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Last Time, on the Gundam Universe Project: The show started! Seriously, if you're here, and haven't read the first Chapter/Episode you should go back. It's really good. We Promise.
Episode 2: Slender Dies
A few more missiles flew towards Side 7 as we finally get past the opening theme again. There's someone on a missile launcher thing whining about civilians, but he gets killed before anybody can remember what he says.
I guess he forgot that the Musai carries voice lock-on missiles.
Anyway, the blast blows a hole in another compartment, which begins leaking air.
"Dispense the Bubblicious!" Someone yelled, and another person pulled a lever that said 'Pull for Tasty Flavor.' Then a few gigantic pieces of gum dispensed, and flew towards the hole in the wall, where they promptly sealed it before all of the air leaked out. Good thing too, another couple of seconds and we'd have lost of a few minor characters.
Elsewhere, Frau was helping the children grab on to a hula hoop thing. Then, a random explosion caused shrapnel to fly at them. Amuro saves them in the Gundam.
"Frau, get to the ship quickly!"
"Oh no, it's a mobile suit!" One of the kids exclaimed.
"Amuro, is that you inside that mobile suit?"
"Get out of here, the colony is losing air, which may or may not have been my fault."
The hula hoop thing began to speed away as Frau called back, "Way to answer my question Amuro!"
In yet another random room, the ship's captain is manning a gun turret. Ryu, who somehow fits into the same size spacesuit as everyone else, approached him.
"Captain, you have to get back to the ship!"
"No! If I'm going to die in the first five episodes, I'm going to do it shooting at things, not on some hospital bed like all those lame anime captains!"
"But sir, you're the only one who can launch the ship!"
"But you don't even know how to fire this thing!"
"Well… neither do you!"
The Captain paused for a moment. "Good point. I guess you can take me over to the ship…"
Ryu noticed that the captain was not moving.
"Sir?" He questioned.
"No, I just thought that something was about to happen to me, and I didn't want to miss it."
Disappointedly, the Captain and Ryu walked out of the room to head back towards the ship. As soon as they left it, a missile hit the room and exploded, which would have killed the Captain.
"Oh, come on!" The Captain complained, missing his chance for a heroic death.
"I know sir, we were so lucky. Another second and you would have been killed!"
The Captain just sighed and continued on to the White Base. But as he rounded the next corner, he was struck in the chest with a crossbow bolt.
"Yes!" The Captain yelled, pumping his fist into the air before collapsing to the floor. Ryu ran over to him immediately.
"Hang on Captain, the ship is right over there. But seriously, who shoots a crossbow anymore? And in space?"
"Or at me?" The Captain moaned.
Over on Char's Musai, Char held a triumphant smile on his face.
"Alright Dren, I hit someone with the crossbow, now pay up."
Dren shifted about uncomfortably.
"Come on Dren. Fifty bucks."
"Sir, Slender has returned." A crewman said.
"Alright, send him here. But don't think I'll forget, Dren. Because I won't."
Needless to say, Char had completely forgotten by the time Slender got to the bridge.
"Slender, what happened to your arm?" Char asked.
"Oh, I stepped on a mousetrap on my way up here."
"You should watch yourself Slender; you could have gotten… killed."
"I'll remember to look next time, Sir."
"Commander, the mission." Dren reminded.
"Don't try to distract me, Dren! You know I have a trapezoidal thought process!"
"How you keep it together up there is simply amazing." Dren deadpanned.
"But you're right Dren; I should focus more on the mission and less on trying to catch those invisible rats that only I can see on every other Thursday."
Dren moved over to Slender, so he could whisper in his ear. "The strange thing is, he's still the best we've got."
"Dren, open a secure communication line to Vice-Admiral Dozle."
"But sir, Chief Denim was always in charge of that. None of us know how to work the communications machine." Dren said.
"Well Dren, you're just going to have to go get him." Char thought for a moment. "Wait a minute; he's in the bathroom, isn't he?"
"… Yes, he's in the bathroom." Dren lied. It was just easier that way. "I think he said he had indigestion."
"That's why he shouldn't have eaten that pizza!"
While Char, Dren, and Slender try to figure out how to work the communications machine, Frau was comforting the children.
"Now don't worry, you'll be perfectly safe on this ship okay?" The children nodded their heads in agreement.
"Hey you, down there! Come with me, I assume you can tie bandages right?"
"Sure." She floated up with Sayla. "And no crying!" She yelled back.
"Eeeeeekk!" Sayla screamed as she got to the top of the ladder.
"What's there, I don't see anything." Frau said.
"Invisible rats." Sayla whispered. "Only I can see them every other Wednesday."
"She's pretty strange." Frau said as Sayla left and she entered the medical bay.
"Oh my god what happened?" Frau asked as she saw the Captain.
"Some jackass shot him with a crossbow." Ryu said.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Of course it doesn't! That's why it happened." Bright walked in.
"Captain, what happened?" Bright asked.
"We've already been over this, he was shot with a crossbow." Ryu said.
"I can see that." Bright said. "I was trying to express moderate concern, not ask for a recap of the painfully obvious."
"Bright, where is everybody?" The Captain asked.
"They're all dead sir."
The Captain hesitated. "Really, I thought it was going to take you longer to say all that, categorizing by duties and ranks."
"Well, I was. But, you know… Time is money."
"Right. So I want you to move all of the Gundam components onto the ship."
"Already done sir. We've got someone who is piloting the Gundam to do it."
"Interesting. And do you know who the pilot is?"
"No, but I sure as hell am not paying him to do it."
"Okay, well that's not really important. After you get everything on the ship, launch the White Base, and get it as far away from Side 7 as you can."
"But who will fly the ship?"
"The computer can fly the ship."
"Sir… I don't really trust the computer. It kept trying to get me to make it a sandwich earlier."
"Umm, I think I can fly the ship." Mirai Yashima said. "It's not the same, but I'm licensed to operate spaceships."
"Oh good. You might be an upgrade then. Our old pilot was barely licensed to operate a toaster oven."
Back on the Musai, Char had a sudden revelation.
"Wait a minute, this isn't the communications machine, it's the coffee maker." Char said. Dren and Slender then underwent a similar realization.
"Oh, all of this hot water and coffee grinds suddenly make a lot more sense." Dren said.
"Yeah, I guess there was really no need to take the whole thing apart like that." Slender agreed.
"Hey, I found the communications machine. It's right over here!" Char said.
"Well, how does it work?"
"There's just one button. Man, I was paying Denim too much to do this job."
Char pushed the lone button on the communications machine, labeled 'TALK,' and contacted Dozle. The impossibly large Half-Giant Dozle Zabi was sitting on a couch, a television remote in one hand and a handful of nachos in the other. On his knee lay the bowl of nachos.
"Can this wait Char; I'm kind of in the middle of something." Dozle said.
"Your soap operas can wait Admiral, this is actually important for once." Char said.
"Alright, but if this is about your ship running low on tacos, I'm getting Conscon."
"Sir, my ship is running dangerously low on its supply of tac… tical weapons. We've almost exhausted our supply of missiles."
"Why is that?"
"It's actually a pretty good story. You see, I was coming back from lunch…" Char trailed off.
"… and then we disassembled the coffee maker, thinking it was the communications machine, and then I found the real communications machine, and now I'm talking to you."
"Char, I have no idea what anything you just said to me means. Or why it's important."
Char sighed. "I found the Federation's 'V' project, Admiral. Oh, and I need three more Zakus."
"What! You lost more Zakus!" Dozle thundered.
"No, they were destroyed this time." Char insisted. "Remember the part with the Federation mobile suit?"
Dozle sighed. "As horrifying as this sounds, I do."
"Well, the Federation's mobile suit destroyed two of them."
"And the other one?"
"Well, there was this jar of peanut butter and… you don't want to know."
"No, I probably don't. Alright, you'll get your Zakus and missiles." Dozle cut the communication.
"Alright, now Dren, get me three recon scouts assembled on the double."
"Yes sir!"
"Oh, and Dren? Make sure to tell them to get space suits that don't have holes in them this time."
While Char infiltrates Side 7 (using his ninja moves), Bright wheeled the Captain up to the bridge.
"Who did you say was piloting the Gundam?" The Captain said.
"Some guy named Amuro." Bright responded.
"Hmm, I've never heard of him. Are you sure he's a guy? Because even I get confused with these anime names sometimes."
"He must be one of the test pilots from Side 7."
"But I thought you said everyone was dead?"
"I may have… over looked a few." Bright said. "Hey, how do I contact the Gundam?"
"You can use the communications machine over there."
"How does it work?"
"There's just one button, you can't screw it up."
"Oh." Bright said, then pushed the single button, labeled 'SPEAK.' Amuro appeared on the screen, reading a book. When he noticed Bright, Amuro quickly hid the book.
"Hold on, you're Amuro?" Bright asked in disbelief.
"What's wrong?"
"It's this 'Amuro' person. It's just a kid, and he's no pilot!"
"Well Bright, if you really are 19 years old like you suggested in the first episode, then that 'kid' is only three or four years younger than you."
"Well sir, that's just what it says on my driver's license." Bright said. "It doesn't mean I told them the truth either."
"Anyway, if the kid managed to fight two Zeon Zakus and destroyed them both without getting himself killed or shot by a crossbow, he probably qualifies to be the best pilot in the entire Earth Federation!"
"Yeah, I'm just… that good." Amuro said, shuffling about to make sure the book was hidden.
Amuro continued loading the Gundam parts onto the ship, just as Frau and Sayla were heading out to look for survivors.
"Sayla, do you really think you should be… driving a car?"
"Why, what's wrong?"
"You had trouble operating the elevator." Frau said.
"So… I'm a little technologically impaired. That doesn't mean I can't turn this wheel back and forth aimlessly." As they were arguing, a scared person tried to run for the elevator, but the door closed on his hand before he could get in.
"Ahhh, my hand!" Kai screamed. Sayla ran over and slapped him.
"How dare you hide and run away when you could have been helping people!"
"Ahhh, my hand… and my face!" Kai continued to scream.
Sayla kneed him in the crotch. "And that's for screaming at me!"
"It huuuurts… sooo bad." Kai said, having lost the will and energy to scream.
"And this… is for making fun of me." Sayla said, then pushed the elevator control, sending the elevator and the screaming Kai away. "Let's go Frau." Frau was too scared to deny her request.
"But I… needed that elevator." Ryu said, even though he knew it wouldn't do him any good.
Meanwhile, Char had decided that a proper distraction was required for his ninja infiltration mission, and so he signaled Dren.
All in one breath, Dren said, "Activate the engines and maintain three percent power then ready and hold mega particle cannons on standby and prepare to target Side 7's spaceport but try to avoid any direct hits on the docking bay." Then he collapsed from oxygen deprivation and was taken to the medical bay for resuscitation, leaving Crewman XYZ 1125 in charge of the ship.
Just as Char had ordered through Dren, but was being carried out by Crewman XYZ 1125, Char's Musai fired its mega particle cannons at side 7, causing a suitable enough distraction for Char and his ninja scouts to sneak in.
"What's attacking us?" The Captain asked.
"It appears to be a Musai cruiser sir, the same one from before. It's approaching very fast."
"Make sure you destroy any remaining Gundam components, and give the Gundam a better weapon. Try to find one that's not… fruity."
"But sir, shouldn't we focus on getting a better pilot before we do that. Maybe… like me?" Bright pointed at himself.
"We don't have any pilots on this ship!" The Captain exclaimed.
"Hey, hurtful!" Mirai said.
"Why do we have to destroy the Gundam components?" Amuro asked. "We could probably load them all in time before anyone comes to get us."
"No, we can't post them on eBay until this whole thing goes public, and we don't want anybody finding out our secrets." Bright said.
"Well, I'd hate to interrupt, but the Musai is moving back." One of the persistently unnamed radar operators said.
"That's weird. Anybody have any ideas?" Bright asked. Mirai raised her hand, but Bright ignored her.
There was a sound like a few pages turning, and then Amuro said, "Hey, why don't we use that napalm thing?"
"That's a good idea Amuro. Use it to destroy the Gundam parts we couldn't load." The Captain said.
"Well, I was going to say, 'Why don't we use the napalm on the Musai?' I mean, they're not exactly fireproof, but whatever." Amuro said.
Back inside the colony, Frau and Sayla were searching for survivors, but in different places. Frau has a moment were she remembers what life on Side 7 used to be like, but it ultimately falls short in this high-tension episode.
Elsewhere, Sayla is also looking for people, but with limited success. This is both due to the lack of living people left to find and Sayla stopping every few seconds to stare at shiny objects. Unfortunately for Char, she saw the light reflecting off his helmet, then noticed he was a Zeon soldier. She got a gun, which was also shiny, out of the glove compartment and went after him.
And then the world exploded, fizzling away into bluish nonsense as the commercial break appeared.
However, fifteen seconds later the world pieced itself back together and we were exactly where we left off, with Sayla chasing after Char. Oddly enough, she found him inspecting the ruins of a taco stand rather than the Gundam components, and saw that she had him trapped.
"Don't move!" Sayla yelled out, pointing her gun as Char bent down to retrieve a neglected taco from the ground.
"Drop it, now!" Sayla demanded.
"But I… I just got this!" Char whined.
"Drop it, or I'll shoot!"
"But, do you know how much cheese is on this!"
"I don't care, drop it!" Sayla yelled. "Then take off the helmet and face the other way."
Grumbling, Char took off his helmet, but noticed that Sayla's eyes were following it, because it was shiny. Seizing the opportunity, Char ran up to Sayla and kicked the gun out of her hand, yelling "Red Comet Kick" as he did.
Or he would have, if he had remembered to run towards her. In the excitement of the rest of the maneuver, Char had forgotten to run at Sayla, and just ended up kicking the air. Sayla hadn't noticed, because she was still occupied with Char's shiny helmet.
Grumbling even more, Char threw the taco at Sayla and ran. The taco exploded when it hit Sayla, getting salsa, ranch dressing, cheese, and meat juices on her face and in her hair.
Sayla was fishing a piece of lettuce out of her hair when she noticed the Gundam coming back with the canisters of napalm.
"Hey Sayla, did you see a Zeon soldier somewhere around here? There's supposed to be a Zeon soldier here." Amuro said.
"There was one here, but he hit me with a taco and ran off."
"He hit you with a what?" Amuro asked.
"You heard me! A taco!"
Amuro detonated the super napalm and then got back up to the hanger. But when the hatch opened, Char thought he had found the exit and flew through with his jetpack.
"Mr. Bright, the Zeon soldier just entered the port!"
"Oh crap! Everybody, get rifles from somewhere and shoot that Zeon soldier!"
Char continued to jetpack through the tunnels.
"Haha, I've found the exit… wait a minute." Char exited the tunnel to see the White Base.
"Oh good. Maybe someone on that odd looking ship can tell me where the exit is." Char strode up to the side of the ship.
"Hey guys!" He called out to the crew. "Do you know where the exit is?"
The crew all pulled rifles on him.
"Hey… what'cha doing with those guns?" The crew started to shoot at him.
"Hey hey hey!" Char called out while dodging frantically. "That is not how you're supposed to treat your guests!"
Char flew out and over the ship trying to find an exit. Bright flew up between Char and an exit and threw his helmet at him, which destroyed Char's camera. Then, remembering he brought his Batman tool belt, Char pulled out a smoke bomb and threw it, obscuring the whole area with, you guessed it, smoke. Char vanished in the smoke and Bright was left with a dented helmet.
"Run away! They've got handheld machine guns!" Char called out to the rest of his ninja squad as he took his own advice. The others quickly followed suit.
The main hangar doors opened, and the Gundam flew out to cover the White Base as it left port.
"Okay, so the book says I essentially puss out and can't hit this Zeon guy while he's flying away." Amuro said to himself. "But that's not going to happen; I'll hit him this time!" Amuro locked on and prepared to fire.
Normally, he would have hit Char. But he wasn't trying to hit Char; he was trying to find out if he would kill Char. And by the time he found the page, Char was gone.
"Dammit!" Amuro said, then began firing randomly.
"Don't worry, he can't hit us." Char said.
"What's your confidence level on that sir?" Slender asked.
"Not great." Char replied. "Dren, send us the Zakus." Char ordered the Musai.
"Umm, Dren isn't here right now." One of the crewmembers of Char's Musai said.
"Well, what happened to him?" Char asked. "Did he die? I hope he didn't die, he owes me money."
"Sir, Dren passed out due to loss of oxygen. He's in the medical bay."
Char thought for a moment. "We have a medical bay?"
"Yes sir."
"… Is it any good?"
"Yes sir, very good in fact."
"Well, you're going to have to show me this 'medical bay' when I get back to the ship." Char said. "Ooh, what's your name, by the way?"
"Crown, sir."
"Crown." Char said. "Good, I like it! Okay Crown, you are now my second go-to guy, right after Dren. Whenever Dren is incapacitated, incompetent, or dead, you have to fill in for him. Now send me my Zakus!"
Meanwhile, the White Base was preparing to launch.
"Okay everybody, we're all new at this, so we're probably going to suck in our first fight. But we don't have any time to screw up, because there's a heavily armed Musai out there." Bright said. "Alright, checklist time. Mirai, don't crash. Radar dudes… keep doing whatever you're doing. Frau, make sure we're not leaking air anywhere. Amuro, don't suck and stay close. Did I forget anything?"
"You forgot to make us all feel good." Mirai said.
"What do you mean?"
"You're in charge. It's your job to make sure morale is high!"
"Morale shouldn't be high, we're screwed! High morale can come after we evade the Musai."
Around the bridge, we can see some technicians explaining the ship's weapons and power systems to the new young crew. If you listen well enough, you can hear Kai's voice actor teach Sayla how to work the power and Amuro's voice actor teach Hayato the weapons systems.
"Ryu here, I'm ready to launch in a core fighter!" Ryu said excitedly, wanting both to help and grab himself some more lines in the script.
"Can you… fit inside that cockpit?" Bright asked.
"Not really, but I'll manage. Definitely won't be able to fly this thing on Earth, if we ever get there. With my weight, it probably won't get off the flight deck."
"No Ryu, I want you up here on the bridge. I'm not paying for the insurance."
"Sir, missiles approaching!"
"How many?"
"Just two of them, sir."
"Well, that's kind of a pathetic attack. Shoot them down; we've been hit by enough missiles today."
Amuro promptly shot the missiles down, but that wasn't the end of their troubles.
"Sir, we've got Zakus incoming. But… this is impossible. One of them is approaching us at three times normal speed!" The Captain gasped.
"It's Char, the Red Comet!" The Captain said. "He single handedly destroyed five of our battleships in the Battle of Loum, and he made it look like he accidentally killed them! We've got to get out of here!"
"Don't worry, I can handle it." Amuro said. Then to himself, he added, "I also happen to know exactly where he's going to dodge to, thanks to a little friend of mine."
Amuro watched Char fly straight at him. Amuro knew he was going to dodge to his left, so he aimed and fired that way. Char however did no such thing, and continued towards Amuro. Char fired his machine gun and hit the Gundam in the chest.
"Haha, gotcha!" Char said, satisfied in his victory. But when he looked back, the Gundam was fine. "Hey no fair! How come he gets good armor!"
Amuro continued to shoot at Char. However, Char's strategy of 'Fly in a Straight Line' always got the better of Amuro, who kept expecting Char to dodge.
"Hmm, if that thing was aiming at me, it would probably have hit me by now." Char said. "Hey Slender, get behind him!"
"But Commander, the gun of his could be really powerful; I've never seen anything like it!"
"Exactly, that's why I'm going to distract the mobile suit while you go after the ship." Char said.
"That's… actually a good plan." Slender took off for the White Base as Char continued to 'duel' with Amuro.
"Oh no, it's coming right at us!" Kai screamed, then ran off the bridge, straight into the elevator door.
"Well, shoot it down with the guns on the ship!" Bright ordered.
One of the crewmembers approached Bright nervously. "Sir, we can't load ammo into the guns on the ship."
"Why not?"
"We're out of ammo."
"Wait, how about we launch one of these at the Zaku?" One of the gunners said over the open communications link.
"I'm not sure if it will do anything, but it's worth a shot!" Kai could be heard saying.
"Oh they'd better not." Bright asked, running down to the gun deck. But it was too late; Bright could already see the comfortable mattress sailing through space towards the Zaku.
"You idiots!" Bright yelled, reaching his hand back in preparation for his ultimate move… the terrible Brightslap! When the Brightslap connected with the gunner, he was catapulted off into space, leaving Kai shivering in fear in the corner.
"What's this?" Slender asked, trying to figure out what the object was. But it was too late for Slender, as the mattress hit and covered up his mono-eye. "Oh no, I can't see!"
His scream came moments later, as the now blind Zaku was easily hit by Amuro and destroyed.
"Noooooooooooo!" Bright screamed, torn in his anguish over the loss of his comfortable mattress.
"I don't get it!" Char yelled. "How could a single mobile suit… How could it defeat the Big Za… wait a minute, that's not my line." Char tried to come up with something appropriate for the death of Slender and the destruction of a Zaku, but the moment was already gone. "Dammit, I screwed that one up. Hopefully nobody heard me."
Char quickly evaluated the situation. "Okay, time to run!" And Char did just that, speeding away before anyone noticed he was leaving.
"Okay, time to set a course for Luna II." Bright said. "And get me Amuro." He continued.
Amuro got up to the bridge a few seconds later.
"Amuro, you need to stop relying on the machine's power and use your head next time." Bright ordered.
"Mr. Bright, I wasn't relying on the machine at all!" Amuro insisted. "What else did you want me to do, headbutt him?"
"If it comes to that, yes. Anyway, you're a pilot now, and you need to protect the ship and obey my orders, got that?"
"Fine." Amuro said. "Oh, and you're putting me in charge of the Gundam's maintenance, right?"
"How did you know?"
"… Lucky guess." Amuro said.
Meanwhile, on Char's Musai…
"Oh crap!" Char exclaimed suddenly.
"What sir, is your Zaku damaged? Do we need to repair it?" Crown asked.
"No."
"Then what's wrong?"
"We're out of ice cream."
Next Time, on the Gundam Universe Project!
Episode 3: The Third Episode
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