"Echoes"
A dissertation on the events of December twenty-fourth in the year After Colony one hundred ninety-five, as seen through the eyes of one who lived them.
By RavenTears
"This is no time to be fighting! It's too dangerous to stay on this battleship."
There he went again . . . fearing for everyone else's safety. The protective emotions he was fairly radiating were nauseous. Didn't he know that she was the enemy?
"Quatre Raberba Winner," she recited slowly. "I knew it was you. You are by far the most misguided one of all the Gundam pilots." She kept staring down the barrel of her gun at him. No, she would not use this against him. He deserved more respect than that. As she lowered the pistol, his stance seemed to relax.
"No, Dorothy. You are the misguided one. The Libra is going to crash! Evacuate with the others." At that, she smirked.
"Who said I ever had any intention of surviving this?" She tossed the gun into the low gravity, letting it hang in the air. "Your every move has followed my conjectures to the letter. Really, Quatre, you're all so predictable. I had hoped you Gundam pilots would be enough of a wild card to throw my forecasts askant."
"Sorry to disappoint." The bite in his voice was barely audible to even her own diplomatically trained ears. Checking the impulse to respond with a less-than-ladylike snort, she decided to give him a demonstration of her lethality - she needed to return to her duties as the leader of White Fang's Mobile Doll forces with or without his cooperation; she might as well make the most of his unbidden appearance.
"You should be," was her terse response. The corners of her mouth tugged again into their familiar, confident smirk - the most expressive mien her mask had ever been able to evince. Dorothy retrieved the helmet resting on the control panel behind her and settled it snugly on her crown.
Her muscles almost immediately relaxed as the Dolls welcomed her home. Thousands of them - thousands of indurate killing devices filled her psyche. Each one clearly defined in her mind, each one allowing her the same mastery over their own electronic minds, and each one showing her what they themselves saw through their head-mount cameras and various sensors. Every mecha brought with them a unique view of the battle; a different aspect of the mêlée. It was as though she were seeing the war through the eyes of every individual soldier on the battlefield. She welcomed their presence and monitors sprang to life, as the computers gorged themselves on her soul.
"What is this?" Quatre looked about him as the room became lit by an eerie blue glow.
"The Mobile Doll control room."
"No," Quatre said with certainty. "I'm positive this is the Zero System."
"You got it." She felt his anxiety humming across the space between them despite his outward front of aplomb. It rang out clearly in her crowded mind - a lovely alto. "We connected the Mobile Doll controls to the Zero System." Ah, now altissimo - fear.
The high-pitched reverberations were joined now by a lower contralto. Realization.
"So. Now you know." She groped behind her, her hands grasping the twin hilts calmly. "My desire to fight activates all Mobile Dolls." In one swift movement she drew the rapiers, throwing one of the pair at his feet. It sliced the air cleanly and embedded itself in the floor before him, waiting to be taken up. He had fought the dolls well enough, but how would he fare now when face to face with his very human opponent? She smiled as he looked upon the blade, singing a smooth baritone of disgust.
"What's the idea?" He was glaring at her now. Oh Quatre, how you take for granted those resplendent emotions of yours.
"Quatre Winner, I challenge you to a duel." Another chord - altissimo again, but just barely. Disbelief, of course. "I lost the battle when each of us used the Zero System. But I wonder what would happen this time." Countertenor now; he was confident and determined - still tuned in perfect harmony with his innate gentleness and compassion, giving the tetrachord a unique timbre that would forever be ingrained in her consciousness and bring his visage to her mind's eye. She readied her sword, already aware of his intentions. "You've decided you can fight without the Zero System."
"I wouldn't fight if I could help it." Of course not, Quatre. I can feel that ever constant desire for peace, like the percussion section setting the foundation for the entire ensemble with the simple beat of your heart. "But unless I keep fighting, you people won't surrender, and the war will never end."
"That's absolutely right. Now, lets determine which is more advanced: the Zero System or the human conscience." He inclined his head, the thrum of his heart-chord vibrating all the stronger.
"And if I refuse?" His only answer was her lunge, and for the briefest fraction of a second, his face was not unlike that of a startled rabbit, before he leaped swiftly out of her range. Pushing off his right foot, he retreated from her second lunge, grasping the previously foresworn rapier with his left hand and yanking it out of the floor. In a blur, the blade was in his right, blocking her attack.
His revulsion at his own actions rippled through the air between them; a bass if ever she heard one.
"Why are you so fond of war?!" he managed to grit out despite the exertion of holding back her blade. "Why must we do this?!"
"You're so gentle, Quatre." It was true; his song was filled with soft scales and delicate harmonies, and fragile, lilting airs. So much like Miss Relena's. But their quiescent pieces were constantly surrounded by the harsher one's of their fellows. Revolting cacophonies, the lot of them - overwritten with screaming trills, bruising rhythms, and staccato melodies. "What reasons do you have to fight?"
"I fight for my family!" Ah yes, the strong and ever-present, yet fine, warbling treble. Love. "I have to fight to ward off my family's sorrow!" Something akin to a plucked string sang beneath her breastbone. A faint note that was promptly muted. The slowly diminishing reverberations of its presence served only in making the ensuing silence resound and become deafening - reminding herself of her hollow heart that only echoed the music of others'.
"My father did that," she could hear herself saying. Another note added itself to his score. Confusion. "He fought so I wouldn't feel any sorrow. And he died! That's why I'm going to die fighting a beautiful battle!" She leapt back in the low gravity, away from his veritable symphony of emotions. Confidence, compassion, anxiety, fear, love, hope, and pity. Pity for her. There was no mistaking that sonorous contrabass; he pitied her.
"Then you actually hate war too!" You're grasping at straws now, Winner. She kicked off the wall of monitors behind her, lunging downward and meeting air as he evaded her advance. She spun to face him in the blink of an eye, thrusting fiercely only to be parried.
"No!" She continued her assault on his defenses, trying to ignore the emotions he was screaming at her. "War isn't to blame for destruction and massacre!" She kept advancing; feigning left then right, bouncing her weight from one foot to the other, letting Zero guide her movements. "The enemies we must defeat are in our hearts."
"I believe in peace because it surpasses war. I believe in the heart that hopes for peace!"
"Then I'll ask you this:" she was backing him into a corner, both verbally and physically. "You say that you've fought for everyone, but what has anyone ever done for you in return?"
"I'm not fighting to receive any kind of compensation."
"That's why you'll always be an amateur!" She lunged again, but he ducked below her blade, shoving her with his sword arm. She careened backwards, her back slamming into the wall behind her. She cried out in pain as well as surprise. Zero hadn't managed to predict that.
He shifted his weight off the balls of his feet, and with a little contempt, narrowed his eyes at her.
"Please stop this, Dorothy." She heard herself laughing.
"The Colonies betrayed the Gundams." A twang of something she couldn't quite place. "The Colony citizens killed your father." It rang again. "And the armed Colonies declared independence from the Earth before truly understanding what was going on." Still, there it was - a throaty tenor she didn't recognize. "Your battles so far have been a complete waste of time! Your sympathy toward others, too much sympathy for others . . . has resulted in this worst-case scenario!" Now something she could name - guilt. Yes, waves of guilt from the gentle terrorist.
She landed on her toes lightly, resettling her grip on the hilt. He could have taken her out when instead he had only forced her back. He had let his notes of pity resonate within her mind.
"Why are you holding back? Or can't you go for it?" Am I so piteous that I don't deserve to feel your blade? "Well you can bet I will!" She lunged, he parried. Again, she allowed Zero free reign over her body; dancing her attack pattern and easily compensation for the almost nonexistent gravity on the ship. His song seemed to fill the room, bouncing off the walls, filling her ears, as if she sliced through the air trying to cut away the music.
"That purity! That weak heart! That kindness!" That exquisite sonata of feeling! "No wonder you Gundam pilots get defeated!" There. She knocked away his sword with a single flicking motion, sending it flying into the nearest monitor. Quatre clutched his stinging hand.
"Maybe you're right. This is the only way I know how fight!" His eyes narrowed at her. "But it's because we take on losing battles that we've kept the Colonies from the horrors of war!"
"You'll never change anything that way!"
"Then what should I have done?!" She smiled at his frustration and dropped her fighting stance to spread her arms wide.
"You should've become the Colonies' leader and staged a magnificent war yourself!" She raised her sword in salute. "Like Lord Milliardo!"
"Dorothy, you're mistaken-" Quatre was cut off by a searing pain in his abdomen. She continued, her voice dropping a note and losing that biting edge she wielded with even more natural skill than her rapier.
"And you should have staged this war before all mankind. A miserable war that they'll never want to see again!"
As blood began to seep through his spacesuit, he asked in a pain-filled voice, "Are you saying that's the significance of this war?"
"That's right." Finally. "You can't do away with wars simply by taking weapons away from the people! You first have to change the hearts of mankind. If you don't do that, humanity will perish. Just like my father!" Somehow, Quatre seemed to reach inside her heart and pluck that string again. And it hurt. Suddenly, she remembered why she had stopped feeling - it had hurt.
Vaguely, she felt a tear slide down her cheek.
"You are a very kind person." Pity again, combined with that one she couldn't name. "Kinder than me."
"Is that supposed to make me happy?!" She wrenched her blade from his stomach, leaving him to double over in pain. "Kindness gets in your way when you're trying to survive! It's more appropriate for man to concentrate more on surviving." Quatre panted while she spoke, gaining air enough to talk.
"D-Dorothy. . . . You're just the same way I used to be." A light soprano . . . hope? "You despise your own kindness and hatred of war." He stared at her unmoving figure. "You should never try to fight your kindness." He paused, new emotions filling the air. "Trowa taught me that." Trust, understanding, friendship, camaraderie . . . all emotions that stemmed from one name. "You have to try and accept everything around you, because humanity needs that kindness. Without kindness mankind has no reason to exist." Clutching at his injury, he doubled over again, but eventually found the strength to straighten and ask her, "You agree, don't you? Humans that only think of their survival . . . are lower lifeforms than animals. They can't even feel for others."
Quatre collapsed in exhaustion, his limp body suspended oddly in the air. She watched his unconscious body with soft eyes; her own hurt hadn�t faded yet. Dorothy let go of her sword, and then removed the Zero System control helmet. The room fell dark just as her mind fell mute. Gone were the millions of buzzing entities clamoring for attention, and in the deafening silence she floundered to find her own voice.
�This is the right way,� she assured herself, trying desperately to reconcile stabbing the one person who might understand her with her conscience. �This is good.� For a brief moment she felt both blind and deaf, as her senses seemed overextended by the effort of keeping up with the Zero System, and in their stead loomed an impenetrable fog of cecity. The physical world chose that moment to make itself known as a beep from behind alerted her to Quinze�s transmission.
�So there you are, Dorothy.� She turned around to face him and immediately regretted it. �The Earth just contacted us to declare their surrender.�
�The Earth has surrendered?� She felt all her plans crumbling away at that simple statement. This was not how it was supposed to play itself out. How could the most devastating war in history end in a surrender? Both parties were supposed to destroy each other! And the meek shall inherit the Earth!
�And the combat observation unit has just informed us that Treize Kushrenada has died in battle.�
�No! That can�t be!�
�Victory is ours. But our plans to ram this ship into Earth are unchanged. Those are Commander Milliardo�s orders.� The screen went black again, disappearing into the wall of other darkened screens, their lights extinguished when she extricated her mind from those of the Dolls. Dorothy turned back to Quatre and somehow was not surprised to see the pilot of 03 there at his side. She did note, however, that she had never felt his mind enter the room. Neither could she hear the notes of emotion and thought she was sure must be coming from Quatre, drowned out as they were by the inviolable silence. Maybe she had never heard them at all. Maybe they had always been all in her head.