Light and Shadows
by RikugouNotes: Yet another unfinished fic. *sigh* I really gotta concentrate on my unfinished ones before starting new stories! Haven't written a GW fic in a long while, been concentrating on my originals instead. I must give a personal thank you to my beta-reader, Windy-chan! C&C craved.
Chapter 1In the Human World, there must always be a balance. There must always be a balance between the perpetually Good and eternally Evil, the Young and the Old and the Strong and the Weak. One of the greatest significance was the balance between those of the Light and those of the Shadows. But the most important was the fragile balance between Life and Death.
For without Life there cannot be Death as is the opposite. Without Death, there cannot be Life. The ever turning circle of Life and Death must always be completed, never broken. Shinigami shall always love his Angel of Life just as the Angel of Life can be with no other outside of the God of Death. Without the balance, chaos would break out in the Human World. Catastrophic wars would find its way into the minds of the people as plague would break out throughout the planet.
The balance between those of the Light and Shadows was kept in place by a powerful forcefield separating the two planes. But every other millennia, the barrier between the Plane of Light and the Land of Shadows thins to a point where a Dark one with a certain amount of power can make it weaken and create a doorway into the World of the Gods. During such a time, Angels and Gods are sent by the Mighty One to make sure none of the Dark would journey across to their world. Time and again, they had thwarted the plans of the Evil Overlord. For next two thousand years, he waited for yet another chance to gain access into the Plane of Light, where power was abundant.
The moment the time came for the barrier to thin once again, hundreds of Gods and Angels gathered around the large expanse its length. They were wary and on guard, for the Fates had predicted that something was going to happen and it did not bode well for those living in the Plane of Light. It was very ominous indeed, for the three sisters were supposed to be omniscient because of their powerful gift of clairvoyance.
It first began with a sudden failure of the end of the boundary. Dark creatures began to swarm through the hole, attacking any Gods, Goddesses and Angels that were in the way. All of them fought the skirmish with their lives as demons and seraphs fell left and right. In the middle of the fight were a pair of powerful beings, Shinigami and the Angel of Life. They fought with a skill only surpassed by the likes of the God of War, decimating more of the evil beings than any other. But it seemed that the battle centered around them. The bulk of those who came through the hole in the boundary went straight for the God of Death and his partner. The rest resembled more of a diversion than anything else.
It was then that the battle began turning against the inhabitants of the Plane of Light. There was an abrupt flare of black lightning within the atmosphere of the World of the Gods. Whatever and where ever it struck, death occurred, be it demon, Angel or God. One such bolt, hit the white winged Angel of Life, throwing him to his knees in unimaginable pain.
The 'sky' of Plane of Light darkened imminently, sending the usually bright sphere into total darkness. During that short moment, the Angel of Life disappeared, his link totally sundered from the mind of Shinigami.
And hence started the dark path the Human World was bound for. The year was AC 179.
***
The Romafeller Foundation was a quickly rising political and social power on Earth. Composed of the rich and powerful, it was not surprising that they sought to control all they could, despite the fact that the Alliance was still in effect. Covert actions were taken and eventually lead to the near complete take over of the colonies in space. The people rebelled against the military power of OZ, the group of which was lead by the bureaucratic party, and aroused bedlam in all of the space colonies.
Mobile suits were manufactured on an extraordinary level, numbering nearly 100 produced each month per factory, in an attempt to calm the storm. Heero Yuy, a pacifist, preached his ideas on the colonies, going against the military power of OZ. For a while, it seemed that the tide would turn and peace would be achieved. Unfortunately, this would not be so since he was soon assassinated thereafter.
Five scientists got together to make plans for machines that would take part in what would be known as Operation Meteor, a mission whose objective was to launch the colonies into the Earth should they refuse to given them their independence. Soon afterwards, all communication was lost between the colonies, each one becoming isolated from the rest of the solar system. Space shuttles still traveled from Earth to the colonies but the transportation from one colony to another was rare to the point of nonexistent. Even so, the machines were built with the greatest of efficiency.
Those who supported Operation Meteor were enthusiastic about the idea, knowing that such a threat to the Earth would certainly be able to accomplish their needs. But somewhere along the way, the plan changed and merely became a mission to destroy the OZ military group on Earth to rid its strangle hold over the colonies.
Several soldiers with the best mobile suit pilot skills were selected as candidates to operate the new machines, which would be known from then on to instill a bit of fear, amazement and terror throughout the hearts of their enemies, made with the strongest metals available, gundanium. Thus the word 'Gundam' was created to describe the high tech suits. But each one was not able to take the stress of piloting the suit for very long without collapsing after getting out.
The scientists searched high and low for the perfect pilot but none seemed to present themselves. They eventually reasoned that if a regular mobile suit pilot could not take the stress, someone trained to do so could. And children being the easiest to mold were the perfect test subjects. Thus started the search for five children who would fit the cast of the Gundam.
—
Five cries heralded the birth of five new children brought into the war torn world. The year was AC 180, the point of which the battles were at their peaks.
As five pairs of parents looked down at the bright bundle in their arms, a single thought went through their minds. This child was meant for something that would change the world. Whether for the good or the worse, their wildest imaginations were not able to conceive it.
***
AC 185
A little five year old ran through the halls, giggling all the way. Behind him ran a tall man, his face red from a mixture of anger and embarrassment at being at the receiving end of a joke of a small child. His hair was a cotton pink creation on his head thanks to the dye poured into his shampoo.
The chase suddenly ended when the tiny blonde gasped in pain as he clutched at his chest and crumpled to the floor. The man's anger immediately dissipated as he called for the doctor.
He did not hear the little boy whisper something to a mysterious presence. "Such loneliness and sadness. Don't be sad. I'll be your invisible friend until we meet in the future," he said softly and fell unconscious.
***
A raven black haired figure stopped in mid-motion, getting a hard yank on his short ponytail for his pause. The boy squawked indignantly and gingerly rubbed the base of his head. He glared at the girl and with a wicked smirk, pounced on her as he tickled her senseless. Her laughter echoing in the open air as he forgot the feeling of immense sorrow that made him stop in the middle of doing his forms.
***
He halted for a moment, unconsciously looking for someone who was not there. A distant pang of pain ghosted around the middle his chest but it did not really hurt him. It felt as if someone had punched him through a foot of padding; the effect was something akin to bumping his knee on a table.
A curly auburn haired girl stuck her head cautiously into the cage. "Are you done petting the lion yet? Mama finished making dinner."
Blinking in confusion for a moment, he smiled at his sister and nodded. Running his fingers one last time through the tawny mane of the powerful beast that could gobble him up with no problem, he followed her out and closed the cage securely behind him.
***
Dirty and disheveled chestnut hair trailed behind him as he tried to lose his pursuers. In his hands were four loaves of bread that were stolen from the bakery seven blocks away. His breath rasped harshly in his chest when he heard the three men chasing him begin to catching up. He knocked over a garbage can with a loud crash, smirking when the sound of someone tripping over it reached his ears.
Just a bit further and I'll be safe, he said silently.
But before he could run any more than three feet after that thought, a wave of pain, sadness and loneliness slammed into him with the strength of a freight train. He tumbled head over heels but held securely to the bread in his arms. Glancing quickly behind him, he saw them less than ten feet away. Struggling to his feet, he began to run once again but alien feelings once again pushed him to his knees.
This time however, he recognized its origin. "Tenshi," he gasped hoarsely. Tears sprung up in his eyes as he whispered the word ardently. A dark purple light shot through with black streaks coalesced around his slight form, dissuading his stalkers from meting out punishment for his thievery. They fell over each other trying to get away from him but he paid no attention to any of this. His eyes gazed at a far off distance, unfocused to his surroundings.
"Tenshi, come back to me Tenshi."
***
AC 195
Five teenagers were put against a legion of trained soldiers and expected to win. A piece of cake, right?
Duo mentally snorted in distaste. What were those five loony bins thinking? They were not, contrary to popular belief, super heroes that had the ability to save the world from total destruction!
His deft hands automatically cut the wires and attached them to a little gadget he had taken part in designing. Duo fondly called it the 'can opener' to OZ bases. They really had to increase their security to keep people trained as he was out. The door opened and before the people inside could sound the alarm, they were down for the count. Each one sported a neat bullet hole in the chest thanks to the gun Duo had. The silencer effectively muffled any and all sound.
Working quickly, he typed in a series of commands and waited for it to copy itself to the disk he shoved into the computer console. After a few moments, he was done and had sent a virus eating its way through the systems. The base would have to deal with lurid pictures of anonymous people enacting every kama sutra position and then some for months. Duo snickered evilly and skulked out of the room, carefully keeping to the less used corridors. There was no need to engage in combat with a bunch of ill trained OZ cadets.
Along the way, a certain someone with a messy brown mop of hair joined him. "Ninmu kanryou Hee-chan!" he whispered. He got a glare from his partner.
"Hn. Let's go," Heero grunted.
Together, they ran down the hall, dodging clueless soldiers along the way. It was truly sad to see how pathetic these troops were, Duo silently sighed. Then again, they were not trained as young as the five of them were. Turning the corner, they ran straight into a contingent of patrolling officers.
***
Heero and Duo shot forward in a flurry of punches and kicks and within moments, all of them were dead. They were not considered two of the five best trained soldiers for nothing. Glancing at his partner, he wondered at the peculiar glow the braided boy got when he killed someone. None of the others noticed anything out of the ordinary, he had asked, several times as a matter of fact.
But then again, he had always seen sights just as strange and some even stranger. Dr. J knew absolutely nothing about it of course. He had learned early on in his life that any natural abilities he had were taken advantage of and tampered with until it expanded to a point in which he had to be in total control in order to use it again. A prime example of this was his quick healing ability. While being 'trained' by the scientist, physical abuse was a large part of it. More often than not, he would go back to his bunk with a broken rib or sprained this and that.
There was once a point in which he could barely walk back to his closet of a room. The second he collapsed onto the tiny bed, something had opened up within him and the next day, he was fully healed. He managed to bluff his way through the next day, using the skill that Dr. J had taught him against the old man. For two whole months, he kept it to himself but eventually, the doctor had discovered it. Now, he could not exercise the power without going into something he called a 'Zone Out'. During that time, he would be dead to his surroundings until he finished healing himself. It was useless during a mission if he became injured but priceless if he got to a safehouse with five minutes of privacy to himself.
His mind turned outward once again when his acute hearing detected the faint footsteps of soldiers. Spotting a door marked storage, he grabbed his braided partner and dragged the both of them through the room just as OZ officers turned the corner.
Ignoring the sparks that seemed to ignite at each point Duo's body touched his, Heero stretched his hearing to its limits and savored the brief time he could have the violet-eyed pilot of Deathscythe leaning willingly against him.
The said pilot turned his head and whispered, "Is the coast clear?", his breath gusting across Heero's cheek. Ignoring this sensation as well, he nodded in the dark room. Another plus due to their training as Gundam pilots, most of them had excellent night vision, Duo the best out of them all.
They ran through the halls on silent feet, resembling apparitions when soldiers glanced at them out of the corner of their eyes when they passed them by.
Heero sighed inaudibly when he saw the exit. As confident as he was that he would accomplish all missions, he still got nervous that something would go wrong. He took out the pilfered card key and slid it through the slot. The light flashed green and the door opened. The chilly night air bit at their noses but momentary discomfort was pushed aside and replaced with an urgency to get as far away from the military base as possible.
No OZ soldiers had spotted them so far, but that could change in a nanosecond. For now, stealth and silence would have to be worn like a cloak. This was the risk of hanging around shadows.
***
Lady Luck must have been smiling upon them that night because they managed to make it to the perimeter without encountering any guards along the way. Heero knelt and cupped his hands before him with a quirk of his eyebrow in Duo's direction. Sighing, he took a couple of steps back and ran full tilt for the fence, stepping onto his partner's hands at the last possible minute.
He felt weightless for an endless moment as he went sailing over the enclosure. Smirking, he turned his flight into a tumble through the air as he did a triple axle that would have done Trowa proud. Duo landed without even a thump as evidence. He turned to look at his fellow pilot on the other side but he was no longer there. A finger tapped his shoulder and he spun, watching Heero's back disappear into the shadows.
Silently mumbling about too silent soldiers, he ran after him.
After walking about a mile and a half from the base, they finally reached their mode of transportation. Heero quickly swung a leg over the barrel of the motorcycle and revved up the engine.
Shaking his head about suicidal and reckless soldiers, Duo stuffed his braid under his shirt and pulled a helmet over his head. Am I thinking too much about a certain someone or what? he thought to himself.
Wrapping his arms around the body in front of him, he sighed and closed his eyes tiredly. One mission accomplished, a million more waiting to be done. When was it going to ever end? I may be Shinigami but even the God of Death needs a vacation from time to time, he said silently.
His train of thought traveled along the same track until he felt sleep pulling at his body.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day...
***
Awareness slammed into him with the force of a ten ton truck but outwardly, his body showed not even a twitch to betray his consciousness. His senses fed back a plethora of information, even things as obscure as air pressure before he let himself deem his body to be in a safe area. Hearing the faint clicking of a keyboard, he gave an exaggerated jaw breaking yawn.
"So what's on that disk that we had risk life and limb for anyway?" he asked groggily.
Heero turned in his chair and looked at him with an arched eyebrow. He knew, more than anyone, that all of them woke up with no brief stop between sleep and full consciousness. One who did not have the ability would have been dead long before they were initiates of the war. The rest of the Gundam pilots, even seemingly innocent Quatre, had that ability. He could not understand why the long haired pilot of Deathscythe insisted on pretending he could not wake up in the morning. Mentally sighing, he turned back to his computer.
"So?" Duo asked insistently. His head appeared over his shoulder. He glared at him but turned the laptop to the garrulous American nonetheless.
"There is a highly secretive project done in what is supposed to be an abandoned military base. What little information on the disk suggests it is a genetic manipulation laboratory. A creature of some sort was captured and used as the source for materials used to produce what the scientists hope would become the perfect soldier," Heero intoned.
"Don't worry Hee-chan! No one's gonna be taking your title as all time 'Perfect Soldier' anytime soon," Duo chirped. 'Not without my say at least.'
***
Plans were made and cast off as the other Gundam pilots were contacted. Because so much was at stake, all of them were called in. Unfortunately, Wufei was finishing off his own mission but would join them shortly after the invasion of the laboratory had begun. Luckily, Trowa and Quatre were in the neighborhood and were designated as their backup. Wufei was to go in if anything went wrong and complete the assignment if they should become detained.
Heero and Duo were to separate once they got into the lab. Because of the secretive experiments done in the old base, the floor plans had been deleted from every single network of OZ. There was a general idea of the floor plan due to the fact that most OZ bases were built the same, but one inside, they were on their own.
Fully armed and dangerous, Heero began a mission that would unknowingly change his life.
***
"02 here. The West corridor is clear. Preparing to enter the North quadrant," Duo whispered, his message carried by the transmitter in his ear. Unlike the bugs and sound detecting technology available to OZ, the tiny radio transmitter could not be detected under normal means. On its own station complete with a jamming device that prevented outside interference, it was a spy's dream. It was also unavailable even on the black market and invented by the most trustworthy and paranoid scientists that worked for Winner Industries.
Gun cocked and ready to attack at any given moment, Duo silently walked down the empty halls. The lack of any heavy security worried him but the mission came first, not his more often than not correct intuitions. His acute hearing detected the soft tread of feet coming from around the corner and froze. Adopting his dangerous Shinigami smirk, he waited patiently for his quarry to walk headfirst into his death.
But before he could do any more than aim, his gun was knocked out of his hands and he had to fight his way out of a head lock. When the faint smell of cordite reached his nose, he let out an inaudible sigh of relief and let himself go limp. Duo was let go a moment later. Straightening, he grinned at Heero and grabbed his gun.
"This sure is a small base isn't it?" he remarked wryly. "Usually you can get lost in these things!"
"Hn. The Eastern and Southern quadrants are clear," Heero said.
"Good, all we have to do now is to check that door over there before we declare this mission a complete waste of time and haul our asses outta here," Duo stated.
Each standing on either side of the door, Heero reached up with one hand to key in the code. Like a pair of avenging angels, the swept into the room and took out the occupants inside.
Heero went straight to the computer and began copying the files onto the disk. Absently, he looked around the windowless room, noting the various instruments strewn across the surfaces of the tables. Unfortunately, he recognized most of them from his days training to be the 'Perfect Soldier'. A low beep signaled the transfer of data was complete so he ejected the disk. Taking out another one, he sent the worm he created into the network.
The corners of his lips twitched upwards. The worm would eat every file along with the files on every computer connected to it. It would also subject any one who tried to recover the backup files to horrible elevator music. I've been spending too much time with the braided baka, Heero mentally sighed.
A low gasp from Duo made him turn around. The braided boy was staring at a large tank in the dark recesses of the room with shock filled eyes, breathing raggedly. His sharp eyes saw the tank held some kind of large winged creature within its depths but nothing more.
Clearing his head, Heero asked, "What is it?", annoyance coloring his voice.
Duo let his head hang as a hand reached out to turn on the light.
The area around Duo was immediately suffused in light as well as the inside of the water filled tank.
This time, it was Heero's turn to gasp. Within the tank was a teenager, no older than their own almost sixteen, attached to what seemed like hundreds of electrodes with an oxygen mask secured over his mouth. But what ever he was, it was not human, for attached to his back were a pair of snowy white wings.
-To be continued-Comments? Criticism? Questions?
--Rikugou