Chapter 11: Combination Formation Vandread Squadron
That following morning the ship is filled with the familiar chime of the intercom system announcing something everyone expected, but most likely no one looked forward to:
" This is B.C. speaking, I need all Vanguard and Dread pilots to come to the bridge. I repeat, all Vanguard and Dread pilots report to the bridge immediately. That is all."
Well with this announcement Pyoro decides to take it upon himself to make sure everyone wakes up and listens. So the first room he flies into was the room that Dita and Hibiki share, and to his surprise he finds both of them laying on the water bed in their under garments, with Hibiki laying in such a way that his head is resting on Dita's chest, and Dita's right hand happens to be draped over a certain part of Hibiki's body that is located between his legs.
Pyoro, not really sure how to address the situation floats towards the bed and screams at the top of his speaker system, " WAKE UP! THE SHIP IS ON FIRE!" Both Dita and Hibiki nearly jump out of their skin as they then fall out of the bed each landing on either side of it.
Hibiki rubs his eyes and glares at the robot, " I don't smell smoke. You have 10 seconds to explain yourself before I turn you into a trash can." Even Dita's usually sweet and innocent face is now scrunched up in anger as she looks at Pyoro rather menacingly and begins the count, " One… two…"
Pyoro begins stammering a bit before he ultimately gets out the sentence, " Well, umm, you see… erm… well… everyone was summoned to the bridge to look at the results of Parfait and Duelo's compatibility test." After finally explains himself he sighs and heads out of the room muttering to himself, " The faster I get away from Hibiki, the healthier it is for my circuits…"
As Pyoro is floating away Hibiki scratches his head and yawns and looks over at Dita, " Well I guess we have to go. Can you hand me my pants? And here…" Throws her little black tank top and her skirt at her, " I'm pretty sure these are yours." Hibiki grins as Dita blushes a little but smiles brightly through the embarrassment.
" Well I wouldn't make jokes mister. You promised me a lot just to coax me to continue touching that certain part last night. Sounds to me like someone is a spoiled brat." She playfully sticks out her tongue at Hibiki as he just smirks.
" Ya, ya, I know… what can I say, it felt good and I'm a glutton for pleasure." He grins as he then gets his pair of pants in his face while hearing Dita giggle hysterically, " Got you! You should pay more attention Hibiki…"
Hibiki narrows his eyes a bit but just lets out a deep breath and shrugs; " If we didn't need to go to the bridge I'd throw more stuff at you too. But I'll let you win for now." He grins as he starts getting dressed. Dita smiles proudly, content with the outcome of the playful argument, because Hibiki normally doesn't let people win. But anyway, she keeps the smile on her face as she also begins to get dressed in an attempt to look presentable for the bridge meeting.
Meanwhile, Barnette is woken up by the intercom only to find herself sleeping in a chair in the kitchen. As she looks around she sees Alexei taking something out of the waffle machine as he turns and their eyes lock momentarily, causing Alexei just to smirk.
" Here Barnette, I read the directions and I think it'll taste good. So try it, and no… I'm not telling you what I put in the waffle thingy… just eat." Barnette blinks a few times as Alexei then places the food plate in front of her as she then raises a brow towards him and states in a curious and half-asleep sort of way, " Shouldn't we be going to the bridge or something?"
Alexei nods as he hangs up the apron and tackles her question, " Yes we will, just eat a little bit of it first. It's not like they'll care if we aren't there seconds after the announcement was made."
Barnette shrugs and bobs her head slightly in agreement as she picks up the fork and eats a small piece of this and grins. " Hey, this is pretty good, what is it Alexei? And I swear if you say it's a peanut butter and spaghetti waffle I'm going to hurt you." Alexei grins and scratches the back of his head.
" Well you're half right. It's a peanut butter and these things I found, I think they were called chocolate chips. They tasted pretty good alone so I thought why not throw them together. So… you like?" Alexei looks at Barnette awaiting either words of positive criticism or negative, but obviously hoping for the former.
Barnette cuts off another piece as she smiles and gazes happily at Alexei, " It's great, I never thought of mixing the two… but it's actually very good. So if you don't mind, can you get me a drink? And then after that we can leave…" Alexei grins ecstatic with the fact that she actually liked his food. So he runs over to the fridge and pours her a glass of orange juice as he hands it to her.
" Here ya go Barnette, one glass of orange juice!" She smiles as she takes it from his hand and then proceeds to chug it rather quickly. So within a few seconds the juice is gone and she is wiping her mouth and looking at Alexei in a coy and cute kind of way. " Hey, after the meeting, if you're my partner, I'll make you something special. Alright?"
Alexei smiles and nods, " That would be nice." And with that, Barnette and Alexei make their ways to the bridge.
However, shortly after exiting Dita and Hibiki's room Pyoro flew into the bridge area to see who was there. And to his surprise Duelo, Parfait, Paiway, Jukkai, Bart and Jura were all standing around waiting for the last few people to arrive.
" Where's my Renzy wenzy? Did he sleep in? No matter, I know I'll be paired with him, first we'll make a beautiful Vandread, and then we'll make a beautiful baby. It will be history in the making. I can see it now, in all the magazines, 'Universes most beautiful child!'" She says all of this doing weird hand motions and other theatrics with her body whereas everyone else just kind of ignores her and chalks it up to Jura, acting like Jura.
Pyoro on the other hand finds it highly irrational and peculiar behavior, but then again most human conduct is strange to a robot. Either way, Pyoro flies off in search of Renz and Meia, which really amazes him because Meia is usually prompt and scolding everyone else for tardiness and the inability to know one's priorities.
So as he flies along wondering where Meia is and why she's late he realizes he's near Renz's room so he decides to pop in there and give him a wake up call before bothering with Meia. Yet, to Pyoro's surprise he finds not only Renz in the bed, but Meia also.
Now since he has more respect for Renz and Meia then he does for Hibiki and Dita he slowly hovers over to the bed and scans them.
" Wow, they both seem really calm and at ease… and wait, it seems like Meia is smiling. There presence with one another alone, is improving the level of sleep that they can achieve. I've never seen anything have this kind of effect on anyone… or anything." Pyoro pauses slightly as the cheek portions on his monitor redden slightly and he says happily, " So this is love…"
As Pyoro is just thoughtlessly floating there at the same time as Renz slowly begins to wake up and blinks a few times seeing the image of Pyoro over top of Meia's head as he just groans slightly and nudges Meia to wake her up.
As Meia opens her eyes to see Renz she smiles and yawns as she sleepily says, " Good morning darling." Meia not realizing what she said at first, just remembering that her mother used to say that to her when she was sick and her mother stayed with her in bed until she felt better. So to Meia, the sentence just felt right to say.
Renz immediately picks up on the weird affectionate word and raises a brow to the drowsy, yet still gorgeous woman and inquires, " Good morning to you too Meia, but why did you call me darling?" Meia blushes and blinks a few times as she shakes her head hastily, " I said nothing of the sort!"
Pyoro who is still floating above them laughs and comments, " Yes you did, I even recorded it. Here, listen…" He plays back the recording of Meia saying 'Good morning darling' as Meia then realizes she really did say it. Though before Meia can make an excuse for herself Pyoro says in a very calm, almost dreamy kind of way, " It's okay Meia, I can tell you love him. Your pulse is slow and calm, your heart rate synchronized with his and you seemed incandescently happy when you were both asleep." Pyoro smiles and starts floating away before he remembers to tell them the announcement, " Oh ya, the bridge meeting is right now. Hurry up and get there…"
As Pyoro flies off Meia and Renz are just laying in bed staring at each other, unknowing of what to say or what to do. But after a few moments Renz manages to utter something, " Meia… I know we need to get going but, umm, do you love me?"
Meia's pretty emerald eyes widen as she blinks and a faint rosy tinge traces over her cheeks as she says very softly, " I'm not sure, but I know I enjoy spending time with you…" After that Renz grins and his eyes seems to smile as he nods, " Ya, I like spending time with you too…"
Before any awkward situations can arise Renz jumps off the bed and lands on his feet, only then realizing they both went to sleep fully clothed. " Come on Meia… we need to get going before we get berated, and this is still time for us to spend together. Plus, if we get paired up, then we get even more time. So come on…" He smiles and extends his hand to her as she beams and grabs his hand, " Of course Renz, I look forward to every minute with you."
As her hand hits his he pulls her towards him gently and softly kisses her lips with a gentle passion about it, as they subsequently run off towards the bridge.
A small amount of time later, everyone is present on the bridge, as B.C. looks at the crew stone faced and serious without a fault. " As we all know, we are under a heavy state of alert due to the fact that we will most likely enter into war in 2 days time. So with this knowledge Duelo and Parfait were asked to conduct research to see if we can manipulate the Vandread fusion and use it to give us a temporary advantage or at least buy us some time. So they are both here now to present their research."
After his short introductory speech B.C. steps down and Duelo and Parfait take the proverbial main stage and report their findings.
Duelo clears his throat slightly and starts off the report, " We have concluded that personal compatibility along with sharing the same interests greatly speeds up the reaction time to fuse and gives the two people the best chance to form into the most effective version of the Vandread, which our research has shown is the one we used to call Vandread Dita." After that Parfait quickly picks up, " So cutting to the chase, the results are in and I will start naming the most compatible and second most compatible pairings, and the percents, just because I can." Parfait laughs a little as she then starts listing the new teams.
" Hibiki, you are most compatible with Dita. Not like that was a surprise but either way, your percentage of compatibility is 91 percent. And your second is Meia last registering at 73 percent." Dita hugs Hibiki tightly and nuzzles into his neck as everyone eagerly waits for the second pairing.
" Renz, your compatibility was the closest of them all. Your main partner is Meia with a compatibility of 97 percent, but Jura was a rather close second at 90 percent. So in essence, we're not really sure who's the best choice. So, if you ever need to fuse with Jura, we'll be able to find out." Jura huffs and grumbles upset that she wasn't first but the fact that she is a very close second is enough to calm her down. While Meia and Renz just stay close to each other as Meia rests her head on Renz's left shoulder.
"Alexei, you are quite interesting, because you're best compatibility is with someone who we were unaware could fuse. Barnette is your main partner at 88 percent while Dita is second at 69 percent." Alexei smiles and looks over at Barnette who just gives him a wink full well knowing that the best way to a man's heart is through their stomach.
" And lastly, Jukkai… you're best compatibility was a shock to both me and Duelo. Your main partner is Jura at 92 percent, followed by Barnette at 57 percent. It was a shock because you ranked so high with Jura when we haven't really seen you two get along that well, and the second score is a drastic calculation lower." Jukkai shrugs as Jura sighs and just goes with it, still solely interested in Renz.
Magno smiles and makes an announcement, " Well that ends the briefing, everyone… regroup your senses and get to know your partners as well as you possibly can because we all have 2 more days to either sink or swim. And I don't know about the rest of you… but I'd like to swim and have these old eyes see a few more days of my life and possibly a few more victories, but this time not just for us or Mejere, but for humanity." She pauses to let that sink in for everyone, as she finishes her announcement.
" The new squads will train later today… but until then, you are dismissed, enjoy your time while you can."
To Be Continued…