The Lone Warrior chapter 5

By Melissa

Marie looked up from her book when Trant entered. “Good evening Trant.”

He nodded to her. “What are you reading?”

She looked at the cover of her book. “One of Relena’s little books of peace. It’s a load of crap.” She smiled at Trant. “So, how are the two adjusting to the ship?”

“I separated them as you said. The Gundam pilot is in a holding cell and Miss Relena, in one of the best rooms.”

“Very good.” She sighed and stood up and laid a hand on Trant's shoulder. “I was thinking about making some revisions to our little deal.”

“What kind of revisions?”

“Aww Trant. Little Trant. Your getting old. I like new. To bad you wont be coming back to that darling little daughter of yours. Well actually, there will be nothing to come back to.” She laughed.

He paused for a second, then. “I always knew you were almost heartless when you destroyed that colony. 10,000 thousand people, gone and you never thought about it. Do you know how many people you will be killing now? 200,000. Women, men, children. I went along with it because I thought that there has got to be good in what we are doing. You convinced me to go along with it. All I cared about were my own children. As long as they were safe. But I didn’t think about how many children, exactly like my Maggie were being killed. Not able to live out their lives. How can anyone, be that heartless? To not care that they are killing innocent children.”

She smiled and spoke softly in his ear. “One with no heart.”

Guards came out from nowhere and grabbed his arms. They pulled him out of the room. He looked down and did not struggle.

“Bye bye,” she waved casually to him and turned back to her book.

“The colonies are being evacuated. The Une Foundation is using old carriers that should be easy to capture. The Libra II should be waiting for the two colonies of New Colorado and Fort Knox to be evacuated to destroy them. So, we capture the freighters, and destroy Libra II. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Duo raised his hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Any other questions?” the colonel asked.

“May I kill Duo?” Arys asked.

“No. Any questions about the mission? Good. Now, suit up.”

Meela pulled on her flight suit and zipped it up. It was blue/silver with black in it. It had the Preventers logo on the right arm. She held her helmet in one arm and stepped out of her quarters and went to the hanger.

She went up to Deathwing and grabbed the lift and it winched her up to the cockpit. She stood on the open door for a moment and looked at all the other pilots knowing very well that this could be the last time she saw them.

Marie finished her work at the console. She went over to another consol, looked at it and smiled. “Come to me my brave knights.”

A man entered. He looked at Marie. “What are you doing?”

“Finishing programming the ship with the Zero system. I’m putting my battle knowledge into it. It will control the mobile dolls with me monitoring it through a Zero system interface.”

“Here are the reports on the Preventer task force.” He handed her a message pad.

She looked at it briefly. “Very good. Take care of the freighters, I need to prepare my Gundam.”

Meela flew in formation with the other pilots. She was listening to the gentle hum of her engines and tuning out everything else. She wasn’t thinking about the battle coming up. Not about the other pilots, only about her Gundam. The power that radiated from the Gundam was incredible. She had learned to accept the fact that she was never going to be the normal kid that she had dreamed about being when she was younger. And that this Gundam was her life.

An alarm went off in her cockpit signaling that they were in range of the freighters that were tearing the colonists from their homes.

They broke formation and made a line in front of the freighters. Meela looked at the freighters in front of her. This was all wrong. Everything was wrong, they weren’t supposed to be like this. The Une Foundation would have guards around the freighters. She shook her head.

She heard Noin’s calm voice coming over the speakers ordering the Une Foundation to surrender.

Suddenly the bottoms of the freighters opened and the new mobile dolls dropped out. The eyes of the mobile dolls came alive and weapons were deployed.

“Um,” Duo said.

“Whoa.” Arys finished for him.

Meela closed her eyes. “Lets go.”

The dolls attacked.

The Gundams scattered to avoid the incoming missiles and beams. “Formation Alpha 6!” Noin ordered and the other pilots quickly complied. Meela’s Gundam shuddered as it was hit multiple times.

“There’s got to be a thousand of them!” Duo yelled as he jinked Deathscythe back and forth.

“Twelve hundred to be exact,” Arys said grimly. She fired her Shiv rifle into the mass. The gundanium armor deflected the shots easily. Then Heero fired a prolonged blast from his buster rifle, followed by a blast from Noin. The two thick beams managed to destroy several of the suits, but Meela could tell they’d used a lot of the power supply of the large beam cannons.

She activated her scythe and moved towards the wall of dolls. At her approach, they deployed beam sabers and moved into another formation, trying to surround her.

“This isn't an ordinary mobile doll system,” Noin remarked

“Yeah. Someone must be controlling them,” Duo said. “We could really use Quatre right about now.” He deflected a beam saber and slashed against the doll’s shield, scarring, but doing no damage. He growled in frustration and slammed Deathscythe against the suit, pinning it, and suddenly its engines exploded and it drifted away, disabled. Trowa was behind it, his double gatling still pointed.

“Whoever doesn’t have long range weapons should try and grab the dolls and maneuver them so their engines are exposed and the long range weapons can hit them.”

“Agreed,” Wufei said as he dueled with two dolls.

Noin, Trowa, Arys, and Heero backed away and Meela, Duo, and Wufei moved in to engage the dolls and close range. Meela dodged a missile barrage and hit a doll head on. She turned it towards the other pilots and a short burst from Noin’s buster rifle made short work of the doll’s engines. Meela shoved the lifeless doll away and singled out her next target. Suddenly her screens went blank and emitted an eerie yellow glow. “What...” she began, then suddenly realized what it was. It was the Zero system. She ran her fingers desperately down the consol trying to shut off power to the cockpit, then the Zero system in her mind was activated. She heard Marie’s voice saying, “Its useless to fight me now.” She tried to fight the effects of the Zero system, but slowly it gained control as her mind was overloaded with information. Then a new mind surfaced. One that could handle the information, but was completely without humanity.

Arys frowned as Meela’s Gundam stopped moving, then the Gundam's eyes flashed red and it straightened.

“Meela!” she yelled. There was no reply. It floated there for a second then turned towards Heero. “Meela, respond!” she shouted again.

Deathwing suddenly leaped forward, straight at Heero. “Heero, look out!” Arys warned. Wing Zero turned, then jerked to the side, barely dodging Meela’s attack. She turned around quickly and slashed at him again. He blocked with his saber and tried to pin her scythe with his shield. With lightning speed, she dodged and came at him again. He flew backwards at maximum speed. “Meela, what are you doing? Respond!” he said. The only response was for Meela to throw a disk at him which caught Zero in left arm, digging into the armor.

“She must be under Marie’s control!” Arys said, approaching rapidly.

Without even turning away from Heero, Meela threw two more disks at Arys. She barely had time to dodge. “Arys, stay back,” Heero ordered. “You need to help the others with the dolls.”

“But she’s to fast for you!”

“Do as he says Arys,” Meela suddenly said. Her voice was quiet and emotionless, with only a touch of strain in it. “I’d only kill you to.”

Arys hesitated only for a second, then jetted away. “Just don’t hurt her, Heero.”

“I’ll try,” he said and grimly activated his Zero system, hoping it would be enough. He stopped and brought his saber up to block her scythe, then quickly backed away and came at her again. His saber slashed empty space where she had been and his Zero system-enhanced reaction time barely kept him from being hit. Arys was right. Even with the Zero system, she was faster than him.

Arys flew away from the battle of Meela and Heero. She knew that both could take care of themselves, but Heero would destroy Meela if he had to and she wasn’t sure Meela would be able to get control before she killed Heero.

Arys blew into the battle. The mobile dolls had adapted to their plan and were now ignoring Duo and Wufei and going after Noin and Trowa.

“Where’s Meela and Heero?” Duo yelled. When Arys didn’t answer he knew. “Oh man!” He looked down at his control panel and saw the signatures of Wing Zero and Deathwing. They were fighting.

“There are 990 mobile dolls left,” Trowa stated calmly.

Noin closed her eyes and shook her head. She couldn’t let anything happen to anyone, but she had so much less that the Une Foundation.

She looked at the Taurus's that were being destroyed by the minuet. They were twisting and turning trying to avoid the mobile doll fire. “All Taurus suits look for the Libra II. I repeat, leave the direct battle field and look for the Libra II.” She watched as the pilots obeyed her orders.

Duo’s face appeared on her screen. “Noin! What the heck are you doing?”

“No more lives need to be lost. Arys.” The girls somber face appeared on another screen. “I need you to go over and help Wufei. Arys, try not to get killed ok. And that goes for everyone.”

Arys nodded and flew off.

“Everyone else, keep fighting. Back each other up. We need team work to survive this one.”

They wordlessly complied, a deadly air about them as they tore into dolls. Noin activated her saber and drove into the mass of machines.

Heero dodged another throwing disk and fired his Vulcan cannons. The bullets ricocheted off Meela’s shield as she brought it up to protect her vulnerable spots. Heero drove in with his saber and dueled at close range with the black suit. He backed off to avoid being hit and fired his Vulcan's again. This was how he had to do it. Try and avoid her rather than have to destroy her. Which he doubted he could do yet anyway. He tried talking to her again.

“Meela, focus. Try and assert yourself over the system,” he said, still dodging her attacks. “Come on!”

There was no response.

Meela’s eyes were focused on the screen, knowing what he would do before he did it. Her hands moved mechanically across the controls and her breathing came in long even breaths. She heard Heero trying to contact her but chose to ignore it, but he didn’t stop.

“Meela!” He yelled as her scythe came down on his shield. She pulled it back and dodged as Heero pulled his saber out and slashed at her.

He pulled it back as the Zero system fed him the information that she was behind him. He jumped forward barely dodging her attack.

Marie growled in frustration. He kept slipping through her fingers. But the good thing was that Meela was silent. She was by the cloaked Obselisc in her Gundam, Aria. She had named it from Meela’s real name.

“This is extremly annoying Heero Yuy,” Marie said, then Meela said it to Heero.

He frowned. “I would guess I am speaking to Marie Slogan.”

“Yes.” Said Meela’s voice.

“Why do you use another to fight me. If you have something against me, you come here and fight me.”

“No, I don’t think I will. When you have someone more powerful than you to fight, why waste the energy?”

“Coward.”

She laughed. “No, you are the coward Heero Yuy.”

Then the comm system went silent and Meela attacked with more force. It was a deadly dance where if you made the wrong move, you were dead. He barely had time to think, only react.

Meela backed off and twirled her scythe in Deathwing’s fingers. Then rushed forward unexpectedly. She came at him and he got ready to block her, but at the last second, she twisted, brought her scythe back and then down and sliced his arm cleanly off.

Meela heard everything that Heero had said. She saw everything she did as if it was through someone else's eyes. She saw the last move that Marie programmed her to do, she carried it out and it was successful. She heard Heero’s cry of pain, but it didn’t register as anything. Then she heard the high shrill laughter of Marie and something clicked on. What was she doing? She woke up and yanked her scythe back.

Heero waited for Meela to finish him off. But Deathscythe was just sitting there. He frowned. Then Meela’s face clicked on, on one of his viewing screens.

She was breathing hard and she looked tired, but her green eyes had fire in them. She looked mad.

“Sorry. I lost control. Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Now if you’ll please excuse me, I have some business to attend to.” Deathwing put it’s scythe back and flew off.

He smiled. “Your excused.” He fired up his engines and flew toward the battle with the mobile dolls.

Arys looked up as Heero flew into the battle minus an arm. She didn’t question him only smiled and nodded. Meela had pulled herself out. She continued fighting the dolls.

Marie sat up with a jolt. Meela had won. Then she glared at Deathwing’s oncoming figure. “It’s not over yet my little green eyes. Oh no.”

Meela’s hands were white as she gripped her controls tight. She was going to finish this. No more putting people in danger for her. She would destroy Marie Slogan and come back alive. If she didn’t, then she hoped that she could at least stop this massacre. She sighed at the thought of not seeing Trowa again, then shook her head at her sentimentality. But she reassured herself, she didn’t love Trowa, merely understood him.

She flew through the lines of dolls, only dodging, not bothering to waste her time with destroying them.

Meela knew exactly where she was going. She didn’t know how, but she did.

Suddenly, the dolls began to thin out and she knew that she was near. She flew along, for a few seconds, then something appeared right before her. Meela just barely swerved in time.

“What?” She stopped and looked back.

It was a huge white battleship. It had a beautiful, but deadly air about it.

“How do you like my deadly angel?” a voice said.

“Marie.”

She was in a silver mobile suit. It was the same size as Deathwing, but looked completely different. It's wings were like an angels and were folded about it’s body.

The head of the mobile suit came up and the eyes flashed white.

“I ask you again. How do you like Aria?”

The name sounded familiar. “The name of your mobile suit?”

“Yes. You don’t remember that name, do you?” She laughed. “Your real name is Aria Kalena Tano. I changed it to Meela Toloran Rumsey.”

Meela remembered.

“We are going to change your name to Meela Toloran Rumsey.

“Change my last name too. I don’t want to disgrace my families name.”

“You remember don’t you?” Marie’s voice was strangely soft.

“You took me away from my family.” Meela said pointedly. “Changed my name and erased my identity.”

“I gave you power beyond belief.”

“And you think that makes up for what you did to my parents and me? I was six years old.”

“I taught you to be able to deal with things that no child could.”

Meela snorted. “Precisely.”

“I took away hindering feelings but you still have them. You still care for people. The same people that rejected you when you were out on the streets. Do you remember that? I found you out on the streets Meela. Surely you remember that?” She sighed. “Meela, you could've been anything. The most powerful person in the world, but you chose the Gundams.” She spat out the word Gundams like it was poison. “I think that I will get rid of both the Gundam’s and the colonies. Then you will be rid of both.”

The huge battle ship opened and fired on long blast, and the colony New Colorado was no more. Then It fired a blast where the Gundams were fighting the mobile dolls.

“No!” Meela jerked forward in her harness. “No.” She moaned as the battle field stopped moving. She looked at her radar and found the worst. Everything had been destroyed.

Meela stared unbelieving at the destruction.

Suddenly, the conversation that she had, had with Trowa flashed into her mind.

“Self pity is only harmful if you let it effect you. Don’t let it.”

Meela sat up. She pushed all self pity from her mind and focused on Marie. Kill or be killed, was the only thing on her mind. Meela attacked.