"Hey you, be careful with that, this whole place could cave in any second!" Duo yelled at a worker who shrugged at him and continued his work and Duo shook his head coming to stand beside Quatre who was surveying the area carefully.
Quatre sighed deeply wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead. A week before today he hadn't been expecting to find himself on the site where old Crystal Tokyo used to stand. But Relena had commanded and he had obeyed, as was his duty. They had been given twenty or so workers to do the digging and at the moment they were trying to find a way beneath the dirt to reach the buried Crystal town.
"Hey Quatre what's the story with this Crystal Tokyo again?" Duo asked curiously. Relena had briefed him on the subject previously but he hadn't been paying attention to her, he hated to be lectured and he found Relena's voice annoyingly whiny and so blocked her out most of the time. Quatre complied with Duo's request, not at all fussed at having to repeat himself again.
"Legend has it that when the Gundam Wars began one Neo Queen Serenity created a place of perfect harmony called Crystal Tokyo, where she lived happily with her husband King Endymion and little daughter Princess Serena. They were protected by Serenity's Court, the Princess of Mercury, the Princess of Mars, the Princess of Jupiter and their leader the Princess of Venus. Twenty years ago they say something happened one night, something went wrong in the palace, there was a flash of light and the next thing anyone could tell was that the whole of Crystal Tokyo became encased in crystal, and sunk beneath the Earth," Quatre told the story again for Duo's benefit and Duo listened spellbound. Amazed that such a thing had happened in the history of the planet Earth.
"What about the people?" Duo asked and Quatre shook his head sadly.
"They were encased in crystal, frozen solid so the story says"
"And the Queen and her court?" Duo persisted his questioning.
"Disappeared I guess, no one ever found them," Quatre said frowning and Duo nodded his head.
"So now we are looking for them."
"Relena wants to know what happened to them, to know who her mother is, you can hardly blame her after everything that has happened this past week," Quatre said and Duo knew Quatre was right. He was always right. That was why Quatre was the leader and Duo did whatever he was told.
"Which is why we are here in the ruined Crystal Tokyo excavating the site," Duo finished smiling proudly and Quatre smiled indulgently.
"Exactly."
"Has anyone heard from Milliadros?" Duo asked remembering that Relena's brother had disappeared after the ball during all the commotion when everyone was fussing over Relena who had fainted, very princes-like in the middle of the ballroom.
"They haven't heard from him, when he heard the truth that he was not really royalty and had been passed over because he had no royal blood he was furious and ran off," Quatre filled in for Duo's benefit and Duo shrugged. He hadn't really liked Milliadros all that much anyway. Duo wandered away from Quatre to check on the progress of the other pilots.
"Heero, you found anything?" Duo asked Heero from where he was bent digging into the soft earth looking for signs of Crystal Tokyo beneath the dirt where it was assumed Crystal Tokyo once existed. Heero didn't even pause to acknowledge Duo's presence as he replied.
"No."
Duo stared for a few moments at Heero's working form and turned away to look for Wufei, hoping to get more of a response out of him.
"Okay…Wu-man what about you? Found anything?" Duo ducked as a shovel came flying at his head with a grunt that sounded something like 'injustice.
"Maxwell, I told you my name is Wufei you baka!"
"I'll take that as a no," Duo backed away tugging at his braid eager to get away from Wufei.
Duo gave up and started digging on his own and Quatre went to look for Trowa who had been digging away from everyone else. He was like a man possessed, Quatre had never seen Trowa so driven by a purpose.
"Trowa you found anything?" Quatre asked and Trowa wiped his brow with his hand, sweating pouring down his face and nodded towards the hole he had been digging in.
"Yeah I think so, its some sort of tunnel," he said and Quatre glanced at the hole but was more interested to know what was wrong with his friend. Trowa had never acted this way before.
"Trowa, you have been toiling all day and night without break, is something wrong?" Quatre asked ready to be a listener and Trowa gave him a look Quatre couldn't quite decipher.
"No why do you ask?" Trowa asked softly and Quatre fidgeted under Trowa's fierce look, daring Quatre to say aloud what he had been thinking.
"I see the way you look at Relena I just assumed."
"Well you assumed wrong okay?" Trowa interrupted him quickly. Too quickly. But Quatre wasn't about to push him. When Trowa was ready Quatre would be there.
"Okay."
"Hey Trowa found a way in!" Duo pointed out loudly and Wufei threw down his own shovel in annoyance coming over ready to go.
"Let's check it out"
"What about the workers?" Quatre said looking at the workers who were still digging away, not noticing that the entrance had been found.
"Forget them," Heero said disinterestedly walking into the tunnel and sighing Quatre, Trowa, Wufei and Duo followed him knowing their Perfect Soldier wouldn't stop until he had completed his mission. Just like the old days.
The tunnel went on and on, seemingly never ending until the five Gundam pilots came across something they had never expected to see. The tunnel ended at some sort of underground crystal city, everything had been covered by crystal. The streets, trees, buildings, everything and as they edged closer they saw people frozen in time by the crystal. Some waving hello at eachother, others just going about their daily business. Quatre stopped to stare at a young woman who had been in the process of trying on a necklace when she had just been frozen in crystal. Her mouth open asking the waiting sales attendant a question.
"They mustn't have even seen it coming," Quatre mused in shock and Duo pointed to the huge crystal palace at the end of the street.
"That must be where we can find some answers," Duo concluded heading in that direction and the other pilots agreed looking around them in shock, still spun out by what had happened in the past.
They followed Duo slowly and Quatre was watching the ground as he walked along the crystal path, amazed and awed by the cold beauty of it all.
"Duo I think we should be careful and…" Quatre looked up to find Duo wasn't ahead of them anymore.
"He's gone in already," Trowa said shaking his head and Quatre rolled his eyes. Duo never seemed to ever want to use a plan; he just had to run headfirst into everything. And then the rest of them had to bail him out like always.
"Hey guys, check this out," Duo called to them and going inside the Gundam pilots saw four girls standing in a circle dressed in long delicate dresses holding up in the centre of the circle, some wand-like devices over a stone circle etched on the ground. They were frozen in crystal like everything else and Duo had already wandered curiously among them inspecting the wands curiously. They were the only items they had seen so far that hadn't been entombed by crystal. Trowa gazed around him but saw nothing that would tell them of Relena's parents and so moved on to another room but the other four pilots stayed behind.
"Don't touch anything Duo," Quatre said warningly but Duo, as usual either didn't hear him or purposely ignored him, the latter seeming more likely.
Duo reached up to touch one of the wands, an orange one with a symbol on it. The girl whom it belonged to was tall, dressed in orange and her head was tilted proudly to the sky. She had long, golden blonde hair and for some reason Duo just knew that her eyes had to be a bright blue, and he couldn't wait to see her smile. But her face seemed so sad and full of disappointment.
"Look this has the symbol of a little man on it with a heart for a head!" Duo said laughing, while pointing at the said symbol and Wufei, Quatre and Heero became curious and joined Duo in the centre of the girls inspecting their wands.
"This one looks like an alien, it has antennae," Quatre said this quite seriously as he peered at the blue wand but that set Duo off laughing and Wufei gave a smirk finding Quatre's description amusing as well. What kind of a symbol was an alien? The girl the wand belonged to had short blue hair and eyes of blue that stared widely up at her wand, a reverent expression on her face, the blue dress she was wearing clung to her perfectly, accenting her figure.
"This one looks like a strange number four," Wufei said looking at the green wand shrugging his shoulder not knowing what that meant. The girl who seemed to be the owner of the green wand was tall; she looked almost like an amazon from tales of old. With her brown hair in a ponytail, and expressive green eyes focused on her wand, the green dress she wore seemed to be floating on air, as though a wind had swept passed just as she was encased in crystal. The three pilots turned to look at Heero waiting for him to describe what the red wand's symbol was. They kept waiting but Heero just gazed coolly back at them not offering any free information.
"What's the red one like?" Duo asked Heero and Heero grunted but answered.
"Some sort of arrow with a heart on the end," he said simply and crisply and the others shrugged not knowing what to make of this. Duo saw the others weren't looking and couldn't resist having a go.
"Look I'm a superhero!" Duo cried out grabbing the orange wand from the crystal figure's grasp and as he did that the other wands fell to the ground with a clatter, and he stopped his shouting to look totally embarrassed when the other pilots turned to him, identical looks of fury on all their faces, "Ooops"
"You baka!" Wufei hissed at him hurrying to retrieve the green wand ready to smash Duo over the head with it and Heero and Quatre retrieved the red and blue wands advancing threateningly on Duo.
"Ugh…" they heard the feminine murmur and as they turned around they saw the crystal melt off their captives and three of the four girls fell unconscious to the floor.
Only one remained standing, the one dressed in red, whose eyes were so sad. She was one of the most beautiful woman any of them had ver seen. Eyes of deep amethyst, hair of ebony, and a slender, waiflike body. Her eyes fixed on Heero, and it looked as though she recognised him for she gave half a smile of relief.
Heero pulled out his gun and trained it on her automatically but the girl didn't seem afraid as she took one small step and then another towards him. It looked as though walking after so long standing encased in crystal pained her but she kept going, her eyes fixed on Heero. Her arm was reaching for him and when she was close enough to touch him, her hand brushed by his face causing him to shiver from her touch, for no girl had ever touched him that way. Heero reached up and caught her hand in his grasp pulling the hand away from him and the girl's eyes rolled back into her head as she collapsed into Heero's waiting arms. Without thinking Heero swung her into his arms protectively, much to the surprise of the other pilots.
"They're alive," Duo stated unnecessarily and Wufei rolled his eyes.
"We need to get them to the Laboratory and tell Lady Une and Relena," Quatre said prepared for any situation as always, although this one hadn't been quite what he imagined finding down here.
"We will have to carry them out," Duo said, his face lighting up with glee as he scooped up the maiden in orange, cuddling her to his chest. Quatre practically turned into a tomato as he reached down carefully to cradle the girl in blue into his arms and all looked at Wufei who folded his arms across his chest shaking his head.
"I am not carrying an onna…" he said adamantly and Heero gave him one of the coldest gazes they had ever seen.
"Pick…her…up"
Wufei did as he was told without further argument and Trowa came out of another room carrying a canvas painting.
"What happened here?" Trowa asked wondering how his fellow pilots had come to have four beautiful women curled up in their arms.
"Duo."
Heero, Quatre and Wufei answered looking pointedly at Duo who gave a helpless grin shrugging his shoulders and Trowa raised an eyebrow.
"I see, I found this family portrait, it seemed the Queen of the Moon was pregnant and due around the time Relena was born, I think I may have found who her mother was," Trowa said holding up the painting, the date clearly visible on the bottom right corner of the painting and Quatre looked down at the unconscious girl in his arms.
"And these girls can tell us what happened to them."
"So let's go," Wufei said eager to get rid of the woman he was carrying. How was he meant to be proud when he was carrying a weak onna in his arms?