Unknown Potential
by Seiri

A/N: Yay! You guys gave such kick ass reviews! Thank you so much! *bows*

Anyway, I got the salut for MM from Final Fantasy 8(I love that video game). And by the end of this chapter things may or may not make more sense*shruggs*.

And from this point on I'm dedicating this story to my dear friend Christina. ^__^

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Chapter 2

As time was passing by, Naota found it easier and easier to listen to the constant hum of machinery, computers, Medical Mechanica around him. He heard the far off high toned buzz that was the signal that would switch all of the worker robots on and alert them of their duties. Some of their screens would flash in acknolegement, others would give out corresponding buzzes, others flashed multicolored lights. For Naota, this meant that it was time that he wake up.

Naota had been given a room instead of a cell, although he was still indeed a prisoner. The room was small, half the size of his room back home, although well lit by lights that were installed into the sides of the ceiling. This clearly made it apparent that the walls were gray naturally, and had never been white. His room didn't hold much besides the twin sized bed and bedside table that already occupied it when he had arrived. A small pile of neatly folded clothes awaited him on the table. It was what he was expected to wear as a captive of Medical Mechanica. Basically, it was his school uniform, except in a dull gray. The fabric of which it was made was less stiff then his uniform.

It was ordinary.


Naota did suppose that he could have had it a lot worse though, he could have been thrown back into that cold metal cell. He did wish he knew what had happened to his clothes though, despite his foreboding feeling that he would never see them again.

After Naota dressed and fixed up his room, he was to walk out of his room, which was located in the lower decks near the prison cells were, and report to sickbay.

Naota sat down on the examining table, awaiting the robot that served as a doctor there.

There, every morning -or whatever you would call it when you couldn't tell and didn't know what time of day it was anymore- he would be weighed, his blood pressure would be taken, a sample of blood was taken, and -eventually- a urine sample was taken. He supposed it was to make sure he remained healthy, since his body was not used to being in outer space. The words of the youngest of the commanders rang in his ears, We don't need you dead -yet.

Besides, they were Medical Mechanica, why wouldn't they be aware of the medical health of their crew?

Naota would look away every time the needle for his blood sample neared his arm, he didn't care if it was childish to not be able to watch -he couldn't stand watching it penetrate his skin day after day. It had already formed a purplish-yellowish bruise.

It all made him feel like some sort of test subject, a lab rat -or a patient in the mental health ward of a hospital. He would never know if this was for his own good or not.

After this, however, he would get his breakfast from the slow moving robot that stood behind the counter in the mess hall. By then, anyone breathing had eaten, so he would be there among some of the lesser robots of the ship, cleaning and such.

Naota picked up a plastic bottle of what reminded him of pulpy orange juice and what tasted like a corn muffin, and sat down in the far corner of the mess hall away from the busy cleaning robots. He gazed out of the windows which made something of a boarder around the large room.

Stars.

The only thing visible outside of those windows was stars... thousands of them. It made him think of home, Earth. Earth seemed so far away, which -he reminded himself- it was. Days seemed to last forever on the station -melding into each other, living on Earth seemed like another lifetime ago. Naota really knew that he had been on this station for about four months. This meant that, on Earth, he had been missing for almost a year. Naota had learned that in the past few months -time was slower out here then it was on Earth, which meant that he had turned 15 recently, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly when.

This also explained Haruko's age. Haruko had said that she was only 19 years old when he had first met her. She wasn't really lying... she just wasn't going by Earth years, because that's not how she aged. If she were to say how old she was in Earth years... she was 76 years old. When Naota had first discovered that, he was a little freaked out for about a day. Then the fact that technically, Haruko was still only 19, clicked in his head. It was like dog and cat years or something... only backwards.

Naota wondered if anyone missed him. A shiver ran down his spine at the thought that everyone back home thought he was dead. It had almost been a year, but what did that mean for his dad and grandpa? -They must have thought that they had lost a son. How would his dad react to that? Kamon never seemed to take anything seriously, as far back as Naota could remember. And then there was his friends in school, Gaku -did Naota ever really consider him a friend?-, Masashi -who he didn't really mind, and... Ninamori.

Naota felt a pang of sadness in his chest as his thoughts stumbled on the mayor of Mabase's daughter. Despite her condescending attitude towards him -and everyone else for that matter, -he missed her. Come to think of it, he missed all of them -everyone-. Hell, he even missed Miyajun. Although he hated to admit it -Naota missed his life back in Mabase. He scoffed as the phrase You never know what you have until you loose it' ran across his mind.... but would he ever see his home again?

To Naota's surprise, he felt something wet drip down his face. After looking up at the ceiling to see if anything dripped on him, he lifted a hand to his face. The wetness was a tear, he was crying.

A voice in the back of his mind was yelling at him for being so weak and immature, but he could not banish that pain and sadness he felt in his heart as he thought of being able to return to his home. Wiping the tears away, he stood up from the table abruptly, causing some of the robots across the room to pause and study the disturbance. Naota left the Mess Hall quickly. He tried to pull himself together as he walked away from the Mess Hall, making sure that no moisture could be seen on his face. With a sigh, he started down the hall in the opposite direction of his room and sickbay.

Naota was free to walk the halls of the lower decks, but only so far. Outside of those perimeters, he had to be called for and followed by a guard of some sort, robot or human. So far, Naota had never been called up to the upper decks. His steps resounded in the empty gunmetal halls, showing how many actual people traveled down there. He traveled down a hall of vacant cells and medical supply rooms. Then he found it, the electronic gate that separated Naota from the rest of the station -and the universe.

He had come across it his first time walking around outside of his room. It glowed a blue light, crossing each other in mock cell door style, almost looking like some holy gate to paradise that he wasn't allowed to cross. People did pass by there on occasion, one time he had to hide in a nearby supply cabinet. Two crew members were on their way to the Mess Hall, and Naota was able to catch parts of the conversation they were having.

From that day he learned some interesting facts about something concerning Canti, which is why he occasionally stopped by over there now, just checking to see if he could find out anymore on his situation.

As it turns out, Canti's real was MMR X01, and he was really important to Medical Mechanica for some reason that Naota wasn't too sure about. They had lost Canti awhile ago, and could no longer track him like any of the other MM robots. Part of their plan was to recapture MMR X01 and bring him back to MM, to fix him or something(like when Haruko had hit him in the back of the head).

But Naota still did not know this... what did they want with him?



She had been traveling nonstop for what seemed like forever. Despite being slightly irritated from lack of rest, Haruko was driven to continue on without stopping for the fact that she might finally get something that she had wanted for a while. It was hard enough tracking them down, their trail was next to non existent. She hadn't checked in with her superiors -they didn't really have to know what she was doing, now did they?

Her mouth cracked into a smirk.

She had a plan. Those bastards wouldn't know what hit them.

Haruko sighed -how much further would it be?!

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If any of you wanna work out all the math now, don't worry about it -I did it for you already, it'll explain things later in the story. *nods* Thanks for reading! More is on it's way! *bows*