He was bored; he had never been so bored. The purple haired priest was so
tired of being bored. His usual source of entertainment was currently
unavailable, and had been so for quite a while. He was contemplating how to end
his boredom when a thought struck him. He now knew exactly what to do to stop
himself from being bored. It would mean breaking several rules, but he was sure
that whoever was in charge wouldn’t mind after finding out his plans. With that
decided, he transported himself to a place with thousands of springs. He walked
up to one with a bucket and scooped up some of the water, being careful not to
actually touch any of it. He placed the bucket on the ground and cast a spell. It
changed the curse of the water ever so slightly.
"Now, who should I dump this on?" he said with a wicked smile forming on
his lips.
He started to go back to his home, and decided to take the scenic route. A
while later he finally came upon someone. He entered the room in which the person
was in. It was dark and the person was asleep in their bed. He went over to the
sleeping form and pulled back the blanket from its head. He couldn’t believe his
luck, the perfect victim! He nearly laughed out loud at the thought of the
suffering that the poor sap would endure because of the curse the water held. He
smiled evilly again and threw the water at the person. He was surprised when the
person didn’t wake up, but it didn’t faze him for too long.
"Oh, well, I guess I’ll just have to wait until the fun starts."
Duo slowly returned to conciseness, after being sound asleep for a long time. He didn’t want to quite wake up yet. It was cold in his room, but it was so warm under his blanket. He hadn’t had a day off for a while and this was the first chance he had to sleep in late."This is bliss." he thought.
But it seemed his blissful sleep wouldn’t last much longer. In the room next to him another Gundam pilot woke up and began his morning activities. The other pilot, while not really making all that much noise, was making to much noise in Duo’s opinion.
"Shut up", he mumbled "People are trying to sleep!"
The noise stopped as if the other pilot had heard him. Duo was happy again.
No reason to get up and all the reason to stay." he thought.
He tried to fall back asleep, but now that he was a bit more awake it had become a little too warm under his blanket. He decided to flip over, feeling that would be cooler. In the process of turning over, his grey tank top became caught underneath him causing it to tighten around his body. He hated when this happened, but he was too sleepy to move. Somewhere in the back of his mind this action made him realize that something was terribly wrong. His body felt different. A few minutes later, when the thought reached the front of his sleepy mind, he decided to check out why he felt different. He moved his hand to his chest. He shot up in shock. He couldn’t believe the information his checking produced. He looked at his chest this time. At this point he did what any sane guy would have done in his circumstance, he screamed.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The other Gundam pilots heard Duo screaming and dropped whatever they were doing. They ran to Duo’s room thinking that the enemy was there. When the other Gundam pilots reached him, he was hyperventilating. They ran into the room to see what had caused Duo’s outburst, but as far as they could tell there was no reason for him to scream. All they saw was Duo hyperventilating on his bed. Quatre, being the most concerned, went up to Duo and asked what was wrong.
"Probably a bad dream." Trowa said offhandedly.
".... Or some other pointless thing." Wufei added.
Quatre shot them a "be serious" look and turned back to Duo. Duo calmed down enough to stopped hyperventilating and grabbed Quatre’s shoulders.
"I’M A GIRL, I’VE TURNED INTO A GIRL!" He shouted.
Quatre at first thought that Trowa had been right about Duo having a bad dream until Duo started to shake him. The shaking cause Duo’s grey tank top to flap around until it fell down a little further down his front. The movement caught Quatre’s eyes so he looked down and got an eyeful of positive proof that Duo had in fact turned into a female. Wufei gasped in shock. Quatre stared at Duo in disbelief then realized that he was staring at his now female friend’s almost completely bare chest. Duo stopped shaking Quatre when he noticed where his fellow Gundam pilot’s eyes were. Duo felt very uneasy about Quatre staring at him, but was unsure of what to do. Quatre blushed, embarrassed, and freed himself from the death grip Duo had on his shoulders. He back away from the bed. Heero and Trowa showed no reaction to the unusual sight. Wufei was trying not to show how unsettled he was. Heero just stood there waiting for it to end so he could see if he had a mission today. He preferred having one to just sitting around the base Trowa walked over to the bed and fixed Duo’s shirt. Duo was uneasy before, now he was down right uncomfortable with the situation.
" I think we should go see the doctor, to see if she can figure out what’s happened to Duo." Trowa suggested.
"Good idea." Quatre said shakily, still staring at Duo dumfounded.
Duo was still sitting on the bed when the others started to leave.
"Aren’t you coming Duo?" Asked Trowa.
Duo was going into shock, but replied anyway.
"Uh... Yeah...just...just let me get dressed."
For the first time, the Gundam pilots heard the now female Duo’s voice. It drove home to them the fact that Duo was no longer male.
"We’ll wait outside." Wufei said showing again how unsettled he was by the predicament.
He almost tripped in his urgency to get out of the room.
"Yeah, outside." Said Quatre nearly incoherently as he followed Wufei quickly.
"Don’t take too long Duo." Trowa suggested as he left the room.
"Hn." commented Heero and he walked out of the room closing the door as he went.
Duo watched them go feeling as if he had been abandoned into a nightmare. A few minutes later he reluctantly he got up to get dressed. He stood in front of his dresser thinking. He really didn’t want to take off this tank top and boxer shorts that he had slept in so he put his clothes over them. He looked himself over. With his regular clothes on, he could hardly tell that his gender had changed. That gave him a little comfort. He walked to his mirror and fixed his braid. With that done, he walked out of his room. When he got out into the hallway he saw that Wufei was already halfway down the hall leaning against the wall. Quatre who had been looking at the floor, looked up when he noticed that Duo was there. With an unspoken agreement the five Gundam pilots walked to the infirmary, where Sally Po greeted them. She had gotten up early to make sure all of the supplies she had ordered had arrived and been put away properly. She looked up and smiled when she saw the boys.
"Hi guys, what can I do for you this morning?" Trowa stepped forward and said.
"Duo has a small problem, you see when he woke up this morning he... he..." the situation finally hit Trowa and he found he couldn’t continue. It was so embarrassing to him that it affected him that he actually blushed.
"He what?" asked Sally wondering what could possible cause a guy like Trowa to blush.
Heero pushed Duo towards Sally.
"He turned into a girl, find out why." He said bluntly.
Quatre interrupted before she could speak but, the surprised look on her face revealed what she was going to say.
"HEERO! How can you say something so insensitive like that! Couldn’t you have been just a little kinder to Duo’s feeling. Can’t you see that he’s not that happy about it..."
Sally interrupted Heero before he could counter with a biting remark about how it had to be said no matter how Duo felt about it.
"WHAT THE HECK DO YOU MEAN HE’S TURNED INTO A GIRL!" , She calmed herself down. She didn’t know how Duo had convinced the others to play a practical joke but she was going to get to the bottom of this fast. "Now you know and I know, people just don’t change gender over night..."
"Sally?" Duo hesitatingly asked, speaking up at last.
Sally stopped when she heard Duo’s voice. There was no way that he could have made his voice sound as feminine as it had just sounded.
Sally turned serious realizing that the Gundam pilots were not playing a joke on her.
"You four leave. Duo come here, I need to run some tests."
"Tests?" Duo questioned nervously.
Sally ignored him and turned to the others.
"Aren’t..." before she had finished speaking Wufei and Quatre were already out of the infirmary.
Trowa and Heero kept their cool as they left. Duo was panicked. He really didn’t want be tested, it was bad enough being a girl. Sally turned to him and her serious expression softened a little. From past experience dealing with late night attacks, Sally Po knew that Duo usually wore boxer shorts and a tank top to bed. She wondered if he had been able to remove them without having at least a few problems.
"Do you have on boxers and a tank top under your clothes?"
"Ye...yeah..."
"Take off everything else. Don’t worry I’ll make this quick." She said then turned away to get some equipment.
Duo hesitated before complying. He slowly took off his two shirts , his boots and then his pants. He then sat on the examination table sitting in his boxers and tank top. He watched as she made a few phone calls, then as she took out some equipment. He fidgeted with his braid, waiting for Sally to finish. He tried to ignore his female body. Sally took out the last piece of equipment she needed and put it on table. She turned to Duo and said:
"Now I know you will be uncomfortable about this but remember I am a doctor and it’s my duty to help my patients get better and feel as comfortable as possible. Just sit tight while I’m just giving you a regular examination to start."
Duo’s apprehension was very apparent as Sally’s hands got near him, but he steadied himself for it. She wanted to check for herself if he really had turned into a girl. She figured that the best way to find out that would least upset Duo was to pull his shirt tightly around him. She moved her hand to this back and grabbed the excess material of the tank top, then pulled it tight. She looked at Duo’s front and saw that it was indeed feminine, instead of the masculine that she had subconsciously expected. She turned and wrote something down on a pad of paper and got down to the examination.
Outside of the infirmary was a small waiting room. Sittings in the rather uncomfortable seats all in a row were the other four Gundam pilots. A soldier was just walking away after talking with them."I hope this won’t take too long, We have a briefing to go to." Said Heero.
For some unknown reason this typically callous remark of Heero’s affected Quatre much more than it did usually. The statement filled Quatre with tremendous anger. He turned to face Heero.
"HEERO! A friend of yours is having a VERY traumatic experience and all you can think about is a stupid briefing?!?!"
Trowa and Wufei turned towards Quatre, confused at this sudden outburst of anger from their normally peaceful friend.
Heero, showing no reaction to his friend’s strange outburst, turned to Quatre and said:
"There is a new enemy, one that has the possibility of being worse than any we have faced before. We have no idea what is going on yet, and that briefing is going to be our first chance to find out. The sooner we find out the better, because time is of the essence in situations like this. So in short Duo’s "traumatic experience" is insignificant in the light of this new threat."
Quatre was so angry he was speechless. Trowa, who had seen similar situations between Duo and Heero, decided to stop them before a fight broke out.
"Heero, Quatre you both have valid points." They looked at him.
"Yes," he continued, " This new threat is important, we are the best ms pilots here and we are vital in defeating the enemy. To accomplish our mission we will need Duo’s help, we need to help him overcome this situation in order for him to be able to help us. So both of your points are valid."
Heero turned his entire body towards Trowa. "Duo can take this. He just needs..."
"...Just needs to what?", Quatre interrupted, "Take it like a man? I’m not sure if you noticed, but he isn’t anymore."
Heero turned back to Quatre.
"Quatre, there’s no time for this. He’s got to get his act together now. The enemy could attack at any time.", he paused, "I was going to say that he is a Gundam Pilot, he’s been trained to deal with tough situations. He SHOULD be able to take this better."
Quatre became so angry that he started screaming at Heero what he usual kept to himself:
"I HATE IT WHEN YOU’RE LIKE THIS. YOU’RE SO COLD, STUBBORN, INDIFFERENT... YOU...YOU...THE PERFECT SOLDIER. YOU DON’T CARE DO YOU? YOUR’RE WORSE THAN WUFEI WITH HIS DETEST OF FIGHTING THOSES HE DEAMS WEAKER THAN HIMSELF.", Quatre forced himself to calm down and looked down at the floor as he continued. "I was wrong about you being the heart of space. You have no heart. You probably ripped it out so you could be a better soldier."
Ever since peace had been achieved Heero had begun to wish to be a little more normal. He had realized that other considered it more important that he stay alive than he had previously though it was, and it was beginning to rub off on him. He was willing to try anything to feel normal. He had even sought psychiatric help to accomplish his goal. So far it hadn’t really help all that much, so Quatre’s statement was like fate saying:
"You can never be anything but the perfect solider or a corpse!"
He felt an incredible rush of anger and charged at Quatre. He punched him in the face, then he started to pummel him with hit after hit. Quatre was surprised at Heero’s anger at first, but quickly recovered. His training showing as he defended himself from Heeros’s attack. Demonstrating that he could hold his own against such a ferocious attack.
"SHUT UP!" , screamed Heero ," SHUT UP, YOU STUPID, PAMPERED, SHELTERED, CHILDISH, NAÏVE ,PATHETICE, LITTLE RICH BOY!"
Trowa was panicking. Two of his friends were acting totally out of character. He stood up between them and tried to stop them. He quickly glanced in the direction of Wufei to ask for some help, but he had vanished. One of the angry pair shoved him away and Trowa fell to the floor. He got back up and attempted once again to break up the fight.
"Guys stop this, it’s not helping any."
Both of them gave him a withering look and continued on with their battle. Heero stopped for a brief moment to shove Trowa away from him causing him to once again land on the ground. Trowa was ready to give up when suddenly the pair was unexpectedly splashed with cold water. They both stopped fighting and along with Trowa looked for the source of the water. There was Wufei with a bucket; he looked absolutely calm.
"Now if you two are finished we can calmly decide what to do about Mawell’s predicament."
For a moment they just stared at him. Then Quatre lowered his fists and his head.
"I’m sorry Heero, I don’t know what came over me. Trowa, I’m sorry I shoved you."