CH 9
CRACKLE!
BOOM!
Duo woke up. What was that loud bang? Duo found himself lying face down in some hay. There was a terrible smell.. like something burning.. something like hai- Duo was jerked into consciousness when he realized the tip of his braid was a light.
"FUCKING-OW!-OW! -OW! -OW! -OW! -OW! -OW! -OW! -OW! -OW!"
Duo scrambled to crush the tip of his hair into the nearby dirt, smothering the flame with his fingers. Hearing some rustling, Duo looked around… sounded suspiciously like… puffy pants…
"Fei?"
(crickets chirp).
"Not cool, man. Really not cool." Duo noticed his voice sounded high pitched. He remembered with a groan, that he was chibi. Did that tree move? Instinctively, Deathsycthe's pilot reached for his gun, crouched, and inched away from the hay. It sounded like there was some sort of party going on…
In a flurry of leaves and gumdrops, Chinese children, who wore puffy pants and elaborate face paint, ambushed Duo. As a few girls lit sparklers, Duo didn't wonder how his hair had moments ago seemed to spontaneously combust. A child, who was wearing slippers with tiger faces and a tiger likeness painted on her own face, threw her arms around Duo's neck and growled playfully. Duo cracked a smile. He realized that mean little girls, who had obviously mistaken him for a little girl too, were surrounding him. He growled right back! The children laughed and made roaring sounds, glad that their new playmate was playing along! The girls found themselves ambushed by lil Chinese boys in puffy pants and tank tops (and a few more pairs of tiger slippers), who were accompanied by a pack of Lost Boys all of whom were painted to look like horses, monkeys, and lots more tigers. The wild girls let out war cries and put up a good showing, but eventually were taken prisoner, purely because they we so hopelessly outnumbered by the boys. As Duo found himself being marched toward a bon fire, having been taken prisoner for the THIRD time that day, he wondered if chibi's ever did anything other than fight. Now that the dust had settled Duo perused his captors. He spotted Quatre, but Heero wasn't among them. Quatre's hair was disheveled and sporting a splotchy blue dye job. Sandrock's pilot also had stripes of green war paint on his face. The sight disturbed Duo. A wilder side of Quatre was something he chose not to speculate about for a reason. The Chinese kid's settlement was very close. It was less of a march and more of a redirection.
There was a ring of tents around a bonfire. A few people were dancing as performance for the others, but most people were milling around and enjoying themselves. Duo spotted Pan almost immediately. Peter was sitting at the feet of a gentleman, who wore long robes and could only be described as sagely, with Heero and Wufei at his sides. Duo didn't even notice that he had been cut loose until he found himself being dragged into a tent by a gaggle of girls who were eager to play with his long, brown, exotic looking hair. Duo was less excited about the idea, but (once again) hopelessly outnumbered. Inside the tent, he protested as they began to loosen his braid, until he noticed a blue ball of light fluttering happily around the children.
"Hey," Duo pointed, "What's that?"
"That's Penelope," a little girl with two large buns of hair on her head giggled, "Penelope come over here!"
The ball of light sank with a happy bounce, into the child's cupped hands, only to find herself abruptly presented to Duo.
"Please don't bite me!" Duo flinched.
"Penelope the fairy, meet the newbie. Newbie, meet Penelope the fairy"
"Eh?" The fairy smiled mischievously and spoke with a voice that jingled, "Who bit you?"
"Uh- Tinker bell?" Girls brushing and re-braiding his hair distracted duo.
"Ha! Lucky you! So you must be so confused right now!"
"Basically."
"Did anyone else get bitten?"
"Dunno.."
"It's easy to tell! Does anyone else remember life before today?"
"NO-"
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Sucks to be YOU! That's the joy of fairy bites, you're immune to the waterfall that makes kids forget things."
"Are you serious?"
"Hehehehehehehe!"
"Tell me that "the waterfall that makes kids forget things" isn't what it's really called."
"You got a problem, take it up with the authoress. For all intents and purposes that's what we call it."
"What?"
"You got a problem take it up with the PRINCESS… you know… Nataku."
"Oh. Wait! What the hell? What the fuck is this suppose to be? Wonderland?"
"Neverland."
"You've GOT to be kidding me."
"You should be so lucky.."
"You mean the guys don't remember anything?"
"Nope."
"Holyshit! No! We have to leave! They NEED those memories! People need us to enforce the peace! PLUS Quatre has all out equipment to surface the gundams!"
"Well that sucks."
"Kinda!"
"Oh well. On the bright side: new gundams for endless waltz right?"
"Endless what? NO! It's not "Oh Well". It's a fucking problem!"
"And yelling at me, when all I'm doing is providing helpful information is clearly the solution."
"That's funny! I don't recall asking for your opinion!"
"Well good! I wouldn't help an ungrateful dork like you out if Peter Pan's life depended on it!"
"Well good! 'Cause I'm about to drop that fairy-assed son of a bitch! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! LET GO OF MY HAIR YOU STUPID CUNT! OWWWWWWWWWWW"
Penelope called to the girls from where he hovered above Duo's head yanking a lock of Duo's hair straight up with her, "Azalea! Nataku! Burn it!"
"Penelope!"
Penelope's voice rang out angrily, "Burn the braid Nataku! Those were Peter's orders!"
"But it's so pretty…. Besides," Nataku snapped, "I don't see any Lost Boys here!"
"OWWWW!OW!OW! GODDAMNIT! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"PENELOPE, YOU"RE HURTING HER! LET GO!"
Duo pulled a pocketknife and sawed off the captive lock of hair, sending Penelope reeling, before bolting for the door, only to be glomped by giggling girls armed to the teeth with red satin hair ribbons.
"GAH!" Duo was starting to panic. In an act of desperation he pulled the one called Azalea to him and held his knife to her throat.
"NO BODY TOUCH THE FUCKING BRAID!"
The girls froze at the authoritive tone Duo had taken, and Azalea whimpered a little.
"Look, kids," Duo explained, "I'm walking out of here now, and none of you are going to try to stop me. Do we understand each other?"
After receiving a few silent, wide-eyed nods, Duo began to back away slowly, taking the child with him. He whispered to his hostage the protocol under which she was going to lead him out of the camp without arousing suspicion in the others. It was a brief explanation because the one called Nataku, playing the hero and wielding a bamboo "sword", suddenly assaulted Duo.
"Fuckin'! Ouch! The REALLY hurt! Give me that!"
Duo snatched the stick from Nataku and brandished it threateningly with his free hand to keep her at a distance. Azalea obediently led Duo out into the party, and then she led him into the forest. Meanwhile, Nataku dropped to her knees, sobbing about being weak!
Once Duo felt safely out of any reveler's clear line of vision, he stopped Azalea from leading him any deeper into the woods.
"Hold up, kid," He called to her.
"Don't cut me!"
"No problem. Now, I want you to go back to the party and pretend you don't know me."
"No."
"Uh.. WHOA! SHIT! Take it easy there, kid. Okay. Let's do what you want.."
Azalea held Duo at gunpoint, "I want you to go back to the party and pretend you don't know me."
"What? Uh.. okay… kid with the gun gets to make the rules, eh?"
"Yep." The child grinned.
"S'pretty much the rule all the time at my house."
"The tree house?"
"No."
"Azalea."
Both Duo and Azalea were surprised to see a lost boy scowling beside a nearby tree.
"Heero?" Azalea called, "Did you follow us?"
"Yes."
"You're sooo sneaky! You should come hunting with us next time we go!"
"Sounds fun! Hey, go back to the party, let me worry about this one."
"Okay!" Azalea gave Heero the gun and ran off back, back to the party.
Heero held Duo at gunpoint now.
"Ah, just like old times.." Duo mused.
"Put your hands on your head."
Duo obeyed, "Heero?" Duo hoped desperately for a moment that Heero was somehow breaking down the block on his memory. Duo had no way of knowing that Chibi Heero was simply mimicking Trowa's behavior from the beach earlier that day.
"What's your name?"
"Duo."
"Hi Duo, I'm Heero."
"Hey."
"What do you know about a home that's not the tree house?"
"Um.. well it's kinda a long story…"
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Heero looked confused as to who might be calling for him, but Duo recognized the voice, "Penelope!"
Duo flinched as he blue light came darting toward them, but found himself forced to straighten up because a certain Heero Yuy was clutching his shoulder firmly.
"You see her too?" Heero breathed.
"What? The blue fairy? Yes."
"Good."
"Are you…okay? You're eyes are looking a little blood shot."
Heero hung his head, " I've been being stupid. I've been smoking tonight."
"Uh.."
"NEWBIE"
"What Penelope?"
Penelope floated up next to Duo's ear and whispered, "Don't tell him anything about life before today, you'll just scare him!"
"I haven't!"
"DUO!"
"What Heero?"
Heero leaned in and whispered to Duo, "The blue fairy, she's right next to you.."
"yeah, I know. Here, see for yourself, she's real!"
Duo cupped his hands, and Penelope understood the cue to nest in Duo's hands.
"Here, you want to hold her?" Duo offered.
"No. I'll prolly just break her."
"No you wont."
Penelope didn't wait around. She floated up to Heero's ear and began her jingling.
Heero seized Duo again, and giggled into the American boy's neck, "She's telling me to set fire to your hair, hehehehehe"
"Nani? No!"
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"Hehehe… uh… yeah… Heero.."
Heero picked up Duo's braid and ran his fingers slowly over it.
"Heero… do you mind?"
"No."
"Heero, I mean, stop touching me!"
"uh, oh. Heh. Sorry." Heero backed away.
"Thanks."
"Hey, let's go back to the party.."
"Yeah! I'd like that Duo! (GASP) I"LL RACE YOU!"
"OKAY!"
"GO!"
Heero turned and dashed back toward the settlement with a ball of blue light rushing to follow him. Duo sighed, turned away, and walked deeper into the forest.