Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Gundam Wing and the Gods of Thunder ❯ This is So Not Good ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter 13: This is So Not Good

“Ow! Ow! OW!” Zechs cried. “It hurts!”

“I think we need to deliver the baby,” Treize said worriedly. He cradled the weeping Zechs in tender arms. He, Zechs, Quatre and Trowa were in the room at Frey's house that Treize and Zechs were sharing

“You're right,” Quatre said. “Trowa get some warm water and find some towels or swaddling clothes or something. Where's Roku? He probably has stuff we can use.”

“I think he went with Loki to catch Fenrir.”

“Oh great! Well, go see what you can find.”

Trowa dashed off.

“Don't worry, Zechs.” Quatre patted his hand. “I'll have the baby out of you as soon as possible.”

“Don't think I'm going to just forgive you for this!” Zechs growled tearfully. He grabbed Quatre by the front of his shirt. “You better put everything back the way you found it, dammit!”

“You'll be good as new.”

Treize frowned. “Didn't you tell the others Zechs' pregnancy might last four or five months?”

“I might have.”

“We've only been here a few weeks.”

Quatre managed a sickly grin. “I think time travel might screw up magically induced pregnancies in men.”

“What a surprise!” Zechs exclaimed. “Men aren't supposed to get pregnant! Ouch!”

Roku bounded into the room. “Mama, I heard the ice giants!”

“Terrific!” Quatre grumbled. “What about Odin and the heroes?”

“They're still getting organized.” Roku sidled up to Zechs and poked his tummy with his nose. “Is the baby coming out now?”

“Yes.”

“May I watch?”

“You can help. I'll teleport the baby and you can fix Zechs' insides, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Where is Trowa with the water? We need to get on with this.”

“I'm right here.” Trowa stepped carefully through the door carrying a wide shallow basin filled with water. Several pieces of cloth in various sizes were draped over one arm.

“Ah, perfect.” Quatre snagged one of the larger pieces of cloth from Trowa and settled cross-legged beside Zechs. He spread the cloth in his lap with the ends draped over his hands. “Ready, Roku?”

“Ready.”

“Try not to move, Zechs,” Quatre said and he proceeded to rattle off a long string of Latin syllables. There was a faint popping sound and a wrinkled baby girl appeared in Quatre's lap. He immediately wrapped the cloth around her and slid her into the basin.

Roku rested his chin on Zechs' suddenly flat tummy. “Bene corpus,” he murmured.

Zechs blinked in surprise. “I feel great!” He looked down at himself. “And my stomach is flat again! Hallelujah!”

“She's really cute!” Trowa said.

“She sure is,” Quatre agreed as he gently cleaned the little baby.

The baby blinked at him with enormous gray-blue eyes.

“I think she'll have your eyes, Zechs, when the color settles.”

Roku sniffed the top of her head. “She smells like Mr. Zechs. And she has a lot of hair.”

“That she does,” Trowa agreed. “It's straight right now, but that doesn't mean it won't get curly later.”

“And lighter too,” Quatre added. “It's darker than Treize's right now.” He lifted the baby out of the basin and dried her with another cloth. Then he bundled her up and handed her to Zechs. “Congratulations, gentlemen. You're parents.”

Treize and Zechs studied their new daughter.

“What should we name her?” Zechs asked.

“Alexa,” said Treize.

“Ah,” Zechs smiled. “Good choice. Alexa Merquise Kushranada. Welcome to Asgard.”

The baby regarded her two papas innocently.

Quatre shook himself. “All right, now I better go straighten out this mess with Odin. We can't have him starting a war with the ice giants. This could turn into Ragnarok if we're not careful.”

“We should all go,” Treize said. “Do you feel up to it Zechs?”

“I'm fine. Help me make a sling for Alexa.”

“Will she be all right like that?” Trowa asked as he watched Zechs tie two pieces of cloth together and then loop it over one shoulder and under the opposite arm.

“I could put her in my storage space,” Roku volunteered.

“Other living things have survived there,” Quatre noted.

“That's ok,” Zechs said quickly. He tucked Alexa into the sling and settled her comfortably against his chest. “She'll be fine like this.”

“How are you going to feed her, Mr. Zechs?”

Zechs' face turned red. “Uh…”

“We'll get some milk from the servants,” Quatre stated matter-of-factly. “Now, let's go find Odin.”

They hurried back to Valhalla to find the plains filled with roaring, raggedly organized heroes.

“These idiots are going to get themselves killed,” Heero reported disgustedly. “They need a battle plan if they're going to fight the ice giants.”

“Heero!” Quatre exclaimed. “We don't want them to fight the ice giants! Remember?”

“Oh, right.” Heero sounded disappointed.

“Where's Odin?”

Heero waved a hand vaguely across the plains. “Over there somewhere. A scout came back with a report about the giants.”

They all felt the ground tremble. And then it trembled again. And then again.

“Footsteps!” Duo announced.

Quatre put a hand over his face. “Great!”

Several heroes began shouting. “The ice giants are coming! To arms! Prepare to fight! The honor of Valhalla is at stake!” With a great roar, the host of heroes began pouring across the plain in the direction of the echoing footsteps.

“WAIT!” Quatre shouted. “It's all just a misunderstanding!”

“They're not listening,” Heero remarked. “Excuse me.” And he dashed off after the heroes.

“Heero! Not you too!”

“I'll look after him!” Wu-Fei shouted and he raced off after Heero, drawing his sword.

“Wu-Fei!”

“I think it's out of our hands, Quatre,” Duo said with a gleam in his eye. “But if they're going to go fight with the heroes, I'm going to go fight with the ice giants. That seems fair.” He skipped off, chortling to himself.

Quatre groaned. “Has everyone completely lost their senses?”

“To be perfectly honest,” Zechs said with an embarrassed cough. “A good fight sounds rather relaxing after all I've been through. Does someone have a sword I could borrow?”

“Sure, Mr. Zechs.” Roku produced a handsome rapier from under one foreleg. “Like this?”

Zechs favored Roku with a beautiful smile. “That's perfect.” He smiled seductively at Treize. “Care to join me?”

“Well…” said Treize. “Since you ask so nicely. Roku?”

Roku produced another sword.

“Thank you.” Treize swished the sword through the air experimentally to get a feel for the weight and balance. “Very nice blade,” he said. Then he regarded Roku speculatively. “Do you have a lot of weapons in there?”

Roku shrugged. “A couple.”

“And just where do you get these things, young man?” Quatre demanded sternly.

Roku ducked his head. “Here and there.”

“Do you have another one?” Trowa asked curiously.

Roku, looking a little guilty, produced a third sword. This one had a slightly heavier blade.

“Ooh…” Trowa smiled. He saluted Treize and Zechs. “Shall we go, gentlemen?”

“By all means.”

“One moment!” Quatre pointed an imperious finger at Zechs. “Hand over that baby this instant.”

“Yes, sir,” Zechs said meekly. He lifted Alexa's sling off over his head and handed the baby, sling and all, to Quatre. Then he grinned and he, Treize and Trowa, raced off after the rest.

Quatre slipped into the sling and settled Alexa against his chest.

Roku blinked at him. “Mama, may I go watch the fighting? I promise not to get hurt.”

Quatre gave him a stern look.

Roku blinked innocently.

Quatre sighed. “Oh very well. But no magic!”

“Yes, Mama!” Roku bounded into the air, shimmering into the shape of a hawk in mid-leap and swooped away.

Quatre shook his head. “I am surrounded by maniacs.” He looked down at Alexa's little face. She stared back at him. “Oh well. Let's go find you something to eat.” He went back to Frey's house. He had just finished feeding Alexa some warm milk when sharp shudders began to shake the house and deep rumbles rattled the windows. Frightened servants scurried in from the kitchen.

“What's happening?” one cried. “Is it the end of the world?”

“Crap!” Quatre muttered.

Even more violent shaking began and Roku swooped in through an open window.

“Mama! I think you should come now! Everybody was just having a pleasant little fight when Mr. Odin called Mr. Kuffrit a snowball-headed idiot and Mr. Kuffrit called Mr. Odin a saggy-titted hag with a tiny prick and then Mr. Odin called Miss Baumgrit a furry-boobed savage and she got mad and made frozen lightning and punched a big whole in the ground, so Mr. Odin screamed at her not to wreck the beautiful plains of Asgard with her stupid ice and she screamed that Asgard was a hot muggy swamp and started blasting everything with frozen lightning and giant snowballs and then Mr. Odin started throwing fireballs and making lightning rain down from the sky, and now everything's getting all cracked and broken and there's lots of big holes everywhere, and I saw pieces of rainbow floating across the sky and Papa Trowa said it's the Rainbow Bridge that connects Asgard to Midgard so it looks like things are starting to break apart. Maybe you should come stop the fight now.”

“Oh shit!”

Quatre dashed out the door with Roku flying above his head. Outside, the wind was howling and giant bolts of lightning crackled across the sky and smashed into the ground. Quatre was knocked off his feet. “Roku! Take Alexa! I need to fly!” He snatched Alexa out of her sling and tossed her toward Roku. Roku dove past her and Alexa disappeared under his wing. Quatre shimmered into a hawk and the two birds zoomed toward the battle.

The closer they got to the battle, the worse it became. The bodies of heroes and ice giants were strewn everywhere and massive boulders tumbled through the air. Flying became nearly impossible.

“Dammit!” Quatre screamed over the wind. “We aren't going to be able to reach them!”

“I can!” Roku shouted back. He changed into the form of a dragon, bigger even than Gift, and grasped Quatre in his claws. His huge wings churned through the shifting winds and carried them swiftly toward where they could now see humans, gods and giants battling furiously. All around them, the ground was starting to break apart and chunks were floating away.

“Those idiots!” Quatre cried.

“I see Papa Trowa and the others!” Roku angled over and dove toward the ground.

“Hey, is that Roku?” Duo called out as they landed.

Quatre changed back into his own shape. “What the hell are you people doing? Have any of you noticed that the world is breaking up?”

“The footing did seem to be getting a little unstable,” Treize remarked calmly as he hacked at an ice giant's knees.

“And that would certainly explain the floating boulders,” Zechs added as he hamstrung another ice giant.

“Maybe you should mention it to Odin,” Trowa said as he leaped high in the air, flipped over, and slashed an ice giant's arm.

“If you can get him to stop shouting insults at Kuffrit and Baumgrit,” Wu-Fei put in. He shot a stream of golden fire at three ice giants and they cowered away in panic, patting out tiny flames that sprouted up in their hair.

“Oh geez!” Quatre exclaimed and he stomped off toward Odin.

“Odin! You empty-headed lout! You're destroying everything!”

“Lout, am I?!” Odin cried. “Take that!” Lightning crackled down from the sky and struck the ground where Quatre was standing. A shimmering aura of light momentarily surrounded Quatre, protecting him from the explosion. He brushed a clod of dirt from his shoulder.

“You're starting to piss me off!” Quatre growled.

“I am Odin!” Odin roared. Lightning pounded the ground in all directions, sending great chunks of earth flying up into the sky. Molten lava spurted up out of the ground, turning everything a lurid red.

The ice giants squealed in panic and raced away, shielding themselves from showers of sparks and red blobs of liquid rock. Roku spread his wings and a luminescent shield covered the spot where the Gundam pilots were standing, protecting them from the onslaught. Gods and heroes on every side dove for whatever cover they could find. Violent earthquakes shook the ground, throwing everyone off their feet. Already gaping fissures grew wider, spilling bright red lava which immediately floated away in glowing streamers.

“Now you've done it!” Quatre shouted at Odin.

But Odin probably didn't hear him because he was clinging to a chunk of rock that was slowly tumbling away.

“This is just great!” Quatre complained bitterly. “What are we supposed to do now?”

He and the other Gundam pilots watched with resignation as Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim and all the connected worlds slowly broke apart.

Then a large boulder floated toward them with a panicked and whining Fenrir clinging precariously to it. Loki sat between his paws petting Fenrir soothingly, but he was laughing hysterically.

“Is this not the funniest thing you have ever seen?” Loki howled. “Odin caused Ragnarok! I can't stand it! I think I sprained something from laughing!”

“This is NOT funny, Loki!” Quatre said sternly.

“Yes it is!” Loki cried. “Look at that!” He pointed to where several gods huddled together miserably on a nearby chunk of the Asgard plains, including Heimdall, Frey, Thor and Freya, clutching their singed and shredded clothes around their bodies.

Heero snickered.

Wu-Fei pressed his lips together, blinking rapidly.

Quatre glared at them.

“Mama, look!” Roku cried. He was back in his tiger form, jumping up and down on three paws and pointing at the sky with the fourth.

Above them, an enormous ribbon of snake flowed past, sliding between the floating boulders and glowing chunks of cooling lava.

“I say!” Jormangand exclaimed. “That was certainly a startling way to wake up.” He flowed to a stop above them, although long stretches of his body continued to slide by. “What happened?”

“Odin caused Ragnarok!” Loki bellowed.

“I did not!” Odin exclaimed. His boulder, bumped by Jormangand's passage, rolled toward them.

The end of Jormandgand's tail floated by and the big snake stared at it in surprise. “Oh my!” Jormangand exclaimed. “So that's what my tail looks like! I haven't seen it for centuries.” He flicked it back and forth with a giggle.

Treize looked around. “Well, this certainly is something of a mess, isn't it?”

“It sure is,” Zechs agreed. Then he looked at Quatre. “By the way, what did you do with my daughter?”

Quatre flushed. “Oh, ah, Roku has her.”

Zechs frowned. “What? You didn't shove her in his storage space, did you?”

“I was worried about her getting caught up in this,” Quatre said quickly.

“Here she is, Mr. Zechs,” Roku mumbled. He was holding little Alexa between his teeth by a bunch of her swaddling.

“Humph!” Zechs snorted as he retrieved his infant. He cradled the baby and studied her carefully. She was sound asleep. “I guess she's ok.”

Treize looked over his shoulder and caressed her cheek with a fingertip. “What a sweet little creature,” he murmured lovingly. “And she's all ours.”

“Yes, she is,” Zechs cooed. He leaned back against Treize's shoulder. “We made a baby.”

“What do you mean `we'?” Duo exclaimed. “As I recall, Quatre and I made that baby. You just provided the material, which you were slinging about with great abandon and no concern for its reproductive potential.”

“I beg your pardon?” Zechs purred threateningly. “I don't recall you waddling about with a baby stuffed in your abdomen.”

“Details!” Duo muttered.

“Can we get back to the busy at hand?” Wu-Fei interrupted. He pointed past the giant floating snake toward the tumbling chunks of what had been several collocated and contiguous worlds. “Aren't Midgard and Earth the same thing? I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was born, the Earth was a single large planet, not a collection of floating asteroids.”

Heero nodded. “I kind of preferred the single planet configuration myself.”

“This could be a bit of a problem for the development of the future we came from,” Trowa said thoughtfully.

Odin's rock collided with their bit of Asgard plain and the former master of Valhalla tumbled at their feet.

“It's ruined! It's all ruined!” Odin wailed. “What have you people done?”

“Us?!” Quatre exclaimed indignantly.

“Geez, Odin!” Duo exclaimed. “Quit whining! At least there's still enough gravitational pull to keep the air from dispersing and we're not all dying from asphyxiation in the vacuum of space.”

“He has a point,” Heero noted.

“But Midgard has broken up!” Odin cried. “And Asgard is in rubble! Who knows what has become of Sleetcold and Jotunheim?”

“I do,” Roku piped up.

“What?!”

“Sleetcold is inside that big rock over there and Jotunheim is that jumble of ice balls over there. See? Where the ice giants are having a snowball fight with the rubble?”

Odin groaned.

“What a baby!” Heero muttered.

“This is a bit of an unfortunate situation,” Frey remarked from his bit of Asgard a short way away. “I rather liked my home and the Asgard plains.”

“They were very pretty,” Heimdall agreed wistfully.

“I can fix it,” Roku said.

“How?” Odin exclaimed. “How can a mere child fix what the gods cannot?”

“Roku is no mere child,” Quatre grumbled.

“May I, Mama? I'll have to use really big magic.”

“Umm…” Trowa said doubtfully.

“How bad can it be?” Duo said cheerfully. “He couldn't possibly make it any worse.”

“That's true,” Wu-Fei agreed.

“He could disperse the air,” Heero noted.

“Good point.”

“Go ahead, Roku,” Quatre said archly, glaring at the others.

Roku sat down, wrapped his tail around his paws and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked up, held up one paw and shouted, “Ecce mundus coire intermundia discenere!”

As everyone watched, the chunks of Midgard floated toward each other and merged into a single planet, its blue and green surface glimmering brightly with highlights of white and brown.

“The land masses don't look right,” said Duo. “Shouldn't the Atlantic Ocean be in the middle there?”

“Roku just reassembled the Earth and you're criticizing?” Quatre growled.

“No! No! But won't it change the future if the land masses are in the wrong place?”

“He's got a point,” Heero stated flatly.

“I hate to say it,” agreed Wu-Fei, “but Duo might be right.”

“I don't recall there being an enormous serpent floating in space between the Earth and the Sun either,” said Trowa.

“And shouldn't there be a Moon?” Treize added.

“Nothing but critics!” Quatre muttered.

Jormangand yawned hugely, sucking up a great quantity of the remaining available air. “All this adventure has made me a bit tired.” He blinked sleepily at the gleaming new Earth. “Midgard looks a little different, but I'm sure it's still quite comfortable.” And with that, Jormangand flowed through space and began burrowing his way under the nearest mountain.

“Aw man!” Roku exclaimed. “He's messing it up!”

The Earth shook and shuddered as Jormangand worked his way back inside. Continents rose, fell and buckled over on themselves, with a few large chunks flying out into space. Oceans washed from side to side and splashed up into the air, forming clouds. It took a long time before the tip of the great serpent's tail finally slid from view.

“The Earth looks bigger,” Treize remarked.

“I should think so,” replied Wu-Fei, “with several thousand kilometers of giant snake curled up inside.”

Roku lifted his paw and intoned another spell. The chunks of earth thrown free by Jormangand's entry drifted toward each other and coalesced into a small planet.

“There, happy?” Quatre growled. “A Moon.”

Trieze smiled. “That looks better.”

“Geez!”

“Say!” Duo exclaimed. “The Earth looks more right now. The Atlantic still looks kind of skinny, but continental drift should fix that, right?”

“Either that or Jormangand rolling over in his sleep,” Heero muttered.

“If you're all done belittling my son's achievement,” Quatre growled, “shall we see if the gods would like him to do something about Asgard?”

“No one is belittling Roku's achievement, Quatre,” Trowa said soothingly. “We just want to make sure the future is the way we left it when we get back.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

-o-o-o-o-

Author's Aside: Alexa was the name of a woman that Treize and Zechs went to school with and whom they both admired in my story Victoria Base Affair Extended Addition.