NOTE: This is a sequel to my story "In the Shadow of the Hawk." Most of the characters (those from Gundam Wing) you probably know as I did not create them. The characters that are mine are as follows according to appearance in this story:
Trynity Stryfe: Former pilot of the Shadowhawk gundam, now pilot of the Valkyrie. She lives with the gundam pilots and has a relationship with Duo Maxwell.
Ivan Stryfe: Father of Trynity Stryfe, highly intelligent physicist/chemist who created the Shadowhawk gundam. He is the caretaker of Seaside Lab, guardian of the gundam pilots and physics teacher at the Royal Academy.
Lars Nelson: Former officer in the Coalition rebellion, now the pilot of the Epyon. He's tall, dark and handsome, and too good-looking for his own good.
Colonel James Benton: The advisor and aide to Miliardo Peacecraft. The king and queen of the Cinq Kingdom would be a hopeless wreck without his guidance.
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Shopping Center, Cinq Kingdom, New Port City
"Someone has yet to explain why, when we come to shop at the mall, the only place we go is this damn video store!"
"Listen, pumpkin, you were given the opportunity to shop with Relena and her bunch of friends…"
"Oh, please! Father, that isn't much of a choice!"
Trowa glanced up from the video game he was playing when Duo left his side. Since they had been playing a two-person fighting game, his fun was spoiled.
"Hey, Trynity, let's just go get a malt or something."
"Forget it! I can see that you want to be at this moronic store just as much as the rest of these fools." Trynity Stryfe walked to the door, then turned to look at the six gundam pilots and her father, Dr. Ivan Stryfe. "I will be at the bookstore."
"That is a great idea." Lars Nelson, the good-looking pilot of the Epyon gundam, tossed aside the game hints guide he was paging through. "There was a book I was interested in buying."
"Hey, you can get me the latest issue of Spiderman too, while you're at it," Duo called to him as the tall, dark-haired young man left with his girlfriend. He returned to Trowa, then frowned at him when he saw that he had shut off the game. "Hey, why'd you do that?"
"Didn't know how long you were going to be with your wife."
"She's not my wife."
Trowa walked away muttering under his breath, "She might as well be." He joined Heero who was scrutinizing the shelf of video games. Quatre was several feet away admiring the action figures while Wufei was discussing the finer points of a computer strategy game with the salesclerk. Dr. Stryfe, of course, was conversing with another regular customer whom he would meet there to discuss their progress in his own video game.
"Peace is boring," remarked Heero.
"Sick of the Zorbon knight?" asked Trowa. He knew that he was sick of that particular video game.
"There is absolutely no challenge in beating all you guys again. I'd rather be in my gundam, but as there aren't any wars around, I guess that I'm stuck playing video games to keep my skills honed. As for the Zorbon knight, there is only one person I might consider worthy of playing, but she won't even consider it." Then he added, "Bitch."
Trowa thought Heero was a little harsh. "We all knew she was a serious, no nonsense girl."
"I thought Duo would soften her up a bit. He's done a hell of a job trying down at the beach every night."
Trowa glanced at Dr. Stryfe to see if he had heard, but the scientist gave no indication that he had. No one was certain whether Trynity's father knew that she sneaked out at night for a little recreation down at the beach with Duo Maxwell. Although he could not logically be that obtuse, he was, after all, the epitome of the absent-minded professor.
"You don't really have time to play a game tonight, anyway," commented Trowa. "Drivel gave us that short story project. We have to have a two thousand word story written by tomorrow."
"No one can win in her class. To her, your best effort is crap. So I'm just going to hand in crap. I'm not wasting any time on writing anything of value." A salesgirl reached over Heero to place a new game on the shelf. "Where did that come from?" he asked her.
Trowa was more interested in the girl. "So what is your name?" His relationship with Catherine wasn't really going anywhere and this girl didn't turn his stomach like most did. She had dark hair, dark eyes…
She rolled those dark eyes at him, then looked at Heero without answering Trowa. "It's new. I was unpacking the shipment and I found that one copy on the bottom of the box. It's not even on the inventory list."
Heero examined the game. "The Lost Prince. Looks like a role-playing game." He looked at Trowa who had given up on the girl. She wasn't his type anyway. He had yet to meet one that was. Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with him, why he wasn't all that interested in the kind of relationship that Duo had, not with Catherine, not with any girl. "How about I play the game and you can get some ideas for your short story? Drivel won't know any better. Jot down the story as I play."
Shrugging, Trowa followed him to the counter. "I don't have any better ideas."
Soon after Heero purchased the game, they left the video store en masse, and at Duo's insistence, they hunted down Trynity and Lars, finding them, much to Duo's annoyance, not at the bookstore, but at the ice-cream parlor sharing a malt. If Trowa didn't know any better, he'd say that the god of death was jealous. Lars and Trynity could have been an item, and although Lars was dating Hilde off and on along with a host of other girls, he made no secret that Trynity was the one that got away. Duo kept Trynity close by until they returned to Seaside Lab at which time they disappeared to write their compositions together. Trowa wondered how much writing was going to get done. Dr. Stryfe was preoccupied by his work in the lab, and a message from the king concerning that work had him excited, so he had little time to worry about his daughter's behavior.
Grabbing a sandwich and a can of soda, Trowa joined Heero in the recreation room after a brief detour through Quatre's garden. Although he thought Heero's idea was half-baked, he did have his notebook and pen ready to copy anything worth using in a story for his literature class. Drivel had given them notes about the elements of a good story, and maybe Trynity had them, but Trowa was going to save himself the embarrassment of walking in on whatever she and Duo were up to by not asking to borrow them.
Unfortunately, as he settled on the futon, he started to feel a little sleepy, probably from a combination of being out too late the previous night with Catherine and the little something he smoked out in Quatre's garden before fixing himself a sandwich. Now that was stupid! How was he going to get his work done? His eyes began to feel heavy as the opening credits rolled. The only thing he saw of the game before drifting off to sleep was the very beginning of the opening scene, a planet in space, illuminated by two suns and circled by two moons.