I can't remember if I posted this here or not... oh
well.  Please enjoy, and please comment!

Raye

----------------

WuFei 1/2

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

*****
     "Kidou Senki Gundam Wing" is copyright Bandai,
Sunrise, Viz Communications, Mixx Entertainment and
other associated parties.  "Ranma 1/2" is copyright
Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan and Viz Communications. 
In other words, they're not mine.
     [holds composure]
     [holds composure]
     [loses composure]
     IT ISN'T FAAAAIIIIIRRRR!!!!!
     Please remember: this is an Alternate Universe,
so the events with which you are familiar may or may
not occur; and secondly, this fic's only reason for
existing is to make you smile.  If it succeeds, cool. 
If it doesn't, well, I'm sorry.  Either way, do not
take it seriously.

*****

Part the First: "I'm a WHAT?!"

	I *hate* irony.  Karma is *not* fun.  And I only hope
my situation is providing humour to the Buddha,
because it definitely is not funny from *this* end.

	I was in China when it happened.  It was an area deep
in the heart of the country, pristine and almost
untouched by technology or war.

	I had just parted from Sally Po and her group of
guerrilla fighters.  They had restored my sense of
purpose after the disaster at New Edwards, and I had
left them only as it became clear that I could do much
more for my cause with my Gundam as a free agent.

	So I bade them farewell and left for more chaotic
places.  With one small detour on the way, that turned
out to be a lot more important than I thought it would
be.

*****

	There was no real reason why I should visit the area
of Jhyousenkyou.  It was merely curiosity.  Some few
of Nataku's ancestors whom she had admired had come
from a small village situated nearby, and she had
spoken of the area in passing.  If ever she came to
Earth, she had averred, she would go to Jhyousenkyou
and train, as her ancestors had done before her.  As
her husband and widower, therefore, it now fell to me
to do so in her place.

	Of course, I did not have to do so - I was her
husband, after all - but I felt the need for training,
and this small gesture of respect would cost me
nothing.

	Or so I thought.

	The training ground looked like nothing so much as a
cheesy martial-arts movie set.  Tall bamboo poles,
pale with age, poked out of crystal pools, between
green velvet paths.  I looked at it in puzzlement
until I noticed some of the poles had tiny blocks set
on top of them, where a foot might rest.  Obviously,
one leapt from pole to pole, attempting to balance on
the fragile supports.  Such an exercise would teach
balance and agility to a young warrior, and the pools
beneath obviously were there to break the falls the
trainee would undoubtedly suffer and prevent an
unnecessary death.

	I set my pack down on one of the grassy paths between
the pools and leapt up to the lowest pole near me.  It
was no more than a metre and a half tall, but some
poles were fully six metres tall, and I knew that I
could not possibly jump up *that* far.  Swaying on it,
I carefully leapt to one that was three metres tall,
and almost fell off.

	"Sir!  Sir!  What are you doing?"

	A woman had come running out of the low house built
on the lip of the low cliff that overlooked the
training ground.  I saw her race down to where I had
left my bag, and then had to quickly jump to a new
pole as it swayed and I did not follow the movement in
time.

	"I am attempting to train, woman," I gritted from my
new and more than a little awkward perch.  "I trust -"
I leapt to a new pole - "that this is -" another jump
- "satisfactory?"

	"No, NO, sir!"  She wrung her hands, a gesture I've
always felt to be singularly useless.  "This training
ground has been closed for over three hundred years! 
It's far too dangerous!"

	"Dangerous?" I demanded, landing on a new pole.  "How
is it dangerous?"

	I received my answer as the pole I landed on
splintered under me.  I fell into the pool that lay
beneath me, with an impact that knocked all the breath
from my lungs.

	The water was odd - somehow smoky and sharp.  I
instinctively tried to draw a breath of it in and
nearly choked.  Fortunately I touched the bottom then,
and was able to push myself up to the surface. 
Coughing roughly, I scrubbed at my eyes as I began to
tread water.  "'The Spring of the Drowned Woman'," I
read from the sign neatly painted and staked beside
the pond I floated in.

	"Oh no, sir - er, miss!  I'm sorry!"

	I frowned at her.  Couldn't she see I was a man?  I
glanced down at myself, and nearly drowned as I
stopped, stock still, staring.

	I had breasts.  And - an experimental touch later -
all the other parts of a woman.  Without any of the
parts of a man.

	The woman knelt at the edge of the pool, stretching
out a pole for me to take.  I couldn't criticize.

	Later, I sat in front of her small heater and wrung
out my shirt, touching my male-again chest.

	The woman - who had introduced herself as Peach
Blossom - had explained Jhyousenkyou.

	"You are now cursed, young sir," she told me
seriously.  "From now on, whenever you are splashed
with cold water, you will become a girl.  Fortunately,
you'll become a man again when you pour hot water on
yourself - but only until the next time you get hit by
cold water."

	I'd have to start carrying a thermos.  I also made a
mental note to check Nataku's heating elements and
temperature controls to see if they could be modified
to also service a small hot water urn.

	"Can I end this curse?" I asked, hoping that it could
be removed.  Although all the old stories all said
that curses were permanent until they reached their
natural end, and this one didn't seem to have any such
closure....

	"No, sir.  This curse runs for the course of your
life.  Nothing will remove it.  Many have tried and
failed, and their lives have been poisoned by the
bitterness of their failure."

	"Even if I jumped into the 'Spring of the Drowned
Man'?" I asked desperately.

	"Especially if you do that, sir.  You would become an
hermaphrodite when splashed with cold water, then."

	"I see," I said gloomily.  I thanked the woman for
the information, and left Jhyousenkyou, hiking back to
where I'd hidden Nataku.

*****

	We met up again, the five of us, as we moved to
strike at various targets, and it only made sense to
fight together.  Which meant that it also made sense
to share safehouses.

	I did manage to ensure I was in the various washrooms
in our safehouses at times when the other four were
not likely to be there.  Of course, they noticed my
excessive body-modesty.  Yui and Barton forbore to
comment.  They, at least, respected my choice, and I
have reason to believe Barton shared it.

	Winner did ask me if I was ashamed of myself - I
believe he was trying to see if I were suffering from
anorexia or some other body-image problem.  I was male
at the time, so I was able to assure him that there
was no such problem.  He was smiling as he left my
room, so I am fairly certain I succeeded in reassuring
him.

	Maxwell didn't bother asking.  He seemed to take it
upon himself to 'cure' me of my 'shyness' - by forcing
me to share intimate quarters with him.  If there was
a limited number of bedrooms, he would volunteer to
share with me.  He would appear to brush his teeth
when I was brushing mine.  It became absolutely
frustrating.

	I had, you see, become something of a water- and
trouble-magnet.  When it started to rain, the first
drop always hit me.  If a random volley of shots was
fired off into the darkness, the gun would just happen
to be pointing at me when it was fired.  If the
water-pressure was unpredictable, it would make the
tap explode in my face.  And if we were covering a
pattern when the OZ forces could take a choice of
which Gundam to attack, they always chose Nataku.

	The idea of telling the others about my curse never
crossed my mind.  I simply did my best to conceal the
fact that about half the time I was female.  It helped
that I did not physically change very much when I
became a girl.  I lost perhaps five centimetres in
height, and my shoes were suddenly two sizes too big. 
My bone structure shifted and became slighter.  My
hair and eyes remained the same colour.  Luckily, my
breasts were not large, although I did buy some female
underwear.  It made it much less painful to continue
functioning when I became a girl just before or during
a mission.  Also, I sometimes bound my chest if I knew
I wouldn't be able to get to hot water for a while.

	So it was that I was female, stripped down to my
bindings and boxers, and about to take a shower, when
Maxwell bounced into our shared washroom.

	"Heya, Wufei!  Whatcha - ooh...."  His eyes slid over
my chest bindings, which showed a hint of cleavage,
and down over my boxers, which lay against my skin,
revealing that the crotch beneath them was flat.

	I leapt into the shower cubicle and pulled the
waterproff curtain shut.  "Get *out*, Maxwell!"  I
shouted.

	"I'm going, I'm sorry..." and the door shut.

	It looked like the question of whether to tell the
others had just become moot.

*****

	When I left the bathroom, Maxwell was waiting for me
outside.  "I'm sorry," he said, piteously.

	"I accept your apology," I replied.  "Please do not
do it again!"

	"I won't," he promised, suddenly grinning again.

	We walked to the safehouse's kitchenette, where Yui
had set up his laptop and received our mission data. 
Please do not ask me why he chose the kitchenette. 
When Yui shares his reasons with others, it is only
because he is forced to do so.  It eventually becomes
easier to simply accept that there *are* reasons, and
to move on.

	Yui was at the laptop, typing, when we entered the
room.  He looked up, saw us, and produced a piece of
paper, which he handed to me.  "A mission for you," he
said, in probably the same tone as he would have said,
"Congratulations, you've won the lottery."

	Then again, perhaps the two were not so far apart.

	"Oh goodie, another OZ base to make go boom," Maxwell
said, reading over my shoulder.  "I'll go prep
DeathScythe."

	"Maxwell," I said patiently, "this is my mission."

	"Oh, come on, 'Fei," he replied cheerfully, "you know
we shouldn't go in without backup!"

	"That's never stopped you before," I said, frowning.

	"It's different for me," he said.  "You..." and he
looked up, staring me straight in the eyes.  I
swallowed hard, not recognising what those deep blue
eyes were trying to say.  "I'm going to go prep
DeathScythe," he reiterated, and fled the kitchenette.

	Yui shut the laptop with a soft [snick].  "Tea?" he
asked.

	"Please," I replied.  "I think I need it."

	If I didn't know better, I'd say Maxwell thought I
was a girl, was trying to hide it, and had now set
himself up as my protector.  And if I was right...
well, I definitely needed another cup of tea.

*****

Part the Second: Roles

	I am very, very confused.  Do *not* make any cracks,
okay?  I get enough from Hiiro already, and he doesn't
even know about this.

	It started when we all started meeting up again after
New Edwards.  Quatre, of course, was the one who
stated the obvious - "If we're going to be fighting
together, surely it's more efficient to pool
resources," he said - so we started living together. 
High school boys rooming together while attending
school, having been sent by anxious parents far away
from the fighting.  Pretty good alibi, don't you
think?  Reason for lack of parental units, limiting
social contact (hey, we're little lost lambs clinging
together for protection - who just happen to carry
Berettas in wrist holsters) *and* built-in excuse for
skipping town when the nearby OZ base went boom, all
in one.

	The walk to wherever we'd managed to stash the
Gundams outside whichever town we were in was usually
over two hours, and murderous.  Earth is a nice place,
but as far as I'm concerned, ecology is something that
can happen to other people.  The further away the
better.

	But I was talking about 'Fei.

	After we all started living together, 'Fei seemed
really modest.  I'm talking *really* modest.  Taking
showers after midnight.  *Never* wandering around
without a shirt.

	The other three seemed prepared to leave it alone. 
So WuFei was modest.  Hiiro and Trowa let the matter
go.  In fact, Trowa started doing the same thing.  He
told me it was because when he was a mercenary, it was
almost impossible to get a moment to oneself, so
privacy was a rare treasure to be savoured.  Hiiro
literally didn't care.  It didn't interfere with
WuFei's missions and it wasn't his business, therefore
he ignored it.

	Quatre cornered WuFei and talked at our elusive
modest pilot, but didn't get any answers.  For some
reason, though, Quatre was satisfied.

	I wasn't.

	I didn't charge in on WuFei in the shower - I'm not
*that* much of a barbarian, thank you - but in the
less-private areas of tooth-cleaning and hair-combing,
I would come in and chat at my Chinese ally.

	After all, in this business, the more friends the
better, right?

	So I went in one morning, because I thought WuFei was
finished and all that remained of the morning
ablutions was the hair-combing, which I felt qualified
to give advice on.  As one long-haired person to
another, you understand.  In a world where short hair
seems to be favoured, us lovely-locked people have got
to stick together.

	So I came barging in....

	All together now: Du~uo is an i~idiot....

	WuFei wasn't getting dressed from the shower, but
getting *un*dressed *for* the shower.  And I saw why
shirtless wasn't an option for WuFei.  It's not
exactly what you'd call appropriate for girls, after
all.

	She stared at me for one stupefied second, then
literally leapt into the tub and pulled the shower
curtain.  "Get *OUT*, Maxwell!" she shrieked.

	I hadn't actually seen anything - the cloth she used
to bind her breasts was still covering them, though it
had been loosened enough for me to see her shape, and
she was wearing boxers - but still.  I mumbled an
apology and stumbled out.

*****

	She accepted my apology, and as luck would have it,
we headed off for a mission that afternoon.

	I say 'we', but it was really her mission.  I went
along for the ride, though.

	Yes, yes, I know, girls can do anything etcetera. 
And 'Fei was certainly capable of dishing out the
damage.  I'd seen her do it often enough.  But letting
her go off into danger by herself was not an option. 
I guess at heart I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy.

	You'd think the OZ guys knew that she was more
vulnerable or something.  She seemed to be the
target-of-the-day and I couldn't do anything to make
DeathScythe a more attractive proposition to the Oz
drones.  They *really* wanted ShenLong's pilot.  Well,
Shinigami wasn't going to let the Spirit of Justice
fall into *their* hands!  I took advantage of their
concentration to attack.  It was pathetically easy -
as if they were so focused on her that they'd
forgotten she had a backup.

	She told me off on the way back to our Gundams'
hiding places.  For security, we never hid them
together.  I let her rant at me.  Hey, she was here to
rant.  I'd seen what happened to girls, alone, at the
mercy of a bunch of guys, especially if those men had
a reason to be pissed off at her.  It hadn't happened
to her, because I was there, and I think she realized
that.  She didn't call me an idiot, or a fool.  She
*did* complain that I had 'gone charging into
unnecessary danger' and that she'd been 'perfectly
capable of dealing with the situation'.  I didn't
argue.  Much.

	When we returned to the safehouse we'd chosen, 'Fei
retreated to our room and began to meditate.

	"Hey, it wasn't your fault," I opened the discussion.

	She opened one eye.  "My fault about what?"

	"About whatever you're upset about."

	She opened both eyes at that one.  I ignored the fact
that they were looking at the ceiling.  She shut them
again and said, "I am not upset.  I am *attempting* to
meditate."

	"Oh, come on, 'Fei," I said.  "Give your roommate
*some* credit.  You only do this when you're upset
about something."

	She sighed.  "My *name* is Chang *Wu*Fei.  It is most
disrespectful to address anyone by their given name
without permission, Maxwell.  Kindly pay me the
respect I give you, and address me properly."

	"Ah," I said, enlightened.  "Well then, you may call
me 'Duo'; may I call you 'Fei'?"

	She opened her moonless-night eyes and looked at me. 
"And if I do not give permission, you will do so
anyway, will you not?"  Her lips twitched and then she
smiled.  "Very well, Duo - since you asked."

*****

Part the Third: Facets of Truth

	I could, possibly, say that life calmed down somewhat
after Duo and I came to our accommodation over our
names (though it would be truer to say that I merely
accepted that Duo was going to call me 'Fei', whether
I willed it or no, and that he meant no disrespect by
it).  That, however, would be a false impression.

	OZ scaled back some of its operations.  There were,
Yui informed us with a strange form of grim pleasure,
certain internal problems with certain ex-Federation
troops.  

	We would later learn he was covertly financing and
advising the secession movements in various nations,
starting from Sally Po's group of Nationalist
guerrillas in China and moving out through Middle Asia
and Europe, and that *they* were contacting and
converting OZ personnel they had personally been
friends with when they all had been Federation troops.

	Barton and Winner, having found their Gundams to be
as complementary as their personalities, began taking
all the officially joint missions that we were sent. 
It was a pairing nobody could fault - Winner's Gundam
is primarily defensive, with a heavy emphasis on
armour and close-range weaponry, while Barton's
specializes in long-range attack and fast strikes,
sacrificing armour for speed.  

	I say 'official' because I soon found that Duo would
make any of my missions he heard about into joint
missions.  I soon found myself relying on his
judgement and skill - and I was not happy about this. 
What would happen, should I be placed in a position
where I could not call upon him for assistance?  A
reliance upon the skills of another would undoubtedly
become a fatal weakness.

	And yet... I found that I was coming to trust him in
a way I never had any other.  Not even Nataku.

*****

	In our partnership, we found ourselves suspicious.

	I feel that this requires an explanation.

	This is not to say that we Gundam pilots were
suspicious of each other.  Living weapons such as
ourselves recognised other such, and weaponry is
honest.  It is those who wield them who practice
deception.  And so when a mission came in for one of
us, we fell into the habit of having another of our
number verify it for us.

	We managed to flush out a number of false informants
in this manner.  The contacts that were interrogated
by Doktor S, with the Barton Foundation's emphasis on
politics, had to be genuine to withstand Yui and
Doctor J's focus on the electronic world, and those
who convinced Master O by taking into account our
stance on militarism could not face Winner and
Professor H's business expertise.

	It did, from time to time, cross our minds that our
advisors might not be utterly trustworthy, but whether
or not they were personally loyal to us, they were
certainly loyal to their ideals.  We were tools, and
one does not ask the handyman if he is loyal to his
hammer.

	Thus, the near-disaster in Siberia.  Near disaster,
for what happened; and pure disaster for me.

	But I am in advance of myself.

*****

	All five of our advisors managed to agree that there
was a resupply mission to the Siberian OZ base, that
was somehow key to OZ's attempts to return to
peacefully reigning over the world.  This was quite a
relief for us; we had managed to obtain information
about it a week before they, and their continued
silence on the subject was worrisome.  It implied that
our wiretaps and hacking skills were more reliable
than their informants.

	Whether we continued to believe in them or drew a
belief in ourselves from this happenstance was not a
question I ventured to ask my four companions as we
met to discuss the question of strategy.

	There had been no indication within the data we'd
gathered to indicate whether or not the shipment of
arms was coming by land, sea or air.  OZ had the
resources to bring it in any of the three methods. 
There was even a possibility that there might be a
partial shipment by each method.

	Winner and Barton had their heads bent over the map
as they discussed strategy and tactics.  Contrary to
popular opinion, the two are not the same thing. 
Strategy is control of an entire process, directing a
number of situations to lead to one's goal.  Tactics
are what one uses to cause the outcome of a specific
situation to be what one desires.  In other words,
tactics are the small, short-term and specific, and
strategy is the large, long-term and overall.  Winner
was good at strategy, while Barton was the superior
tactician, and by working together they built us a
plan that would have terrified our enemies.

	I was female at the time, having run afoul of Yui's
water-glass (again), which may be why I thought the
way I did.  Women are more devious than men, and OZ's
strategy, devised by that hellcat Une, was more
devious than I had ever encountered before.

	"Why are we attacking the convoy?" I wondered aloud.

	Winner gave me a look that clearly questioned my
sanity.  "Because we cannot allow it to arrive," he
said briskly.

	I gave him a flat gaze in return.  "I know that," I
said.  "I *meant*, why are we attacking it openly? 
Surely it would be just as effective to infiltrate the
source bases and sabotage the shipment."

	Yui and Duo both sat up from where they had been
leaning against the wall.  "Chang has a point," Yui
commented.

	"Especially," Duo added with a grin, "if we allow the
sabotaged equipment to arrive and fall apart on them,
or blow up in their ordinance dumps, or...."

	"I believe we see the point," I cut in dryly, before
he could elaborate further.  "With such consequences,
there would be a lessening of morale among the OZ
soldiers, and our goal of depleting OZ's resources
would be accomplished - and we would be that much less
exposed to counterattack."

	Yui, Barton and Winner exchanged glances - then
Winner ceremoniously removed the old plan, and we all
five sat down to plan our new counterattack.

*****

	Siberia Base, we discovered, was to be supplied by
three different bases - Alaska Base, Manchuria Base
and Afghani Base.  This lent credence to the
all-three-routes theory.

	Winner and Barton - of course - infiltrated Afghani
Base.  Yui entered Alaska Base, and Duo and I inserted
ourselves into Manchuria Base.

	Manchuria was mainly supplying ordinance, hand
weaponry and spare parts to Siberia.  A nice,
convenient flood that was localized to the live
ammunition storage bunkers took care of the ordinance
and most of the hand weaponry.  It is rather hard to
fire guns with gunpowder that is wet or a laser that
is malfunctioning.  If you wish to survive the
experience, that is.

	It was the spare parts where we ran into
difficulties.

	Naturally enough, the first thing we set out to
utterly ruin were the fabricating machines.  They were
easy enough to sabotage - resetting all the tensions
and erasing the tech manuals, then rewriting the data
files so they *appeared* correct but were anything
but.  Duo had fun.

	We ran a live electric current through the bunker
where delicate electronics were stored.  It's quite
amazing how only a few volts over capacity can burn
out circuitry.  We pumped it up to 500 volts and wore
rubber gloves, just to make sure.

	Five hundred grammes of thermite made a very pretty
explosion in the cupboard where they were storing
nuts, bolts, screws and connectors.  Lining the small
metal bits up into projectile formations also took
care of several larger pieces stored in the rooms
around the cupboard.

	And some people say that we have anger issues.

	Perhaps, in hindsight, we should not have acted so
with the nuts and bolts cabinet, for that was the
ultimate proof to the commanding officer that there
was a saboteur on the base.

*****

	Duo and I ran towards the exit, only to be cut off by
yet another squad.  At a cross junction, with two
choices, we split up.  Naturally, the OZ soldiers
followed me, as I ran down corridor after corridor,
getting thoroughly lost until I hit a dead end.

	I stared at the dead end for one stupefied second,
and then spun on my heel to face my pursuers.  I was
alone and I was out of ammunition.  I was also, due to
the previously engineered flood, female.  Life is not
fair - especially when it is a good day to die and it
appears that you're not going to be allowed to.

	I stared at them.  They stared at me, with my hair
loose and my breasts heaving.  They did not stop
looking at my breasts, and my skin crawled beneath the
weight of their eyes.

	"It's a *girl*!"

	"One of the Gundam pilots is a *girl*?"

	I stared at them as they boxed me in, their faces
changing.  Where they had been coloured with anger,
now their eyes took on a different gleam, alight with
a cold hunger.  I shivered and stepped back.  Eight of
them.  My unarmed combat skills wouldn't get me out of
this one.  Oh, to have overlooked a fresh magazine in
my ammunition stash....

	But I hadn't, and I knew it, and *they* knew it.  The
closest one to me reached out and brushed a clammy
fingertip over my chest.  With a quick reach-and-grip,
I broke his hand and went for his gun.

	Ironically, I had just drawn his gun out of its
holster and was aiming at him when a bullet from
behind him blew his brains out.

	The squad swung around as one man to see Duo, a gun
in each hand and his manic grin plastered all over his
face, standing at the end of the corridor, boxing
*them* in.

	His grin grew wider, if possible, and he said, too
calmly, "Shinigami is here, to deliver Justice,"
before opening fire.

	His eyes were cold as he lifted his fingers from the
triggers.  The last body jerked a little from the
impact of his last round.  With no trace of the grin,
he said flatly to the hot corpses, "*Nobody* touches
*my* girl."

	His words sank in and I jerked my chin up, to stare
him straight in the eyes.  They were utterly sincere.

	I closed my own and winced.

*****

	Busting out of the base was easy.  We set off a
series of timed explosions at one gate and slipped out
the other.  At that stage of the war, we hadn't hit
any bases from the inside before, so they had no
experience in dealing with us.

	We travelled to the hotel where we had rented a room
in silence.

	"Wait here," I said tersely to Duo in the living area
of our room, going to the little wet bar area, putting
on the kettle and fetching a glass of cold water from
the bar refrigerator.  I waited a few minutes until I
was sure the water in the tiny kettle would be hot
enough, and then carried both into the living room. 
Duo was sitting there, looking mystified.

	"You may wish to sit down," I warned him.  I stripped
to my waist, debated going completely naked, and then
decided not to.  My chest was enough of a graphic
demonstration.  Also, I did not wish to display *that*
part of my body to anyone else just yet.  My mother
and Nataku were the only ones to have ever seen me in
complete undress, and I had no wish to add Duo Maxwell
to that number.

	He remained standing.  I shrugged (causing his eyes
to fix themselves on my chest) and tipped some hot
water from the kettle onto my head.

	His eyes bugged out, he went pale and now he sat
down.  I sat down in the chair opposite him, said,
"Watch closely now, Duo," and splashed myself with the
cold water.

	If there had not been arms on the chair, I do believe
he might have fallen out of it.  I poured some more of
the hot water onto my head, and moved to kneel in
front of his chair.

	"'Fei?"

	His voice sounded so lost and bewildered.  I winced,
and laid my hand over his.  "I suffer from a curse,
Duo," I told him calmly.  "I was born a man, and until
a short time ago I was always male, as you are. 
However, now, when splashed with cold water, my body
becomes female."

	He frowned.  "You turn into a girl?"

	"NO!" I denied vehemently.  "*I* don't change, and I
am definitely *not* a girl!  My body sometimes becomes
female - but it's me, and I am a *man*!"

	He bit his lip, and reached out, gently touching my
chest.  Nobody had touched me so lightly, or anything
approaching this gentleness, since Nataku had died. 
Without lifting his hand, he splashed me with the cold
water again, feeling my smooth muscles curve and fill
up into a feminine bosom, then reached for the hot
water and watched, fascinated, as the skin beneath his
palm flattened and fell away from his hand.  He shook
his head, withdrawing his hands into his lap, and
said, "That's... if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't
believe it.  But... it looks *crazy*, 'Fei."

	"You should try it from in here," I said feelingly. 
"Women's bodies are... very different to ours. 
Different hormones and impulses.  And certain things I
would normally deem unthinkable seem utterly logical
when my body is female.  It is quite bewildering."

	"Oh?" Duo said, in an interested tone of voice,
leaning a little forward.  "What sort of things?"

	I smiled with relief.  What he had said back at the
base was being glossed over, and soon he would put it
behind him and move on.  Why this should be
disappointing to me was a mystery.  Undoubtedly due to
being female at the time, I decided.  "An example? 
Well... when my body is female, chocolate is utterly
delicious and, if I have been reading articles on
bodily health, I will eat granola."

	Duo blinked, and said, "Women are *insane*."

	"I am inclined to agree."

	At that point there was a knock on the door, and I
answered it.

	"I'm sorry to disturb you, sirs," the page who was at
the door said apologetically, "but we have to search
the hotel.  Two dangerous terrorists are in the area,
and they could be hiding anywhere."

	I glanced over at Duo, who was smiling ironically. 
"Certainly," I said calmly.  "Please go ahead."

	"*Thank* you," the page said fervently (he must have
been received poorly in other suites) and he quickly
made a cursory search of the room, the cupboards, and
the small ensuite bathroom.

	Having finished, he came to stop before Duo.  "Um,
sir," he said nervously, "one of the terrorists is a
girl.  I can see Mr. Lau over there is a man," he
added, nodding at my still-shirtless chest, "but I
have to verify that you are a man too."

	We exchanged another look.  "All right," Duo said
equitably, shedding his chausable and linen shirt to
reveal a trim, muscular, undeniably male chest.

	"*Thank* you, sir," the page said cheerfully.  "We
are all dreadfully sorry for the inconvenience, and I
will be very happy to inform the officer from OZ that
you are both perfectly innocent."

	"Oh, don't say *that*," Duo drawled.  "I'm not the
least bit innocent... any more."

	The page glanced at us, his eyes widening, as I gave
him my blankest stare.  He blushed, and said, "Um...
well... good night, sirs!" and fled.

	Duo waited for a count of three before collapsing
onto one of the beds, howling with laughter.

*****

	We had been caught on surveillance cameras, of
course.  And, of course, the incident was circulated
among OZ bases and to other OZ personnel.  And their
family and friends.  And *their* family and
friends....

	Whoever invented the 'Forward' button on email should
burn in one of the Nine Hells for at least a thousand
years, and then be reincarnated into a famine-stricken
area as the youngest, *female* child of a poor,
starving family.

	And that should only be the *beginning* of their
torment.

	To return to the subject, the file of the Girl Gundam
Pilot being cornered by the Big Bad Would-Be Rapists
and then being rescued by Her Heroic Gundam Pilot
Boyfriend (one of the less lurid descriptions, from
one of the first sites where the piece was archived)
soon became one of the most-seen files in cyberspace. 


	It would only be a matter of time before Yui, Barton
and Winner saw it - much less Master O and Professor
G.

------

Author's Notes:

	1. I know Wufei's wife's name was Meiran.  However,
she asked Wufei to call her Nataku instead, which he
did.  As this is from Wufei's point of view, that's
what he calls her.

	2. An hermaphrodite, for those who do not know, is a
person who has the physical attributes of both sexes. 
Hermaphrodites do not fit well into any society with
gender roles, which unfortunately includes every
society currently in existence, but are especially
uncomfortable in societies with rigid gender roles,
such as Chinese society.

=====
raye_j@yahoo.com
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"It means, I'm in command... where are you going?"
   - C-3PO (to R2-D2), 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'

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