Channel 125- The Arabian Desert

It took a lot of effort to return Momo to the hanger because he was a failure at piloting, but they eventually got him back. Then it took even more effort to fit the two Gundams into the ship as well, since they had established a truce on account of the fact that David wanted to talk to everyone, whether their conversation would be riddled with bad puns or not!

The two doors on the Gundams opened up and the pilots descended to where the others were already waiting.

David took off his helmet first, and Inui made the observation that the remote had transformed to thirty-eight. Everyone applauded.

"And this must be Bane!" Saeki established as the other pilot landed, but everyone quickly realized that he was not Bane. After all, Bane is gynormbously tall and this fellow was… quite the opposite of that.

He took off his helmet to confirm their suspicions that he was not Bane. He was some incredibly short Chinese boy.

"Is this some random guy who is on Rokkaku?" Kirihara asked.

Inui held the remote up to him to see that the number was not going down. "I don't think he's a tennis player," he established.

The kid scoffed at them and then strutted by as if he was entitled.

"Don't mind Wufei," said David. "He's kind of…antisocial."

"We noticed," said the others.

"Who is he?" asked Itsuki.

"I don't know," David replied. "When I appeared, I was with him for some reason. We both had the same giant robot suits, so I figured I'd stick with him until he ditched me."

"We met a random antisocial robot suit pilot too," said Atobe, pointing at their pilot friend.

"Oh, that's just Heero!" said David with a laugh.

The pilot glared and then decided that he was too good for the conversation too so he joined Wufei in the cockpit.

"But why am I standing here giving you all answers?" said David, putting his hands on his hips. "How about you all explain to me what's going on?"

"Well…" Inui started.

--Insert explanation here—

"Oh," said David with a nod. "So you're a pirate!"

"Right," said Inui.

David laughed. "Don't you think you're going a little overboard?"

"I'm already sick of his puns," said Shishido.

"Ditto," chimed everyone else.

"So what made you guys think that Bane was with me, anyway?" David asked as if they hadn't just been talking about how annoying he was.

"Well, as I explained," Inui began. "Generally we have found people in twos. And, for the most part, the person they are paired up with makes sense."

"Except for Kaidou and Kamio, that didn't really make too much sense," Taka noted.

"Those two played against each other," Momo pointed out. "Hiyoshi and Shinji made less sense."

"Oh right," nodded Taka.

"So what's our mission?" David said.

"We haven't received it," Inui said. "I take it by the fact that you were confused as to why we thought Bane was with you that he is not actually with you."

David stared at Inui blankly. "Whoa," he said. "I did not understand what you just said at all."

"Bane's not with you, is he?" Oshitari translated before Inui could just repeat exactly what he had said.

"No," said David.

"Well, we haven't received the mission, so that means someone else is in this Universe," Inui said.

"We still have to get to Earth," Taka said. "That pilot we were with said he met up with someone who plays tennis on Earth."

"It was probably David, wasn't it?" Itsuki suggested.

"I haven't been to Earth yet," David said.

"Then that means there is definitely another person here," Atobe said. "So let's go get some more information out of those two guys."

They all went back into the cockpit where both Heero and Wufei were sitting. They had changed out of their spacesuits in record breaking time. In fact, they broke their own records and were now sitting in the pilot and co-pilot seat in absolute silence. They didn't even move or react when the massive group entered.

Inui turned to everyone else and said, "Actually, I think it might be best if David and I spoke to them alone."

"Why?" said Oshitari.

"Because," said Inui. "Look at them."

Everyone leaned over and stared.

"Okay, point taken," they grumbled.

All the people except Inui and David retreated back into the hanger where it was more spacious. David and Inui went over to where Heero and Wufei were sitting idly by.

"So…Heero, your name was?" Inui started.

"If you tell anyone about me, I'll have to destroy you," Heero threatened.

"Same here," Wufei agreed.

Inui only stood there looking stupefied.

"Don't mind them," David said. "They say that to everyone, but only actually destroy roughly twenty percent."

"Why 'destroy'?" Inui asked.

"As opposed to…?" David said, looking confused.

"Kill?" Inui suggested.

David looked very confused. Wufei and Heero turned around and looked at Inui with equally confused expressions on their faces.

"Is that one of your smart words that only two people know the meaning of?" David questioned.

"…" Inui said. "It's a fairly common word."

"I have literally never heard that word before in my life," said Wufei.

Inui was about to question about how that could possibly be so, but then he sorted out his priorities and realized there were much more important matters to address.

"Heero," he said. "You said you met up with someone who spoke about tennis. Is David that person?"

"No," Heero answered.

"Who is the person?" Inui asked.

"I told you I don't remember his name," Heero responded as he faced forward again.

"What did he look like?" Inui tried.

"I don't remember," Heero said.

Inui had a hard time believing him, but he didn't want to end up being among the unfortunate destroyed twenty percent.

"Fair enough," said Inui. "But you do remember where to find him, right?"

Heero didn't answer at first.

"Who are these guys?" Wufei asked Heero finally.

"I don't know," Heero answered. "I'm just repaying a debt, but they're turning into quite the hassle."

Wufei looked satisfied with that as an answer. Inui was about to say something, but Heero raised his hand.

"We're about to enter Earth's atmosphere," he said. "Tell your friends to brace themselves and be ready."

"Come on," David said to Inui.

The two of them went back into the hanger.

"What did you learn?" Kirihara asked.

"Absolutely nothing," Inui replied.

"You shouldn't bother talking to them, really," said David. "They're pretty annoying."

"Are all Gundam pilots annoying?" questioned Momo.

"Of course not!" said David. "There's me!"

And they all slapped him for that one.

"And besides…" David said as he rubbed his cheek sadly. "Me and Wufei met another pilot a few days ago. He wasn't like those guys at all. In fact, he said he was heading to Earth to meet up with an ally…I wonder if that ally is this person we're looking for…"

"Would it be better for us to travel with this other pilot you are in contact with?" Inui questioned.

"At this point we're heading into the Earth's atmosphere so it's not like we can change—" David started, but he was interrupted because there was a massive rumbling that sent everyone careening off into the air. It's a good thing they were in a zero gravity situation or else several people would have been gravely wounded.

"Oh right, we were supposed to warn everyone about that," Inui said as they all got back together.

"Thanks," said Kirihara sarcastically.

"Maybe after we land, David can contact this other person who would be better to travel with," Saeki suggested.

"Do you have a way of contacting him?" Choutarou asked.

"Yeah," said David. "Through my Gundam."

So they all took advantage of the zero gravity and flew over to the cockpit area of David's Gundam. However, they quickly realized that they were on Earth again so therefore zero gravity was no longer in effect, but they only realized that after they had leapt into the air and crashed to the floor like fools. So they picked up the little pieces that remained of their pride and calmly walked to the Gundam instead.

David got inside and pressed a few buttons and a screen appeared to the side of him. There was an uberly friendly looking young blond boy on the screen.

"David! Hi! How are you? How is Wufei? Change of plans?" he said, sounding so content and excited that even Eiji died a little inside.

"Hey Quatre, you could say that," David said. "We're heading to Earth right now. Are you there yet?"

"I just landed," Quatre replied. "What made you change your mind?"

"Who's that ally you're meeting up with?" David asked.

Quatre looked puzzled at first. "Well, to be honest, I'm not exactly sure," he admitted sheepishly. "All I know is that he's a Gundam pilot like us. He contacted me and I'm always willing to meet with allies in our quest for peace."

David looked over at everyone who was waiting for something productive to come from the conversation.

"Would you mind if we showed up too?" David asked. "I'm here with Heero and Wufei and…" His eyes wandered to everyone else who was clearly out of Quatre's field of view. "And…some friends."

"Of course," said Quatre. "The more the merrier! I'm sending you my coordinates now. Have a safe journey!"

The screen beeped a little bit, and then his image disappeared.

"He was optimistic," Choutarou commented.

"You have to have a good altitude to be a good pilot!" said David with a laugh.

"You already said that one," said Shishido with a frown.

"I did?" David looked sad. "Well, I wanted to share it with everyone else too."

"Why?" said Shishido. "It was stupid the first time."

"Regardless," Inui cleared his throat to get attention. And everyone knows better at this point than to not give Inui attention when he asks for it. "How long will it take us to get to this enthusiastic and optimistic fellow you just contacted?"

David double checked the coordinates. "Well, according to these coordinates, he's in the Arabian desert."

"So…is that easy or hard to get to?" Eiji asked.

"It's kind of like swimming," David shrugged. "It… deep-ends!"

Just when David was about to receive the beating of his life, in what must have been RECORD BREAKING TIME, the plane rumbled as it landed on the surface on the Earth.

"That was quick," Saeki said.

"The world seems to work that way here," David said.

"Speaking of this world working in odd ways," Oshitari said as he just remembered something. "How come people die randomly in this Universe and people don't bleed?"

David blinked. "Bleed?" he repeated.

"Yeah," said Oshitari. "You know. Like if you get a cut. You bleed."

David slowly started shaking his head.

Everyone smacked him.

"What was that for?" David demanded.

"We don't want to have to deal with your jokes!" said Kirihara.

"I'm not joking around!" David said. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You know, blood!" said Shishido. "That red stuff in your body that comes out of you if you break skin!"

David still looked ultimately confused.

"Forget him," said Atobe. "Let's just get to the Arabian desert so we can see if this guy is meeting up with someone who may or may not be the person we're looking for." Atobe paused a moment after his comment. "I just realized how ludicrous that sounds."

"It's the only plan we've got at this point," Inui said regrettably.

The door to the hanger opened up and they all looked over to see Wufei and Heero standing there looking angsty and emo.

"Coming to Earth wasn't exactly on my agenda," Wufei commented as he made his way to his Gundam.

"Hey Wufei!" David called. "I'm not coming along with you."

"I work better alone anyway," he said as he used super human jumping abilities to get inside of his Gundam and turn it on in record breaking time. He revved up his Gundam and disappeared from the ship in only a few seconds without incinerating a single thing!

Then David looked down at Heero who was only casually strolling out of the hanger. "Hey, why don't you take one of the Leos with you?" David asked.

"I'll just draw attention to myself," said Heero. "Are the rest of you coming?"

"No, we're going to stick with David and head to the Arabian desert," Inui replied.

If Heero was partial to any sort of facial expression whatsoever, he might have made one right then and there. Instead, he only nodded, and was gone.

"I guess that means we get to keep the plane," Momo remarked. "Does anyone know how to fly one of these things?"

"I could figure it out," Shishido said. "Give me a few minutes."

Shishido went to jump off towards the door like it was still zero gravity but he luckily remembered at the last second that they were on Earth so therefore gravity was once again in effect. So he just walked.

"How long is this going to take to get there?" Itsuki asked.

"Well, things in this Universe tend to go pretty quickly," David said. "So I'm willing to bet we'll be there by the next chapter."

And David is probably right.