Gundam and Thunder
A Gundam Wing/World's Mightiest Mortals Fan fiction
Written by Cynthia Joy Finnegan
I don't own Gundam Wing; that would be Bandai. I don't own the copyrights for the Marvel Family, either, though I've made DC Comics an offer for them ($800,000.00, TWICE as much as they paid CBS Publications and the Fawcett family for them). So far, they're STILL the "property" of DC Comics, Inc., not that the idiots know what to do with them, but the originals are Public Domain, so there you go. Both sets of characters were used without permission and NOT for profit.
Gundam Wing © Sunrise/Sotsu. Marvel Family (unfortunately) ©DC Comics. Used without permission and not for profit.
Warning: This fic does NOT contain slash or yaoi. For some weird reason, I view the Gundam Boys as best friends, brothers-in-bond and mostly straight (though I do ship Trowa & Quatre), and the Marvels as a mostly ersatz family (Billy and Mary are twins). Sorry.
Summary: Waking up on the fabled Rock of Eternity, the Gundam boys are asked by the wizard Shazam to aid his chosen "children" to defeat an evil that threatens all life in both their time lines. Rated "T" for some minor profanity.
Where Are We?
Mmmm ... warm ... nice ... where ... where am I?
The first thing Quatre Raberba Winner noticed as he slowly woke up was that he wasn't sleeping cold on a narrow, uncomfortably ancient cot, nor barely covered by a moth-eaten old horse blanket, nor was he sleeping in his clothes again. Instead, he was wearing a slightly oversized blue flannel nightshirt, lying on a soft, warm feather bed and nearly engulfed in an eider down comforter.
The second thing the young, tow-headed pilot of the Gundam Sandrock noticed as he opened his turquoise blue eyes was that he was no longer in the huge, cold space cruiser he and his fellow pilots had been running missions out of for nearly a week. Instead, he was in a dimly lit room inside of a well-constructed, warm, and relatively draft-free building.
This place didn't look like Peacemillion at all. From the ceiling to the walls to the floor, the room he was in appeared to be some sort of a barracks hidden deep inside an ancient, colonnaded stone fortress, much like the complex belonging to the Maguanac Corps. If it had been Howard's space battleship, Quatre and his fellow pilots would be trying to sleep on bunks that were little better than a bare Gundanium floor and not in warm beds with soft mattresses.
Quatre contemplated lying in bed and enjoying its warmth for another few minutes, but his training took over, and the need to get up and assess his situation overrode any laziness he had considered. In addition, he needed a bath or a shower and some clean clothes in the worst way. Like the nickname his friend and fellow pilot Duo Maxwell had given him, Cat, Quatre had a fastidious nature. Not having had a proper bath in three days, he felt grungy, smelled awful, and needed to do something about it, and quickly.
No matter the temperature, water was a precious commodity in space and to be used for either cooking or washing hands and faces only. The fact that they had even had a functioning toilet (or at least it functioned after Duo and he had fixed it) had been a wonder in and of itself. No one had taken a bath in three days, and the angel-faced boy wrinkled his turned up nose in disgust when he caught a whiff of himself, which had begun to permeate his nightshirt.
Ugh, I'd better find a bathroom first and clean myself up. I positively reek, Quatre thought as he kicked the comforter off and sat cross-legged on the bed. He got a good look around the dimly lit room, and noticed his brother pilots were still asleep. It was right then that he found a package; his name was written on it in an elegant script.
Opening the bundle, he found not only a clean change of clothes, including a pair of boxer briefs, a golden yellow long-sleeved t-shirt, a heavy black jacket with white sleeves and gold piping, black jeans and two pairs of socks and a pair of black zip-front boots with heavy yet flexible soles. There was also a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, a bottle of baby shampoo, a pair of thick, heavy towels and a washcloth, his goggles, and a comb.
There was also a pair of terry cloth slippers in the package, which Quatre immediately put on his feet. They would do a good job of keeping his feet warm and off the cold stone floor. Seeing all this, the young empath was certain that he and his fellow Gundam pilots were guests, not prisoners, and that made him feel better.
Next to the package of clothes and sundries was a note that read:
If you're wondering where the lavatory and bathing chambers are, take the South corridor (that's the one to your right) to the first entrance on your left. You can't miss them.
A whimper from the second bed drew the young empath's attention. It came from his best friend and fellow Gundam pilot, Duo Maxwell.
Sleep-wise, Duo was the opposite of his fellows. In spite of his loud, cheeky manner and the jester's mask he always seemed to wear while awake, the boy who called himself Shinigami was a mostly quiet sleeper. Due to a broken nose he'd suffered while in Oz's custody earlier that spring, Duo now snored, though very softly. If Hiiro hadn't reset Duo's nose for him after rescuing him, it would have been much worse, but that old injury wasn't what was causing Deathscythe Hell's pilot distress.
No, what made the eldest of the Gundam pilots a noisy sleeper, though he didn't talk much about it with his fellows, was the fact that he was prone to terrible nightmares due to the tragedies of his past. Duo was having yet another one, right at that moment, and Quatre could feel the pain it caused his older "brother."
From what Quatre knew, chief among those nightmares was a replay of the cold-blooded murders of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, the closest he'd come to actually having parents, by Alliance and OZ forces when he was only eight years old. The only reason Duo had survived the Maxwell Church Massacre was because he'd run off to steal a Leo Mobile Suit for the rebel faction who had invaded the church and held the father, the sister, himself and the other children hostage.
When he finally managed to get back, the Alliance and OZ had obliterated the church and much of the surrounding neighborhood. Father Maxwell, the rebel faction, and 217 other men, women and children from the neighborhood were already dead, and Sister Helen joined them after giving the then eight-year-old boy God's blessing.
A moment later, Duo woke up all at once with a shudder and muttered "Aw, crap ... not again," followed with a particularly potent curse under his breath, his cobalt blue eyes blurry with sleep and unshed tears. Instead of the black priest's cassock and jodhpurs he normally wore, and had fallen asleep in the night before, he had on a black a-shirt and a pair of plaid pajama shorts that ended just below his knees.
"Duo! Thank Heaven you're awake!" the young empath exclaimed, relief flooding his wiry frame.
"Yeah, I'm up, but it's way too damn early to be," the boy with the chestnut braid replied. "Where in the Hell are we?!"
Quatre's voice hitched slightly. "I don't know, but I don't think we're on Earth or Peacemillion anymore. The stars are different here ..."
"Duo, would you and Quatre kindly lower the volume on your voices?" another boy's voice, edged with irritation, groaned. "Some of us are still trying to sleep."
On Quatre's other side was the one who spoke, Altron's pilot Zhang Wu Fei, who was just starting to wake up himself. The Chinese boy sat up, yawned, called Duo a jerk, grumbled some choice bits of Mandarin profanity, and then rubbed the sleep out of his nearly black eyes and pulled several strands of his nearly shoulder-length raven black hair, which had freed itself from its usual ponytail while he slept, out of his mouth.
"We were keeping it down, Wuffers," Duo responded, using the one nickname he knew would irritate his Chinese "brother." "That's why we only woke your grouchy ass up."
"Look, I don't call you "Maxie" just to annoy you, do I? You can call me Fei for short if you must, but stop calling me "Wuffers" or I'll pull out my jian and chop off your braid. Got it?"
"Whatever."
"And I have every right to be grouchy. I haven't had enough sleep yet."
Quatre started to ask his friends not to argue, but the call of nature got to him first.
"Guys, I can't hold it much longer! I'm going to the bathroom!" he announced quietly, trying not to squirm. "I've gotta pee, and I need a bath, badly!" He then slid off his bed, grabbed his packet of clothes, and ran in the direction the note had pointed him into, leaving a perplexed Duo and Wu Fei in his wake.
"Did Cat just say that he knows where the head is?" Duo asked, watching the skinny blond boy's rapidly retreating form hauling ass in the direction the note stated.
"Yeah, he did," Wu Fei replied. The two friends looked at each other, then back at the door, and then quickly scrambled out of their beds, grabbed their own bundles of clothing and sundries, and ran after the young Arabian boy, with Duo calling out "Hey, Cat! Wait up!" softly.
- - = = 000 = = - -
About thirty minutes later, Duo, Quatre and Wu Fei were cleaned up, dressed in the clothes they were provided with, and were now eating a breakfast of bacon (though Quatre, being Muslim, had steak), eggs, tomato slices, biscuits with real butter and honey, and drinking fresh hot coffee in companionable silence, letting their two comrades sleep a while longer. Whoever their host was, he or she certainly knew about the care and feeding of teenaged boys, and they didn't care that those boys were labeled rebels and terrorists back home.
Hiiro Yui and Trowa Barton had returned from their most recent missions, seemingly uninjured but utterly exhausted, around 3 A.M. that morning. Even with insulated flight suits on, they had both been so cold and tired that they collapsed face first onto their bunks without eating so much as a ration bar, nor even bothering to change out of those flight suits. Quatre knew what time they had returned at because he was half-asleep as the pair finally got back to their rack. He also felt the cramps wracking both of Trowa's arms, which had been chilled to the bone.
In spite of the pain he was enduring, Trowa, the pilot of the Gundam Heavyarms, literally fell into a deep, dreamless slumber the moment his head hit the thin pillow on his cot. Hiiro Yui, Wing Gundam's pilot, usually slept like a cat: for couple of hours at a time, and wherever he could find enough space to get halfway comfortable in, so it took him about five minutes to follow the emerald-eyed, acrobat Brit into the arms of Morpheus.
An empty stomach and the smell of freshly brewed coffee, something that the fifteen-year-old Gundam pilot practically mainlined, were quickly bringing him back to awareness. Like the others, Hiiro was wearing some type of bedclothes; in his case, they were a dark green wife-beater much like the one he normally wore, and a pair of dark green pajama pants.
Prussian blue eyes barely open, Hiiro padded over to where the consciousness-reviving fluid was, poured himself a large cup, and nearly inhaled it in one go without bothering to sweeten or pour cream into it. Feeling somewhat revived, Hiiro poured himself another cup, this time adding cream and sugar to it, and headed towards the table when Quatre stopped him.
"Uh-uh. Bath first, then breakfast," the pilot of Sandrock Gundam said firmly, turning Hiiro in the direction of the bathroom. "You stink. Bathroom's that way, first door on the left, and don't forget that package at the foot of your bed, or you won't have anything clean to wear."
Hiiro made a sound very much like a "humph," but loped back over to his bed and grabbed the package, then went to relieve himself and clean himself up. To his credit, the young Japanese pilot refused to surrender his coffee, but carried it with him to the bathroom.
"Ah, don't be like that, Hiiro," Duo said to his friend's retreating form. "The bathroom's a religious experience, and there's more than enough hot water left for both you and Trowa."
Meanwhile, Trowa was still sleeping heavily and quietly in the other bed directly next to the one the tow-headed Arabian boy slept in just a while ago. The British pilot was lying on his right side, his long, auburn bangs swept away from his eyes and across his forehead, exposing most of his handsome, narrow face.
Like with Hiiro, the smell of fresh coffee and a growling stomach conspired to keep the pilot of Heavyarms from further slumber and now, fully awake, the painful muscle spasms in his forearms doubled. Sensing his friend's pain, Quatre brought Trowa a bottle of pain relievers and a cup of coffee, then helped him to the bathroom, and Trowa gratefully allowed the blond-haired Arabian boy to help him.
A few minutes later, Hiiro and Trowa returned, much cleaner and feeling more human than before, sat down in two still-empty chairs and started eating breakfast. The pain in Trowa's arms was nearly gone, thanks to all the hot water they got to soak in, and the meal they tucked into would have put the best cook on Peacemillion to shame.
- - = = 000 = = - -
After finishing their meal, the five young pilots decided to get a better look at their surroundings. They were in space, probably further out than they'd ever been, and they were staggered by what they saw.
"Where do you think we are?" Trowa asked, trying not to sound as alarmed as he felt.
"Beats me, but wherever it is, I don't think we're alone," Wu Fei said, shrugging his shoulders, "and whoever they are, they're not evil."
"Well, it's not an OZ base, that's for sure," Duo said, his voice edged with awe as the boys entered what could only be called a throne room. "Place isn't fancy enough for 'em, it's too old, and I don't think the White Fang would have a setup like this, either."
"You're quite correct, young Duo Maxwell," came a voice from behind them. Standing behind the boys was an old, old man who had long, straight hair with a bald patch in the back and a long, full beard of the purest white. He was garbed in simple, loose fitting robes of deep blue and a pair of sandals.
"Allah!" the tow-haired boy gasped as he and his four comrades spun around to see who spoke.
For some reason, the old man reminded Hiiro of Doctor J, minus the glasses and the toy machine claw for a right hand. Of course, Doctor J had a full head of hair, moustache and goatee, too. The old mobile suit engineer did all he could to protect Hiiro, even from himself.
Why hadn't Quatre's empathy warned him about the old man or felt his presence? Then it struck him like a brick wall.
"You ... you're not alive!" the young Arabian cried out. As if to confirm Quatre's statement, Hiiro tried to grab a hold of the old man's robes, only to find his hands had passed through them like they were only a bit of mist.
"What the Hell ...?" the pilot of Wing Zero asked.
"Not for nearly four years now, Quatre Raberba Winner, when I first found a worthy soul to take up my life's mission to crush evil," the old man replied, his sky blue eyes twinkling merrily. He seemed to be enjoying the observations of these boys immensely. "For over three thousand years, I'd fought cruelty and injustice as the champion of my people. When the gods who gave me my powers were forgotten by all but myself, I turned to the other half of my heritage, wizardry, and continued for nearly seven thousand more. And I assure, Hiiro Yui, that I am, indeed, a spirit ..."
"That's not possible," Trowa said flatly, though his emerald green eyes betrayed the shock he felt.
"It is with magic, Trowa Barton, which is how you came to be here. I brought you and your Gundams here because your assistance is not only required, but it is desperately needed."
"Who are you? And how do you know who we are?" a still-skeptical Wu Fei finally found the voice to ask.
"I am Shazam, Zhang Wu Fei, and I know everything," the old wizard said. "Welcome to the Rock of Eternity."
- - = = 000 = = - -
Author's Notes: The Marvel Family I used in this is the version I created, which is based more on the original Fawcett characters than on DC's crappy "Big in Tights" one. Both the original Golden Age version and "my" Billy Batson has more in common with Hiiro Yui (with a bit of Duo Maxwell) than DC's does.
The colors of the Gundam pilots' t-shirts and jackets correspond with the colors of their mobile suits: Wing Zero is white, red and blue; Deathscythe Hell is black, white and red; Heavyarms is white, vermilion and blue; Sandrock is white, dark gray and gold, and Altron is white, green and blue.
For those DC fans who have never heard of Gundam Wing or Gundams, listen up. The Gundam franchise, which started on April 7, 1979 with Mobile Suit Gundam, was created by renowned animator Yoshiyuki Tomino, along with a changing group of Sunrise creators who went under the collective pseudonym of "Hajime Yatate." Series include the aforementioned Mobile Suit Gundam, Char's Counterattack, Z Gundam, ZZ Gundam, After War Gundam X, Turn-A Gundam, G Gundam, Gundam Wing (the pilots of which co-star in this story), Gundam Seed (including Destiny and Seed-A-Star), Gundam Unicorn, Mobile Suit Gundam: the Origin, and Gundam Reconguista In G.
And speaking of GW's pilots, Hiiro's name is pronounced "Hee-ro You-ee," and it means "the one and only." Quatre's first name is pronounced "Kat-tah-rah," the French word for four, and his middle name is pronounced "Reh-baba"; and finally, Trowa is pronounced "Troh-wah". All five pilots have special abilities that, other than Quatre's empathy (aka his Space Heart), will be covered in succeeding chapters. Let's just say that they're an interesting bunch, okay?
By the way, OZ stands for the Organization of the Zodiac. More on them later.
Yeah, yeah, I know ... "You made this old Shazam guy sound like Dumbledore!" Well ... old Shazam predates Albus by about 65 years.
Next Chapter: Meet the World's Mightiest Mortals.