Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Peace Children ❯ Chapter 21 ( Chapter 21 )

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and none of its characters are mine. Most of the Mystical creatures are not mine. Prophets and Trackers are. Seelie and Unseelie, the way I use them here, were created by Laurel K. Hamilton. Hands of power were also created by Laurel K. Hamilton. The story and all original characters are mine. If I forgot to credit anything to its rightful owner, please email me, and I will credit it to them.

Peace Children

Chapter 21

The battle, though not the war, was won. Thirty Collectors were dead, but their
bodies would never be found. Their remains wiped out by the woman they had known as
Bast.

Bast, naked, looked down at herself, amazed at what she saw. She held her hand out in front of her, and stared at it, wiggling the fingers with reverence.

She smiled radiantly and ran over to hug Kali. Bast picked the girl up and twirled,
swinging her around. She put the girl down and sat in the grass, laughing. "I'm not a cat
anymore," she said.

"Who are you?" Kali said, her voice just above a whisper. She stared at her
cat-that-was-not-a-cat.

"Cassandra," Odin answered. Kali swung her head around to look at her father.
He looked like the proverbial deer caught in headlights. "Why are you here, Cassandra?"

"I'm always where they are," Bast, now revealed as Cassandra, said. "Whenever
they come back, wherever they are, I find them, and I go to protect them."

"Who? Who do you protect?" Wufei asked. He and Meiran had changed back to
human form and redressed when Bast had annihilated the Collectors.

"My children," Cassandra replied, distracted. "Why was I able to help her this
time?" she asked herself. "Why am I not a cat anymore?"

Odin had enough of her. Heero was gone; they didn't have time for this.
"Okay, Cassie, I'm going to ask you once and only once. If you don't answer, we're
going to leave you here, and go look for Heero. *Why*--"

"No! Don't go! I'll answer!" Cassandra cried. She got up and ran over to Odin.
"Please! I'll go out of my mind with worry."

Odin looked at the former cat with disdain. "Whatever. Now, *why* are you
here?"

"Like I said, I'm here to protect my children, our children," Cassandra replied.

Odin drew back his hand as if to strike her. "Don't you ever mention them
again," he said. "Don't you *dare* talk about our children as though they are alive. Our
children are *dead*, and you know it."

"Yeah, Odin, I know it. I was *there*, remember? I was there when I miscarried
our babies, our twins," Cassandra said, vehemently. "But, have you ever heard of
reincarnation, *mate*? Our children's' souls being born, or in this case created, into new
bodies?

"For five *thousand* years, I have watched our children be born, live, and die, all
as a cat. I have seen them die prematurely *countless* times! I have protected them to
the best of my abilities in each and every one of their lives and acquired powers a prophet
should *never* have. But, through it all, I was a cat.

"And what became of you after you rejected your prophet and *mate*? After you
left me in my time of need?... Oh, yes. You became human. And not just *any* human,
oh no, you became a powerful human. The most powerful. You wanted your magic
back, to be an Elder again, and you couldn't. So you decided to do the next best thing, to
steal other's magic. You started a little organization, didn't you? The Collectors.

"So, while I protected our children, you founded the agency that would kill them,
kill us all. Well, not you; you're human now. They don't care about you. Now, in the
life where our children are currently the most powerful beings in the universe, *you*
show up. Your energy was probably why I was able to change forms and protect Kali.

"But, now, they have Heero. A *pregnant* Heero. With him being with child,
they don't even *need* Kali anymore. After all, from Peace comes Life, and Life trumps
everything. And there's *two* of them, inside him, growing. Two Ace of Spades for the
enemy to use.

"So, tell me, you still a betting man, *lover*? Well, how much do you bet
*anyone* survives if their power is turned on us?"

A strangled groan came from somewhere nearby, effectively cutting off
Cassandra's monologue. Kali looked around to see if everyone was there. Everyone
wasn't.

"Hilde," she said, before running off in the direction the sound had come from.

***

Hilde tried to make as much noise as she could, but it was a struggle just to stay
conscious. She had been clipped by a bullet -- No, she had been shot dead on. It was a gut
wound.

Hilde didn't know much about gunshot wounds or medicine, but she knew that
she was losing a lot of blood. Too much blood.

She heard voices out in the clearing, familiar voices. She tried to scream for help,
but it came out as a gurgle. The last of her energy was expended doing that, and she
slipped off into unconsciousness. Her last thought was of Kali.

Hilde never heard the shouts or the footsteps coming towards her.

***

Heero shook his head. He knew what that thing was; there was no way he was getting in there.

When one of the brutes came to make him get in, he shot past him, through the open spot the Collector had left. He darted into the hall and ran. Heero knocked over anything he saw, trying to make it harder for the goons to catch him.

Vaguely, he heard Dr. J scream, "Get him, you idiots!", but he paid no attention to it. When he came to locked doors, he threw them open with his magic. Apparently, the white room was the only room made of Gundamium.

He came to a room that shocked him, even though it shouldn't have. It was the laboratory from his vision, his obviously *false* vision, of Kali killing Duo and Odin. The room was filled with those tubes, and everyone but one was filled. The empty tube was larger than the others, like the one they wanted to put him in.

'The better to store your magic, my dear,' the random thought came in his mind, a mockery of Little Red Riding Hood. Heero suddenly fell to the ground, hugging his knees and laughing hysterically. If he didn't, he was going to go crazy. He stayed like that until two men in white coats came for him.

"J said to sedate him," the taller of the two said, while the other stuck the needle in Heero's forearm.

The picked him up, and carried him back to the white room. They put him in the power-draining tube and closed the opening.

As Heero lay paralyzed in his tomb, he thought, 'I don't want to die like this.



Selune