DISCLAIMER: ...I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING I WILL NOT PLAUGERISE GUNDAM WING #author puts down chalk and steps away from chalk board# "There, 100 lines. I hope that makes them happy!" #runs out of room while she still can!#...
Chapter 4: The Portable Padded Room 3000!
"WOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOOLLOO!!!" By now, Heero was making war cries and chasing his own shadow/slash/Relena around the house.
"Ding-dong!" The sound of the doorbell was barely audible over 'The War on Relena', but Duo heard it and went to answer it.
"Greetings!" cheered a fat, red cheeked salesman who was holding up some sort of wierd, cube-shaped product. "And boy, have I got a deal for you!"
Duo winced as Heero's voice rang out from behind him. "A-ha-ha-ha-ha! I hate you Relena! Ha-ha! I hate you!" He turned back to the salesman.
"Uh, now's not really a good time."
"Is that a crazy person you've got in there?" the salesman asked in a strange tone.
"Yeah. So?" Duo raised an eyebrow.
"Wow! What a coincidence! Then boy, have I got the perfect deal for you!" the sales man exclaimed, barging happily through the doorway.
"What? Wait! You can't come in here!"
Wufei had been standing with Trowa and the now trembling Quatre, watching Heero go nuts, when his eyes caught the curious happenings at the door. He strode over to the salesman to see what was going on. "What are you doing?" he asked annoyed.
"Selling you the deal of a lifetime!" the salesman stated as he swung his arm enthusiastically in the air.
"Get out," Wufei ordered.
Hiki wavered a bit. 'My plan isn't working!' she thought. "Wait! Not until you see the 'Portable Padded Room 3000!'"
Wufei just blinked. "What?"
"You heard me. The 'Portable Padded Room 3000!' It's a stupid product, I know. I just can't believe that I've finally found a place that actually needs it!"
"Why would anyone even sell that? Must be a dumb onna's idea."
Duo was sure he heared the salesman give a low growl at this comment, but he quickly dismissed it. Wufei quickly turned back to the other two pilots in the main room and motioned for them to come to the door.
"So what's this 'Portable Padded Room 3000!' do, anyway?" Duo asked.
"Oh, it's simple. You just place it on the ground with the button facing up. Then you press this nice red button, and back off really, really far away. I mean really far away. So very far away must you back. So far that - "
"Just get on with it!"
"Hmf! Okay then, Mr. Bossy. Then it expands into a lovely white coloured padded room, all ready for use with keys and even a free straight jacket! Then, when you're finished with it, just press the red button on the wall again and it folds back into this lovely chrome coloured box." The saleman then started speaking at super speed.
"Makesurethatpatientisoutsideofbboxfirstbeforecollaspingit.Wethecompany/inventorsofthisproductarenottobeheldresposibleforanyinjury,burnsorevendeathaqquiredbytheeuseofthisproduct.Norefundsavailable.Inacceptingthisproductyouthecustomerautomaticallyagreetoeverythingthatiswrittenorspokenabove."
"What?"
"Nevermind!" The salesman smiled at them. "Just come outside, everyone, and I'll show you!"
Everyone was about to go when Wufie noticed something. "Who's gonna watch Heero?"
"THAT VASE WON'T PROTECT YOU RELENA!!" 'Smash!'
Trowa sighed and volunteered. "I'll stay."
"Good," replied the salesman. "This way, everyone! Follow me!" And they all followed him to a special spot somewhere outside, while Trowa stood in the doorway and watched Heero losing his mind and the others proceed outside and out of harm's way.
"Now then," the salesman said putting the cube down, red button facing up on a clear patch of dirt. He pressed the button. "Everyone! Stand back! Stand back!" Everybody frantically cleared the way. The chrome-coloured box popped, fizzled, and KA-BOOM! When the dust and smoke cleared, there before them stood a cabin-sized, white, metalic building. It had no windows, an airconditioning unit, and the only door that appeared was locked down with seven huge locks.
"Wanna closer look?" the salesman asked, jingling some keys that were equipped with a remote.
"Okay!" Duo chirped. He snatched the keys off of the salesman and ran towards the building. Everyone else just followed behind him, looking around and taking it in. By the time they had gotten there Duo had opened all seven of the locks, flung the door open and ran inside. Wufei was tempted to lock him in there.
"Wow!" Quatre exclaimed. "Look at this place!" The walls and floor that surrounded them were padded and all made out of cushions. There was a bed in the corner that was all made out of cushions, a lounge chair that was all made out of cushions, and finally some teddy bears that were pretty cushion-y themselves. Quatre squealed when he saw this and ran up to hug them. Wufei rolled his eyes. He looked up and noticed a music speaker in the ceiling. He also noticed a brightly coloured poster on the wall that read "Be Happy! (Or else!)".
"Hey Wuffie!" Duo caught his attention, "You have got to try this!" And with that, Duo took a running jump at the padded wall, hit it with a plump and landed softly and unscathed on the ground. Wufei grunted at him.
"You baka!"
"Aww, come-on Wu-man! This is great! I don't know why we never got one of these things before!"
Wufei screwed his nose up and stared at Duo for asking such a dumb question. "What?"
"So does that mean you'll buy it?" the salesman asked, wearing a smile that was a little too big.
"Hey, don't look at me. I'm not paying for some dumb onna's idea."
'There's that growl again,' Duo thought.
"I'll pay!" Quatre suddenly perked up, jumping up and down in excitement.
"Excellent! Now that'll be one million dollars for the 'Portable' uh...thing. And the straight jacket is gonna cost an extra hundred bucks."
"Injustice!" Wufei seethed. "You said that the straight jacket was for free."
"Yes, I did. You buy the padded room, and for an extra hundred dollars you get the straight jacket all for free!"
"Injustice!"
"I'll take it!" Quatre grinned. Wufei just groaned again and settled his head in his hands.
"Do you take cash or credit?"
"Cash."
"Ok."
Wufei looked up and watched dubiuosly as Quatre pulled, handful by handful,one million andone hundred dollars from his pockets and placed it all into the salesman's big, hungry arms. He already knew his friend was rich, but this was just too much!
"You carry around one million dollars worth of notes in your pockets?"
"A-huh." Quatre nodded.
"Why?"
"For occassions such as these."
"For occasions such as...?! Oh, of course!" Wufei almost spat with sarcasm. They were all mad! They all belonged in here!
"Well, thank you for your time, everyone," the salesman said, graciously backing out of the room, his arms wadded full of cash. "Hope to see you again soon! Have a nice day! Goodbye, now!"
And with that, Hiki skipped merrily down the path in her salesman disguise, humming all the way. She figured she'd go visit the candy store before proceeding to go on with phase three.
Wufei went up to Duo, snatched the keys and headed back to the house for Heero. "Come on guys," he grumbled, "Might as well get this over with..."
Ten cuts, seven bruises, three gunshot wounds and a grumpy Heero later...
'BANG!' 'BANG!' 'BANG!' "Let me out, let me out, let me out!" 'BANG!' 'BANG!' Heero's thumps could be heard for miles, even with the padded walls that lined the room.
"Think he'll be getting over it anytime soon?" Trowa, with a raised eyebrow, pondered out loud.
"It's the shadows!I can hear Relena plotting something with her evil dustbunnies! I'm not crazy! I swear!"
"Nevermind."
"Ooh. I feel kinda bad just leaving him in there," Quatre said.
"I don't!" Wufei snipped, nursing his wounded arm. "He shot me getting the straight jacket on!"
"Lucky you, then, Wu-Chang!" Duo practically screamed, "He shot me twice! And both times in the foot, too!"
The boys just stood there in the afternoon sun, listening to Heero yelling at himself. Until Trowa finally realised something.
"Hey guys, there's a silence switch here on the remote." Trowa held it up, and sure enough, plain as day, the switch was there.
"Well then turn it on!" Wufie exclaimed. And Trowa did.
Flick! "Let me out! I'm not crazy! Really!" Whoosh. Something seemed to seal itself off within the walls, and Heero's screaming was no more.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey!" piped Duo, "Now that Heero's locked in there, unable to do things to us, we should do something special! Something that we couldn't normally do, because Heero would shoot us.
"But what?" pondered Wufei, and everyone looked deep in thought.
"We could go raid his stuff?" Trowa suggested.
"Hey! Good Idea!" Duo chirped, "Come on everyone, let's go raid Heero's stuff!"
"Yeah!"
"Fine with me."
"Okay!"
And with that, everyone headed upstairs to spend the rest of the afternoon raiding Heero's stuff...
Later in the evening...
Nightfall had come, Heero's room was a mess, and every single one of the Gundam Pilots had gone to bed. Everyone, that is, except for Heero, who was sitting in the brightly lit padded room, sober and wide awake. The voices of Relena's had, of course, stopped ages ago, along with his insanity. As he sat there, Heero Yuy racked his brain trying to figure out how all this even happened in the first place. Could it be a flaw in his genetic make-up? Heero pondered this and then shook his head. It couldn't have been. At least, he certainly hoped not. Maybe Relena had finally gotten to him. Yeah, that was it. Relena and her evil voice. Or maybe he'd been drugged. Could Oz be responsible for this?
Heero was still pondering this when a whoosh noise came from the corner, jolting him from his thoughts. He watched in silence as a secret trapdoor, about a good half body length up from the ground, opened up to reveal that crazy girl from about two weeks back!
"You!" Heero's eyes narrowed.
"Yes, me," Hiki responded leaning in. "It's nicely airconditioned in here, isn't it? And do you like the poster on the wall? I made it myself."
Heero's eyes, nostrols and whatever else flared up with anger. "You did this?!" he half-asked, half-stated.
"Uh, yep!" She smiled.
In silent anger, Heero lowered his head. Darkness seemed to cover his eyes. "Omae o korosu," he told her quietly.
Hiki cupped her hand over her ear. "Say what?"
Heero looked up at her. His cobalt eyes looked as angry as fire. "Omae. O. Korosu!"
"Say what?"
"Omae-"
"What?"
"Omae-"
"What?"
"AARRGGHH!!!" Heero cried, "Why did you do this to me?!"
Hiki looked thoughtfully out into space. "I don't know," she replied.
"Well, then what did you do to me?!"
"Well," blushed Hiki proudly, "if you really want to know...about a week ago, when wimpy widdle Quatre was ever so happily preparing pasta for dinner, he made the mistake of leaving the drinks out by the opened window. That's when I slipped the sleeping pills in and - "
"Wait!" Heero's eyes went wide. "You mean you drugged us?!"
Hiki frowned. "Yes, dopey, now let me continue. Anyway...uh yes, and you all drank it, except for Wookie, who decided to be an idiot and drank green tea instead. Green tea! I mean, who does that at dinner time? Anyhow, you all went up to bed, save for tea-head, and went to sleep. And that's when I came in, see, me," she was doing little hand gestures, "into your room, and put an almost microscopic, two way radio transmitter in each of your ears. They're still in there."
Heero glared at her and rubbed his ear against his shoulder. "You can't get them out," Hiki continued. "Not without your hands, anyway. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy. You had quite a build up of wax. I planned to disguise my voice as Relena's and drive you mad. Which, of course, I did. I got a sample of her dreadful squealy voice by tricking her into a quick tape recording for a supposed singing contest. Anyhow...oh yeah. And after putting those things in your ear I laughed, maniacaly, and went out the bedroom door. The tea-boy came along and I had to knock him out with a tonfar. Then I had to drug him so he wouldn't remember seeing me well. Then I picked him up and dumped him in his bed, took a book off of the bookshelf and made it look like he'd been hit by that instead. I had almost finished when 'he-who-drinks-tea' woke-up again, so I took the tonfar out and repeated the process. After I had finished doing everything I wanted, and reading Duo's diary, I flew off dramatically into the night with the moonlight reflecting off of my wings. Any questions?"
"I will kill you."
"Hey, there, see, I understood that.Ya see how much better it is when we're all talking the same language here?"
All went silent for the next half-minute as Heero regarded the nut job who was leaning into the window, smiling sweetly and innocently like nothing was wrong. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally he decided to talk.
"Where'd you get the," he motioned to the padded cell around him, "'room'?"
"My mom's rich, so ages ago I bought a whole heap of high-tech army supplies, like this fold-up padded room!"
"How did my comrades get it?"
"I dressed up as a salesman and sold it to them. I made a nice profit, too!"
"Are you working with anybody? Did any secrets companies hire you out?"
"Nope."
"Then why did you do this?"
"Hmmm... I still don't know."
"How much do you know about us?"
"Quite a lot," said Hiki, "quite a lot."
"How do you know so much about us?"
"Would you believe me if I told you that you're all cartoon characters and I've been watching you through a DVD series called 'Gundam Wing'?"
Silence echoed as crickets chirped.
Okay, Heero thought, she's not gonna give me a straight answer on that one. He tried another question.
"What's your name?"
"Hiki. Hiki Malloy."
"Where do you live?"
"In another dimension."
Silence. Crickets chirping. Silence.
"Why aren't you locked up in a mental institution?"
"Because you are."
"That makes no sense!"
"Exactly," Hiki said evenly.
"What? Argh! Fine then! Never mind! Why are you here now?"
"Oh!" Hiki's eyes suddenly lit up. "That's right! Here, I brought you some company!" Heero watched her yet again as she bent over and picked up a small, clumsy looking robot with big, blue eyes. That's right! It was GIR! Invader Zim's stupid, hyper-active, crazy, loud, annoying, more big words, menacing little robot that eats tacos and looooves cand-eh! Poor, poor Heero! Oh yeah!
"TACO-O-O-S!!" the annoying thing screeched. Heero started to worry.
"No, no, um, that's Oookay. Really. I'll just tough it out alone. I don't need any company."
"Nonsense!" Hiki laughed, putting Gir down inside of the padded cell and patting him on the head. "Now Gir," she whispered, "be a good boy and try to make the nice boy happy. And remember, no matter how much he begs, cries, screams, threatens to kill himself, or just kindly asks you to stop singing and annoying him, keep it up because it means he just wants more. And if you do it enough, he might even give you some CANDY!" (Gasp! What has she done?! Oh no!)
"Candy?!" asked Gir, wide-eyed and overly happy.
"Yes! Cand-eh!" she said.
"Yayyy!" Gir clapped.
"Good." She turned her attention back to Heero. "Well, good-bye now! Best of luck! You'll need it!" she muttered closing the trap door behind her and sealing it. With an evil laugh, she flew away.
Gir and Heero stood in front of each other for a long time, staring each other face-to-face.
"May I have some candy now?" asked Gir hopefully.
"No."
A short moment of silence passed between them.
"Now?" Gir asked again.
"No."
More silence.
"Now?"
"Listen here you little bucket of bolts, I don't have any..."
"Caaaaaandy!" the moronic little machine squealed happily before running all around the room. Poor, poor Heero started to look very, very, very scared.
Daybreak came...
And everyone came downstairs to the breakfast table. It was decided that Quatre would make breakfast, Trowa would wash the dishes, and Duo was still limping from a hurt foot, so that left Wufei to check on Heero.
"Ooooh no! No way! Yesterday I got shot in the arm! Trowa, you're pretty brave. I'll wash the dishes, you can go check on Yuy!"
But Trowa wasn't budging. "Fat chance," he murmered, and then went to help Quatre make breakfast so he'd look even more busy.
"Just do it already," said Duo.
"Baka, shut-up!" Wufei scolded as he turned around and started to stomp out of the door. He mumbled at least five 'injustices' between the opening the front door and marching out to the cell, and when he reached it, he pulled the remote out of his pocket and de-activated the 'silence' mode. At least Yuy isn't screaming anymore, he thought. He unlocked the large, metal doorway and opened it up.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeee!" A little blue and gray speck flew past him! Wufei blinked. He stuck his head back in the door to look at Heero. "What was that?" he asked him.
Poor, poor Heero. His hair was a mess, his eyes were baggy and he looked like he had been...crying?
"That," Heero gritted tiredly pressing his teeth together, "was 'Gir'. He likes sunsets, waffles, candy and ice cream, and, oh yeah, screaming his head off for ten hours straight"
"What? But how'd did he get in here?"
Heero got up very calmly and walked over to Wufei. Wufei could tell that he had been through a lot. When Heero got there, he looked him straight in the eye.
"I'll tell you that, but first I want you to tell me something. You remember that night about a week ago when Quatre made pasta, we all went to bed early and you woke up with two bruises on your head?"
"Yeah," Wufei said, not following was he was getting at, "why?"
"You wouldn't remember having any strange dreams that night about a certain crazy, winged girl who visited us around just three weeks back, now, would you?"
Wufei thought about it. "Well, now that you mention it..."
Trowa and Quatre were in the kitchen making waffles. Duo, of course, was waiting eagerly at the table for them. He was almost as eager as...
"Waffles!" a screechy, high-pitched voice rang out as a tiny blue and gray thing bounded in and sped around the house. Quatre got such a fright from this that he dropped all of the waffles straight onto the floor.
"Awww!" pouted Duo, "My waffles!"
The hyper-active little speedy thing ran up to where the ruined waffles lay. "Waffles!" he shouted and then started to eat them all up. Duo limped up to the robot and gave him a short kick. "You stupid little robot! Now look what you've done to my breakfast!"
Gir began to cry.
"There there," shushed Quatre, picking the small robot up and hugging him. "It's alright. Actually," he stated holding the robot up and studying him. "I think you're kind of cute!"
Gir squealed. "Yayy! I'm cute!"
"And irritating!" Duo sulked.
"But cute!" Quatre said, cooing all over him. Quatre ran up to Trowa. "Can we keep him? Huh? Can we? Pleeeeaasse?!"
Trowa grunted. Duo snatched the little robot from Quatre headed out the door.
"Hey! Wait Duo! Where are you taking him?!" Quatre called as he started to run after him.
"Out to see if he has an owner who can pay for my waffles!"
Trowa sighed and shook his head. Might as well, he thought, following them. Maybe Heero had some spare room left in that padded cell...
"There you go, Yuy," Wufei said, getting the last of Heero's straight jacket off. Heero paused for a moment to stretch and flex.
"Thanks, Chang. I'm sorry about shooting you in the arm yesterday."
Wufie sighed. "That's fine. I just still have trouble believing that it's that easy to drive someone insane so quickly! I mean, that stupid onna only played Relena's voice in your ears for five days!"
Heero had finished plucking the micro-radios out of his ears and turned to show Wufei what they looked like. "It was Relena's voice," he reminded him, and Chang nodded. That had said it all.
"Hey! Wu-man!" Duo called out, limping up to them. He was holding the previously and above mentioned 'Gir' and was being tailed by an obviously over-anxious Quatre. "Have you seen anyone else around here? This thing better have an owner 'cos he stole my breakfast!"
Heero backed off at the return of the devillish little imp that had caused him so much pain during the night and said, "You keep that...thing awayfrom me"
"Touchy-touchy!" Duo said before whispering to Wufei, "Is he, you know, sane?"
"Yes," Wufei stated. "In fact, it wasn't even a natural occurence in the first place. Somebody forced him to act like that."
"But how can that be?" asked Trowa.
"Well, you remember that promise that the crazy onna with wings made two weeks ago?"
Everyone paused. Duo shook his head. "No. What'd she say again?"
Wufei continued. "She said she'd be back. And trust us," he motioned to Heero and himself, "she did come back. She is responsible for everything that happened in the past week."
Quatre and Trowa started to realise that it had to be true and looked really worried. Duo was still clueless. Suddenly, Gir squirmed out of Duo's grip and ran screaming, high-pitched to a spot behind them.
"Yay! Hiki's back!"
"Argh" Heero jumped behind Chang, "She's back!"
"EEEEEEEEEP!" Quatre squeaked. "It's her!"
"Yayy! I want candy!" Gir screamed. "The grumpy boy didn't give me any candy last night at all!"
"That's okay Gir," Hiki said and pulled out a bagfull, "here ya go!"
"Yaaaaaaaayyy!" Gir screeched, grabbing the bag. He then proceeded, with the bag, to run around everyone in circles. Heero and Quatre inched just a little bit closer to Chang. Chang Wufei inched just a little bit further away.
Hiki, noticing Quatre's scared reaction, made a hard and intimidating stomp in his direction. "Boo!"
"EEEEEEEEEK!" Quatre wet himself. Heero and Wufie both backed right away.
"Weakling!" Chang scolded. "Afraid of a stupid onna!"
"Come right here and say it!" Hiki smirked at him. Chang, having been taught all that 'ancient wisdom' and such, shut his mouth straight away.
"I didn't think so. Well, by now I assume that you would all know that it was I who made your past week so horrible!" she announced proudly.
"What?" Duo asked. Everyone ignored him.
"Why'd you do it?" Trowa asked.
"Because," she stated importantly, like she was on some kind of mission or something, "because I can!"
"But what you did was so- so- insane!" Wufei tried to reason. Tried being the word.
"What's everybody talking about?" wailed Duo, "What's going on"
Hiki smirked at him. "What do you think is going on on here?"
Duo's eyes widened and he gasped! "Oh you wicked, wicked creature!" he drawled. "You sent that evil little robot here to steal...away...my...breakfast!" Duo was huffing with anger.
"No, not really," she shook her head, "That kinda happened by accident."
Duo stopped huffing and blinked. "Oh. Well, what then?"
"Figure it out."
"I'm confused."
"I know."
"Will you two just get to the point!" Trowa grumped. This was really getting annoying.
Hiki sighed. "Ok. Point being," she took a deep breath, "Heero I drove you mad, sold them a padded cell to keep you in, made a million even though I wasn't in it for the cash and had a big, big laugh along the way!"
"But it wasn't funny," Heero whined.
Hiki nodded. "It was, wasn't it?"
"It wasn't!" Heero was starting to get some of his old anger back.
"Whatever," she huffed, snatching the running Gir up from the ground mid-circle and heading towards the group. "You'll never go far in life with an attitude like that." Everyone one cleared the way as she walked through, stopping midway to kick Wufei in the shin.
"OoowwwStupid half-crazed female!"
Hiki glared at him. "Full-crazed female, thank-you very much! Now I'm off! And don't worry," she leered at them, "I'll be back!" She laughed a deep, evil laugh then took wing and left. Everyone that remained there shuddered, watching her leave, terrified of her return. Then Quatre ran inside to clean himself off. Trowa locked himself inside of the padded room. Duo stomped off sulking about his breakfast. Wufei grabbed Heero by the arm and dragged him towards the house. "Come on, Yuy! We're ordering some re-enforcements!"
"Wufei you know that we can't contact base for another month!" Heero protested for sake of the mission, "They said they have enemies that might detect us! And blow us all to bits!"
"Look, would you rather be blown to bits in a painful battle by Oz or wait for that onna, that nutjob, to come back here and play another one of her 'harmless little pranks' on you and the others? Well, Yuy? Possible death by massacre? Or her?"
Heero weighed these options for a moment. "I see your point! I choose death! Let's go!" And with that, the two boys ran towards the house. Chang powered up the communications ray. While Heero...
"YOU GUYS!!!" A loud, angry voice echoed from upstairs. (Author winces.) "MY ROOM IS A MESS!!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY STUFF?! AARRRGGH!! OMAE O KOROSU!!!"