Gundam MS: Episode 8

Enter the Dragon

It was over before it had begun. The monster never stood a chance.

Now it wasn’t standing at all.

To be precise, it wasn’t even alive.

What had been a monster made as a reasonable facsimile of Santa had been cut into at least seven distinct pieces by Misato’s deadly scythe slashes. It was quite gruesome, really.

Misato stood several meters away, admiring her handiwork.

That was dramatic enough, she thought. Now all I have to do is wait for Tenchi to get here.

“Damnit,” she said aloud, “I hate guys who make me wait!”

It definitely would have interested her to know what had happened about half an hour ago. It went something like this:

* * * * * * * * * *

“About time you showed up,” said Epyon. “Those damn monsters aren’t working at all! And we’ve got bigger problems than even them!”

“When will you ever learn,” sighed Duo. “But that doesn’t matter now. You felt it, didn’t you?”

“Of course I felt it! The whole Universe must have felt it!”

“You realize how important this is, right? If we play our cards right, this could actually give us the win.” Duo smiled wickedly. “And I’ve got a trump up my sleeve.” Duo drew out a long, gold necklace with a single, large red crystal hanging from it. The crystal was about two inches long and half an inch wide at the middle, and both ends tapered down into a point. It wasn’t so much a necklace, as it was a pendant.

“Of course, there is a price…”

If anything, Duo only smiled more.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Um, Ryo Ohki?” asked Celena. “I have question.”

“Go ahead. Not like I have anything else to do.”

“What exactly are we supposed to do with them?”

The “them” in question were the six people who had come, quite literally, from another Universe. For the past twenty minutes or so the crew had been getting to know their new guests, and had dropped their armor (with the assumption that it wouldn’t really matter if these guys knew who they were). After Ryoko learned that Vegetta was even more uptight than Ayeka, she had started teasing him, and right now was still at it. Goten, Gohan, Pan, and Keyonne were sitting nearby and alternately watching the spectacle and casually chatting with each other (until a minute ago, Celena had also been with them). Ayeka and Bulma were discussing some sort of advanced quantum theory, even after Ryo Ohki told her that the physics of the two worlds weren’t necessarily the same (and, considering the world involved, almost certainly not the same). Trunks was trying to hit on Relena, while she artfully evaded him in what was probably the only area of expertise she had. Goku had been migrating from group to group as de-facto leader of the DBs, as they were being called, although he was currently investigating the portal he had entered through. He wasn’t able to touch it, of course (as Ryo Ohki explained, the portal didn’t have any physical presence, it was just a weakness in the fabric of reality, kind of like pushing a pencil through a knit sweater), and the result of his investigation was mostly him acting like an idiot. Everyone else, rather charitably, ignored him.

“Good question. My plan is that since they’re not about to do anything really bad, we can just ignore them and wait for Death to finish up.”

“Hey, that reminds me! You never told us what Death is doing!”

“Oh, well, he’s looking for the other, er, person who came through the portal.”

“And who was that?”

Celena’s question was never answered, because half a second earlier, Death had just finished. He appeared right in the middle of the group, causing a pretty big commotion in the DBs.

Ryo, er, Ohki, Ryoko, come. We must go now. Relena, you should come too. this will be instructional.

“Aw, do I have to?” whined Relena. “I really hate instructional things. Can’t I just stay here with Trunks? And the rest of them?” Relena made it clear that the “rest of them” were just an afterthought, and to make it even clearer she shot a flirtatious look at Trunks. Thankfully, he took after his father in that he wasn’t a complete idiot about these things, so he got the message (while Bulma had pushed brilliance to a previously undiscovered height, she had found there rather large and specialized pockets of extreme stupidity, as can be seen from the fact that she ever got involved with Vegetta).

THIS IS NO TIME FOR YOU FOOLISH GAMES, RELENA. YOU WILL COME NOW. Relena thought he sounded quite annoyed.

“You found him?” asked Ryo Ohki excitedly.

“It’s a her, isn’t it?” asked Ryoko. “I know I’m not too familiar with the world, but isn’t it a her?”

yes, it is a her. now, let’s go.

All four disappeared.

“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” said Celena. “It plays hell with my nerves.”

Unfortunately for Celena, her nerves were the last thing she should have been worried about.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ryoko, Ryo Ohki, and Death reappeared in an empty street. Relena reappeared in a rather large and messy pile of body parts.

“Oh, ICK! GET IT OFF ME!” she yelled.

OOPS, said Death. Relena was sure that he smiled. And that he did it on purpose.

“Hey, let me try to clean it up with my magic!” said Ryoko. “I think I should be able to do it. Alright, here goes.” After saying that, Ryoko outstretched both arms, and raised her hands so that both her palms faced Relena. She concentrated, and, for a few seconds, nothing happened.

Then, Relena heard a sound. It was like a piece of fabric being slowly ripped in half, only it was just at the bottom of her range of hearing. Then, all of a sudden, the tearing noise grew immensely and then stopped, as if the rest of the fabric had been ripped through all at once. When Relena looked around, the mess was gone.

So were her clothes.

“Oops,” said Ryoko.

“EEEEEEEEEEEK!” screamed Relena as she ran at Ryoko while trying to cover herself with her arms. “Why the hell did you do that! Get back over here so I can kick your ass!”

“I didn’t try to do it! I’m not very good with my magic yet! Death, help me! Give her some clothes!”

Death, who up to this had been staring at something across the street, suddenly started and looked back at them. With a negligent flip of his hand (which, Ryo Ohki had explained before when he did something like this, was just his way of grandstanding, since his magic didn’t need any sort of motions), he created a new set of clothes for Relena, exactly the same as they were before. He also shot a quick glare at Ryoko before turning his sights back to what he had been looking at before.

Since Relena figured that she could exact revenge from Ryoko later when she wasn’t as prepared, she turned to see what Death was staring at so intently.

It was an old woman, who was at the moment trying hard to stifle her laughter.

When Ryoko saw the woman, she froze. Ryo Ohki had already done so, and was standing stiff while floating in the air.

Relena looked back at the old woman. She was carrying a long, gnarled walking stick, but other than that, she seemed completely normal. Relena was about to ask who this newcomer was, but was interrupted by Death.

YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE, MISATO, EXCEPT POSSIBLY THE MORTAL. WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE? Death’s voice sounded perfectly calm and without emotion, which was remarkable. Relena had heard him irritated, annoyed, happy, enthusiastic, cheerful, and sad, but never emotionless.

“Because,” the woman said, “I have a plan, and I need your help.” This was more than odd, in Relena’s opinion. Normal old women don’t usually ask Death for help. In fact, much of their time is spent trying to find as many ways as possible to impede his natural functions. This was definitely not a normal old lady.

Death appeared to pause and consider this.

Relena leaned over to Ryoko to get some clarification. “Hey, who is that lady?” she asked.

“What, you mean you don’t know? Hey, we never explained it, did we? Well, she’s the Death of the Dragonball world.”

“WHAT?”

“Hey, you didn’t think we were the only Universe with a Death, did you? Every Universe has one. They don’t really think of themselves as ‘Deaths,’ by the way. They think of themselves as ‘Great Regulators.’ It’s a little complicated, I’ll try to explain it more later.”

DROP YOUR PROJECTION.

“Hell no!” yelled the old woman Death. “It’s embarrassing enough only wearing a projection, but there’s no way you’re going to make me appear in body to a mortal!”

“Hey, I’m an angel!” yelled Relena.

“Only honorary!” yelled Ryo Ohki, Ryoko, and the old woman in unison.

“At least give me the power to appear in form!” continued the woman. “It’s not that much!”

“Hrumph. I get no respect around here,” grumbled Relena. “Hey, what are they talking about? What’s a projection, and what does it mean to appear in body or in form?”

“Your turn to explain,” said Ryoko smugly to Ryo Ohki.

“Fine. A projection is a mental illusion. Right now, Misato, that’s her name by the way, is using a projection to alter her appearance. The way you normally see Death is him appearing ‘in form’, as in ‘the form of Death’. Now, when a Death is first made, by his (or her, in this case) Universe being created, he is given a body which all other Deaths see him as. There are only two rules for this body: it must be a person in a Universe who closely matches the personality of the Death, and the person cannot be a member of the Death’s own Universe. Deaths consider it a great embarrassment to be seen in body by any but their most trusted angels. And other Deaths, of course.”

After that most conveniently timed explanatory speech, Death ended his considering pause. When he spoke again, his voice seemed to shake slightly.

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU HAVE ANY RIGHTS HERE? Before he had even finished that sentence, Relena realized why his voice was shaking. It had suddenly occurred to her that she had never heard him angry.

Before now, anyway.

With that knowledge, the entire conversation became different. Death’s long pauses had not been to consider, but to bring his own anger under control. And now, that anger was escaping, slowly but steadily.

And it wasn’t the kind of boiling rage people get before they start throwing and breaking whatever they could get their hands on. This was the kind of hard, sharp, freezing cold rage very dangerous people get just before they commit vicious and calculated acts of destruction.

Death reached out one hand, and abruptly Misato changed. Relena would have had a hard time saying how she changed. She couldn’t have named even one single line of her body that altered in any way, but somehow the way they came together was completely different.

Long gray hair became long purple hair that had been in a bad light. Clothes became very different indeed when seen through a better viewpoint. A wrinkled face became a young face that had been badly obscured. And a gnarled old walking staff became, in a way not at all describable, a long, straight quarter-staff.

Misato clutched at her chest and stared at Death, shocked beyond words. Both Ryo Ohki and Ryoko gave a sharp gasp. Relena looked on in puzzlement. “What did he just do?” she asked.

“He… stripped her of her projection…” whispered a stunned Ryoko. Seeing that Relena was still confused, she elaborated. “Between Deaths, it’s like… someone tearing off your clothes in public. He is very, very mad.”

“If she’s a Death too, then why doesn’t she do something?”

“Because, when she came into this world, she lost all her powers, just like the rest of the DBs! She’s just a normal human woman now, although she retains some of her non-magic related abilities, such as skill with the scythe and infinite comprehension.”

“Then if she lost her powers, how did she use that disguise?”

“Because! A projection isn’t magical, it’s a mental trick! Her mind super-imposes on our minds what she wants us to see.”

“So anyone could make a projection?”

“Yes, but they couldn’t do it as well as she could. Deaths have infinite comprehension, which means that they can remember everything they hear, and keep track of trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions people, and trillions of trillions of Universes. They can grasp any number of things, no matter how many. They don’t know everything, but if anyone ever told them everything, then they would. You might be able to alter the color of your hair slightly if you concentrated, but not much more than that.”

“Hey, I just missed what she said! Why didn’t you stop talking?”

“She said, ‘I apologize for what I did, I wasn’t aware you would take it so badly, please allow me to explain.’ Angels have higher levels of comprehension than humans. So do demons. We can listen to three conversations at once easily, even though we can only participate in one.”

VERY WELL. LET US GO AND SPEAK OF THIS. YOU THREE, WAIT HERE.

And both Death and Misato were gone.

Relena sighed, and sat down on the pavement. “I wonder what the others are doing right about now? Probably having one hell of a good time.”

She couldn’t have been further from the truth.

* * * * * * * * * *

“I wonder what the others are doing right about now?” asked Keyonne.

“Why are you worried about them at a time like this?” yelled Ayeka.

“The fact that they have the only two people who could help explain this is my main reason,” answered Keyonne.

The ‘this’ in question was the slowly collapsing portal. It had been gradually shrinking for a while, and was now slowly pulsating and giving off an occasional blast of some sort of electric energy.

“Well, from what I gathered using my scanner this portal is unstable,” said Ayeka with reasonable calmness. “So I think that it’s loosing it’s hold. Reality can’t exist in a state of uncertainty forever, so it’s slowly repairing itself. When it finishes, this portal will probably be destroyed.”

“Which means we can’t get home,” said Gohan.

“Which would be bad,” continued Trunks.

“Very, very bad,” said Pan.

“Hey, I need to get a couple things straight,” interrupted Goten. “You’re the only ones with robot-powers, right?”

“Yeah,” answered Keyonne hesitantly, not quite sure where he was going.

“And it’s impossible to fly without such powers, right?”

“Well, unless you’ve got a plane, yes,” answered Ayeka.

“That isn’t a plane, is it?” asked Goten, as he pointed straight behind them.

Flying in the air was what looked like a man-sized Dragon, and while it was still some way away, it was getting closer fast.

“What the heck is that?” asked Pan.

Ayeka whipped out her pocket scanner. “My scanner says that it’s not a plane.” Keyonne and Celena just looked at her, wondering why she needed a scanner to tell the most obvious of things. “I sense a great amount of energy from it. It’s not a Gundam, but the architecture looks similar, although much more complicated. I can’t tell anything else about it.”

“I can,” said Celena, rather breathlessly. “It’s the White Guymelef… The Dragon… Escaflowne…” She took several hesitant steps forward, and then stopped. “It… it… AHHHHHHH!” As Celena screamed in pain, she dropped to one knee. Her hair seemed to ripple and shift.

“Hey, are you alright?” yelled out Keyonne.

“That’s not normal, is it?” asked Goku. “I mean, is that how you guys transform or something?” Everyone else stared at him for a couple seconds. Vegetta slapped him on the back of his head.

“Does anyone have any intelligent contributions to make?” he asked, dripping with sarcasm.

Ayeka brought her scanner to bear on the shaking Celena. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. It’s some kind of reaction that’s hurting her!”

“Why the hell do we even bother with you?” asked Keyonne. “You’re totally pointless! Even I could have told you that! The only contributions you’ve made with that thing is to say that something is hurting Celena, and that the white thing is a powerful robot!”

Ayeka was about to respond to her criticisms, when Celena stopped shaking. There was definitely something different about her. Her hair seemed strange, and her clothes didn’t seem to fit as well as they had. She was still kneeling though. “Celena?” Ayeka asked cautiously.

Celena stood, still facing away from the party. Then she turned her head.

And it wasn’t her face.

“Celena?” said Dilandou questioningly.

How has Celena transformed into Dilandou? What will the pyro-boy do? Who is in Escaflowne? Do you really care, considering that these questions could be answered by anyone with the least knowledge about this series? For those who don’t, the answers (in order) are doesn’t matter, burn and kill stuff, and large family car. But still, tune in next time for episode 9, “The episode where I don’t reveal Misato’s plan but still string you along!”