SD Gundam My Soul Will Go On

This particular story came about while we were reading up on Civil War literature in our high school college preparation English class. One of the topics we discussed was that many Union and Confederate soldiers sent "last letters" to their loved ones in case they died on the battlefield. As a fun little prompt to evoke emotion - something that most of the people in my class are mostly incapable of doing, save for me and three others - the teacher gave us the assignment to write our _own_ last letter… this is not that same letter, but I wrote this fanfic later on because I liked the concept. I actually made a music video with the same name as this story on my YouTube page to go with this as well. I was always interested in knowing what Madnug might have said to Captain if he wrote a "final letter" to him and this is my interpretation of it… with plenty of Madnug/Sazabi thrown into the mix. Anyways, I don't own SD Gundam Force. If I did, the parents of millions of children exposed to my lunacy would sue me for its content. Concrit would be loved, as always. Criticism that can help me improve with my writing or just dropping a note saying that you read will make my muses warm and snuggly inside.

* * *

**You're here, there's nothing I fear**

**And I know that my heart will go on**

**We'll stay forever this way**

**You are safe in my heart and my heart will go on and on**

_My Heart Will Go On_ - Celine Dion

**i**

Dear Captain,

Forgive me if I seem rude, or if this letter appears rushed, but this is a message that I simply must convey to you. Firstly, I must point out that it is dark. Everything is always dark from my perspective, but that currently makes it relatively difficult to write to you. The dull lamp on my desk is just barely providing enough adequate light for me to see my own handwriting, but that much is enough for me. I was never quite a fan of luxuries, anyways. I am writing this letter to you off the top of my head you see, so forgive me if my train of thought wanders or wanes. I would have sat down for a megacycle or two to collect my thoughts, but I no longer have the time. That's enough of my rambling, I suppose. So here is my first and final letter to you.

I hate you because of what you did to him. I could care less about what you did to me.

I loved him. _Loved_ him. It must be very difficult for you to even comprehend exactly what I mean but, then again, I highly doubt you can grasp what love even _is… _or, granted, what it even _feels_ like. Shake your head in disagreement all you want to, I _know_ you are, but I do not care _what_ you think. I live on fact. Unlike you or our other two brothers - the GB-02 and GB-03 Gundams obviously have not been invented by Kao Lyn yet, but tell Sparkplug and Highline I give them my regards when they are created - who always disregarded me as a malfunction for my naïve and withdrawn nature, I actually found what love was. I suppose the ironic part of my tormented life is that I found that love in the darkness rather than the light. The irony of the satiation is hilarious actually, and it is only natural that I get the last laugh. My own personal joke for the nightmare that I found myself lost in… at least, it was only a nightmare at first glance. They say only monsters lurk in darkness and I used to believe the silly notion just like the rest of that conformist crowd that you simply refer to as the Super Dimensional Guard, but _now_ I know better. Now I am not so naïve anymore, _big brother_.

The darkness is where I found Commander Sazabi, or rather where he found _me. _

I know he loved me too. That must also be difficult for you to comprehend, given your experience with him. Regardless of the fact that everyone viewed him as a temperamental monster entirely incapable of fondness even in its simplest forms, he truly was_ not_. I can understand if you disagree with me, but your views are flawed. I have hacked into the Super Dimensional Guard's database deep enough to know what you and the others have all said about him. You and the rest of you bigoted, narrow minded _fools _referred to him as nothing more than a beast. You called him an animal for what atrocities he had unleashed upon your world. Has it ever occurred to you, my _dear_ Captain, that you _yourself_ are a monster for what horror you made him endure during your final struggle against him? He was never a monster at all. He used to lock himself away inside the _Magna Musai_ solely _because_ he was terrified of what others thought of him on the outside. Many referred to him as a heartless fiend even within the confines of the Dark Axis' workings, you know. He may have been a cold dictator on the outside, but inside… that was where he was hurting most, just where I was also once hurt. The darkness of that loneliness was suffocating him much like the same manner it once did to me. That was when you and the rest of the Gundam Force left me to die in space.

Did you know he was abused, beat down, and left for dead by those he believed he could trust? Did you know that he had to watch all those who ever once cared for him die? Did you know he was sickly and suffering from crippling insomnia that would have caused any normal GM to permanently shutdown in _death_ from the sheer amount of energy loss? Of course not. He was starving and slowly dying away into the shadows of obscurity from unconditional lonesomeness. How could _you_ have known?

I met him for the first time during that seemingly unordinary meeting between myself and the remaining twelve of thirteen serving commanders of the Dark Axis fleet. Back then, his mastership General Zeong had changed my name from Madnug to Gerbera. I was also equipped with my rarely removed patented Axis armor, which made me look no different than the rest of the Axians. You see, Commander Kallous decided to resign from his post after successfully invading a dimension with his final ship, the _Bleakness Musai_. Now that it had become a Horn of War, schematics for the new _Royal Musai _had already been sent to the construction decks of the Dark Axis Fortress. In the meantime, I was to look through the submissions of squadron leaders who had offered their services to replace Commander Kallous. A squadron leader named Stalemate Sazabi was amongst those hopefuls. His application was one of the last to reach my desk, but he was an instant perfect choice. His record was perfect, impeccable really, and it should have been no surprise that I promoted him to the position of commander. My first encounter with him was at that first meeting, where I and the rest of the commanders were to first acquaint ourselves with him. At most I was prepared to be thrust into the presence of a somewhat nervous twit still getting accustomed to his newly upgraded body - it was custom for the CPUs of individuals in the Dark Axis to simply switch body molds when they were given a higher rank rather than upgrade their original standard Zako ones - but Commander Sazabi was certainly not that kind of mech.

From the moment he stepped into the room - his visage cold and looming air saturated with confidence - it was all business and all the rest of the present commanders immediately bent to his sheer willpower. Stalemate Sazabi, now Commander Sazabi, was witty, calculating, and maliciously charming. There was a passionate look of fearlessness in his optic that burned like the very fires of what the humans fear as Hell. I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame - a negative charge to a positive one - but that was not when the true attraction started. Not yet.

After it was revealed to him that I was a Gundam - a trade secret only unveiled to the invasion commanders upon their indictment to their new position - Sazabi was the only one mech I can accurately remember who did not initially panic at my form. Gundams were a sworn enemy of the Dark Axis you see, and it was nothing short of sacrilege to even _reconcile_ that a Gundam would serve under the supreme word of the General… let _alone_ serving as his damned second-in-command as I did. Commander Sazabi, however, only looked merely perplexed when I disengaged my Gerbera armor to reveal my true form. He looked entranced even, but he recovered from his daze quickly shrugged it off in a nonchalant fashion. Out of all the commanders that I had revealed my secret identify too, his reaction was the most calm. It was only when I also revealed that he was to be fitted with a souldrive - another trade secret, disclosed and only given to commanders - that he seemed to finally snap to attention. After the meeting disbanded, I led him to my personal lab to fit him with the new hardware. He was obviously slightly wary of the sedative, but allowed me to put him under regardless… this was after he said that he _trusted_ me, _regardless_ of who I actually was. If that did not throw my usually acutely trained psyche for a loop, the fluttering of his souldrive's flame when I installed it into the newly molded cockpit did. My own souldrive wavered the same exact moment his did. It was a queer sensation that left me partially intimidated, but I thought nothing of it when the feeling subsided.

I was a foolish idiot to dismiss such a cataclysmic gesticulation. Looking back on it, I have no doubts that it was foreshadowing of the many things to come between Stalemate Sazabi and I.

From the moment Commander Sazabi left my laboratory to see to his first new Musai, he very rapidly rose through the ranks of the commanders. He conquered the most dimensions in the swiftest amounts of time, beating Commander Tetra's past record of successful dimensional takeovers by _seven_. That was a celestial triumph in its own right, and it belonged all to the ruthless Commander Sazabi of the Dark Axis invasion force. It was with no surprise that the General wanted him promoted to the head of the fleet as soon as he finished with his twenty-second successful and, what I then failed to realize, final takeover. That had been with the _Titanic Musai_. With the new _Magna Musai_ completely built and ready for its official launch, the General requested I advance Commander Sazabi to the head of the invasion armada. Not only was Sazabi one of the most successful commanders of the Axis' army history, but the youngest head as well. He was honored, regardless of the fact that he wished to take a minor hiatus from immediately invading more dimensions. As he claimed, the _Magna Musai_ was a beautifully destructive vessel and he felt highly obligated to assist the other commanders in the fleet with their own invasions before he attempted to takeover another realm with the gorgeous ship. Not long after the _Magna Musai_ was first launched, I went to his ship to inspect its workings. That was my job, aside from serving as counsel for the General. Commander Sazabi's ships always had the least problems however, and I presumed that it would only be a routine round when it came time to visit him… fate dealt its hand that day.

He saved me from the dark when you refused to. He opened the door when I needed a way out. He showed me that there was nothing to fear about the dark. He showed me that, in darkness, there still shine stars. Above all else, he was the brightest.

You've _seen_ my Gerbera armor, correct? Yes, I know you have. It was given to me by General Zeong when I was first appointed to become his aide in the Dark Axis because the other commanders did not want the knowledge of there being a Gundam in their ranks to reach the grunts. They feared of riots, mostly. I wore my armor and name contentedly, but Sazabi… he was not at all repulsed by my true form. In fact, he said to me once that he did not mind it at all. He _preferred_ it. To him, seeing my actual body exposed instead of watching it hidden away beneath my pseudo disguise made him more comfortable because it did not seem as though I was wearing a mask. I was not wearing a _lie_. For the first time in my new life - a life that was dedicated to the General's darkness and what I once stupidly presumed to be all his divine godlike glory - I felt like I did not have to pretend to be something I was not.

That was not all.

He made _love_ to me. Revolt in disgust all you want my dear brother, because I don't give a _damn_ as to what you or your imbecilic comrades think. The first time passed by in a blur and it only occurred to me _once_ when I was on the Komosai going to inspect another Musai that I lost my innocence - at least, what few shreds of it that were left - to him. I did not count it, however. I physically lost it to him, but not mentally. The only reason we had sex to begin with was because he was stressed and needed a method to vent. It was not rape in the slightest, because you can't rape the willing. I interfaced with him right back without caring much for it. It was only a one night stand it seemed, which quickly became another one night stand when I revisited the _Magna Musai_ some months later for another recap tour. No, I only _really_ gave him my virginity when we interfaced for the first time in his berth. He was holding me, sweating, moaning, panting, _straining_. That must paint a disturbing picture on that one track processor of yours, but to witness it the way _I_ had… he was a masterpiece. _Beautiful_. I was beneath him, both in physical form and overall grace. I hadn't experienced the huge amounts of pleasure normally orientated around interfacing during our past two encounters, but just then… something changed.

Number three really _is_ a charm, I suppose.

He managed to expose my souldrive along with his own and he touched them together. It was a perfect moment. Time stood still for us. He angled his face toward mine, optic glazed with passion, and then he pressed his faceplate to mine. My first kiss. Gods, his fire scorched me with permanent scars at that very moment, and I wear them like trophies on my very spark. We touched our faceplates together before during our last too times, yes, but this time was _different_… namely because my mask with withdrawn, but also because there was passion behind that gesture. Instead of the wild abandonment of a sex driven urge, I was met with the cautious offer of affection. I did not understand at first, but I do now. That was what love was. Love was - _is_ - the want… no… the _need_ to be with someone who you value more than your own pitiful existence. Stalemate thought of that for me, and I knew it right then in that instant. I overloaded hard enough that I think I startled him a little, but that did not stop him from _holding_ me. Shuddering and panting in his embrace, he held me in his arms while I reached my climax. For the first time in my life since my accident, I felt _whole_. Complete. _Loved._ Like I actually was not a worthless thing - a stray _dog_ - that Zeong picked up off the side of the metaphorical street where you left me to rot. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being _loved_, Captain, no matter how much you think otherwise. I lost my _real_ purity to him that night, and I'm eternally grateful that he blessed me by being the one to take it. I _treasure it._

For the next ten years, our relationship escalated, turned to a crescendo, and became a fiery reality. Every kiss we exchanged, every moment we uplinked, every second we shared… it was all a silent confession of our growing adoration for one another. Commander Sazabi more so. He really _was_ the much more poetically, hopelessly romantic one. He was always so _gentle_ with me, always afraid that he would accidently break me not just because of my smaller size and weaker body, but because of my already frail mentality. Sometimes while we slept together on the _Magna Musai_ during the times I was there, I'd wake up in the darkness of his room screaming from the nightmares that always plagued me - nightmares of being lost in the freezing cold dark that you and the rest of the Force abandoned me to - and he was always there to immediately console me. Snap awake, instantly conceive my terror, hug me to his broad chassis to comfort my essence and frighten away my horrors with his intimidating stature and fiery gaze. He was a hopeless romantic, but a romantic nevertheless… a _very_ dangerous, _very_ much protective and passionate romantic.

Of course, Sazabi was not _always_ the strongest. Just as I had my weak points, he had his as well. Thankfully, where he was occasionally weak, I was strong enough to counterbalance. Sometimes _he_ was the one who had nightmares - his chronic insomnia made this no easier to deal with - although it was more or less easy to comfort him. He never talked about his terrors, but allowed me to console him in ways so intimate that we never talked about them when morning finally came… no, it was not interfacing. To Sazabi, finding comfort in anyone other than himself was far more intimate than any thousand uplinks combined. You have to understand, Captain, that Stalemate was never a social mech. He was mostly a loner all his life - what few friends he had were all bloodily killed during his time as a Zako soldier - who completely isolated himself from the affections of others when he became a squadron leader and, following, a Musai invasion commander. Finally finding me was his outlet, and I welcomed him. Sometimes he would wake up in the dead middle of the night with a start - sometimes reeling, most times simply distraught - and I would wake up too. I'd stay up with him for the hours that followed so that he could simply find the comfort he desperately needed by sleeping with his head nestled in my lap while he curled next to me. We never talked about it, but sometimes I could feel tears. I only heard him cry _twice_ in my entire lifetime knowing him, and please note that I only _heard_ him. I had seen tears more than once occasionally build up behind his pink optical glass, but never did I once see them fall. There was only the darkness and Sazabi's presence, and I safeguarded that with every ounce of my mortal being. I would hold him without needing to say a word. His insomnia and terrible inability to sleep weakened him considerably more, but I was still there to shield him when he could not shield himself. That was how I knew I was in love with him. To know I was so willing to follow him into the dark and give my being to him - give my _soul_ to him - I knew without a doubt that I had fallen head over heels for him.

Then, of course, there was his proposal to me.

It was on the same night that I had the light fixtures reinstalled into his office space and bedroom. Sazabi suffered from such heavy bouts of insomnia that he had become desperate enough to remove all the lights from his living space in hopes that he could regain sleep. He found comfort in the same darkness that I often squirmed from. Although he eventually showed me that there was nothing to actually _fear_ about the dark and, after his insomnia drastically improved courteous of his lifting depressions and our perspiring romance, I had the lighting reinstalled. It was absolutely _glorious_ to see the look on his face when he realized what I had done. He walked into the office after meeting with Lord Zapper Zaku on another portion on the ship and his entire face brightened at the same moment the lights did. Being thrust back into the light made him almost as happy as having me at his side to share it with. We had been seeing one another for nine years. That was also the same night that he decided that he wanted to keep me with him forever.

Later in the evening, while I watched the moons through his office windows as they shone like twin suns over the everlasting dusk of the Dark Axis' realm, Stalemate approached me from behind and held me. I leaned back to surrender myself to that embrace, but then he pulled away. I turned to find him lowering himself down onto one knee.

Goddamned, hopeless romantic.

I told him no straight out and felt horrified at myself afterward. My excuse was that a bondlink would be infinitesimal and distracting to serving the General… or, perhaps that was never the real reason at all. I _know_ so now that I'm looking back on it. I was afraid, although for whatever reason must have been stupid. _Infinitesimal?_ I was an ignorant _fool_ to believe such blasphemy. I truly hurt my dear Stalemate that night. Enough so that I could clearly distinguish the tears underlining his optical glass when I went up to the recharge plate to join him later than evening. He had abandoned me in his office space after I denied him, and I initially expected to be rejected from sleeping with him as a result. That did not happen. Sazabi glared at me with his optic clouded with the hurt tears that he refused to let fall before finally looking away in slumped defeat and allowing me to join him. As soon as I was in, he embraced me and refused to let go. I held him back. It was one of the occasions that we never talked about later on, but that did not matter. He trusted me. Adored me. _Loved me. _His insomnia became unbearable again and we had to have all the lighting removed once more. He also tried very hard to convince me into a bond for the year that followed, which was the same year that he spent trying to invade Neotopia, but my constant rejections that never stopped him from loving me. In turn, that never stopped me from unconditionally loving him in return.

The star of my never ending darkness. He was everything to me.

_Was_.

Fate stole him away… you _murderer_.

Even when he could not defend himself, you _still_ beat him down to nothing… and you _still_ killed him in cold blood. Did is ever occur to you that, once he lost the use of both his_ arms_, that he posed no more of a threat to you than just one meek individual of your dimension's organic population? He had no means to defend himself from that point on, but yet you _still_ attacked him. You _still_ punched him hard enough in the chest to not _only_ cause severe internal hemorrhaging, but to tear away the protective casing that concealed his straining souldrive. A souldrive that, once upon a time, I personally installed within him with my own unworthy bare hands. You could have stopped there. You _should_ have stopped there. You and the rest of your goddamned organization love to falsely preach and rave that you stand for justice and peace, but there was absolutely _nothing_ justifying or peaceful about the fact that you _still_ attacked him. You made him suffer just as I have also suffered. You showed him no mercy, even after he showed you plenty.

I can imagine your expression has changed to confusion while you read this. Did you ever really _think_ that Stalemate was simply not strong enough to take you down? No, he _let you_ kill him. He had enough strength to snap your neck even when you thought you were wearing him down. I've seen the footage that I hacked from Blanc Base's computer files to know that. Your pathetic firewalls are almost just as pitiable as your false claims of delusional righteousness. Stalemate Sazabi could have easily killed you many times during your melee, but even _when_ there was a distinct opening… he held back, because he _wanted _you to kill him. He was committing second-hand-suicide, all because I denied to return the love he was so willingly to give me. It's my fault that he led himself to allow you to murder him, but _you_ still ruthlessly caused him to die. You gave him the injuries that led to his death. Beaten, naked of his defenses and hurt, you still drew your fist back and you _smashed his souldrive. _

I have seen the footage enough times to know that his expression upon its obliteration will haunt my reoccurring nightmares forever. Defeated. Exhausted. Cold. Alone. _Agonized. _You're a monster, Captain Gundam. Almost as much of a monster as me, for denying Commander Sazabi the one thing that would have saved him.

If that was not bad enough, he did not instantly die. I _know_ you know that. The Horn of War exploded and he went careening off the side where he plummeted nearly a hundred stories to his final resting place. It's a medical miracle he managed to live past the fall, but a tragedy all the same. His suffering continued. He survived the fall only because a Horn branch broke his plummet ten stories from the ground, but when the branch snapped and caused him to land on the side of that low human structure… it's just as much of a miracle that he survived having his neck snapped and back broken, but his suffering _still_ did not end. He fell again, this time to the churned, muddy ground where he would simply lay there in the rain until he bleed to death… or did he die of hypothermia, first? Was it that he choked on his own bleeding fluids, or was it that he simply perished from cardiac arrest due to the severe blunt force trauma? I know Kao Lyn and that lazy child Bellwood still haven't come to a conclusion after the autopsy your sick operation preformed on my lover's dead shell, but did it ever occur to any of you that he died of _loneliness?_

I suppose that was my fault, really. I should have bonded to him. I should have shoved my own stupid fear aside and loved him _back_, but now it's too late for that, isn't it? I can only conclude this is why I hate myself just as much as I hate you. We both killed Commander Sazabi in our own ways, but I at least _care_ about it. You don't. That is what separates us.

I believe that the soul can move on, however. If anything, my soul _will_ go on, because I can comprehend now _why_ Sazabi was never afraid of the dark. Those times we embraced where we could never actually see one another… it was never the physical presence of our love that bound us as deeply as it had. It was our _souls_ that entwined us so profoundly. I sparks thrummed as one. Even when one soul disappears, the other can follow after it. Stalemate did not leave me. He has_ not_ left me. He has been with me all along and always will be no matter where I go. He still consoles me when I have my nightmares. He still makes love to me when I need his affection. He still confesses his love in whispers, and they follow me through the dark and pierce my soul when I fear that the shadows will consume me. My guardian angel.

Even though I hate you, I _will_ forgive you... Although, I will _never_ go back to you.

You should not be all that surprised. In fact, you should not be surprised at _all_. Even as you read this, I can guarantee you that it is too late to save me from my own oncoming destruction at the hands of General Zeong's destructive grip. If anything, as you read this, I am positive that I am already certainly dead. The life of the Gundam Force is an existence that I can never return to, you see. You cannot take a wolf into an enclosure of dogs in the vain hope that the wolf will be tamed, because the wolf would sooner eat the dogs than live amongst them. The wolf belongs in the wild with its own kind, just as I belong with Stalemate Sazabi.

I am _not_ afraid of the dark. The only thing I fear is not having _him_ to face it with. He's alone, wherever he is now… which is why, my dear Captain, that I ask that you do _not_ attempt to rescue me in the future when the time of my accident comes.

It is for this reason, I now realize, that I was _not_ saved when the accident with the spacebridge occurred, and how I will not be saved when it occurs again in your future. In the end, I suppose the joke was on _me_ all along. Perhaps another reason I may find it in myself after the composition of this letter to someday forgive you is because your apparent betrayal was my own doing all along. You and the rest of the Gundam Force never _truly_ discarded my younger incarnation in the future… you simply read my request in this letter and followed through with it. But why did I make such a suicidal request? Well, I know because I'm currently writing it. If it was not for the accident, for your desertion of me, for my acceptance into the Dark Axis army… I never would have ever encountered my beloved Stalemate Sazabi. The love of my life. My _bondmate_. Regardless as to how my misfortune has hurt me, I thank you eternally for it. I thank fate for it. Without its occurrence, I would have no reason to live… and now have a reason to now die.

Unlike you to me, I will _not_ abandon him. _Never_. I have to go to him. I know you will, but please do not grieve my death. Now it's _my_ turn to light his night with stars.

Farewell.

Love, Madnug.

**Fin**


End file.

SD Gundam, Romance, Tragedy