GN-001: False Peace
January 25th, CE 71, Heliopolis space colony in L3, park in the colony
Under the roof of a gazebo, three students were busy typing away at their laptops, trying to finish the homework assigned to them that seemed to be piling up over time. Two of the students, girls of roughly the same age, were wearing close-toed pumps and kimono gowns of different coloring and design, the one with chestnut brown hair wearing an amethyst purple kimono gown with a rose-red flower design on the left side of her clothes over her left breast while the one with black hair wore one with a chestnut brown base and a golden bird design over her right breast on the right side of her clothes. The final student, a boy who moved to the area a bit after Christmas, wore a blue denim jacket with an AE symbol on the left side over a white shirt and blue denim jeans with brown boots. He was quick to be a part of their social circle, which fortunately wasn’t all girls, but he seemed to be stuck with these two more often than anyone else liked.
As it was, Banagher Links could feel the negative intent towards him because of his closeness to the two most popular female students in the Heliopolis Technical College, especially given their natural beauty that was accented by their clothes and by the smallest amount of makeup that they needed to enhance what they already had. Then again, most of their popularity was out of lust, not of liking a person one way or another in the normal sense.
Banagher remembered that the other boys, and even some girls for some reason, would look at his friends with lust in their eyes. There were some exceptions to the boys lusting over his good friends, but the exceptions were few and far between, given that it was well less than one percent of the male population in Heliopolis. If anything, he could count the number of other males that were like him in the colony on one hand, even the thumb.
Shaking his head at the thought of there being more perverts than the world needed, Banagher was about to get back to his work when the chestnut-haired girl, Kira Yamato, asked him with concern evident in her voice, “Banagher-kun, what’s wrong? Is something eating at you right now?”
The black-haired girl, Setsuna F. Seiei, asked in monotone, “Were you thinking of how much of the boys here are lusting after us, Banagher Links?” Upon seeing the incredulous look sent her way from Banagher, Setsuna clarified, “I could feel their eyes trying to undress Kira and I. I don’t know if the same can be said for Kira, but it was that way with me, because of something that happened to me when I moved to the Heliopolis colony two years ago.”
Kira, as the only other person aware of the incident, kept quiet about it for Setsuna’s benefit. When Banagher looked at Kira, she could feel the question about to be asked, so she answered, “I can feel that sort of thing as well, Banagher-kun. I wouldn’t say that it was because of anything happening to me, but it has more to do with how I was born, if that makes sense.”
Banagher, aware of how it made sense for some reason, felt more comfortable being in the presence of fellow Newtypes. He knew that he was a Newtype, but he didn’t realize that he was friends with other Newtypes, to some degree. Still, as he remembered that he needed to get to work, he said, “Guys, we really need to finish our assignment from the professor. If we’re not fast enough, he’ll dump more stuff on us today for us to do along with this homework, given how good we are at his lessons.”
It was with a nod that the three of them got back to work, with Kira watching the news as she was doing her work. As she listened to the news, she and the others heard a male reporter say, “The refugee camps in South Africa have been suffering from a chronic shortage in food and relief supplies, endangering the lives of 1.2 Million people.”
“We’ll now bring you images from the Kaohsiung front where heavy fighting is taking place,” continued a female reporter, catching the attention of Setsuna and Banagher. When they looked over to Kira’s laptop, they saw the female reporter say, “According to information just received, the ZAFT forces have approached to within six kilometers of Kaohsiung.”
It was at roughly that moment that a mechanical bird appeared in front of Kira’s laptop, saying, “Birdy?”
Shortly afterwards, Kira, Setsuna and Banagher heard a call of “Kira! Setsuna! Banagher!”
When they heard their names being called out, Kira, Setsuna and Banagher turned their attention to the young man that Banagher knew was one of the five males in the entire colony, not counting Kira’s father, who would never lust after his good friends.
Before the young man, a coffee-brown haired male with steel-blue eyes, a white-green button-down short-sleeved shirt over a blue t-shirt and tan pants, and his girlfriend, a young woman with honey-brown hair and blue eyes, wearing an orange and slightly yellow dress with detached orange sleeves, could say anything, Setsuna identified them, saying in her usual monotone, “Tolle Koenig. Miriallia Haw.”
Banagher, glad to see some friendly faces, asked, “How are you guys doing? I hope that this is just a social visit you had in mind.”
Tolle, unfortunately for the three in the gazebo, said, “Sorry, Banagher. Professor Kato’s been trying to get a hold of you three.”
Kira, showing clear signs of exasperation, asked, “What, again?”
Miriallia, unaware of how much the three friends were hoping it wasn’t so, said, “He asked us to bring you three to him right away.” As she thought about it, she asked, “Well? Are you assisting him with something else?”
“Too much,” Banagher answered for the three of them in a gloomy tone. “We still haven’t even finished going through the stuff he dumped on us yesterday, which is a pain and a half for each of us as it is.” As he said that, he hunched over in his seat and drooped his head to a low level because of how unfair the situation was.
Setsuna, aware of the mental state Banagher was in, patted him on the back to get him out of it, all the while saying, “Don’t worry, Banagher-kun. You’ll be fine when we get to see the professor again.”
As Setsuna was getting Banagher perked up again, Tolle came over to Kira’s laptop with Miriallia and asked, “Huh. Some development in the news?”
“Yeah,” Kira answered. As she pulled up the screen again, she said, as if she didn’t care all that much at the moment, “Taiwan, apparently.”
“I’m within seven kilometers of Kaohsiung where the sounds of fierce combat continue to echo!” The male reporter for the Cosmic era Broadcast Newsgroup, CBN in other words, gave the scoop as GINNs were floating down to face off against Tierans that were in the area at the time.
Tolle, in shock at the turn of events, gasped and declared when he saw it, “If this is footage from last week, they may have already taken over Kaohsiung!”
Kira, aware of how that would turn out, switched her laptop to standby mode and said, “Yeah.”
Miriallia asked the group, “Kaohsiung isn’t very far from us, is it? Will the homeland be alright?”
With that, Birdy took off in the air, saying, “Birdy!”
Before Tolle could reassure his girlfriend, Banagher, having gotten over his gloom spell, said, “It may seem like Orb will be alright, but you have to look at it from an outside perspective. I remember a situation back home where a colony was attacked because it held Mobile Suit prototypes that were capable of using Beam Weapons, only nobody in the war knew that the prototypes had beam equipment installed except for the ones to build them in the military facilities and the one who designed them to begin with. Granted, this was a year before I was born, but the prototypes made it to the end of the war with no problem for most of them. Only the one known as Gundam was destroyed in a final battle between its pilot and a nemesis known as Char Aznable. For all we know, the situation could very well be like that here, only with a company like Morgenroete building the prototypes.”
Tolle normally would be oblivious to what Banagher would try getting at, but this time, he said, “I don’t believe you’ve ever spoken about your past before, Banagher.”
Banagher, turning to face Tolle, said, “It’s because you guys never asked. Besides, I don’t remember much of my past, given that I don’t know who my father is, even.”
Setsuna, knowing that she had a past that she never spoke about with the others either, was about to say something when she noticed Kira gazing off into the distance. With Banagher sitting upright and in between her and Kira, Setsuna motioned for Tolle to help Kira out of her daydream, which he was happy to oblige with.
Tolle got in front of Kira’s face and asked, “Kira?” When Kira, shocked as she was, sprawled her body backwards and into Banagher, who knocked into Setsuna as well, Tolle asked, “What’s up with you, anyway?” Turning to leave the gazebo, he said, “Let’s go.”
With that, he and Miriallia left the gazebo, leaving Banagher and Kira to get off of Setsuna before they realized that they had to clean up their work. While they were doing that, Kira thought, ‘Otouto-kun, I hope you stay home for a long while this time. We missed you when you ran away last time.’
At the Morgenroete Astray Factory
In another part of Heliopolis at Morgenroete, a young woman about 17 years old with waist length lavender hair and caramel colored eyes and was wearing a customized flight suit as she was getting ready to make a test flight of one of the prototype mobile weapons that Rhondo Gina Sahaku, the noble of Orb who had commissioned them to cooperate with the Atlantic Federation, had built behind their backs. Testing one of the new mobile suits was certainly going to be a tremendous honor for her. But with the prototypes, they were lacking the proper kind of OS, especially one for her since she was a Natural. She wanted to pilot the fully assembled MBF-P06 Gundam Astray Silver Frame, but she was assigned to the MVF-P01 Gundam Astray Ventus Frame instead. For the moment her mind was on a certain individual that had been her best friend from childhood. She had wanted to be his girlfriend when they had gotten older. But the murder of her childhood friend’s parents had dramatically changed her life as her friend had been listed as missing and presumed dead. She sighed as she headed towards the hangar. As she headed to the hangar, the test pilot, named Roux Louka, had a slight shiver run down her spine. Roux shook her head as she thought that it was impossible because only her childhood friend, Rengi Gutenberg, gave her a slight shiver when she could sense his presence.
‘N-No it can’t be Rengi,’ thought Roux, ‘There’s no way its Rengi. The police told me that they presumed he was dead.’
Two floors below Roux, young 17 year-old Rengi Canaver, the adopted son of Eileen Canaver was on a secret mission assigned to him by the PLANTS Supreme Chairman Siegel Clyne to see if Orb had begun construction of their own mobile weapons and to bring back data on them if he could bring anything back. He had orange hair, magenta eyes and wore a disguise as an employee of Morgenroete with two custom made swords strapped to his back. He also had reflective silver tiger stripes painted on his face and arms going down his shoulders to his wrists. Rengi was glad to have the assignment as he had been stuck doing menial work since joining ZAFT, despite being a Natural who joined willingly and was willing to brave being labeled a traitor to the human race by the Blue Cosmos organization. As Rengi approached a hangar, he encountered a familiar face. This familiar face was one Rengi would prefer to forget as he heard the person ramble on.
“I found it,” said the agent of Blue Cosmos. “Director Azrael has made a mistake in trusting that bastard noble from Orb. Rhondo Gina Sahaku is creating his own mobile weapons to kill all Naturals and make himself the ruler of the Earthsphere.”
As the agent went on rambling, he did not notice Rengi coming behind him and then running his sword through him and finally slicing his head off. With the agent dead, the young and eager Natural went forward to what would soon change his life forever.
With Kira’s little brother
A young man of fourteen, born a year after Kira, with blue hair and green eyes and active camo clothes under a blue zippable sweater, was walking from home to his school when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye to the right. As it stood, he was walking next to some shopping centers on his right side, but then he found himself near an alleyway. This wasn’t odd in and of itself, but the person in the alley was, given that it was not a hobo.
Turning his gaze to the person, the young man asked, “Which Almark are you?”
The Almark answered, “I’m the only Ribbons you’ve met, Kyou Yamato.” Upon seeing Kyou’s eyes widen in realization, Ribbons Almark smiled in a calming manner and said, “Relax. I’m just giving you payment for your service to the true nature of the Plan, one that you’re free to use as you wish. You’ll find it in Morgenroete’s B-Hangar, next to the 37th Factory District, and equipped with a true GN Drive.” Before Kyou could question Ribbons on anything, Ribbons said, “I found a method to replicate the black box technology down to the letter, even though it’s a very time and cost-intensive method, so I could only do it once this time. Don’t worry about the money involved, Yamato, I already extracted it from a couple sources to keep them from doing anything stupid for a long time.”
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Alejandro Corner of Corner Industries and Laguna Harvey of Linear Train Industries sneezed heavily before wondering if they were coming down with something… only for them to find out that they lost at least three quarters of their individual wealth for something they didn’t even do.
With Kyou and Ribbons, Ribbons pulled out a phone and handed it to Kyou, saying as he did so, “I equipped a mobile phone with a connection to Veda, so you’ll still receive instructions from it and I as time moves on. Before you ask about N-Jammer interference, the connection to Veda prevents that, so you’ll be fine for receiving orders from anywhere in the Solar System at least.” After giving Kyou the phone, Ribbons said, “You’ll need a codename when dealing with the other Meisters, so I decided that you’d go by the name Kratos Aurion while doing so.”
At that moment, Kyou’s other phone went off, playing a cell-phone version of “Valley of the Damned” by pre-Reconstruction War era band Dragonforce. Getting it out of his pocket, he checked the caller ID and saw it was Kira. With that, he opened the phone and put it to his ear, saying, “Yes, Onee-chan?”
“Kyou, you remember that Professor Kato needs you back in class for until the end of the month, barring strange circumstances to the colony, right?” Kira asked.
Kyou put the other phone in his opposite pocket as he answered, “Onee-chan, you do realize that I don’t give a rat’s a-”
“Language, Kyou,” was the strict reprimand Kira gave her brother.
Kyou sighed in irritation as he pinched the bridge of his nose, before letting go so that he could say, “Anyway, you do realize that I don’t care even the slightest that Kato wants me there, right? I was only going to head there to get something that’s payment for me and make sure that I can use it right. If you’re lucky, I’ll make it to see you, your girlfriend and your boyfriend in class before heading off to Hangar B.”
Kira’s stuttering was clue enough that Kyou would need to get off the phone. He closed the phone and put it away, before saying to Ribbons, “I’d better get over to the Gundam in Hangar B. I’ll see you later, boss.”
Ribbons nodded, before saying, “I’ll see you later, Kratos Aurion. You might want to keep that name in mind with Setsuna F. Seiei as one of your associates that is assigned as a Meister.” With that, Kyou moved away from the spot he was at, only for Ribbons to call out to him, saying, “Hold on a moment. Do you remember the first time we met, Yamato?”
Kyou paused in his steps before turning his head to face Ribbons. With a raised eyebrow, he answered, “I do, though the exact details elude me. What are you trying to get at?”
Ribbons, after a moment of thought, said, “I wanted to offer a similar challenge to you as the first time we met, only it won’t be playing chess with a normal board. Instead, when next we meet, we’ll be playing Soul Chess(1).”
Kyou’s eyes widened, familiar with the game, if it could even be called that. He never played it, but he knew that it was a high-risk game that was almost forgotten completely by the year Cosmic Era 71, given that it had a death penalty under normal circumstances for those who lost the game. Why Ribbons was challenging him to a game of Soul Chess was beyond him….
Ribbons, as if to abate the fear, said, “Don’t worry; this won’t be a serious game. I wouldn’t want to kill you unless you betray the human race and cause a war between it, so we’ll be making sure the guidelines for the game are made clear from the beginning, Kyou. I’ll teach you the rules of the game before we play our non-serious game for real.” Turning to leave the alleyway, he said, “I will see you when fate allows it.” With that, he walked away from the alleyway, over to the spaceport where his way out would be.
Kyou stayed rooted to his spot for a bit, until his older phone went off again, which made him look at the caller ID on it. It was a friend of his on the colony, Ieyasu, so he answered the phone, saying, “Yo, dawg! What’s up?”
“Hey Kyou. Remember the ship that was being built here?” Ieyasu said over the line.
“Hell yeah! Is it finished yet?” Kyou was hoping that it was, mainly because of a job that he was hired to do for the Atlantic Federation involving the ship.
“Yeah, that’s why I was calling. You might want to get there ASAP; otherwise you might miss your contract, with payment benefits to your family as per the deal going away.”
Ieyasu didn’t have to say anything else, as Kyou said, “You don’t have to remind me about that. Listen, dude, I’ll be there as soon as I finish a trip to Hangar B, mainly because of payment for services rendered to a contract supplier that I need to collect, so I’ll see ya at the dock when I get there.”
“Okay, Kyou, I’m waiting for you in the dock as we speak. I’m also waiting for the newbs in charge of the G-weapons to get over here so that I can help you get introduced.” Ieyasu didn’t need to make it clear that the ship’s captain, Marcus Keeler, was probably going to give Kyou hell for being an Enhanced Natural(2) with better abilities than a regular Coordinator.
“Eh, sure, no problem. I’ll probably get a new ride as soon as I make it to Hangar B, so if the contract was going to provide a ride, they won’t need to now.” Kyou, for some reason, didn’t mention what this ride of his was to his friend, but didn’t care to say it quite yet, given that Ieyasu was with the Atlantic Federation branch of the OMNI Enforcer.
Ieyasu chuckled at that before saying, “Understood, Kyou. I’ll see you at the dock.” With that, the line went dead; making Kyou put his phone away.
Kyou decided to run to the car terminal, guiding Qi(3) into his legs to make it there faster, which was part of the reason why he was so good at his contracts with different military units in the OMNI Enforcer. He wasn’t a master at it like the Shaolin Monks of pre-Reconstruction War era China, but it was better than nothing, as he needed this training for his survival.
In the Colony Harbor area
As things were developing, a Marseille III-class vessel entered the colony harbor. An elderly Earth Forces captain waited until his ship docked in the harbor. Once the ship was finally docked, the captain of the ship let out a huge sigh of relief as he heaved his officer’s cap off his head and said, “There you have it. This ship has completed its final mission. You served admirably as an escort Lieutenant La Flaga. I am in your debt.”
“I’m just glad we made it without incident,” replied Mu La Flaga. “Any ZAFT vessels in the vicinity?”
“Just two, but there’s no cause for alarm,” answered the captain. “They know they can’t take any hostile action once we’re docked.”
“Because this place is neutral?” the Hawk of Endymion asked in a sarcastic tone. “What a joke that is.”
As the captain and Mu were having their short conversation, five pilots wearing uniforms for Morgenroete came and saluted the captain and one of the pilots spoke saying, “Sir, the other five pilots that were chosen asked us to relay their thanks for your assistance in bringing us to Heliopolis. Sir, thank you for your assistance, sir.”
“I’m just happy to help an old friend like Lieutenant Rena Imelia,” the captain said with a slight grin on his face.
Fifty Kilometers away from Heliopolis
Hidden from view of the Heliopolis sensor arrays, two ZAFT ships, a Nazca-class and a Laurasia-class labeled the Vesalius and the Gamow respectively, were preparing to launch infiltration teams into the colony, both teams consisting of five Greencoats and three Redcoats. While they were preparing for the operation at hand, three of the ZAFT Reds were in the locker room of the Vesalius, preparing for the mission at hand by equipping themselves with assault rifles, combat knives, grenades, Qi conductive kunai and a pair of Qi conductive chakrams… okay, seriously, who in their right mind would take kunai and chakrams over modern weaponry?
One of the ZAFT Reds in the locker room, Athrun Zala, turned to the person who took the kunai and chakrams and asked, “Taikobo, I know you’re a martial arts nut, but isn’t this taking it a bit too far? I mean, you do realize that we’re headed to a battlefield where guns are the more common weapon required, right?”
Taikobo Akihito, a fellow Coordinator with tan hair in a braided ponytail and blood red eyes, was in the process of wrapping tags on the ends of some of the kunai in his possession when Athrun asked him his questions. When it came down to it, Taikobo needed to answer the questions at some point, but he was still in the process of adding the explosives to his kunai. With that in mind, Taikobo kept his attention focused on his work while he answered, “No to the first, yes to the second, Athrun.”
As Taikobo continued to work on his project, Rusty looked at the project in awe as he saw the contraptions being attached to his friend’s arms, which were simple-looking to a degree. Then again, as Rusty had learned earlier, that was a ruse to keep people from realizing the truth of the devices.
“Okay, guys, we need to hurry.” Athrun reminded them as he looked at his watch. “If we’re to get the Earth Forces new Mobile Weapons, we need to be leaving here in five minutes, and that means we can’t waste any more time.”
As Athrun finished his statement, Taikobo finished what he was doing, standing up and saying, “Okay, done.” With that, Taikobo floated over to the door and left Athrun and Rusty behind.
Later after everyone who was selected for the mission was ready to go, the red haired ZAFT Redcoat went to his friend Athrun Zala and asked, “Hey man, have you heard anything from Canaver?”
Athrun looked to Rusty and studied him for a moment as he was thinking about their friend who was a Natural and enlisted in ZAFT willingly.
“You know, I’m not sure where he is,” answered Athrun. “Last time I saw him; he complained to me about being Commander Le Creuset’s errand boy and had asked me to help him get a different assignment. I talked to my father about getting him assigned somewhere else. Father didn’t seem happy about it, but agreed to transfer him away from Commander Le Creuset.”
“Dammit, we just missed him,” Rusty said under his breath. “We gotta get our buddy back after this mission.”
“Yeah, get the band back together,” Athrun chuckled with a smile on his face. “Dearka would sure be happy about that.”
“Not to mention he calls Rengi Canaver the ‘Probie’,” added Rusty. “And you were going to help him with his robotics project too.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t remind me about that,” said Athrun as he grabbed his helmet and headed towards the loading bay. “Come on Rusty, we got a job to do.”
“Coming,” said Rusty as he grabbed his own helmet and followed Athrun.
Bridge of the Vesalius
A short time later, in the bridge, the commander of the team in the area, Rau Le Creuset, was floating to the tactical table while saying to the ship’s captain, Frederick Ades, “Try not to look so frustrated, Ades.”
Turning his chair to face the commander, Captain Ades said, concern filling his voice, “Well, I don’t imagine it would be too late to hear back from the council, at least.”
Picking up the photo taken of one of the G-Weapons, Commander Le Creuset took a look at it before saying, “It will be too late. I have a sixth sense about these things.” Tossing the photo to Ades, who only took a look at it before he let it pass him by, Rau said, “If we don’t seize the moment now, later we’ll pay with our lives for our reluctance to take action. The Earth Forces new Mobile Weapons… we must secure them before they attempt to move them.”
Ades, while he could agree with that line of thought, couldn’t help but say, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Commander. I don’t want to see the team get in trouble for doing something that can easily be avoided.”
Rau said nothing, knowing full well that Ades was worried for the future of their team, and, by extension, the rest of ZAFT.
Car Terminal in Heliopolis
As Kira, Setsuna, Banagher, Tolle and Miriallia walked over to the car terminal, they heard the sound of inane chatter from the population of Heliopolis’ weirdest social group… the friends of Flay Allster. Namely, these friends were speaking amongst themselves about something that only Tolle and Miriallia missed out on, due to Kira, Setsuna, and Banagher having better ears.
“I’m seriously saying that Flay’s seeing some other boy than Sai Argyle!” one exclaimed in a harsh whisper.
“Yeah? How do we know this is the truth?” another asked in the same tone of voice.
“How about we make a bet about who she’s seeing?” a third asked in a softer whisper.
“In that case, we need a bookie, possibly a boy that doesn’t have any romantic attachment to Flay.” This whisper, from Jessica Darbins, was the fourth one to be heard.
“Well, who do we have keep track of the money for us?” whispered a fifth voice, Misha Hawkins.
“I could do it,” Banagher said to Flay’s five friends, getting the attention of not only them, but Tolle and Miriallia as well, as they didn’t know what they were talking about.
Before Tolle and Miriallia could ask what he was thinking about, the first of the five friends asked him, “You could do what, exactly?”
“Banagher-kun is going to be your bookie, he means.” Kira said to the five friends.
Setsuna, in her monotone, said, “You five were going to have a bet amongst yourselves about who Flay Allster was seeing right now. I’ll be the one to settle the bets via statistics.”
With that in mind, the five friends thought of the different boys that could possibly be seeing Flay Allster, with the first friend saying, “I’ll bet that it’s Albert Weston for 100 credits.”
Setsuna, after taking a moment to think of the answer, said, “Albert going out with Flay is one out of ten.”
Friend number two said, “Jake Minsly for 50 credits.”
“Jake is one out of twenty-five.”
Friend number three said, “Jack Sperlunky for 75 credits.”
“Jack is one out of twenty.”
Jessica shared a knowing look to Misha, who caught onto the meaning behind it and nodded, before Jessica said, “Misha and I are going to bet that its Kira-chan’s brother for 500 credits each.”
With her eyes bugging out, Kira yelled out, “Oh, no, you aren’t getting Kyou involved in this-!”
“Kyou Yamato is one out of a thousand,” Setsuna said, interrupting Kira’s attempt at being a good big sister.
Kira turned to look at Setsuna in horror, yelling after a bit of time to process what she heard her friend say, “Mou~! Set-chan, why did you say that?!”
At that moment, as if to spare the group any trouble, a grown woman with black hair and black shades, wearing a red business suit, coughed into her hand to get their attention and, after getting the attention, said, “If you’re not getting in, mind if I do?”
Tolle, aware of the situation, said, “Oh, we’re sorry. Please.” With that, the group got out of the way, so the woman and her group of two men walked right on by and into a car.
It was at that point when Flay came running up to the group that was there first, though she stopped a bit behind Tolle and Miriallia to catch her breath. When she finished, she said, “Sorry I’m late. Daddy had sent an email that was really long, saying that I needed to do some things for him by the time he came to pick me up.”
Knowing that it would take a lot of effort to get Flay out of her prejudice against Coordinators, Kira wisely didn’t say anything that would implicate her for being one herself, even if she was a First Generation Coordinator. If anything, Kira was against Blue Cosmos and other such terror cells, mainly because of a terrible experience with them when she was five.
At that moment, Kyou’s voice could be heard coming from a few dozen meters away, “Gangway, guys, coming through! WATCH IT, FLAY!”
By the time they heard the warning, it was too late to stop the collision, as Kyou tackled Flay by accidentally flying into her. With Flay turned to face him, she saw that he was going too fast for her to move out of the way in time, as he ended up grabbing her and twisting around to keep her safe from the collision.
With an impressive thud, the group could only see that Kyou was on the bottom, with Flay on top of him and nestling her head in his chest. By the time Kyou and Flay realized what was going on; Tolle took a picture of the scene, which earned him a fist to the head by Kira.
“OW!! What was that for, Kira?!” Tolle exclaimed for most people in the area to hear.
“If you show that picture to anyone, Tolle, you will be castrated and made a Eunuch for the REA’s top brass!” Kira stated in a threatening tone. Tolle, however, knew that she was not making idle threats.
She really had a vengeful streak to her name. Whenever she said something dangerous like that, she meant it, no questions asked. She even went as far as carrying out a threat when needed.
As far as Kyou and Flay were concerned, they quickly separated from each other and got up, both of them blushing from the contact. Without a word, they looked each other in the eye and sent a message to each other, saying with their eyes, “Let’s not do that again if it can be avoided.”
Eventually, the two groups split from each other and got in their cars, with Kyou stuck on the way to Kato’s class. As they drove to their separate locations, Kyou grumbled under his breath, though it was entirely unintelligible.
Morgenroete Astray Factory
After cleaning the sword he used to strike down the Blue Cosmos officer, Rengi put the sword back in its sheath and was about to proceed into the hangar with mobile suits when someone spotted him and called out, “Hey you, no entry allowed past this point! Especially armed with two swords.”
Rengi widened his eyes as he recognized the female voice.
“Same old Roux, always cautious and no sense of adventure,” said Rengi as he slowly turned around to face his longtime childhood friend.
As Rengi turned around the young woman widened her eyes as she recognized the face of her long thought dead childhood friend.
“Rengi?” asked Roux as she slowly approached him. “Rengi Gutenberg, is that really you?”
“Roux Louka, it’s great to see ya again,” Rengi said as he took his childhood friend’s hand gently and set it to his face as he let her feel his tan and silver striped face.
Before Rengi could say anything, Roux quickly wrapped her arms around Rengi’s neck lightly and buried her face in his chest and tears ran down her cheek. Rengi then wrapped his own arms Roux’s waist and was enjoying the moment. As both teens were reuniting with each other, Rengi then took notice that she was wearing a flight suit that hugged every curve of her body.
“I gotta say Roux, you look real sexy in that flight suit,” said Rengi with a small smile on his face.
Roux then looked to her childhood friend with a smile on his face and then karate chopped him leaving a comical dent on his forehead(1) and then glared at him as she snarled, “You should know better than to talk like that. I know your mother taught you better than that!”
“I was complimenting you, Roux,” Rengi said as he rubbed his forehead lying on the floor.
“Doesn’t matter if you.... wait, you really think I look sexy in this flight suit?” Roux asked as she was about to stomp on Rengi.
“Heck yeah,” answered Rengi as he peeled himself off the floor. “You know me Roux. You know the promise we made as kids.”
“You mean the promise that we would date each other for a while and then get married?” asked Roux as she was surprised that her childhood friend remembered the pinkie swear pact they made as kids.
Rengi gave a slight nod and asked, “So whaddya say Roux, wanna honor a childhood pinkie swear pact?”
Roux gave a big grin as she answered, “You’re not getting out of our pact that easily, buddy boy. But you gotta tell me where you’ve been. I spent seven years in agony and grief because I thought you were dead.”
“What makes you think I want out of our pinkie swear pact?” Rengi asked with a grin on his face before he heard a suspicious sound coming in their direction.
“Rengi? What’s wrong?” asked a curious Roux.
Rengi motioned for silence as he closed his eyes and listened for the sound by focusing his ears to the source of the sound. He then tracked the source of the sound to the hallway from where Roux came from. He then heard the sound of a grenade exploding and a couple screams of terror.
“Roux get into the hangar and secure what mobile suits you can,” Rengi ordered his now girlfriend. “I’ll be right behind you to secure any other suits for Orb. But...”
“But what Rengi?” asked a confused Roux.
“It’s gonna cost Morgenroete a mobile suit,” answered Rengi.
Roux chuckled as she definitely remembered that Rengi was always throwing out expensive costs to other kids when they were kids. She then said, “Still throwing out expensive costs for reimbursement I see. You haven’t changed one bit, Rengi Gutenberg.”
“That’s just how I roll Roux,” Rengi said with a smirk on his face as he drew both swords out ready for battle.
“You better not die,” Roux said sternly as she pointed at him. “You’re not allowed to die until we tie the knot. You got that?”
“Sure thing Roux,” Rengi said as he gave a confident wink. “And I changed my last name to Canaver. So it’s Rengi Canaver now.”
Before Roux could say anything, Rengi shut the door behind and turned to face the incoming opponents.
Over in Professor Kato’s classroom
By the time Kira, Kyou, and their friends made it to the classroom, Kyou could feel something was wrong in the room, but he had no proof. It was as if an important political figure was in the room ahead of them, and this political figure would cause all hell to break loose in the area, which he didn’t want to have happen. Still, Tolle opened the door and announced their presence with a “Hey!”
Sai Argyle, a blonde-haired young man in a red and yellow coat over a black shirt and sea green pants and wearing orange-tinted shades over his hazel eyes, poked his head out from behind a tower and said, “Ah, Kira, Setsuna, Banagher, Kyou, you finally made it.”
Kyou, for all intents and purposes, was still pissed that he was dragged over to the classroom. However, he knew when to keep his mouth shut, and now was one of those times. It was then when he noticed someone out of the corner of his left eye, a girl a year older than him with blonde hair and somehow natural yellow eyes, wearing a brown cap and overcoat with gray pants. Of course, when he noticed her eyes, that was when his feeling was confirmed.
‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!! It just had to be her, didn’t it, Kami-sama?!’ Kyou was understandably mad at the situation, considering that the girl in question grated his nerves in a really painful way, so much so that he had to get a restraining order on her that her father all too happily approved for her opinion.
Before he could say anything, Tolle walked over to the computer station and, while pointing at the girl, asked Kuzzey Buskirk, “Who’s that?”
Kuzzey, unaware of the girl’s name and status, said, “Oh, professor’s guest. They were apparently told to wait here.”
Another boy that was manning the computer station, a young man with dark brown hair that had a silver highlight down the middle and hazel eyes with golden specks in them and wearing a blue shirt, green pants, and a Rolex that he received from a man he called “Gramps”, said, “Yeah, hell if we know who that girl is. If anyone knows who the girl is, please say something to-”
At that moment, Kyou interrupted, saying, “Alright, that’s it, I’m outta here! I am sick of these sorts of surprises that are happening because of some cosmic joke! You guys stay here with the royal bitch; at least I have a good reason for leaving you to her, given my restraining order on her!” With that, Kyou got his things together and left the classroom, heading for Hangar B.
A few dozen seconds passed in silence, before Setsuna said in monotone, “That was perfectly useless of him.”
Kira, worried for what her brother was thinking, turned to the girl and asked, “What did you do to my little brother to make him put a restraining order on you?”
The girl shrugged, before saying, “I don’t remember meeting him before in my life. What’s his name exactly?”
“Kyou Yamato,” was the answer that the girl got from Banagher.
It was at that moment that the girl’s eyes widened in shock, as she remembered the name from the past, though she thought the whole restraining order thing was a joke. With a look of shock, the girl turned to Kira and asked her, “What do I do to make it up with him?”
Kira sighed a bit, before she said, “I honestly don’t know how you’d make it up with him, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll speak with him about it. I don’t want you to be on his restraining order list forever.”
Sai then remembered something that he needed to do. With that thought, he said to Kira, “Hey, Kira, Professor Kato handed me this for you. It’s extra stuff.”
With a sigh of annoyance, Kira looked at the disk that Sai had in his left hand and took hold of it, before saying, “Y’know, I wonder what exactly the professor wants us to really work on with this? If he wants us to make Mobile Suits….” Suddenly, a burst of inspiration hit her, in which she went to a seat and pulled out her laptop. After turning it on again, she put the disk inside, revealing that the disk had Mobile Suit schematics!
Miriallia, who was looking at Kira’s face, couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her head at the sight of whatever was on the disk. Setsuna and Banagher, on the other hand, were about to find out.
‘What sort of organization requested that we build Mobile Suits for them?’ Kira asked in her head.
‘What sort of Mobile Suits, exactly?’ came Setsuna’s own question from her own head.
Before Kira could ask out loud how that was possible, Banagher answered, ‘We’re all Newtypes, the next phase of Human Evolution. It shouldn’t be hard for us to do this in theory, though I hadn’t had a conversation like this before now.’ After looking through Kira’s eyes momentarily, Banagher felt his eyes widen as he asked, ‘No way, are those Gundams?!’
Both Kira and Setsuna blinked as they asked, ‘Gundams? What are those?’
Before Banagher could answer, the door opened one more time, revealing an attractive girl that was almost as sexy as Kira and Setsuna that was still in a dating crisis. When this girl, a girl with blue hair and purple eyes and wearing a Martial Arts gi that made her a student of Touhou Fuhai, walked in, she saw Kyou wasn’t in, so she went over to the boy next to Kuzzey and asked, “Hiro, where did Kyou go? I thought he was going to be here.”
Katsuhiro ‘Hiro’ Yamanashi looked at the girl in front of him, Emiri ‘Amy’ Takahata, and answered, “Blame the fact that he has a restraining order on the guest over there. He probably needed to get some fresh air somewhere, Amy.”
With Kyou
As it turned out, Kyou was storming out to Hangar B when he suddenly came across a man that screamed ‘Suspicious’ at him. By the time the man saw him, he asked Kyou, “Excuse me, but do you know where I can find a certain Banagher Links? My boss wants me to make sure he gets something, but I don’t know where to look for him.”
Kyou, still wary of the man, asked, “Would he know who you are, particularly?”
The man, aware that he needed to answer, said, “Not personally, no. However, my boss is the chairman of his previous school, and I happen to be a security official for the area of the school. He’ll be sure to recognize the name Gael Chan somehow.”
Kyou felt that was an adequate answer, so he said, “Alright. You’ll find him in the last classroom on your left, the one marked with the nameplate ‘Kato’. You can’t miss it, Mister Chan.” With that, Kyou continued down to Hangar B, not even aware of what sort of Hell would be raised in the colony.
Outside Heliopolis
The masked ZAFT commander looked to his watch and began to do a silent countdown. Once he got down to zero, he gave a slight nod to the captain of the Vesalius.
“It’s time,” Rau said to Ades.
Ades gave a slight nod of agreement to the masked white Commander.
“Weigh anchor, Vesalius launch,” ordered Ades as the engines to the Nazca-class vessel came to life as well as the Laurasia-class ship behind it.
Both ZAFT ships steamed towards the neutral colony of Heliopolis and were advancing despite receiving calls from Heliopolis Colony Control. As Rau looked to the colony, he remembered the orders he received from the National Defense Committee Chairman Patrick Zala. He was ordered to kill the adopted son of Eileen Canaver and make it look like the terrorist organization Blue Cosmos had killed him. It seemed that for the moment, the White Duelist could’ve taken Rengi Canaver’s life while he was still his errand boy.
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To be continued in the next two posts.
