Carbuncle! The SD Gundam Story, Chapter 2

Oh, boy. Shute's really in for it now as his fur grows in. I have to admit, I'm feeling a little limited as a writer because I practically only write Shute stories, but this thing was Double F's idea. Next story... actually, the next story is a little Shute-centric too, but I do have some ideas for Captain and Baku! Maybe I'll try and shift this one towards everyone else.

Shute began to wake up the next morning, the key word being "began". He could feel Nana rubbing on his cheek bone, but the odd part was that while Shute knew it was his cheekbone, it didn't feel... right. Like Nana was wearing fur gloves. Wait no, it was like his face was wearing the gloves... wait... yep, something didn't quite feel right.

Shute's eyes worked open, his arms still holding tight to Nana and grappling her to his chest. He checked himself over with his eyes, over and over and over again....

Oh my go-

He was BLUE!

"MOM!"

&&&

"MOM-MA!"

Keiko sighed and kept mixing the scrambled eggs. Shute had probably just had another nightmare, he did that sometimes after he saw a dog the previous day. She barely even acknowledge when he son tugged on her arm, Nana babbling behind her pacifier. She sweeped her hair away from her eyes as Shute kept crying "Mom-ma! MOM!"

"Yes, Shute?" the exasperated mother wheezed. Keiko caught a glimpse of a blue shape out of the corner of her eye. "Breakfast will be done soo-"

Wait, blue? She turned her head completely.

It was Shute, all right. A very skakey, wide awake, covered-in-blue-FUR Shute!.

"AAH!" Keiko jumped back onto the counter, barely missing the stove. "Shute, what happened to you?!"

"I don't know!" Shute cried, holding Nana even tighter. The lights of the house shined off of his fur in a silky, soft way, although his human eyes were wide in terror. He was extremely hard to look at due to his new contrast; a bright red overshirt, yellow underbelly, and sky-blue skin was really hard on the eyes. His knees knocked and his teeth chattered with the force of his shaking body. "I just woke up like this!"

"Oh, my baby!" Keiko squished her son into her shoulder and hugged him until he couldn't breathe. "Oh, what did they do to you? I knew I should've never let you go dimension hopping with those Gundams! Look at you now! You look like your Aunt Peggy!"

"I look like that stupid dog that attacked me!" Shute moaned, Nana still playing with his fur.

And then Keiko, being smarter than she acted sometimes, got an idea.

&&&

She furiously dialed the number for SDG Base, getting Haro on the answering screen. "SDG Base here."

"Chief Haro, I need to speak with Captain Gundam immediately!" Keiko tapped her foot while the hand that wasn't holding the phone stayed glued to her hip.

"I'm afraid I can only do that in emergency cases, ma'am." Chief Haro recited.

"You think this isn't an emergency?!" Keiko pointed angrily behind her. "Look at my son!"

Indeed, there was Shute, still holding Nana as a security device. He smiled meekly at Chief Haro, the movement of his muscles making the fur from his mouth to his breastbone ruffle. "Hi, Chief Haro."

Chief Haro then made a surprised "G-WOAH!" noise and stumbled off camera. There were noises of him scuffling around on the ground, then getting back up. He arrived back on screen with his hat in his hands and his head off center. "This is an emergency! Forget talking to Captain! You wait at home, I'll send a Gunperry to take you both to SDG Base!"

Shute whimpered, partly because that knot in his stomach was getting tigheter from fear and partly because Nana was rubbing his arm fur the wrong way.

&&&

"He looks like a Build-A-Bear doll!" Bellwood laughed.

Shute snarled at him, "This isn't funny!"

Shute sniffed through his nose and looked around out of boredom. It was your typical doctor's office, the only difference being that this office was floating hundreds of miles above his hometown on a cable extending from a satellite. The walls of the office only held three dressings; an anatomical chart of the human body, a painting of a bowl of fruit, and a mirror. In that mirror, Shute could see that he was sitting on the observation table, crosslegged and in his underwear, watching as Kao Lyn turned flips and cartwheels around him while Bellwood laughed.

"Hmmm, very perculiar. Other than the fur, you seem to be doing perfectly normal!" Kao Lyn cheered as he spun around and landed on his toe.

Shute sighed loudly. "I know that much." A sudden jab of pain hit his stomach, and he doubled over. "OW! My stomache!"

Kao Lyn and Bellwood were both hovering over him in a second. "What happened!?" they asked. "Are you okay?" they finished.

Shute gurgled like something was caught in his throat. "I feel like I swallowed a firecracker."

"A firecracker?" Kao Lyn wondered.

Shute spun his finger around in a circle to demonstrate. "You know, one of those little buzzy things."

"I can never get those things to work," Bellwood mused.

"No time!" Haro pulled out something that looked like a bar-code scanner out of nowhere. "This could be serious! We must scan for any possible discrepincies in his organ system! Ye-OOH-woo-hoo!"

BAM! He inadvertently jabbed Shute in the stomach with his energy scanner, apologizing after Shute hissed at him. The machine slowly began to beep, but oddly enough the strange energy it was reading didn't come from Shute's stomach. Kao Lyn moved the scanner up, up, up...

It was coming from his head!

Kao Lyn barely had time to tell Bellwood that it was very odd when Captain burst through the door of the office and scooped Shute into his arms. The strong Gundam grappled his best friend. "Shute, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Shute blushed, but you couldn't see it under the fur. "Well, I'm blue and my stomache aches. Does that count?"

"Shute, this has gone out of my jurisdiction." Kao Lyn raised his finger as he spoke. "We have no choice. We had to send you to the hospital for an MRI."

"Oh, yeah! I've had one of those before!" Shute piped as Captain's grip tightened. "I had to have those a bunch when I was younger, 'cause I was born premature and the doctor's didn't know if I would die or not."

"Okay, enough talkin'! Let's go!" Bellwood snatched Shute's arm and tried to pull, but his hands (or gloves, rather) slipped off of the fur like water off a duck's back, sending Bellwood's spine into the corner of the observation table. "YEOW!"

"I'M SORRY!" Shute cooed, digging himself into Captain's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!"

"Please let me stay with him!" Captain begged Kao Lyn, but the wise man wouldn't hear of it.

"He needs to be in a fully staffed hospital with professionally trained doctors, Captain, not in an office with me and Bellwood! Now, let him go!"

The Neotopian Gundam looked Shute in the eyes one more time, hugged him, whispered something, then placed him on the ground. Shute shivered in fear as Kao Lyn led him out by the arm.

&&&

Captain left the office in a few minutes, greeted by Bakunetsumaru, Zero, and Chief Haro outside the door. Well, Zero technically didn't greet him; he was watching Shute walk down the hall with bugged eyes. "WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?!"

"I don't know," Captain moaned. His "stomache" was clenched and his fists were tightly closed; that couldn't be Shute! He was covered in fur... he was blue... His facial recognation drive was in turmoil. Was it Shute, or was it...

"Captain, Keiko said Shute was attacked by a dog," Chief Haro stated. "What kind of dog was it?"

Captain pushed the 'til-then-silent Baku out of the way ("Excuse you!" he yelled in surprise) and flashed a picture into the air; a picture of Shute and the blue "dog" right after it had head-butted him. "This kind," he said.

If Baku could blink, he would have at that moment. "What is THAT?"

"The so-called 'dog' that 'attacked' Shute," Captain answered in a mater-of-fact tone.

Cheif Haro pushed his head into his hand. "I knew THAT, Captain..."

"Yes, Chief Haro." Captain lowered his head in worry.

Zero was finally able to pull his eyes away from the hallway Shute had disappeared behind and took a hard look at the blue dog. "You know, that thing looks familiar." Zero crossed his arms and tapped one finger in thought. "Good news, bad news scenario..."

"Do you know what it is, Zero?" Baku asked.

"Well, that's just it. The good news is I had to learn about these things when I was a squire." Zero rubbed his chin. "The bad news is, I didn't pay much attention to anything when I was a squire..."

"Oh, the ONE TIME we need you for something, and you zone out!" Baku yelled.

Zero snapped back, a vein popping out of his head. "Don't you start with me! Don't make me tell Keiko all the times you almost called her one of your sister's names!"

"I have a lot of sisters! You only had one thing to learn about when you were a squishy!"

"SQUIRE!"

"WHATEVER!"

"GUNDAMS!" Chief Haro pointed down the hall. "Go accompany Shute to the hospital! I'll figure out what this thing is!"

"Yes, sir." Captain waisted no time in rushing down the hallway, Zero and Baku following a few seconds behind.

&&&

"Ooo, MRI tube." Shute playfully crawled in on all fours. "It looks a lot smaller then it used to."

Keiko stood on the other side of the observation glass along with three doctors (including Shute's doctor, Dr. Philip) and Captain Gundam, nodding and wiping her nose with a hanky. "You were much younger, Shute."

Shute looked into the glass from his spot on the bed, waving to people he new were there but couldn't see. "I was only five, Momma." He rubbed his arms for warmth, then stopped when his fur started to tickle him again. "When do we start?"

Shute didn't wait for a response and laid down on his back with his arms crossed, just as he had been taught. He looked up at the flourescent light in the ceiling, his eyes slowly drooping as his body forced itself asleep. He yawned, his fangs glimmering in the light.

"Will this hurt him?" Captain moaned, the emotion pouring from his voice.

"Not at all," said Dr. Philip, Shute's pediatrician. "He's had this done more times than I can count. Nothing bad will happen."

&&&

"Oi, Nana!" Baku chittered to the bouncing baby on his knee. The little baby was beginning to fuss, her fists stretched towards the last door she had seen Shute walked through. "Nakanaide. Don't cry."

"Ee bee bee!" Nana gurgurled. "Shoo! Shoo!"

"Nana, shush!" Baku slung her over his shoulder and looked to Zero, who was sitting next to him in one of those attrocious hospital seats. "Have you remembered the thing yet?"

The knight blushed lightly and lowered his head. "How do you say 'no' in your language?" Zero mumbled.

Baku raised his eyebrow. "Iie."

"That's it."

Nana began to squeal, and Baku bounced her again. "Nana, shizukani!"

"Talk to her in English, buffoon!" Zero hissed.

Baku pointed to Zero. "Damare!"

"Bakunetsum-"

BOOM!

Three doctors, Captain, and Keiko ran out of the smoking room, coughing and white with shock. Baku and Zero had barely gotten out of their chairs when Keiko began talking. "Nigennasai! Nigennasai! Shute wa-"

But she didn't finish. A glowing red light appeared into the smoke, and connected to that red light-

Was a slightly burnt, still blue, red-foreheaded Shute.

He felt terrible, mostly his stomache but now his entire body along with it. He'd been in the middle of the machine when the scanning light touched his head and exploded. He had come outside to find his mother, but he could see through his bleared eyes. The last thing Shute heard before he passed out was the sound of Zero collapsing to the floor in a dead faint.

Chapter two is done! Notes... uh... Don't look for pictures of carbuncles under "carbuncle" on Google. Carbuncles are also a skin sore that looks absolutely disgusting. You can't look under "Final Fantasy XI carbuncle" either, 'cause you don't really find anything. I'll ask Double F to draw a picture of one and put a link to it on my profile. DO YOU MIND, DOUBLE F!?