AN: Well here is something I figured that at least would be interesting, I mean all Gundam fans are fond of the Ple. We enjoy those adorable little clones and their template despite their story not having a particularly happy ending. None the less here I am to offer a little bit of a continuation onward to that story for the sake of my own narrative, this side fic ties directly into the finale of the Neo Zeon War and the sequel to Soldier of Zeon to suffice to say the stuff covered within will not be unimportant.
Though really this is just another backstory piece more then anything else.
Anyway no doubt you are all eager to get the fic if you are even still reading the AN by this point.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam, that includes all its characters, music, and what have you those are held properties by Bandi Namco and other assorted parties that I have no affiliation with. That said as usual all original characters, concepts, locations, items are such are mine.
There was a title she was born to, not a surname, not a family nor clan moniker. 21st. 21st in the line of the clones created from the original Ple template, 21st of those crafted from the data of another to serve as Zeon's Cyber Newtype Corps.
This set her above all others for she was bound to a cause unimaginable to those outside of that generation of created in service to the master. She had no need to wonder the mystery of her birth, the reason for her to exist, unlike all the rest of humanity she and those like her were given cause in their very creation. They were to serve, as soldiers, as pilots for the revival of Zeon under the banner of Glemy Toto.
That was what her life was, what all their lives were, for the sake of the master's ambitions they would become soldiers, would become killers, and know no other life until he was appeased. This was a duty that was bound to them in the blood, because the master had given them everything, had created them the bone to suit this purpose, it would be inconceivable to not repay that debt.
She did not know what life was beyond service to her master. She had likes, dislikes, wants, desires and hopes and they all stemmed around pleasing him, ensuring that everything went according to his will. To accomplish that she was made a soldier, a pilot, a combative tool in the same vein as the mobile suit she was to pilot in his service. She fought for him, lived for him, killed for him. Everything was done on the single set parameter, even her own birth was done in accordance to service to his cause, his ambition, his will.
Everything she knew related to that duty, that high honor that she was given above all the rest of the forces of Zeon. It was why she was taught to how to pilot, how to fight, how to be a soldier. She was bred from the ground up to be his weapon, his tool and she would accomplish anything he set before her. It was why she was given life, why she drew breath, her creation marked a need for her, a need beyond the base and petty cause of Zeon and its politics, beyond the need for its domination of arbitrary territories and peoples. Her loyalty had been bred into the bone, and that superseded anything and everything else.
The lofty ideals he spoke, concepts of honor, love and integrity she did not understand them, but she understood that she was useful to as long as she continued to fight. When she was born he was already set to control the rest of his fellows within Zeon, it was simply matter of course. His was a will that would not be overturned and her part in his success was predestined from the moment he ordered her creation, her along with rest of her 'sisters'. She did not understand the concepts of loyalty to a cause beyond the master, when the other forces she combated occasionally threw accusations of betrayal against her it brought a foreign dark feeling within her. She did not like the feeling, but she knew instinctively that it was justified when spoken in the manner of her being in anyway disloyal to the master.
She had not been born for the sake of Haman Karn, not for the sake of Zeon, she was not given life to fulfill anyone's desires save the master. If the master had bid that she fight alongside Haman Karn, she would do so without hesitation in the same way that she would kill Haman Karn if the master ordered it. There was no value on any act that did not enable the master to succeed. There was no value in any life that was not the master himself or by his decree of importance. That was what carried her through the days of early January in Universal Century calendar year of 0089.
Then everything changed, everything unraveled, crumbled into the ash of history. She didn't understand it, couldn't understand it. It went against everything she had ever been taught, everything she had come to expect, to want, to be. Fate twisted away from their master, who had been so confident of success, so assured of it, so adamant in belief of it.
January 15th, mere days after her awakening, just as the master was set to succeed and fulfill his dreams, his ambitions. Everything went wrong. She had not been present to witness it but she had felt it, just as all her others sisters had. The master fell in battle, the master died in battle. 'The master died, the master died, the master died'. That was the singular thought that consumed her being in the aftermath of that day. Nothing else mattered, it did not matter that they were now minus one of their own, what purpose did they have now that the master was gone? 2nd was blessed in that she perished at his side, what would happen to those of them that remained? They were alone now, isolated, the whole of Axis, the AEUG, Federation were against them, their allies and resources were limited to what scraped by with the death of master.
There was only one thing they could do, one thing they had left to them, it was simple, juvenile even, some would undoubtedly even call it trite but to those of them that were now denied reason to exist it was all they had. Revenge, revenge against those that had betrayed the master, those that had killed the master, those that had sought to deny them their place in the cosmos.
She remembered the coldness that had filled her upon the decision to avenge him, they would not pass from this life at the whim of a woman like Haman Karn or the Gundam pilot of the AEUG. They died at no one's behest save the master's.
The battle with the AEUG, Federation and Axis was already beginning when they revealed themselves to both sides of the war, neither of them were fit to be spared. Neither of them had been anything but a hindrance to the master and his aims, as their final act to devoted to him they would strike at both sides and ensure that many were killed. They were strong, they were fit, capable, they were as the master intended them to be, the perfect Cyber Newtype army, and they would prove it here and now in this conflict.
They had emerged from the shadows and struck hard and fast but they had underestimated the strength, both of the AEUG and the surviving forces of Haman's Neo Zeon. The very pilot she was engaging was proof enough of that. She was given a broad range of information to act in her role under the master's whim, for that she educated in matters military she could identify the varying suits fielded by the Federation, the AEUG and her former 'allies' in Axis. That was what frustrated her now. 'Gelgoog, mass production mobile suit unit produced by the Principality in the final days of the One Year War, capable of using beam weaponry.' Dozens of factoids floated through her mind as she danced about with the aging suit. Reactor output, number of verniers and secondary thrusters, beam power output, she knew the numbers, she had been given extensive education on them. That was what was so infuriating to her, here she should have been able to overcome this, this machine this pilot. She should have been able to win this battle easily, her abilities were absolute, her mobile suit was far superior, this was nothing more then a refurbished and refitted antique.
Yet her rage stilled within her chest as she felt the familiar sensation echo through her mind. '17 has fallen...' Another of them reduced to dying in a pathetic state, in a paltry war such as this. Mist and beaded tears impacted the hard facial plate of her helmet as she let loose another barrage from her funnels. They were dying here, here in this cold, dead place, not in service to the master. Would they be alone in death? Would they even be denied that? To not even be at his side after passing from this cold, now meaningless existence? Beam fire raked across her canopy breaking her from her thoughts of enternal solitude. Breaking from her stationary position, she then realized that her opponent knew what he was doing, she could feel it like venom dripping into her soul.
He knew how to fight Newtypes. He was not making the mistakes she had expected the enemy to fall into, he was avoiding the pitfalls and perils that battling their kind entailed, he was forcing her to react to his attacks and only breaking from them when it became suicide to do so. The Gelgoog let loose with another burst of its beam machine gun striking at where she had been mere seconds ago before accelerating upward, explosions and death surrounded them, the great final entry into the Neo Zeon War was being written before them and this small encounter in the scope of it would be her part to play in that epic. 'Forcing me back...' For the first time in her brief existence she felt the all too cold grip of fear enter her heart. As particles of yellow and green ate away at the funnels she had launched to desperately counterattack explosions leapt across the monitors signalling the end of the thought controlled weaponry. 'His accuracy, his speed...' It all was lesser then her own, it was all inferior, he was inferior, why was she afraid? Why she should feel fear when this was a man doomed to die without ever knowing the grandness of a purpose, to know what that you existed for? She should feel pity for this creature, this lesser creation not of man such as she but of nature, and infinitely more inferior for that fact.
She raised her Qubeley upward angling its back towards the target and loose with a burst of its beam cannons, fire and death tore across the scope of space, fragments, debris and wreckage caught fire within the vacuum burning away to nothing beneath the intensity of the blast yet there was no explosion, no reactor cooking off in the aftermath. Her eyes darted across the board, trying to predict where the opponent would come from again, her senses extended, ready, awaiting the inevitable counterattack. She felt it then in that instance, the hatred this man carried within himself, the blind and suffocating heat of it threatened to reduce her to stunned ineptitude but she cut herself off, pulled away from it. She would not be rendered unable by that hate, but she had pinpointed him through it. It was like a beacon guiding her through space, angling her suit once more she fired the beam cannons this time certain of the coming kill.
The coming confirmation that she had served the master in this, she saw as the blasts of molten particles and energy ate into the flank of the suit that had been attempting to strike at it her from the rear, using her prior attack as coverage to get around to her side. It was a clever tactic, it was just woefully out of date against an opponent such as her, she had expected better, demanded better, this man had ate so much of her time that the battle had devolved into a slog between the surviving Zeon forces, the Ple such as her and the AEUG, it was chaos. Here they were divided, splintered in strength, and here they were dying. She felt it resound within her with every passing sister, with every passing prior or successor incarnation, she knew it within herself. '19,11,9,23.' Four more, four more losses of their number, four more signs of their failure. Were they so weak that they would perish in mass here? Would their entire template line be lost here?
Fragments showered free of the blasts and explosions that rocked the Gelgoog casting it into the fireball that had become the site of impact from her powerful assault, her few surviving funnels returned to their station on the tail rack as she recalled with a weary thought. Watching her opponent undoubtedly perish brought her no satisfaction, she had merely performed her duty, she got no joy in killing, she was given happiness by serving the master, she was pleased when she killed for him. She was praised when she killed for him, yet there would never be anymore of that, as burning oxygen and fuel spiraled out of the circular explosion however she was taken aback, she had yet to sense the pilot's death that intense and burning hatred still radiated outward like a pale red shroud across the battlefield.
They were no Newtype, certainly not one such as she who was born solely to be a artificially induced Newtype. She could tell as much immediate, there was no consciousness within the aura, it was just plain and manifested blood lust, love of battle and carnage given form. She could almost empathize with that aura, it was comforting to lose oneself in combat, was that no why she, why her sisters had come here? To avenge their master, to kill those who had killed him? She sensed it then there within that consuming flame, within that burning abyss the killer intent that had signaled forth the other pilot's desire to end this once and for all, the Gelgoog burst free from the spherical cone of death already accelerating at near its top marked speed according to what she could recall from the implanted memories, and lessons that had taught of her such things.
As the blast cleared away she made out fragments of the wreckage as they coasted along on their momentum, magnifying one she couldn't help but be startled at the fact that it was not portions of the mobile suit as she had initially thought. 'thruster fuel pods...' he had jettisoned loose fuel to cover his own survival. Against a normal opponent undoubtedly they would have fallen completely for the ruse, thought him dead but she could still sense him and through that she knew of his survival. Yet all the same it caused one thought resounded through her. 'Who is this person?' This style of combat, these tactics, this was unlike anything in simulation, proxy or mock battle, any opponent she had ever faced.
Staring at the approaching machine skeptically she noted that despite clear impact marks the suit was still functioning to standard, deep impacts gauged through the armor in the torso and side paneling but it had held together. Streams of liquefied metal poured forth from its wounds but they were not fatal, not anywhere near deep enough, at best it had just ruined the paint job. 'Must have been reinforced since the original Titanium armoring on the suit was applied.' It made sense she supposed everything else on the suit had been updated, upgraded and made better then the prior incarnation of it that had flown during the waning days of the Principality a decade ago. All the same though, it didn't matter how good the new armor that suit was, if she could score a direct hit with the beam cannons or funnels it would be over, and both he and she knew it. It was why he had been so evasive earlier after all, so dead set on just shooting down the funnels as quickly as possible.
He had watched her overexposed, under armed, to exploit the weakness of her suit, its lacked to dedicated weaponry outside of its cannons. Whomever he was, he had picked up on the fact that due to her lack of dedicated range armament, she was reliant on the funnels to act in the part of it. It was something he could exploit, so far he had just lost a few reserve tanks of fuel, maybe had a damaged thruster or two. Nothing that would slow him down, nothing like the loss of 30 funnels would be if this kept up.
She lowered her flank once more prepared to fire the beam cannons to finish this would be duel once and for all only for machine to raise its arm upward and loose a trail of its own beam cannon fire, singular blasts escaped its barrels as flashes of green flung themselves towards, she couldn't evade not if she wanted to end this now. So she prepared for the impact as best she could and seconds later when they struck, tearing through armored hull, ripping asunder components, and chassis through arcs of wrath and destruction she steadied her swaying mobile suit and fired. The trails of the beams sped towards their target, she knew she would win, she had to win, she was built to win.
Yet they did not strike, the Gelgoog nimbly dived downward, avoiding the twin trails of death.
It had survived, it had cut the distance down between them considerably and she would again have to make use of the funnels, the beam cannons took long to properly align and fire. As it continued accelerating she loosed her scant few surviving funnels from their rack, they would be charged once again she knew, she could feel the energy thrumming within them ready to be loosed upon her command. Yet as the Gelgoog raised its beam machine gun upward she felt an odd sense of clarity strike her. This man was unlike her in every regard, he was not built for a purpose such as she, he was not designed from the ground up for specific traits to manifest within him and yet here he was matching her with a machine a decade out of date.
Had he in his life stumbled upon this purpose he now occupied? Had it just been random chance? A fluke of timing and place? That was alien, it was incomprehensible, to born into the chaos out life without purpose, it would likely be a mercy killing people like that. As her funnels arched through space directed by her thought and the mobile suit continued its advance, spraying bursts of beam fire towards her she nimbly had the suit avoid. In the distance the asteroid of Axis was the site of the true battle here, not this paltry skirmish on the edges of it. That was where her sisters were falling, that was where she should be but that impossible due to the fact this man had interposed himself between her and the targets they had come to kill.
Be it the Gundam pilot or Haman either would suffice, both would preferable. They could both join the master in oblivion.
The suit recoiled back sending her spiraling forward into the cockpit bashing her helmeted skull against the canopy, blood trailed through nostrils twisted by the impact as she hefted herself off the forward console and returned to her proper station in the cockpit. 'That was too close.' Their dance had continued closer into the field, alongside the great fortress of Axis and yet even so she could scarcely feel the few of her fellows left fighting, when they arrived they had presented a undeniable presence, a symbol of defiance of Federation, Zeon and AEUG all. That was whittled away loss by loss, death by death, there were scarcely a dozen of them still fighting, those set to the protection of Haman were strong. Stronger then they had ever thought possible, many of them had died to just a scarce handful of her guards.
Was she also fighting a dedicated protector of Haman? Some officer of Neo Zeon? That didn't seem right, for one this was a man, and not even a Newtype to boot yet this skill he possessed, it was earnest. Polished, and practiced like an old sword. She could feel the bitter rage, the resentment and disgust, at the fact he was facing down another 'Zeon' to his eye in battle, to the Federation, to the AEUG, to the entire world. The shroud of negative emotions that radiated off that suit was a beacon to her, she could feel whispers of thought, half formed conscious decision as he battled against her.
Sparks and smoke drifted from the wounds this man had left upon her Mass Production Qubeley, his suit had yet to be damaged since her initial strike at it with the beam cannons but he was steadily pushing her further and further back. Eliminating her scarce few funnels when she had tried to cover her withdraw had left her all but defenseless when he had closed to melee range, and then that tackle like maneuver he had propelled into her suit had just made the entire thing rattle and creak. likely the only reason that hadn't been the end of it was because he had then been in proper firing trajectory for her beam cannons at near point blank range. He had scuttled out of that rapidly, which spared her and gave her time to reorient herself. To take stock of what had happened, what shape her suit was in. Her suit had been built strong, it was a fitting design, one based off the very prototype Haman herself employed but far superior. Far better then what she was currently facing yet, despite all her skill, all her prowess she was realizing the futility of fighting this man, he fought unlike anyone else she had ever seen, it was a chilled utilitarian sort of tactic, he employed. He would sacrifice potential cover to draw out her fire merely to try to get a clear shot on her or failing that her funnels. He would accelerate and decelerate on a dime, take turns that very well could have torn his mobile suit in two. Yet never was any movement wasted, never was any moment not exploited to the fullest, most she fought were far more straight forward in their attacks, she was well suited to that sort of combatant.
Not this though, no she never wanted to fight another man like this ever again...another beam round pelted into her suit from the rear, the tail section of the Qubeley bent inward under the strain of the direct hit as it pierced through armor and the interior with equal ease and efficiency. Charging racks for her funnels were reduced to slag, as the status board projected bright red sigils across the screen indicating her suit was failing, losing power, losing compression. She down to only minor amounts of fuel and energy anyway, this short duel of perhaps fifteen long duel had drained her both physically, mentally and all but destroyed her once pristine, well maintained Qubeley. She steadied herself within the once more shaking cockpit as she brought the suit around only to find the oddest sight before her. There he was in plain sight, no attempt to hide, the wreckage from Axis he had been using as cover drifted past and his suit's beam rifle was resolutely pointed her direction. 'He knew that would throw me off...' No attempt at evasion, no attempt at subterfuge, no follow up attack, he just waited for her to fall into the final trap. She had expected their battle to continue as it had, almost like a waltz with both partners responding to the move of the other yet that was not he had employed, instead he once again shifted tactics.
Even as she brought the beam cannons upward to fire she knew they wouldn't make it in time, as the flash of yellow light escaped the barrel of the beam machine gun that the Gelgoog had, she could feel something else beneath the rolling waves of anger, aggression and hatred. Pity. Why though? Why would he feel pity for her? She didn't understand, even as the bolt of particles arched through space, boiling through the thick armoring of the cockpit as if it was tissue she didn't understand. Even as she bombarded and torn at by a cockpit turned shrapnel filled tomb she didn't understand.
She was built for a purpose, she followed to that purpose, she had meaning to her existence, a reason to live. How many others of the human race could say the same? She was born for a reason, lived for a reason, and now she supposed she would die for a reason. Yet the prospect of death was horrifying if not for one brief flickering hope.
Perhaps master would be waiting for her there. Wherever she ended up.
As a lance of light pierced through the canopy of the cockpit melting away all its in path she could only hope that he was.
She didn't want to be alone anymore, the handful of days she had been absent his presence were already too much. Eternity would be far too much to bare by herself. 'Perhaps that's why he felt pity...' Perhaps he understood that much Newtype or no, to be denied purpose, to be denied reason to exist, to be cast off alone in the universe, to exist for nothing was no life at all.
That prompted the question however brief in her mind it was of singular purpose. 'Then was I ever alive at all to begin with?' What was this existence save perhaps a brief interlude to the unending abyss that awaited them all. He knew, she could feel that it he knew. Knew that absent a reason to live, killing her was the same as euthanizing a suffering pet. She was denied her master, her reason to cling to life, death at the very least would be freedom of that burden if nothing else.
She screamed briefly within her sealed helmet as pain engulfed her frame, molten heat, more primal then anything she had ever felt before. Even through the armor of her normal suit it felt as if her skin was combusting, cell by cell, nerve by nerve, just being boiled away. Blood burnt away as it rushed from wounds, she screamed and screamed until her voice gave out. That piercing light ate away at her, even as it continued downward through the cockpit continuing its trail of destruction through out the rest of her suit. Despite the agony, in spite of the pain she clung to consciousness no matter how tenuous with a single thought a single prayer. 'Master, Master, Master, Master.' She could no serve if she died, she could not find purpose if she died. She could not fulfill the master's will. Her own selfish desires of dying here would be the end of it. Through hazy wavering sight she could still make out the piercing red glow of the Gelgoog's primary camera mount as it accelerated once more towards her undoubtedly to finish her off once and for all. 'Master...I am sorry...Please don't hate me.' Hope for that at the very least would provide a brief respite against the agony that wracked across her body. Then it ended and she thought no more.
AN: If I can speak frankly for a moment I feel genuinely sort of sad after writing this. All the Ple 2 clones sort of got a horrible deal though admittedly I never gave it much thought until Unicorn and Marida like most people. Anyway this fic was prompted by a discussion I had on the Gundam subreddit a day or so ago; I just thought it would prove an interesting thing to write and I wasn't disappointed. Plus it gave me an excuse to go through the tail end of Gundam ZZ again, which is itself a pleasure.
I know it isn't exactly popular among the UC fans mostly because of ya know 'Moon Moon' but all the same. Its got some truly stellar storytelling thrown in with it in places, and the Ple's are one of those bits. That's where Ple 21 came from, because after counting all the MP Qubeley present for the battle, you had roughly 25 or so which made me think that it goes far beyond where most people think it does what with Marida being Ple 12 and all.
Anyway I do hope you enjoy this fic, for what it is and what I was trying to do, and that was to telling an interesting side story for the coming sequel to: The Soldier of Zeon. By the way for those curious: Yes Ple 21 was fighting a much older Dieter from the original story. He kept the old Jager he got at A Baoa Qu, had it upgraded obviously into a Regelgu but all the same it was him.
Till next time!
-Reborn Akatsuki