Disclaimer: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is property of Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu. Peter Pan is property of J.M. Barrie, Disney & Universal.
"Wufei?... Wufei?" came an insistent whisper.
The pilot squinted into the darkness beyond the bars of his cozy little haven until a child sized silhouette appeared. "Angelina? What are you doing here?"
"I just told you. Don't you remember?"
It wasn't possible that he could have slept through anything she'd said and there was something wrong with her accent. "Humor me."
"Can't you remember anything I've just told you?"
Wufei climbed to his feet. "Stop stalling. Either tell me, show me or leave."
She took a deep breath. "You're sure?"
Annoying child. "Yes."
"Cover your eyes."
"Why?"
"Just do it!"
Correction: Pushy annoying child.
He slid an arm over his eyes. Light exploded silently, but Wufei dropped immediately to the floor, covering his head with both arms.
"Get up. We need to go now." Angelina's voice was wrong. It no longer fit the seven-year-old body. It was still her voice, but somehow older.
Wufei split his shield of arms to find not a seven-year old red head standing in the middle of a hole in the bars, but a young woman, perhaps thirteen or fourteen with unbound golden hair that fell to her knees. The face... Now, that belonged to Angelina and the soft blue eyes which could fill with anger in less than a second, those were Angelina's as well.
He swallowed. "Who are you?"
Puzzlement crossed her face momentarily, and then surprise glided in. "Ah! I'm not seven anymore!" She cast Wufei a look of pure happiness, and then groped around for some hair. "Blond? It's blond!" Her smile illuminated the inside of the cell. It was the most sincere expression Wufei had seen since her angry outburst before she'd arrested him.
But wait! That was Angelina. This? This was...
"Who are you?" he repeated.
Her smile shriveled. "Oh, Wufei. I'm sorry. I forgot with this happening. Do you know how long... Never mind. I am Angelina, but I was this first."
"And what does that mean?"
She cast a glance over her shoulder. "Just trust me for now." Her hand shot out beseechingly. "I can get you out of here."
Refusing escape, even if a woman controlled it, was stupidity. As soon as Wufei's fingers slid around Angelina's, the girl took off down the corridor like cyclone. At the end of the row, she pulled the pilot into a cleaning closet, closed the door and leaned on it.
"If I get you back to that spot in the park that we met, can you get off this colony."
"I can."
She looked worried. "Will you? Leave I mean. Whatever you came here for, can't be more important than your life."
"There are a great many things I do that are more important than my life, but you're right. What I came here for was a waste of time. It was a distraction, I'm sure. So, I will leave. My mission is complete."
She closed her eyes for only a moment and when they opened determination oozed from her pores. "Alright, then. Just do what I say, when I say it without questioning me and you will get off this hunk of drifting metal."
Do what she says, when she says it? A woman? Not-
"I know you don't like women or doing what they say and that it will be extremely difficult to follow my instructions. I even know that if I still looked like a seven-year old it would be hard, but you can't get back to Edge Park without me."
"Onna, I don't think-"
"Don' think, Mr. Wufei, sir. Jes do. Please. It's stupid throwin' yer life away fer th' sake of pride, isn't it? I need yer help, ta help ya."
A lowly trick. Damn, why was it working? Whatever the girl was she wasn't a helpless seven-year old, begging for forgiveness. She wasn't the child who stood up to his cold replies to make him come closer to truly smiling than anyone had since before Meiran died.
Listening to a woman. Wufei what are you thinking? "Alright."
She nodded. "Cover your eyes again."
He did, managing not to grumble when the light struck again. Angelina grabbed his arm and yanked him through a newly cut hole in the back wall.
"I've changed my question," he said jogging beside her. "What are you?"
"A pi- A product of a very complex situation, but aren't we all? Come on. It's this way." She dove into the trees and picked up her speed to a pace that would have Olympic athletes drooling in envy. It was all Wufei could do to keep from loosing her.
But after twenty or so minutes he did loose sight of her. He ground onward assuming she'd continue the straight path she'd been following earlier. She had to be somewhere ahead.
The trees were getting closer together and it was increasingly difficult to continue a completely straight path and the moon had set, leaving the park in near pitch.
Someone screamed just ahead. It was Angelina.
Wufei slowed his run to slink closer to the cries. A conversation emerged in hushed tones. "You lied to me, pixie," stated a female voice. "You said there was no connection with her anymore."
"I didn't lie." This in Angelina's voice.
"Then why do you look like this again?"
He had to get closer to see this other woman and what she was doing to Angelina. His fingers ached for the reassuring cool metal of a handgun. Finally, he hit the edge of a small clearing and caught the scene. Angelina was on the ground, hands tied to her ankles, but she didn't really look injured. Two unarmed guards kept a lookout at opposite ends of the clearing and the owner of the other voice, an antiseptic-looking woman, towered over Angelina with a grimace on her otherwise pretty face.
"I will not ask again. When did you resume contact with her?"
"I haven't! She hasn't contacted me. I haven't spoken to her, seen her or felt her influence since I left her. I don't know why I've reverted to this form."
"And the boy? Was how you helped him escape just a fluke, too? How long have you known you could do that? Explain."
"No." It was a feather light response.
"No? NO?" The woman grabbed a handful of golden hair in her white-gloved hand, cranking Angelina's head up to nearly the woman's face. "You do not tell me no."
Angelina whispered something that earned her a slap.
That was enough. Wufei slid around to the first guard, quietly dispatched him and moved around to deliver the same treatment to the other.
"I'm through," he heard Angelina say, in that same feather-touch way.
The woman reached back to land another blow when the pilot caught her wrist. "Onna," he warned, "that is not the thing to do to those weaker than you."
The woman blinked at him, then laughed. "Weaker? That's good. That's really good. Just think of the holes in the cell door and the wall back at the jail. You call that weak?"
"No. I call her weak for not doing the same to you."
"Really? What is today's youth coming to? Well, pixie, are you weak?"