SD Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ Secrets ❯ Chapter 1

[ P - Pre-Teen ]
Secrets

It can be…so hard keeping things secret sometimes, right?

If you were trapped in a malfunctioning lift nearly miles off the ground, as robotic warriors battled beneath you and gunfire burst into the air, odds are you were scared but of your wits, or at least a little shaken. There was close to zero chance that you were smiling, much less giggling.
But Sayla was.
She saw the battle taking place beneath her, and she couldn’t help but smile.
Why, you may ask? Simple. She had a secret.

As cute and charming as she was, Sayla was no airhead. She was innocent and sweet, but certainly no airhead.
She’d known right from the start. On that day, the day she had first seen it all, she would’ve been a complete idiot not to notice the dark ring open up in the sky, or the hulking red battleship that dropped out of it. Trees didn’t turn to stone every day, you know.
Of course she’d known something was wrong. But she’d shrugged it off, pretending to be interested in how to get a kite to the moon as Captain charged into battle.
She’d known their secret right from the start.
How could she not notice?
As she’d been whisked through the air by Shute’s kite (her cries to postpone the takeoff had been lost in the din of battle) she had a bird’s-eye view of the chaos all around her. She’d seen creatures turning every living thing in their sight to stone, seen Captain locked in combat with a red-armored warrior, seen the swan boat go crazy as some sort of spike was transfused into her head.
And when the kite had hurtled towards the spiky tops of the petrified trees, when Zero had come and saved the two children from certain death, housing them in a magic shield as he vanquished the advancing Bagu-Bagu, she smiled and pretended not to notice.

It was all so obvious, really; so obvious that it was a rather stupid mistake to think she’d have no clue what was going on. All you had to do was piece all the facts together.
Like the fact that Shute and his friends were always disappearing. They’d come back and tell stories about what they’d supposedly been doing- rescuing boaters from a storm, fighting a forest fire- even when there had been no storm or fire to speak of, no smoke or clouds. And the areas they were visiting were always closed off by the police. ‘Private business’, they’d say, even though you could clearly hear and see the signs of a battle taking place.
Like the fact that Captain, Zero, and Bakunetsumaru all carried weaponry, even though firearms were strictly against the law in Neotopia, with the exception of the police force, which they were clearly not part of. In fact, she could tell from their speech patterns and behavior that Zero and Baku were not from Neotopia at all.
Like the fact that the ‘mysterious robot warrior’ who always showed up in those ‘private business’ zones acted and spoke exactly like Captain. He didn’t really have much of a disguise. Zero and Bakunetsumaru didn’t even have disguises at all.
It all added up, and she knew something was going on in the seemingly peaceful Neotopia.
But that was okay. They didn’t have to know she knew…not yet.

There were times, many times, when it was an advantage to appear naïve and clueless.
This was one of them.
Shute was her best friend- and possibly, something more (he did a bad job of hiding that, too). If he didn’t want to tell her, that meant he wasn’t ready for her to know. And if he wasn’t ready to let her know, then she wouldn’t, as far as he knew.
No, for the time being, she would remain blissfully unaware to the danger all around her…

And that was why, when the lift descended to the ground, and Shute opened the door for her, she smiled. She looked around at the destroyed cake factory, at the blasted bits of weaponry and debris littering the ground, at the battle-scarred Shute and the weary Gundams, and she just smiled at him.
“Shute,” she said cheerfully, beaming. She held the mayor’s (thankfully unscathed) birthday cake out to him. “Look! I finished my cake for the mayor!”He grinned back at her. “That’s great, Sayla! You’re safe now.”
Then, realizing what he had just said, he reddened and began to stammer. “Uh, I mean- that is, it-”
She put a finger to his lips and winked.
“It can be…so hard keeping things secret, right?” she cooed.
He looked into her eyes, and he knew she knew. He smiled.
“I know…”
Sayla giggled.
He could tell her when he was ready.