Merc

Trowa's POV
No "Gundam Pairings" as of yet, just sexual references.
This story will eventually follow the series, from Trowa's perspective (well...my version of Trowa's perspective) but it will be a few chapters before it reaches that point.

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Someone once told me life consists of a series of moments. Life moves from moment to moment until it is gone. It was a philosophy based loosely on a religion in which his family believed. A religion he was no longer allowed to follow because he took lives for a living, made his living from ending the moments of others.

I suppose everyone carries some of their upbringing, their family’s beliefs, as an integral part of their identity their entire lives, whether they chose to acknowledge it or not. Unless you never had a family, never had an identity.

My earliest memories were of screaming, loud chaotic moments of bright lights, loud explosions, and pain…and then silence. With the silence came darkness and it was peaceful. I don’t remember fear; I think I was too young to grasp the concept.

When the darkness left, I was alone, though I don’t remember noticing a difference between not alone and alone, and there was still pain.

Then I wasn’t alone; there were many people surrounding me. People with grim faces that didn’t have any time for one such as me. My earliest memories are a disjointed series of confusion that I’ve tried to piece together with later knowledge, but smoothing the transition between series is not an optimistic prospect.

I’m not sure how I came to be associated with the mercenaries. In truth, I’m not sure why they didn’t leave me for dead, or why they let me travel with them. I was never a part of their group. They never claimed me, never named me, they just let me be. And I watched…

The group consisted of anywhere from ten to twenty five members of an elite fighting team, though they sometimes recruited other merc groups to cover an entrance into an area of heavy fighting. How did I survive? I don’t know, I don’t remember much until after I was able to run and hide, prior to that…I just don’t know. The group was not nurturing, I would be surprised if they cared for me at all, but someone had to until I was able to care for myself, right?

I learned how to speak by listening, learned how to handle weapons from watching them, learned the result of using those weapons by listening to their jokes about dead opponents until I saw the result myself later. I learned how to read people’s face and body language out of necessity; few hardened men are patient with a child that makes mistakes, and every child makes mistakes. I just learned quickly and made very few.

It paid to be silent and listen.

There was one man that I could actually consider a teacher to me. Auldi, he was the cook and doctor of the mercenaries. He rarely went into battle, he would stay back at camp and prepare meals and ensure that no one’s stuff was stolen while they were absent. Anyone injured stayed at camp with cook, so maybe he was the medic who took it upon himself to fix meals while he tended to the injured rather than the cook who learned to treat wounds. Either way, when his other duties were done, he taught me my letters, how to read schematics, and answered questions he deemed worthy. When I was older, he taught me how to treat wounds. I respected him, but he barely tolerated me. I think he taught me out of boredom because when the others returned from days away fighting, he wouldn’t acknowledge me at all.

He was actually the indirect reason of my naming. His complaints of my existence to the others when they returned spurred the condescending taunts of me not having a name, and variations of ‘no name’ in several languages were thrown about camp for months. Nessun nome, kanena onoma, ningul nombre, nenhum nombre…nanashi. I doubt if they ever meant for it to become a name, but it was what I became accustomed to being called…isn’t that essentially what a name is? ‘Nanashi’ was their favorite, it seemed, because the others gradually faded out.

And when the others returned from fighting, I insinuated myself into the shadows to watch and listen. If it was just an infiltrate and destroy job, there wasn’t much to see afterwards. I just went from group to group listening to the battle stories, the strategies.

But when there was heavy fighting involved, afterward the fighters would have to repair any damages to their mecha. I would watch, mesmerized by the size and strength of such weapons. I made careful notes on how to repair what injury, how to compensate for any damage that could not be repaired immediately. I never really knew the meaning of the word hope because I didn’t really grasp a concept of the future, but it was the closest thing to hope I could remember feeling to think that maybe, if I knew enough, the others would let me help repair the mobile suits.

They didn’t, not until I piloted my own suit, but that was years later.

I learned hand to hand combat, though not entirely by choice. The group had to maintain their strength, so they fought on a daily basis. If I was to be associated with them, I had to be strong. Punches were pulled just enough to prevent injury, but when you’re accustomed to fighting grown men, its hard to know how much more to pull back when fighting a boy of seven or eight. I learned how to dodge and take a punch quickly, but it took some time before my strength was enough to be taken seriously in the bouts. Auldi never pulled his punches when he fought me.

At some point, I was given a gun, taught how to aim and maintain it. Although I understood the concept of aiming the weapon, it took several weeks to become accustomed to the weight of it. I had to build up the strength in my arms to keep the gun aimed at my target without wavering. My arm strength was better because of the fighting sessions, but the quick burst of strength behind a punch and the steady strength of a weight on an outstretched arm are two completely different animals.

When I was deemed old enough, they took me on a job that had a lesser level of danger involved, so if I screwed up, no one would get killed. I guess my performance was acceptable because I became a pretty regular addition to the fighters.

That’s when the killing started.

I don’t know my actual age, but the mercs estimated my birth at about A.C. 179. If that is true, my first kill happened before I was ten. I didn’t understand what the issue was, but many of the mercs came up to me after they found out. They would ask me how I felt, if I was alright. I remember them acting surprised and slightly disturbed when I asked why I should feel any particular way about a stranger’s death. I had seen them kill on several occasions, but apparently most of them had difficulties with that first kill. The only certain thing in life is death, why feel guilt or remorse?

I became very good at bringing death to others.

There was never a feeling of camaraderie with the mercenaries, but I earned their respect. I became a trusted fighter, a soldier they could count on to carry out orders to the letter without fear of mortal consequences. But I still wasn’t allowed in one of the suits…

After I earned my position on the force, some of the mercs tried to form relationships, friendships with me, tried to get me to talk more, to laugh, but the silence had kept me safe throughout my youth was too ingrained. My quiet nature unnerved the majority of them.

At about the age of twelve, puberty set in. This probably would have gone unnoticed because of my tendency to use few, if any, words, but the man I shared a tent with decided to alert the others of my maturing body’s state in the morning. I wasn’t embarrassed; their taunts actually taught me all I would need to know about the process. Well, almost everything.

When the group was close enough to civilization, the men were allowed a leave of absence, half one day and evening, the other half the next day and evening. I had never had reason to go, but two of the men dragged me into town one night. Dozer and Botch were good soldiers, but they had personalities geared towards mischief when not on the battlefield. It was usually easy to avoid them, but they ambushed me that night.

At such a young age, no matter how realistic the fake ID was, I shouldn’t have been allowed into a bar, but either the bartender was bribed or he just didn’t care that much, because I was. Dozer stayed with me at the bar while Botch disappeared for several minutes. I decided then that liquor was something to be avoided as I watched countless faces in the bar become slow and befuddled with the drink. Easy targets to anyone who wished to harm them. That, and it felt like napalm running down my throat.

When Botch returned, he had a woman with him. They had decided to buy me a prostitute to promote me into my manhood, I remember them saying. Botch joked that the first one was free, but any future hooker, I would have to pay for myself. Dozer told me to be back to camp before sunrise and to have fun, then the woman was showing me to a back room of a ramshackle establishment.

The men of the merc group raved about sex with beautiful women, how much they missed it when on assignment, how good it felt. I wondered how they could possibly be speaking of the same action. Yes, I remember there being some things that felt good that first time, but I hated most of it. The woman told me to just lie back and let her do all the work. That was fine with me since I didn’t know what I was doing, though I could assume from the crude jokes of the men I worked with. What she did to me excited my body, but I had no control over anything. My body spasmed, my voice whined and cracked, my heart rate was uneven, my limbs reacted in ways I did not command. I hated being so lost within my own body. Then everything tightened, focused down to a single point, and pleasure washed over me to the point where I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. I was helpless, a victim, and I vowed never to be so again.

I never owned anything in my youth. Even the gun that my life depended on so often was borrowed; my body was the only thing I had claim to, and the prostitute took it as her toy that night. I hated myself for allowing that to happen.

When I returned to camp, everyone had heard what Dozer and Botch had done. The others actually treated me better, like I was truly one of them, it was strange. Then the rest of the day was spent working, but that evening most everyone told their ‘first time’ stories either bragging or joking about embarrassing moments. I wondered why mine was so different from theirs. About halfway through the evening I realized it was because most of the men took the dominant role. They performed the actions on their partner to cause them to spasm and scream, then they took their own pleasure from the female. Curiosity took over, and I wondered if there would be a next time, and if it would more closely resemble the stories I heard that night.

Another thing I learned that night was the reason the men bought prostitutes instead of looking for free women. Apparently they had all, at one point or another, had experiences with women trying to wrap a diamond ring around their neck in return for the bedroom experience. They had determined it was better to pay and walk away than have to avoid unwanted affection after the deed was done. It made sense, though I had little worry about someone trying to convince me to propose with my young age. It was a thought I tucked away for the future.

And the killing continued. Battles waged on with war never ceasing, so life as a mercenary was well funded. I was a nameless soldier who fought because he was good at it, killing those nameless opponents who were lesser than me.
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AN: I am aware that there are manga out there about the pilots' past lives, and I have a sketchy knowledge of Trowa's past as it is told there; however, I like my version better. If any of those reading know that story and wish to "correct" me, feel free, but I doubt I will change anything. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate your input, but fanfic's are about creative license, and all that jazz.

This story is almost personal to me. Weird, but true. 03 is my favorite character, and I've spent entirely too much time analyzing what he might have been thinking, why he did this, or where he came from, and this is what has come of it. If there is any interest I'll keep posting, but if not, I'll just let it go.