More Challenge-based pointless fluff. What can I say? I'm a sucker for challenges. The text of the actual challenge is in the middle and is in this color.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are the property of Bandai and Sunrise.
It had started out as such a normal day. Heero woke up with the rising sun just in time to receive the incoming mission on his computer. He even managed to get Duo awake and ready in the record time of just under three hours. Things were definitely going peachy.
But then...
Well, but then.
"Are you sure we're in the right place?"
WuFei turned to meet Heero's annoyed glare with a look of absolute indignation. "Of course I'm sure. Are you insinuating that Nataku's navigation system is capable of error?" His dark sloe eyes held threats of dire punishment if anyone even considered such a thing possible.
Heero glanced around the landscape with narrowed eyes. "This doesn't look like an abandoned mobile suit factory to me."
"Well, it is, all right?" WuFei slammed one hand down on the com line in a huff, trying desperately to ignore the amber waves of grain where runways and mobile suit hangers should be.
"Ne, WuMan?"
WuFei sighed. Peace and quiet to meditate on this new proof that he was entirely unworthy of his goddess was obviously not going to be forthcoming. "What is it, Maxwell?"
"Um, well, you did enter the coordinates right, didn't you? I mean, the numbers are so close..."
"Of course. What kind of idiot..." WuFei's voice trailed off as his eyes flicked involuntarily to the readouts. "Shimatta!"
Duo blinked as the sound of a repeated collision of two solid objects, namely WuFei's head and the control panel, echoed through his cockpit. "Calm down, man. Maybe..."
The sounds stopped. "Maybe what?"
"Maybe we should go have a look around, just in case."
"M-maybe..." WuFei paused. "The honorable thing to do would be to admit my error and correct it. That is what you were going to suggest, isn't it?"
"Nani? No, not yet. Maybe we can find something to blow up out there. Heero's always much calmer when he's just blown something up."
"But honor..." WuFei paused. The annoying baka did have a point.
WuFei turned Nataku towards Wing with renewed calm. "Why don't we go down and have a closer look? Maybe there's something we're missing..."
The five frightening and unbelievably competent gundam pilots stood in the middle of the farm field with guns clenched tightly in their hands. The current occupants of the field, namely a herd of dairy cattle and a few stray goats, were not impressed. This left the five boys just a bit out of their depth. They could handle fear, hatred, awe, and loathing with an ease that was astounding. Indifference was an entirely new concept.
To make things worse, the cows were coming closer. Quatre started to back up nervously. "They don't bite, do they?"
Trowa turned and gave him as close to a compassionate look as he could manage with only one visible eye. "They're cows, Quatre."
Quatre didn't look mollified. "And?"
"No, they don't bite."
"Oh. Maybe we should take a look around then?"
What the gundam pilots couldn't know is that they weren't alone in the field. Due to events entirely beyond their control or understanding, the universe was indeed against them. Sometimes paranoia is completely justified.
Duo's scream brought the random half-hearted search of the field to a screeching halt. Four bodies hurtled across the field towards the screaming gundam pilot, grateful that something had finally appeared that at least sounded promising. What they found, however, was not what they expected.
A partially undressed Duo was found pinned to the ground beneath what appeared to be an otherwise completely normal goat.
None of them had been raised on a farm, but they were all relatively sure that this constituted abnormal behavior for a goat.
Heero was the first to regain his composure. "Duo? What in the hell do you think you're doing?"
Duo scrambled across the ground, hands grabbing blindly for his gun. "It attacked me!" He grabbed at his pants and got shakily to his feet, the gun pointing erratically towards the offending farm animal. "It was going to molest me! That thing had more hands than you do."
Heero's glare deepened to dangerous levels. WuFei decided to head this off before it got any worse. "It's a goat, Duo. It doesn't have hands."
The goat turned to regard them. It appeared to be smirking. Duo screamed in rage, aimed the gun, and shot the goat point-blank in the head.
Time slowed down to a standstill. A shriek of "Pan!" resounded across the universe. It was about this point that things began to get really strange.
A figure of a woman, ample breasts heaving with barely concealed anger, suddenly materialized next to the dead goat. She stared at the crumpled form and turned slowly towards Duo with blazing eyes. "You!"
Duo did the intelligent thing and began to back away.
The goddess raised one finger and froze them all in place. "You! You killed my goat!"
A silence descended over the meadow at this pronouncement. After all, what does one say to a severely pissed-off goddess after one has just apparently shot her pet?
"You will pay for this!" The goddess took a step back and suddenly smiled. It was not a friendly kind of smile. "Oh yes, you will. For the next 24 hours, you will pay over and over again." With a laugh that contained nothing of sanity and everything of unearthly malice, the woman and the goat faded from sight.
Reality around the meadow bent under the strain as certain fundamental truths were temporarily suspended. When time snapped back to its normal pace, all the five boys could do was stare at one another. Where five fiercesome gundam pilots had just stood, now there was an elf, a french maid, a caveman, a pirate, and a neko sex kitten. A shriek of pure rage tore across the meadow as WuFei forced himself to glance down at his outfit.
Four boys began to slowly advance on the braided maid. Duo cast wildly about the landscape. What he found was not reassuring.
"Um, guys?" He waved his hands and began to back away from four identically murderous expressions. "Guys? I think we have problems."
"No, Duo, you're the one with problems." Heero answered in a growl.
Just then a hand closed over Heero's shoulder and a sword appeared under his throat. Cobalt blue eyes went wide.
Duo shook his head. "Meet the problems."
Quatre stood chainsmoking, tapping his foot on the pavement...this wouldn't
have been all that bad, if it weren't for the elf shoes with the little bells
on them that he was wearing...then again what else was he going to wear with
candy-cane leggings...a Peter Pan tunic, and floppy green elf hat...the
jingling bells attached at random to said outfit probably weren't helping
matters much either...
"Quatre could you stop that?" Heero asked, shifting the annoying eye patch he
was wearing for the third time in 5 minutes.
" Stuff it Heero." Quatre replied inbetween puffs.
Duo yanked the front of the french maid outfit he was wearing down for the
third time, " Oi Quatre why are you so grouchy?"
" Why am I grouchy?" Quatre twitched, " Why AM I grouchy?!"
" Well yeah..."
" Take a good look at what I'm wearing and ask me that again?! In the last 24
hours, people have been attempting to burn me, drop me in acid! Dress me up
like Barbie! Drop a cow on me! Then above mentioned cow tried to EAT me!
Dressed like a christmas elf on crack! And to top it off, these pointed
)(&(^%* ears are glued on!"
Everyone blinked.
" Well what about poor Trowa over there!" Duo pointed out.
Poor Trowa in question did his best to huddle down and disappear in the Fred
Flintstone like thing he had been shoved in...but the giant bone they had
somehow managed to get in his hair prevented any shrinking...
"What about him?!" Quatre said pointing at Duo...and jingling...which only
annoyed the already annoyed pilot more. " This is all your fault anyway Duo!"
" It is not!"
" Is too!"
" It is not! Heero is this my fault?!"
" Yes, you were the one who shot at that goat in the first place!"
" It tried to molest me!"
"It was just a goat Duo!"
"Yeah but how many goats do you know of that pulls down a guy's pants and-"
" Ok you've made your point! But it's still your fault!"
" It is not! Trowa-!"
" Whatever Quatre says I agree with..."
" Oh come on!"
" Look Duo you aren't the one who has to live with him when he's 'unhappy'"
"Hey!"
" Good point."
Pouting Duo turned to the last remaining member of the group, " Wu-baby you
don't think it's my fault do you?"
" It's dishonorable to lie Maxwell..." 'But that doesn't mean I won't', "
No."
Duo smiled and glomped Wufei.
Heero rolled his eyes, Trowa remained Trowa and Quatre glowered.
"Fine, take his side! But your still outvoted and he dies!"
Duo sweatdroped.
" Um Quatre? EEP Wufei!" Duo being smart enough to see his impending doom
jumped behind Wufei doing his best to dodge Quatre's random lunges around the
chinese boy to get to him. Finally Trowa moved forward and picked a flailing
(boy listen to those bells go!) and cursing ( good thing for the bells then
-_-;) Quatre up and held him. While Duo caught his breath, and Wufei pried
Duo's fingers out of his spine...
Just then, one of Quatre's ears fell off. Everyone froze. Quatre even accidently dropped his cigarette. Duo stared at him wide-eyed over WuFei's shoulder. "24 hours. You said 24 hours."
Quatre reached up one shaking hand to touch his other ear. It came away in his hand.
Reality rebounded around them with a sound reminiscent of a Mack truck colliding with a chicken coop. Trowa pulled his hair back down over his eye with a sigh of relief. WuFei glanced down at his normal modest clothes and immediately fell into a prayer of thanks to Nataku. Heero yanked out his newly reappeared gun and began to rain caressing kisses across the hilt. Duo just stared out around the field with wide-eyed horror.
One by one, the others looked up and followed his gaze. The goat stared curiously back at them. With a shriek of horror, the five brave gundam pilots tore across the field towards the safety of their gundams.
Things pretty much returned to normal after that. WuFei was never allowed to navigate again by general consensus. After a week, even Quatre's temper had cooled enough so that it was safe to untie Duo and let him out of the basement. As for the poor goat, well, just keep in mind the next time that you land your gundam in a strange field that the universe might just be against you. In other words, try really hard not to shoot other people's pets. Even if they do try to molest you.