Started: February 11, 2001
Finished: February 11, 2001

Disclaimer: Yo! The babysit' it back in town! *runs in and makes sure to skid
down the kitchen floor, scaring all the Maguanaucs away* Alright, all legal 
people and nannys out of the way. Shoo- enjoy your night out. I'll have the 
boys cleaned and in bed before ten. *grin* I can't guarentee that they'll go 
to _sleep_ at that time, though...

1+2/2+1... weak here, but it'll be stronger in later parts.

Comments! Criticism! Flames will be used for a campfire.


Imminent Fate, part 6
Shamera
sitafire@hotmail.com

	Trowa narrowed his eyes dangerously as he peered out the door. "What 
are you doing here?"

	The man outside with long, platnium blond hair glared back. "I need to
talk with the rest of you. Are you all in one spot?"

	"That's not for you to know."

	Zechs Marquise stared long and hard at the pilot of Heavyarms. There 
was no further movement in the next few minutes as they engaged in a silent
battle of wills. 

	It was a while later that Zechs looked away, and gritted his teeth. 
"They've declared a cease-fire. I'm not your enemy right now."

	Trowa blinked. Of all the things he had expected the other man to say,
that was not one of them. A cease-fire? Whatever for? OZ was clearly in the
advantage at the moment. 

	"How can I trust you?" he challenged.

	Zechs glared. "Turn on any information broadcasting channel and you'll
hear it all over the news. General Trieze has called a temporary treaty to
try and stop the various deaths around the world. *And out of it,* he didn't
add. 

	Trowa's eyes narrowed for a second, the closed the door on Zechs.

	The older man stood there patiently, knowing that he was in no danger 
because he had spoken the truth. Of course, he had to explain the the pilots
why he was there, but he felt the small twinge that all the pilots had some
form of power that enabled them to at least feel the disturbances around 
them. It shouldn't be too hard.

	The door of the small house opened again. Heero Yuy glared out of it. 
Zechs knew that they wouldn't let him in on the account that all the pilots 
might be discovered, considering that they didn't know everyone yet. He had 
known all along and had been prepared. 

	"So talk." came the slightly nasal voice of the Wing pilot.

	Zechs's eyes narrowed. "I can't. Not out here."

	"Then leave."

	There was no hesitation in the voice, no clue as to what the Wing pilot
might have been feeling at the moment. 

	"I can't do that either." Zechs said slowly. 

	"Yes, you can." With that, Heero pushed the door close.

	Zechs reached out and pushed the door back open, straining as hard as
he could. He knew that if Heero wanted to, the boy could take him out very
quickly.

	Heero narrowed his eyes slightly, but allowed Zechs to hold the door.

	"I know," the pilot of Epyon said gravely, "I know that some strange 
things have been going on in the past few days. Seeing strange shadows or 
dust-like cloud dropping down from the sky. Feeling like you're being 
watched, and never being able to pinpoint that presense."

	Heero showed no sign that he knew what Zechs was talking about. 

	"I'm pretty sure that all of you know have felt something. Trieze knows
what's wrong, and he's trying to fix it. That's why he called a cease-fire. 
But he needs help doing this, and you're the first ones to come in mind.

	"So, we all work together on this, and we go back to being enemies 
later when the war starts again." Zechs retorted.

	"No."

	A blink. "No?" Epyon's pilot felt the door start to close again and 
leaned on it with all his strength. "You haven't heard everything, Yuy!"

	Heero gave Zechs a hard glare. "I don't want to."

	"But you know something's wrong." Zechs countered. "You know what I 
say it true." Considering that he hadn't been able to get any reaction out
of Pilot 01, he was grasping at straws. "Something has gone wrong, and if 
it isn't fixed soon, one of you could get hurt!"

	Suddenly Zechs fell in the house as the weight against the door was 
dropped. He tumbled to the floor with a slight grunt, and scrambled to his
feet as soon as possible. This was rediculous. Falling in front of a Gundam
pilot? Careless.

	Heero shut the door behind Zechs, and secured the locks, all of them
rigged to blow at the slightest intrusion. Once Zechs was on his feet, Heero
turned a cold look at him. 

	"Follow me."

	Zechs walked behind Heero, who was silent even while looking like he 
was going to make a lot of noise. That damn boy was like a ghost. You 
couldn't hear him walking, couldn't hear him ever talk, couldn't even hear 
him breathe. It was scary, really. 

	It wasn't long before they arrived in the living room, where Trowa had
been talking quietly with the others, who were in rapt attention. Duo, of 
course, was asking insignificant questions, while Quatre was preventing a 
fight from breaking out between Duo and Wufei. 

	As the two stood at the doorway of the living room, all coversation 
ceased. The other Gundam pilots barely gave Zechs a glance, but stared 
disbelievingly at Heero for letting the other man in. 

	Heero took in all the curious glances and shrugged. There was a 
pregnant silence as he went over to sit next to Duo, and the rest of the 
pilots just took to staring at Zechs. 

	Feeling that he had everyone's attention (He had meant to get it, but
it was just too strange for him to realize that there were at least two 
dozen hidden weapons in the room that he couldn't see. After all, he could 
only sense about two on each pilot.), Zechs cleared his throat nervously and
said, "General Kushenada has declared a cease-fire to take care of some 
things that has been a problem in the last week. I'm here to see if you 
could be perswaded," he winced slightly at his own choice of words, but 
continued on, "Into a temperary alliance that will last throughout the 
duration of the peace. There will be no mention of Gundams or anything else 
unless absolutely nesassary. The alliance will have no bonds after the peace
is over. It is only what is nesassary to stop many deaths."

	"War itself is death, Marquise. What do you have to say about that?" 
The one he had least expected to reject the idea of an alliance was 
questioning his motives. Well, he shouldn't have expected any less from the 
leader of the Gundam pilots, should he?

	"War may be death." he admitted reluctantly, "But it is needed in order
to help people see how precious peace is. The death I am talking about it 
death in vain, with no meaning whatsoever except that one day you die with-
out any reason."

	"All deaths are without reason." Pilot 02 spoke up, violet eyes cold 
as he shrunk back into Heero. "No one can have a reason to die for the sake
of war. Why should we trust you?"

	Ahh. This was what he had prepared himself for. "Because," he spoke 
without preamble. "You have seen those creatures die in front of your very 
eyes. You somehow know that those creatures did not deserve those deaths, 
from the way that they cry and beg for help. Yet they keeping coming, and 
they keep dying. There's no way that you can help them, so you just try to 
imaging all this and keep it in your mind, hoping that you're only going 
crazy and that what you see is not real."

	Right on the spot. The violet eyes widened and gazed over in 
rememberance, and Zechs was a bit surprised. He thought that pilot 04 would 
be the one to be hit with those words, which was why he had worded it that 
way. There was a reason why 04 was the leader. 

	But the pilot of Sandrock was not unaffected. He visibly cringed in 
those words, just as Zechs knew he would. 

	Surprisingly, it was pilot 05, the pilot of Shenlong, that spoke up in
such a harsh tone against him. "You seem to know a lot about this. Why would
you want our help if you know what to do? How do we know that you're not 
going to use whatever information you have gathered on us afterwards to 
defeat us?"

	Zechs looked over at Cheng slowly. His posture was relaxed and he 
leaned against the wall, almost smiling at the other pilots. "Because we 
have known your identities for some time now. You might not know that. We 
did not reveal your identities to the public or the rest of the battalions 
because it would be dishonorable. We fight as honorably as we can, and stop 
when we have an unfair advantage. Now you are questioning our word? You have 
no right to be doing so."

	Wufei's eyes had widened as he realized the truth in those words, but 
he growled softly at Zechs, looking like a taunt wire ready to snap at any 
moment. 

	"Y-you know?"

	Zechs turned to look at the pilot of Sandrock. "Yes, Mr. Winner, we 
knew for a long time. We are not that oblivious to those around us. You are 
good, yes, but safehouses where you're all staying together is large and 
dangerous. It didn't take long to make the connections with five boys and 
either large spaces or a dense forest where they stay."

	"Us. You and Kushenada have been in this all along." The violet eyes 
stared at him evenly, making Zechs want to check over his reports again about
the untamed and loud pilot 02. 
	
	"We have. Now we need your help."

	Maxwell ignored what Zechs had said. "You want our help to try and stop
those deaths that had been occurring? _Why_ do you need our help?"

	Zechs slumped, and he looked over at Quatre, raising an eyebrow. He 
waited for a nod before to made his way to a seat in the corner of the room,
aware that all eyes in the room was following him. 

	The tall, platinem-blonde man leaned back into the chair before taking
a look at all the other pilots. "Because Trieze does not know why this is 
happening. There is much that you don't know about the situation, but we 
need all the help we could get into contacting the only people who would 
know why this is happening."

	"None of our informations is revealed after the treaty."

	Zechs looked at Heero calmly before nodding. "There will be nothing 
about you after the treaty. We work in an alliance, and that means we don't 
try and kill each other for the time being."

	"The terms?" Pilot 03 asked quietly.

	"What I said. Nothing more." he promised. 

	"Clarify."

	Zechs resisted the urge to sigh. "An alliance for the duration of the 
cease-fire. We work together, no questions about Gundams and anything 
reguarding the war, and we forget all this happened afterwards. We go back 
to being who we were. No information found during the time will be used 
against us later."

	He stopped and watched the boys contemplate it warily. They seemed to 
be listening to see if he had more to say, but he didn't. 

	There were a few looks interchanged during the exchanged, but after a 
few minutes of silence Quatre looked up. 

	"Fine."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

	"A few things you should know before you get started.

	"The reason this is happening is because of the war. But because this 
war cannot be stopped until one side wins, we have to find another way to 
stop these deaths. The first thing you should know is that those creatures 
aren't from this world."

	There was a quiet, "No shit, Sherlock," that was uttered from the 
audiance, but there were nothing but innocent (well, as innocent as they 
could get) expressions on the pilots' faces. 

	Zechs cleared his throat before continuing, "There are three different
Worlds and Barriers that we cannot pass through. In-between all the Worlds 
is a void that stretches out for infinity. Earth is the First World. Although
we already know that there are many worlds and we have even colonized on 
a few of them, that's not what I'm talking about. Think of it all as 
dimensions."

	He spread the small marbles that Duo had played with on the dining 
table before them. There was a small piece of cardboard between all the 
marbles. There were three marbles that formed a triangle and the cardboard 
cut between it all. 

	"This is Earth." He stated, pointing to the smallest blue marble that 
sure enough resembled what he was talking about. "There's a barrier between 
Earth and the next World. That barrier is Death." He pointed to the piece of
cardboard that was between the blue marble and the next marble, a black one.
"Beyond Death is Daejin. Daejin is the Demon World. It's where everyone who 
have suffered goes. Daejin is not evil, not like it sounds. It's just a place
for people who cannot be redeemed because they refuse to see the light." 

	Duo snickered at the pun, and Heero silenced him with a quick tug on 
the braid. 

	"The people who go there are the ones who were insane while on Earth, 
or were ignorant to what they were doing. They live in happiness on Daejin 
trying to kill each other. But they won't die. That makes them happy, so 
that is where they live. Any person who has passed through Earth can choose 
to live in Daejin."

	He moved on the last marble, a white one. "The World furthest from 
Earth is Elysian. It is where the ones who can see what they have done and 
have repented for it goes. There, they are taken care of by the Guardian 
Angels. They watch the affairs and what goes on in Earth as they please, 
but they cannot interfere. The Guardian Angels are the ones who take care of
everything that goes on in all three Worlds." He lifted his eyes to the 
stern gazes of the pilots. "We need to get a message there. In person."

	The gazes turned grim as they realized the meaning in those words. To 
get a message there, they had to pass Death. 

	"But if it were that simple, perhaps we would have not needed your 
help." Zechs said, frustrated as he looked at his own model. "Death is easy
to get through, especially when you know people on Daejin. BUT- we suspected
the reason that the people on Daejin were dying was because of the Dark 
Ones." He pointed to the empty space between the three marbles. 

	"They are the souls who saw through the barriers and went crazy because
of it. Death is a dimension all by itself. The Dark Ones are not evil, but 
have lost all hope. The live in nothing, travel in nothing, until they 
believe that they are nothing. After they die, they become a shadow who sees
this World as their playground, for they are set out to torment the souls 
that shine brightest. They bring the cousins to Destiny and Fate- Despair 
and Doubt. The brothers are dangerous when one is travelling through the 
Worlds.

	"Trieze suspects that it is the Dark Ones who are causing this, but 
he doesn't understand why the Angels are not doing anything about it. Perhaps
they don't know about it. It's possible, however unlikely."

	"Why isn't it likely?" Wufei asked, grumbling a little to himself about
the information that he had just recieved. "There's no such thing as an 
ominoxious being. They could have overlooked it."

	"They might have overlooked one or two. Ten or twenty even. But there's
no way that Guardian Angels can overlook over a hundred souls disappearing 
in one week." Zechs's glare brought even Wufei down. "Something's going on, 
and we need to find out what."

	He peered closely at all five pilots. "Trieze was the first one to 
suspect that you would know something about this, and might be able to see 
what was going on. I'm sorry to have to reveal all this knowladge to you, 
but we need all the help we can get to stop this. 

	"You see, dying in war is fine because you have passed though Death 
and now am living happily in either World. But when you die there- you 
disappear. Completely."


End part 6


Ahh! I finally got all that information out! But seriously, I'm really sorry
about how slow this 1+2 thing is going. If I have any old readers in here, 
they'll know how horrible I am when it comes to relationships. I have an 
easier time writing action stories than stories with romance. But I try. ^_^
Can't help it. I love 1+2!!!