Chapter 146: Birthday Party
Relena even handed him an invitation to her birthday party, but Heero refused outright and tore the invitation to shreds in public.
Still, he performed outstandingly in every subject, especially in athletics — whether it was fencing, horseback riding, or the like — drawing a large crowd's attention.
Tolle sighed, really unable to understand what Heero was doing; even when he watched the anime before, he never could make sense of him.
He neither fit in nor obeyed orders; all his actions defied common sense, and he seemed insane.
Among the five Gundam pilots, only Duo had consistently put up with him and teamed with him. Come to think of it, Duo was probably the sanest of the five — and the only one of them who actually had a girlfriend.
(Trowa didn't count; she treated him like a little brother.)
By the looks of the time, Heero should be about to rendezvous with him. Tolle was optimistic about Heero and his future machine, the hellish Gundam Deathscythe.
Relena, meanwhile, was completely smitten. After school, everyone in the car was thinking about Heero. She had learned a lot of his secrets — and had even seen some of them herself.
Even the conversations with Coco and Miranda were all about Heero's impressive daytime performances; the two of them could only nod along perfunctorily.
After school, Heero had climbed under a high-speed military vehicle and sneaked into the military base.
He planned to use the base's torpedoes — he had calculated how many would need to explode simultaneously to destroy a Gundam.
He intended to use them to detonate the Wing Gundam, so neither the Earth Sphere Unified Nation's military nor OZ would obtain it.
But Heero couldn't have imagined that by the time he reached his destination, Duo had already taken care of things for him.
The Earth Sphere Unified Nation's navy, upon learning the Wing Gundam had fallen into the sea, immediately dispatched a large number of underwater mobile suits — the Cancer and the Pisces — to search for the Wing Gundam.
OZ, however, was slow to respond; only the submarine with Zechs aboard went to search the seabed for the Wing Gundam.
They didn't know that Duo, piloting the Gundam Deathscythe, had long been waiting. To protect the Wing Gundam he destroyed one underwater mobile suit after another that tried to pry at it.
Tolle shook his head in admiration — Duo really was dependable. Without him, Heero's Wing Gundam would probably have been gone by now.
The Gundam Deathscythe sped through the sea, using its beam scythe like it was cutting through emptiness — one underwater Cancer after another was felled. They never expected the Deathscythe's beam scythe could even be used underwater.
As the number of Cancer units dwindled, Duo grew playful and began tearing machines apart by hand with the Deathscythe Gundam.
Soon the Earth Sphere Unified Nation discovered all their underwater mobile suits were annihilated — and, by chance, noticed a nearby OZ submarine.
They assumed OZ was responsible and launched torpedoes nonstop at the OZ submarine.
They didn't realize they had the wrong target. Not long after, the Gundam Deathscythe burst through the surface and destroyed the Earth Sphere Unified Nation's aircraft carrier and escort ships.
In the end, OZ's underwater mobile suits didn't escape Duo's attacks either — they were eliminated one by one, and Duo departed from the seabed with the Wing Gundam.
Tolle watched and shook his head, commenting that the Earth Sphere Unified Nation sure had a knack for making trouble. Still, the Gundam Deathscythe left behind so many wrecked units — very nice.
He wanted so badly to pilot a Gundam and join the fray himself, but unfortunately Relena's birthday party was going on — maybe next time he'd bring a Gundam and crash the party.
The other three Gundam pilots, after completing their first missions, also found their own paths.
Trowa went to the circus to be a clown; Quatre took his servants to an oasis to see flamingos; Chang Wufei found and joined a rebel organization.
At the end of the birthday party, just as Relena was about to blow out the candles and make a wish, a male classmate walked in holding flowers and said,
"Great, I think I've caught the most important event. Happy birthday, Relena."
Then he glanced around for a moment and continued,
"By the way, has Heero still not come? So that person I saw really was him."
At the sound of Heero's name, Relena nervously stood up and said,
"You saw Heero?"
"Yes, out on the coastal road. It was absurd — he was sitting on top of an ambulance. I thought I must have been seeing things."
"And where did that ambulance go?"
"I think toward the military port."
Hearing this, Relena ignored everyone's attempts to stop her and bolted out to look for Heero.
A nearby female classmate urged, "Miss Relena, where are you headed?"
"Please stay and enjoy the food — I'll be back soon."
The male classmate offered, "If you really want to go to the port, can I give you a ride?"
The girls tried to persuade her, "Yeah, let us go with you."
Relena replied with a serious expression,
"No. Please don't come. Sorry, I must go."
Darlian's secretary came out to stop her, "Relena, wait a moment."
But Relena didn't listen. Her mind was filled with Heero. She dashed out of the venue and drove off toward the military base's port.
When she reached a vantage point near the military base port, she saw explosions everywhere — she knew this had to be Heero's doing.
She charged into the military port and found Heero on a submarine moored at the dock.
"Heero, I knew it was you." Then she looked at the torpedoes about to be launched and pleaded, "Heero, you can't."
Seeing that Heero still ignored her, she grew bolder and slowly walked over to his side, babbling on.
"Heero, what are you doing? Tell me. Who exactly are you?
Those are torpedoes, right? I know what those are. Please tell me — I want to understand you.
Speak, Heero."
Heero, finally impatient, turned and said to Relena, "Relena."
Relena lit up when Heero finally answered and called, "Heero." She expected him to explain.
But instead Heero raised a pistol.
"You've gotten in too deep. Goodbye, Relena."
Before he could fire, Duo attacked first; bullets slammed into Heero's arm.
To reduce the impact of the bullets, Heero fell back, trying to lessen the force on his body. Relena, scared, crouched on the ground.
Cancer
C-class underwater mobile suit
Terrain adaptability: Sea A — Land — Air — Space —
Armament: Torpedo launcher ×4
———
Pisces
C-class underwater mobile suit
Terrain adaptability: Sea A — Land — Air — Space —
Armament: Torpedo launcher ×12
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