'That fool doesn't understand anything about our ideals. Just how the hell did we end up with him?' His mood was quite sour because of the felon's attitude towards the entire operation but he forced himself to calm down as he made his way to the engineering section where Fereshte stored their own assortment of Gundams. He couldn't let such thoughts rattle his resolve as a Gundam Meister.
As soon as he reached the end of the corridor and entered the large hangar, he saw the machine that he was certain to pilot. The predecessor of Gundam Exia... GNY-001 Gundam Astraea, which had been repainted entirely red. An appropriate colour scheme to match his own hair colour. He could see multiple maintenance bots, all operated by Haros, working on the machine. "Echo Calore? What are you doing here?" asked a young female monotone voice from behind. He turned around to see a girl with blue eyes and long blonde hair decorated with a pair of blue ribbons. She was dressed a bit strangely for an engineer with a yellow sundress and traces of a formal office dress shirt on her wrists and her neck. A red tie had been attached with the end just dangling over her underdeveloped cleavage.
"Gotta be on stand by, Sherilyn. Celestial Being's going for their second mission and we'll have to support them from the shadows. That means, I'll get to pilot the Gundam and show off its true potential!" Echo chose to remain in his usual green jumpsuit for now but was ready to scramble into a pilot suit at a moment's notice.
"Not sure about that! Not sure about that!" chirped a yellow Haro which had distinct features that made it resemble a feline.
"Geez... what would you know, Hanayo?" grumbled the 30 year old Meister before noticing that their commanding officer, a sharply dressed white haired woman with blue eyes and glasses and a scar running down the left side of her face entered the area. "I'll even get Chall to confirm it right now! Hey, Chall-"
"What's our status?" asked Chall Acoustica, ignoring the redhead.
"The GN Drive installation on Astraea has been completed," reported Sherilyn Hyde in a straightforward manner.
"Good timing. We just received a mission from Veda to attack the HRL troops stationed at the CS34 area."
Echo had a confused look on his face. "What's the purpose in that?"
"You really are a dumbass... no wonder you got dropped from the main Meister candidate list." The group turned to see Fon Spark emerge from behind the Astraea, hovering about in a lazy manner. There was a bored look reflected in his red eyes. "The HRL troops stationed there can deploy to Ceylon Island quickly. In order to let those other blockheads finish their intervention mission on time, we gotta make sure that the HRL can't send additional troops down there."
"Ceylon Island... the former Sri Lanka. The ethnic tension between the Tamils and the Sinhalese began slowly around 2095 ATB and erupted into a civil war in 2115 ATB. It was determined by the UFN majority vote in 2116 ATB that the Black Knights were to intervene in the conflict but they were ineffective in their attempts to bring order. Because of the mismanagement of funds and resources, a forced early withdrawal occurred in 2120 ATB. This was one of the factors that led to the re-establishment of individual armies among nations," droned Sherilyn.
"Okay, okay... thanks for the history lesson! So their second mission is to stop the fighting between the Tamils and Sinhalese and deal with the HRL guys supporting the Tamils? Just what's up with their 10 year involvement anyway?"
Fon wanted to whack his cuffed hands against Echo's skull but settled for a simple explanation along with some verbal abuse. "The HRL didn't want Ceylon to advance their research on solar energy so they could maintain their monopoly with their orbital elevator. All they did was fuck up and escalate the situation to complete anarchy. Stop being a failure already and get your head in the game!"
While Echo seethed in fury, Chall glanced at the felon. "Since you're well informed on these matters Fon, then it would be best if you were the one to sortie in Astraea and complete the mission."
"Wait! Wasn't I supposed to be the Gundam Meister?" whined the redhead while the restrained Meister hovered towards the older woman with a smirk.
"I'm not going to sortie..." The Fereshte commander wondered if Fon had a death wish since he knew that he had a remotely-detonatable explosive strapped around his neck. "... not in the Astraea that is. I'll take the Plutone."
"...!!" Just mentioning the name of that particular Gundam brought up rather unpleasant memories for Chall...
14 years ago...
She awoke to a pair of arguing voices just outside her room. "You can't be serious, Ian! I'm not qualified to raise Feldt!"
"I'm perfectly serious, Zero. Whenever you're looking after her, she's pretty well behaved."
"Babysitting is one thing. Raising a child is another! Besides..." There was a pause. "... I'll probably end up hurting her like I did with everyone else I cared for before I came to Celestial Being."
"Gentlemen, if you're going to argue, take it somewhere else. My patient needs to rest!" grumbled a third voice from beyond the door as her ears picked up the sound of approaching footsteps.
"Sorry, Joyce," muttered a pair of voices simultaneously.
"W-where...?" She managed to croak out something, alerting the doctor that she had awakened. Soon she saw a older man with long blonde hair, blue eyes and glasses hover over her form.
"Don't worry, Chall. You're safe back on Krung Thep. I've had to operate on your left eye to cleanse it from GN particle contamination so it'll be a while before we can take off the bandage. I really couldn't do anything about your hair follicles so you'll have to settle for having white hair instead of being a brunette."
She didn't care about that now. She had to talk to him... find out what happened. "Z-zero..."
"Ah, I understand." A moment later, she received another visitor. This time, a young man who looked no older than 18 years old with sharp violet eyes and short black hair.
"Zero..." She tried to get up but he gently pinned her down back to the bed.
"Take it easy, Chall. You haven't recovered yet."
She couldn't rest. Not until she knew what happened. "Ruido...? Marlene...?"
He looked away, as if he didn't want to face her. "...... I'm sorry."
"No..."
"By the time we got there, it was too late. They had both been exposed to a high amount of particles when the GN condenser overloaded." Zero brought out two familiar items: Ruido's black and red jacket, and Marlene's old remotely-detonatable explosive collar. "This is all we were able to recover."
Outside the room, Dr. Joyce Moreno was frowning at the insensitivity of his friend. "Ian, I know you've done a lot of dumb things before but this takes the cake. What would you do if Chall learned how you're going to treat the data?!"
"I cared for them as much as you did but if we don't use the data, then they would have died for nothing! At least now I know what type of safety systems to install in the GN Condensers on the Exia's Avalanche support pack to prevent particle overload!" He was cut off as a loud wail came from inside the patient's room and sighed.
"Let's just give them some time to mourn," muttered the doctor as he picked out Zero's form gently holding the sobbing Chall.
She forced herself to shake off that horrible memory. "... that unit's on restricted use. You can't pilot it!"
It was then that Fon got close to her and cupped her chin gently like a lover would. "Chall Acoustica, the Plutone seems to be a Gundam that has a strong connection with you. Are you frightened? Are you filled with hate?" There was no signs of mockery in his voice as he spoke to her.
"No... that machine..." She had to come up with a good reason. "If the existence of the Second Generation Gundams were revealed... if the world knew there were other Gundams besides the four..."
The felon merely hushed her by moving his right index finger to her lips. "I know. Everything will be fine. Just leave it to me." He snapped his head back to shout at the feline looking Haro. "Hanayo, go confirm it with Veda!! I'm launching in the Plutone! There won't be a problem if we kill anyone that sees us, right?!"
It only took a moment for the Haro unit to respond. "No problem! No problem!"
Fon grinned before breaking away from Chall to grab Hanayo and change into a pilot suit. "It's the first mission for Fereshte, the group you created! I'll change your past self with your Plutone!"
"Fon... Spark..."
It took additional time to move the GN drive over to the Plutone but they still had enough time to complete their mission. Fon had already gotten himself suited up and had seated himself in the cockpit. "GN System boot up. Setting priority to Fon Spark," chirped Hanayo from its position across from the felon. A red light scanned Fon's eyes to confirm his identity. "Pilot confirmed. Releasing handcuffs."
The first thing Fon did was rub his freed hands over his dirty blonde hair several times as if scratching an itch. After a few seconds of that, he felt ready to go. "Heh... feels good." The helmet that rested in his lap was strapped on to his head. "It's time to have some fun!! Plutone, Fon Spark... launching!!"
And as the Plutone reached the target area and slaughtered the HRL troops stationed there, the only one who would hear Fon Spark's insane laughter is the yellow Haro.
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(Posted Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:29)
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