by Nilok
After Colony 227: The Earthsphere Unified Nation remains a peaceful place,
but as long as there are humans there are wars. The Preventer organization
remains crucial to maintaining the peace. Revolutions arise and are put down.
Over and over it is the same, but even the steadiest beat can waver.
The phone rang, cutting through the silence of the house.
"Aw, jeez, I can't get any work done with that phone ringing."
An arthritic hand reached for the receiver.
"Hello?" said the owner of that hand.
"Is this Maxwell Autobody?"
"Yes it is. Duo speaking."
"Hey, Duo, this is Quatre."
"Quatre!? We haven't talked in about twenty years!"
"I know, it is a long time, so how's life?"
"I've taken a liking to this settling down thing."
"A family Duo? Seems out of character," Quatre said in a sarcastic tone.
"Yes, I have a family, and it's a good family, so there."
Quatre laughed, "So who is in this good family?"
"I married Hildi and I have a son named Hadys. Is this more than you've
done?"
"Actually you can't compare to my lavish lifestyle running this resource
satellite and my two beatiful daughters. So there to you."
"Touche, but I think you are calling for a reason beyond chatting." Duo
sounded grimmer.
"Perceptive as always, Sally wants to meet to meet us at the Preventer
Headquarters in Tokyo."
Duo was stunned, "What?"
"She won't say why, just come, please." All joking left Quatre's voice.
"Alright, see you later then."
"Good bye, Duo."
Duo hung up the phone and stared at the catalytic converter in front of
him. After a while he stood up with an audible crack.
"Hildi, Hadys, we're going on a trip."
Sally Po fidgeted quietly at her desk. Calling all the former gundam
pilots was the only thing she could think of in a period of crisis like this.
They were all leading such peaceful lives, she didn't want to spoil that.
"So Wufei, he's going to come right?"
Before Wufei could answer, a familiar figure stepped into the doorway,
greying hair put into a long, braided ponytail.
"Why? Am I late for dinner?"
Sally was taken by surprise, "How did you get here so quickly?"
"Air Maxwell."
Hildi followed Duo into the room, a look of residual terror in her eyes, "Air
Maxwell? Air Coffin!"
Quatre looked puzzled, "Husband, wife, where's the son?"
Quatre's daughter's looked as if they had thought the same question. A
light flicked on in the hall, a dark sillouette stepped into the doorway,
leaning on the frame. The figure appeared to be wearing a black trenchcoat.
Having hair long enough to cover his facial features.
"Hadys Maxwell, at your service."
He entered the room and brused the hair out of his face, he looked almost
like Duo when Duo was young.
"We're glad you came too, Hadys," said Sally.
"No kidding," said Quatre's oldest daughter, Rashala.
"Is that so," Hadys trailed off.
"Where's Heero?" Duo thought aloud.
"Missing in action, a shooting in Kyoto made sure of that."
A solemn look overtook Duo. Sally looked grimmer still.
"We are here to discuss something that holds the entire world in a state
of peril. The Mars colony has been taken over by militant rebels who call
themselves NovaOz."
"Oz!?" Duo cried.
"NovaOz," Sally corrected, "They seem to have more advanced tactics than
Oz, and better mobile suits."
"What do you mean by better?" Trowa broke his silence.
"We captured one Leo from them, except it is not quite Leo. It has better
weapons, armor, speed, and everything, plus it is more streamlined and
modern." Sally explained.
"How many people have access to this information about the NovaOz?" Trowa
said once more.
"Not many, Preventer, the president, and the colonies that have been
overrun." Wufei said coldly.
"They haven't released any statements, the public has no clue that they
even exist." Sally added.
"Great," Duo fumed, "Not only is there a terrorist organiztion rising
that the Preventers can't stop, but there is no Gundams to stop them."
"Au contraire, Duo," said Sally, "You all know that Howard died of a
heart attack, right? Well, we found blueprints in his room, for Gundams. We
decided to build them. We just need to get a pilot."
"I'm your man," Duo said.
Sally nodded her head and set a binder on the desk. The binder being
incredibly full of paper to the point of bulging. Sally opened the binder to
a certain page. Handing it to Duo, she beckoned for him to read the passage
aloud.
"You want me to read this? Well, alright then.
'The operating system for a gundam includes a very unique program.
The program allows the mobile suit to move as quickly and as gracefully as
the person inside it. A major flaw in the program could not be fixed. That
flaw being that the brain of the pilot must be just perfect. Something
like that happens only with genetics. But when the pilot reaches the age
of 40 or so the synapses in their brain become farther apart. This
distancing makes piloting gundams impossible, even to the most skilled
pilot.'
Wow, that's pretty weird." Duo said
Sally turned to face Hadys, "Congratulations, you've just been drafted."
Hadys waited in the training room. His first training session was in ten
minutes, so he figured he should learn the equipment. Hadys sat down in the
simulation box, looking over all the monitors, buttons and control sticks. He
chuckled to himself.
"Just like a big videogame."
He flicked on the machine and it powered up. Just as he did, the
instructor walked in to the room. The instructor was Wufei.
"Early? I like that in a student it represents interest in the subject,"
Wufei said.
"I thought this would make up for all the times I am going to be late."
Hadys replied.
"Your training for right now is mobile suit combat, i'll set it on one
opponent, easy mode." Wufei said as he typed in the commands to the machine.
Hadys buckled himself in to the box and took hold of the controls. THe
monitors flicked to the image of a single Leo craft. The surroundings in this
VR sim were space. The Leo drew its beam rifle and fired at Hadys. Hadys
panicked and flew out of the way of the shots. Hadys flew around the Leo
until the Leo stopped firing and drew a beam sword.Hadys gritted himself and
flipped through his weapons list, the list was that of a Leo as well. He drew
his beam rifle and fired madly at the oncoming Leo. The Leo dodged them all
and charged into Hadys, slashing his craft in two. The sim was over.
"You need practice," said a voice.
"That was my first time, practice swing, fooling around sim," said Hadys
with a mouthful of B.S.
The owner of the voice sat in the sim box next to Hadys's.
"Fire up the sim Wufei, I'm going to show flyboy some tricks,"
said the person once more.
The monitors again flickered into the space setting, and once again Hadys
found himself facing another Leo. A face came on his commlink screen. It was
the face of Quatre's daughter, Rashala.
"You sound pretty confident," said Hadys,"I can take you."
"You couldn't take the computer," said Rashala, "Plus, we're not facing
each other. Look to your right."
Hadys did as ordered a saw two more Leos standing there. He realized that
they were his enemies. The two Leos drew their rifles.
"I can dodge these," said Hadys "I'm gonna show these guys whose boss."
"Don't get too cocky," shouted Rashala to deaf ears, "Ugh. He's going to
get shot up."
Rashala's Leo drew its rifle and started to aim. Meanwhile, Hadys drew
his beam sword and flew at a Leo with zealous fury. The enemy Leo drew its
sword and parried the attack. Hadys slashed at the Leo with unbelievable
speed. The Leo missed a parry and lost its legs, promptly exploding. As Hadys
stood, inspecting the wreckage a glowing blade rose above him. Hadys turned
and saw that the other enemy Leo had snuck up on him.
"Rashala! Do something!" Hadys exclaimed. And as sooned as he shouted,
the Leo was hammered by many beam bolts, blowing it apart. The sim ended.
Hadys stepped out of the sim box, his eyes wracked with fear and
exhilaration, his face aglow with sweat.
"What happened in there Wufei!" He demanded.
"I simply turned on the MTMI program." said Wufei.
"What is that?!" Hadys shouted.
"Mind to machine interface, it made your mobile suit move to your
thoughts." Rashala said nonchalantly, as she stepped out of the box. Hadys
snapped around to see her.
"That scared the piss out of me, and now I feel really nauseas. I am
going to go lie down." Hadys stormed out of the room.
"The sickness comes from first usage of the system, better now than in
combat." Wufei said.
"He's better than he thinks he is. With training he should be excellent.
But I'm not one to judge, although I have been getting trained on that
machine for as long as I can remember." replied Rashala.
Duo stood in the hangar. The sight of this latest gundam amazed him. I
was incredibly more advanced than the one he had. Duo inspected the weapon
statistics of it. They amazed him as well. The gundam was outfitted with a
Beam Handscythe with electro-chain, and a weapon called the Soulblaster
Cannon. Its left hand was five times larger than normal,its power greatly
increased. That was not the main part of it though, in the palm of the hand
was a large beamcannon. Duo looked over at Quatre who was also looking at
weapon statistics of the other gundam that was built. Neither Gundam was
painted yet so both looked like giant gundanium statues. Duo walked over and
joined Quatre in looking at the weapons statistics of the other gundam. This
gundam had a blast sheild, a gatling cannon, and a weapon labeled as the
Scorpion's Sting. The sting was a double blade that coursed corrosive acid
through it. When stabbed into something the some acid is released, melting
away the object.
"Quatre, if Hadys is going to pilot the one over there, who is going to
pilot this one?" Duo asked.
"My daughter, she has been trained since she was five for just something
like this." Quatre replied.
"Why aren't they painted?" Duo asked once more.
"They decided to let the pilots choose the colors." Quatre said.
"Oh," Duo said idly. Hadys walked into the hangar.
"Hey, Dad, are these the mobile suits?" Hadys asked.
"Yeah, say, what colors do you want for it?" Duo returned.
"Hmmm. Black. Black and dark purple," Hadys turned and left the hangar.
"Same colors as Deathscythe," Duo remembered for a second and turned back
to his work.
