"Закрыть области! Они курс на в горы!" - she heard from the clearing they just left. Their pursuers were close - too close. That was bad news; if the soldiers get to the pass ahead of them, they were done for. And she knew Russian well enough to realize her pursuers were aware of that fact as well.

She didn't come this far to go down so easily. Not yet... at least not until her remaining children were safe of that sick bastard.

Her arms securely clutched the little girl to her chest, the older one running alongside her. Despite the lack of protests, she knew they were tired.

Hell, she was starting to get tired too. They were fleeing for nearly an hour now.

The woman gritted her teeth and pushed herself harder. There was a road ahead of them; if they could get to the dense forest on the other side, it would hide them long enough to-

Her thoughts were derailed when the little girl at her side stumbled. She immediately stopped and helped her up; they were the reason she was still carrying on, after all. – "Come on, sweetie!" – she urged the girl. – "Just a little bit more!" – She hurriedly glanced at their surroundings, looking for a temporary hiding place. As dangerous as the situation was, they just couldn't run forever. They needed to rest, but not for too long as the soldiers would no doubt sweep the area thoroughly. With no evident option, she stood back up...

...only to be brightly illuminated by a searchlight.

"Стой! Не двигаться!" – she heard from the right.

She cursed her luck. The Fantong had a clear view of her surroundings; there was no way she could escape now without the mobile suit's autocannon tearing her body to shreds. She didn't hear the soldiers pursuing them on foot but it was only a matter of time now.

Then the mobile suit's entire head was detached by a bright beam of light impaling it from above.

The out-of-control Fantong immediately fell over, the ammunition stores of its chin-cannon cooking off and finishing the decapitation. She kept staring at the miracle, not believing what just happened until the screams and explosions from where she just came shook her out of her reverie. From the sound of it, the soldiers were under fire from something. Each explosion was accompanied by a strange sound from above her.

When she looked, the woman was wondering if she had been caught already and the whole thing was just a pre-mortem hallucination.

Her first thought at the sight of the anomaly was an aurora. Yet unlike an aurora's curtain-like quality, what blossomed above her was a huge mass of strand-like streams of light flowing out of a central object. Then the whole thing slowly turned and she realized the source was a conical device sticking out of the back of a large humanoid shape.

It was a mobile suit unlike any other she had ever seen.

And it was looking directly at her.

2307 AD
Six years later

The lone mobile suit fell through the air like a rock, sunlight reflecting off its blue-white armor with a gleam that looked like a star from below. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed it and called the base's control tower.

"Incoming silhouette at bearing +34/+76, altitude six klicks and dropping." – reported a technician.

The officer supervising air control operations raised an eyebrow and lowered the cup of coffee he was drinking. – "Whose squad is it? We've got a test going on; tell it to vacate the airspace immediately." - he ordered.

"No radar signature, sir." – a technician reported.

"No IFF either!" – came another.

"We have a visual." – A window opened on the main viewscreen.

The officer immediately dropped the cup. – "A mobile suit?!"

"AMS-GN001 Uriel, arrived at target area." – A smaller window opened on the cockpit display, zoomed in on the slim mobile suit prototype on the ground. – "Target located. Running AIM Field Amplifier self-test now." – Lines of code streamed through a newly opened window and the machine answered in the affirmative. – "Self-test complete. All systems functional." – Underneath the helmet, the boy smirked to himself. – "Imagine Breaker, proceeding with first phase of Operation Advent."

"Receiving priority burst transmission from Uriel: first phase is a go. Ramiel and Puriel reporting in position."

"Hey, loosen up, Uiharu!" – the long-haired teenager replied with a smile to her compatriot sitting back-to-back with her.

"Not right now, we have a mission in progress." – the addressed girl shot back without even looking away from the screen she was working on.

"She's right, you know." – quipped the older woman as she floated into the room. – "Be too tense and you'll make a mistake. Right now, all we can do is watch and cheer on them." – she added as she raised a vacuum-sealed drinking canteen with a straw sticking out of it.

That got Ruiko Saten's attention all right. – "Sake, again?"

"Why not?"

Ruiko sighed. – "Kanzaki-san... if I didn't know better, I'd swear you're not, in fact, the adult here."

"If it makes you feel better, I asked Tree Diagram about it."

It would seem as if the very fabric of time itself stopped in the cockpit; even Uiharu's rapid typing came to a pause.

"You... asked a supercomputer... whether you should drink during the operation or not." – Ruiko spelled out disbelievingly after nearly a whole minute of silence.

"Yup; said it shouldn't affect the rest of the operation so no problem." – came the cheery reply.

Both girls sweatdropped.

Needless to say, the unexpected arrival of another mobile suit was more than a little surprising to the audience observing the Enact prototype's demonstration. But only a select few noticed the AEU officers present reacting in the exact same way as the others – and only one person concluding the fact that the new machine obviously wasn't AEU.

The corner of the blonde man's mouth drew into a thin smile. 'Well... things had just gotten interesting.'

"Hey, you!" – called out the Enact's pilot in a cocky tone. – "I don't think you were invited, whoever you are. You mind getting lost before I make you?"

For a moment, nothing moved. Then the other mobile suit's head tilted slightly upwards then back down. No words were said but everyone knew what the unknown pilot meant: 'I want you to try'.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" – the Enact's pilot taunted as the machine unsheathed a large knife. – "Last chance to get out of dodge!"

All the unknown machine did at the threat was flexing its right hand.

"Your funeral, pal."

It happened so fast the audience could barely follow. Instead of dodging, the intruder unexpectedly lashed out with its right hand into the incoming slash...

...and grabbed the vibroknife by the blade.

The weapon's whine instantly ceased.

The stunned silence was interrupted when the intruder's left hand balled into a fist and hit the Enact's shoulder so hard the entire arm detached and flew away, leaving behind the vibroknife still clutched by the blade in the right hand.

The Enact's pilot wasn't finished, however. The mobile suit launched itself out of arm's reach using its vernier thrusters and in a single, fluid motion, drew its linear rifle.

Once again, the intruder didn't even attempt to evade. Instead, it simply raised its right hand with palm turned towards the opponent. The instant the rifle fired, a sound not unlike shattering glass was accompanied by a large energy field materializing from the raised hand.

The supersonic ferro-slug simply bounced off the field, as if it was fired from a shallow angle instead of a near-perfect right angle.

"What the-?!" – The rest of the test pilot's opinion was drowned out by the Enact repeatedly firing its rifle again and again, each with the same result as the first.

As if it had gotten bored, the intruder's back suddenly erupted into a (whatever) of iridescent particles as the mobile suit launched itself at the Enact, closing the distance in less than a second. Now too close for the Enact's rifle, the suit drew back its right hand and let loose a massive punch into the Enact's visor that outright decapitated the smaller mobile suit.

The victim immediately fell out of the air like a rock, crashing down to the ground and skidding for quite a few meters before stopping. Its opponent idly gazed at it for a moment, finally turning away and launching itself upwards among the screaming air raid alarms.

"Well... that was kinda anti-climactic." – Uriel's pilot remarked. Of course, he knew that was only the beginning; the operation was specifically designed to demonstrate the abilities of him and his comrades. Nevertheless, it had a higher purpose as well: to demonstrate the AEU's covert violation of the Tri-Axis Treaty's limitation of standing military forces each signatory is allowed to have at a time. And as his Gundam's detection equipment picked up the officially non-existent squad of Hellions leaving the orbital elevator to intercept him, his eyes narrowed. – "Out of sight, out of mind... that's a nice little arrangement you have there. Too bad we're about to smash that illusion of yours!"

His choice of pronoun was swiftly demonstrated when one of the Hellions trying to line up a shot on him was speared by a bright orange pillar of light from below.

In the cockpit, the girl sighed to herself. – "Like shooting clay pigeons... I almost pity those guys. Well, at least the idiot is playing the bait well."

"Jealous? Jealous?" – beeped the orange ball on the panel, LED-like eyes flashing.

"Oh, shut up before I give you some extra juice." – she warned as she raised a hand, electricity arcing between her fingers. – "Anyway, let's make a grand entrance, shall we?" – She grabbed the controls and made a wicked smile. – "Look out, everyone – the Railgun is about to crash the party!" – she declared as Gundam Ramiel raised its tuning fork-like weapon and let loose another ear-splittingly loud shot before taking off.

One of the Hellions spotted the new threat and warned its comrades before veering off to engage the Gundam. It easily dodged the linear rifle's burst but not by much. The reason for that became clear when the Hellion, carried by momentum, flew close to its prey... then the Gundam raised a hand and a massive, sustained lightning connected the fingertips and the Hellion. The attacker immediately spiraled out of control as its electrical systems went haywire, finally giving up and sending the craft into an uncontrolled nosedive at the ground.

"Would you like a drink?"

"Ya name it. What've ya got?"

Those weren't the exact words someone is bound to hear on a party. But there was no doubt that as outrageous as the blonde teenager dressed (what with the Hawaiian shirt and shades, among dozens upon dozens of people in tuxes and evening dresses), he had reason for being present at the party commemorating the Human Reform League's foundation. Indeed, his status as family heir granted Tsuchimikado Motoharu considerable leeway in some regards.

Still, he was given a wide berth by everyone present, as if his scandalous appearance was contagious. That is, until the waiter concluded business with him and a young girl in traditional maid attire floated up to him. – "Motoharu-sama, it has begun." – she whispered to him.

The boy grinned as he looked at the Earth below. – "So, how about it...? Are you having fun, Kami-yan?"