Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Computer Wars ❯ Computer Wars Episode 3: A New TC ( Chapter 3 )

Title: GW Computer Wars Episode 3: A New TC

Author: Sorceress Fantasia

Pairings: Implied 3+4

Warnings: Humor, OCs, AU (In fact, this takes place in our world)

Disclaimer: The people who own GW has the money to build an entire fleet of Leos and Virgos. Since I currently own only a book bag and some worksheets that are due really soon, that can't be me. Yeah, so I don't own GW. Star Wars and South Park does not belong to me either. Yuusuke, Hiei and Kurama from YYH who make a guest appearance in this part, belongs to their creator. Not me.

Notes: This struck me in a moment of insanity, so expect it to be stupid. This is what might happen if the GW guys manufactured their own personal computers and sold them.

Ian flopped onto the floor, completely exhausted. He had just played an exciting game of basketball with his friend, and was currently taking a well-deserved rest at his house. He caught the can of beverage his friend threw his way, and quickly gulped down the contents. Finally feeling a little better, he sighed and glanced around. His eyes fell on his friend's computer.

"Hey Irvine."

"Yeah?"

"Is that your new computer?" He asked, pointing to the metal thing sitting on the desk.

"Uh huh. Well technically, it's not new. But I just upgraded the thing, so I guess you *could* call it new." Irvine answered, moving over to switch it on.

"Upgraded?"

"Yeah, I just changed my operating system. Midii 3.0 was just too slow, so I upgraded it to Catherine 3.4 yesterday. It seems to be working pretty well, but there are some quirks I just can't understand. I'll show you later."

Ian climbed up from the floor. Grabbing a nearby chair, he sat beside his friend. "Hey… weird looking mouse you have there."

"Of course it's weird looking. It's not even a mouse. According to the guy I bought this from, it's called a cat."

"Why?"

"Because the creator of this computer, the TC, likes cats." Irvine shrugged. "Besides, this computer has an uncanny ability to tame animals, especially cats.

"How? I mean, is this the mechanical equivalent of catnip?"

"I don't know, but I think it is. When you walked into my garden, didn't you notice the German Shepard I just got? It keeps the cats out. You have no idea how irritating it is when you find a couple of cats hanging near your computer when you want to work. Last I heard, some poor guy nearly had a heart attack when he found a lion draping over his TC. Turns out that it was a runaway from a nearby circus."

Ian blinked. "Oh, so the TC represents Taming Cats?"

"No. It's the abbreviation of Thorny Cactus. See the top of the monitor?"

Ian obliged, and stood up. Peering at the top, he winced. "It looks spiky."

"Heard there was some spiky deal with the creator's hair, so there."

"You know, after seeing all the weird things my HC and my sister's DC does, I guess I'm just not all that surprised anymore by your TC." Ian commented offhandedly. Indeed, after spending two weeks exploring the two computers, he had discovered quite a few neat things about them.

"You sure? Just wait till you learn of the TC's quirks!" Irvine challenged, a wide grin plastered on his face.

As they conversed, the TC had already been fully loaded and was ready for usage.

Ian saw the wallpaper, and asked curiously, "Why is this wallpaper so strange?" Said wallpaper featured the close-up of a blonde boy with aquamarine eyes. The strange thing was that, it featured only the right side of the boy's face. The other half of the wallpaper was completely black.

"I didn't understand it at first either, and then I entered my default homepage." Irvine explained, and clicked on the Internet icon.

The homepage was titled '101 ways to use hair gel', and true to its name, it suggested many ways of using hair gel. For the first time, it dawned on Ian that the thing had uses not associated with hair. One suggestion was to use it as lube. Not just as a cure for squeaky doors, but the thing you use in bed. 'Now why didn't I ever think of that? Hmm… Let's see… Hiei wanders into Yuusuke's bathroom and finds a bottle of hairgel… Not knowing what is it, he takes it over to Kurama's… And Kurama happened to be taking a nap…' His musings could have continued, had Irvine not disturbed him.

"Hello! Earth to Ian!"

"What? What?"

"…I've been trying to get your attention for the past minute, and you just spaced out on me."

"Oh, sorry." Ian had the decency to at least blush. "Wait, I still don't understand. How is this related to the wallpaper?"

"If you had been listening, you'd know this isn't the web page I was talking about. It's the affiliated website." Irvine sighed, clicking on the link. The web page disappeared for a while, and when it reappeared, it was another one. "See this one?"

"'How to not walk into lampposts, walls etc when your bangs cover over half your face'." Ian read from the screen. "So?"

Irvine sighed again, this time more dramatic than before. "Apparently, the TC's creator's hair is not only spiky, but also covers half his face. If his hair covers half his face, of course he would see only half of everything. People included."

Ian nodded, sniggering.

Irvine disconnected from the Internet, and clicked on an icon. A new window appeared. A wide array of different types of clown suit lined the right side of the screen, while a range of masks of various shapes and sizes took up the left. A colour palette bounded the bottom, while a boy with bangs that covered part of his face stood in the middle.

"See? This program here, allows users to design their own clown suits and masks." He clarified, and he quickly chose a pair of wide, green pants and a half-mask for the boy. Clicking on the button that said 'GO!', the boy disappeared and the screen quickly changed to that of a circus.

Drums rolled, and lights glared all around in various colours. Confetti floated around, and finally, 'Virtual Circus' appeared on the screen in rainbow. That soon faded, and another sentence took its place.

"Stage 1? Irvine, is this a game? Is this THE 'Virtual Circus'?" Ian asked, wide eyed. The game was currently a hot favourite of many teenagers, and was deemed by the critics to be an excellent outlet for reliving stress. Although it didn't work as well as the S&M program in the Une computer, this was much more sane and healthier. Players just needed to shoot darts at the board, and the closer the dart is to the bull's eye, the higher the score. The little twist programmers had added was that someone was tied to the dartboard, and users had to keep shooting until that someone bit the dust.

"Yeah, it comes preinstalled in all TCs cause it was designed and developed by the creator of the TC. Didn't you know that?" Irvine answered, amusedly.

The screen had fully loaded during the course of their conversation, and Ian could see someone tied to a big dartboard, and various darts lined the arena. The victim, as Ian had come to call, was a girl with wheat coloured hair and certainly a penchant for pink. Whether it was a coincident or not, she definitely looked like the Relena Darlian found in the DC's program.

Irvine gave him a lopsided grin, and started shooting his darts... no wait, Ian blinked. His friend had always had a mischievous streak in him, and it would be abnormal of him to choose normal darts. No, he had chosen darts that were smeared with poison. That certainly explained why the victim had turned an ugly shade of green before puking and her subsequent death that included her melting into a puddle of pink goo.

'Stage 2'

Tied to the board now was a guy with a fetish for roses. Judging from the way he kicked the bucket, the darts were probably stained with arsenic.

"No, I didn't do that." Irvine pouted indignantly. "I merely dipped the darts in slime. This guy wasn't poisoned to death. He was disgusted to death."

"*Disgusted* to death?"

"And you thought it was weird for that Relena gal to die of shock just because the man she loves is gay!" Irvine laughed. "This guy here… Slime and all other dirty things are his greatest weakness! Not surprising though, knowing that he takes at least one bath in roses everyday!"

Those victims, Ian decided, were real after all.

Irvine was an expert at the game, and soon progressed to the final stage where he was pitted against a blonde girl with forked eyebrows. Although, the girl was still tied to the board.

Before he could shoot, a barrage of daggers flew across the screen and went straight to the victim's throat, forehead, tummy, limbs... and who knows what else. She gave a muffled scream, and fell limp in the confines.

Ian resisted the urge to scream 'He killed Kenny! You bastard!' Instead, he asked, "Hey, what happened?"

"No big deal, really. It happens sometimes." Irvine replied, shrugging.

A girl suddenly stormed into the circus. Dressed in what seemed to be a circus' costume, she seemed rather pretty, with brown curls and glazed blue eyes.

"That, Ian, is Catherine. She's a manifestation of my operating system. She's kinda like the nanny of the TC."

Catherine turned towards them, and glared. The words 'Get out of the circus!' appeared on the screen in bold and caps, and the computer screen blanked out.

"Damn! Not again!"

"What happened?"

"Catherine threw me out again! And the computer always jams after she does this." Irvine snapped, leaning back in his seat.

Ian frowned, and moved for the 'escape' button.

"Forget it, Ian! Catherine's gonna get mad if you press that."

"Mad?"

"Yeah. She hates the 'escape' button. Every time I use that after she shuts herself, the TC gives out this slapping sound, and a warning that goes 'Don't you dare press it!' appears on the screen. And then, the 'escape' button miraculously doesn't work anymore. For a while."

Ian nodded in understanding. "Well, at least yours is safer than mine. Mine blows up!"

"Yeah, I've heard of that one." Irvine laughed. "Oh look! The TC's running again!"

Indeed, Catherine seemed to have been finished with her temper truant, and the screen was back to normal. Well, as normal as it can get, that is.

The screensaver was playing, and Ian could make out a chibi Catherine throwing knives at another chibi girl, who resembled the last girl he had seen in the virtual circus. The former was chasing the latter all over the place, growling. The screensaver disappeared when Irvine moved the mouse, however.

"Can we check out the 'help' function? I wanna know something..." Ian asked, grinning. He had been wondering how was it like with the TC. Surely, it would be interesting to see.

"Oh sure~ Although, I'm pretty certain it's not gonna answer you." Irvine replied, smirking.

The help box appeared, but true to Irvine's words, no answered turned up when Ian typed his question. "Hey! Why isn't there an answer?"

"Oei! Which stone have you been living under? People are already talking all over town about this one!" His friend nudged his shoulder, laughing with mirth. "The TC generally ignores all American boys, especially if your hair's braided. Mostly, it just gives the silent treatment. If you want an answer, you gotta be either a Japanese or a Chinese boy. I haven't tried it with an Arabian boy. Heard it actually talks when Arabian boys use it."

Ian decided it wasn't worth it to be angry. He grabbed the mouse- err, cat, and continued exploring. "The recycle bin?"

"You can try it. Here, type something first and delete the file."

Ian obliged. Upon finishing his first sentence, he was stunned to see a dozen full stops appearing instead of the usually one. "Irvine? Care to explain?"

"Just look at the keyboard."

"…Where is the full stop?"

"There, the one you pressed earlier."

"…Irvine, that's a *dozen* full stops. I want *one* full stop."

He shrugged, and tossed a careless grin. "They come in a package, and aren't sold separately."

"What? Is this guy linguistically impaired?"

Another shrug.

Ian ignored him, and typed more. Ignoring his friend was rather easy, but the same couldn't be said for the full stops that covered nearly the whole page. Just as he was about to stop typing all together, he hit a strange button. Then, he heard a strange sound, and several machine guns aimed towards the door suddenly popped out from the sides of the TC.

"What the!?"

Irvine sighed, and pressed another button on the keyboard. The guns started shooting. "Nothing to worry. These are the special accessories of the TC called Heavyarms. I had to pay extra for them."

"Who are they shooting at?"

His friend looked towards the door, and turned back. "Currently, no one. I aimed them at the door to keep out unwanted pests when I'm on the TC. I think it's even better that your HC's self-destruct mode, since it's still in one piece after an attack."

Ian blinked dazedly, but his reverie was soon interrupted by Irvine's swearing.

"Damn it! Ammo's out again!" He slapped his forehead. "The only bad thing about this? Bullets are sold separately, and they have a tendency to run out everyday. And by gods! They're so expensive!" With another sigh, he pressed a button and the guns retracted, disappearing from sight. He sighed louder, and after a moment's silence, finally noticed Ian still staring at his TC in bewilderment.

"I thought you wanted to see the recycle bin?"

"Oh yeah..." Ian blinked again. "Erm, can I delete the file now?"

"Go ahead."

Ian hit 'delete', and the file was gone. He quickly minimized the window and went to the recycle bin, only to find no trace of his recently erased file. Instead, he found 'Chicken soup with cabbage', 'Mushroom soup' and many other files with similar names. "I can't find the file, Irvine!"

"Course not. Catherine collects all deleted document, and compiles them into ingredients for her soup recipes. Last I read the instructional manuals, users are to consume the soup at their own risks."

"You sure?"

"Of course… not! C'mon! But really, Catherine does compile her own soup recipes."

"And what does she do with them?"

"You remember seeing Catherine suddenly materializing at the 'Virtual Circus'? Well, she's kinda like the torturer. Sometimes, when she appears, she kills the victim with her daggers. Other times, she feed them her soup."

"And?"

"They get food poisoning, and I won't see them for the next three rounds of the game."

Ian sweatdropped. "Anyway, where's the deleted file?"

"Oh… it's here. See? At the very bottom of the page… Here!"

"Gee, the TC isn't interesting when it comes to the recycle bin!"

"It's normal, which is a good thing because all other things are strange about this computer."

"What's stranger than the machine guns and the wallpaper?"

Irvine went off to a side of his room, and with some effort, pulled out something. "This?" He suggested, and walked back to the TC with it in hand.

"What's it?"

"Knives, for me to throw at the TC when I get frustrated. It's an accessory that came along." He pushed the knives aside, and pulled out a flute and a scorebook. "I got this as a special gift because Owen and I had purchased our computers together. By the way, he bought the Quatre Computer. And look at the scorebook." He opened it up, revealing the scores that were concentrated only on the left side.

"It's the hair covering face problem again?"

"Seems so."

Ian sweatdropped harder. Shaking his head, he turned back to the TC. His eyes fell onto the 'escape' button again, and with a grin that could outmatch the Cheshire Cat. He pressed it.

Suddenly, the TC pulled free of all its cables and did a back flip in the air. It landed gracefully on Irvine's bed, right in front of Ian, and all the artillery appeared pointed at him.

It was about to shoot, but Irvine quickly took out a katana, and pointed it at the TC. It immediately stopped, and all guns retracted.

"What was that?"

"You pressed 'escape', didn't you? Escape has two possibilities. One, Catherine appears and shuts down the system. Two, it tries to shoot someone. Apparently, that equates being discovered in an infiltration, so it was trying to kill you!"

"And it stopped because you had a katana?"

"Noticed something? I'm a Chinese boy with jet-black hair, holding a katana at my computer. The TC wouldn't stop any other way." Irvine replied smugly, if not a little crossly.

Sorceress Fantasia @ 8th November 2002

Proud member of 1x2ML, GWML, HDML, SDDI