Worlds Apart

Part 10

By Mieren

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With only five people in actual combat against the entire Oz organization, the Gundam pilots were quick to latch onto any advantage they could get. Even if that advantage was a hyperactive dingbat of a ninja. Currently, Heero was reporting to J while Quatre and Trowa poured over maps and diagrams. Wufei, much to his chagrin, had landed the task of coaching Naruto on every military tactic in use. He was drilling the other boy on base layouts, mobile suit formations and vulnerable points on mobile dolls when Naruto finally snapped.

"I've had enough!" he wailed, clutching his head and falling over backwards. "I'll never remember all of this. Why do I even need to know the structural integrity of twelve types of metal in zero gravity? Last I checked, I can't fly!"

"Oh, the flying lessons," Quatre said distractedly. "I was supposed to get you that Cessna."

"Cessna?" Naruto yelped.

Airplane, Shinigami supplied.

"Are you people listening to me? I don't need to know any of this! Just point at something and tell me to blow it up," Naruto complained. "I agreed to help you defeat the Unification of the Nymphomaniacs…"

"Organization of the Zodiac," Trowa smirked.

"Whatever," Naruto griped. "But I didn't agree to listen to all of this crap until my brain was the consistency of steamed lettuce!"

"Your brain already was the consistency of steamed lettuce," Wufei sniped. "Now would you shut up and pay attention?"

Naruto glared, plopping back into his seat with a muttered, "Gonna feed your ass to a toad…" Wufei intended to ignore the threat as a moronic one when the ninja's face suddenly froze in shock. "My toads!" he yelped, racing outside.

"Toads?" Quatre asked Wufei. The Chinese boy looked ready to beat his head against the wall until the dingbat made sense.

"We're in the middle of the Sahara!" Wufei roared, following his psychotic charge outside. "The only toads here are horny toads and if I find you playing with lizards, I'm going to cram one up your ass!"

His ranting was cut off when Naruto's voice rang through the house at almost deafening levels. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" His outburst was followed by a cry of victory and a mortified yelp from Wufei.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"

That spurred the other three pilots to abandon what they were doing to locate the source of the commotion. Whatever they had expected to find, that wasn't it. They would have been less surprised to have found the two teenagers knocking boots. Hell, they would have been less surprised if they found an army of little green men returning Elvis. Of course it couldn't be so simple. Not where Naruto was involved.

Atop the head of a purple and red toad larger than a good-sized jeep sat Naruto, grinning maniacally. The pilots could only stare and sputter.

Okay, what is it and why are we sitting on it? Shinigami asked flatly.

"It's a toad," Naruto said proudly. "And I have a contract with them back home. I was trying to see if I could still summon them here."

Back home, Shinigami mused. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage. If I can establish a link between our worlds, I may be able to switch you two back.

Great! How long will that take?

How should I know? I'm the God of Death, not your damn chauffeur! Shinigami retorted. Go do something useful like put a poison technique on your toad to make him psychedelic.

I'll consider that, Naruto thought, rather amused by the idea. "Come on guys! What do you think of my toad? He could help out!"

"Naruto, a two ton purple toad is likely to be rather visible," Quatre said faintly, trying to think of a nice way to tell the ninja to get rid of the creepy thing.

"We could paint him," Naruto said cheerfully, not taking the hint that the empath really, really did not like the toad.

"You're not painting me," the toad objected. That seemed to overload the poor pilots' 'weird-shit-o-meter' and they scattered amid a good bit of cursing.

"That thing can talk?" Wufei shouted.

Trowa had remained the calmest of the set and was actually eyeing the toad with mute curiosity. His one visible eye had a mischievous look to it, a look that always made Quatre paranoid. It was always the quiet ones.

"How big can these toads get?"

"Well… Gamabunta is about two hundred feet tall and probably about forty tons or so," Naruto mumbled, completely guessing. "But he's no good. He won't listen to me."

"An amphibian that could crush a Gundam on the rampage," Heero summed up, beginning to see what Trowa had in mind. "Can you summon more than one at a time?"

"One Gamabunta is more than enough," Naruto muttered. "Yeah, I can summon more. I'd have to call them one at a time, though."

"That would take too much time," Quatre said, sounding relieved. He did NOT like toads.

"Just do your favorite technique," the toad suggested. No matter what the boy looked like, it was still Naruto's name on the contract.

"On you or me?"

"You," the toad said. "You can go on a summoning spree, accumulate a ton of us and then instantly be out of the way."

"Can you summon anything more dangerous than a frog?" Trowa asked, still trying to follow the plan. Naruto shook his head.

"My contract is with the toads," he said. "But I guess they could transform after they got here."

"Transformation is not possible," Wufei said derisively.

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too!" Naruto yelled, jumping down to face off with the Chinese boy. "Henge!"

Naruto vanished in a cloud of smoke, replaced by a buxom brunette vixen. He blew a kiss towards the pilots, watching for the best reaction. It was Wufei, hands down. The Chinese pilot made a strangled noise and suffered a severe nosebleed. Quatre turned bright red and averted his gaze. Trowa, man of zero expressions, actually snickered. A muscle in Heero's cheek twitched and he managed a strangled "baka."

"What good does that do?" Wufei roared.

"I walked right through that last base disguised as some blond named Sex."

"Zechs," Trowa snorted.

"That's what I said," Naruto protested. "They only caught me because he was somewhere else. Playing with his Tool Grease or something."

"Tallgeese," Trowa corrected. Naruto's constant mistakes in names and terms were quickly becoming amusing.

Naruto waved off the correction and finally, blessedly, dropped the transformation. Though it was amusing to get the other four distracted, he needed them able to work so he could get home. On that objective, he banished the toad since it made them so uncomfortable, and in Quatre's case, panicked. In a puff of smoke, he returned to looking like the Duo they knew.

"Okay. Your plans suck, but I have one," Naruto said, doing everything within his power to avoid them going back to their droning lessons. "Take one of my clones to a base and I'll have him duplicate and summon toads. They can destroy the base and I can banish the clones. I'm not even a target then."

"Clones?" Wufei asked warily. Truck-sized frogs he could handle, but more idiots? "Are you suggesting that you can make more of yourself?"

"Want me to show you?"

"NO!" all four pilots answered simultaneously.

"I could keep it small," Naruto offered, eyes glittering mischievously. Hey, Shin Guard.

Shinigami, you idiot.

How many copies can I make with your power and still have each of them summon a toad?

And I do that how often? Shinigami asked sarcastically.

"And how many is 'small'?" Heero asked, stupidly taking the bait. "Tell us, don't show us." Rats.

"Five is my normal starting number," Naruto admitted. "I've never had to go more than a hundred, but I'm pretty sure that I could."

Yikes. A hundred? Of you?

You stay out of this, Naruto griped.

"A hundred of you?" Wufei unknowingly echoed. Shinigami laughed his ass off. "What happens to them?"

"They disappear when they're too damaged or when I no longer need them," he explained. He garnered a number of disbelieving looks. "What? Do you want me to show you?"

"No," Quatre said quickly. "It's just that you seem more like a sorcerer than a ninja."

Naruto smirked. "Call me what you want. Just tell me what to blow up and then help me get home like we agreed."

"We'll find something for you," Heero said, going back inside. Quatre eagerly followed, disliking the toads and fearing that Naruto would summon another. Wufei bailed simply because he was tired of dealing with the strangeness. Trowa just got an even creepier expression than the one he had sported earlier.

"So tell me," Trowa said. "What other offensive techniques can you perform?" Naruto lit up like a light bulb, eager to talk to someone in this odd world that was interested in him.

"Well, for starters, there's Rasengan…"

/\/\/\/\/\

TBC…

Another installation from my notes. I have much more and if anyone wants to see it, I'm blackmailing the lot of you. R&R! It's the only way to motivate my butt to type!