Background: Gundam Wing
*headcanon
Wufei, in the Shenlong gundam (renamed Nataku in honor of Meiran), landed along the Yangzi River on the day after the launching of Operation Meteor, in April of AC 195. A few days later, Wufei hit his first OZ base. He chose to plant explosives in the soldiers’ barracks on OZ’s Lake Victoria training base (in former Africa), rather than use the Shenlong. He knew the attack on the new recruits would demoralize OZ, as well as remove a number of opponents with minimal risk to himself. He had almost reached his gundam, hidden away in the nearby forest, on a stolen motorcycle when the base’s instructor, one Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin caught up to him in an Aries. While Noin succeeded in knocking Wufei off the motorcycle and raise his hands in surrender, she also announced herself as a woman-not just gender wise, but by her comment that he was just a little kid and therefore not worth him killing. Instead of destroying her suit and killing her, Wufei used the distraction of Noin realizing he was ‘just a baby’ to set off a light explosive and make his escape.
Noin’s backup arrived before Wufei could take off in Shenlong, dragging along a space laser. However, Wufei had no difficulty destroying the two pilots and their suits and easily defeated Noin by disabling her Aries-pointedly not killing her. As he aimed the borrowed laser at the launching aircraft carrying the enemy Taurus suits, he smugly demanded if Noin was listening. Without making sure she was, he made the derisive remark how women as weak as she had no place on the battlefield. Destroying the base, he tossed the space laser away before leaving it to explode.
About a month of similar attacks went by before Wufei headed to the New Edwards Base (in what was California), having heard of the supposed meeting between head OZ officials. There, he learned there were four other gundam pilots like himself, as they were all congratulating themselves as a job well done while they fought off the remaining soldiers. One of the other pilots had just destroyed a shuttle, presumably with the lead OZ officials. However, Wufei had been paying close attention to the news broadcasts without involving himself in the battle. That was how he learned of the treachery, that OZ had only sent two of their members-Treize Khushrenada, and his right hand, Lady Une-and that the rest of the party was made up of the Alliances pacifists. They had been discussing how to end the war and create peace once again with the colonies. Wufei used Shenlong’s flame thrower to stop the four gundams from continuing to fight each other. He used the pause to call them idiots and inform them of their mistake, then promptly turned around and left in a shuttle, followed by one of the four other pilots (Trowa Barton) as he didn’t see a reason to stay. He knew Treize Khushrenada, his real target, had already departed the base.
Wufei followed Treize to the general’s seafaring fleet. The pair attacked, Wufei making a beeline for Treize’s ship while Trowa attacked the rest of the fleet. However, before he could reach the general’s ship, Wufei was intercepted by Lady Une, who wished to protect ‘His Excellency Treize’. After a brief battle geared to allowing Treize to escape, Une was called off by Treize as the general’s ship came around. Wufei looked carefully at the ship and saw Treize standing within a room, holding a European style sword in obvious challenge. Wufei was hardly about to decline the challenge, so landed Shenlong on the man’s ship before leaving the safety of the cockpit, his own sword in hand.
After introducing themselves, they engaged in a rather short spar before Treize knocked Wufei’s sword out of his hand and touched his sword tip to Wufei’s throat. Instead of killing the teenager as Wufei demanded he do, Treize allowed the boy to leave uninjured and in his gundam. This allowance infuriated Wufei, because he felt he needed to kill the general and honor demanded he leave after having been defeated so easily. He was still ‘too weak’ to avenge his wife.
Trowa didn’t pressure him into talking other than asking if he was alright. Instead, the other pilot invited Wufei back to his hideout-a travelling circus. Again, Trowa did not once press him to talk. All Wufei would say was that he was too weak to fight with the Nataku. Trowa’s only response to that was ‘Oh yeah?’ showing he did not care whether Wufei was too weak, or the right pilot for the gundam, just that he was willing to listen if Wufei needed to talk.
After Wufei left Trowa’s cover, he travelled alone with the belief he needed the gundam’s strength (and his wife’s strength by proxy) to fight, but that he did not deserve to use it. He came into the middle of a fight between guerrilla fighters in China, led by Sally Po (a former Alliance doctor), before he did anything with Shenlong-though even that was just him telling the guerrilla soldiers to retreat as he had no intention of fighting. When the Alliance underestimated Nataku, however, he was infuriated and attacked. He left the gundam to tell the rebels to stop bothering to fight, that they were too weak. They took him in when he mentioned he didn’t understand how they could fight.
He didn’t stay with them for long, no more than a few days, but on a supply run to a local village with Sally, he witnessed and stopped Alliance soldier brutality. He left Sally at the river, telling her the same thing he had told Trowa; that he had no right to fight with the Nataku. That he was nothing more than a coward who lost to a man stronger than himself, who could only fight those weaker than himself.
By the time he returned to the rebel base, it was under a joint attack from OZ and the Alliance. Before he ran to the Shenlong, he was intercepted by Sally and another rebel fighter-angrily shaken by the rebel before an explosion went off behind them and the fighter used his body to shield Wufei. This sacrifice, coupled with when Sally walked towards the enemy mobile suit unarmed, got Wufei to act. He saved Sally and made a beeline for his gundam, all the while asking for Nataku’s strength to fight, even if he did not deserve it.
It didn’t take long for Wufei to fight off the enemy and leave his gundam again. The following talk with Sally had him realize that weak people fought because they were weak, and that that was why they had the right to fight. By the time he left, Wufei felt more comfortable fighting again, despite having lost to Treize.
Wufei went back to his usual pattern of attacking bases and destroying them until he returned to space. By that point, the space colonies had publicly denounce the gundams and the five scientists (Master O included) had been captured by OZ and were being forced to build special mobile suits for them. Wufei fought and was captured, Shenlong having been damaged in the battle.
However, he was not captured alone-first one pilot (Heero Yuy), then another (Duo Maxwell) came to the cell he was being held in. It wasn’t long before they saw Trowa Barton had apparently switched sides, joining OZ as a soldier. The pilot had been partially responsible for their capture. However, during one of Heero’s absences, Trowa punched Duo and sneakily handed him a data projector detailing the plans for the new Deathscythe Hell (Duo’s new gundam) and Altron (to replace Shenlong).
It wasn’t too long before Wufei and Duo escaped, however it was only thanks to the cell door being opened just before their air ran out after having been cut off. The two pilots picked up their mostly completed new gundams, neither having been completely programmed for space flight.
Wufei returned to his home colony to resupply, more training and to reconnect with his clan (Meiran’s first death anniversary). However, OZ managed to locate him there. Instead of his colony allowing themselves to be used against Wufei, however, while he was off fighting to try and save them, they self-destructed the entire colony.
After taking time to further harry OZ’s soldiers in revenge for his clan’s destruction, Wufei reluctantly joined forces with the rest of the gundam pilots and head to Peacemillion-a space ship run by another of the creators of the Tallgeese prototype. This decision was augmented by the ZERO system on Heero’s new gundam, the Wing Zero gundam. Heero told Wufei to use his gundam instead of the Altron for a battle, and to see what Zero told him. Wufei returned, admitting that his path was with the rest of the pilots, rather than alone as he’d been fighting the rest of the war.
It was not long before the final battle began on Christmas Eve. The pilots fought on the side of the new World Nation and against the White Fang (led by Zechs Marquise who had a super weapon called Libra with a beam canon on board with the ability to destroy Earth). While the other pilots were distracted by their own fights, Wufei and Treize faced off in Wufei’s speciality-the mobile suit. However, Treize had a trick up his sleeve. Wufei was manipulated when Treize simply allowed himself to be killed, rather than see the fight to its natural conclusion as Wufei had wished.
As his proper revenge had been thwarted even as it was realized in action, Wufei barely noticed how Treize’s death coaxed the World Nation to surrender and peace talks began. It took time for the new Earth Sphere United Nation to form, but Wufei was not content with how the war had ended. He felt he was still fighting Treize even during the empty peace he felt Relena was running. He had no reason to stop fighting, no way to affirm his existance until he was recruited to join Treize's daughter, Mariemaia Barton/Khushrenada, and her rebellion.