Author: Chauni

 

Email: ChauniMaxwell@mechpilot.com

 

Website: www.oocities.org/asukalangley2nd/

 

Warnings: Comedy, Crossover, AU

 

Disclaimer: I don’t own GW or Slayers. I made no money off this…blah.

 

The Thin Line

( a Gundam Wing and Slayers crossover)

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

He remained in his chair, even after switching the laptop off, his mind racing.

They had all disappeared, leaving only these people in their place. They had been found unconscious in each Gundam, as if some cosmic swap had been made. He sighed, none of it making sense. 

Perhaps it’s time I got them all together and talked to them, he thought. Without weapons, they seemed harmless enough, and for the most part, as confused as he was, if that was truly possible.

 

 

 

Zelgadis sat on his bed, staring at his arm, entranced. No mirror resided in the room, but he didn’t need it. His arm told the truth.

            “Cured.” His voice was a whisper in the empty room, bouncing off the walls and striking his ears like a blessing. “I am cured.”

            His heart beat at impossible rates within his chest. A dream, he thought. This is only some dream and I will wake soon, back in that damn cursed body once more.

            But it didn’t feel like a dream, quite the opposite in fact; he had never felt more complete, more alive, or more aware in his life. He slapped his own face, only to experience a sharp pain in his cheek.

            Pain, he thought. I had almost forgotten what that felt like.

            He didn’t care about where he was or how he had gotten there. He didn’t care where the others were, automatically assuming they were fine. All he cared about was the new life he had been given.

            “Can you come with me, please?”

            Zelgadis looked up, eyes meeting one dark green eye that wasn’t hidden by a shot of jutting wild brown hair. “That depends,” Zelgadis growled, narrowing his own eyes. “Where do you want to go?”   

            “We all need to sit down and talk,” the tall boy responded. “We need to figure out what happened.”

            “‘We’?” Zelgadis asked.

            “Your comrades and I,” he answered.

            Zelgadis looked down at his newly acquired human flesh, still in complete awe. So, they are here as well, his mind growled. Somehow, I think this humanity is going to be short lived. Well, I will not allow it! I will not lose what I have fought so long to gain.

            He rose to his feet, sizing up the boy. Shrugging, he followed him out of the room, wondering what the others would think when they laid eyes upon him.

 

 

 

            “Mr. Zelgadis!” Sylphiel and Amelia’s eyes were large and confused.

            Gourry looked around, perplexed. “Zelgadis? I don’t see Zelgadis.”

            “Isn’t this your companion?” Trowa asked, waving a hand to the young man that had followed him.

            Gourry squinted his eyes, standing within inches of young man. “Ummm, nope! Zelgadis had rocky skin and wire hair and always looked like this.” He quickly made a serious face, mouth drawn in a melodramatic straight line, eyes narrowed. “This guy is smiling!” he said, waving his hand toward the object of conversation.

            Sylphiel looked over at Gourry, eyes soft. “Gourry-dear, that is Mr. Zelgadis! He has reversed the curse. But how?”

            They all took a seat in the spacious living room, Sylphiel, Gourry, and Amelia on a plain beige couch while Trowa and Zelgadis sat in chairs across from them. No one had questioned Amelia’s new clothes, figuring there were enough questions to answer and clothing was not on the top of their list. Sunlight shone warmly through a large bay window, giving a beautiful view of the wooded countryside. The sky outside was the purest blue, unburdened by clouds or aircrafts. Autumn, pure and golden, had kissed the nearby forest, making the foreign companions a little shocked, considering it was summer when they had last looked.

            Zelgadis shook his head. “I don’t know. I woke up and…” He held up his arms and smiled, something that looked open and warm, however slightly foreign. No despondent glint held up in his eyes, nothing malevolent seemed to exist within him.

            Gourry looked around, eyes wandering. “Where’s Lina?”

            Trowa shook his head, hair unmoving. “You were the only ones I found.”

Amelia looked to Trowa, eyes narrowed. “All right, do you mind explaining what happened to us please? And why can’t we use magic? I tried a couple different spells and not one of them worked!”

            Trowa looked at the girl oddly, wondering about her talk of magic. “Magic? We don’t have magic here. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

            Sylphiel stared at the banged pilot, her face a confused mess of questions. “No magic…” she murmured. Her eyes blinked but the questions remained. “Can you please explain this to us?”

            Trowa took a deep breath and began his tale, how he found them drifting in space inside the immobile Gundam suits, how he brought them to the safehouse, how he had lost his own companions. He told them of the strange readouts that were found when the original pilots had disappeared and what he had surmised.

            Sylphiel was the first to respond. “So, Mr. Trowa, what you are saying is that we were ‘exchanged’?”

            He nodded. “I know it sounds foolish,” he muttered. “I still do not believe it.”

            Amelia stood up, looking out the window. “How do we know you’re not an evildoer who’s only trying to trick us so they can take over the world?”

            Zelgadis looked to the princess. “Does he look like a Dark Lord to you?”

            “Um, no,” she said, turning to him, “But he is wearing black!”

            Trowa shook his head, laying his forehead in his palm. Gourry cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him.

            “You lost me at the Jandams,” he said.

            “How are we to get home?” Sylphiel quietly asked, ignoring the swordsman.

            “I do not know,” Trowa answered, rising to his feet. He began pacing across the room, arms folded across his lean chest, hating what he was about to say. “I think there is nothing we can do.” The words sounded bitter and lost, cursed and poisoned. He hated not having any hope; he despised the idea that he was helpless.

            Amelia’s face grew pale, her eyes going back to the window. “Father…”

            Gourry unconsciously began to play with the end of the braid he still had not acknowledged. “Lina…”

            Zelgadis rose to his feet. “Well, I personally do not mind not going home.”

            Everyone’s wide eyes turned to him, shocked.

            “Do you know what you’re saying, Mr. Zelgadis?” Amelia asked.

            He nodded. “I was cursed there! I wasn’t even human! I have gotten everything back that I ever wanted, and I intend on keeping it!”

            Trowa shook his head. “I think you have traded one curse for another.”

            The newly-cured man glared at him. “What do you mean?”

            “Our world is in the midst of a war,” he began. “The ones you have replaced and I fight for peace, but death lies in our wake. You have taken over the lives those that I battle with, therefore you will now fight as well, at least, until the others return.”

            Amelia clasped her hands together, smiling. Stars appeared in her eyes, while sweatdrops surrounded everyone’s head. “You fight for peace?! You are true and righteous! I want to fight with you, for peace and justice for all!”

            “You just had to say something didn’t you?” Gourry muttered.

            Zelgadis ignored the speech, thinking all the while, I will not return home! I will never live within that cursed cell of a body again!

            “Since you were not awake the first time you saw them, I suppose I should show you the Gundams,” Trowa said, walking out of the room with everyone following.

            “The Kandums?” Gourry mumbled.

           

 

 

 

            After a brief ten minute walk out of the safehouse, the group reached the giant Gundams, hidden within a dense set of trees. Trowa ignored their shock and waved to the first one.

            “This is Heavyarms,” he said. “My Gundam.”

            “What are they?” whispered Sylphiel.

            “They look like Dark Lords,” gasped Amelia.

            Trowa’s eyebrows rose in confusion at the mention of Dark Lords, but decided to write it off and not to question it now. He tried to think of the simplest way of telling these foreign people of just what exactly it was. “Gundams are machines, robots that we use to fight.” He was beginning to regret the idea that they should take over the missing pilot’s places, realizing this is going to include teaching them everything from square one.

            Amelia took a step towards the Shenlong Gundam, running a small hand across the metal of its foot. “This is…” She struggled to find the word that danced on the tip of her tongue. “This is… Shenlong…no, Nataku. This is what I will use.” Her face drained of color. “How did I know that?”

            Sylphiel slowly walked towards a different Gundam, staring up in awe. Her neck craned as eyes squinted against the brilliance of the sunlight against the metal. “Mr. Trowa,” she said, head turning towards the pilot. “This is Sandrock, correct? This is my Gundam, isn’t it?”

            Gourry went to Wing Gundam, standing beside it. Zelgadis glared at him from several feet away.

            “Just what do you think you are doing, Gourry?” he asked, almost snarled.

            “I want to fly this one,” he said, cracking a small grin.

            “That one is mine,” Zelgadis replied. “I feel it. Go fly the other one!”

            “No way!” Gourry yelled, shaking his head. “Look at it! It’s scary!”

            Zelgadis shook his head, sighing. “You took on a Dark Lord! You beat Rezo and Phibrizzo!”

            “Who?” he asked.

            “Aaaahhh!” Zelgadis screamed in frustration. He shoved the mercenary over towards the other Gundam. “Go! This Wing Gundam is mine!”

            Gourry looked up at Deathscythe, then back at Zelgadis, large sad eyes encompassing his entire face. He was met with a cold, almost lifeless stare.

            “Go!” he said, and then when he knew he wouldn’t be heard, muttered under his breath, “Braided baka!” He thought for a moment, realizing he normally would not have said such a remark.

             Gourry shuffled his way to Deathscythe. He touched the foot, then pulled back his hand quickly. “This is…” He thought for a moment, working his brain. “Death…Death…Ummm.”

              “Deathscythe,” Trowa answered.

            Gourry’s eyes turned back to Zelgadis. “Deathscythe? Come on, let me ride in that one! It even has a scary name!”

            He was met with an icy, flat look and nothing more. Trowa recognized that look many times coming from Heero when he looked at Duo, or otherwise known as the “Braided Baka”.

            Gourry kicked his foot in the dirt, pouting. “What kind of name is ‘Deathknife’ anyway?” he muttered.

            “I think he said ‘Deathscythe’,” corrected Amelia. “It sounds evil.”

            “Thanks a lot,” growled the mercenary sarcastically. “I just want to hop right in it now!”

            Trowa sighed as he shook his head. What exactly did he get himself into, anyway?