Guardian Roommates: Chapter 7: Vacation Time

Everyone belongs to Capcom

We find Sage at the beach, still in his disguise as he's windsurfing. He seems to be enjoying himself, but not as much as a normal person would. Either he found his life too depressing or he just didn't get a thrill of things like everyone else.

Or perhaps he was more concerned with seeing someone he knew. What if Levi and Fefnir coincidentally went to the beach only to run into each other? It wouldn't be the first time. The grocery store, the post office, the hospital, the bar, the bowling alley, and even the shoe store.

Maybe Sage should've been paying attention to his windsurfing. He had been upside down and underwater for a good minute or two. Luckily for him, reploids don't drown.

He decided to just go on shore, relax and probably read a paper. He only hoped some kids wouldn't bury him in sand if he took a nap again.

After setting up, Harpuia just sat in the shade, taking off his shades to wipe them against the towel. He almost leaped in paranoia when the reploid next to him spoke.

"I suppose I'm not the only one who had to disguise himself to sneak out." spoke the stranger.

Harpuia fell in disbelief. The stranger next to him was also wearing shades, no armor, and was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and really long blonde hair. It was none other than the resistance reploid himself, Zero.

"I'm not even going to ask what you're doing here." replied a disillusioned Harpuia.

Earlier at the resistance base. Ciel was hoping to get Zero to run an errand for her.

Ciel broke into Zero's room, waking him up. "Zero! Zero-chan! I need your help again."

Zero thought his nightmare was bad, but waking up to Ciel was worse. "Five more minutes."

Ciel sighed in frustration. "ZERO!"

Zero crashed out of bed, wondering why he never just wrapped Ciel in a bag and delivered her to Neo Arcadia.

Ciel just gave Zero that puppydog eye look every time she wanted him to go on a mission. Zero noticed this look and just wanted to crawl under the bed.

"I need you to help transport an incoming delivery. 40 crates of food, weapons and supplies."

Zero flipped up, landing on his feet. "Get the resistance helpers ready and I'll be on my way."

Ciel looked down. "I'm afraid they won't be assisting you today, Zero."

Zero's jaw almost hit the floor. He had to go from point A to point B, carry a crate which probably weighed half a ton back to point A, and repeat. That, and probably having to deal with the random enemies that appeared for no reason. No freaking way.

He saw the taser Ciel was holding behind her back. He remembered the last time he said no, she held it up to his neck, begging him to help with even more of a 'pwease?' look on her face. But he got an idea.

"Fine. Let me get changed and I'll be ready shortly."

Ciel just waited there.

Zero cleared his throat. "Privacy? Hello?" He motioned his hand, pretty much saying 'shoo'.

She let out a sigh and left the room. She forgot that some male reploids are sensitive about privacy. After all, Zero wasn't a human. But then again, his new body was more human like, even on the outside. Or maybe she was a bit of a pervert herself.

Just as the door closed, Zero had used all the things in the room to block the doorway, even jamming the security lock. That is, with the exception of a surfboard, his clothes, and his sword, which he decided to take along just in case.

Ciel wandered around outside his room, noticing some of the noise in the ventalation pipe above her.

"We really need to get those cats out of there."

Zero took a huge sip of his drink with a smug expression on his face.

"The ventalation system? I thought you said you needed a disguise to escape." said Harpuia, reading an article on reploid cloning.

"When she realized I escaped, she sent everyone out to look for the red-armored reploid, not one who wasn't wearing his armor and let his hair out with a surfboard at hand." Zero said with a thumbs up.

"Incredible, we remove our armor and no one recognizes us." Harpuia replied, shoving more whiskey down his throat. He would've shared a toast with Zero, if he didn't hate him so much. Then again, Ciel was very similar to Leviathan, so he could sympathize a bit with Zero's torture.

Meanwhile, at the apartment, Fefnir and Leviathan were digging around Harpuia's room, which had clothes in all sorts of places.

"Why are some of my clothes in his closet?" Levi asked, holding up some of her clothes.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe he took the 'sounds like a girl' thing out of hand?" asked Fefnir.

Leviathan gave Fefnir an evil eye. "It occured to me that someone switched our clothes at the laundry on purpose!"

Fefnir just looked at the ceiling with a sheepish grin on his face.

"I can't believe how retro Harpuia is." Fefnir said, looking at the various decorations in Harpuia's room, as well as his music collection. His attention turned towards the huge tiki statue near the window.

"I remember these things. These things used to blow fire out of its mouth. Too bad Harpuia couldn't get his hands on a real one. That would be too cool."

Fefnir looked closely at the statue's mouth, only to find himself more fried than chicken.

"You're thinking about the miniature on Harpuia's dresser, moron." Leviathan said with no expression on her face. It reminded her of that one time he put his face up to a tank.

Meanwhile, Zero joined a volleyball game. He got a little nervous as all sorts of women were hitting on him. Harpuia had noticed and grumbled.

'No, instead of being created from scratch, you had to be made out of X-sama's DNA. Instead of your creator going nuts with your designs and making you look more badass than everyone in existence, you had to be the green lord of the sky, the one with the bizarre hairstyle, and the guy with the girlish voice.'

He reminded himself why he hated Zero again.

He then wondered. 'What if there was something to do about this mohawk? After all, Zero did have long blonde hair that people normally would confuse for a cape every now and then.' He then reminded himself about the hairs of his siblings. Leviathan had her short blue hair, Fefnir was bald, and Phantom had the long black hair that made him look even more badass.

Sage Harpuia with a makeover? It was a crazy idea, perhaps crazy enough to work. Well, with the hair, anyway. Instead of an embarrassing mohawk, maybe he could have something more natural. Of course, he'd have to ditch the wig, but it didn't matter. Many more advantages. It wouldn't be embarrassing to go out without his helmet and he wouldn't have to wear a wig. That, and his siblings wouldn't recognize him in public.

Harpuia found himself at the hair salon about a mile away from the beach.

"So, what can we do for you today?" the hairstylist asked.

"Change this." Harpuia said, slightly lifting his wig.

Zero himself almost heard the scream. He just shrugged and served.

"Yeah, now hurry up before everyone else sees." Harpuia grumbled.

"This will be my greatest challenge." the hairstylist whined. If Harpuia didn't know any better she looked like she wanted to throw herself into a volcano and sacrifice herself.

"If I didn't know any better I'd think Harpuia was older than Zero." Fefnir snickered, wearing an old shirt that said, 'The World Domination Rock Tour' Meanwhile, Leviathan giggled, wearing a shirt that said, 'Woodstock 2101' over her own clothes.

They decided to wear his clothes around the apartment, which changed every five to ten minutes. Later, Fefnir wore an old Gundam shirt, while Leviathan wore a shirt with Qbert swearing on it.

Fefnir finally decided to break the silence. "I wonder why we never see him in these clothes."

Levi wandered around in circles. "Probably because these are older than what we can remember."

If Sage wasn't going to have fun in these clothes, they decided they might instead.

"This is genius." Harpuia replied, looking at his hair. What was once a really long dark blonde mohawk was now short hair reaching to his neck, some of it covering the sides of his face. He was almost psyched, but it was like he was programmed never to show such expression. "So, how much?"

The girl gave him a check. 'I guess it's my turn to take some money out of X-sama's trust fund.' Sage thought to himself.

It was like the apartment over again. Sage was holding a stereo, blasting The Scorpions' Rock You Like a Hurricane. The whole beach seemed to turn their heads, even Zero. They had all recognized the shrewd guardian. Well, thanks to the green face patterns and the green clothes. He was strutting around like the pro he was...

At least, that's the entrance Sage had hoped for.

He just walked onto the beach like any other person would. Luckily, the spot he had before hadn't been taken. He decided to return.

After laying down and staring at the sun for some time, an exhausted volleyball player came back, surprised at the new guest.

"Um, I hope you know the guy sitting there isn't going to be too happy to see you in his spot." Zero said, not even looking at him.

Sage laughed, almost turning Zero white.

"Harpuia? Is that? But...!" Zero was surprised. Harpuia was without his helmet or a wig and looked... normal. "Holy crap, man."

Sage merely lifted his sunglasses off his face. "So, you like the new look, eh?"

Zero's pupils were just as small as a ball-point pen. "So you are a guy!"

Sage just blinked for a couple of seconds, before erupting like a volcano. "Of course I'm a guy!"

Meanwhile, a huge group of reploids, led by a human girl, arrived on the beach. The girl held up some binoculars. "That's gotta be him!"
Zero was running for his life. "I'm sorry! I didn't know! I forgot! Seriously!"

Sage was chasing Zero with his own sword. "That's not funny, Zero! Get back here so I can kick your shiny red and metal ass!"

Zero nearly tripped over some sand, but picked himself up. "My ass isn't red! That's just my armor!" Of course, since Zero was wearing swimming trunks, you couldn't tell from here.

Sage was still fuming, swinging Zero's sword madly. "It will be when I'm through with you!"

Suddenly, an angry female moved in front of Zero. "ZERO!"

Zero froze dead. Harpuia was still approaching from behind.

"Good boy! Now prepare to feel my wra-"

Before Harpuia could slice Zero in half, Ciel grabbed his throat. "This is between me and him. STAY OUT OF IT!"

Harpuia was completely dumbfounded by Ciel's fiery eyes. He just dropped the sword. In an instant, Zero picked it back up and ran away from both Ciel and Harpuia. Ciel immediately gave chase while Sage just watched the two run into the sunset.

"Zero! I can't believe you lied to me!" Ciel was yelling.

"You didn't get like this when I lied to you about that one girl kissing me!" Zero yelled, still running.

"You lied about that? You cheated on me! I'm going to kill you!"

"Cheated on you? We're not even going out, Ciel!"

"Get back here so I can put you back to work for minimum wage!"

"No!"

"I'm going to take you apart and make you into my new reploid manslave!"

"I have a weapon and I'm not afraid to use it!"

"Zero!"

By then they were gone. Cerveau just laid where Zero once was, noticing Harpuia's new look as he himself returned to his position. Sage noticed.

"If you say anything about me being a girl, I'm going to kill you."

"No, no. I actually think the look is rather fitting." Cerveau popped open a champagne. "Care for some?"

If Harpuia was programmed with emotion, his eyes might have beaded up. "Gladly."

"I think some of the girls over there also like your new look." Cerveau noticed, nudging Harpuia to get up. Sage finished his drink and looked up, and sure enough, about eight girls playing volleyball were waving at him. He nearly fainted, if Cerveau hadn't done something completely unexpected.

He had picked up Harpuia and tossed him like a basketball in the girl's direction. Lucky for Harp, he flipped over and landed on his feet.

"Um, hi."

Cerveau observed the ocean as the sun was near departure. Night was coming. Behind him, sounds of gagging and Harpuia begging for breath could be heard.

"Now that I've got Harpuia hooked up, Andrew owes me 100 crystals. Ha cha cha cha!"

No freaking way. A happy ending for Sage Harpuia? Perhaps, at least, until he returns to the apartment. What surprises will Fefnir and Levi have for him? What about jury duty? Will Harp have to go to court? Will Zero continue to interfere? Will Sage's new hairstyle let everyone know he's a male? Tune in next chapter.