by Melody
* Part I *
Found: One Cute Little Shinigami
The chibis were spending a happy day at a local park. Trowa and Quatre were playing Frisbee, Wufei and Heero were sneaking around amongst the shrubbery playing 'spies' with their binoculars and other relevant spy equipment, and Relena was sitting on the grass, dreamily enjoying her favorite recreational pursuit, Adoring Heero.
Duo was climbing an old gnarled tree and he was having a grand time; since he had not wanted to play 'spies' with the other boys he was playing 'pirates' all by himself. He had such a lively imagination that he didn't mind playing alone; he could always "'magine" people to be friends and foes.
As Duo was scrambling down from the 'crow's nest' so that he could inform his crew of the ship that had just appeared on the horizon his braid became entangled in one of the branches.
"Aw, heck!" he exclaimed loudly as he pulled at his braid; it took a few tugs before it came loose.
Duo heard girls giggling; he looked down to see where that annoying noise was coming from.
"You must be Duo," giggled a brown-haired girl with freckles, as she looked up at him.
"Yeah--how'd you know that?" Duo was puzzled. "Are you psychotic or somethin'?"
The girls giggled again.
"I wish they'd stop doin' that," Duo grumbled inside his head.
"We know 'cause Hilde told us that we should look for a cute boy named Duo who has a long braid so we'd know which boy is her boyfriend," said the little blonde girl.
Duo jumped out of the tree; he stood with his feet wide apart, hands on hips. "She's NOT my boyfriend!" he declared vehemently, his blue eyes blazing.
Giggles.
"Um--I mean I'M not HER boyfriend!" Duo was flustered and had turned red from embarrassment. "An' can't ya say NUTHIN' without gigglin'?"
More giggles.
"Guess not," Duo realized. "Well, when ya see Hilde, you can tell her from me that I said I'm NOT her boyfriend--I don't even LIKE HER!"
The giggles became outright laughter.
"WHAT'S SO FUNNY?!" he demanded angrily.
"She said you'd say that," laughed the brown-haired girl.
"An' she said not to b'lieve you neither," the blonde said, laughing.
"An' she says you're REAL CUTE when you're angry," the brown-haired one told him.
"An' she's right, too," decided the little blonde.
"Go 'way. I don't wanna talk to you ENY MORE," Duo said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Take a hike."
"Well!" humphed the girls before they left. Duo had offended them, which is exactly what he had intended to do.
Duo sat at the base of the tree and rested against its trunk. "I'll NEVER unnerstand girls," he muttered miserably to himself.
Quatre and Trowa were throwing their Frisbee back and forth. Trowa was the more skilled of the two players and often threw the bright green disc out of his friend’s reach without meaning to, which meant that Quatre was getting much more exercise than Trowa was.
Melody had told Relena to stop watching Heero and to go play, so Relena was now sitting on a nearby swing, head down, pouting, and using the toe of her shoe to twirl herself around aimlessly.
“Trowa, can you push me?” she asked politely, but with a pitiful edge to her voice.
Because Trowa was distracted by Relena’s question he tossed the Frisbee farther than he had ever thrown it before.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Quatre!” he apologized. “Is it okay with you if we stop now so I can help Relena?”
”Yeah, go 'head. I’m ready to do sumpin’ else,”
Trowa went to the swing set to assist Relena while Quatre hunted down the Frisbee.
Quatre was kneeling on the grass, retrieving their toy from under a bush when he heard a commanding young voice. ”I challenge you!” it said. Quatre looked up at the strange little girl that the voice belonged to but he said nothing. He stood and brushed the grass from his brown jeans.
“What?” He looked into her slanted blue-violet eyes and was sure that what he saw in them was determination. He was puzzled by her; he didn’t know what to think or say.
“I SAID, ‘I challenge you,’” the girl quickly answered. “Can’t ya hear me? I talked loud ‘nough.”
“’Course, I heard you,” Quatre said with a look of bewilderment. “I jus’ don’t know why you said it.”
The little girl held out a long stick, offering it to Quatre. He took it from her and stared at it.
“I’m challengin’ you to a duel, that’s why!” she declared. Quatre looked at her carefully; it was the first time that he noticed her strange v-shaped eyebrows.
“You want to fight with sticks?” he asked. “That’s dang’rous! I NEVER fight with sticks ‘cause you could poke out your eye or sumpin’.”
“So!” the girl declared, “YOU are a coward!”
“No, I’m not,” Quatre replied with equal decisiveness. “I’m just too smart to do sumpin’ dang’rous, that’s all!”
The girl turned her back on him and folded her arms in stubbornness; her very long white-blonde hair swirled around her. “You’re just ‘fraid to fight me ‘cause I’m a girl!”
Quatre thought that she had ended the conversation, but she looked over her shoulder at him. “So that makes you a coward.” Again she turned away.
Quatre thought that he should get some help to make the girl understand that she was demanding that he do something that was foolishly dangerous. He saw Wufei and Heero creeping along a hedge not too far away, so he went to see if they could do something about this aggressive girl so she wouldn’t hurt anybody.
Wufei was handing the binoculars to Heero as Heero switched off the ultra-secret tape recorder. “You take a look,” he said.
Heero did, and nodded solemnly. “I think we got it all, too,” he informed his fellow spy.
Quatre ran up to the boys and breathlessly said, “There’s a bully who wants to make me fight with sticks.”
”Why don’t you fight then?”
“’Cause Melody says it’s not safe!”
Heero rolled his eyes and Wufei just stared at him.
”Will ya PWEEZE come ‘n help me?” Quatre looked so pitiful that the two other chibis decided to accompany him; it was better than having to look at that pathetic expression for the rest of the day.
Quatre led the way. Heero and Wufei stayed behind so they could talk without Quatre hearing what they were saying.
“I dunno ‘bout Quatre,” Heero said, shaking his head slowly. “He’s gotta learn to fight SOMETIME.”
“The weak should not fight,” Wufei countered, “an’ Quatre is weak.”
”Well, we gotta make him be strong then,”
”You’re right ‘bout that,”
Quatre had stopped walking and had waited for them to catch up to him. The little girl heard them and turned to face them; the shock of seeing her stopped them in their tracks.
“Your bully is a GIRL?” Heero asked incredulously.
“Uh huh.”
Wufei folded his arms across his chest and stared disapprovingly at Quatre. ”A GIRL!” he screamed inside his head. He made a mental note to make sure to teach Quatre how to fight so that he could at least fight GIRLS; some karate moves, perhaps. In Wufei's mind, by Quatre not accepting the challenge from 'only a GIRL' he was bringing disgrace upon the entire family, and Wufei could hardly bear to think of that.
”SO,” Quatre's bully said snidely, addressing him, “are you ready to fight or did you bring your friends to fight FOR you?”
“I told ya already,” Quatre said, not budging an inch, ”I won’t fight with sticks ‘cause it’s too dang’rous.”
Heero bravely stepped forward. “I’ll fight you,” he said in his monotone voice; his steady gaze never wavered.
“No, Heero! Don’t!” Quatre cried in alarm. “One a you guys might get hurt!”
Heero and the new girl ignored him; Wufei took Quatre aside. “He hasta fight now ‘cause he said he would, else she’ll think he’s a sissy.”
Quatre was not comforted by this bit of knowledge; he watched the “goings on” in silent apprehension.
“My name is Dorothy Catalonia,” Quatre's 'bully' declared boldly, tossing a long stick to her dark-haired opponent. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Heero Yuy,” Heero said as he caught the stick and assumed the standard fencing position. Dorothy daringly lunged at him and he countered her every move, using the skills he'd gleaned from his many watchings of "Robin Hood."
“I once heard a story 'bout a famous man named Heero Yuy,” Dorothy said, not skipping a beat. “I’ll tell it to you. Once 'pon a time there lived…” Dorothy was interrupted when a very large man wearing strange clothing snatched her stick away from her, broke it in two and threw it away. He gestured to Heero to surrender his stick and he complied; Heero’s stick met the same fate.
“What kind of foolishness is this?” he roared.
For the first time in her young life, Dorothy was speechless and just looked up at the big man with her eyes as round as they could possibly get and her mouth hanging open.
“Where is your mother?” Rashid’s commanding voice echoed through the park.
Heero rolled his eyes; he was sure that Melody must have heard him and he desperately wished that Rashid would 'learn to yell more quieter'.
“Uh...uh...over there,” Dorothy stuttered and pointed to a far corner of the park, where her mother was engaged in a conversation with another mother.
“Right,” Rashid said. He picked Heero up and tucked him under one arm and did the same with Dorothy. He turned to Quatre and motioned for he and Wufei to follow him. “It is time for us to take you to your violin lesson, Quatre-sama.”
“Oh! I forgot ‘bout that!” Quatre exclaimed, hurrying to keep up. He could tell just how angry his biggest ‘fan’ was by his long, purposeful strides. “Thanks for ‘mindin’ me ‘bout it, Rashid!”
Dorothy turned so quickly to look at Quatre that her neck nearly snapped. “You KNOW this guy?”
“'Course I do,” Quatre answered proudly. “Rashid is the leader of the Mog-a-nock Cores an’ they help take care of me.”
”ALL forty of 'em,”
By this time, Rashid had crossed the entire park; the chibis which were on foot were close behind.
“I believe this child is yours, ma’am,” Rashid said with authority in his voice as he set little Dorothy down in her mother’s lap. “You should have a talk with her about the danger of fighting with sticks.”
With that said, Rashid started toward where Melody and Tegan were; he could see that they were getting ready to round up all of the chibis so they could leave. He left Dorothy’s mother with the very same expression on her face as Dorothy had when she’d met him. They thought it was all very strange.
Rashid dropped Heero off next to Melody and said to him, “I expect you to tell your webmommie exactly what happened over there. Do you understand?” He said it with such a threat in his booming voice that Heero gulped nervously and could barely nod in agreement. Rashid turned to Melody. “I am here to take Quatre-sama to his violin lesson, as you expected.” She nodded. Rashid's face entirely changed as he smiled at his favorite little boy and hoisted him up onto his shoulders, causing Quatre to giggle happily. Quatre looked across the park and waved a cheery goodbye to Dorothy and her mother, neither of whom had moved a muscle since Rashid had deposited Dorothy into her mother’s lap. They watched as a great crowd of other smaller men in similar Arabian garb joyously greeted the little blonde boy as they put him into their bus so he could get to his music lesson on time.
Melody looked at Heero and shook her head. She sighed and said, “I’ll wait till we get home to hear the whole story. I’m just too tired to deal with this right now.”
The chibis followed Melody and Tegan to their car. Duo ran to catch up to Heero with an insane grin on his face. “What’d ya get in trouble for THIS time, huh?” he asked, smiling mockingly all the while. When he got no response he said, “Betcha it’s somethin’ AWFUL ‘cause Melody didn’t want to hear ‘bout it right ‘way!” Still no response. “Boy, am I glad that I’M not in trouble! I’ve been bein’ haved ALL DAY.” He looked very proud of himself; it was a rare day that he wasn't in trouble for one thing or another.
Heero shifted his eyes and looked at Duo with disgust. “You will be after we tell Melody what rude things you said to them girls.”
”What girls?”
“The ones that said you’re Hilde’s boyfriend,” Wufei added helpfully.
“What--! How’d you know ‘bout that?” Duo looked wildly from one boy to the other, panic stricken.
”We was playin’ spies, ‘member? An’ we spied on YOU,” Wufei was happy to reveal.
Duo suddenly had a comforting thought. “Well, it don’t matter WHAT you tell Melody—it’s my word ‘gainst yours!”
“No, it’s not,”
Duo looked confused.
“It’s all right here,” Heero said in a triumphant monotone as he patted the bag that held his ultra-secret tape recorder.
~Standard disclaimer~ The author does not claim to own Gundam Wing nor any of its characters, including the adorable chibis. >_< Gundam Wing belongs to Sunrise, Sotsu Agency and TV Asahi.
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR! webmommie@gmail.com
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