What Is Left?

Driving with Duo and Trowa

"Duo, you must contact Gin." Quatre's voice. "He was given back Middie."

"That's great to hear." At least Trowa would feel better. "She okay?"

"Heero got the email from your brother. Revenge of the Lost gave him back Middie Une. They said she was just a decoy by Crystalia so she wouldn't have to hurt Trowa. Tell him I'm sorry for that."

Oh, man. She isn't holding Trowa's family, she's holding my nephew or niece.

"He doesn't know where Hilde is, but Middie gave him an idea. At the very least, talking to him might give you a general location of where to look for her."

"Yeah, I'll do that," Duo agreed. He called up Gin on the same phone. "Duo."

"Oh? Hey Duo, that was fast. I'm still riding back with One Song. Those bastards scarred her with liar on her stomach, no regard for our nephew or niece at all."

Of course. "They scarred her?" Duo picked up Trowa glancing toward him now.

"Yeah, an all out brand like they would do to a cattle, Man."

Damn! Quatre didn't tell him about that. "I'm sorry, Gin. I hope she gets better."

"I run the Phillips family business. I had really great pain killers and doctors. I had everything for her. One Song wants me to ask you something, and you can feel free to say no, Man. You are technically family."

"What?" Duo asked.

"You want to come to the wedding?"

He managed to get an unexpected chuckle from Duo. He hadn't laughed for a bit, but there was no way Middie Une actually asked for that. "I might, if I can somehow dodge Revenge of the Lost in a tux. You really marrying your dream girl, huh? You really . . . gonna do that to her?"

Oh yeah, now Trowa was really paying attention. He knew who had been on the phone, and he knew Gin liked Middie Une. He was putting two and two together quick. Duo moved the phone away. "I'll explain in a second, Trowa. Promise." He brought the phone back to it's original position.

"You know my mom calls the shots, Duo. Nothing's changed from before, all the orders are still the same. Of course, I mean, maybe something could be different? Like I said, One Song recommended this. You wanna take a stab at running the family business?"

Run the Phillips business? Yeah, right into the ground. He'd know exactly what to do with each of them when he was done using them. In the meantime? "We kind of do look alike, don't we?" That? That was an excellent idea. Quatre and Wufei went with taking over other identities and they never got spotted. Maybe in plain sight, but their eyes on a different position, was the way to go?

He physically heard a lot of relief in his brother's gasp. Gin was never made for the family business in the first place. He did hold serious grudges, and when he got mad, he got real mad. But, that was it, just bark. Yeah, Middie Une had a smart idea. "You're interested then? The men would follow you, you'd be the boss. I can't run with One Song though, RTL will track that kind of thing. I don't know what to do about this Dorothy thing, RTL still wants it. She's supposed to be dying soon, but I don't think it's going to make it any easier."

Hmm. Duo rubbed his chin. "If I'm you, then you need to disappear, and trust that you disappeared without a trace with Middie. Otherwise, that's the end of that."

"I can't risk much, I have to protect One Song. The kid is my nephew, but eventually it'll be more like a son," Gin said.

Ugh. "You know, pining over one girl is never going to land you anywhere good in life," Duo pointed out to him.

"Yeah, you should know," his brother agreed. "You are doing it right now with Hilde. I don't know where she is, but I can tell you where I picked up Middie. Just, reach out to me later if you are serious about this switcheroo."

Duo got the location, and barely had a chance to hang up before he got some serious wondering eyes from Trowa. "So, good new or bad news, depending on how the whole daddy thing was going for you."

---

RTL's Containment Center

Hilde had been in worse shape. She bled and risked everything a long time ago to get data on Libra for Duo. She had been in worse shape. It didn't make it feel any better. They didn't give her anything to bandage it up, and of course no pain killers. She just had to sit there with the pain of the brand.

Middie Une was gone though, with someone who would care for her, so at least that was good. She watched as the guards came round her again. They didn't bother her, and Crystalia didn't make eye contact either. Not that she wanted her to.

She watched as one of the guards approached her with a metal pipe. It wasn't super long, but the top was kind of sliced. What was that for? They unlocked her cell again, holding the pipe. "You just branded me, what else do you want?"

She uncomfortably watched the guard take some scissors from her pockets and start cutting on the back of her shirt roughly. After she felt the back of her shirt being opened, she saw the guard twirl the pipe.

Then they answered the phone. "Superior. Yes, Ma'am," they said on the phone. "What?" They put the pipe down. "Yes, Ma'am."

They turned and left her alone now, heading straight for Crystalia.

"Crystalia!" Crystalia was dragged in roughly by the other person. "Would you like to see your troupe blow up?"

This time, Crystalia flinched. Hilde watched as they started to show something on a phone. She went over to watch too.

It was a recording of a program where Catherine was performing. "What are you doing?"

"Red Emerald, wave your hand in front of the camera right now," one of the guards said through their other phone.

A hand started to wave on it. It was live? It was live. Hilde closed her eyes, knowing this was bad. Real bad. Crystalia made connection to Catherine Bloom and no one else. She was her only weakness.

"First, we destroy your tight walking daughter, right on camera for you, as a warning," they threatened her. "If that isn't enough, we'll set up the bomb beneath it all. Your troupe and daughter will be dead because of you. How much countdown do you want, a minute?"

"I smashed it. I didn't need it, but I know where they are all at," Crystalia answered. "I will tell Superior. I want to talk to her directly, no second in charges."

"Be ready, Red Emerald." She kept holding it in front of Crystalia, but she was calling their bluff.

"Revenge of the Lost is desperately floundering around, you can't do anything anymore. Relena is about to give birth, Hilde isn't even pregnant, Dorothy's probably fine, it's all screwed up. I still have a way out. I want to see Superior," Crystalia insisted again.

"She's going to do it," they tried to convince her again, but Crystalia didn't change her expression at all. She was about to watch her daughter die, and she didn't seem to care.

Hilde heard them start to talk to the Superior again.

"Superior will hear you out." They looked back at Hilde. "You're lucky."

---

RTL Emergency Center 41

Well? There it had been. She used a pulley system that she had set up years ago to enter into her mobile suit.

They left so much behind. Those stupid gundam pilots had no idea what those scientists had left behind. It would have all been trashed if she hadn't spoken up against Crystalia. Her find had been revered, and her training even better.

She took off her gloves as she closed the door on her suit. She would never leave with it, she'd get caught, and she never needed that. Well, at first she did. Before she was Superior, when she was just some clueless woman wandering around, trying to figure out what to do after her daughter.

Her good luck and fortune, finding locations to many things. She had been a nobody back then, just a lucky member. She was hoping she would find a mobile suit that she would be able to flatten Heero Yuy with back then.

No vision yet, and she had no idea back then which one she had picked to remake.

This blueprint once made the gundam known as Wing Zero. She preferred a different name though. "Lady Zero, how are you today?" She smiled. "Do I still have a future, Lady?" The mobile suit made a mechanic noise back at her. "So polite." Once she had bonded with Lady Zero, she had started to go by Superior. She gave all her good graces of being a lady to the Zero. "I didn't want Plan B. I wanted Plan A." She moaned. She stroked her zero.

All of the mobile suit development had been stopped and destroyed years ago. All of them except personal private ones, that were made without any law enforcement meddling anyhow.

Theirs.

Areas where they were made in secret.

Also, now theirs.

Maybe it would have been handled, if the scientist had made it out. But that man's trash, was her treasure. "Such a waste. Did I fail, Lady?" She stroked the panel. "What is the beauty left in something that can never reach completion?" Yes, it only made sense. "I failed you, Lady Zero. However, Revenge of the Lost will reach it's goal somehow. The future will come true."

The future would come true. They would all taste defeat. They would all taste despair. They would all . . .

The visitor. Superior came out from her gundam and came down to see her. The only person that had any actual backbone or mind for RTL.

The one who created it.

The one who deceived her the most. "Crystalia. You wanted to see me before we kill you? If you got rid of the microchip locator, there is no use for you." She stared at her.

Reading Crystalia had been challenging before the zero system had been added to training. Now, it was downright impossible. "Your impenetrable glass has shattered, but you haven't even picked up the pieces yet. You're still glimpsing in the mirror in a thousand different ways to see the perfect plan."

Superior glared at her. "Using your last words for that? I will be in charge of however you are killed." She stared at her. "Did you follow orders, or is Middie Une really not Triton Bloom's?"

"It's over, your revenge is no longer even. Should we go through the facts?" Crystalia said. "Let's reveal it, in front of Lady Zero. Let her see it for herself?"

Superior looked toward her gundam, and back out at Crystalia.

"I'm about to die. I could die in seconds. You have nothing to lose," Crystalia insisted.

Crystalia. A woman of great vision. The one that created Revenge of the Lost so long ago. Limited, but so creative. She could be giving her the best dagger in the world to kill someone, or she could be setting her up with a dagger in her own back. That was the power of this woman.

It was risky, but Crystalia was cold. Calculated. Everything she needed for Revenge of the Lost. "Share."

"You didn't get Wang Mei-Lin pregnant, yet you destroyed an entire colony in a justice move that was not yours. A move that already put you in the hole. There is no 1-1, you lost with just her alone, but let's keep going. The one you want the most, has never had RTL get a hold of her even once since she found Heero Yuy. You have one month left, and you are still spiraling in the wind. Dorothy Catalonia has probably been cured by now, and even if Hilde does get pregnant, you still have another one that no one is sure about. Not even willing to risk getting some outside source to look over her now, she'll just remain the treat uneaten in your justice."

Oh, her damn words.

"None of this will have the effect you wanted. A big old belly, at the last minute, as they watched them all die." Crystalia's head lowered, her hair starting to cover some of her face. "Out of six chances, you have lost three, didn't even bother for one, and even if you get the last two? Relena is one month away. Impregnate the others even today, and they won't have those big bellies that spell the future so much harder that you wanted."

They forewent the sixth altogether, there was just too much at stake with what they already wanted. "We found one of the mothers."

"You already knew her," Crystalia said to her. "You bordered into my group at the same time, with nothing to either name. No matter how angry Duo Maxwell would get, it was doubtful a pilot would just shoot her for you. Nice going, by the way. The only friend in the world who could stand you, Superior. At least that poison finally killed someone."

"Okay, fine!" It was hard to hear. So much planning, and it was time and inefficiency that was breaking them down.

"Not only that, but all you did with that move was change your failure meter with Wufei, who already lost a whole colony. That's all under the term 'slaughter', yet it still doesn't feel that way to you."

"RTL always hunted them down so secretly and so well. They are like . . . shadows and with all these mistakes, we feel like amateurs!"

"You are changing everything at the last minute to some stupid gamble mode. Your mirror is not in front of you anymore, Superior. Look at the pieces, shattered around you now. It's over. You only have one move left," she encouraged her. "One."

A move left. "What move?"

"If an equation isn't adding up simply because of an unaligning factor, take out the factor so it isn't important," Crystalia answered. "It doesn't matter if they are all pregnant with big bellies, it doesn't even matter if we don't kill the babies. We picked these women for one reason. That reasoning will make a difference. A new gamble. A new gamble that will hit all of them in the hardest way possible. No matter how this ends."

"Nothing is going to hurt as much as-"

"Just to you. Your feelings of 'children', will not be the same as theirs. Let's pretend they defeated Revenge of the Lost. That the women all had their children and RTL as a threat was long gone. What would make you think that they would even want to stay with those babies after they were born? Each and every one would leave them with their mothers. They were not raised to even care about that. They were raised to fight. Fight for peace. Fight for war. It's all the same. They meddle and take out anything that's in the way of their mission. They are soldiers, not daddies, and never will be. They couldn't give a fuck. The most they might have done is go see them afterwards, to be charitable."

The sting! "Crystalia!" God. She was right. They were just animals, just things made for war. They wouldn't care. They cared for nothing. "What is left? I'm guessing something that doesn't involve killing you." That was obvious. "The children?"

"Will be fine, it doesn't involve them," Crystalia assured her. "Not a factor."

"Not a factor." That look. Why would she even . . .? "Middie Une isn't carrying Trowa Barton's child, Crystalia. Right?"

"I never said that. They simply assumed."

Oh? Yes. Crystalia was hard to read. "You wanted them to assume. You even made sure she had some back up role with the Phillips to make it look like she had another purpose. Such a clever bitch."

Crystalia didn't answer back.

"I guess that would leave you alive without any revenge against mothers. Your survivor instinct sometimes, Crystalia." It was almost as strong as hers.

Fine. There really was nothing left. It was all screwed up, twisted, tangled, and every chance was burned away. "Okay. Fine. Humor me. What is the great Crystalia's plan?"