[Thread] Arrogance takes a blow

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Characters: OU!Chang Wufei, OPEN
Where: The Plaza
When: Early afternoon
Summary: Wufei has come to the realization that perhaps it's past time he attempted to make allies of some of the other residents of Neocontra. Since his PDA is still missing and assumed in hostile hands, he's had to wait until allowing himself off of his self-imposed house

Comments

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

Wearing the winter gear she had been given by the older Quatre for Christmas, Ed made her way through the park, jumping in the snow, playing around and tossing it in the air. She giggled and sang to herself, making quite a bit of noise. Near the edge, she had her back to the plaza and the fountain nearby... and one of her loosely packed snowballs flew up and back over her head and towards someone behind her... a certain, black-haired China man sulking about his situation.

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Wufei hadn't missed the antics of the young girl playing in the snow -- he doubted anyone could have. He'd been giving her a wide berth, not wanting to interrupt her fun, not sure exactly how to approach such an exuberant display of pure enjoyment in a weather condition he found to be rather irritating. He hadn't been all that fond of snow prior to his abandonment in it, and now he found it even more loathsome.

The unexpected white flurry that clouded his vision as the snowball hit his head and exploded, showering his shoulders with powder, coating his hair and slipping into the collar of his jacket made him shout with surprise, a wordless yelp as he whirled to face his ... attacker.

A child. He relaxed almost instantly, though he stayed on the alert. The same child. "Watch where you're throwing those," he called in warning, his tone slightly stern.

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

Ed turned and looked Wufei over for a moment. She giggled at his snow covered predicament. "Fun!" she said. She went over and looked at him, tilting her head slightly in curiosity. "You're not Fei-Fei... but you look like her. Wu-Wu?" She worked her mind around the doubles idea for a moment, clearly not overly upset by it. She grinned at him. "Wu-Wu!" she said with another giggle.

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He wasn't certainly wasn't "Fei-Fei" -- privately, he was appalled that she would allow anyone to use such a diminutive form of their shared name. Granted, it was common enough for Duo to use such irritating nicknames, but ... "Wufei," he said, confirming for her that he was who she imagined him to be. "Not Wu-Wu." More melted ice-water slipped down into the collar of his jacket, causing an involuntary shudder.

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

Ed giggled.

"Just like Fei-Fei..." she said. "Wu-Wu." She nodded to herself. "Fei-Fei says Ed's wrong aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the time, but Ed likes calling her that. Ed will call her that. Just like Ed will call you Wu-Wu." She grinned at him, looking rather proud of herself for a moment, then turned and started to gather up snow again, ignorant of the fact that Wufei was still covered in the stuff.

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"Does she now," Wufei said, finding some small amusement in the fact that apparently his double was just as irritated by such namecalling as he was. It probably shouldn't be surprising. Even if it was.

He didn't really want to be thinking about her right now -- but he supposed he should take advantage of any opportunity to discover more about his double, since asking her anything directly was an unpleasant proposition. "Do you know 'Fei-Fei' well then?"

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

"Faye-Faye?" Of course, Ed hadn't realized that two names that were written differently might actually sound the same. Add to that the fact that Ed was closer to the Faye from her own world than the female Wufei, and the switch in subject was to be expected. Whether Wufei would pick up on the difference, however, was an entirely different matter.

"Faye-Faye was part of the Bebop crew!" she said suddenly. "Faye-Faye is here, too. No Spike-type-person, though. Or Papa Jet. Ed was on Bebop Bebop! She hacked computers to find bounty heads for them to earn Woolongs!" She smiled a bit at him. "Ed misses Ein, though."

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Wufei blinked slowly as he processed the energetic girl's words, picking out the relevant pieces: the female Wufei had been part of the 'Bebop' crew, which he could assume was a ship of some sort, and so had this girl who, if he was catching her reference to herself in the third person correctly, was named 'Ed'. That meant that they were from the same world, then, or at least similar ones. And this girl was a hacker. He wondered just how good of a hacker she was -- and if she might be a useful asset in the future. "The Bebop crew? Can you tell me more about that? What did Fei-Fei do there?"

He admittedly had very little experience with children at all, beyond Mareimaia, and she was much the same as the other young men and women he had grown up with in the boarding schools he had been raised in: serious and intelligent, and almost never child-like. Ed's youthful cheerfulness was something he wasn't quite sure how to respond to.

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

"Faye-Faye was a booooouuuuunty hunteeeerrrr..." Ed said, waving her arms about with a spooky voice. "I think Faye-Faye liked Spike-Type-Person. Yup yup." Ed nodded. "Waaaaaaaaiiiit a minute," she said, peering at Wufei closely. "Wu-Wu doesn't wanna know about Faye-Faye," she said suddenly. "Wu-Wu wants to know about Fei-Fei!!! Double double... toil and trouble..." she sang out, then giggled. "Ed silly! She made a mistake!"

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Maybe, Wufei thought as the girl sang to herself, it was a good thing that he had never associated with children or dealt with them. If 'normal' children were like this girl, he might never have become a Gundam pilot, because he'd have been committed to a juvenile detention facility long ago for assault and battery. That was a younger, less-gentle Wufei. One who would not have merely stopped with a mental groan and not-so-patient roll of the eyes. "Yes. Fei-Fei. The one who looks like me." And not the other one whom Ed had apparently given the same nickname to...

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

"Older Faye-Faye is from Ed's world," Ed told him. "But, your Fei-Fei... she likes Quat-Quat. Everyone knows. And now they're together~!" Ed bounced at that, tossing her hands up in the air as she gave a small celebratory cheer. She hopped around Wufei in a circle. "Fei-Fei and Quat-Quat... sittin' in a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" she sang.

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Wufei had already gotten a preview of what it was like to see the older Quatre and his female double K-I-S-S-I-N-G -- and it had been rather disturbing, so he was not especially capable of appreciating Ed's display. "I know," he said, his patience starting to fray. "I know about that. But do you know anything else about her? Before she came here or after?" Anything that did not involve her supposed relationship with Quatre.

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

"Before?" Ed shrugged. "Ed didn't look that far. Ed can find out, though... maybe. If Fei-Fei posted things on tiny computer, Ed can find them." She smiled a bit. "Ed lives with your Fei-Fei."

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Using this girl to actally spy on the female Wufei was going a bit too far. It would be ... wrong, Wufei decided. Even if he wanted to know more about her, he would not ask Ed to go that far, even if she were willing to offer. "You don't need to do that," he said. "You probably wouldn't like it if she told anyone your secrets, so you shouldn't tell anyone hers. Is she a nice person to live with?" If she was as like him in temperament as she had seemed, he had no idea how she managed to cohabit with this child without trying to kill her daily.

[r4d3d1337h4xx0r]

"Nooooooooooo... Ed wouldn't like that at all," she said. "But, Ed doesn't have lotsa secrets, so it doesn't matter!" She shrugged nonchalantly. "Fei-Fei's nice enough... stays to herself lots or stays with Tri-Tro when she's home."

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So Quatre did not live with them. There was some small solace in that. If the older man had been acting so improperly towards her, Wufei would have been forced to have some rather strong words with him. And that explained why young Ed was still among the living.

"Who's Tri-Tro?" he asked, sure he would regret the answer. "And just how good are you with the little computers?" If she was good enough to hack into the other Wufei's entries, perhaps she might be useful to him in the mater of his own missing PDA.