - that is my Truth.
Let the hypocrites hate me. They hate one who was never meant for love.
~
Sally's eyes snapped open. It had been no mere dream, though Wufei seemed to be in a trance himself. "Why must you all force my hand? You should have hated me silently, and then gone on with your task of living, Sally. But instead you all took up arms seven years ago, and you were crushed needlessly. Now you shall be crushed again..." He pointed out across the valley with a hand still encrusted with his blood. The remnants of the fallen aerial fighters smoked in the night air, mingling with the steam from wet grasses. "The Preterid killed them all."
Sally let the tears flow down her face - for the slain rebels, for her own fragility, for the misguided mind which had festered with loneliness and obsession. The tragedy of it all. "You fool," she whispered. "Why do you see everything in only black and white? Your 'Truth' is a distortion of reality."
"A distortion?" Wufei suddenly smiled. "No, Sally, you are wrong... Just as Heero was wrong. ANATEXIS showed it to me; so clearly, so clearly." His expression grew incredibly distant, as if he could see to the far reaches of the galaxy. "Now I must go to Brussels, as I promised."
Sally swallowed painfully, her throat parched. "Listen to me, Wufei, listen to me! You wanted an end to the fighting - just as we all did. We all fight for the same cause! If you want meaning to your existence, then for the sake of the world, don't go!"
"We do NOT fight for the same cause. If you had the victory, you would squander it. You would allow the despicable citizens of the world to have their petty freedoms, their petty squabbles, the endless honourless chaos! But with Mariemaia, there is control. There is order. That is the side which needs me."
Sally reached out to desperately cling to his red sash. "No! Our need of you is greater!"
"Is it?" Wufei looked down at her almost curiously. "Many years ago, I would have relented, Sally. If you had asked me then - " His hand moved to hover hesitantly above her head, as if he ached to stroke it. But in the next moment he had pulled back, the sash ripping out of Sally's grasp. "Save your dignity, woman, and do not beg me. I have chosen."