SD Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ Shadow Beyond the Mirror ❯ Return to Life ( Chapter 2 )

It's hard to believe I started Apocalyptic two years ago.

 

It's also hard to believe I'm such a lazy bastard. I've gone under training under a rock for a year to improve my writing. I felt it was severely lacking and self-centered, so I return hopefully much better.

 

Forgive me for being such a jerk… Mediaminer and the message board have been having real problems with my firewall for a long time, and I finally got things back into whack.

 

And so, I rise from the ashes like a phoenix. This time, I will prevail!

 

DISCLAIMER: SD Gundam belongs to Bandai. Graye belongs to me. End of story.

 

-CHAPTER START-

 

GRAYE'S POV

 

Urgh… bgphshp…

 

I feel like a potato, post mashing. God, this must be the king of all migraines. It feels like there's a gnome in my head stirring my brain with a spoon. That can't be good.

 

Though, this is kinda fun. I haven't opened up and looked yet, my eyelids are so heavy; I've never been this sleepy before. I don't know what's wrong with me. But it's like flying around without the plane, I can feel some kinda wind flash past me… but it's not wind; I'm not sure it's even air. It's un-wind.

 

Ugh, crossing dimensions is pretty trippy. Is it supposed to take this long? I mean; the Zakorello Gate takes like two seconds in the show. Am I floating around in Minov Space? Wherever I am, it feels like I'm going pretty fast.

 

Still haven't opened my eyes, though. And I feel all numb, tingly all over and everything. It must be some weird side effect of the transport or something. Ok, let's go; what does the Minov Sea look like?

 

…?

 

What. The. Crap?

 

Opened eyes. Can't see anything. There's something in front of my face. Ok, move it out of the way…

 

Ugh.

 

I… I can't move. I feel like I weigh a ton. I can't even budge. I'm scared now. Really scared. This isn't some side effect, this is-

 

?!?!

 

I can't breathe! I can't breathe! Help! Suffocating dying falling can't breathe! Can't struggle can't fight can't breathe!

 

My lungs are burning… Inferno's exploding in them… Pain… hot… no…help…

 

No energy to try and yell anymore. No use. I'm blacking out again. There's something hard up against my face, it's filling my mouth, my nose, self…can't breathe…scared… doesn't mean much if I'm going to die!

 

I can hear my heart beating faster and faster, desperately calling for air…is this how I'm going to die? Thump thump, thump thump. Keep going, I need to live; I need to live, faster, faster…

 

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

 

Thump—thump.

 

…Thump-…-thump…

 

Thump…… …

 

I can't see the time…

 

-@-

 

Wait. Wait a second. I should have died. Having heart arrest in the middle of nowhere means that you're dead, right? Is this even allowed, waking up?

 

Oh, head spinning… trippy, like I just got stuffed into a trash compactor. Ow.

 

Ok, get up. That's the start. Now, open your eyes…

 

I did. Something felt wrong, though. Like I could open my eyes without moving. It was weird, I tell you. I didn't know why, though. As soon as I quit seeing double, a strange thought crossed my mind.

 

Why do I suddenly feel shorter than usual, I thought. The perspective was a little skewed. Then again, I probably had bigger problems, so I didn't make much of it.

 

It was like the whole world was a cartoon. No, not a cartoon. It was all too detailed to be a cartoon. Like if mother nature herself made an anime, that was the best way to say it. I was standing on a round platform, tall towers sticking straight up in front of me brimming with odd apparatus. The landscape was a brown plain, isolated from everywhere else. Looking around, the seven people (both human and mechs included) were passed out on the floor. I noticed the Gundam Force (and the Trio too, I guess) were once again… well… mecha. It was only on earth, in my world, that their kind didn't exist.

 

Everything was like in that TV show I used to love when I was a kid. Kinda silly, but I thought they all would be smaller. But the perspective I was in made them all seem very `normal-sized', whatever that meant.

 

Ugh, world-hopping was tiring. I was probably going to yawn or something. And so I tried.

 

And failed.

 

My mouth, it wouldn't move. Not a single muscle would budge on my face. In fact, it sort of felt like…

 

I didn't even have a face. Wait, whoah!

 

I'm going to go back to kindergarten and think about what Ms. Blair said about problem solving. There were a few steps… One, what do I know? I know I can't move my face and I feel short all of a sudden. Do you need more information? Ms. Blair says yes. Ok, two; what do you notice?

 

I thought a second.

 

I have not blinked at all since I came to. Can I?

 

I tried, and succeeded. But it still felt uncanny; the same sort of unmoving sensation that opening my eyes brought. It was really starting to weird me out.

 

You have not taken a single breath since you came to. That's usually a bad sign. Try it.

 

I attempted to suck in my chest for a deep breath, but I couldn't even start. Nothing happened. Nothing responded to willing myself to do that. But I wasn't suffocating. It was like I didn't have to breathe. Freaky.

 

Are you dead? Because you should be if you aren't breathing. Check.

 

Without looking, my hand flipped to my wrist. I had taken a pulse so many times in health class it was like reflex. But from the moment I touched something hard and smooth, I knew something was wrong. There was no heartbeat. There was no softness. At least I was still warmish.

 

Ok. Half of me doesn't want to look. I don't want to look, I don't want to look… Aw, screw it.

 

I looked. I think every single curseword I knew exploded in my head. Ms. Blair got very cross. My hands were made out of metal.

 

So, I did what every other slightly intelligent earthling girl would have done.

 

I passed out in a dead faint.

 

-@- BACK TO THIRD PERSON POV -@-

 

“Ow,” Shute moaned as he finally lifted himself off the ground. His head stopped panging like a tuning fork, and he looked to the side to see his best friend. As he truly was supposed to appear, too. “Captain! Wake up! We're back in Neotopia!”

 

A barely audible beep was heard as some processor inside Captain Gundam flickered back online. Slowly he sat up, eyes dutifully emoting the expression for dizziness for a moment before returning to normal. “Systems… operational,” he mumbled, but then turned to the boy who had woken him. “Hello, Shute. Are the others all right?”

 

“I think so,” said Shute. “But I think we should let them be before we wake em' up.”

 

Captain Gundam nodded understandingly. He had the honor of waking up Bakunetsumaru back on the Earth world, and needless to say the Musha gundam was often irritated in the mornings. “That makes sense,” he said, but looked around again. “Where is Graye?”

 

“Dunno,” the boy shrugged. Where WAS she? “I'm the only human here, I think.”

 

Rising to his feet, Captain Gundam carefully tiptoed past the first seven quiet forms on the ground, regarding an eighth with interest. “Shute, will you come over here?”

 

“Oh, um, okay,” Shute mumbled and walked over. Immediately he stooped down and poked what Captain was looking at. “Hey, what's this other gundam doing here?”

 

“I do not know, Shute.”

 

The unfamiliar gundam had a white base color, pristine and unstained. At a glance it was strikingly obvious that the mech was designed as a `she'; the limbs were more slender, the waist narrower, the chest modeled after feminine features. Even the armor was indicative of the female gender: lighter, more mobility-based than a male's. Her shoulder armor was a vivid purple, matching skirt armor as well as a few other parts. Both hands and feet were black, with charcoal-and-white guards to protect against hand strikes. Down her front ran a lilac strip, as to bisect her. Emblazoning her brow was an unfamiliar Vfin design; the underside edges thinning and rounding off until the ends stabbed into sharp golden points. The bright yellow metal edged an emerald oval decal, contrasting with the dulled plum of her armor color. Not suprising due to her female design, several flexible bands of darkened metal peeked out the bottom of her helmet, imitating black hair…

 

Shute looked awkward. “Well, we know it… she's not dead.”

 

It was true. Wrecked gundams had blank, powerless eyescreens. This one simply emoted the `swirly eyes' message, the standard for deep confusion, nonfatal system error, or even temporary `unconsciousness.'

 

“Uh…” Zero mumbled, beginning to levitate slightly out of his out-cold position. “Bell Wood's contraptions don't quite agree with me,” he groaned, but then froze. “Wait… We're back! I've returned to my true form! Huzzah!”

 

Without warning, at once Bakunetsumaru jumped up and gave a whoop of joy. “Yes! No more squishy! Ha!”

 

“Show some restraint...” Zero sighed, rolling his eyes at Bakunetsumaru's display of happiness.

 

Bakunetsumaru just glared and kicked Zapper Zaku on the ground. “Get up, we're back you dogs!”

 

“Nrrgh, five more minutes, motherboard,” he mumbled and remained on the floor.

 

Dom twitched. “Ow… my booms…"

 

“Shut up and let me be or I'll maim you…” Grappler muttered half awake and not aware of himself.

 

Zero floated over to the immobile gundam being inspected by Shute. “And who might the gundamess be, Captain?”

 

“Identification is not possible at this time,” the Neotopian gundam simply replied.

 

“I see,” Bakunetsumaru nodded, walking over. “Where is Graye-san?”

 

Shute shook his head. “Dunno.”

 

“This does not bode well,” the musha replied. “The girl could be drifting around between worlds for all we know. As for the female warrior, how did she get here?”

 

“We don't know that either,” Shute replied.

 

Zero just sighed. “A fine mess that we have landed ourselves in.”

 

“Us, what do you mean `us'?!” Bakunetsumaru interjected. “Graye is somewhere all alone, and all you can think about is `us'?!”

 

“There is no need for brash action, your words border well into impetuous.”

 

“Who are you calling, `brash' you bigheaded fruit?!”

 

“Fruit?!” Zero returned with equal intensity. “I'll teach you to call me a `fruit', you disrespectful knave!”

 

“Arguing will lead no conclusion, please stop,” Captain gundam ushered, attempting to stall the impending quarrel but to no avail.

 

`How can you teach me anything when you're dumb as your own flowers?!”

 

“The princess rose isn't `dumb'!”

 

“Are you saying they are smart?”

 

“Why you-!”

 

“Please, nothing will come of this!”

 

Shute ignored the bickering duo and attempted to turn over the unconscious gundam with difficulty. While not as heavy as Captain, she certainly wasn't anywhere near light. After trying for a few minutes and eventually using Grappler's blade as a lever he managed it, and he gave a sweatdrop at the weapons secured to her back.

 

“Uh, guys,” ge squeaked, pointing at the Plasma Pike in it's case. “Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I think this IS Graye.”

 

Zero stopped immediately and zipped to the side of the gundamess to inspect her more closely. “It… It's remarkable.”

 

“Impossible…” Bakunetsumaru blinked and poked her with Shute. “Where is the human squishiness?”

 

Captain Gundam bent over to look at her two, and then emoted a bewildered expression. “I estimate the accuracy of this new hypothesis to be 97 percent.”

 

The female gundam gave a slight quiver, a sign of being conscious. A voice emitted from the mouthpiece. Graye's voice. “Mrgh… what a messed up day. Not only am I suddenly made of metal but I've also got a facefull of linoleum. Joy.”

 

“It's not my bad, I'm tellin' you,” Bell Wood said over the loudspeaker defensively. “I had nothin' to do with this one, just like last time.”

 

Graye turned herself over to four pairs of staring faces, her pale silvery eyes meeting each of them in turn. “Hi all. Nice to see you guys as chibi-things again, but I'm probably not one to talk,” she said and then directed another comment at the ceiling. “Is anyone going to explain anything useful, or what?”

 

-@-

 

“Fascinating!” Kao Lyn garbled over the form of Graye as she stood before him. Performing his customary tai chi, he seemed to be everywhere at once, prodding Graye in almost every spot imaginable. “It seems her energy signature was documented by the device and it utilized emergency protocols…”

 

Shute sweatdropped. “Uh, Kao Lyn. Neotopian please.”

 

The gundam technician gave a grin and continued in his strange martial arts display. “Her reiki is equal to the standard gundam, and it registers near identically to a gundam's energy. The transport device uses energy signatures to lock on to a passenger, or so I'm told. It must have mistaken her for a gundam and when it found she wasn't one only because they don't exist for real on the Earth world, it made changes for her to be in Neotopia! And a fascinating specimen she is!”

 

“Aiee! I'm not a specimen! Quit spazzing over me!” Graye pushed. “What are you going to do to me, take me apart or something?!”

 

“Well, that would be interesting,” The technician replied thoughtfully.

 

Graye gave a look of horror. “No!”

 

“Is it by any chance similar to the change we underwent on our excursion to Earth?” Zero intoned, rather glad to be visibly made of gundanium once again.

 

Bell Wood gave a `so so' hand sign. “Sort of. You see, the reason the transport did that to you guys is because Gundams don't exist at all on Earth. I think the reason it did it to Graye is because of two things. First, she's got a whole lotta energy that's practically the same as what any of you three emits, and that messed it up and confused it. Also, humans with that degree of Reiki don't exist at all on Neotopia. So it had to `improvise', y'see?”

 

“Is the device usable, at any rate?” Bakunetsumaru asked. “My homeland needs me.”

 

The dark skinned youth shook his head. “Nah, we don't know what it'll do if we try to find Ark and go there. It could be unsafe. But I've got a better idea!”

 

“What new data have you attained to cause you to rethink your solution?” Captain asked.

 

“Well, we've re-captured the Zakorello gate, right? We just figured out how to make it work for us, so we can just use that instead of making one from scratch.”

 

Graye gave him a critical look. “Oh, so instead of having to do the work yourself you look to something someone else made? The bugs that make it unsafe don't sound too bad, you could fix that right?”

 

“Well, yeah…”

 

“Geez, Baku was right. You really ARE a bum.”

 

Bell Wood glared. “Can it, lady! I know what I'm talking about!”

 

Shute coughed. “Well, uh, Graye?” he went. “Can you keep helping us? We'd really like it, But it doesn't matter if your, um, condition, yeah, makes you want to go home.”

 

“What are you, nuts?” Graye huffed, but it was clear that she was happy. “I'm staying. If you three can deal with being human for a month or two, I can deal with being a gundam. I'm okay, let's just go… where in Neotopia are we anyway? Didn't Blanc base get trashed by Big Zam? Or is this sometime before the second season that I never got to see?”

 

“This is the Gundamusai,” Kao Lyn informed “made from the Magnamusai after we-“

 

“Captured it. I know.” Graye nodded “So, what now? Are we okay for departure or what?”

 

Bell Wood nodded proudly, stretching a haughty smirk and fixing his odd-looking goggles. “You're fit to take off in a week or so. Kao Lyn and I are jus' here making the final tweaks to the computer. Most everybody else is back at base.”

 

A door slid with a `shwoom' open and the form of Guneagle emerged from the door, waving. “Yo, guys. Hey Kao Lyn, what about the upgrade that…” he began but stopped dead in his track.s “Fuh… um…”

 

“What are you staring at?” Graye asked awkwardly. “My eyes are up here… oh no. Don't you even think about looking at my chest you… um... boob.”

 

“Yow!” he cried in joy but inched over to his superior. “Hey, who's the babe Captain?”

 

“Graye from Earth, Guneagle.”

 

Guneagle gave what Graye strangely recognized as a wry smile (although he didn't really have a mouth) and sauntered up to her. “Hey, You're kinda new… and kinda cute, if you know what I mean. What do you say I show you around the ship, you'd be great company, ya know.”

 

“Spare me,” Zero muttered “What a lecher.”

 

Bakunetsumaru poked the Wing Gundam. “Not much worse than you.”

 

“Must you bring these things up every time there is a woman in my presence?” Zero frowned

 

Graye gave Guneagle a wary look. “Uh, thanks but no thanks. I can find out where everything is by myself. Um, bye. I'm leaving,” Graye stammered, obviously not appreciating being hit on and started to inch away. Kao Lyn and Bell Wood just shook their heads and left, not wanting to be any part of this.

 

“C'mon baby,” Guneagle purred, pulling closer to her. “I don't bite.”

 

“PERV!!!” Graye yelled and slapped the young gundam on his metal face, making a profound `clang' as she hit. “Back off!”

 

Guneagle stumbled back with a hand-shaped dent in his faceplate as Graye stormed off, just a little annoyed.

 

“Hey! She likes me!” he whooped. “Oops, gotta go see Kao Lyn now, Bye guys!”

 

He left in a hurry to go see the technician about the slapmark on his face.

 

And there was silence. Pregnant, profound, perplexed silence.

 

“I'm going to see if Graye's lost,” Shute said after awhile, and left, followed by Captain Gundam.

 

The Wing and the Musha exchanged looks.

 

“Well,” Bakunetsumaru blinked. “That was interesting.”

 

Zero agreed.

 

 

-@-

 

Graye looked about the practice room with a bit of uneasiness and weariness. Yes, she had a body of metal now, but it didn't seem to keep her from being tired. She had been confined to this room for nearly three days now by her own choice.

 

Earth was a fluke, she had said to them all. She had won by bum luck only. She was still just a kid, combat instinct or not. If she was going to have to go on a great adventure, then she had to be prepared. Gunbike had been drilling her constantly, but for the time being it was Juli who was running her through simulation training.

 

“Ok, what now?” she asked, glancing about. “Anything else?”

 

Juli's kind voice came on over the loudspeaker. “That was very good; you handled the obstacle course in a very respectable time,” she said. “Next is the last exercise for today, basic combat simulation.”

 

“Fake enemies?” she said. “I can do that, I guess.”

 

“Precisely. Simulation initialization… go!”

 

The gray room shimmered, and became a scene of Neotopia Park, fenced in on a few sides. Four zako soldiers winked into view. Graye would have normally thought they were as cute as a button, but now that she herself was in a gundam's perspective they didn't seem quite so adorable anymore.

 

And they had guns, obviously. Pointed at her.

 

“No problem,” she sighed, glancing to the sides for openings. This was nothing compared to that final battle. Still, she couldn't relax. She had to be as perfect as she could be- out there it would be a matter of life or death and she definitely would not have an entire army to catch her.

 

Just as the zakos fired she dodged out of the way, drawing her laser pistol. One thing that she did have on her side was speed, even if it was hard for her to compare to her harder-hitting friends. It was then she exploited something she noticed a while ago: as their guns followed her there was a slight amount of lag, like a fuzzy Internet connection.

 

She aimed and fired in the small gap of leeway. No more Zako. Now that it wasn't networking with three others, the lag disappeared, prompting Graye to forsake long range for her plasma pike.

 

As she stared down these fake enemies, she couldn't help but wonder what she had gotten herself into. She had a feeling that everything that she knew would be interrupted, now that she was living in the middle of it.

 

Whatever, she sighed to herself. First I have to get rid of these little problems…

 

-@-

 

CHAPTER END

 

 

So that was what I was slaving for under a rock for a year. Pretty pathetic, now that I think of it.

 

Graye's form is VERY LOOSELY based on the GF13-050NSW Nobel Gundam from Mobile fighter G gundam.

 

I have included a tribute to the original gundam series in this chapter… if anybody can find the line that pays homage, I will give you a cookie.

 

I can't say how quickly this story will rework itself. I had to gut and salvage half of the plot before I started again.

 

-SilverBellsAbove, resident zombie.