///After Colony, 195:
"Did you hear, Miss Crystalia?"
Mm? "Sorry." She licked her fingers. "Sure, yeah. Have you had these? I love these. They crunch just right in your mouth and then there's this five seconds of like jellylike goodness before you have to swallow it. Best chips on the planet. Best thing to eat next to popcorn. I can never get enough popcorn. Well, the smell of it." It was like home.
Her new recruit, who got so much more attention than usual from others, was pointing to the next room over. "I want you to meet Lady Zero."
Crystalia went in and saw . . . a gundam? "Wasn't expecting that. At all." Grr. "Why are you showing me a mobile suit? I hate war." Hated it. Hated it a lot! She flattened her chip bag.
"That's not nice to say," this woman said. "Her name is Lady Zero. She knows your future."
"Lady Zero?" She named a gundam. She did sound like one of those heavy mobile suit enthusiasts who named their things. She moved closer to it. "Let me guess, another fan of Treize? Or Lady Une? I swear that woman has split personalities. Saying she'll destroy the colonies if the gundam attacked Oz one day then fighting for peace in the colonies the next." Weird woman.
"I did not name it after her!" The woman was angry. "Lady Zero deserves the respect."
"Sure, so Superior fits better." Crystalia controlled her group, yet she didn't. Big investors she just couldn't deny were actually taking an interest in her group because of this 'Superior'. "Everyone has gem names, not categorical names. Whatever gem you want, and whatever color added to it if you want." Words like superior, master, lietenant, leader, she hated those. "We are all someone special. You might be new, so you might think you have to have a lower class name or something? Look, you can even have something cool like Black Diamond." There was no ranking done by gems or anything.
"What do gems have to do with anything if they have no meaning on who is in charge from whom?" Superior asked her.
"Because, I started the group, and I started with gems," Crystalia reasoned. "Gems are really pretty."
"Try it out," Superior insisted. "Try Lady Zero."
"I am not getting into a mobile suit of all things. I hate war." Absolutely detested it.
"It will show you how to be a good leader. You want Revenge of the Lost to take off, don't you?" Superior said. "Lady Zero can make it happen."
Crystalia rolled her eyes. One of these upstarts. "Revenge of the Lost mainly houses women who need help or are in trouble."
"And revenge," Superior said. "You enact revenge."
"Sometimes, some people in the group, ask about some . . . things," she answered. Yes, there had been a few instances where the group did use it resources purely for revenge. "It is called Revenge of the Lost. If they want to play on this side of the sandbox, they have to put some risk into it." She sniffed. "Nothing your Lady Une could show me."
"Her name is Lady Zero!"
"Sorry. Lady Zero." Crystalia sighed. "I saw what you wanted to show me. I am leaving now." She turned to leave, but was blocked off by several other people in her group. "What is it?"
Several of them, several of them she had even known for years, had grabbed her and pushed her into the gundam. She fought back, cursed, and even screamed. She hated things done against her will!
They didn't let go until she was trapped in the machine. She started pushing buttons, trying to figure out how to get out of it. She never wanted anything to do with mobile suits, she had no idea what any of the buttons were for!
Then . . . ///
"You are still a good person inside!" Dorothy yelled as she was being brought back to Sandrock. The other women had interfered after all. Dorothy had scared them away with her words somehow, but they hadn't been so far they could come to make sure things got done. They knew she was close. "Crystalia!"
"Don't worry, Crystalia, we'll handle her," the others insisted as they put her back in. "Stay in there. Accept your future with grace."
She called out again to her. Crystalia just stared at the gundam. "Do you have any deep tragedy in your past?" she called out to Dorothy. "If you do, this system will work harder. We'll have to adjust it for shorter breaks."
"Let me go before it's too late. Please! You never wanted something done to you against your will, how can you do this?! Look inside yourself, Crystalia! You hate war! You hate pushing against people!"
Crystalia went to the computer. She stared at it as the others walked off. "Lady Une." Split personalities. She pulled through. "You were fond of Treize Kushrenada, weren't you?" Lady Une.
She looked at the core of the zero system. Revenge of the Lost needs to end. I need to end. A little group. Just a little group. For it. Against it. It's all over either way. Either way. It's all over either way. The only difference is . . . She looked at the monitor. She betrayed me. She started . . . killing me. She struck first blood. She threw her in the gundam. She killed Crystalia. She wrecked her mind. She wrecked my mind. Her mind. "Lady Une. Let it burn."
Let it go. Let it burn. I saved those children. I did the impossible. I didn't care, but I did. The part of her inside me that won't die. I can do better. I hate Superior. I hate that woman. Made me ruin my chips. She looked at the screen. Even knowing what the zero system would do to her mind, Dorothy was still doomed. Every single one of those women were doomed. They would all be pulled into a situation they could not escape. By the time the pilots figured it out, they would become . . .
Her fingers were on the computer board. Oddly typing weird phrases on it. Typing her favorite poem she used to like. Superior threatened Catherine. But. I'm a threat to Catherine too. I'm a threat to everyone. I'm just this thing . . . a thing nothing understands . . . no one can predict . . .
She glossed her fingers over the keys on the keyboard and tabbed over to another program. I will create more me's. More people I don't know. More people no one can predict. Creating more me's is worse than killing someone. She looked back into the training mode. Superior would be checking that. Training mode kept it easier, more simpler on the mind. Made Revenge of the Lost the focus, but kept personality intact. Kept a lot more intact, but slowly wore down a person the more they used it.
Superior would check that. "It's not world control," she said to the virtual prompter that held Dorothy's vision. "We aren't world controlling. We just strike in small spots. Like a match. We aren't designed to be a raging fire." Actually, her group had always worked much better with a small amount of people. When she ran it. "Did you know, that there were actually some people . . . that learned from their mistakes? We didn't kill everyone. Sometimes, they just learned. Figured it out."
Her fingers roamed around the keyboard more. "I don't know what I am. I could have just gone straight back to the circus, performed for a whole year, and then decided to kill everyone there. I feel like nothing, I'm just this numbed . . . thing."
"I don't want to be a numbed thing," Dorothy said through the virtual prompter. "I want to be a good mother to Sandrock. I want to be there to change the world for the better when things get bad. I want to feel. I want to be like you, Crystalia, before you were forced to change."
Crystalia felt a spike down her back when Dorothy said that last line.
"Please, don't force things on me. Don't leave me like this. I've done nothing wrong! I never did anything wrong."
Dorothy had done plenty wrong. Mobile Dolls. Being on Libra. Attacking Earth. Even stabbing one of the pilots.
"I've done nothing wrong, can't you hear me!" Dorothy yelled through the visual prompter. "I've done nothing wrong, nothing at all, I'm just a mother of a young girl and a bright new baby boy!"
Another spike. "Stop doing that."
"Don't do this. I was no one. Stop it," Dorothy pushed farther. "I had nothing to do with any of this, I just lived my simple life with my simple kids in my simple circus! How can anyone force anyone like this? Let go of me! Stop this!"
Crystalia started to see her hand tremble. "Stop it or I'll go and kill you myself."
"You are just like them. You are just like the ones that beat you to death. They were all wrong, every one of them. You aren't Trowa Barton's mother, she is dead. She was beaten to death and her spirit was scratched. Scarred. She was killed officially in After Colony 195, when someone took that scar and reopened it. Reopened it to become the perfect leader for Revenge of the Lost."
Kill her. She should just go over there and kill her.
"A perfect soldier that did comply with Revenge of the Lost. Middie Une was never to be beaten to death. The mother to your grandchild was always doomed to reopen her own scar and kill herself, just like you. Explains the odd 'kill someone' part that never made sense. Why get a former spy to simply shoot someone?"
Ugh! "Has anyone ever said that they would like to kill you?"
"On many occassions. I have that kind of personality," Dorothy admitted. "I am actually not that bad, but Romefeller's influence on me makes me quite abrasive at times. A product of my environment. You understand that very well."
She may have shouted and yelled and screamed and acted desperate, yet Dorothy was not getting enough adrenaline to start the real zero system. She was concentrating on her. "I can't get you out. If I could, I'd kill you already. You're annoying." If only they had collected a different one for this.
"Annoying like Lady Une?" Dorothy asked. "You've said that name several times. Lady Une. Why do you keep thinking of her of all people? Mister Treize's number one companion. Even at the end, she followed Treize's wishes. She also went to stay and take care of Mariemaia Kushrenada. Someone that you would think no one could forgive for taking over the world. Yet? Here we are."
"Here we are."
"At a brink, between times."
"A brink." A brink. Crystalia stared at the visual prompter again. If it had been anyone else. But, Dorothy Catalonia. The more she conversed, the more that women seemed to read right through her. The more she wanted to kill her, the more she was reading her just right. If it had been anyone else. This woman seemed to understand her better than herself. "Emotional people are so dangerous."
"I am the one trapped in the gundam, being forced to stay in here against my will. You are the one oppressing my desire to escape. You are the dangerous one."
"How is it going?"
"Superior." She had her fingers on the keyboard. "Hello." She typed a few off-hand numbers. "We have captured her. Ready to begin training." A few more offhand numbers. They wouldn't mean anything. She would change them later. "Be careful around her. She's very good at reading people."
Superior came into view. "Is that right?" She looked at Dorothy in the visual prompter. "Good at reading people?"
Crystalia could see Dorothy seemed shook. "Please do not leave me with her, Crystalia. Please, I beg of you, do not leave me with her."
Crystalia looked at Dorothy and then at Superior.
"I don't think she'll be messing with me," Superior said. "Set it all up before you go."
Crystalia looked back at her keyboard. Back at the program. Back at the begging eyes of Dorothy. She already sensed that Superior was a loose cannon. Anyone pushed her the wrong way, even a slight tap, and she'd kill without a second thought.
A few numbers off wasn't the end of the world. It wasn't even much more than a chance. The pilots might not even see it. "Whatever happened to Lady Une?"
Superior glanced at her. "What?"
"Strong. She was this extremely force, yet in the colonies, she got so soft. She was so weird. She watches over Mariemaia now. She is well enough to watch over that girl."
"Yes, I suppose? Why are you bringing that up? Do we have another caveat in the system again?" Superior asked.
Hmmm. The mind is a complicated thing. Fair. I promise nothing to no one. I just know, that . . . she started to mess with several numbers they usually didn't. Why am I doing this? She isn't me. I don't care. We have the same name, but we aren't the same person. That woman died. I stepped out of Lady Zero, she died in it. If she had Cathy when she first stepped out. If she had someone who cared. If she even had Dorothy catching her when she stumbled out. "I fixed some weaknesses I spotted in the system. We want them focused. Extra-focused."
"Oh, don't change those settings." Superior was seeing her changes. "No, no. You'll get another Aquamarine on your hands again. We have enough members working on six-piece puzzles."
"Aquamarine is doing twelve-piece puzzles now." It was in that section. The stressers of the zero system. I hate you. I really should just roast you alive. You'll stumble out not even knowing how to speak. I want to kill you in the worst way. It hurts when I have to use her heart. She would never be her. Why did she have to care at all? Because, humans care. More humans than Crystalia did. Dorothy. I want to kill her. Because. She sees who used to have this body. Same reason she was such an emotional mess with Cathy. Some feelings of her are still in me. She was hoping keeping the babies was good enough. Keeping Cathy safe was enough. But. I was pulling the crust off the bread. She hated regular mayo, she needed some of the lighter notes of lighter mayo.
Small changed numbers. Barely visible. Dorothy Catalonia had been able to handle the mobile dolls, and she had been able to navigate her stress visions into different places. I can't do this again. I won't be trusted again. You get one chance to get this right, Dorothy Catalonia. If you get caught, I will have to terminate your chance.
"Ooh." Superior looked back toward Crystalia, seeing exactly where Crystalia wanted her to see. Controlling the audience, was importance sometimes for trick performances. "You have the levels ultra high, she must have really made you mad." She looked toward Dorothy. "Don't worry. I can handle her, I am sure. So? What do we do with that thing in her?"
The baby. "As long as she plays her part, it's her responsibility. As long as she has some semblance of human, it'll keep her obeying us." As long as she has something to care for, to care about, maybe she'll make it through even better.
"Right, good point." Superior bent closer to the visual prompter. "Be good. Obey the rules, and that thing lives. Understand?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Dorothy said obediently.
"Good." Superior turned and looked back at Crystalia. "I don't foresee any issues. I see much less rebellion in her than any of the others. A good choice. Did you share the data with the rest of the gems left about how Duo Maxwell got out Hilde?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Crystalia answered. Just, run with them again. Don't do what I expect you all will do, give a damn! They wouldn't. No one would stay so vigilant with no more threat around. Enjoy this time. Countdowns running boys.
"Good." Superior looked back at Dorothy. "So, Revenge of the Lost is on official papers, destroyed. Only a few got away. Everyone else ended up getting a good ending, and they all get to keep their babies. Isn't that nice? You were the only one that got captured."
Dorothy didn't answer. Smart woman.
"We are going to be gone for awhile. They will all have happy lives with their babies. Well, as happy as they can be. Some will have no change. Others will visit their children once in a blue moon maybe, if it all." Superior groaned. "I'll know soon whether you were right about this, Crystalia. If the pilots do stay with those children, don't be surprised if I kill you when your back is turned."
Of course. "They won't." She'd welcome death if she were wrong. At least right now.
She stared at Dorothy on the visual prompter. "This better work better. After this is done, every single one of those pilots better burn. There's a lot of competition though, to get them to feel. Goodness, one of them already lost an entire colony. Lost their mother again. Can we beat that kind of pain?"
"It will work." She glanced toward Dorothy. Immediately, Dorothy started to settle down. She must have sensed she did something. "Only a tiny chance."
"Only a tiny chance of what?" Superior asked.
"It's only a tiny chance it won't work with overwhelming odds it all will." Just a small chance. Just a chance.
Only a chance. Even with that chance though.