Disclaimer: Gundam Wing isn't mine... yet!!
The Weaponry was dead quite when Matilda walked in; she couldn't even hear the sound of blades being sharpened against the blocks of whetstone at the back of the shop. Her footfalls were muffled by the mite-bitten rugs that lay all over the floor.
"Jayde!" she called out, pulling out a switchblade from her back pocket, "You here?" There was the squeaking of a chair as it was pushed backwards and crockery being placed on a table.
"Yep, out the back," she yelled back. Coming out of the doorway to the back room of the Weaponry, a red-haired girl waltzed towards Matilda, engulfing her in a massive hug, struggling to put the blade away. "How have you been?" she said, beaming, "It's been ages. You know, the guys at the RSO were starting to think you'd left for the other side."
Matilda crinkled her nose, but wore the same expression of joy. "Yeah, well. A lot of stuff has happened. Got caught up at the London Base a couple of weeks ago." She tried to look past her shoulder to who was at the back of the store. "Who's out there?"
"Oh, uh. Just a friend of mine. I helped his grandfather restore some of the Chinese swords back on L5." Matilda raised and eyebrow. "Wufei… Chang. You remember him?"
"Nah, I don't remember you mentioning him," she said. "But anyway. I wanna see if I can get a new pair of sai; my other pair were in the Gundam, and I couldn't find them in the wreck."
From where he was in the vinyl-floored backroom, Wufei could hear perfectly what Jayde and this other girl were talking about.
"… my other pair were in the Gundam…" That was all that he needed. He got to his feet and grabbed his jacket, planning to make an excuse to leave just when they walked through the door. His eyes widened at the sight of who Jayde was talking to.
"In a hurry, Fei?" Jayde asked, her ash-grey eyes piercing into his. "This is Matilda, by the way. She's from-"
"Australia," she cut her off suddenly, "the Gold Coast, actually. My parents moved there when I was little, so I decided to come back and visit Jayde."
"Yeah, um. I was just gunna show her the new swords shipped in from L5. Real nice stuff. You said something about them before." She heaved a wooden box onto her empty seat, before prying open the lid with a screwdriver from the counter.
He didn't really have a choice whether he could stay or leave, that was the problem with Jayde; always so pushy. She dug around the foam stuffed box, pulled out three pairs of things that looked like silver daggers, and threw a pair each to Wufei and Matilda, who both expertly caught them.
"Newly made sai. Pure silver, hand engraved. Each of them are one-of-a-kind," she said, pulling out another silvery weapon in the form of a long, flawless, slightly bent, tube. "This one's a katana made completely of lightweight Gundainium." She unsheathed the Japanese sword. The handle was completely level with the case, which meant that it had no hand guard; just an extremely sharpened blade against an unblemished, metallic handle.
"Can I try them out?" Matilda said, "The sai I mean." She was itching to feel the cool metal pressed tight against her hands.
"Yeah, sure. I reckon you can just jump the fence and use the warehouse next door; it's been abandoned for months." Jayde's shop was small, the front was jam-packed with weapons for sale, and upstairs was even worse; her brother and her had to share the shop house so there wasn't much room, let alone personal space.
Gripping onto the sai, Matilda found footholds in rotting lattice against the brick fence in the small courtyard outside and climbed over. She soon heard the sound of someone landing behind her; Wufei. "Where's Jayde?" she asked, pushing open the rusted back door to the warehouse.
"Putting up the new weapons. There were a couple of people walking in when I left, so I thought best to leave her alone," he replied in a smooth, flat voice.
Shrugging it off, she stepped into the old building. Light streamed in from the dusty windows set high in the walls, giving just enough sunlight to see the whole warehouse. Old couches and chairs were piled up in one corner, and bits of scrap metal in the other.
"Well this place obviously hasn't been used for more than a year." Wufei's voice echoed around the warehouse. She inwardly rolled her eyes before picking out the back of a lone chair and throwing one of the sai at it, hitting the dead centre.
"But the furniture's good for targeting," she said, walking over to retrieve it. "So what draws your interest to that sword? Pure Gundainium? Or just the beauty?"
"Beauty is hardly a factor," he said, lunging at her back, only to have her sidestep his attack. "Lightweight… efficient… balanced…" he said with every swing.
"But yet," twirling both sai in her hands, she sliced at Wufei, "it has… no hand guard." She dodged, then lunged, sidestepped and did a low kick, knocking him off his feet.
Springing back up, he attacked again, brushing off the fact that he felt badly winded from the fall. "Safety is hardly an issue. What is the point of having such a precise, honourable weapon if you can't even use it properly, let alone defend yourself." He did a sort of jump-kick to try and knock the sai away from her hands, but only heard one hit the ground.
"Ouch, where'd you learn that one from?" she asked, bending down and snatching the fallen instrument and twirling it again in her hand."
He smirked, "I see you've been watching too many movies… I think I've seen that trick in Elektra, if I'm not wrong."
"Couch potato," she muttered under her breath, Wufei sent her a piercing glare. The fact that there was not much ventilation in the warehouse caused them to tire quickly. Matilda movements were starting to become sluggish when he knocked her to the ground with a roundhouse kick and pressed the blade of the katana to her throat.
"So why did you lie about where you came from?" he smirked, with a sense of pride that he had already defeated his target and could easily take her in to Une that very moment. She somehow managed to flip the scenario so that he was lying flat on his back and she had a sai pressing into his side.
"I didn't lie. Jayde just likes to say that I was born here and we're half sisters or something." They rolled over again. A piece of sharp metal was digging into her thigh, and the fact that Wufei was putting his full weight on her made it even worse.
"Cut the crap, Royal," he breathed, "I know who you are." Her throat tightened. "You're the pilot of the illegal Gundam, that was destroyed five weeks ago."
"You better leave and get off me right now before I get the RSO on your sorry little ass!" she shouted, hoping that would get him off her case.
"Nyx, I think it's called," he continued, like she hadn't said anything, "The Greek goddess of night. The barer of Fate and Death." She gave up trying to struggle against him, and became very still under his weight. "I know you were born in Australia, and I also know that you were in Brooklyn two weeks ago. I came to your auto shop with my friend; the two Kawasaki bikes."
Her face was expressionless. "So what? You knew me from the auto shop, and heck, you can get all of that information from hacking into the databases up here, so why wont you let me go!" she yelled, somehow pushing Wufei off of her and getting to her feet.
"I need you to do me a favour."
"I don't do favours," she huffed.
"Fix a mobile suit."
"Anyone can do that, why me?"
"It's a Gundam."
She stopped, and turned to look at him.
"It's my Gundam."