This story is a parody of Gundam 00 wherein the characters are children going to school. Gundam 00 is my favorite Gundam series; Thus, despite the goofy characterizations, I don't mean any disrespect to the series. So, firstly, you might be wondering why this is labeled as a sitcom. It's mostly just because I envision it as a sitcom and it takes some inspiration from all those cookie-cutter school sitcoms, rather than it being structured as one. In the original story, there were some audience cues (example: Lockon enters the room and the audience cheers), but since they only appeared at the very beginning and then were dropped, and since they didn't add much to the story and were kind of annoying, I opted to remove them all. A forewarning to readers: this story contains some alcohol references.
The Celestial Being Foster Home: A Gundam 00 School Sitcom
At dawn inside a little house, in a living room canvased in junk mail, pages torn from magazines, and a few odd beer cans, Setsuna F. Seiei was glued to the television, watching a program about super-deformed humanoid robots saving the day: SD Gundam. Sitting on the floor beside him, atop a pamphlet of coupons for the local grocery store, was Feldt Grace, who was also watching the show, albeit with a more subdued reaction and glazed eyes. On the couch behind the two was Tieria Erde, who had a laptop on the arm of the couch and was typing out computer code for a project. Allelujah Haptism was in the kitchen, humming a merry tune while preparing everyone's lunches for school.
After a short, auspicious moment, a door to a back hallway opened, and into the room walked Lockon Stratos, a sly grin on his lips. He walked into the living room and in a chipper tone said, "Come on you two, that's enough television. We're going to be late to school."
Feldt reached over to the couch and collected her backpack, all whilst keeping her puppy eyes trained on Lockon, but Setsuna remained where he sat, his gaze torn between Lockon and SD Gundam.
"Captain Gundam…" Setsuna protested, pointing at the television.
Tieria raised his palm in the air and donned a conceited grin. "Just let the two robots watch their robot show. Someday someone will program their malleable child brains and they'll end up working for a questionable organization."
Lockon shrugged and sarcastically said, "Won't we all?"
"Not me," said Tieria. An evil grin spread across his lips as he pushed up his glasses with his index finger. "Soon, I will become an elevated being, a true and gifted innovator, and then all the insects beneath me will at last recognize my superiority, and they'll bow down and do my bidding!"
"Uh… okay." Lockon frowned and scratched the back of his head. He turned his attention back to the other two. "Come on. I'll drive us all to school in my brand new Dynames."
"Oooh…" Feldt said as she envisioned the shiny green car Lockon had gotten last week.
"Not so fast, mister!" Miss Sumeragi, the children's foster mother, burst into the room. Judging by the dark rings under her eyes, she hadn't gotten much sleep, possibly due to a hangover, and therefore was probably in a bad mood. "We haven't paid for the insurance on that thing yet! You can't go around driving it!"
"Aw, shucks!" Lockon said.
"I'll take you in the Nadleeh instead," Miss Sumeragi suggested.
Tieria slammed his computer shut and abruptly stood. "No! It's far too soon to reveal it to the school! The plan will be ruined!" The vehicle was ordinarily a bulky van, but underneath the removable outer layer was a much sleeker car. Keeping this convertible car under wraps was a key part of a plan Tieria had devised, but unfortunately Miss Sumeragi had gotten into an accident last week that had wrecked the outer layer.
Miss Sumeragi was in no mood for his nonsense. "Too bad, buster! That's the way it's got to be!"
Tieria clenched his fists and grit his teeth. Then he closed his eyes and went into sulk-mode. To cheer him up, Lockon put a hand on Tieria's shoulder and said, "You don't need a plan to be popular at school. Just be yourself."
"Tieria Erde," Setsuna said in agreement.
Feldt nodded at Tieria.
"Ridiculous! Do you fools have any idea how hard I've worked on this plan? And now I'll have to get to Veda at the computer lab to reconfigure it! Who knows if it can even be salvaged!" said Tieria, not cheered at all. Tieria chopped the air with his hand. "This is just absurd!"
Miss Sumeragi waved her hand. "Yeah, yeah. Just get in the car."
Setsuna, Feldt, Lockon, and a sulking Tieria loaded into the Nadleeh. Miss Sumeragi drove them to the school, revealing the Nadleeh to all the students who weren't so down in the Monday blues that they could spare a glance at the vehicle, thus ruining Tieria's plan.
But before that, ten minutes after they left, Allelujah came out of the kitchen with a stack of pancakes. "Breakfast is done!" He looked around and saw that the living room was empty. It only took him a few seconds to size up the situation. "Oh no! They left without their lunches!" He grabbed the stack of boxed lunches and ran out onto the streets in a vain attempt to catch the Nadleeh before it had gotten too far. "Marie!" he wailed, having forgotten that Marie was no longer a part of their foster family, having been adopted by Sergei Smirnov a month earlier. With the lunches stacked in his arms, he began the long trek to the school from Celestial Being's suburban home.
At the school, Setsuna hopped out of the Nadleeh and Miss Sumeragi floored it out of there before he could even shut the door behind him. Another student arrived at the same time and stopped in front of Setsuna.
"Oh, hi Setsuna!" he said.
"Saji Crossroad," Setsuna said.
"You remembered my name!" Saji said, a huge grin on his face. They went through this every day, but they were actually best friends, or so Saji thought anyway.
"Listen, Setsuna, I have a favor to ask, okay? I'll tell you after school."
"Saji Crossroad," Setsuna said again in an inflectionless tone, without even looking at the other boy. He strolled by Saji and headed to class.
In class, Setsuna sat in the far left back corner of the class, where the teacher couldn't see him. On this day, he pulled out his Gundam Exia model kit and began constructing it, which was very distracting to his neighbor, Christina Sierra.
"Hey, you shouldn't be doing that during class!" Christina whispered.
Setsuna ignored her.
"Oh no, Setsuna! The teacher is coming this way! You're going to get busted!"
Their teacher was a yellow-haired man who wore a mask that covered most of his face. He was called Mr. Bushido by everyone, though they weren't sure if that was his real name, and he was subbing for their regular teacher, Mr. Katagiri. With a stern look, he strolled over to Christina's desk. "Excuse me, Miss Sierra, but do you think chatting with your friends back here is more important than my lecture on the Theory of Possibility?" The Theory of Possibility wasn't on the curriculum set out by Mr. Katagiri, but Mr. Bushido had a special substitute license that permitted him to teach whatever and however he wanted.
"What?" Christina gaped. "But Setsuna was…" She glanced over at Setsuna's desk and saw that the Gundam model kit was safely stashed away in his desk. Setsuna gave her a bored look.
Mr. Bushido tapped his razor-sharp ruler against Christina's desk, snapping her attention back to him. "Next time, it's detention," Mr. Bushido said. He strolled back to the front of the classroom to continue his instruction.
Christina buried her head under her arms. "Why me? Can you believe this, Feldt?"
Feldt, sitting beside her, shushed Christina because she was listening to the lecture. Mr. Bushido had gotten to the Mega Hyper Particle Cannons and it was fascinating stuff.
Christina sat up and tried to listen, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Setsuna playing with his model kit again. Christina let out a big sigh.
At lunchtime, Lockon got worried when he saw Setsuna, tray in hand, standing just outside the lunch line. Setsuna stood there for a full five minutes without moving. Lockon sighed. "Come on, sit with me," he said. They found an empty table and sat down.
Tieria watched Lockon with a sly grin. "According to Veda's calculations, Lockon is the most popular guy in school. If I sit next to him, my popularity is sure to go up. Then I can move on to the second phase of the plan." So Tieria plopped down next to Lockon.
Christina, walking with Feldt at her side, also noticed Setsuna and Lockon. "Hey, Feldt, you know Lockon, right?"
Feldt nodded.
"He's so cool! Would he let us sit with him?"
"Yes. No problem"
"Great!"
The two of them went to Lockon's table, but as soon as they got there, Lockon stood up. "Whoops! I forgot I have to talk with Coach!" He dashed away.
It was too late for Christina and Feldt to retreat, though, so they took their seats at the table. Christina got the worst spot at the table: right between Feldt and Setsuna, and across from Tieria. Silence descended around the table as the three people around Christina focused on their lunches. Tieria, Setsuna, and Feldt did not even look at each other, and their indifferent silence and glazed and unfriendly eyes created an atmosphere of extreme tension. All Christina could do was keep her head down and nibble a roll. Things got even more awkward when everyone else finished their lunches and just stared blankly into space. The silence drove Christina to tears. "Why am I stuck here with these weird people?" she wondered.
"Marie!" a voice rang through the lunchroom, thankfully breaking through the silence at Christina's table and giving them all a commotion to stare at. The commotion was Allelujah, and he was rushing over to them with all their boxed lunches in tow. Huffing, he stopped at the table and said, "You all forgot your-" When he saw everyone's school trays, he grew pale. "You… you prefer school lunches? After all the work I put into these…" Allelujah sniffed and sniveled. "Fine. But Marie would never betray me like this!"
He spun on his heels, but was stopped by Setsuna. "Allelujah Haptism," Setsuna said. He held his hand out for the second lunch since he was still hungry. Allelujah just hurled all the boxes except for one across the table, then dashed away.
After the incident, Tieria glanced around the lunchroom. His lip curled into a snarl. He thought, "Curse that Lockon Stratos, abandoning me like this when I needed his popularity for the plan!" He balled up his hand and then slammed his fist down onto the table.
"Ahh!" yelped Christina, shocked by Tieria's sudden action. Her roll fell from her hands and rolled across the floor.
On the other end of the lunchroom, Allelujah reached the table of the A-Laws, where he found Marie Parfacy. "Marie!" Allelujah cried out, embarrassing her in front of Louise Halevy and her adopted brother Andrei Smirnov.
Marie's cheeks burned red. With a horrible, angry mien, she stood to face Allelujah and yelled, "I told you not to call me that! I'm Soma Peries!" Her adopted father had given her the new name, strangely forgoing to give her his last name and opting for Peries instead. Soma Peries loved the name her new father had given her and she had cut all ties with her old one, aside from enjoying the occasional parfait. She grit her teeth and then added, "And anyway, where have you been all day? You missed the first four periods!"
Allelujah scratched the back of his head. "Well, Miss Sumeragi forgot me, so I had to run all the way to school."
"Well, well, well: truant again, Mr. Haptism." From around the corner that marked the entrance to the lunchroom walked Principal Alejandro Corner. He had a condescending smile on his lips. "I suppose I'll have to see you in my office to dole out your punishment. It's a very serious offense, you know."
Allelujah gaped at the principal. "B-but…"
"What's going on?" asked Vice Principal Ribbons Almark as he strolled into the cafeteria after the principal.
"Ah, perfect. Take care of this delinquent, would you Ribbons?" Principal Corner waved his hand. "I have better things to do."
Vice Principal Ribbons scowled at Principal Corner as he walked down the hallway. Ribbons folded his arms behind his back and followed after him.
"Sir?" Allelujah said.
"Don't worry about it," Ribbons said, waving his arm dismissively.
"B-but the principal said…"
"Oh, he won't be principal for much longer," the vice principal said in an ominous tone.
With the crisis averted, Allelujah let out a relieved sigh, then headed back to the A-Laws' table, where he found Saji Crossroad telling a joke: "So, my sister was at the crosswalk, just standing there and not letting me pass, so I said, 'Kin-you-cross-road?'. Get it? Because that's her name: Kinue Crossroad!" No one laughed at the very lame pun, but they did laugh when Allelujah handed Soma the lunch he had made.
An indignant Soma Peries stood, slammed down her arms on the table, and cried out, "I'm a super soldier!" By this, she meant that she was a member of the school's ROTC, just as the rest of the A-Laws were. "So stop coming here and embarrassing me!" Her cheeks burned an even brighter shade of red now.
"But, Marie!" Allelujah said.
"I'm Soma Peries!" She stormed off to the bathroom and hid in there for the remainder of the lunch period.
"Marie!" Allelujah cried out. He sobbed uncontrollably for the rest of the lunch period and kept crying and sniveling for the rest of the school day.
Back at the table the other members of Celestial Being were at, Lockon had finally returned and taken his seat next to Tieria. He grinned when he saw Christina. "Oh, did Setsuna finally make a friend?"
"Gundam," Setsuna said as he shook his head.
"She's my friend," Feldt said.
"Oh, so Feldt made a friend. That's good, too." He patted Feldt on the head. The petting made Feldt smile, though her eyes remained listless. A spark of jealousy shone in Setsuna's eyes when he saw Feldt stealing all of Lockon's attention.
"How about you, Tieria?" Lockon asked.
Tieria closed his eyes and scowled. "Ridiculous." To show everyone how moody he was, he stood and stormed away. After that, he headed to the computer lab to log into Veda and update his plan.
Lockon sighed. "Jeez. I don't know what to do about that one."
Lockon sat down to eat his lunch. Across from him, Christina tilted her head down. With all the awkwardness and commotions, she still had hardly touched her lunch, but now that the most popular guy in school was sitting across from her, she was too nervous to eat. When Lockon tried talking to Christina so as to get to know Feldt's friend, his charming smile made Christina turn red and become completely tongue-tied. Lockon gave up after a while and everyone just watched Setsuna play with his SD Gundam figures until lunch ended. "Why me?' Christina thought, reflecting on all the nerve-wracking experiences she'd had that day.
After school, Setsuna was walking to his bus when he was accosted by Saji Crossroad. Saji stood in his way with a friendly grin on his face, but Setsuna just walked right by him.
"Wait! Setsuna!" Huffing, Saji caught up with him again. "I asked to talk with you after school, remember?"
"Gundam…" Setsuna murmured, casting a glance at his appointed school bus.
"Don't worry, I can get my sister to drive you home," Saji said.
Uncertain, Setsuna shifted his feet and kept one eye on the school bus while he lent an ear to Saji.
Saji took a deep breath, then said, "See, I have this problem… I told everybody in the A-Laws Club that I know everything there is to know about SD Gundam. Louise is really into it, you see. But I've missed a lot of episodes and now I don't know what to do." Saji clapped his hands together to beg. "Please, help me! I know you've seen all the episodes, multiple times in every language it's ever been dubbed in, and you have all the merchandise and guidebooks! You have to teach me everything!"
Setsuna's eyes lit up, and when he turned to face Saji, he had just one thing to say: "Gundam."
Saji was jubilant. "You'll do it? Thanks a million, Setsuna!"
And that day, Setsuna went with Saji back to his home and enlightened Saji on all the mysteries and wonders of SD Gundam.
Notes on the story: The scene in the classroom where Setsuna is building a model kit and Christina is irritated with him is based on another show, Tonari no Seki-kun. The Theory of Possibility and Hyper Mega Particle Cannons are a reference to Gundam Unicorn. Christina's awkward lunch is based on an actual scene from the show where she sits down to eat at the same time as Setsuna and Tieria. The pilots' personalities here are based on some quirks and traits they had in the show: In the show, Setsuna often said other character's full names when he saw them and he was also obsessed with Gundams and said Gundam a lot, so here he only says character names and variants of Gundam. In the show, Tieria was obsessed with Veda and Celestial Being's master plan, and often got quite upset and angry whenever something went wrong(such as when he was forced to reveal Nadleeh too soon), so here he has a master plan to get popular that he's created with the help of Veda, and he's always moping when things don't go exactly to plan. Allelujah had a split personality in the show, so here he is often behaving erratically (this is actually a post-writing justification, as all I really wanted was to have him scream, "Marie!" a lot). In the show, Lockon was usually cool and collected and acted as a mentor to some of the other characters, so here I've made him a popular kid who watches out for the other members of Celestial Being. Lastly, I feel the need to give apologies and explanations for a few things: Firstly, for making Christina not be a member of the Celestial Being foster family. The plot worked better when she was a normal kid on the outside of their family, so that's what I went with. Secondly, for making the Dynames and Nadleeh cars. All I can say is that I really wanted to do a joke about Tieria's plan being ruined, but I didn't know exactly how to incorporate the Nadleeh into the story. Lastly, for excluding Lasse and Lichty, and various other members of Celestial Being. But hey, I can only be expected to cram so many characters into a three thousand word story, right?