Wufei 1/2
A Gundam Wing / Ranma 1/2 crossover
Part Three
By Raye Johnsen
"Kidou Senki Gundam Wing" is copyright Bandai, Sunrise, Viz Communications, Mixx Entertainment and other associated parties. "Ranma 1/2" is copyright Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan and Viz Communications. In other words, they're not mine.
[holds composure]
[holds composure]
[loses composure]
IT ISN'T FAAAAIIIIIRRRR!!!!!Please remember: this is an Alternate Universe, so the events with which you are familiar may or may not occur; and secondly, this fic's only reason for existing is to make you smile. If it succeeds, cool. If it doesn't, well, I'm sorry. Either way, do not take it seriously.
Part the Third: Facets of Truth
I could, possibly, say that life calmed down somewhat after Duo and I came to our accommodation over our names (though it would be truer to say that I merely accepted that Duo was going to call me 'Fei', whether I willed it or no, and that he meant no disrespect by it). That, however, would be a false impression.
OZ scaled back some of its operations. There were, Yui informed us with a strange form of grim pleasure, certain internal problems with certain ex-Federation troops.
We would later learn he was covertly financing and advising the secession movements in various nations, starting from Sally Po's group of Nationalist guerrillas in China and moving out through Middle Asia and Europe, and that they were contacting and converting OZ personnel they had personally been friends with when they all had been Federation troops.
Barton and Winner, having found their Gundams to be as complementary as their personalities, began taking all the officially joint missions that we were sent. It was a pairing nobody could fault - Winner's Gundam is primarily defensive, with a heavy emphasis on armour and close-range weaponry, while Barton's specializes in long-range attack and fast strikes, sacrificing armour for speed.
I say 'official' because I soon found that Duo would make any of my missions he heard about into joint missions. I soon found myself relying on his judgement and skill - and I was not happy about this. What would happen, should I be placed in a position where I could not call upon him for assistance? A reliance upon the skills of another would undoubtedly become a fatal weakness.
And yet... I found that I was coming to trust him in a way I never had any other. Not even Nataku.
In our partnership, we found ourselves suspicious.
I feel that this requires an explanation.
This is not to say that we Gundam pilots were suspicious of each other. Living weapons such as ourselves recognised other such, and weaponry is honest. It is those who wield them who practice deception. And so when a mission came in for one of us, we fell into the habit of having another of our number verify it for us.
We managed to flush out a number of false informants in this manner. The contacts that were interrogated by Doktor S, with the Barton Foundation's emphasis on politics, had to be genuine to withstand Yui and Doctor J's focus on the electronic world, and those who convinced Master O by taking into account our stance on militarism could not face Winner and Professor H's business expertise.
It did, from time to time, cross our minds that our advisors might not be utterly trustworthy, but whether or not they were personally loyal to us, they were certainly loyal to their ideals. We were tools, and one does not ask the handyman if he is loyal to his hammer.
Thus, the near-disaster in Siberia. Near disaster, for what happened; and pure disaster for me.
But I am in advance of myself.
All five of our advisors managed to agree that there was a resupply mission to the Siberian OZ base, that was somehow key to OZ's attempts to return to peacefully reigning over the world. This was quite a relief for us; we had managed to obtain information about it a week before they, and their continued silence on the subject was worrisome. It implied that our wiretaps and hacking skills were more reliable than their informants.
Whether we continued to believe in them or drew a belief in ourselves from this happenstance was not a question I ventured to ask my four companions as we met to discuss the question of strategy.
There had been no indication within the data we'd gathered to indicate whether or not the shipment of arms was coming by land, sea or air. OZ had the resources to bring it in any of the three methods. There was even a possibility that there might be a partial shipment by each method.
Winner and Barton had their heads bent over the map as they discussed strategy and tactics. Contrary to popular opinion, the two are not the same thing. Strategy is control of an entire process, directing a number of situations to lead to one's goal. Tactics are what one uses to cause the outcome of a specific situation to be what one desires. In other words, tactics are the small, short-term and specific, and strategy is the large, long-term and overall. Winner was good at strategy, while Barton was the superior tactician, and by working together they built us a plan that would have terrified our enemies.
I was female at the time, having run afoul of Yui's water-glass (again), which may be why I thought the way I did. Women are more devious than men, and OZ's strategy, devised by that hellcat Une, was more devious than I had ever encountered before.
"Why are we attacking the convoy?" I wondered aloud.
Winner gave me a look that clearly questioned my sanity. "Because we cannot allow it to arrive," he said briskly.
I gave him a flat gaze in return. "I know that," I said. "I meant, why are we attacking it openly? Surely it would be just as effective to infiltrate the source bases and sabotage the shipment."
Yui and Duo both sat up from where they had been leaning against the wall. "Chang has a point," Yui commented.
"Especially," Duo added with a grin, "if we allow the sabotaged equipment to arrive and fall apart on them, or blow up in their ordinance dumps, or...."
"I believe we see the point," I cut in dryly, before he could elaborate further. "With such consequences, there would be a lessening of morale among the OZ soldiers, and our goal of depleting OZ's resources would be accomplished - and we would be that much less exposed to counterattack."
Yui, Barton and Winner exchanged glances - then Winner ceremoniously removed the old plan, and we all five sat down to plan our new counterattack.
Siberia Base, we discovered, was to be supplied by three different bases - Alaska Base, Manchuria Base and Afghani Base. This lent credence to the all-three-routes theory.
Winner and Barton - of course - infiltrated Afghani Base. Yui entered Alaska Base, and Duo and I inserted ourselves into Manchuria Base.
Manchuria was mainly supplying ordinance, hand weaponry and spare parts to Siberia. A nice, convenient flood that was localized to the live ammunition storage bunkers took care of the ordinance and most of the hand weaponry. It is rather hard to fire guns with gunpowder that is wet or a laser that is malfunctioning. If you wish to survive the experience, that is.
It was the spare parts where we ran into difficulties.
Naturally enough, the first thing we set out to utterly ruin were the fabricating machines. They were easy enough to sabotage - resetting all the tensions and erasing the tech manuals, then rewriting the data files so they appeared correct but were anything but. Duo had fun.
We ran a live electric current through the bunker where delicate electronics were stored. It's quite amazing how only a few volts over capacity can burn out circuitry. We pumped it up to five hundred volts and wore rubbergloves, just to make sure.
Five hundred grammes of thermite made a very pretty explosion in the cupboard where they were storing nuts, bolts, screws and connectors. Lining the small metal bits up into projectile formations also took care of several larger pieces stored in the rooms around the cupboard.
And some people say that we have anger issues.
Perhaps, in hindsight, we should not have acted so with the nuts and bolts cabinet, for that was the ultimate proof to the commanding officer that there was a saboteur on the base.
Duo and I ran towards the exit, only to be cut off by yet another squad. At a cross junction, with two choices, we split up. Naturally, the OZ soldiers followed me, as I ran down corridor after corridor, getting thoroughly lost until I hit a dead end.
I stared at the dead end for one stupefied second, and then spun on my heel to face my pursuers. I was alone and I was out of ammunition. I was also, due to the previously engineered flood, female. Life is not fair - especially when it is a good day to die and it appears that you're not going to be allowed to.
I stared at them. They stared at me, with my hair loose and my breasts heaving. They did not stop looking at my breasts, and my skin crawled beneath the weight of their eyes.
"It's a girl!"
"One of the Gundam pilots is a girl?"
I stared at them as they boxed me in, their faces changing. Where they had been coloured with anger, now their eyes took on a different gleam, alight with a cold hunger. I shivered and stepped back. Eight of them. My unarmed combat skills wouldn't get me out of this one. Oh, to have overlooked a fresh magazine in my ammunition stash....
But I hadn't, and I knew it, and they knew it. The closest one to me reached out and brushed a clammy fingertip over my chest. With a quick reach-and-grip, I broke his hand and went for his gun.
Ironically, I had just drawn his gun out of its holster and was aiming at him when a bullet from behind him blew his brains out.
The squad swung around as one man to see Duo, a gun in each hand and his manic grin plastered all over his face, standing at the end of the corridor, boxing them in.
His grin grew wider, if possible, and he said, too calmly, "Shinigami is here, to deliver Justice," before opening fire.
His eyes were cold as he lifted his fingers from the triggers. The last body jerked a little from the impact of his last round. With no trace of the grin, he said flatly to the hot corpses, "Nobody touches my girl."
His words sank in and I jerked my chin up, to stare him straight in the eyes. They were utterly sincere.
I closed my own and winced.
Busting out of the base was easy. We set off a series of timed explosions at one gate and slipped out the other. At that stage of the war, we hadn't hit any bases from the inside before, so they had no experience in dealing with us.
We travelled to the hotel where we had rented a room in silence.
"Wait here," I said tersely to Duo in the living area of our room, going to the little wet bar area, putting on the kettle and fetching a glass of cold water from the bar refrigerator. I waited a few minutes until I was sure the water in the tiny kettle would be hot enough, and then carried both into the living room. Duo was sitting there, looking mystified.
"You may wish to sit down," I warned him. I stripped to my waist, debated going completely naked, and then decided not to. My chest was enough of a graphic demonstration. Also, I did not wish to display that part of my body to anyone else just yet. My mother and Nataku were the only ones to have ever seen me in complete undress, and I had no wish to add Duo Maxwell to that number.
He remained standing. I shrugged (causing his eyes to fix themselves on my chest) and tipped some hot water from the kettle onto my head.
His eyes bugged out, he went pale and now he sat down. I sat down in the chair opposite him, said, "Watch closely now, Duo," and splashed myself with the cold water.
If there had not been arms on the chair, I do believe he might have fallen out of it. I poured some more of the hot water onto my head, and moved to kneel in front of his chair.
"'Fei?"
His voice sounded so lost and bewildered. I winced, and laid my hand over his. "I suffer from a curse, Duo," I told him calmly. "I was born a man, and until a short time ago I was always male, as you are. However, now, when splashed with cold water, my body becomes female."
He frowned. "You turn into a girl?"
"NO!" I denied vehemently. "I don't change, and I am definitely not a girl! My body sometimes becomes female - but it's me, and I am a man!"
He bit his lip, and reached out, gently touching my chest. Nobody had touched me so lightly, or anything approaching this gentleness, since Nataku had died. Without lifting his hand, he splashed me with the cold water again, feeling my smooth muscles curve and fill up into a feminine bosom, then reached for the hot water and watched, fascinated, as the skin beneath his palm flattened and fell away from his hand. He shook his head, withdrawing his hands into his lap, and said, "That's... if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it. But... it looks crazy, 'Fei."
"You should try it from in here," I said feelingly. "Women's bodies are... very different to ours. Different hormones and impulses. And certain things I would normally deem unthinkable seem utterly logical when my body is female. It is quite bewildering."
"Oh?" Duo said, in an interested tone of voice, leaning a little forward. "What sort of things?"
I smiled with relief. What he had said back at the base was being glossed over, and soon he would put it behind him and move on. Why this should be disappointing to me was a mystery. Undoubtedly due to being female at the time, I decided. "An example? Well... when my body is female, chocolate is utterly delicious and, if I have been reading articles on bodily health, I will eat granola."
Duo blinked, and said, "Women are insane."
"I am inclined to agree."
At that point there was a knock on the door, and I answered it.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, sirs," the page who was at the door said apologetically, "but we have to search the hotel. Two dangerous terrorists are in the area, and they could be hiding anywhere."
I glanced over at Duo, who was smiling ironically. "Certainly," I said calmly. "Please go ahead."
"Thank you," the page said fervently (he must have been received poorly in other suites) and he quickly made a cursory search of the room, the cupboards, and the small ensuite bathroom.
Having finished, he came to stop before Duo. "Um, sir," he said nervously, "one of the terrorists is a girl. I can see Mr. Lau over there is a man," he added, nodding at my still-shirtless chest, "but I have to verify that you are a man too."
We exchanged another look. "All right," Duo said equitably, shedding his chausable and linen shirt to reveal a trim, muscular, undeniably male chest.
"Thank you, sir," the page said cheerfully. "We are all dreadfully sorry for the inconvenience, and I will be very happy to inform the officer from OZ that you are both perfectly innocent."
"Oh, don't say that," Duo drawled. "I'm not the least bit innocent... any more."
The page glanced at us, his eyes widening, as I gave him my blankest stare. He blushed, and said, "Um... well... good night, sirs!" and fled.
Duo waited for a count of three before collapsing onto one of the beds, howling with laughter.
We had been caught on surveillance cameras, of course. And, of course, the incident was circulated among OZ bases and to other OZ personnel. And their family and friends. And their family and friends....
Whoever invented the 'Forward' button on email should burn in one of the Nine Hells for at least a thousand years, and then be reincarnated into a famine-stricken area as the youngest, female child of a poor, starving family. And that should only be the beginning of their torment.
To return to the subject, the file of the Girl Gundam Pilot being cornered by the Big Bad Would-Be Rapists and then being rescued by Her Heroic Gundam Pilot Boyfriend (one of the less lurid descriptions, from one of the first sites where the piece was archived) soon became one of the most-seen files in cyberspace.
It would only be a matter of time before Yui, Barton and Winner saw it - much less Master O and Professor G.