Stone Angel: Stand Alone
By Lizeth Halington
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"Injustice..." he muttered under his breath, putting as much contempt into the word as he deemed humanly possible.

This... girl, was... she...

The Solitary Dragon growled.

How dare they send this girl... the weak, pale, sickly looking girl into the battlefield? Their battlefield, invading their battles, fighting his war?

He growled again, deep in his throat, something unintelligible escaping past his thin lips.

Of all the-!

CLANG!!

"Aw!!" the oriental boy yelped as the unexpected sound caused him to sit up too abruptly and hit his head on the metal above. The second clang ran through the hangar, but this time duller.

Rubbing his forehead and muttering a curse in his native tongue, the boy glared.

Rei Ayanami stood, totally unaffected, even as she bent down to pick up the wrench she'd dropped.

Straightening, she simply stood there, wrench in hand, staring unblinkingly back.

Chang Wufei frowned as he slid out of the cockpit of his Gundam Shenlong.

"What are you doing here?" he interrogated stiffly.

"Gomen nassai," she replied, offering him the silver coloured tool. "I came to see Medusa."

Medusa. An odd name in itself... not just for a Gundam, yet there it was... Gundam 00, Medusa. It was decidedly freaky and slightly disturbing, deduced the pilot of Gundam 05.

Medusa had an odd quality to it, one that, though he'd never admit out loud, made Wufei distinctly nervous. Though its design was similar to the other Gundams, when active, its eyes glowed with an eerie light that made it seem almost sentinel. Alive but not. Its eyes contained a vivid fire that its cool metal shell seemed to strain to keep in check.

Looking at it for the first time, Wufei decided that it did, indeed, live up to its namesake.

The barest shuffling of cloth brought the boy back to reality and he realized that she was still standing there, arm outstretched, wrench in hand.

Mechanically he accepted the tool, muttering a low "thank you".

She jerked her head slightly in acknowledgement and yet, still she stood there, regarding him.

Raising his eyes to meet hers he arched his eyebrows in annoyance.

"What, woman?"

She clasped her hands in front of her, a gesture which some might interpret as nervousness but her face was blank as always.

"Your forehead is still red," she announced quietly.

Wufei slowly felt the rest of his face go red as well.

Of all the insolent...

He grimaced.

He was beginning to boarder on ripe tomato or exploding volcano.

"Thank you for the observation," he barely refrained from hissing, rubbing at his burning forehead unconsciously, "I have work to get back to."

He turned away, not waiting for an answer, slipping back into the familiar comfort of the cockpit and running his fingers expertly over the key controls.

The doors closed, encasing him in his mobile suit: in his gundanium coffin.

The world was put in a much simpler perspective, here in the cockpit of his beloved Nataku. Screens on either side of him gave him all the necessary output he needed to complete his mission. Defeat the enemy.

Here he could control the fates of men and yet- he couldn't control his own?

At times he seriously doubted his capabilities as a gundam pilot. What right did he have to work with Shenlong? Humans were weak by nature...

His fingers found the keys and the screens sprang to life, filling the cockpit with the electronic glow.

There she was.

The Stone Angel and Medusa.

His lips curved up slightly.

It was odd, looking at her, staring up at the giant form of the Gundam she was supposed to pilot. Some part of it still seemed to reek of wrongness. But she was there, the newest member of their little organization: Rei Ayanami, the Stone Angel.

He let out a grunt.

How long would she survive out there?

From what he'd heard, she was almost as bad as Heero, but then, they'd said she'd never actually killed a person before either.

He frowned.

She was fourteen: A year younger than the rest of them, unless you count Trowa, who was 16.

His hands gripped the controls convulsively. It didn't matter. They'd all probably die sometime during the war anyway, what was a few more years difference?

Everything dies. What matters was how you lived your life while your breath was still in your lungs.

He'd spent it killing people, in the name of peace.

In the name of....

Peace.

Peace was death.

He silently touched his forehead, wondering if it was still red, wondering why it mattered.

"Shenlong..."

He huffed, head bowed, eyes closed.

"Nataku, I stand alone."

The screens flickered and faded, leaving the boy in the darkness of the cockpit, silently brooding.

"If it's all the same to you..." whispered a quiet voice, echoing hauntingly the darkness of the cockpit.

Wufei frowned and raised his head.

"...If it's all the same to you, I think I'll sit."

The oriental boy blinked.

The screen in front of him flickered back on with a mechanical beep.

Sitting peacefully in the cockpit of Gundam 00 was Rei, blue hair seemingly luminescent by the light of her own screen readouts.

Ruby eyes stared intently at him, even through the digital picture at composed her face, clear and focused.

After a few minutes, the Dragon realized he'd been gapping like a fish.

"It makes no difference to me," he shrugged, regaining the composure that befits a member of his clan. "Do as you wish, woman."

Did- I just say that...

The figure behind the screen nodded once before the image flicked out again, leaving a slightly bewildered boy sitting with a half-smile on his lips.



On the catwalk above Trowa stood, leaning against the rail, radio in hand.

"Eavesdropping, Trowa? That isn't like you," the blonde smiled, regarding his friend oddly.

An emerald green eye stared back at him from under abnormally long bangs, the orbs holding some undecipherable emotion.

"I have discovered something very important, Quatre," the eldest of the pilots announced in his usually unusually calm voice.

"Oh?" the Arabian arched an eyebrow in curiosity.

"It would seem..." Trowa began, turning and walking past his bemused friend, handing the blonde boy the radio, "...that our Stone Angel has a sense of humor after all."


Author's notes: Whheeee... this is fun... **ahem** yeah... Do you like? Huh huh huh? Please review.

Disclaimer: Very sadly, Evangelion and Gundam do not belong to me. If they did, Rei and Trowa would be an offical- **gets strangled by Heero**