Waiting for Perfect Virtue
03. Harbinger
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Zero is so angry in this chapter. I, um. I don't know what to do about that.
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The crew eyed Raimi's camera feed of the engine room, still full of Dark Axis minions.
Shute sighed and slumped. "I'm bored..."
They all were. Zero was particularly listless, depressed by the prospect of an even longer wait until they could reattempt going to Lacroa. It could be cut considerably if they did not wait for a new ship to be made, but that would be troublesome in its own way -- ideally the Neotopian device could be configured to somehow transport the Gundamusai, but...
Raimi's voice interrupted him from his circular thoughts. "Attention, something is approaching the ship." She paused. "Four life signs detected."
"Hm!" Baku sat up. "We're ready for them, whoever they are!"
They weren't ready for what they saw. Zero flew on ahead, unable to believe his eyes. Rising up to meet the ship was a familiar large white dragon. "Fenn?!" He stopped dead in the air when he saw what Fenn was towing, though, and his gaze hardened. "Fenn... what is the meaning of this?"
Trailing Fenn, locked in magical stasis, were the three Dark Knights: Mercurious, Vayeate, and Tallgeese, still melded with the spirit Gryphon.
The dragon murmured, an ethereal hiss. Fenn had a plan, born of his keen sense of destiny, and he told it to Zero.
It was... audacious. Perhaps too audacious for Zero to bear, and he told Fenn as much.
His partner rumbled and brushed past, coming level with the Gundamusai's deck and flaring his wings dramatically. He laid the unconscious Dark Knights on the deck (to the rest of the crew's complete surprise), turned to Zero and initiated their own melding.
As the Feather Dragon's armor and power supplemented Zero's own, the enchantment on his entourage faded. The Gundam Force noticed and arranged themselves appropriately. Zero on the hand had been taken by surprise, and even now wasn't entirely sure what Fenn was hoping to accomplish this way, until he saw the stasis-spell had ceased. He braced for confrontation.
Mercurious and Vayeate began to stir. As soon as it appeared that they were cognizant, Zero bellowed, "Traitors to Lacroa! Tell me why I should not slay you now!"
The duo froze. The rest of the crew was silent as well, watching anxiously.
Vayeate spoke first. "...Where are we?"
Zero's eyes narrowed, but Captain answered the question. "This is the Gundamusai from Neotopia, and we are in the Minov Boundary Sea."
They groaned. "Great. Wonderful. Dare I even ask how you got here..."
Zero fumed, but the dragon held him back. Patience. Patience...
Bakunetsumaru looked the two Dark Knights over. This was the second time they'd appeared after certain death -- very tough, or lucky, these two.
They had cautiously gotten to their feet and stood, back to back, eyeing the Gundams and sparing a glance at Shute. Their gaze fell on Tallgeese, who was still unconscious.
Mercurius turned back toward Zero. "There must be a reason that we're here and alive..."
Vayeate understood at once. "You have a way out... but it needs more mages, doesn't it?"
Baku blinked. "We do?" He turned to look at Zero too, and for the first time noticed how conflicted he looked. "Zero?" he called, hoping for some sort of explanation.
Baku's voice snapped Zero out of his wrathful thoughts, and he remembered it wasn't just him that needed to get back to their land of Soladiorama. He sighed. "Yes."
("To me or to them?" Baku asked Captain. "I calculate a 73.9% chance that it was to you," he replied.)
"So... we're still alive because you need our magical affinity," Vayeate continued slowly. Mercurius nudged him encouragingly. "So we have two conditions."
That went over about as well as he thought it would, but he kept talking. "The first is, let us stabilize Lord Tallgeese. Let me finish! We've got to keep him from waking. I hope your plan did not need four Knights, because there is no way he would go along with this." He paused, gauging the Gundams' reactions. Well... they weren't about to kill him where he stood. That was something, at least. Hopefully his second condition wouldn't change their minds. "When we get out of here, let us go. Lord Tallgeese is in no condition to fight anyone, and our duty is to him, not picking fights."
"No," Zero said flatly, and Vayeate's heart sank. Lacroa's Chosen One landed on the deck and the two Dark Knights took a step back, both facing him now and standing between him and Tallgeese. "How dare you speak of duty, when you betrayed your TRUE duty -- to Lacroa, and to her rightful rulers! How dare you ask for mercy when you showed none!" He advanced on the duo, who shrank back.
The rest of the Gundam Force had pulled back, too. They had never seen their friend and ally so wrathful before, and it was frankly terrifying. Zero paid no attention to them.
"So now what?" Mercurius managed to squeak out under Zero's crushing glare.
Zero halted.
"We die now? Or later, when the spell's complete? Why'd the dragon bother keeping us around at all?"
"H-hey, we're not killin' anyone... are we?" Shute asked nervously.
"Maybe you aren't, kid," Vayeate said, not moving his gaze from Zero.
"I'm--" Shute started to say automatically, but then realized what the robot was actually saying. "Zero?" he asked again, timidly.
Zero closed his eyes. It was one thing to allow his hatred of these traitors to burn freely; it was quite another to disappoint these allies he had come to accept as friends. From Bakunetsumaru's bright-burning love for his own fractured country to Captain's single-minded focus on guardianship, and Shute's naïve innocence...
No... he couldn't let them down, after all this.
He opened his eyes, and looked at the two robots before him dispassionately. "I am no monster. You will not die this day." His gaze shifted to Tallgeese's unmoving form, and hardened. "Not even him."
After a tense moment, everyone -- everyone -- relaxed visibly. The two Dark Knights stepped around Tallgeese and held their hands palm-out at him, their red magic lighting.
Fenn... Why didn't you separate the Gryphon from Tallgeese?
The dragon told him that it was too perilous to separate a forced meld when they were both unconscious. Perilous for whom?...
--|--
A zako ducked back into the storage room from his vantage point. He scrambled through the ductwork and made it to his destination -- the engine room.
He pushed his way through the throng and slipped into the makeshift stage, still curtained off.
"It's about time you got here, zako! What happened that took so long?! You almost missed the show, zako!"
The Zako's optic twinkled mischieviously. "You'll have to wait until the show starts to find out, zako~"
"Don't give us that! At least give us a hint, zako!"
"Too late, it's starting!" The spying zako whipped his microphone out as the curtain rose. "Ladies and gentlebots! Welcome to the Zako Zako Hour! Today's meeting is all about -- all together now --"
"How can we say it with you when we don't know what it is?!"
"Oh, come on, guys! It's What is going on out there! Zako!"
"Ohhhh."
"And I am gonna bring it, zako!"
"Stop beating around the bush zako!!" The cohosts moved to boot him --
"HAH! You wouldn't dare!" The spy pointed dramatically first at his cohosts, then at the audience. "I was up on the deck, making first-hand observations, so I know what I'm talking about, zako!"
"WHAT DID YOU SEE?!" the other two roared.
"The Gundam Force were out there! And so was -- monitor please -- the Feather Dragon! AND!"
"AND?"
"Was it Lord Teee~?!" a voice called out from the audience.
The host jumped back, shocked. "How did you know?!?"
"HOORAY!"
The jubilations of the audience died down when the host cleared his throat in the mic. "But! He didn't look in good shape, zako... his two followers were there and they looked okay, though."
The prescient Zako was on the verge of tears. "Not Lord T!"
The host eyed that Zako suspiciously and continued. "But four to two is terrible odds, zako, so they didn't fight! The Gundam Force took them prisoner! Zako."
The audience wailed.
"Th-th-that's terrible, zako!"
"We've got to save them!"
04. The Trouble with Hitchhikers
Tallgeese, and by extension the poor muddled Gryphon, lay on a bunk in a hastily-emptied storeroom. A security camera followed Mercurius and Vayeate's movement as they left their lord; they would stay in another room, watched by Bakunetsumaru, until the Feather Dragon was ready.
The two Dark Knights had sworn up and down that he would not wake but Zero could not be dissuaded from standing guard at the door. A living Tallgeese was a dangerous Tallgeese, since apparently not even dropping him into a crack between dimensions could get rid of him.
Shute and Captain kept him company, trying to cheer him from his foul mood.
"It'll be all right, Zero," Shute said a little uncertainly, patting the knight's shoulder.
"I wish I could believe you," Zero murmured.
"I've calculated a 91.8% chance that Mercurius and Vayeate have been sincere since they got here," Captain offered. "Does that help?"
Zero chuckled faintly. "A bit, my friends." He looked up, meeting their eyes. "I apologize for my mood today. It was not right."
"It's okay, Zero," Shute said. "I don't think anyone could have guessed we'd run into them."
Zero hummed. "I appreciate it. I truly do." He paused, tilting his head. "What is that sound?"
Bakunetsumaru, having borne twenty minutes of stoic guarding, was bored. The dark knights had not done anything but awkwardly stare since the three of them had settled into this alternate, still mostly packed storeroom.
Baku coughed. "So..."
The two didn't say anything, but puzzlement crept into their expression.
He couldn't take it any more! "Say something!"
A moment of further silence, and then the red one -- Mercurius -- said simply, "Something."
His companion barked a laugh and facepalmed. It took a bit longer for Baku to understand, but once he did... "Th-that is not what I meant!"
"Are you sure?"
"Huh?!"
The ice broke, and they fell into the lake of conversation. Mercurius sharpened his wit on the Musha Gundam (while carefully avoiding insult), and Baku was more amused than anything else. Vayeate seemed to be more the quiet type, preferring to let Mercurius take over the conversation, and laugh at his jokes.
After a while, Baku remembered that these were Bad Guys. His expression turned serious and he asked, "I don't understand... why join with the Dark Axis at all?"
The two knights blinked, surprised by the sudden change in subject. "Ah..."
Vayeate interrupted whatever his brother-in-arms was about to say. "Do you hear that?..."
"Hear what?"
"Listen!"
It was a rumbling, coming from somewhere in the ship. As they listened, it seemed to resolve into... a rush of feet? Were those voices?
It halted outside the door to the storeroom. The three watched the door with trepidation, unsure of what to expect.
BAM!
Something began ramming the door!
The three recoiled further from the door as it shook on its track and finally burst open, allowing in a flood of...
Of... zakos?
Vayeate managed to get a deadpan "What." out before the horde of cannonfodder swarmed around the two knights and began to herd them toward the busted door. "What are they doing?!"
"What does it look like? It's a rescue operation, lugnuts," a voice said from the corridor. "You're welcome."
"No, stop it!" They tried to protest, but it fell on deaf ears. Turning around, they saw zakos bogging down Baku, keeping him from pursuing and coming to their (to be frank) rescue.
Oh, what fresh hell awaited them now?
Grappler and Destroyer met up soon after, one shoving a pair of recalcitrant knights and the other with an unconscious Tallgeese slung over one shoulder. From there they returned to the engine room, zakos barricading the door behind them.
The zakos surrounding Mercurius and Vayeate dispersed and they stumbled for a moment, finally free. They looked around cautiously; an engine room?...
They saw Tallgeese, sprawled on the floor. A red robot was jabbing him with a mop, complaining about litter.
What fresh hell, indeed...
After being bumrushed by Destroyer Dom and way too many zakos, Zero, Captain and Shute realized too late that the villains had absconded with Tallgeese. Giving chase didn't work -- the halls were littered with zakos, making any kind of speedy chase impossible.
Suddenly, the halls cleared. Shortly thereafter they found Bakunetsumaru, chasing after some stragglers.
"Bakunetsumaru! Where are Mercurius and Vayeate?"
"I don't know! These zakos kept us separate!" He kicked one, for emphasis.
Zero growled.
Raimi called in. "Captain, it appears that they have returned to the engine room." A pause; hesistating? "I apologize for not warning you of their escape. They seem to have disabled the security cameras around the engine room."
"It is not you who needs to apologize," Zero grumbled.
"Do you suppose they're going to try and take over the ship again?"
"They'll be more formidable with those two on their side... much less Tallgeese," Zero said darkly.
"I don't think they would be 'on their side'," Baku said after a moment.
The others blinked at him, not understanding.
"Um," Baku said. A moment later, he added, "Well..."
"Baku, they are dark knights -- minions of evil and traitors to Lacroa!"
"Well, yes, but they've seemed more worried than anything else since they got here.."
Zero sighed with aggravation.
"I really don't think they want to fight now. They're tired, and still hurt from their last fight," Baku pressed. After all, he had been in an army; he recognized these things.
"Baku is correct. I have not noticed them display more than 45% of their efficiency, versus when we fought them," Captain added.
Zero stared, unbelieving, but finally gave in. "Fine. But if they can't fight, why would the Dark Axis retake them...?"
The engine room bustled with activity as the Dark Axis squadron leaders refined their new plan. They involved Merc and Vay in this process, if you considered "ignore their insistence that they were perfectly fine where they had been, and fill in their opinions on their behalf" to be participation.
The biggest part of the plan was having the dark knights summon some weaponry for the Dark Axis bots to use, along with having Lord T wipe the floors with any particularly troublesome gundams. All they needed was to get Tallgeese to wake up.
Mercurius and Vayeate watched in horror as the others tried everything from shaking him, to making various loud noises, and cringed when Destroyer Dom accidentally crashed into their lord while wheeling about the room for some unknown reason.
But their luck (and magic) held, and he did not wake no matter what they did.
It wasn't much longer until they decided it was time. Tallgeese was left behind, with nary even a guard, so confident were they; Mercurius and Vayeate, however, were dragged along. They had weapons to summon, after all!
"We're gonna die, aren't we?" Mercurius glumly asided.
Raimi had alerted the Gundam Force of the hitchhikers' movements as soon as she had confirmed it. They hustled out onto the desk and behind -- well, pretty much the same scene as the last time the goons had tried this.
This time, however, the two dark knights were hemmed in at the center of the mob, who caught sight of the Gundam Force and tried to yell something at them. They had to strain to hear them over the horde.
"THIS!"
"IS NOT!"
"OUR!"
"IDEA!"
They collectively blinked. "I, uh, think they don't want to be there," Shute said.
Baku nodded, feeling a bit vindicated.
The goons were hounding them for something, but the Gundam Force had no idea what... until the dark knights seemed to give up, and called upon their magic.
With a POP!, things appeared in the grunts' hands. No, not just 'things', but guns. A massive cheer went up from the horde and they started moving toward the Gundam Force, who looked decidedly less certain of their impending victory. Finally free of their captors, Mercurius and Vayeate took flight and made a beeline for the gundams.
"What do they think they are playing at?!"
"Wait." To everyone's surprise, it was Zero. Not only that, he sounded... impressed?
Baku was ready to be just as indignant as Zero had been at the apparent betrayal, but if now it was Zero advocating waiting, there had to be something to it. He moved to join Captain in meeting the zako horde when he heard the zakos' yells turn to confusion.
Behind him, Vayeate landed and deferred to Zero while Mercurius vanished into the ship.
Ahead of him, baffled zakos pulled their new guns' triggers only for nothing to happen. Those attempting some 'percussive maintenance' found the things vanishing in a puff of magic.
"Solid illusions... low-power ones, but apparently it doesn't take much to fool the Dark Axis."
The Dark Axis was less amused. "GET BACK HERE!" Grappler yelled. As Vayeate continued to not move, he grabbed a gun from a nearby zako and chucked it in his direction.
Vay watched it arc towards him briefly before snapping his fingers and dispelling the thing. "NO THANKS," he called back.
"WHAT? HOW DARE YOU!"
Mercurius had returned. He nodded at Vay and peered at the Gundam Force. "I retrieved Lord Tallgeese from the engine room."
An awkward pause ensued. Captain and Baku thrashed some zakos who tried to fight without the useless guns.
"So, uh..."
Shute piped up. "Why didn't you stay with those guys?.." He indicated the disorganized bastion of Dark Axis.
An easy question! "You have a plan to get out of here. They don't even know where 'here' is."
"Ah... I guess they're not really the type to listen, either..."
The dark knights snorted. "You have no idea."
Grappler was done attempting to recapture the dark knights. He corraled Destroyer, detained Zapper and shouted above the general din, "Retreat!"
The zakos changed gears and surged away to the nearest door that would take them back to the engine room. Captain and Baku backed off.
Mercurius watched this curiously. "You're just going to let them go?"
"It's not ideal, but we lack a better option," Zero said shortly.
As the deck cleared, Vayeate cautiously asked, "Does our deal still hold?"
Zero sighed. "It does."
--|--
The Zako Zako Hour convened, back in the safety of the engine room. The hosts shuffled a bit behind the curtain, reaffirming their unwritten script, and got into position just as the show started. "Good evening ladies and gentlebots! Welcome to the Zako Zako Hour!"
The tired crowd gave a cheer.
"This meeting is about -- all together now --"
"Why did Lord T's followers betray us?!"
The hosts wept bitterly.
"H-how could they?!"
"It's mutiny, zako!"
"It's h-h-horrible, zako!"
A pitiful scene ensued.
Eventually they calmed down, moping silently.
"What were they thinking?!"
"I have no idea, zako!"
"I do! I have an idea!"
The other two hosts looked at him questioningly.
"I bet they have a secret plan, zako!"
"Oh? What kind of plan could it be??"
He tapped his mouthpiece thoughtfully. "I bet
[this is where you remember that this is a rough draft...]
They stared at him. Then, in unison, they yelled, "THAT'S ABSURD, ZAKO!" and punched him out.
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