En Guard!
(Stupid French fencing theme. I know…)
It was a rather chilly morning that found some of our favorite (and some of our least favorite) people standing outside the YMCA in nothing but loose shirts and baggy shorts. The morning didn't seem to care much though, as it went on being chilly and the people in their light outfits went on being cold.
"It's r-r-rather c-c-cold out this mor-r-rning…" Duet chattered and Relena wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The shorter girl leaned into her embrace and Wu Fei made a sort of gagging noise which Sally severely reprimanded him for by whapping him upside the head.
At that moment, the double doors swung wide open and a tall blonde girl stepped out smiling. "Hi! My name's Laura! You must be here for the 30 Hour famine!" she giggled. The others merely gawked at the fact the she could be soaking wet and only in a bathing suit and not be cold. They nodded stiffly and followed her inside.
"Crazy Antarctic athletes…" Hilde grumbled.
The first room was only furnished by a reception desk and a few snack machines, but doors on either side of the desk led to the Girls' and Boys' locker rooms. These opened at their opposite ends into halls that branched off into basketball courts, weight rooms, swimming pools and all a slew of other health facilities.
"You're free to roam about to your heart's content," Laura explained as she scribbled in the time of their arrival on a huge sheet of butcher paper. "And remember…" Here the girl's eyes took on an evil glint. "You eat, you lose. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" From her Speedo Space™ she whipped out a mile of iron chains and secured the snack machines, placing a large combination lock over the key pads.
Instantly, eleven faces dropped. Marimeia flashed an evil grin, took a Snickers bar out of her pocket, and walked away munching on it, a bundle of scrolls under her arm.
"What the hell are those?" Hilde asked Lady Une as she clung to the taller woman's arm.
"Marimeia's new mythology fetish…"
Time Left- 20:50
"I'm boooooooooored…" Duo groaned. He was sprawled out on one of the diving boards, drawing little patters in the water as Relena and Duet splashed around in the shallower end.
Trowa, tired of the braided boy's complaining, gave him a hard shove right into the freezing water, but no soon had he done so than a shrill whistle ripped through their heads.
"NO SHOVING!" yelled a red-haired man into a bullhorn who just settling into the lifeguard stand. He had a generous bit of sunscreen applied to his nose despite the fact that they were inside and looked suspiciously like Zech's former Lieutenant, Otto. "NOW, I'LL BE YOUR LIFEGUARD FOR THE NEXT THIRTY HOURS, SO LET'S REVIEW A FEW RULES!"
The people in the pool area, sans Duet and Relena, decided they had had enough and scurried off to find better things to do.
Time Left- 20:10
Heero peered over the top of the Sports Illustrated magazine he was reading to see Duo inching pathetically across the floor towards the snack machines in the corner of the room.
"Must… have… food…" he gasped.
"Duo, we stopped for oden before we got here. You can't possibly be hungry already," the Perfect Soldier snarled and went back to his literature. His attention was drawn away from it again though as something very large collided with the glass wall in front of him. "Hey, Duo, sounded like a big bird that time, huh?" he asked, but when he looked, he saw the braided boy lying in a crumpled heap on the floor and a hot potato vender just disappearing from sight around a bend in the road.
"…idiot…"
Time Left- 19:45
WHAP!
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
WHAP!
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
WHAP!
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
WHA-
"THAT'S IT! YOU TWO, OUTTA THE POOL!" the lifeguard cried and Duet and Relena abandoned their game of noodle-whapping long enough to fix him with two of the sweetest, most innocent looks they could manage. Of course, the lifeguard would have none of that.
"NOW! I SAID OUT!"
Sniffling and dragging their feet, the two climbed up the steps out of the water and scuffled away dejectedly until something else caught their eye.
"Hot tub!" the cheered and jumped.
Time Left- 19:10
"...so then the Greeks won the war and there was this great little rhyme that went with the whole thing that said 'Should is could, could is would, would is wood, of course. What began with an apple must end with a horse.' And that's how they knew to build the Trojan horse because the Trojan war began when Discord wasn't invited to a wedding on Olympus so she threw an apple on the table that said 'For The Fairest' and the goddesses got into an argument over it and…" Marimeia explained excitedly after Sylvia had questioned her on her scrolls.
"I think I have to go to the bathroom," Hilde said suddenly, and shot Midii¹ Une a pleading glance.
"I do to," the older girl said and they both hurried out into the hall.
"I have the best idea!" the black-haired girl squealed and grabbed Midii's wrist, dragging her off in the direction of the weight rooms.
Time Left- 18:20
"I never knew this place was so big…" Quatre murmured to Trowa as they walked down the winding halls. "What do you want to do first?"
"Basketball?" Ah, a man of few words and brilliant ideas.
"Sure!" the blonde smiled and slipped an arm around his boyfriend's waist. "Where's the gym?"
Time Left- 18:00
"Hey, Wu Fei? Wuuu Fe~i? WU FEI!" Duo yelled at the Chinese boy running on the treadmill.
"You want something, Maxwell?" he asked serenely as he removed his headphones, "I Am The Walrus" by the Beatles suddenly audible.
"Can I use your Nataku-worshipping stuff?" the braided boy asked, grinning lopsidedly and rocking on his heels.
"Whatever… It's in my bag," the Chinese boy sighed and replaced the headphones. Duo rushed off, but it was too late for Sally. Now she had the damn tune stuck in her head.
"…I am the egg man. They are the egg men. I am the walrus…" she whispered as she continued to stretch.
Time Left- 17:30
Trowa returned from the equipment locker spinning a basketball on his finger. Quatre clapped once and the banged boy passed him the ball. He dribbled once, then twice, then spun it on his finger before whipping it back over to Trowa.
Both realized the game at once. The taller boy bounced it between his legs and rolled it up one arm and down the other before passing it back. The noises they made were the beginnings of quite a catchy beat…
Suddenly, the gym doors swung open and Duet and Relena walked in, still toweling off. They immediately picked up on the game when Trowa snapped the ball at the braided girl. She caught it expertly and dribbled it a few times before spiking it up and head-butting it to Relena on its return trip.
Relena rolled it down her arm from her wrist and when it reached her elbow, she straightened it to make the ball bounce. From there, she snatched it out of the air, spun around twice, kick-dribbled it a bit, and passed it back to Quatre.
Time Left- 17:05
"Ooohhhmmm… Ooohhhmmm…" Duo chanted as he bowed repeatedly before a snack dispenser. Candles flickered from strategic places around the machine and incense wafted around him.
Disgusted, Heero got up and walked back out into the hall with the intent of working out a bit before hitting the sauna. He swung open the door to the weight room a stood in complete and utter shock until a UFS (Unidentified Flying Shoe) nailed him in the face.
"THERE ARE LAWS AGAINST THAT!" he yelled and soon met with the shoe's twin sister, Barbara. "…they're naming their shoes…I think I'll go hang out with Duo for a while…"
Time Left- 16:50
Marimeia looked up from her scrolls to see her last remaining listener fast asleep. She thought for a moment , took a deep breath, and at the top of her lungs cried, "SYLVIAAAAAAAAAA!" The blonde girl sat up abruptly and Marimeia began reading again.
Time Left- 16:35
Sally, still bugging about the song now stuck in her head, slouched in a chair in the now-empty lobby, her eyes fixed on the small TV in the corner. Some strange show she'd never heard of was on, but she was entranced nonetheless.
"I'm crying. Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come. Corporation tee shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday. Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long… I am the egg man, they are the egg men, I am the walrus… Goo goo g'joob…" With a finale 'joob' she was sleeping peacefully. Jay Leno continued to babble on, seeming not to notice.
Time Left- 15:50
"NOOOOO!" Heero cried and ripped off his ZERO system helmet and throwing it on the floor. "I! Can't! Be! Leive! I! Lost! To! Du! O! AGAIN!!!" he growled, jumping up and down on the hapless victim of his wrath.
"Oh, did I win again?" Duo asked sweetly as he rubbed his fingernails on his shirt and then inspected them.
"Stupid Smash Brothers… You cheat."
"No, you suck."
"No, YOU suck!" With that, the Wing pilot stormed out of the room to seek solace with Sylvia. Who would be saving who though wasn't too clear.
Time Left- 15:10
Quatre, Trowa, Relena, and Duet lay in the middle of the basketball court, panting. The basketball had rolled off somewhere, so they'd been forced to entertain each other for the past two-what hours.
"That… Was fun… But… Not… A wise move…" Duet gasped.
"Why… Do you… Say… That…?" Quatre asked.
"Now… I'm really… Hungry…"
"Yeah…" the other three agreed unanimously, attempting to sit up but failing miserably.
"Hey, guys!" came a cheerful voice from the doorway. Eight eyes looked to see who it was, eight cheeks blushed red, and fours pairs of hands scrambled for the four randomly discarded sets of clothing on the gym floor.
Time Left- 14:35
Wu Fei had been going strong on the treadmill for quite a while now and his footfalls were growing heavy. He slumped on the handle bars, but still tried to keep up the impossible pace.
Between the general rocking of the machine and the dangerously weighty stride, the floor, the walls, and eventually the ceiling began to shake at each step.
Time Left- 14:00
Hilde yawned and stretched and Midii tickled under her arms. "That was fun," she smiled and the shorter girl nodded in agreement.
"Let's go to the sauna and relax a bit more…" the German girl winked. They set off and soon they found the small room and changed into towels (the most massively useful things in the galaxy, don'tcha know).
"Look out, steam! ^___^" Hilde chimed and yanked open the door. She came face to face with what was probably the scariest this anyone could ever hope to see: Heero, really, really, really pissed. (not to mention completely nekkid, but that ain't scary…)
"OUT!" he bellowed and the two girls scurried off screaming. "Now, where were we?" he smirked, turning back to Sylvia.
Time Left- 13:40
Despite the fact that no one was in, or even around the pool, the Otto-ish lifeguard kept careful watch over the desolate area. A loan floatie drifted past and he audibly attacked the innocent piece of plastic with an assault from his Whistle-O-Doom.
Time Left- 13:05
"…and then Odysseus strapped all his men underneath the blind Cyclops's sheep so they could escape and they did get away but then Odysseus got cocky so he yelled out 'My name isn't No Name! My name is Odysseus!' and so the Cyclops knew who he was and he said 'My father will avenge my eye!' and then Poseidon, he's the god of the sea, made this big storm that tossed Odysseus's ship off course …" Marimeia babbled to the helpless four who were still lying on the floor due to a total lack of energy.
Quatre was the only one who bothered to seem interested.
Time Left- 12:30
"Woung jabba-jabba-jabba! Woung jabba-jabb-jabba!" chanted the Deathscythe pilots as he pranced around the snack machines, waving a spear and wearing nothing but war paint and a loincloth.
Time Left 11:40
"It's so hot…" Sylvia groaned and Heero stopped kissing her neck long enough to shoot her a questioning look.
"Hold on. Let me open the door." The Perfect Soldier stood up and reached for the handle to let some cool air into the sauna, but it wouldn't budge.
"Don't tell me we're locked in!" the blonde girl chirped, grasping a towel and wrapping it around her waist.
Heero reached behind his back and magically withdrew his trusty handgun. With a pull of the trigger, they were no longer locked in. In fact, there wasn't really anything to lock…
Time Left 11:20
Sally sat bolt upright in the chair in the lobby and looked around. Someone was in the room with her…
Time Left 10:35
Duet and Relena had managed to crawl away from the three who had fallen asleep in one unruly pile in the middle of the floor to be alone together. They made it all the way to the large Plexiglas wall before falling asleep in each others arms.
Everyone in the building was asleep again…
Time Left 4:55
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Wu Fei awoke to find his leg had been caught underneath the treadmill. It was still going at top speed, and had made a valiant effort to suck the Chinese boy underneath. Luckily, it hand't hurt him much in the process, of it wouldn't have gotten off with just a severe katana beating…
Time Left 4:30
VRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN…! Duet blinked away and came face-to-face with what had to be the meanest-looking lawn mower ever contrived. She tried to move, but Relena was lying on top of her.
"SCARY LAWN MOWER! SCARY LAWN MOWER! SCARY LAWN MOWER!!!" she yelled and pounded on the Plexiglas in front of her. Plexiglas. The lawn mower was on the other side of the Plexiglas…
She looked up and saw that the person riding on it was none other than- "TARO!!!" Unfortunately, the British boy didn't hear her angry rants, as he had his headphones on and was currently listening to Fire Bomber songs laced with subliminal messages that told him green monkeys from Pluto were invading and that he should stock up on bananas while he still could.
"Du-chan, what's the matter?" Relena asked, blinking the sunlight from her eyes. "AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! SCARY LAWN MOWER!!!!!"
Time Left 4:25
Aside from waking the dead, the girls' screams also woke Quatre and Trowa, who were still dozing in the middle of the gym floor.
"Trowa, get off me…" Quatre groaned.
"I'm not on you," the Heavyarms pilot replied, his voice tinged with amusement.
"…then they *snore* tied him to the *snore* mast and plugged his *snore* ears so the sirens *snore* couldn't…" Marimeia mumbled and wrapped her arms around Quatre.
"..help. …me," he squeaked, afraid to move and wake the little girl.
Time Left 4:00
"*yawn* Morning, Midii!" Hilde smiled and stretched. She rolled over on the futon they shared and wrapped her arms around the other girl.
"Nnnn," Midii moaned and buried her face in her pillow. "Too early… Go back to sleep… I was dreaming of food."
Time Left 3:40
"Hey, girls! How are my two lovely ladies this morning?" Duo asked before sitting down right in between them on the floor.
"Hungry."
"Tired."
"AND WE HATE TARO!!!" they yelled at once. Through the Plexiglas wall, Taro could be seen still riding his mower and nodding his head to the music her was listening to.
"Aren't you hungry, Duo-kun?" Duet asked, leaning her head on his left shoulder.
"You didn't eat, did you?" Relena frowned, resting on his right.
"Of course not. I just realized that after consuming so much sugar in my lifetime, my body has actually store the glucose and I'm good to go for another two days!"
The two girls sweatdropped.
Time Left 3:05
"Where am I…?" Sylvia frowned as she slowly opened her eyes. She rolled over to get a better idea of her surrounding and fell with a Sploosh! into the pool.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! The Otto-ish lifeguard blew his whistle for all it was worth before diving into the pool to rescue the girl who had decide that the pool was just a dream and the she wasn't really drowning.
Time Left 2:25
"Sylvia?" Heero asked before he opened him eyes and found himself sitting in Sally's lap.
"Been sleepwalking I see…" Sally frowned.
Time Left 2:00
"Mornin' guys!!!" Tori cried and swung open the YMCA doors. Talon stopped throwing small rocks at an oblivious Taro and followed her inside.
"He~y! We brought breakfast! Miso soup, cooked rice, fish, pickled veggies, seaweed, and some… tea," the tall boy rattled off, hesitating at the end to take into account the fact that while he was yelling, the entire mob of pilots and Preventers and other people had swarmed into the lobby to see him.
"Oops! I guess we came a little early!" the Asian girl smiled innocently, glancing at the countdown clock.
"GET THEM!" Wu Fei rallied and the gang converged upon the hapless authors.
Time Left 1:35
"…" Wu Fei, Sally, Heero, Sylvia, Duo, Duet, Relena, Quatre, Trowa, Hilde, and Une deathglared the two teenagers.
"Mmmph hmmm mph hppptb!" Talon explained through the duct tape covering his mouth.
"You KNOW we can't eat. You are just being CRUEL!" Hilde growled, giving the jar of pickled vegetables a light kick.
"You're as bad as Marimeia!" Relena added.
"It's not my fault I can't go more than a few hours without eating. I'm still little!" the seven-year-old red-head grinned innocently and, as if to prove her point, helped herself to some of the rice.
Time Left 0:40
"…I like mine with lettuce and tomato… Heinz fifty-seven and French fried po-"
"DUO! STOP SINGING ABOUT FOOD!" Sally yelled and bashed the aforementioned boy over the head with a mallet she had miraculously produced from Hammerspace™. And, just because it felt good, she hit him a few more times.
"Normally I'd help, but…" Duet watched with growing interest as Duo's eyes swirled hypnotically.
"…big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer…"
"RELENA!"
Time Left 0:00.10
"Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… ONE!" The horde of people dove for the bundle of breakfast the authors had brought, only to find it was missing… As one, they turned and fixed their smoldering gazes on the little red-head girl.
"MARIMEIA KUSHRENADA!!! OMEA O KOROSU!!!"
~*~Owari~*~
Tori: Here it is, Talon! Sorry it took so long!
Ke: Pssst. TORI! The little "1" thing!
Tori: Oh yes. Midii Une and Lady Une are the same person.
Ke: *rolls eyes* There are going to be some interesting flames…
Tori: Bring it on! *brandishes Sotsu staff badge* I'll just turn around and ask my boss! *turns around and asks Hiyabasa-san if Midii and Lady Une are the same person*
Kurokawa Hiyabasa: [fanfare!] Hai. Nande?
Tori: Um, why isn't important, but thank you for your insight!
Hiyabasa-san: Hajimemashite! Kanpai!
Tori: She says it was nice to meet you and she wishes you happiness!
Ke: She also said 'Review, or Japan will cut off all anime!'
Tori: *steps on Ke's furry little head* No, she didn't! But reviews would be nice…
Oh, and Talon? BEWARE!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!