Ch13

War. That word defined in a mortal dictionary: a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations. But that was in a mortal dictionary; defined by a scholarly type person with glasses perched on his nose; a person that neither saw the blood flowing from a corpse clothed in a mangled uniform, nor heard the screams of one with a bullet or steel sword jabbed into him by a nameless soldier who was just doing his job and his duty for his country, just like the dead one had. The definition was a peacetime definition; it was neither simplifying nor complex enough to define that word that brought so much red blood and salty tears.

In the distant in time and space colonies, war sprung up through disputes and false beliefs. Moral mobile suits and later immoral dolls fought a seemingly endless waltz between the calm of ‘peace’, which is just a break for refreshments, and the tragedy of ‘war’ with its bloodstained hands and tear streaked children faces. It meant attacking a base, knowing that you may not see another day, that you could die even if you were the best. It meant the enemies and alias changed their masks, sometimes switching with each other, sometimes putting more scratches on their own masks.

In this world of green trees and greener grass, in this world of two bright moons dancing with each other in the sky, in the sometimes blue, sometimes nothingness black space above, war was war only slightly different from war in the colonies. People fought. People bled. People killed. People died. All nameless to those in the future they fought and killed and died for, every single one. More here then on the colonies; here had no photos, computers, technology. Only giant guymelefs powered by the remains of dead beasts. The guymelefs that fought against each other and weak soldiers that had only a weak sword to call their own. The guymelefs that were so like the gundams that even now were being suppressed under the power of Ziedian and Ziedian suits. The guymelefs that were so uncomfortable to one use to his gundam.

Duo sighed and squirmed in his seat and tried again to see out of the face guard. There just had to be a white bar right in front of his face, Duo grumbled in his thoughts. And Wufei just had to tell his friends that he himself and Duo probably knew how to polite mobile suits like the guymelefs. They didn’t. Well, almost didn’t. They could work them, but not as well as their now ruined gundams. The guymelefs were different, and light coloured. Duo wanted black, not these weak, standing out colours. He wanted black. And a scythe, not this weak sword gripped in his hand.

He snarled and blocked Wufei’s swing of his sword at Duo’s head. Wufei changed directions and tried to hit his head, but Duo ducked and tried for the middle of the suit that his friend operated. Wufei jumped up and to the side, trying again for Duo’s to low head.

By the time they were down and sweaty, the moon, no, moons were peaking out to lighten the blackened sky. Off duty soldiers and citizens hooted from the sidelines as if they never saw a fight like that. They probably hadn’t, judging by Hitomi’s and her husband’s faces, and Merle’s scowl.

Pretty girls with flowers greeted them as they jumped out of their prisons of discomfort. Duo smiled and took the flowers; Wufei scowled and muttered ‘ruo nu ren’ (1) when the girls tried to give him the flowers that eventually got batted to the floors. Same ol’ Wufei, same ol’ Wufei. Duo was about to flirt with the pretty ladies when the image of the guymelefs waving that symbol that Duo knew flashed in front of his face. Heero. He turned away, hugging the flowers.

Duo smiled and pretended he was fine to the girls and the world for the rest of the festivals. The face of the guymelef merged with the face of the lost Heero in his mind alone. The image flashed in his mind whenever his thoughts wandered away from the banquet.

And to the mission that Duo had put on himself to do that night. He would do it, even if it meant angry people cursing him for disappearing on them with a guymelef. But he needed to do. He needed to save his friend from those evil ones that made his friend still an innocent almost from mother’s arms without a thought. Heero had to be freed for life of them and that feeling enclosed in Duo’s heart.

Finally, the dancers drifted away, the drinkers poured away, and the musicians stooped the beat and left. Duo left, too. But not to his comfy, goose mattress and charming fire enclosed in his fancy room that was surrounded by the rooms of the last two visiting advisors of Van—the other advisors left when a war course was decided and the younger ones were threatened with threats of being recruited.

Duo went nowhere close to them. He took a walk, claming he needed fresh air. He walked like he said he would; he walked almost directly to the practice field where people forgot to put away his suit.

He waited at the seemingly deserted field as the black night darkened with the citizen’s curfew taking place, and then as it pitched with the palace candles all being snuffed. One light stayed on: Van’s. He couldn’t wait for that light to turn off; that light was always on.

As the thief he was and would be, Duo slipped into the field and to the light coloured guymelef. He climbed up the suit and strapped himself in.

Heero, I am coming, He thought before he shot himself into the air, I am coming for you.

Wufei sighed and waved at the light blur against the sky before turning back to Van to complete their planning.

“He is gone,” Hitomi said.

Wufei nodded.

“Good. And now, our plans shall start.”

1- ruo-weak nu ren- woman (Chinese) (I asked a Chinese) I don’t see why Wufei would speak Japanese; he is from a Chinese clan.