Reality Storm: Chapter 1
by K.Huntsman
released 25th March 2000
A pre-dawn explosion shook Nasuti's house. Ryou snapped awake and instinctively looked out the window, but his room was on the wrong side of the house. "Byakuen?" he asked, but the white tiger had already vanished out the door. He tumbled out of bed himself, grabbing the red crystal sphere that rested on the bedside table.
Seiji was already out in the hall, a sleepy-eyed Touma behind him. The blond nodded at Ryou, then raised a hand to knock on the door of Shin and Shuu's bedroom before entering.
Suiko and Kongo's wearers were already at their window, staring out into the darkness. The rest of them joined the two there, trying to peer through the black of night into the early morning. "A gas main explosion?" Shin asked.
Touma shook his head. "There'd be a fire."
"This feels different," Seiji murmured, one hand pressed against the cool glass. "Like... something that's not supposed to be here."
Shuu's eyes widened, then narrowed. They all trusted Seiji's intuition. "Another youja attack?"
Seiji concentrated, then shook his head. "I can't tell. I'm sorry."
"Let's get dressed and check it out," Shin suggested. The others nodded, agreeing with the suggestion, and vanished out the door.
It was a long dawn trek through dew-dampened woods before they reached the source of the explosion, and found that it hadn't been an explosion at all.
Wufei woke with an aching head and stifled a curse. Nataku's cockpit was dark save for a few snowing screens, and he had been harshly jolted around by whatever that last thing was that hit him. He was fairly certain the restraint straps had left deep bruises on him.
"Goddamn fucking--" a voice came over the comm.
"Shut up, Maxwell," he growled, keying Nataku's sensors back online.
As targeted, they had landed in the forests north of the base. Obviously OZ hadn't captured them yet. Wufei had a vague memory of seeing the mobile dolls pursuing them being destroyed by the blast Yuy had rigged.
He ran a diagnostic.
Wufei's knuckles whitened when his fist clenched. That much damage...! His Nataku was a sitting duck for OZ target practice.
He needed to have a word with Yuy about just what the hell it was they had blown up.
He worked the manual release for the cockpit hatch and undid his harness straps, stepping outside and dropping to the ground.
The source of the sound they had heard and the impact which had trembled Nasuti's house was a group of large robots, five of them, scattered across the forest just beyond the rise. There was a moment of silent disbelief before anyone spoke.
"Did we just step into a sci-fi flick?" Shuu wanted to know.
Touma's eyes narrowed. "There are people down there," he said.
"Where?"
"By the white one." He pointed them out.
"Think those belong to them?"
"Only one way to find out, Ryou," he answered and took a step forward. Little interested Tenkuu no Touma more than a mystery, and giant robots made for giant mysteries.
Heero dropped from the cockpit of Wing, worried. When his systems had reported a radical change in the chemical makeup of the air, he had curiously scanned the area near the base to see if it had been a result of something he had destroyed.
The base had not only been destroyed, it was gone as if it had never been.
There was no mobile suit debris anywhere in the area.
OZ's channels were silent.
The satellites he monitored were vanished.
And so were the colonies.
There was a chance that it was the result of damage to Wing, but that chance was miniscule and had become even smaller as he had gone methodically through the remaining working systems and checked them from the ground up.
Which left him with one conclusion.
"We're no longer where we were."
Quatre blinked. "What do you mean, Heero?"
"The base is gone."
Duo tilted his head to one side. "Of course it is. You blew it up, remember?"
"The colonies are gone too."
"WHAT?!" Deathscythe and Sandrock's pilots demanded in unison. Wufei's eyes grew wide. Even Trowa couldn't conceal a start.
"The base isn't destroyed. It never existed."
Duo whirled, running to Deathscythe and scrambling into its cockpit. Heero watched him calmly, knowing the braided pilot would find no different results than he had. Quatre was trembling. Wufei seemed to have shut down entirely. Only Trowa met Heero's gaze, and his jade eyes were clouded with doubt and worry.
When Duo returned to their group, he too was obviously starting to enter shock. "Then where are we?" was all he asked, cobalt eyes lost.
"You're on private property, trespassing," a voice with a deep Osaka accent answered him.
Heero whirled, aiming his handgun at the enemy who had snuck up behind the Gundam pilots and caught them unaware.
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