Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ GW Team 2: Faltering Hand of Providence ❯ Shadow of Anguish ( Chapter 1 )

CHAPTER ONE: SHADOW OF ANGUISH

A dark shadow covered the sun and stole the heat from the air. The wind began to pick up and scatter leaves and debris into the sky. Swirling bits were thrown into the trunk of a tree and on the other side a figure crouched, hidden from the force. The branches above swayed and creaked, threatening to break and fly to the ground. The teenage girl pulled at her cloak, attempting to keep it from being yanked away. Her shoulder length auburn tresses whipped at her face in stinging repetition. Kimi squinted her hazel green eyes trying to get a visual of her surroundings. Her Gundam was in the base just over the hill, a stupid and hasty decision allowed OZ to find her Gundam, now all she had to do was steal it back.

"Yeah, right, steal it back. No problem." She muttered sarcastically against the gale. The storm would not let up any time soon, she knew that now. So against better judgment, she took her chances and made a run for the base. She ducked down, trying to keep low, but the wind did not allow it. Pressing at her back, lifting her from under the cloak and urging her forward. It took a great deal of her strength to keep herself upright and her footing somewhat firm.

Just beyond the rise of the hill she caught her first bit of real relief. The wind still howled above the crest, yet the protection offered here was better than the sapling, enough to allow Kimi a few moments to collect herself before the final assault. With Lana and Janette dead, Meiran missing, and only two operating Gundums, the war was coming to an evil and bloody end. The rebellion would suffer another great loss if Kimi's Gundam, Heavy Arms, could not be liberated from the holding facility. She could see the OZ base about a mile away. It stretched out to the size of a small city. Kimi found some bushes to hide in, pulled out her binoculars out and settled in to wait for night.

The wind finally let up as darkness fell, Kimi was already out of her bushes and heading to the menacing compound. The security was tight. Not a single foot of fence around the base was weak or unguarded, she felt a chill of fear as her mind pondered the strategy. She felt the hand of Death creeping in closer, waiting for her to make that one fatal mistake. She wondered if any of the other pilots had felt the same as their time drew near.

*~*~* ~*~*

"OZ broadcasting reports that one of the terrorist Gundum pilots has been destroyed. The terrorist known as 01, was killed in a suicidal detonation of his Gundum after demolishing the plane carrying the Earth Spheres finest representatives on a mission of peace. As of yet, OBC has not gotten a number of the bystanders that were injured or killed." After that Hannah was called in by the Doctors, and began to pilot Wing Zero. The transition was a tough one, Kimi recalled, especially for the four remaining guys. She remembered watching the televised report with Doktor S wondering if her training would be needed as Hannah's now was.

*~*~*~*~*

Soon all five of the teenage boys were dead, Chang Wufei protecting his home colony and shielding Meiran from death. Duo, in the OZ moon base, along side the OZ defector Hilde. Quatre's mind was taken over by the Zero system, he died in the cockpit from a brain aneurysm. One by one, until Trowa Barton was the last of the original pilots. On a mission, impersonating an OZ soldier, he was found out, and put to death immediately. Kimi was thankful that she hadn't needed to go in before. Now was her time though and she accepted her destiny filled with sorrow, anger, and mortality.

Then things went from bad to worse. The resistance was failing, Janette was charged with protecting Relena Peacecraft in the old Sank Kingdom. The OZ troops hit so hard and fast that no one survived, and after searching through the rubble, the on board recorder that Sandrock carried was found severely damaged. The Doctors were still working on pulling the information out of it, with no success. With only four Gundums left, and the strongest voice of peace gone, the rest carried on with a heavy spirit.

Lana was the next to succumb to the icy figure she portrayed. She was with Sally Po and her group when OZ forces surrounded them. Sally later escaped the prison she was held at and carried with her the story of how Janette, sick of the fighting and disheartened with all the death she caused in a machine built with the same name and purpose, had just given up. She was the first of the prisoners to die in some type of experimental test that the OZ scientists were working on. It seemed as though ruling in one dimension wasn't enough for them. Now they wanted to expand.

Soon, Treize publicly announced that he was taking his followers and leaving the OZ empire. He, Une, Zechs, Noin, and a handful of others came to the resistance pleading for sanctuary. Treize and Zechs brought their Gundam s with them. Unbeknownst to any of them a remote tracker had been placed on Epions self-destruct mechanism. The blast was near the likes of a small nuclear bomb, it took out Tallgeese and Shenlong with it. Hannah was out on a mission with Wing Zero, and Kimi arrived just prior to the explosion with Heavy Arms, parking it away from the others out of her own paranoid need to be cautious.

That day two weeks ago stood out in her mind clearly. Her sleep was plagued with nightmares and visions. It replayed on her senses time and again.