Hair Club (for Men)

by Aaron D

Who is Wong Fei-Fong?

Chapter 1:

Hair Club (for Men) Hair Club (for Men)

by Aaron D.

People sometimes ask me if I know Wong Fei-Fong. Yes, I do, though sometimes, I wish I hadn't ever met him at all.

"Are you ready to die?" Fei asked. I don't know if he meant that literally, if he was actually going to kill me, or if he just wanted to know. He had a gun pointed at my head, which lent some credence to my first hypothesis.

We were sitting in a suite in the Battling Arena, Civilian C-Block of Nortune, the capital of Kislev. Fei had worked everything out so that all Gears would shut down in exactly three minutes.

It was funny, really, that Fei, a self-proclaimed pacifist, would be holding a gun to me and threatening my life, but in a way, I was threatening his, also. Fei had decided that a national military was wrong and evil, and so he was going to destroy it. I thought I should stop him, but I'm not so sure as I was, especially with that gun-Wait. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you how I met Wong Fei-Fong...

I don't know exactly when the problems started. Maybe it was about the time I met Elhaym.

I was flying my Gear back from a battle; I don't recall precisely which one. It's not important, anyway. So there I was, zooming back to home, and this other Gear bumps up against mine. I didn't know exactly what to think, I mean, if a Gear pilot's your friend, he knows better than to slap his frame against yours, and if he's your enemy, he's not gonna waste time-he's just gonna attack you, right?

Anyway, this Gear bumps its torso up against mine, and I was blown away. Seriously, I thought my proximity alarm would go off or something. Maybe it did, and I wasn't paying attention, but who knows. So, there I was, this Gear had just...I don't know what, but, anyway, as I took a look at the machine, I saw that it was...well femininely shaped, to say the least. It had some odd Ether-amplification fins on either side, which I thought was something only Solaris Gears had.

"Hey!" the pilot comms to me. "What are you doing tonight, big guy?" It was obviously a woman.

What? I was pretty clueless here. "What?"

"You wanna go out, you know, on a date?" I hadn't really had time for dates before, being a soldier and all, but despite my body's natural longings and inclinations, I still found I wanted no intercourse with the fairer sex, physical or otherwise.

"My name's Elhaym," the pilot said. "You wanna go, or what?"

"Look," I responded harshly, "I'm a busy man. I don't have time to fuck around with some crazy bitch who thinks it'd be cool to smack Gears together or whatever the hell you were thinking. I've gotta get back and file a report."

"Whoa!" she said. "You don't need to get rough with me. Besides," Elhaym added, "you know that it'll only make me more attracted to you."

I groaned in the cockpit of my Gear. "I don't really care," I answered. "You haven't even seen me, anyway. I could be uglier than sin."

"I can feel your Ether. You're attractive enough, even if you ARE ugly."

Not that I was. I'm more than presentable, if I do say so myself. I don't mean to sound full of myself or anything. Like I told you before, I'm not really interested in being in a sustained relationship now or in the forseeable future.

"Look," I grunted. "I don't really want to start anything with you right now. No offense, but my military duties are keeping me busy. For that matter, I don't even know if I'll be attracted to you."

"Oh, no?" she challenged. Suddenly a picture of a woman appeared on my screen. She was tall, lanky, and had gorgeous red hair that flowed down her shoulders. Her eyes were big and blue. I gotta admit, she had my body going, but as for my mind, well, nothing had happened so far that would interest that.

"That's you?" I asked.

"Scout's honor," she said back. "Aren't you going to show me your picture?"

"No," I responded, "I don't think so. Now get movin'."

"Alright," she said, and flew away slightly. "I've got your ID number, though. I'm gonna try to make you change your mind eventually."

"Sure, whatever," I mumbled as she rocketed off. God, what was the problem with some women? Were they stupid? There were hundreds of guys, some of them in my wing formation, who would have died to spend one night with some girl as willing as her, but she chose to come on to me! Oh, well. It wasn't worth worrying about.

I got back to Nortune at about noon. I made my report to the Kaiser, and then headed off to the nearest church to my home. This one happened to be a member of the Nisan sect, which was mostly run by women. I guess this was because of that Mother Sophia. Think about it. I mean, the big boss was the Great Mother, and almost all the priests were priestesses.

This didn't affect my choice to go there. Sometimes I go to the Ethos, sometimes to Nisan. From what I gathered, only the methods of doctrine were different. We all worshipped the same God, or at least, that's what I thought.

But that's not really important. As a soldier, killing people often, sometimes every day, I felt that you had to go to church, to feel some kind of forgiveness, of peace. When I prayed, I felt that maybe God did forgive me for my taking life from His people. When I prayed, I felt divine elation in my soul.

As I knelt down at the altar, I felt the peace of God overwhelm me, as it usually did. I clasped my hands and closed my eyes, preparing to receive the blessing of the Lord.

And it never came. I don't know why, but instead of the blank oneness with God, images of Elhaym came into my mind. I railed against it, but still, she was there. I didn't understand how, but she had ripped the peace of God from me. I couldn't pray anymore. Before, I had felt only indifference to her, but now, I felt some steaming kind of hatred, not so much as to want to kill her, but still, it was there. I wanted to do something else to her...I couldn't put my finger upon exactly what. I walked out of the church, confused and disheartened.

The first time I met him, I was on a mission. It may seem odd, but sometimes you meet the most interesting people on the battlefield. That's not really the issue, but the point remains. I saw him take down five enemy Gears with what seemed to be one continuous move. His own Gear was huge, and yet it still was supple and thin. It was grey, contrasting with my red, constructed much like mine, but it lacked the impressive wings and the extra set of rocket boosters. That wasn't really a big deal; I had only put those on for effect, anyway.

"Hey," he said to me over the communications frequency, after all the fighting was finished, "you okay?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"My name's Wong Fei-Fong," he said proudly. "I'm kind of a pacifist, but sometimes, you know, fighting is just something you have to do, to protect your own life and those of others."

"Sounds good," I replied, shaking his Gear's hand with my own. "I didn't know you were in my phalanx."

"I'm not," Fei said. "Not exactly, at least.."

"Oh," I replied. "No problem. Anyway, you ready to head back?" Our enemies were decimated. There was no point in staying.

"Sure."

On the way back to Nortune, Fei and I talked for a bit. He was, indeed, a pacifist from way back. His father had been a general for some country or other-don't ask me, I've never heard of it. Anyway, he'd had quite a few jobs, official and otherwise, throughout his young life. In his youth, he'd been a fisherman. Not the kind that works on a boat, Fei was an angler. He said the calm and tranquility before a catch, the excitment during it, and the exultation following were unbelievable. I took his word for it.

Fei had also studied the martial arts, though he said it was more for the physical and mental exercise rather than the ability to fight. He said that whenever he used his skills in combat, he felt somehow lessened by it. I sympathized with him. My own abilities were akin to his; we used similar fighting styles. Anyway, we returned to Nortune and went our separate ways. Fei gave me a number to contact him at as we parted.

A huge surprise was awaiting me. I returned to my apartment, and found that it was destroyed. Apparently, some anti-war activists had heard of my record and decided to kill me. Luckily, I was out on the campaign when my place had blown up, but I was devasted. I mean, I didn't have a lot of stuff, but what I did have meant a lot to me. I found myself wandering over to the nearest communication unit. The phone rang eight times before I hung up, dejected.

Suddenly, the unit I was at beeped. I picked it up curiously. "Hello?" I asked.

"Yeah, who's this?"

"Ummm...is this Fei?"

"Yeah, who's this?" he repeated.

"Uh, I met you at the battle," I explained. "We came back together."

"Oh, right! The red Gear guy!" His tone showed his recognition. "What's up?"

"Fei," I started, "you're not gonna believe this..."

Skip to me and Fei sharing some beers at the Battler Bar. The fighters from D-Block all came here, and they were probably tough, maybe even tougher than us, though I doubted it.

"The key," Fei said, draining his beer, "is that society expects certain things of us."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well," he responded, pouring himself another, "Look here. What do you do for a living?"

"I fight the enemies of the state," I answered.

"Okay," Fei said calmly. "does that satisfy you? Are you doing what you want to be doing with your life?"

"I never really thought about it."

"Well, think about it! Does killing people make you feel good?"

"No-well, sometimes. But afterwards, no, I don't feel good."

Fei took a long drag off of his mug. "The state needs someone to do its killing, right? It expects young men to kill other young men, from foreign powers, and to gain strength from it."

"What's your point?" I inquired.

"My point is this," Fei stated. "If Kislev wasn't at war with Aveh, if there was no fighting taking place, what would you be doing?"

"I don't know."

Fei topped my own beer off from the pitcher. "Okay, you don't know. Have you ever thought about it?"

"Not really, no."

"So where do you find your happiness?"

"With God," I answered swiftly.

"God?" Fei laughed. "Religion is the opiate of the masses, didn't you know that? It's a tool to keep the proletariat in line."

"God is real," I said, offended. "At least, He's real to me, even if He's not to you."

"Whoa," Fei held his hands out defensively. "I didn't mean to offend you, there."

"It's okay," I replied. "But if God isn't real-not that I think He isn't," I added quickly, "then where did we come from?"

"I'm not sure," Fei admitted. "Maybe we are, as the scholars say, descended from some alien race that crash-landed on this planet."

I chuckled under my breath. Humans, with their advanced power of reasoning and their dominance over all other lifeforms, merely a cast-off of another race? Ridiculous.

Skip to Fei and I standing outside of the bar. We were both more than a little drunk, and Fei stumbled and leaned against the doorjamb for support.

"Look," I began, "I don't really have a place to stay right now. Do you think I could sleep at your place for a while? Just 'til I find a new one."

Fei smiled. "I'm glad you had the courage to ask me that one. Yeah, you can stay with me till you get back on your feet."

"But," he added, "first, you gotta do me a favor."

"What?"

He grinned again. "I want you to do my hair for me."

"Huh?"

"Here." Fei undid his ponytail. Fei's hair and mine were almost the same length, but he had the courage to do something I didn't. He left his hair bound back, while I let mine hang free. Fei's hair was black and straight, while my own was red, curly, and unruly. I sort of envied him. His hair was much more do-able than mine was.

I reached behind Fei's head after he turned around. "I feel stupid," I remarked. I took his unbound hair in two of my hands, and gripped the left shock of hair firmly, took a rubber band, and bound it up. Then, I repeated the process with the left side. Fei now had a set of pigtails, making his head seem somewhat wider than before.

"That's great!" Fei shouted. "Now, let me do yours!"

I didn't know what Fei planned to do with my unruly hair, but I let him have control nonetheless. From out of nowhere he flipped out a bottle of hair gel. It took a while, but when Fei was finished and I looked at myself in the mirror, I barely recognized the guy staring back. My long, red hair was sticking straight up, smoothly greased, and fined to a point at the top. I think it was almost two feet high.

"What do you think?" Fei asked eagerly.

"I dunno," I said, testing its hold. "Seems kinda...phallic, don't you think?"

"What's wrong with that? We're men, right?"

"Sure, whatever."

That was how it started. Guys in the bar saw Fei and I styling our hair later on, and they wanted in, too. I didn't really get it at the time, but it seemed to me as if there was something in that action, in the hairstyling, that all of us could feel that we'd never felt before.

Fei and I had found that something, and we were the ones that gave it a name. We formalized it. The Hair Club for Men. We had a set of rules, rules that Fei and I made up, for the club's members. We got Rico, the battling Champ, to let us use the basement, below Latina's bar for our meetings.

"Okay," Fei said commandingly from in front of the group. "Gentlemen, welcome to Hair Club."

Fei rattled off the rules as easily as if he'd been reading them off the list. "The first rule of Hair Club is, 'You must have hair.' The second rule of Hair Club is, 'You must be open-minded.'" Fei finished dictating the rules to our ragtag group of criminals and soldiers. They stared at him like he was a god come down to Earth.

"Finally," he finished up, "If this is your first night at Hair Club, your hair will be styled."

Two guys would take turns in the center of a circle. One guy sat down on the barber's chair, the other got put through the paces of hairstyling. It was a time to relax. You didn't have to pretend to be strong or violent-you could be secure in your masculinity and still express your feelings and show support for your friends. You could talk about anything you wanted to do, anything at all.

While I was in the chair, I shared my desire to become a poet with the others. They didn't laugh, like they might've if I'd said such a thing in the world above. One guy, Rico, he was a demihuman, he said what he really wanted to do was become a professional chef for a living. He knew that he was limited by that fact that he was a Battler, but still he practiced, above in the bar, when no one was looking. Fei told Rico that he couldn't wait to try his crepes Suzette. We laughed, not a pitying laugh, or a mocking laugh, but a laugh of friendship and shared feeling.

Fei had summed up all of our feelings in short. "You are not your weapons," he'd say. "You are not your Gear. You are the all-knowing, all-feeling life of the world."

Hair Club wasn't something you could talk about on the street or at work. It was funny when I suited up for battle and some of the other soldiers would just stare at me. Like I was wearing a sign that said, "Yes, I Love Having My Hair Sculpted. And Yes, I'm Okay With That." When you saw another member of Hair Club, you couldn't talk about it with him, but there was still a recognition there. One time I saw a guy from another phalanx with his shoulder-length hair curled in a permanent. I nodded, my newly-acquired long braids bobbing. Later that week, he'd be the one taking my braids out and talking about his lifelong dream to become a house-husband. But there, in the Central District, we couldn't show our knowledge of one another.

Another time, I met a guy who used to be a member of my unit, Bart...I can't remember his last name. Anyway, he saw me and waved, and I asked him how he was doing.

"Never better," he answered, his blond hair shaped into the stem of a daffodil. "In fact, I've found this kind of...support group, I guess, and it's-"

"Bart," I said, pointing to my hair, which was sculpted into five spiky protrusions, "I'm a member."

"That's great!" Bart exclaimed. "Tell me, do you know anything about the guy who started Hair Club?"

"Well, sure," I said, though there had actually been two of us.

"They say he uses his Ether power to change his appearance, and that he can lift cars, and..."

"Bart," I interrupted, "I said I know him. Get it?"

"Really?" Bart's eyes widened. "You know Mr. Wong?"

Fei and I lived in a small, dilapidated hut next to the Battler Barracks in D-Block. I hated living there, but at the same time, I loved it. The electricity went on and off at random, and if you wanted a shower, you had to walk to the barracks next door (and even that was incredibly disgusting. I started showering at the Central District after that first time).

One day, Fei was making our morning coffee and the phone rang. I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Yes, this is Sergeant Jackson of IA. We have some information on the destruction of your quarters that you might find interesting."

"What's that?" I asked. I honestly hadn't thought about the loss of my home for quite some time.

"Well," Jackson continued, "it turns out that the device used to blow up your quarters was an Ether bomb."

"An Ether bomb?"

"Yes. As you know, an Ether bomb can be set and then triggered by the assailant's Ether power from anywhere in the world."

"What's your point?"

"This bomb appeared to have been home-made. You don't know anything about this, do you?"

"What are you saying? You think I blew up my own house? That's ridiculous!"

"I'm just advising you to stay in town for a while, that's all."

"I don't have control over that! I'm a soldier, goddamnit!"

But Jackson had already hung up. I stewed over it for a moment and then it left my mind.

Fei and I would always use the evenings for philosophical discussion. "Okay," Fei asked me one time, while I was reading through a stack of books the previous owner of his house had left, "if you could style anyone's hair, whose would it be?"

"The Kaiser's," I answered.

Fei laughed. "Not bad. I'd pick my father."

"Why?"

"I haven't seen him for so long-I never really knew him. I'd just like to have a few minutes to talk about emotions, our lives, our dreams, stuff like that." Fei sat down. "Think about it. Our fathers were supposed to be the blueprint for our lives. They were the ones to show us how to be men.

"But now that I think about it," Fei continued. "I don't know that what a 'man' is is necessarily defined by either our fathers or society. According to them, men are supposed to never cry, never show feelings, be strong, be violent, et cetera...Do you want to spend the rest of your life that way?"

"Not anymore," I replied.

Jump to Fei speaking at the end of the next Hair Club. "Gentlemen," he said. "I've got a homework assignment for you." He turned around, looking at the men forcefully. "This week, I want you to style someone else's hair. It could be a woman's, or a man's, or even a dog's. But," he added, "I want you to do it badly."

The next week was hilarious as people all throughout Nortune were walking down streets with terrible haircuts, unsymmetrical styles, and freakishly miscolored locks. I didn't know the purpose behind Fei's decision, but the results were definitely entertaining.

Fei and I would sometimes "vandalize" the environs of Nortune, though he insisted that what we were actually doing was a public service. We'd spraypaint slogans over the advertisements that were posted on the walls, slogans like, Think for Yourself, and Are You Getting What You Really Want Out of Life?

"Hey," Fei said, spraypainting the slogan War is Evil another sign, "Did you know that there's a Hair Club in Bledavik?"

"Yeah," I replied, continuing my work on Express Your Own Individuality-Don't Mow Your Lawn, "There's one in Dazil, too."

Fei laughed. "Did you start that one?"

I shook my head. "I thought you did." I laughed as well.

One morning, early on, I was getting ready for work when a large hank of red hair blinded my eyes. It wasn't my own hair, either.

"Wow," she said. "That was some night last night."

"Elhaym? What are you doing here?" I demanded.

"Like you don't know," she replied. "My God..."

Oh, God. I guess I could figure out what she and Fei had done the night previous. "Look," I said, "This is kind of weird. Could you go ahead and leave?"

"Sure thing," she said, confused, but she left anyway.

"Jesus!" Fei exclaimed, entering the kitchen. "That woman is a tiger!"

"Hell, Fei, I can't believe you-with HER! I just.."

"Listen here," Fei said calmly. "I can't have you talking to Elly about me, okay? She might get the wrong idea. Promise me you won't talk to her about me, alright?"

"Okay..."

"Promise!"

"I promise!"

"Good," Fei said, pouring himself a cup. "Don't forget that."

A little after that, guys started showing up on our doorstep. I had no clue what was going on, but Fei said that if they had a brush, comb, scissors, and a bottle of hair gel, they could stay with us. Rico showed up first, then Billy, a young priest, then Citan, a doctor, followed by several other guys later on.

I had gotten myself discharged from the military by this point, and I was spending most of my time at the house. One day I came back from shopping and found that all of the guys were sitting in front of the television, with beers in hand.

"What's up, guys?" I asked.

"Shh!" Billy replied, pointing at the TV.

"...and the Gears in Hangar 118 were found like this in the morning..." The picture showed a bunch of Gears with wigs, complete with makeup on their artificial faces.

"Good God! What have you guys done?"

Everyone was laughing together. Fei entered the front room. "Hey, relax!" he admonished me. "We just did a little 'civil disobedience' on the Kislev army. Our anti-military campaign begins."

"Anti-military campaign?" I questioned.

"Yes, sir," Billy answered me, as if by rote. "We're going to bring down the military, which is the enemy of self-fulfillment."

I knew Fei thought the military was evil, being a pacifist and all, but still I wondered what he was thinking. "Isn't this a little extreme?"

"Uh, no, sir?" Rico looked at me questioningly.

The room became hushed as the TV station switched to an interview of Kaiser Sigmund. "The incident occurred at approximately 4 o'clock this morning, the Kaiser stated. "We suspect that this crime is one of multiple acts of vandalism committed by underground men's hairstyling groups. We will investigate these occurrences until we catch the perpetrators."

The front room erupted in expressions of outrage. "That fascist dumbass!" Bart shouted.

"What'll we do?" asked Billy.

"We cannot simply let the Kaiser do as he wills," Citan added, "There must be some way we can stop his investigation before it fully comes into effect, and I believe that if we do not do this, we will certainly be found out by the authorities and sentenced to D-Block, which is interesting because we already live in D-Block, so what will they choose to do to us if they catch-"

"Shut up, all of you!" Fei commanded. It was a good thing Fei had interrupted the former doctor. Otherwise, he might've not finished his sentence for a good hour. "I've got a plan."

I walked out the room and decided to go to sleep. Fei would figure something out.

Jump to Fei, myself, and a few of the guys, in monkey suits, serving food at the next State Dinner. Our friends who were confined to D-Block, of course, could not come, but there were still enough of us to pull this plan off.

Rico nodded to me as the Kaiser got up from his seat and headed for the restroom. I nodded to Billy, he nodded to Bart, and so on. We swiftly but silently followed Sigmund. After he entered the men's room, we darted in ourselves. I locked the door as Fei, Rico, and Citan knocked the Kaiser to the floor and held him down.

"What's going on?" Sigmund demanded.

Fei got out a set of clippers and flipped them on. The low buzzing sound echoed off of the tile walls. "Take off his crown."

Rico complied, leaving the Kaiser's gray hair exposed.

Fei held the clippers just below Sigmund's left sideburn and began shaving it off.

"No!" The Kaiser screamed.

"So you like your hair, too, don't you, Siggy?" Fei mocked, switching off the clippers. Sigmund whimpered. "There are no underground hairstyling clubs," Fei told him forcefully. "We are your soldiers-we fight your wars for you. Do NOT fuck with us." He motioned to the others. They letthe Kaiser up and he ran from the room.

Skip to the car where Fei, myself, and the others were driving back. "Tell me something," Fei said.

"What?"

"You're a soldier, right? Does that mean you're ready to die at any time?" Fei started steering the car gently into the opposing lane.

"I suppose," I said, nonplussed.

"Are you sure?" Fei stamped down on the accelerator. Cars were now swerving to dodge us. "I mean, seriously, are you prepared to die now?"

I cracked. "No, for God's sake! Fei, turn us back!"

"Okay," Fei said, slowly turning back into the correct lane. "Don't worry, I was just jackin' around with you. I wouldn't really have-"

A car smashed into us. The world went black.

Underneath the blackness, there was always Fei's voice. "Don't worry..." he'd say. "It's time to...do...something..."

"Fei?" I asked weakly.

"Gears...without them...there's no reason...to fight..." And then Fei's voice went away.

I awoke with a blinding headache. I could tell by the sunlight streaming in through the boarded-up window that it was late morning or early afternoon. I walked slowly over to Fei's room, but he wasn't there.

Running downstairs, I noticed the bustle of activity that was happening. What had Fei been doing? A group of files laid upon the desk in the corner. I picked up the one titled Z. Modifier. Before I could flip through it, Bart took it from my hands.

"Everything's under control, sir," he stated.

"Where's Fei?" I countered.

"Sir?" he asked.

I didn't have time to repeat my query as suddenly the door burst open and Rico and Citan rushed in. They were carrying something that looked like a human body.

"What happened?" I asked.

"We were on a small mission," Rico explained as he and the doctor set the body down on the kitchen table. "We were supposed to distribute anti-war flyers to the people and post pacifist signs up. We weren't doing anything wrong, but the military police came and..." Rico stopped, on the verge of tears. "They shot Billy!"

Citan was trying to administer a poultice to the wound, but I could see it was too late. Billy had been shot in the head, and those kinds of wounds don't heal, even if the victim survives the initial impact. I think the others knew that, too, but it was hard for them to accept.

"He is dead," Citan said darkly. Possibly that was the shortest sentence I had ever heard leave his lips.

Rico snuffled. Suddenly, everyone in the kitchen was bawling uncontrollably.

"Stop it! STOP IT!" I yelled. Everyone was now looking directly at me. "I mean, sure, he was a person, with his own needs and desires, and yes, he was our friend, too. But this isn't just a passive resistance thing anymore, is it? For God's sake, weren't you all soldiers?! People die! Billy was a casualty of war."

"Of..war?" Bart stuttered.

"Yeah," I answered. "Sometimes, you have to take your enemy on his own terms, in his own home court. Look at us! We can all fight, all of us. We can fight but we haven't been doing it. They made the first move, now we have to finish this ourselves."

"I understand," Rico said. "Fighting is wrong, but if someone strikes us first, we have to defend ourselves. Next time we go out and put up flyers, if they attack us, we'll fight back."

I groaned. "That's not exactly what I meant."

Jump to me, flying my Gear to Dazil. I had found some ticket stubs from transcontinental transports that had Fei's name on them, and I was following the trail personally. I had been to Bledavik, to Aquvy, and even to Shevat, and it seemed that always I was one step behind Fei, but I knew Gears flew faster than mass-transit. I would catch up to him this time.

Like I've said before, you can always tell a member of Hair Club by his distinctive hairstyle. I wandered into military installations, clubs, and bars, asking for Fei, but no one would give me a straight answer.

In Dazil, though, I met a guy named Big Joe.

"What's up?" Big Joe asked friendly-like.

"I'm looking for Wong Fei-Fong," I said. "Have you seen him?"

"Por supuesto no!...sir."

Huh? "What?" I asked. "Do you know me?"

"Is ese some sort of examina, sir?" Big Joe said, bewildered.

"No," I said. "This is not a test. Who do you think I am?"

"Are you sure this is not a test?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Pretend I'm really drunk and I have no idea who I am. Tell me."

This explanation must have hit home with Big Joe, because he smiled and immediately said, "Tu eres Wong Fei-Fong, sir, though your pelo es red, and last time it was negro."

Jump to me, sitting in my hotel room in Dazil, confused, on the foot of the bed. Suddenly, Fei was there.

"Fei!" I demanded. "Why does everyone think I'm you?!"

Fei smirked. "I think you know."

"Because..."

"Say it!"

"Because...we're the same person."

"Bingo!" Fei said, grinning again. "I'm everything you want to be: peaceful, personable, I love women and am capable of initiating...liasons with them, oh, but now, I think I'm gonna have to take over for a while, if you don't mind." And I was unconscious.

When I awoke, I flew the Weltall back to Nortune. I had to stop Fei, but I didn't know what he was planning. I returned home, and checked the file marked "Z. Modifier" once more. It listed a phone number, so I called it.

"Hello," came a voice.

"Where am I calling?"

"The Zohar Modifier," he answered.

"Listen," I said hurriedly. "I think that something bad's going to happen. Tonight. You've got to get out of there-"

"Don't worry," he replied. "We've got everything under control, sir. We won't crack."

That was it. Fei was going to destroy the Zohar Modifier. Without its power, Gears would no longer function. How could I stop Fei's plan?

"I've got admit it, Mr. Wong," said the policeman, whom I now recognized as a member of Hair Club, "You're really setting a great example."

"What are you talking about?"

"You said that if anyone, even you, tried to stop Project Z, we had to shave his head." He brought out a pair of electric clippers and turned them on.

As one of the founders of Hair Club, my hair was very important to me. But, as I considered it, if I lost my hair, it'd grow back. So, I held still as they tore away my lovely red locks. It was painful, but it could have been worse. Lucky thing Fei was a pacifist.

I, however, was not. And, in Rico's words (when he used to be the battling Champ), it was ass-kicking time. I punched the first guard in the kidney, and he fell to the floor. The second, I kicked in the face so hard that he broke through the second-floor window and hit the ground with a thump. That was an accident. I hadn't fought for a long time, and apparently I had put too much force into my foot.

I gotta admit, I must have looked pretty stupid running down the streets that led to the Modifier, shaven head and all, but I had to find the Ether bombs that Fei had set and stop them.

Suddenly Fei was there. "Hiya, champ."

"Fei," I said, panting, "you can't do this. You can't disable everyone's Gears!"

"Why not?" he asked nonchalantly. "No Gears, no wars, right? Isn't that something worth just a little property destruction?

"And," he added, "no one's going to get hurt. The security guards are all our guys. They'll get out of there in time."

"Fei!" I growled. "I'm gonna stop you no matter what!" I launched myself at him. Unfortunately, since his body was only a manifestation of my mental schism, I fell right through it.

"That was smart," he remarked. He punched me in the face, and I began to lose consciousness.

The last thing I heard him say was, "How could you let them shave my head? That's unforgivable."

So, back to the beginning. Fei was there, in the suite at the Battling Arena, which happened to overlook the Modifier, pointing a gun at my head.

"Almost time," he said, looking at his-my-watch. "By the way, I used some Ether to grow our hair back. We looked so stupid bald." I saw from the window's reflection that it was true. My red hair was back at its usual length.

An idea popped into my head. "Fei," I said, "if we're the same person, why don't we have the same ideals?" I began slowly gathering Ether power.

"You got sick of fighting all the time, of killing indiscriminately," Fei explained. "Peace was a condition you wanted, deep within your consciousness, a desire to be free of violence and to be yourself." My Ether was almost completely ready. "I am the manifestation of that desire."

"Well, then," I said, preparing to unleash the Ether, "if you're just a part of me, then GET BACK IN HERE!" As I said the last, I focused the Ether both on Fei and on my mind. Fei struggled, but I had the dominant identity at this point, and no matter how Fei tried not to be, he was reabsorbed into my mind.

"Whoa," I said. Conflicting emotions were rollicking me. I both wanted the Zohar Modifier to be destroyed and I didn't. I slumped down in my chair, trying to sort out my feelings. I saw in the reflection that my Ether abilities were also causing me to shift from Fei's likeness and black hair to mine and my red hair.

"Mr. Wong!"

"Fei!"

Rico and Citan rushed into the suite, others following them. I struggled to stand up. "Hey, guys."

"Are you okay?" Rico asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I assured them. I stabilized my looks. Of course I brought it back to my normal self, rather than Fei's. They still recognized me in this form.

"We have brought the girl, just as you had asked us to," Citan said.

Elhaym was shoved forward. "What's going on here?"

With Fei's flair for the dramatic, I said proudly, "Watch." I focused my Ether on the bombs that were set.

The Zohar Modifier exploded. Light from the explosion showered the city of Nortune, and Elhaym and my subordinates glared at it in awe.

Just for effect, I kissed Elhaym. She reacted as I had expected her to, as I remembered her doing, from Fei's memories.

"That guy's a real man," one of my subordinates said.

FIN