I HAVE BEEN MEANING TO DO THIS FOREVER

[omniscientdog]

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TROWA, 1/3: mildly rewritten + updated to better reflect events of 2010/early 2011

[pacifisted]

Despite everything that had changed for the better, the government still turned on them, in the end, and so Winner Corp. found both itself and its resources under siege as the United States attempted to seize everything. The efforts of the remaining Wingboys were valiant, very much helped along by the fact that Quatre had long ago created incredible person-sized variants of their mobile suits made of functional Gundanium, but as time wore on, someone found out the metal's weaknesses.

Trowa had not spoken to Quatre since the blond's death at his own hands--or paws, as the case happened to be--in October, but a soldier could not ignore his duties because of such personal matters, and so he joined in on the last stand at the mines, only to become forced to self-destruct his suit to prevent anyone else from getting their hands on it when the tide turned against him. He'd had to make a break for it, afterward, escaping from the attack force in the confusion, and was not there when Quatre collapsed the mines from the inside. Believing his former partner to be dead, unable to get near enough to even know where to begin digging, and blaming himself for not doing more to stop it happening (essentially counting himself as being responsible for killing Quatre twice within a span of three months), Trowa snapped and massacred what remained of the enemy forces at that location, leaving not much more than the wrecks of machines and sludgy piles of meat and cracked bones in his wake.

Unfortunately, two people managed to give data on the four alternate beast forms before succumbing to their injuries, prompting the government to work on eventually sanctioning lion hunts in an effort to remove potential hiding places and/or catch him in a death sweep. (By the time 2020 rolls around, the great cats are almost completely extinct in the wild, and captive ones only continue to exist under strict regulations, with the genetic stock of both being dangerously limited as a result.)

With no home to return to, no knowledge of any survivors from his home world, and no end to his captivity in this reality in sight, Trowa attempted to seek out people he'd grown close to during his first years in the City. Eventually locating a couple of them, he tried to hide and live under the government's radar for a while. Somewhere along the line, he found and allowed himself to become attached to Hiruma, who had been an old friend before, accompanying him and doing his best to see that they stayed alive at the very least. Despite his best efforts, and the fact that he had thus far forcefully managed to keep some part of his slowly-withering heart scraped out enough to make room for Hiruma, Trowa eventually realized that he would never be able to give as much to the bat-shifter as was deserved, since there was always going to be someone who still occupied the only rung sitting higher up on the ladder. He also had to face the fact that staying any longer would see things going painfully wrong as his mindset continued reverting to its previous state of emotional repression, and so, still capable of caring enough about others to want to protect them and unwilling to leave on any uglier a note than the circumstances of the crackdown on imPorts had already created, he left, giving back the tail blade that had twice been a gift to keep Hiruma safe with the intent of preventing anyone from connecting the other to anything Trowa would possibly choose to do in the future and coming after him.

The downward spiral slammed its foot on the gas pedal, after that, and Trowa rapidly fell back into being the blank-faced, cold-hearted, self-disregarding nothing that he had been for so long throughout his childhood and early teenaged years. Once again acting as a mercenary--sometimes for the rebels, sometimes for the government, and at other times just for the next handy job--he became colder than he ever was in his home world. It seemed that there was no-one he would not kill, and he became frighteningly efficient at doing so.

TROWA, 2/3

[pacifisted]

Only he knew whether or not the information he was collecting while playing all sides against each other for continued survival was for some greater hidden purpose, or just a side-effect of the work he'd done. Although a twist of fate revealed his true name and the identity of his sister to him a couple of years in, he chose to remain of no name whatsoever in regard to his 'job'.

For quite some time, his trademark bangs were gone, as he stood out in the crowd too much with them; his hair was instead a simple, nondescript cut that almost any average male would have, and he wore contacts that change his green eyes to brown. His clothes were specifically geared for maximum blending in with the background, and he did not keep anything that he could not easily and quickly fit into the back of his car and flee with. He also quit talking, finding other ways to communicate, although particularly important targets caught the sound of a few soft, fluttering strains of flute music before they died.

When he came across rumors of Quatre's existence under another name, he almost discarded them, but the cancellation of a mission at that time and the heavily-buried emotional depth gained from his second relationship persuaded him to go looking instead of holding onto the information and doing nothing with it (saving him a good four/five years on the original 2020 incarnation). After finding him, the nameless killer that took Trowa's place was broken to pieces and carefully, painstakingly, reassembled to form a deadly creature hiding in a gentle person's body. Never truly able to be who he was as a teenager again, even after choosing his name and starting to go by Trowa in private (and Rumble on the job, although nobody with a single grain of sense ever actually mentions Soundwave around him), he was too far gone to really get that sort of peace back for himself, though every now and then his kindness would still manage to make for a weak shine through the cracks. While all the rest of the ones he's encountered on paying missions have died, exactly two government agents have been spared, so far... but then, they were also utterly terrorized into taking their families and going into hiding instead of continuing their hunt for rogue imPorts. They didn't exactly get off lightly.

As of 2020, Trowa has stopped hiding his powers and now wears the numerous great-cat shapes like second skins, spending as much time in one as the next, no longer afraid to freely wield them. They've even begun to blur, so that he can pick and choose features as he wishes without moving to a full body. Strangely, it seems to be doing more good than harm for his 'cousins', as the last few remaining both in captivity and the wild are left alone once the forces realize that they can no longer intimidate him by threatening them. The future of lions as a species is uncertain, but for now, at least, they have one for just a little longer.

TROWA, 3/3

[pacifisted]

On that note, he does still kill--and often. There is no music to alert the targets before they die; that search is over. Most never knew they were anything but dead after they hit their pillows for sleep, and the rest simply don't have time to think. His tactics have become far more elaborate than they ever were, and his skill with blades versus guns has increased dramatically. Some have also theorized that he isn't the only one controlling his actions in the middle of battle, but none have proven it... and lived, anyway. Strangely, it has also recently begun to appear as though he often keeps the company of a small bat while on the job, but given his talent for animal handling, those few that have seen it more than once rarely question it. After all, most don't know about the conditions under which a long-missing friend was brought under the protection of 03, 04, and the 20-man army following the latter.

While he's often away running this errand or fetching Bakura for casualty-of-war #528 or taking out that enemy, whether for his employers or Quatre, and on very rare occasions drops in to check on the people he once knew who don't already know how to find him, Trowa spends most of the little bits of free time he does have in the blond's presence, putting together x plan or sitting there quietly staring up at the moon for y hours.

A very few people have been told where to find him and where to go when they need an emergency hideout. It's rumored that Trowa actually said 'thank you' out loud when given his tail blade back for the third time, and some of the more observant folk have noted that he always has a genuine smile and a gentle nod ready for a very specific set of people. Other than this incident and the one during which he originally confronted 'Duo', though, he has never once been publicly heard by anybody in living memory to speak something out loud; whether or not he talks when actually assured of complete privacy around those held the absolute closest to his heart is uncertain at best. His hands are almost always gloved, and although his bangs have been allowed to grow out a little in the manner of their old style, they still only reach to the end of his nose.

He's been on the lookout for something as of late. Only three people know why... and he's one of them.