Chapter 3 - Without Trust
"Oh that tickles!" Venus giggled loudly much to the other girls embarrassment. The doctor blushed at all the fuss his patient was making and quickly packed up his things and left the room, locking it electronically behind him.
"Well they don't trust us, that's for sure," Mars said hearing the locks slip into place and Venus shrugged.
"I can't blame them, have you noticed that everyone looks so high strung?" Venus asked and the girls all nodded, as Venus added, " I wonder what's got them all so scared"
Mercury looked over at Saturn who was frowning as she listened to the conversation transpire.
"Do you know anything of what is happening here Saturn?" Mercury asked her and Saturn shrugged, still frowning as she tried to remember, playing with the hem of the hospital dress they had all been forced to wear.
"I arrived here five days ago and from what I could tell and from what I heard, The Alliance have been fighting with The Oz for quite sometime, and five years back The Alliance managed to defeat the Oz in an all out battle, however, a few months ago, the attacks started again, this time they were stronger and those Gundams the big robot-like things that those guys were using have no affect on the enemy Oz this time, so naturally they are cautious of people who are different," Saturn explained what she knew and it all began falling into place for the other girls.
"No wonder they attacked us when you put up your wall, they probably thought we were about to attack them, " Venus concluded and Mercury nodded as Venus had said exactly what she had been thinking.
"Mmm…"
The girls all turned to Jupiter who was staring through what was obviously a two-way mirror.
"Jupiter what's wrong?" Venus asked her and Jupiter turned back to the girls.
"Do you really think they will help us?" she asked jerking her head to wards the mirror and Venus narrowed her eyes with determination.
"Whether they help us or not we are going to find Small Lady," Venus promised them all and Mars nodded her head in agreement.
"And then return home," she finished for Venus and Jupiter smiled.
Saturn rubbed her arm indignantly where the doctor had extracted blood from her with a syringe. She hated needles. They reminded her of her father when he had been under control of Pharaoh 9.
"My arm hurts from the needles," Saturn cursed out loud and Mars glanced down at her arm where the prick had already healed.
"I guess it's a lot better than getting shot though," Mars replied chuckling at the thought and Saturn felt so guilty. It had been her fault Mars got shot. If she hadn't run out there and put up her wall the young men wouldn't have attacked them. Mars could feel the emotions flowing from Saturn and turned to her, not wanting to let Saturn blame herself.
"I'm sorry Mars, I panicked, when I saw them pointing their guns at you I jus ad to try and protect you all" Saturn apologised remorsefully and Mars smiled shaking her head as she pulled Saturn into an affectionate hug.
"Firefly, you did what you thought was best, it was those trigger happy guys who overreacted," Mars said her eyes narrowing with annoyance and Jupiter looked around at the starch white hospital room, noticing they had been left to their own devices for quite a while now,
"Speaking of our trigger happy friends, I wonder where they are"
"Probably in hell where they came from," Mars muttered and the other girls smirked. It was pretty clear Mars had not taken a liking to their new friends.
"So what happened?" Relena asked inspecting the 5 girls through the window. The girls seemed quite restless but they were happy and smiling from what Relena could see through the mirror. They had given the Gundam Pilots their names, but the names were strange, they weren't actually names just the names of planets in the Solar System.
The one who called herself Venus seemed to be the leader of the group, with long blonde hair tied half up in a ponytail and half flowing down her back, she had wide blue eyes so clear and honest and a beautiful face.
Mars, the one whom Relena noticed that Heero kept glaring at through the mirror was also beautiful, with hair of ebony that fell past her waist and expressive violet coloured eyes. Such strange eyes for a human to have, but the girl with short black hair also had the same coloured eyes.
The other girl, Saturn was her name, was younger than the rest, she seemed more frail and fragile than the rest. But the look in her eyes showed a determination and wisdom way past her years.
Then there was the tall woman, Jupiter her name was, she reminded Relena of storied about Amazon women who used to live on Earth. She was taller than the rest, chocolate brown hair tied in a ponytail behind her head and honest green eyes.
The fifth girl was called Mercury, and she had strange, short blue coloured hair and matching blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence.
They were an intimidating group of women and Relena wanted to know who they were now.
Quatre thought he better retell the events of the day. Relena and Lady Une and merely raised their eyebrows when the Gundam Pilots returned from their investigation with five, seemingly innocent girls as their prisoners.
"As you know, we were sent to investigate the energy disturbance in Sector L, this energy was nearly the same intensity and amount that was registered when we got our first sighting of the Dark OZ, when we got there, we found four of the girls just standing in the middle of a deserted area, and we questioned them whether they were with the Oz or the Alliance and out of the blue that one with the short black hair came running out and created some sort of energy with that weapon of hers, it was like an energy field but we thought she was powering up for an attack so…" Quatre broke off as Relena shook her head knowingly. She had worked with the Gundam Pilots a long time and knew their policy was to shoot first ask questions later.
"Let me guess, you attacked them?" Relena asked rolling her eyes and Quatre looked at the ground embarrassed.
"Well yes, we thought they were attacking us," Quatre said in an effort to defend their actions but Relena seemed less than impressed.
"And then what happened?" she prompted and Quatre looked over at Duo who had his face pressed up against the glass practically drooling over the women. Wufei was sitting in the corner arms folded across his chest muttering under his breath at the injustice and Trow was silently watching the girls from here he sat beside Wufei. Heero was standing as close to the glass as Duo but he seemed to be glaring hard at Mars. Obviously Heero still didn't trust the fact that the girl was still alive after being shot.
"Well they all started running away and transforming into different outfits, but Saturn she remained but her energy field gave out and when it did the one with long black hair Mars, covered the girl with her own body and was shot more than a few times," Quatre admitted and Relena raised an eyebrow looking through the mirror again at Mars who was smiling and laughing with the others, not a wound on her. She seemed perfectly fine.
"How many times?"
"She shouldn't have lived," Quatre told Relena bluntly and Relena frowned in confusion, taking one more look at Mars before prompting Quatre to continue telling the story.
"And then?"
"We went to inspect and then Mars just…came back to life," Quare didn't know how else to explain it. He had never seen anything quite so amazing in his life.
"She came back to life?" Relena repeated in disbelief and when Quatre nodded Relena walked close to the mirror and pressed her own face up to the glass peering closely at Mars and Quatre went to stand beside her.
"Yes, look at her, there isn't a mark on her, no bullet wounds, no nothing," Quatre pointed out the obvious and Relena backed away not sure of what to make of all this and Lady Une came through the door just at that moment in time.
"Lady Une, what have you found?" Relena asked; eager to know the results of the blood tests and Lady Une could barely contain herself.
"Its most amazing Vice Minister, the girls apart from Saturn have cells that continuously regenerate," Lady Une said this simply and looked from one confused face to another.
"And that means?" Relena asked not quite grasping what had Lady Une so excited and lady Une broke it down for them clearly.
"It means that they are, immortal, they can't die because their bodies continuously regenerate, its fascinating, I have never seen anything like it."
That news floored all present. Duo snapped to attention, Wufei sat up interested and Trowa's mouth dropped open. Heero edged closer into the conversation and Quatre's knees gave out as he sank into the nearest chair. No one spoke, and slowly they all turned to look through the mirror at the girls then back at each other not knowing what to make of it.
"I can't even begin to explain it Vice Minister," Lady Une said before Relena had time to ask and Relena pursed her lips thoughtfully staring at the girls once more this time with anew light of understanding and awe. These girls were like the fabled Goddesses of the Ancient World.
"So now what?" Relena asked everyone, not sure what to do and before anyone could speak, Lady Une it seemed had plans of her own.
"We could keep them here for observation, from the description of what happened at Saturn creating an energy field they could be like the Dark Oz and have similar powers to them, if they do, maybe we can figure out how to defeat the Dark Oz," lady Une said this sensibly but Quatre didn't like that idea at all. He had made a promise to the girls.
"But Vice Minister, we promised to help them find their princess," Quatre put forward and Relena took a deep breath before coming to her decision.
"We have more important things to take care of Quatre, this new Dark Oz is a growing problem, the Gundams are useless against their new henchmen, those ugly disgusting…things… that they are sending into battle, and…ugh," Relena was thrown forward and would have fell face forward onto the ground if Heero hadn't automatically caught her her and Relena looked around bewildered, "What was that?"
"We are under attack!" a nurse cried out running into the room and Relena froze with fear.
"The Oz?" she asked and the nurse nodded.
"Yes and those new henchmen, they are everywhere," the nurse said before running off to evacuate the area.
"Pilots," Relena turned to them but they were already standing ready to get into their Gundams.
"We're gone," Duo said giving her a little salute that would have made Relena laugh if they weren't in such a serious situation.
"Come Vice Minister, we need to get you somewhere safe," Lady Une begged taking Relena by the arm and leading her away and Relena didn't protest but was stopped by Quatre's hesitant voice.
"And the girls?" Quatre asked of her and Relena turned around to look at him with a half smile on her face.
"Protect them if you can, but from your story and from what we now know, I don't think they need your protection."
The room started shaking and Mars immediately grabbed onto Saturn and looked questioningly at Mercury who shrugged.
"Woah something tells me we've got problems," Jupiter commented grabbing hold of the nearest thing she could to stop from falling over and before anyone could do anything there was a huge blast through one of the walls. Crawling forward the girls peered outside and all felt a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs as they gazed upon the creature that had brought them this freedom.
"Is that a…?" Saturn asked never having seen one in her life and Mars nodded beginning to back into the room away from the Youma that hadn't actually noticed any of them yet. The youma was beginning to be joined by other youma, there were hundreds of them running everywhere..
"A youma, its the Negaverse," Mars concluded surely but Venus shook her head also backing away.
"But we destroyed the Negaverse," Venus protested and Mercury reached out and touched Venus on the shoulder lightly.
"You don't think Queen Beryl…" Mercury raised the idea that the girls had been thinking but didn't say out loud.
"No, it couldn't be," Jupiter said shaking her head as she reached for her transformation pen and Venus shook all those thoughts from her head. The thing they needed to focus on was getting rid of all these youma, before they hurt anyone.
"Enough talk, we should get out of here," Venus said holding out her transformation pen and Mars seconded the motion holding out her own pen.
"Right, transform!" Mars commanded and the girls all transformed as told and then turned to face the youma that came charging towards them.
"Venus Love and Beauty Shock!"
"Mars Flame Sniper!"
"Jupiter Oak Evolution!"
" Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!"
"Death Reborn Revolution!"
" Come on Senshi, in the Name of Serenity!"