Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossbone Forever

U.C. 0137

Sliding the helmet over his head, the pilot proceeded to boot up the mobile suit. After all the systems were up, and the launch coordinator giving the green, he fired up the thrusters and took off. "Tobia Arronax in the Skull Heart Full Cloth! Launching!" he shouted.

Immediately after touching off the catapult, he encountered opposition. A group of four EMS-06 Bataras were flanking him from 9 and 4 o' clock. From his scanner, Tobia could see that they were armed with beam gatling guns and four tube missile launchers. As two of them closed in for a close range strike, he did a quick 360 spin with drawn beam sabers to dispatch them, and unleashed a volley of mega machinegun fire at a third one, ripping it to scrap. The third hung back and began emptying it's supply of missiles at the Skull Heart.

The pilot of the Batara relaxed as the smoke cleared to reveal a battered mobile suit. His relief then turned to shock as his unit's left arm was sliced off by a beam saber from behind. He turned around in an effort to strike back, and was rewarded by his unit being cut down the middle with the Skull Heart's foot mounted heat dagger. Backing away from the resulting explosion, Tobia looked over to the dummy he had launched to distract the pilot and smiled. "Works every time." He said to himself, and then soared off to his objective.

Looking out from the window of his cabin, a young man boils from anxiety of the battle raging outside. "I want to help, but…" he mutters. After sitting and thinking for another half hour, he can't take it anymore. Hastily throwing on his pilot suit, he makes his way to the hangar.

Practically tip toeing towards his mobile suit; he barely avoids the attention of the bustling engineers. As quietly as possible, he opens the cockpit and climbs in, closing it again. After boot up and systems check, he doesn't bother loading onto the catapult and blasts off out the gateway.

Faster than he expected, a voice screams over the intercom "Ensign! Where are you going with the F100? You're not even supposed to be participating!". With a smirk the young pilot answered "Sorry guys, but I just can't stay inside on a beautiful day like this. Besides, my friends need help." And shut off the com link. Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself mentally for the battle to come. "Ok Zack, this is it. The day you've been waiting for. The final battle."

One month earlier

Side 3 Space Colony

District 7

Running as fast as he could, and nearly crashing into people every turn, Zack muttered to himself "If feel like the white rabbit: 'Im late Im late Im late!'.". Finally reaching h56is locker, he hastily slides his keycard through the electronic lock and retrieves his books. Jumping back into a slow sprint, he just makes it into the classroom before the tardy bell.

"Phew" he sighed, wiping his brow of sweat. Before he even sat down, the shrill sound of his name reached his ears, and then came his instinctive flinch. "Zackary Bidan! Why, may I ask, are you tardy this time?" inquired Dr. Taylor, Zack's Algebra teacher. Waiting for the snickering of the class to die down, Zack answered sheepishly "But I made it just in time today, sir.". With a cold stare, the short tempered instructor retorted "Again, I suppose I shall have to recite my three classroom rules. One, no bathroom breaks, period. Two, I do not pass any grade under a B minus. And three…" leaning very close to Zack's face "if you are not in your seat and working by the tardy bell, you are LATE.". Holding his breath to protect his nostrils from the Doctor's, and red faced with embarrassment, Zack thought of a reply. Gathering his courage, and pushing away any thoughts of consequences, he said "Yes Sir Dr. Taylor. By the way, you should make one of your rules 'take a breath mint every morning'.". While the class instantly burst into laughter, it took the doctor a moment for the comment to sink in. Once it did, his face turned several shades of red until reaching bright crimson.

Waiting outside of the principal's office, Zack entertained himself by doing his "trick". Closing his eyes, he mentally "reached out", looking for the nearest living thing. He came upon the mind of the secretary outside of the office. Making sure her attention was occupied, he dove into her thoughts. Surfing trough her memories and experiences, Zack eventually found what he was looking for: dirt on Principal Green. Just before pulling out of her brain, he saw an opportunity he couldn't miss.

Using the secretary's eyes, he began sneakily levitating the picture of her recently deceased cat. Making it float in front of her vision, he then whispered in his best impersonation of a cat "Wanda… Wanda!". The secretary jumped in response, and backed her chair up against the wall. With wide eyes, she answered "Mr. Cuddles?". Zack stifled a laugh and continued "Wanda, why did you let me die? Why didn't you take better care of me?". She then said shakily " B-but I only bought you the best cat food and even gave you desert!". Nearly tearing up with the effort of holding in the laughter, he said in a much deeper voice "You must pay for my diabetic demise!" and made the picture float to her face. With a loud squeal, the secretary ran out of the office and down the hall screaming. No longer able to control it, Zack fell to the floor laughing. A second later, Principal Green poked his head out, and said with confusion "Wanda?". Then, seeing the state Zack was in, he asked sternly "What's so funny?".

With a sigh, Zack plopped onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He was grounded for a month. Normally, he would be grounded for half a month, but for using his "talent", it was a whole one. Earlier in the car ride home he had whined to his mom "But ma, you can't keep a magician from doing his tricks, just like you can't keep a bird from flying. I gotta spread my wings." to which she replied with the cold shoulder. They both knew she didn't like him using his "talent" outside of home. So there he was, on lockdown in his room. "Might as well take a nap" he mused, and closed his eyes.

Waking up to the sound of something hitting his window, Zack rubbed his eyes and looked at his bedside clock. It was almost midnight. "I slept through supper, and now this." He grumbled, and walked to the cause of the disturbance. Outside it was very dark, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, the sound came again, revealed to be pebbles being thrown at his window. Looking down at the street, Zack smiled at the sight of two small figures standing there. He hurriedly got dressed and rushed downstairs and stealthily out of the house. Once on the street he called out "Mick, Zara! What are you doing here?". His answer came from the red haired girl with a big smile. "We came to get you. They said that a ship is gonna land at the spaceport tonight. We wanted you to come see it with us.". The short skinny boy next to her nodded mutely. Zack raised his eyebrow inquisitively and said "A ship? What's the big deal? You woke me up for that?". Zara rolled her eyes at this and replied "No dumb wad. It's a warship, and some people say there's mobile suits on it! Now are you interested?". Zack's eyes widened, and he nodded vigorously. "Mobile suits! I'll finally get to see one!" he thought excitedly. Together the trio sped to the spaceport on souped up scooters (which Mick fixed up himself), each with excitement on their faces.

"ATTENTION ALL PERSONELL! WE WILL BE LANDING SHORTLY!" blared the intercom system. Snapping from a trance, Tobia let out the breath he was holding. In the hangar of the Little Grey, he stood in front of the cloaked form of his Gundam. The XM-X1 Crossbone Gundam X-1 Kai Kai, or "Skull Heart". Currently equipped with the Full Cloth armor, it stood being tuned to it's current equipment system. Tobia blinked, then turned to look at the new Gundam. Pilotless for the moment, it was to be a backup unit to the Skull Heart. " F100 Gundam F100" he said to himself " The next generation Gundam".

End of First Chapter

Character Descriptions (for those of you who need a better view):

Zack Bidan- 16 years old, 5'7 hight, bluish black hair, wears hoodie and jeans

Zara Green- 16, dark red hair, 5'5, has gap in teeth, wears t-shirt and shorts

Mick Dell- 15, shaggy brown hair, 5'2, mute, wears leather jacket and baggy jeans

Next Chapter will have more character descriptions, maybe MS stats.