The Destruction of a Person

It was overcast in Neo Guyana; the sun peeked bands of silvery light through the clouds, but it would be raining soon.

"I'll try not to die of fright this time." Michelo removed his jacket and holsters, handing them both to Wong, who struggled with its weight until Master took it. The older man simply folded it and placed it gently in a wall locker to be retrieved later.

"Stop saying that." Wong ordered.

Michelo was keeping cool and calm, but the fear was apparent in his eyes.

"Don't be scared," The Prime Minister laughed, "Michelo, it's trying to help you."

Neo Hong Kong had bought a small luxury space cruiser to disguise operations. It was a white thing with some regal-looking, fake family crest. As it lowered onto a cliff overlooking the wilderness, it could have been a rich family enjoying the tropical forests of South America. But inside it were two gundams from two separate nations.

Michelo thought he was a little young to have a heart attack, as he felt that tiny muscle in his chest quiver, and he didn't think himself one of those poor bastards that worked themselves to death and aged early. As if to doubt himself, he traced his thumb and middle finger over the deepening lines under his eyes and forehead. He swallowed, almost sick to his stomach with nerves.

He stood nervously in the palm of the Neros Gundam's hand, Wong and Master stood beside the Neros as it was offloaded the ship on a palate. As the ship took off to hover at a safe distance, Master leaped out of the open hanger door and landed on the gladiator's head. The wind whipped Michelo's hair into a red tornado before it died down. The Italian smelled the ozone and fresh dirt. The first raindrops stung his eyes.

"Why do I need to be here for this?" Michelo looked up, leaving his hand alone in midair, trembling.

"The Neros has no life to offer the Devil Gundam." Master called, "The Devil Gundam won't be interested in cold, dead, machinery; it wants life."

As quick as lightning, Master was at Michelo's side. He took Michelo's left hand in his, "It does me little good to kill you, Michelo."

Master leaped away, throwing off his sash and whipping it toward the Italian, who knocked it away with his left hand. The soft palm of Michelo's hand raked the spearpoint, tearing a ragged strip of skin right off. Master jumped away and stood on the Neros's shoulder. Michelo instinctively licked his palm.

"Quickly! Before it clots! This is your chance to seal your pact with the Devil Gundam and achive that power you crave! This is the only chance I'm giving you!"

"Feed it my blood?"

"It's a symbiotic relationship, just a few drops of blood should get it interested in you."

Michelo shook his head and all of the Gundam Fight came to him. How Domon, a complete stranger, had so callously destroyed his chance at the Gundam Fight.

A man who implied if he hadn't been bound by the law, he would have killed him.

You're not going to cower to some bully are you?! That wasn't some Gundam fight, that was fucking disrespect. Who is he to fucking talk to you like that?!

Some asshole calling himself the King of Hearts thinks he can push me around, does he?!

As if emotion alone could summon the heavens, lightning struck the Neros. More specifically, struck the man standing on the Neros's head. Electricity shot through the gundam and arched around the Italian before grounding out. Michelo felt his hair rise as he looked up to the Old Master, expecting him dead, knocked out, or to have miraculously dodged the bolt. Instead, he was bathed in flaming, clear blue light. Michelo had to shield his eyes to look at him. Michelo unclenched his hand and looked at the red-pink, raw flesh but the wound had already congealed. He looked back at the Old Master.

Is this a sign?

"Backing out?" Master grinned, which snapped the younger man out of his awe-inspired stupor. The fiery light faded away and the rain began to pour.

"You're no better than me!" Michelo snarled, shooting him a look that could kill and pulled a switchblade from his pocket. Master laughed, knowing it wasn't him he was talking to.

Michelo made a tight fist, his head filled with the holier-then-thou image of Neo Japan's fighter. He adjusted his watch as tight as he could and pumped his hand until he could see his veins craw over tiny bones and his knuckles go white. He made a fist and pointed his fist away from him, the veins stretching electric blue across purpleing skin.

Master tilted his head in annoyance. Michelo looked anywhere but his wrist and his knife. He trusted his hand to know where the wrist was; he audibly grit his teeth and sniffed.

This will not hurt, The Italian tried to promise himself, it'll be worth it.

The knife was the bow, his veins strings, and his arm the violin. Michelo's scream was the piercing first note.

Hot white pain flashed across his arm and his vision blackened for a second, causing Michelo to swear loudly in Italian. The Italian wretched, almost sick to his stomach, and doubled over, dropping the knife. He suppressed a second scream, but a stomach-turning moan escaped from his teeth. His anger had made him messy; he never meant to cut his wrist that deep.

Warm red rivers burst from his skin, turning to billows were the rain had hit and Michelo's body went cold, numb, and clammy. He lost control of his left hand, leaving Michelo to believe he'd cut right through the tendon. The pain stopped.

This must be shock.

Leaning on the brink of falling over, the redhead extended his hand and pointed downward, at the silver pit where he was sure the Devil Gundam lay. The red life rolled off the Italian's finger and dripped, falling through space, then fell as rain onto the slick, shiny surface.

As soon as the ruby splattered on the surface of the demon's cocoon, it boiled away. The blood blotted and pooled and its donor's already pale face blanched a cadaverous gray-white.

"Geeze, Chariot, are you going to be all right?" Master sneered as he raised an eyebrow.

Michelo wrapped his right hand over the wound, "I can't stop the bleeding,"

His voice went flat. The red clouded and overtook pure water and seeped through his fingers; which were losing color with every beat of his heart, "I didn't think it would bleed this bad."

Had he known, he might have appreciated that the rainwater really was pure water; all impurities had been absorbed into the Devil Gundam.

The tinkling sound of breaking glass filled the air and both men looked over to see the cracks in the iridescent material. At it's center, there was a bulge, where something was scratching to escape.

"Madonna...."

"Be ready for it, Michelo." Master warned.

A great avenging angel erupted from its cocoon with a screaming hiss. It shot into the air, dripping platinum liquid metal. It was incomplete, that much was certain; it was half a gundam with wings, tail, arms, and part of a head. Where the face was supposed to be was only emerald eyes and a gaping, gray-fanged mouth. Where there were supposed to be legs were merely a stream of dull green wires, tethering it to its womb. It's chest was an open ribcage.

The humans leaped out of its way as it landed atop the Neros Gundam, hugging itself to the mobile fighter's chest. The monster seemed to kiss the Neros as its 'mouth' seemed to devour the head. Jaundice eyes lit up, as if the Neros was protesting this attacker, but sat silent as the tentacles that made the white monster embraced it in a deadly hug. It's ribcage clamped around the Neros's chest and green-white wires wrapped the gladiator in a straitjacket.

Michelo stood, transfixed, his eyes glazed as the world took on dazzling metallic colors. The Italian's hands were bloody and limp at his sides while his life still dripped and mixed into the mud at his feet. The only thing Michelo could focus on were the bright burning green eyes of the monster that was merging with his gundam.

Suddenly, the redhead's feet simply gave out and he was on his knees, sinking into the mud, ether it was from the blood loss or the Devil's hypnosis was unclear.

The beast seemed to curl in on itself and melt into the Neros Gundam as bright liquid chrome. The liquid melted all it touched and the Neros became a soupy, sludge-like monster. With green eyes, it turned to face its assigned pilot and growled with an open mouth, wings rising from it's back. Raising a mass of tentacles that used to be its arm, it reached out to Michelo with dull green wires. Before it could get a hold of him, a great white blade turned them to dust and Michelo was whisked to safety.

Master set the younger man down easily, either not noticing or not caring that his purple robe was stained with mud and blood.

"We might have to get you to a hospital, you were a sitting duck out there." Master growled, wrapping Michelo's limp arm in a white rag, "You went dumb again, though with that slash, I'm not surprised."

Master was talking to himself; Michelo only heard a dull buzzing. He only ever got like this a few times, when he was shot.

"Do you understand anything I'm saying?"

"All this blood is freaking me out!" Michelo managed to sputter.

"The blood is freaking you out?"

"Without medical attention, I'm going to die!"

Master draped the good arm over his shoulder, "You're not dying, Michelo. It's not good, but you're not dying."

That was three days ago and Michelo hated Neo England.

The country itself left a bad taste in his mouth, though he owed his lifestyle to the insurgents that populated this fridged place. Looking back, he preferred the life of a decadent gangster to the strict life of a Caribineiri. But that was mere consequence and his unexpected blessing did not rate forgiveness for their attempt at his life, nor the failure of his marriage, the death of his brother, or the loss of his best friend. Neo England was a terrible place.

"Given the nature of this mission, you'll be doing this solo."

"You're giving me the dirty work?" Michelo simpered as he stretched black Kevlar gloves over his small hands. His jacket was folded neatly in the seat of a chair and the armor that lined the inside was draped across the back.

"You like the dirty work." Wong reminded, straightening his tie in the mirror.

"I do." His duel-wielded pistol sling wore like a set of suspenders. One suspension looped around his belt and stretched through the natural culvert of his spine, then branched out over his shoulders and looped around his belt. The bulky semi-automatic revolvers were cradled flush against the curves of his hips. Under each armpit were the bandoleers of speed-loaded ammunition.

He buckled his belt and performed a system check on each pistol. Without actually loading any bullets, he locked his weapon, turned the safety up, pulled the hammer back, squeezed the trigger, watched the hammer fall, listened to the metallic click, pulled the hammer back, put the weapon on safe, then tried to fire the weapon. When that didn't happen, he turned the safety off, pulled the trigger, then put it back on safe. Then, confident that they wouldn't malfunction inside his armored jacket, he loaded each pistol and tucked them away lovingly in their holsters. The twin Meteba Mo. 6 auto revolvers were a gift from his then father-in-law, engraved with his initials and he hated to use them.

"Those are illegal in Neo England." Just like every other handgun.

"Like I give a shit."

Only idiots and laymen believed in the fable of truly 'bulletproof' body armor, but his was close enough and he didn't want his loaded pistols to go off while he was wearing it. With an exhale of slight effort, he shrugged his heavy jacket over his skinny frame. The armor inside the jacket weighed just under forty pounds and added twenty degrees to the ambient temperature.

Even so, Michelo wrapped a pale blue scarf around his neck.

"Michelo, It's not that cold over there." Wong said from his apartment in Neo Hong Kong. They were talking with a video screen.

"Bull. It's freezing here."

"Michelo, it's September."

"I'm cold."

A green light beeped, "Wong, I got another call."

"I've got to go anyway, Michelo. Good luck." He hung up.

"Hey, boss?" Lete looked worried, pale and gray despite the wonderful amount of sunlight his hometown was receiving.

"Lete? You seriously caught me at a bad time, I'm about to leave."

The dwarfish man grimaced, "Boss! This is kinda important!"

"Well, what is it?" Michelo snapped.

"I gotta know, when are you coming back?"

Angry now, Michelo snarled, "Do you want a set date?"

"If at all possible."

"Something you can circle on your calender?"

"Yes."

"Well, too fucking bad, I'm still on Gundam Fighter business."

"What deal did you make to get reinstated anyway?" Lete asked, suspicious.

"None of your God damned business, Lete. I have to go."

"Boss! It's about Sophi-"

"Sophia is a wanna-be gangster Caribineiri that only keeps her job because she's fucking my sister. And Trip's not manning his own group because he's playing spy on me!"

"Boss-!"

"What?"

The violet-haired man tactfully left out 'Trip can actually work on two objectives at once, unlike you.' but said, "The Corvi Brothers are commanding the gang now."

"What the fuck is that to me? Take them out Lete. Didn't you used to be some kind of expert?"

"So are they."

"Preserve the family by any means necessary, Lete. I have to go."

Resignation: "Fine. As you wish, Boss."

How could Michelo possibly explain to Lete, who had never so much as piloted a gundam, much less met such a magnificent beast as the Devil Gundam, why he had to continue to serve with the Death Corps? His men were competent, and the family would survive until all objectives were met. How could he possibly explain when he himself didn't understand?

This is madness....

Master Asia was back in Neo Hong Kong, standing before Wong as if challenging him.

"He says I'm insane?"

"I'm not one for taking Michelo's word as anything but, however...yes, that's what he said."

"What a joke."

"Haven't you learned from Mirabeau yet, Master? Don't underestimate good Michelo. He plays deaf and dumb when it suits him, but he can get a great deal accomplished on his own."

"Do you consider him at our level?"

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far. He has a long leash, but I am holding tightly to the other end."

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"You can return to Guyana to watch your boy, or you can keep an eye on the infinitely more interesting Michelo Chariot."

"Sounds like you're fond of him."

"Of Michelo? I wouldn't be so foolish."

As if he had never said anything, Master shot, "He's going to die Wong, the sooner you accept that, the easier it will be. "

"My favor with Michelo doesn't extend past his usefulness as a weapon and very competent minion; but I shudder to think of you wishing to spend the lives of our subordinates so needlessly. Heartlessness aside, it's wasteful."

"Once all objectives are met, there will be no need for him or any of the other kings."

You got that right, Wong smiled inwardly.

"Besides, I can think of a dozen fighters equal to him or better. He's not unique."

Wong almost defended his avatar in the Heavenly Kings, but stopped himself. He didn't want to put a friendly spin on what he wanted to remain a strictly business relationship. Instead, he blinked slowly and deliberately, "I am going to repeat back to you what you said about Domon Kasshu; you don't know him like I do."

He visited the site with caution, well aware of his tendencies for flashbacks.

His face buried in his scarf up to his nose and hands jammed into his pockets, he stood a corner he didn't remember and looked at the streetlamp he had greeted four years earlier with the back of his head. Insane as it was, the dent was still there. Smoothed out and repainted, but there. Michelo laid the back of his suffering head against the building and appreciated the change. Four years ago, Earthnoid insurgents, disillusioned with the gundam fight and angry at its now glaring flaws, had gotten bold enough to attack the fighters themselves and anyone involved with that hated tournament.

Including him.

"Having a fair trip down amnesia lane?" the dull sound of Trip's back hitting the the wall beside him caused the redhead to open his eyes. Trip lit a weird black cigarette, filling the air with a sweet smell.

"Hardly. Wong told Maria to dismiss you."

"He ain't here, is he?"

"His eyes are everywhere, Trip."

"He hasn't seen me yet."

"Why are you shadowing me?"

"Who doesn't keep an eye on their most precious possession?"

"Maria hates me."

"Maria doesn't care at all about you, she cares about the Neros and it's pilot and what experiment Wong has you entered into."

Michelo became self-conscious and guilty. He didn't like traitors, even if he was one. A dull throb ached up his left arm and Michelo remembered that doctor mutter, "You're going to have a hard time making a fist from now on, Mr. Gundam Fighter."

"It's not like that," Michelo turned his head, then looked back at his mechanic,"Wong's just grateful for the twelfth."

"I would too, in his shoes, but, " the sharply-dressed gangster blew a smoke ring into the air, "you're still competition and his gratitude towards you can't be enough to increase his odds of failure in the Gundam Fight. Besides, he saved your life here, that should be payment enough."

"Wong saved my life?"

Trip's eyes widened, as if surprised Michelo still didn't remember; he nodded.

"I'll never remember what happened here." While he could unwillingly remember a great deal of things when it was inconvenient, the mystery behind the turning point of his life failed to surface, as if his brain had never recorded the moment at all. No embarrassing moments worthy of a cracked up combat vet, no clue as to why the world had turned around while he wasn't looking.

"The details play out like an old war movie. You don't really need to know. And I don't know, all my knowledge comes second-hand."

"What did he do?"

Trip shurgged, "Ask your lady love."

"Sophia? Bad blood," Michelo scowled and remembered what he was like before his tour of London; He wasn't a Stepford husband or anything dramatic like that. Ever scornful and ornery, but never with the fortitude to just shout.

"Let's name her after your mom...."

But he sure as shit could shout now. And more.

Sensing the heavy emotions, Trip coughed uncomfortably, "If ya lookin' for the Gundam Fighter here, he's dead."

"I'm looking for his wife."

"She frequents the casino on Denmark street, near the BBC. It's building number seven. There every night, from about 18:00 to 23:30. Just talked to her yesterday, in fact."

Michelo furrowed his brows at his rival, who smiled, "I managed a little construction project for the little lady right before the gundam fight, right before you framed me as an arsonist, in fact. Our boy Chapman's not quite the saint he's made out to be." Michelo's facial expression prompted, "I am a member of your flight crew, it's my job to find this stuff out."

"Is that what you came to tell me?"

He tipped his ashes and gave Michelo a wink, "See ya in the funny papers, Mick. Try not to knock out a member of the Press Corps this time."

Trip sauntered away, snickering.

Lete cracked his gum. Smokeless tobacco created the need to spit and Lete didn't want to sit in spit all day. Cigarette smoke would be a liability in broad daylight. So he had stocked up on bubblegum to calm his nerves and steady his sights. The harness around his arm was too tight, which meant it was perfect. His trigger finger was too bruised from where Andre had stepped on it to jerk, therefore there would be no sudden upward thrust on his barrel and possibly missing the target altogether and revealing his position. Lete had no spotter, the first strike had to be the lethal one.

Sophia was the kind of woman to deploy a dozen possible solutions to solve a single problem to cover her bases. One of them was to proverbially 'hit the mattress', a mafioso tactic where a sniper team tries to destroy an enemy sniper team. The practice was that two snipers worked in shifts, one sniping and one sleeping, because the whole fight took days. Lete's partner, one of his own disciples and (in Michelo's discriminating mind) a complete idiot, was asleep.

He knew there was a cop sniper on the other building, trying to find out where he was coming from. Lete wondered the same thing. They'd been at it for awhile now, so far there had been few shots exchanged then they moved positions. Lete was almost positive that he was on the roof and he looked through the binoculars for any sign of him. The steel slits allowed the gangster limited vision but excellent cover as he scanned for his quarry.

The sun must have reflected off of the lens because before Lete could get a good look at anything, a shot rang out and hit the metal vent. Lete backed up and waited. More shots reported and Lete scooted back further into the vent until an idea struck him. He moved no more, dropped his rifle beside him and lay inert.

The sniper, an obvious rookie, stood up and observed what he hit. It was a small, mauve-haired man bleeding. He'd gotten a hit. The gumshoe's face was covered with a balaclava and goggles covered his face. He jumped off the building, landed in a dumpster, climbed out, then tried to climb up the fire escape.

Lete jumped out of his hiding place to land on the roof of the building he was in. He ran quickly to the edge of the roof and scanned the sniper's movement. Then he brought his rifle to arms and fired in a standing position.

The cop fell from the fire escape with a shocked look on his face. Almost instantly after the shot rang out did gloved hands uncurl themselves from the metal and a shocked mouth hung open from the realization that he'd fallen for such a common trick. His feet hit the ground first, then he crumpled like a broken doll, red spreading over his blue uniform and his head hit the pavement, but he didn't feel it as glassy eyes stared up at the sun, unblinking.

Lete stood over the sniper and out of an idle curiosity, leaned down and removed the headgear.

"Oh my, a lady sniper...." Lete remarked. More surprised then remorseful or anything else. She was a pretty girl with a bow in her hair and blood on her clean uniform that spread, infecting the clean blue as it bubbled faintly for a few moments as her body shut down. She lay on her rifle, and her body gave a last few desperate protests at death before stilling permanently.

Lete looked up and down the street for a moment, infatuated with a dead woman. It wasn't fair really, that she'd gone to waste like this. He slung his rifle on his back and shoved his hands in his pockets. Just his luck.

A familiar voice called for an unfamiliar name.

"You there? You get the sniper? I heard shots." Lete could recognize that voice anywhere; it was Mezzina, her backup apparently. Coming down the street fast. He was a shotgun man, and with that twenty gauge buckshot, he could hit a target with his glasses off, no snipers required. Much as he liked taunting the fairy, he didn't want to push his luck. Mezzina was approaching his tolerance for the world's bullshit and one could never could predict how any one person snapped.

"Why'd you have to die such a stupid, meaningless death?" Lete asked her before jumping onto the escape ladder and climbing for life, leaving the two cops behind for the roof.

Meanwhile, she automatically iterated, "Secure your weapon and get into a good 'standing' firing position." She said it all the time in that monotonous voice because it made him laugh.

Strong as she was, it never stopped hurting. Not after she'd lost her best friend, right hand, partner, lover, husband. The ghost bullets whizzed downrange. Not half a year ago, her husband would have had looked downrange with his spotting scope and told her if she had 'hit black' or not.

She slipped her arm around the sling and tightened it until it hurt; if it didn't, then it was too loose to stabilize. One twist around the black strap and she placed her hand around the stock of the rifle. The butt plate was pressed squarely into her shoulder. Her feet were shoulder-width apart. The standing position was the least stable of all firing positions; it was the one she was practicing.

"Remove the all safeties and load five thirty aught rounds." Manon pulled the red wire out of the barrel of Gentile's rifle, pulled back the action, inserted five 'thirty aught' rounds, closed the bolt.

"Press your selector switch from 'safe' to 'fire' and watch," She paused unnaturally, as all range safeties did and said with an upward inflection, "your lane!"

She pressed her selector switch and curled her finger around the trigger.

"Fire. Fire. Fire." he would have said when she had that perfect shot. A slow, deep, dark chant that would sound almost angelic when he said it.

With a sound of thunder, hot copper shot downrange. Her hand had already shot over the action, pulling it up and back, discarding the shiny brass jacket of a spent round flecked over her cardinal ringlets. Manon didn't bat an eye. She had nothing to fear from this rifle. Automatically, her hand slammed the bolt closed, sending another bullet into the chamber, ready to fire.

In the three years between gundam fights, he was as fine a gentleman and husband as any could ask for. A throwback to the old days of chivalry even as the stereotype of a gundam fighter became shadier and rougher; the face younger and angrier.

"Fire. Fire. Fire."

In fight years, she accepted the distance, the barriers as much as she'd accept a long and painful treatment to a disease. These were the years that destroyed lesser marriages. Manon would be remiss to think that she wouldn't be able to handle it. Behind every strong man was a strong woman, as she'd heard it.

She would remain a wife worthy of a Gundam of Gundams.

Her shoulder burned; her fingertips numbed. Manon calculated this and was careful to keep easing the trigger as normal. Jerking the trigger causes the rifle to jerk, which throws off your aim. A common soldier dies for a thousand poorly placed shots. A sniper dies for that one perfect hit. She would not falter.

Not through the tabloids. Not though the petty rumors. Not through the disgrace. She was a sniper. Let them talk. It harmed no one.

There was solace in the thunder of the rifle. The smell of lubricant and gunpowder. Rounds shot off in the dark, each shot though the head or cockpit.

Manon exhaled, relaxed her arm for a moment; let the blood back in. This was the off season, no need to stress herself. She used to tell Gentile that. They could afford their breaks.

"I'm not going to break, dear."

Famous last words.