Hey guys! Thanks for the reviews! I had a question about ages, so I'll go
ahead and put them down.
Quatre: 15 Duo: 15 Wufei: 15 Trowa: 16 Heero: 15 Kyori: 14
Also, just in case anyone wanted to know, this story really won't follow the Gundam Wing timeline very well. Basically from here everything will take a complete U-turn. Actually, I don't think it really started out anywhere in the actual timeline anyway.
~Strangers in the Shadows!~
Chapter 3: Ancient Videogames and Late-night Battles
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Heero clicked away on his laptop. He was always on it, using it nearly as much as the gun he constantly pointed at anyone (namely a certain braided someone we all know and love.) This time though, instead of hacking into mainframe computers or school records, he was searching his email for any hint of a new pilot.
'Knowing Dr. J, he would have at least slipped somewhere. There's got to be some kind of clue!' He looked over at the letter Kyori had handed him earlier that day.
Gundam Pilots,
How are you? I hope your latest mission went well. I suppose by now you have met the newest Gundam pilot, Miss Kyori Erintor. She pilots Gundam 06, a Gundam crafted by the same technicians and mechanics who constructed 01.
She has been sent to assist you in your oncoming battles, as each will steadily become more difficult as time passes by. Please allow her to stay with you, and Heero, don't kill her.
Dr. J
He glanced back to his email and continued reading.
"Hmmm... No, not there... not there either..."
"What are you looking for?" In a flash, Heero had turned around and shoved the barrel of the gun into his onlooker's face, Kyori. She, on the other hand, hadn't looked surprised. Instead, she raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"Are you always this jumpy?"
"Hn."
"Really? Funny, it sure looked like it to me."
"Hn."
"Of course I understand you! I had a friend who spoke the same language. Believe me, being best friends with someone who doesn't speak often involves learning the same language they speak."
"Hn."
"Fine then. Good night to you too." She let out a small wave and left the room.
"Strange girl." He looked back to his laptop.
10 minutes later Heero let out a sigh. He'd looked though every email he'd gotten, and there wasn't a single clue anywhere about a new arrival. Every email he'd gotten for the past two months was in there, thoroughly read and reread.
He closed his laptop then carried it back to his room. After locking it safely up, he walked into the kitchen where Trowa was proceding to make dinner.
**********
"Yah! Ha! I beat you again Wu-man!"
"Shut up, baka!" Duo laughed and dodged as Wufei smacked him over the head. They had come into the 'Game Room' after dinner and for about the 50th time, Duo had beaten Wufei at an ancient videogame called 'Super Smash Brothers', a game that was popular in the late 1900's. Somehow someone had come across an extremely old Nintendo 64 and one of it's games, then taken it home for some evening entertainment. As usual, Duo had taken over it, dominating the rights for constant playing.
"New game?" Duo asked.
"Of course! I will defeat you!"
"Alrighty!!!" Duo pressed the 'play' button and the match started.
"Watch out! Mario's coming to town!!!!! I'm going to- AAHHHHH!!!! WHAT'D YOU DO THAT FOR??? NNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!" Duo was now frantically pressing random buttons as he attempted to get away from the attacking Samus.
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I have defeated you!!!! Victory is mine!!!! No woman or braided freak can defeat me!!!" Wufei let out a maniacal laugh.
Duo stared at the chinese boy strangely until he said, "Wu-man? I hate to break the bad news to you, but Samus is a girl."
Wufei began to choke. Soon he was rolling around the floor, clutching his purple face. Duo had to slap Wufei hard on the back to get him to breathe. Once Wufei's face had returned to a semi-normal color (he always was a little pale!!!) he rounded on Duo.
"What the hell do you mean, 'Samus is a girl'!!!!! There's no way HE can be a SHE!!!!! HE is way to strong to be some weak onna!!!!!"
"Just look in the character descriptions. See- there! Right there!!! It says SHE. Samus is a girl."
"Its just some typo!!!"
"Then why does it only say SHE throughout the entire description? Huh?"
"What are you doing?" While the two boys were fighting, they never noticed that Kyori had entered the room and had been sitting in Wufei's spot, listening to half of the conversation.
"Oh, hey Ky-babe!!! We were just playing an old videogame. Wanna play?????" Duo grabbed her arm and pulled her to the floor where she landed on top of Wufei. Once he had climbed out from underneath her, Duo handed her a controller and began telling her how to move the characters around.
"No, no!!!! You hold it this way!" He grabbed her hands and moved them around until they were in the correct spot. When she'd finally gotten her hands in the right position, he said, "Alright. Now pick a fighter."
Her eyes scanned the screen until she saw a cute little pink ball with a bow on it's head. She smiled and picked that one.
"Ok, let's roll!!!" He began the round. As he proceded to pound the crap into Jigglypuff, she was staring nervously at the screen. Finally Wufei leaned over her and pressed a few buttons. The pink blob began to sing, and Duo's man was stopped in his tracks.
"There, now kick his ass!!!" Wufei stood in the background, cheering for the girl. She pressed a few buttons and Duo was sent flying out of the arena.
She smiled and continued to thrash him the exact same way she had the past 18 lives. Eventually, "GAME OVER" appeared on the screen and declared Jigglypuff the winner. She stood up and said, "That was fun. Want to play again?" She gave him puppydog eyes and stuck her lip out.
"Oh no!!! People like you put holes in my ego!!!" She let out a wimper and tears started forming in her eyes. He sighed. 'How can I put up with her???' "Alright. One more game."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Kyori laid in bed, thinking about her first night with her new co-workers. 'And friends...' she thought. 'They seem nice. I admit, Trowa doesn't talk much, and Wufei can be a bit of a sexist, but I can get used to that. Quatre's... very polite. Yes, that's it. He's too polite for his own good, but that's better than being really rude I guess. Heero - I can get used to him.'
She smiled to herself. 'He's so much like Tamora. She rarely talked. So... quiet. I guess it's good I've lived with her for most of my life. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to understand Heero. I know I'll be able to trust him though. He's honorable.' She sighed and turned over, clutching her stuffed monkey Bongo to her side.
'Now Duo, he's someone I know I could like. Outspoken, rowdy, it makes me know that if I need a smile, he'd be there. And I have to work with him, that makes it all the better.' She frowned suddenly. 'Although, he probably just sees life as a game. A game of tag, little kids trying to tag each other. But now, instead of fighting not to be it, we're fighting to be it. To dominate the others so that we can rule.'
She rolled over again, now laying on her back, staring at the ceiling. She attempted to find faces in the pattern above, as she had when she was little. 'I'm not used to unfamiliar beds. It's going to take me a while.' Finally her eyes slowly slid shut as she closed off the world around her and allowed darkness to overcome...
BOOM! She sat straight up in bed, her eyes wide. Quickly she through off the covers and ran over to her desk. She opened up the bottom drawer and pulled out the special belt she usually carried. Inside it contained a pistol, extra ammo, plus a dagger.
She inwordly smiled at the dagger. 'The last gift I ever got from my parents.' Just before she'd left, her parents had given her hard, gundanium alloy dagger. The hilt was beautifully crafted, with small saphires, her favorite jewel, lining the outside.
Returning to herself, she threw it over her head and ran out the door. Entering the living room, she saw the other five pajama-clad boys with some kind of firearm in their hands.
"What's going on?" She asked them.
Quatre looked over at her replied, "It seems someone's decided they want to get rid of us. I don't know why anyone would want to do that though." He smiled grimly at her, then returned to the task at hand.
"What are we going to do?" Duo said, looking to Heero for advice.
"Hn."
"He says.... 'I don't know at the moment."
The other boys glanced at her. She smiled sheepeshly and said, "Hey, I had a friend who lives in the same world Heero does. I've learned to understand them."
A thought struck her. "Why aren't we using our gundams?"
"I guess we could try, but the direction of the explosion came from that way. They might have reached them by now." Wufei gave her a look as if saying ,'Duh, that is so obvious!'
"Alright. So lets go check on them. Come on." She ran out of the room.
"Why does she always want us to follow her?" Duo thought outloud as they ran torwards the gundam hangar.
Dodging occaisional falling debris, they eventually reached the gundams. It seemed that it wasn't the gundams that had been directly attacked. The ceiling had fallen in a few places, but the gundams seemed to be okay.
"Come on! We need to return the favors!!!" Kyori's voice ran through Gundam 06's external speakers as the gundam came to life. With quick nods, the other boys ran to their respective gundams and entered the cockpits.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Within minutes, six gundams were at the suface and facing the enemy. They stood there, shocked, for another few minutes, until Quatre said, "That's it?"
That's it indeed. The army that was attacking their home was no more than ten mobile dolls, mobile dolls who weren't in the best condition at the time at that. Apparently they hadn't noticed the gundams yet because they had yet to charge the gundams or raise fire to them.
"It seems they ran away from home and decided to play with little Billy after all." Duo said.
"Huh?"
Heero let out an annoyed grunt. "They've obviously gone against any commands they've gotten and decided that it only took ten mobile suits to destroy us. They must have thought if they found us before OZ and killed us then we wouldn't be able to pilot anymore." Kyori explained with a smirk. "But the only thing they did wrong, well, other than using minium MDs, is attack the wrong place in the house."
"Well lets destroy them before they can report where we're hiding!" Wufei shouted.
"Right."
All six began getting ready for battle. It was an unspoken command to all of them to drive the MDs away from the house as not to destroy it anymore than it already had been. So Kyori and Wufei, who specialized in close- combat, attacked the enemy head-on, gradually driving a few at a time away from the house where the others could open fire and destroy them. Soon, only one remained.
"Wait! Let me take this one!!!" The boys looked at Kyori, stared for a second, then gave in.
"Thanks!!! I need practice." With that, she pulled out the beam glaive in her left hand and began to fiercly attack the opponant. Strangely, she didn't just cut it straight down the middle, instead she was attacking it's sides, barely nicking off pieces of it. After a few minutes of this, she got bored and ran the glaive through the center of the now-completely- trashed MD, utterly destroying it.
The gundam bent over, hands on it's amored knees and head down, appearing to be trying to catch it's breath. Eventually it stood up straight again and walked over to them.
"Thanks guys!" Her voice said.
"Why'd 06 do that?" Quatre asked her.
"What?"
"You know... bend over and catch it's breath?" He looked at her as if it was totally obvious, but he still had a polite smile on his face.
She let out a sigh. "I guess it's time I explained a little thing about Death Angel." She began walking back to the hangar. The others shrugged and followed her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kyroi was the first one out of her gundam. She waited patiently next to 06 until the other pilots were standing in front of her. When Trowa finally arrived, completing the group of 6, she began.
"Okay. My gundam is um... how can i put this... drastically different from yours. Well, maybe not so much from 01 because of it's zero system... Anyway, 06 is newer, so I have a more recent system programmed into mine. Instead of piloting it completly on visuals and skills alone, I litterally become 'one with the gundam'." She smiled at Duo's face because of the eariler comment she had made when repairing her gundam.
"Once I enter the cockpit, my body is still there, but my mind merges with the gundam's. I become Death Angel. I see what she sees, I feel what she feels. Which is another drawback to this, because if she gets hit, I get hit too. If her hand gets cut off, I feel it too. It's called 'sympathetic pain'. I'm not actually injured, but I feel it." She let out a sigh, then took a deep breath. She then looked into the faces of the pilots, understanding dawning in them.
"So- So that's why your gundam shows exaustion!" Quatre said.
Kyori nodded quickly, smiling.
"You aren't, well, permanently hurt though are you? I mean, until you heal that is..." Duo asked.
"hmmm.... good question." She fingered her hair thoughtfully. "I don't know that one. When I met you was the first time I've piloted with Death Angel, and in both fights I've been in I don't think 06 has been hit."
"Hn."
"Oh, shut up!" She shot at Heero.
"Guys? We might want to leave here, because obviously OZ, or at least someone in OZ, knows where we are, and those rougue mobile dolls might have had enough time to report where it was before it was destroyed." Quatre glanced worriedly at the other pilots, and they just nodded.
"Quatre, how about your home?" Trowa asked him. Quatre nodded slowly. They'd never think that the six gundam pilots were currently residing in a beautiful manor.
"I think that's okay."
"Then lets get going!" Duo shout excitedly. He grabbed Kyori by the arm and began pulling her, pajamas and all, back to the bedrooms.
"We need to get dressed first." Wufei told them. He fingered the blue chinese style shirt and pants.
Quatre looked down at his own pajamas, a t-shirt and pants, then smiled. He looked over at Heero and Trowa and looked at theirs. Heero was wearing the same clothes he always wore, a green tank top and black shorts. Trowa was wearing a worn out old t-shirt and boxers.
"We leave first thing in the morning." Heero said, then he walked out of the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Ow!! Duo!!! Watch where you're going!!! OOF!" Kyori let out a woosh of air as she ran into a chair, then was once again pulled away. Duo, in an estactic phase, had dragged her the entire way from the hangar to their living quarters. He didn't seem to notice the abuse the girl he was pulling behind him was getting.
"Duo!!! You passed my room!!!" Duo let go of her hand without stopping his running and continued on to his room where he could pack his stuff.
"Hph! That hurt!" She said to the wall. She rubbed the sore spot on her arm and walked into her room. 'Well, that explanation went better than I thought it would.'
Pulling out the backpack she had brought her stuff in, she slowly began putting her few articles of clothing into it. 'At least they didn't seem afraid of Death Angel...'
Once she had stuffed her pants, underware, and shirts into the bag, she walked over to the bed and grabbed Bongo and found a place in her bag for him. Grunting as she pushed down, she thought, 'How come it always seems you have more stuff to pack after a trip than before a trip?'
Finally, with Bongo shoved in the top of the backpack, she walked over to the desk and put her hairbrush and hairties into the bag. Her arm reached over to grab the next object, but paused when she noticed it was the family picture she always kept. She stared at the three people occupying the frame, her mother, father, and herself.
Ever since she was little, all she could remember was a small house in the middle of a small, quiet suburb. She'd spent her childhood there, in the homey little cottege surrounded by dozens of other houses just like it. Gardens sat underneath windowsills, and green, perfect lawns stretched all the way to the street.
~Flashback~
A little girl ran up to a little Kyori. Little Kyori still had her put into pigtails, but they sat on the top of her head unstead of her current hairstyle. The little girl held out her hands and there was a ball. The brown-haired girl stared at Kyori with big blue eyes and silently, without words, said, "Want to play ball?" Kyori didn't need words, she could tell by the hand guestures what the girl wanted. She laughed and nodded, then ran farther out into the lawn until the girl threw the ball to her.
For hours the girls played, until the sun eventually went down. They ran back to each other, still smiling, and crushed each other in a hug. Finally, little Kyori said, "What's your name?" and the other girl realized that she's never said her name. In a whisper she said, "Tamora."
"I'm Kyori. I'll see you tomorrow, alright?" Tamora nodded and Kyori ran into the house.
~End of Flashback~
Slowly her hand crept up to her neck, where she pulled a thin chain out from underneath her shirt. With tears in her eyes, she opened it up and looked at the picture of herself and Tamora, both laughing, as they posed for the picture. 'This is the only thing I have from her... Maybe I'll see her again one day.' She closed the locket and shoved it underneath her tanktop before anyone could see it.
It was just in time, because a second later Wufei showed up in the doorway. "Are you ready yet? We leave at sun up and it's almost time." Kyori wiped away the tears in her eyes and nodded as she turned around.
"Yah, sure."
Quickly she grabbed the family picture and set it carefully in bag as she followed Wufei out of the room and into the livingroom where they met the other pilots.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Quatre: 15 Duo: 15 Wufei: 15 Trowa: 16 Heero: 15 Kyori: 14
Also, just in case anyone wanted to know, this story really won't follow the Gundam Wing timeline very well. Basically from here everything will take a complete U-turn. Actually, I don't think it really started out anywhere in the actual timeline anyway.
~Strangers in the Shadows!~
Chapter 3: Ancient Videogames and Late-night Battles
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Heero clicked away on his laptop. He was always on it, using it nearly as much as the gun he constantly pointed at anyone (namely a certain braided someone we all know and love.) This time though, instead of hacking into mainframe computers or school records, he was searching his email for any hint of a new pilot.
'Knowing Dr. J, he would have at least slipped somewhere. There's got to be some kind of clue!' He looked over at the letter Kyori had handed him earlier that day.
Gundam Pilots,
How are you? I hope your latest mission went well. I suppose by now you have met the newest Gundam pilot, Miss Kyori Erintor. She pilots Gundam 06, a Gundam crafted by the same technicians and mechanics who constructed 01.
She has been sent to assist you in your oncoming battles, as each will steadily become more difficult as time passes by. Please allow her to stay with you, and Heero, don't kill her.
Dr. J
He glanced back to his email and continued reading.
"Hmmm... No, not there... not there either..."
"What are you looking for?" In a flash, Heero had turned around and shoved the barrel of the gun into his onlooker's face, Kyori. She, on the other hand, hadn't looked surprised. Instead, she raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"Are you always this jumpy?"
"Hn."
"Really? Funny, it sure looked like it to me."
"Hn."
"Of course I understand you! I had a friend who spoke the same language. Believe me, being best friends with someone who doesn't speak often involves learning the same language they speak."
"Hn."
"Fine then. Good night to you too." She let out a small wave and left the room.
"Strange girl." He looked back to his laptop.
10 minutes later Heero let out a sigh. He'd looked though every email he'd gotten, and there wasn't a single clue anywhere about a new arrival. Every email he'd gotten for the past two months was in there, thoroughly read and reread.
He closed his laptop then carried it back to his room. After locking it safely up, he walked into the kitchen where Trowa was proceding to make dinner.
**********
"Yah! Ha! I beat you again Wu-man!"
"Shut up, baka!" Duo laughed and dodged as Wufei smacked him over the head. They had come into the 'Game Room' after dinner and for about the 50th time, Duo had beaten Wufei at an ancient videogame called 'Super Smash Brothers', a game that was popular in the late 1900's. Somehow someone had come across an extremely old Nintendo 64 and one of it's games, then taken it home for some evening entertainment. As usual, Duo had taken over it, dominating the rights for constant playing.
"New game?" Duo asked.
"Of course! I will defeat you!"
"Alrighty!!!" Duo pressed the 'play' button and the match started.
"Watch out! Mario's coming to town!!!!! I'm going to- AAHHHHH!!!! WHAT'D YOU DO THAT FOR??? NNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!" Duo was now frantically pressing random buttons as he attempted to get away from the attacking Samus.
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I have defeated you!!!! Victory is mine!!!! No woman or braided freak can defeat me!!!" Wufei let out a maniacal laugh.
Duo stared at the chinese boy strangely until he said, "Wu-man? I hate to break the bad news to you, but Samus is a girl."
Wufei began to choke. Soon he was rolling around the floor, clutching his purple face. Duo had to slap Wufei hard on the back to get him to breathe. Once Wufei's face had returned to a semi-normal color (he always was a little pale!!!) he rounded on Duo.
"What the hell do you mean, 'Samus is a girl'!!!!! There's no way HE can be a SHE!!!!! HE is way to strong to be some weak onna!!!!!"
"Just look in the character descriptions. See- there! Right there!!! It says SHE. Samus is a girl."
"Its just some typo!!!"
"Then why does it only say SHE throughout the entire description? Huh?"
"What are you doing?" While the two boys were fighting, they never noticed that Kyori had entered the room and had been sitting in Wufei's spot, listening to half of the conversation.
"Oh, hey Ky-babe!!! We were just playing an old videogame. Wanna play?????" Duo grabbed her arm and pulled her to the floor where she landed on top of Wufei. Once he had climbed out from underneath her, Duo handed her a controller and began telling her how to move the characters around.
"No, no!!!! You hold it this way!" He grabbed her hands and moved them around until they were in the correct spot. When she'd finally gotten her hands in the right position, he said, "Alright. Now pick a fighter."
Her eyes scanned the screen until she saw a cute little pink ball with a bow on it's head. She smiled and picked that one.
"Ok, let's roll!!!" He began the round. As he proceded to pound the crap into Jigglypuff, she was staring nervously at the screen. Finally Wufei leaned over her and pressed a few buttons. The pink blob began to sing, and Duo's man was stopped in his tracks.
"There, now kick his ass!!!" Wufei stood in the background, cheering for the girl. She pressed a few buttons and Duo was sent flying out of the arena.
She smiled and continued to thrash him the exact same way she had the past 18 lives. Eventually, "GAME OVER" appeared on the screen and declared Jigglypuff the winner. She stood up and said, "That was fun. Want to play again?" She gave him puppydog eyes and stuck her lip out.
"Oh no!!! People like you put holes in my ego!!!" She let out a wimper and tears started forming in her eyes. He sighed. 'How can I put up with her???' "Alright. One more game."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Kyori laid in bed, thinking about her first night with her new co-workers. 'And friends...' she thought. 'They seem nice. I admit, Trowa doesn't talk much, and Wufei can be a bit of a sexist, but I can get used to that. Quatre's... very polite. Yes, that's it. He's too polite for his own good, but that's better than being really rude I guess. Heero - I can get used to him.'
She smiled to herself. 'He's so much like Tamora. She rarely talked. So... quiet. I guess it's good I've lived with her for most of my life. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to understand Heero. I know I'll be able to trust him though. He's honorable.' She sighed and turned over, clutching her stuffed monkey Bongo to her side.
'Now Duo, he's someone I know I could like. Outspoken, rowdy, it makes me know that if I need a smile, he'd be there. And I have to work with him, that makes it all the better.' She frowned suddenly. 'Although, he probably just sees life as a game. A game of tag, little kids trying to tag each other. But now, instead of fighting not to be it, we're fighting to be it. To dominate the others so that we can rule.'
She rolled over again, now laying on her back, staring at the ceiling. She attempted to find faces in the pattern above, as she had when she was little. 'I'm not used to unfamiliar beds. It's going to take me a while.' Finally her eyes slowly slid shut as she closed off the world around her and allowed darkness to overcome...
BOOM! She sat straight up in bed, her eyes wide. Quickly she through off the covers and ran over to her desk. She opened up the bottom drawer and pulled out the special belt she usually carried. Inside it contained a pistol, extra ammo, plus a dagger.
She inwordly smiled at the dagger. 'The last gift I ever got from my parents.' Just before she'd left, her parents had given her hard, gundanium alloy dagger. The hilt was beautifully crafted, with small saphires, her favorite jewel, lining the outside.
Returning to herself, she threw it over her head and ran out the door. Entering the living room, she saw the other five pajama-clad boys with some kind of firearm in their hands.
"What's going on?" She asked them.
Quatre looked over at her replied, "It seems someone's decided they want to get rid of us. I don't know why anyone would want to do that though." He smiled grimly at her, then returned to the task at hand.
"What are we going to do?" Duo said, looking to Heero for advice.
"Hn."
"He says.... 'I don't know at the moment."
The other boys glanced at her. She smiled sheepeshly and said, "Hey, I had a friend who lives in the same world Heero does. I've learned to understand them."
A thought struck her. "Why aren't we using our gundams?"
"I guess we could try, but the direction of the explosion came from that way. They might have reached them by now." Wufei gave her a look as if saying ,'Duh, that is so obvious!'
"Alright. So lets go check on them. Come on." She ran out of the room.
"Why does she always want us to follow her?" Duo thought outloud as they ran torwards the gundam hangar.
Dodging occaisional falling debris, they eventually reached the gundams. It seemed that it wasn't the gundams that had been directly attacked. The ceiling had fallen in a few places, but the gundams seemed to be okay.
"Come on! We need to return the favors!!!" Kyori's voice ran through Gundam 06's external speakers as the gundam came to life. With quick nods, the other boys ran to their respective gundams and entered the cockpits.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Within minutes, six gundams were at the suface and facing the enemy. They stood there, shocked, for another few minutes, until Quatre said, "That's it?"
That's it indeed. The army that was attacking their home was no more than ten mobile dolls, mobile dolls who weren't in the best condition at the time at that. Apparently they hadn't noticed the gundams yet because they had yet to charge the gundams or raise fire to them.
"It seems they ran away from home and decided to play with little Billy after all." Duo said.
"Huh?"
Heero let out an annoyed grunt. "They've obviously gone against any commands they've gotten and decided that it only took ten mobile suits to destroy us. They must have thought if they found us before OZ and killed us then we wouldn't be able to pilot anymore." Kyori explained with a smirk. "But the only thing they did wrong, well, other than using minium MDs, is attack the wrong place in the house."
"Well lets destroy them before they can report where we're hiding!" Wufei shouted.
"Right."
All six began getting ready for battle. It was an unspoken command to all of them to drive the MDs away from the house as not to destroy it anymore than it already had been. So Kyori and Wufei, who specialized in close- combat, attacked the enemy head-on, gradually driving a few at a time away from the house where the others could open fire and destroy them. Soon, only one remained.
"Wait! Let me take this one!!!" The boys looked at Kyori, stared for a second, then gave in.
"Thanks!!! I need practice." With that, she pulled out the beam glaive in her left hand and began to fiercly attack the opponant. Strangely, she didn't just cut it straight down the middle, instead she was attacking it's sides, barely nicking off pieces of it. After a few minutes of this, she got bored and ran the glaive through the center of the now-completely- trashed MD, utterly destroying it.
The gundam bent over, hands on it's amored knees and head down, appearing to be trying to catch it's breath. Eventually it stood up straight again and walked over to them.
"Thanks guys!" Her voice said.
"Why'd 06 do that?" Quatre asked her.
"What?"
"You know... bend over and catch it's breath?" He looked at her as if it was totally obvious, but he still had a polite smile on his face.
She let out a sigh. "I guess it's time I explained a little thing about Death Angel." She began walking back to the hangar. The others shrugged and followed her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kyroi was the first one out of her gundam. She waited patiently next to 06 until the other pilots were standing in front of her. When Trowa finally arrived, completing the group of 6, she began.
"Okay. My gundam is um... how can i put this... drastically different from yours. Well, maybe not so much from 01 because of it's zero system... Anyway, 06 is newer, so I have a more recent system programmed into mine. Instead of piloting it completly on visuals and skills alone, I litterally become 'one with the gundam'." She smiled at Duo's face because of the eariler comment she had made when repairing her gundam.
"Once I enter the cockpit, my body is still there, but my mind merges with the gundam's. I become Death Angel. I see what she sees, I feel what she feels. Which is another drawback to this, because if she gets hit, I get hit too. If her hand gets cut off, I feel it too. It's called 'sympathetic pain'. I'm not actually injured, but I feel it." She let out a sigh, then took a deep breath. She then looked into the faces of the pilots, understanding dawning in them.
"So- So that's why your gundam shows exaustion!" Quatre said.
Kyori nodded quickly, smiling.
"You aren't, well, permanently hurt though are you? I mean, until you heal that is..." Duo asked.
"hmmm.... good question." She fingered her hair thoughtfully. "I don't know that one. When I met you was the first time I've piloted with Death Angel, and in both fights I've been in I don't think 06 has been hit."
"Hn."
"Oh, shut up!" She shot at Heero.
"Guys? We might want to leave here, because obviously OZ, or at least someone in OZ, knows where we are, and those rougue mobile dolls might have had enough time to report where it was before it was destroyed." Quatre glanced worriedly at the other pilots, and they just nodded.
"Quatre, how about your home?" Trowa asked him. Quatre nodded slowly. They'd never think that the six gundam pilots were currently residing in a beautiful manor.
"I think that's okay."
"Then lets get going!" Duo shout excitedly. He grabbed Kyori by the arm and began pulling her, pajamas and all, back to the bedrooms.
"We need to get dressed first." Wufei told them. He fingered the blue chinese style shirt and pants.
Quatre looked down at his own pajamas, a t-shirt and pants, then smiled. He looked over at Heero and Trowa and looked at theirs. Heero was wearing the same clothes he always wore, a green tank top and black shorts. Trowa was wearing a worn out old t-shirt and boxers.
"We leave first thing in the morning." Heero said, then he walked out of the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Ow!! Duo!!! Watch where you're going!!! OOF!" Kyori let out a woosh of air as she ran into a chair, then was once again pulled away. Duo, in an estactic phase, had dragged her the entire way from the hangar to their living quarters. He didn't seem to notice the abuse the girl he was pulling behind him was getting.
"Duo!!! You passed my room!!!" Duo let go of her hand without stopping his running and continued on to his room where he could pack his stuff.
"Hph! That hurt!" She said to the wall. She rubbed the sore spot on her arm and walked into her room. 'Well, that explanation went better than I thought it would.'
Pulling out the backpack she had brought her stuff in, she slowly began putting her few articles of clothing into it. 'At least they didn't seem afraid of Death Angel...'
Once she had stuffed her pants, underware, and shirts into the bag, she walked over to the bed and grabbed Bongo and found a place in her bag for him. Grunting as she pushed down, she thought, 'How come it always seems you have more stuff to pack after a trip than before a trip?'
Finally, with Bongo shoved in the top of the backpack, she walked over to the desk and put her hairbrush and hairties into the bag. Her arm reached over to grab the next object, but paused when she noticed it was the family picture she always kept. She stared at the three people occupying the frame, her mother, father, and herself.
Ever since she was little, all she could remember was a small house in the middle of a small, quiet suburb. She'd spent her childhood there, in the homey little cottege surrounded by dozens of other houses just like it. Gardens sat underneath windowsills, and green, perfect lawns stretched all the way to the street.
~Flashback~
A little girl ran up to a little Kyori. Little Kyori still had her put into pigtails, but they sat on the top of her head unstead of her current hairstyle. The little girl held out her hands and there was a ball. The brown-haired girl stared at Kyori with big blue eyes and silently, without words, said, "Want to play ball?" Kyori didn't need words, she could tell by the hand guestures what the girl wanted. She laughed and nodded, then ran farther out into the lawn until the girl threw the ball to her.
For hours the girls played, until the sun eventually went down. They ran back to each other, still smiling, and crushed each other in a hug. Finally, little Kyori said, "What's your name?" and the other girl realized that she's never said her name. In a whisper she said, "Tamora."
"I'm Kyori. I'll see you tomorrow, alright?" Tamora nodded and Kyori ran into the house.
~End of Flashback~
Slowly her hand crept up to her neck, where she pulled a thin chain out from underneath her shirt. With tears in her eyes, she opened it up and looked at the picture of herself and Tamora, both laughing, as they posed for the picture. 'This is the only thing I have from her... Maybe I'll see her again one day.' She closed the locket and shoved it underneath her tanktop before anyone could see it.
It was just in time, because a second later Wufei showed up in the doorway. "Are you ready yet? We leave at sun up and it's almost time." Kyori wiped away the tears in her eyes and nodded as she turned around.
"Yah, sure."
Quickly she grabbed the family picture and set it carefully in bag as she followed Wufei out of the room and into the livingroom where they met the other pilots.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~