"Ahhhhh...! This is heaven!!" After spending about two hours flying in that cramped cockpit and stuck in his dirty Ashford school uniform, it felt great to finally get into a shower and wash a year's worth of dirt and grime off of his body. Letting the water pelt against his skin gave Rai a feeling of cleansing and rebirth.
A clean rebirth... he liked the way that it sounded.
One thorough rinse later and he exited the shower to dry himself off and change into the set of clothes that had been provided for him which included a fresh set of underwear and socks, black trousers and a white dress shirt. His old shoes were already near by the shower stand. "Are you alright in there?" asked a young female voice from outside the closed door.
"Yeah... Alice, was it?" He hadn't expected to see a Britannian among the number of individuals on board the ship.
"That's right."
"You're... a lost one too? Someone who wanted help but couldn't say it out loud?" asked Rai as he got changed.
"Something like that..." The bathroom door opened and he stepped out to spot the girl just leaning next to the wall across from him and a pink coloured Haro on the ground near by.
"I guess we got pretty fortunate that we were found by these good people, ne?"
"Yeah... lucky indeed," said Alice with a hint of melancholy in her tone. 'If only that luck could have been shared with my friends and family...'
Rai took a moment to stretch before his stomach growled. "I don't know about you but I could sure use a nice meal."
"Follow me! Follow me!" The pink Haro started rolling down a direction, prompting Rai and Alice to follow.
After Setsuna finished explaining what he had seen back on the island, there was silence on the bridge for a few moments aside from the occasional beeping noises from their consoles. Feldt was the first to break the silence but wasn't quite certain what to say. "Setsuna... are... are you..."
"What she's trying to say is are you sure you didn't just hit your head somewhere while exiting the cockpit and hallucinate the whole thing?" asked Lasse bluntly, earning him a glare from the pink haired young woman.
"I can understand your skepticism and intend to confirm the power of Geass myself later this evening." Upon seeing the puzzled looks of the others, Setsuna went on to explain. "I spoke about it earlier with Rai on the way here. We're going to set up a controlled experiment where he will use his Geass power on myself."
"Setsuna, are you serious?!" exclaimed Sumeragi from her seat.
"I have to witness for myself... the strength of the distortion that Geass can generate." There was a slow pause for a moment until the holographic representation of Tieria Erde spoke up.
"What exactly will you need in order to run this experiment?"
"You're actually going along with this, Mr. Erde?" asked Mileina.
He turned to address the teenage engineer. "We have to see the effect of this power first hand in order to understand what we're dealing with. And more importantly, whether this 'Geass' phenomenon shares any distinct attributes with Quantum Brainwaves, assuming that the effects Setsuna mentioned are genuine."
"Wait a sec... you mean, someone out there could be creating waves of Geass users to raise them as super soldiers?" The thought didn't sit too well with Allelujah. Marie understood where he was coming from and placed her hand over the orange clad Meister's shaking right hand to help calm him down.
"Somehow, I don't think so. The ones who can grant Geass only do so with the condition that a specific favour is returned to them by the other individual. This is the basis of the contract," clarified Setsuna. "I find it unlikely that Geass users can be so easily mass created."
"I cannot agree with your conclusion. With the resources of the Celestial Being, Ribbons had created the other Innovades who were capable of utilizing quantum brainwaves," argued Tieria. "Who's to say that this world doesn't have the same capability? Perhaps the technology exists in secret..."
"Oi, aren't you getting a bit too paranoid there, Tieria?" grumbled Lockon from his position near the bridge entrance. "Let's just do a quick comparison here. You know best about the technology and knowledge to create an Innovade since you're directly inside Veda. Compare that with the level of technology you saw in this world. What conclusion can you come to?"
There was a pause until Tieria finally appeared to concede the point. "I suppose it's not extremely likely that Geass users can be artificially manufactured like Innovades."
"Still, I think your idea of preparing to fight an army of Geass users has merit. In fact, who's to say that the ones who grant Geass are stuck to one active contract at a time?" continued the Irish Meister.
"Is such a thing possible...? Multiple contracts?" Setsuna didn't remember any mention of this from what he saw in Rai's memory museum.
"Honestly, this whole contract business and the fact that you have this C.C. girl as a contractor... it's veering more towards a supernatural element if you ask me. It reminds me of some of the Irish myths that Amy liked reading about since it beat ghost stories." Reading up on those tales with Amy and Neil were some of his fondest childhood memories.
"Can you explain?" asked Marie.
"For starters, the word Geass sounds very similar to geis which can be seen as a vow or spell. Typically, a woman is the one who create the contract to bestow a geis on a man. The woman usually turns out to be a Goddess, a witch or some other powerful figure. If someone under a geis violates the contract, the penalty ranges from dishonour to death. But the observing of one's geasa is believed to bring power. In the end, it's seen as both a gift and a curse. It's possible to have multiple geasa in effect which is why I brought up the multiple contract thing earlier."
After listening to Lockon's story, Lasse came to a thought. "So that C.C. is a Goddess or a witch or something? Man, this Geass thing is just making things a lot more complicated!"
"Would the Britannian Empire have such a power at their disposal?! That means all this time, they were cheating!" huffed Mileina.
"Come to think of it, is it possible that Zero has a geis too? For someone to be able to build a large army so quickly in such a short time to fight the Britannian Empire..." Feldt's words struck a tone in Setsuna as the alternate memories that he saw earlier had showed him that there was more to that masked man that what was seen on the surface.
"Alright, enough! We can make as many theories as we want but what we need right now are more facts on this Geass phenomenon!" Once the chatter on the bridge settled down, Sumeragi turned towards Setsuna. "I don't know what you have in mind for a controlled experiment... but be careful."
The blue-clad Meister nodded. "I will."
"Since that's settled... Tieria, you were going to report on what you found up there?" Now all attention was focused on the hologram.
"We found another fully intact mobile suit. A Gundam to be precise. Sherilyn compiled an information file on the machine and sent it to you an hour ago." A brief search in the inbox later and the file was pulled up for everyone to view on the main monitor. "As you can see, it looks rather similar to the units used by the Innovators since this is the predecessor machine for their mobile suit series. As the 00 won't be repaired for some time, we can probably insert the spare GN drive into this Gundam and have it serve as the heavy assault unit for a while until we complete the modifications for Seravee's cockpit."
Allelujah looked puzzled by that last comment. "Modifications? What do you mean?"
"Since the interventions will be on Earth, there's no way I can remote pilot it from my position in Veda as there's a substantial risk of signal degradation. I'm getting a new interface so that a Haro unit can be inserted into the cockpit. Once I have completed a thorough inspection of Veda's core drive and implement new security programs, I can transfer my consciousness to the Haro unit and resume service as a Gundam Meister," explained Tieria.
"Hey, it would be great if you can join us again!" said Lockon with a small grin.
"The one concern I have is determining who would be suitable for the GRM Gundam. Chall is the obvious choice being an experienced pilot but her skills are most likely very rusty due to not being in a cockpit for 20 years. The only other option is Eco Calore however his simulation scores for this type of unit have not been adequate."
"I may have a solution for that," mumbled Setsuna as gears started clicking in his mind to come up with a pilot candidate.
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(Posted Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:48)
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