Author Note 1

Reminder that any scene that was in the show but not shown here or not changed, did happen, I just didn't cover it.

"This is regular speech"

This is a thought

Sergei's House

As Sergei was sitting down in his living room watching the news, he heard a knock at his door. Muting the volume and getting up off the couch, he saw Soma approaching the front door as well, guessing she heard that too. She looked at him curiously and asked, "Were you expecting anyone?"

Sergei responded, equally confused as her "No, were you?"

"Let's see who it is" The two approached the door, Sergei taking the lead. As they open the door, he spotted Andrei. His son now had short, well organized brown hair, grey eyes and a two-toned green outfit with the sleeves having a lighter tone, the center dark green and three overlapping boomerangs vertically on the left breast, which marked it as a uniform of the A-Laws.

The man saluted and stated, "Second Lieutenant Andrei Smirnov from the 5th Mobile Suit company." Sergei stood shocked for a second, then regained his bearings.

"Andrei. When did you join the A-Laws?" He let curiosity enter his voice as he asked.

"I am not at liberty to answer that question, father" the A-Laws soldier responded in a harsh tone. Soma looked around Sergei's shoulder and asked "Father?"

Andrei interrupted his father as he looked like he was about to speak "I was sent to here to request that Lieutenant Somas Peires join the A-Laws due to the gundams re-appearing." Soma was shocked and looked at the Sergei. His face reflected his sadness at her being asked, but she saw he was basically saying 'It's up to you'.

She thought on the damage the gundams did four years and knew she needed to keep that from happening again. All of her fellow soldiers she lost facing the gundams, the loss of all of her super soldier brothers and sisters. If the gundams were back, then she was needed to defeat them, like last time.

She steeled herself and replied, "Lieutenant Soma Peires, willing to report for duty."

She heard Sergei sigh in disappointment, but she saw him quickly walked back into the living room, and slump down onto the couch in defeat, his thoughts clearly a jumble right now. Andrei spoke up

"Gather any belongings you wish to take with you, and we will report back to base. I'll be outside." The white-haired girl clearly saw there was an unspoken history of the two, since Sergei had not really discussed anything about his other family, and she had one thought, 'What happened between these two?'

Dublin

Setsuna found himself waiting at a local memorial within the city of Dublin, sitting on one of the benches nearby. He was surrounded by old, stone faced European buildings staring him down as he tried to avoid drawing attention to himself. He had gotten the info on a recruit and where he was located from the crew of Ptolemaios, but the exact info on who they were was not known. Once he got to earth, he was informed by Wang Liu Mei that their recruit was in fact twin brother of Neil Dylandy, though the raven-haired pilot knew Neil better by his celestial being callsign, Lockon Stratos; This one was called Lyle Dylandy, and though he was Neil's twin there was no guarantee they would be completely alike. For one, Liu Mei had passed on intel that she suspected Lyle to be a potential agent of the Katharon group. 'I wonder how he will react to the news about his brother. I hope he shows up here.'

He was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps approaching him from the street to his north. He looked up and spotted what was a shocking mirror to Neil Dylandy. A tall, lanky, Irish man with a relaxed demeanor and messy brown hair reaching to the middle of his neck with green eyes. Setsuna thought to himself 'He must be his identical twin.' The pilot saw Lyle take a long look at him sitting on the bench and Setsuna rose from the bench and approached the man. He spoke in a concise tone "You must by Lyle Dylandy."

The man looked at Setsuna warily "Yes, I am. What did you want? All you said was you had info on my brother and to meet me here."

Setsuna looked him straight in the eye and replied "I was sent here to recruit you. I am a member of Celestial Being. And we want you to join us as a pilot" He saw Lyle take a small step back, his face shocked and surprised

The Irish man stood there for a second then said incredulously "What is your deal? You call me here and you just come out and say you belong to a terrorist organization?"

Setsuna ignored his comment and continued on "You brother was a pilot of Celestial Being four years ago. A gundam meister."

"My brother was a gundam meister?" Lyle asked as he lowered his voice

"Yes"

"He's not dead, is he?"

Setsuna nodded his head and answered, "He died fighting four years ago." He saw Lyle lower his head and stay quiet for a few seconds. The red-eyed man had one thought going through his head. 'How long has Lyle Dylandy been out of date with what happened to his brother?' The pilot waited for Lyle to respond to him. He saw the green-eyed man raise his head again

"So let me get this straight. You want me to join you as a pilot and oppose the government I suppose? And why would I? Because my brother did?"

"No. But being a gundam meister is how you can change the world, like your brother always wanted to. So, join us if you want to change this corrupt world." He saw the brown-haired man think for a few seconds, clearly mulling over his options. Setsuna needed something to push him over the edge. "Take this flash drive. It contains info on Celestial being if you are suspicious." Setsuna pulled out a thin rectangular drive and handed it to the Irish man. The man looked it over and asked curiously "What's to stop me from turning this into the authorities?" He held the flash drive up, shaking it slightly in the air, waiting for the pilot's answer

"The security agency is making a move on Kathron in Europe. They are going to attack their bases." The raven-haired pilot hardened his voice as he stated this. Lyle looked at Setsuna in confusion, curious as to how he got that info. However, the look on the other man's face showed he was serious.

Lyle slumped over slightly and replied "Alright, I'll think about it. Where should I meet you?"

"African orbital elevator by tomorrow. I'll meet you there." Setsuna turned to walk away and heard the Irish man reply to him. "Don't be late." Lyle proceeded to walk towards his car. He had a call he needed to make. And Setsuna had one more person to grab before he left Earth.

On the Ptolemaios

While Setsuna had been sent to Earth to do something, Saji found himself locked in bare metal room made of interconnected metal rectangles, which he guessed was a holding cell for prisoners or people who were being disciplined, floating in a corner furthest from the door. He was still stewing internally about everything that had just happened to him. He had gone from working a steady job in space, to being arrested as a supposed terrorist and now was on the ship of the people who created all the chaos four years ago. This was all their fault. If there was no Celestial Being, there would be no anti-government forces and then he wouldn't have been arrested. And Louise wouldn't have...

His thoughts were interrupted by the door sliding open, revealing Lasse and Mileina with a tray of food for him. Mileina cheerfully stated, "Hi! We brought you something to eat." She placed the tray between two of the rectangular shapes on the walls. "I'll just leave this right here, so just help yourself. We also are leaving red haro here to keep you company." Saji saw what looked to be a minicomputer terminal attached to the machine.

The little red sphere spoke in a high-pitched voice "Pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you."

Mileina continued "If you need anything from me or the other, tell haro and he will tell us. You will also be able to access our database."

Saji saw the little machine float in the room and after a second, Saji spoke up in a downcast voice "How much longer are you going to keep me here?"

Lasse responded evenly "Listen we know the A-Laws are looking for you." Saji stood up and angrily shouted at the two "I'm not a member of Katharon!" He thought to himself, 'How could anyone think I'm a member of Katharon! I'm just an innocent man! I'm not part of the anti-government forces!'

Lasse took his yelling on the chin "Well let's hope that they think you aren't a member either"

Keeping up his anger, Saji fired back, though lower in intensity than before "Are you people planning on doing those armed interventions like before?"

Lasse responded "No, we are going to take on the A-Laws."

"You mean the federation forces?"

"It's an autonomous force that reports to the government. They have already committed fourteen acts of mass murder, something that they call suppression. They have produced tens of thousands of casualties, though all records of these attacks have been erased. You have seen it firsthand." Saji squared his jaw, but then loosened up, thinking back to the attack on Proud and its horrific nature. But it couldn't be that the whole government was corrupt? Someone must be hiding it from them?

He asked with some desperation in his voice "But what does this all mean? Wasn't the Federation government formed in the first place due to your actions?"

Lasse spoke up with heroic resolve "Yes and that's why we intend to make things right again"

"But if you fight more innocent people will be hurt."

"People will get hurt and killed regardless of if we fight"

Mileina jumped in and said "Mr. Aeon, the test will start any minute now." Lasse nodded and closed the door, leaving just Saji and the red haro in the room. He didn't understand these people. If they knew fighting was going to get people hurt, then why keep fighting? They caused so much chaos and did a lot of damage to Saji's life already and now they were going to do it again to more people! He sat in silence for about ten minutes then remembered they said he could access their records. Looking at the haro, he said "I want to take a look at your records."

The little machine responded cheerfully "Roger. Roger." Grabbing the terminal, the Japanese man started by going through a general timeline of their interventions. What caught his interest was when the new machines, the gundams with red particles showed up. In the notes that he saw, they were called the throne models. What caused his heart to clench was seeing that one report said they were involved in an attack on civilians in Spain, with seemingly no military value. That was Louise's family! A secondary report said that the particles emitted by these machines was unusual and could potentially cause nerve damage or worse. 'Is that why Louise's regeneration treatment wouldn't work?'

Unconsciously speaking aloud, said quietly stated, "It was the thrones that ruined Louise's life"

The little red machine spoke up suddenly, "They're enemies. They're enemies." Saji, confused by the fact that gundams could be enemies, asked the machine, "What do you mean by that?" The machine did not answer him and eventually he read that the two teams came into conflict, though the exact reason why they opposed them wasn't stated in the records he had access to. 'Why would Gundams fight? I thought they were on the same side?'

The United States

I took him a few hours, but Setsuna had made it to the location where their tactical forecaster, Sumeragi Lee Noriega, was located. Apparently, she was living with some engineer from the former Union. It looked like he lived in a large, expensive apartment complex. Making his way steadily through the building after he told the security guard that he was visiting a friend and they knew he was coming, he winded his way up the floor where this guy's apartment was. Listening in carefully, he could hear whoever this guy was mentioning something about her drinking as well as Sumeragi replying she was leaving. 'This is my chance.' He hit the buzzer on the apartment and waited. If she sounded as bad as what Setsuna heard through the door, she must have taken the loss form four years ago hard. The pilot steeled himself for what he had to do. He saw the door opening and saw a wiry man with long, straight brown hair and a pair of glasses on looking at him curiously.

"You must be an old friend of Lisa! She hasn't had a visit…" Setsuna interrupted him, putting a harsh edge in his voice.

"She is Sumeragi Lee Noriega, former tactical forecaster of Celestial Being." He gave her a harsh look. She had changed since he last saw her. Gone was the energetic older woman who led Celestial Being to victory in their original interventions. Her light brown eyes did not have the same life to them. She had cut her brown hair down to her shoulders and it was messy. She looked drunk, tired and shocked to see him and most likely due to him revealing her now. He continued "And now you don't have anywhere to run."

The man next to her looked at him in shock and dropped to his knees, not saying a word. Setsuna grabbed Sumeragi by her wrist and said in a commanding voice, "Let's go. We have a space elevator to catch". She complied without a word and followed him out the building, all the while wondering 'Why would he want me back in Celestial being?'

African Tower

In the couple hours it took to reach the Africa tower, Sumeragi had been silent and Setsuna had not forced her to talk. The pilot knew he wouldn't get anything out of her if he tried to pry it from her, so he kept them moving through the bustling elevator station. As the two both got a ticket and boarded their seats on the train, Sumeragi spoke up, still looking at the ground of the car they were in. "What do you think you'll accomplish by bringing me back in. Even with the Federation government, nothing has changed. The plan failed, even with all those sacrifices." Her voice was downcast the entire time.

In a calm voice, Setsuna replied "Is that why you were drunk all this time?"

"Is that a problem? I've had enough of this."

"We're going to fight. If leading the world into a new form of sin is our crime, then the only way to make up for that sin is to change the world again."

"I'm afraid that is impossible for me" she turned in her seat, looking out the window to avoid the judgmental look she thought the raven-haired pilot was going her.

Keeping his eyes on her, Setsuna replied evenly "So you are running away then?"

In an exhausted voiced, she answered, "What's wrong with that? I don't have the inner strength that you do". She rested her head against the back of the seat, ignoring the glare the raven-haired pilot was giving her. They soon reached the station and the two drifted out of the train, stopping in the busy lobby. Setsuna soon spotted Lyle and led Sumeragi to him. She once again spoke up. "Please Setsuna, just forget about me."

"I need to introduce you to a new meister." He said as he led her further into the station. As they got close to Lyle, Sumeragi came to a stop. She looked on in shock. The Irish man spoke up in a jovial tone, "Yo. You were running a little late." Sumeragi couldn't understand the sight. Lockon died. How was he here?

"Is that Lockon? Could he really be alive?" Her head was cycling through ideas on how he could have survived that explosion. Lyle interrupted her train of thought.

"Get out of here. Do I really look like my brother that much?" He said that with a smirk on his face.

Sumeragi recovered from her shock, with a little stutter remaining "You're his brother?"

Setsuna jumped in at this. He was curious about why the cautious man he met before was so jovial and friendly "Let me introduce you to Lyle Dylandy, the new gundam meister of Celestial Being." Lyle waved his hand dismissively and responded to that.

"I'm Lockon Stratos. I'm a gundam meister for Celestial Being. Now do you guys got a ride out of here? I assume you have someplace we are going." Setsuna nodded at him.

"Follow me." Sumeragi and Lyle followed his lead, Lyle wondering where they were going and Sumeragi conflicted about coming back to her greatest failure, not knowing why the crew would want someone who got their crew killed four years ago.

Space near the Ptolemaios

As they flew the shuttle nearer to the ship in their space suits, with Setsuna in the front pilot seat, Lyle to his right and Sumergai in one of the four rear seats, Setsuna spotted a formation of five mobile suits a good distance away trailing red GN particles "Enemy formation headed to the Ptolemaios."

Lyle spoke up questioningly "Are those A-Laws mobile suits?" Sumeragi then asked, "What type of strength do you guys have?"

Setsuna replied "Just Tieria's unit, but we have have another unit that's almost operational." The raven-haired man wasn't one hundred percent sure if they were ready, but they might have to take a risk if they wanted to win this fight.

Sumeragi incredulously stated "Just two units?" Lyle added to this by saying, "Pretty lean little group you got here." Sumeragi thought for a second, then approached the comm unit and sent out a message to the Ptolemaios, containing a plan for the crew to follow. She thought to herself 'I hope this works'. She looked at Setsuna and said, "Follow this route to get to the ship" as she pointed out the exact path. Sestuna nodded and Lyle looked at the plan that Sumeragi had made. With praise in his voice, he said, "Not a bad plan. That makes a lot of sense."

At the same time as the shuttle was approaching the ship, Tieria had launched out in the Seravee to engage the enemy formation. He spotted three GN-Xs and two Aheads, along with the shuttle with Setsuna and the people he had found. He would have to be careful dealing with the Aheads. He saw the Ptolemaios lay down a barrage of missiles, leaving a large amount of GN particle residue as they exploded. One of the enemy GN-Xs in the formation seemingly got disabled or at least damaged by the missile's explosions, but Tieria couldn't let his guard down. He saw the Shuttle safely out of range of the blast zone. He lowered the two barrels of his long-ranged blaster, and opened fire, letting loose two beams of purple energy into the condensed paticles, setting off a firestorm in space, eliminating another one of the GN-X's, but he saw one of the Aheads heading directly for him.

As the Ahead got into close range, he saw the other two headed to the ship, but he was too busy dealing with this mobile suit to assist. He aimed several shots at the Ahead, but Tieria couldn't get a bead on him. He was just too maneuverable. Whoever this pilot is was good. Fortunately for him, his barrier was keeping him protected, but a drag out fight would result in the ship being destoyed. 'Sorry Setsuna, looks like its up to you to stop the other two mobile suits. Let's hope Sumeragi's plan works. I'm tied down fighting this guy.'

Back on the shuttle, they were nearing the ship, but had drawn the attention of the other two mobile suits. Setsuna opened communications, "Ian, I need you to send out the 00"

Ian responded incredulously, "Wait a minute Setsuna, we're not done!"

Setsuna replied with urgency in his voice "There's no time." He stood up and looked at Lyle. He commanded, "Take the controls. I'm heading out."

Lyle looked at him confused and asked, "What the hell?" Setsuna opened the back hatch of the shuttle just as they passed in front of the Ptolemaios, barely dodging past some blasts from the A-Laws mobile suits. He used the jet boosters in his suit to move towards the catapult deck, seeing the 00 rising from the elevator. He thought to himself, "The 00, my new gundam. 0 Gundam and Exia's solar reactors are in that suit" He dashed towards the cockpit and jumped into his seat. Talking to Ian over comms, he stated decisively "I'm using Trans-am."

Ian replied, "That's crazy! Don't do it!" Setsuna ignored that and announced, "Activating trans-am." The suit started glowing red and the percentage meter rose rapidly, but not enough to activate. Ian thought to himself 'Using the trans-am could blow up the reactors! It might not even work.' Over his comms he also heard Mileina saying two mobile suits were approaching. He spoke quietly then rose to a roar "Please 00, you have to activate. I need you to change the world." The suit suddenly crossed the threshold and activated. He could feel the power of this suit outstripped the Exia by a lot. 'So, this is the power of the twin drive.' Setsuna rotated the engines to in front of him, using the back draft to block a blast heading towards the suit. He saw the trans-am deactivate and launched from the catapult the suit was attached to. He quickly flew through space to engage the two A-Laws suits.

He effortlessly dodged out of the way of the shots of the two mobile suits due to the maneuverability and power of the twin drives and took out the Ahead unit that was not engaging Tieria, using the blaster part of his blade/blaster combo. The remaining mobile suit tried to hit the 00 again, but Setsuna moved the engines to the front to block the shots. The GN-X then pulled out a grenade of some sort and threw it, creating a field of green mist. Setsuna tried to fire into it, but found his beam weapons weren't effective. He heard the other mobile suit say, "Now your beam weapons are useless and in melee I have the advantage!" Setsuna, knowing this suit had underestimated this suit and his skills, charged into the mist, turning his sword to melee form and cleaved through the last mobile suit, causing the suit to explode. Setsuna and Tieria also noticed the last remaining mobile retreat, realizing the battle was lost. Setsuna floated there for a few seconds, taking the power of this new gundam in. He re-focused himself, getting over his adrenaline from the battle, and moved towards the shuttle, escorting it back to the ship.

Meeting Room of the Ptolemaios

The crew had gathered in the meeting room around 10 minutes after the A-Laws retreated, waiting for Sestuna to show up with Sumeragi and the new recruit. They were energized by the power of the 00 and this recent victory. They were also all happy to see Sumeragi and all of them were curious as to who Want Liu Mei could have picked for their new pilot. They saw the door slide open and Sestuna and Sumeragi were standing there, Sumeragi looking at the ground with no enthusiasm to be there. Feldt spoke first with a smile on her face, "Welcome back Ms. Sumeragi" quickly joined by Mileina saying cheerfully, "Long time no see Ms. Noriega". While she still couldn't fathom why they were happy to see her, it did feel a little good.

Sumeragi spoke up "I'm not sure about this still." She stopped talking when she heard footsteps behind her, meaning Lyle had walked into view of the group. As Lyle came into view, everyone stood shocked. They were seeing a ghost of the past. Lasse reacted first, stating "Lockon?" followed by an orange haro chirping "Lockon! You're alive!"

Lyle responded smoothly. "Now that's one hell of a welcome!" Lasse looked at Sumeragi and asked, "What's the deal?"

She looked at him awkwardly and explained, "This is Lockon's younger brother." Two people in the room were having a particularly strong reaction. Tieria was giving the man a once over and realized he was an identical twin. He narrowed his eyes. Lockon was the man who opened his eyes to the potential of humanity. The man he had come to care for. Why didn't Neil mention he had brother? He thought to himself 'I'll need to keep an eye on this and see what is up with this guy.'

Feldt on the other hand, was a mental mess at the moment. Neil was the man she had told her story to first, opened up her soul to. She may have been younger and less mature then, but it meant something to her. She had been working on getting over him after he had died fighting 4 years ago and now someone looking exactly like him had just re-entered her life. 'I know what Sumeragi said, but why can't my heart accept it?'

Unknown A-Laws Base on Earth

Soma and Andrei entered the office of Colonel Kati Mannequinn. They had been told by a messenger that they had been requested for them to be brought to her office to speak with her. As the got inside, they saw a stern looking women with brown hair held up by a bun in the back of her hair and a pair of frameless glasses on with the same uniform they both had on. Both Soma and Andrei brought their hand up in a salute. The Colonel spoke up in a business-like tone, "It's good to see you Lieutenant Peries and Second Lieutenant Andrei. You both have experience fighting gundams, correct?"

They both spoke at the same time, "Yes, ma'am!"

"Then good. We have a good idea when the gundams are going to strike next. We have one of their comrades held prisoner, who I am aware you have had previous history with, Lieutenant Peries."

Soma responded to that evenly, "If you are referring to the pilot of the winged one, then I am. He is a super soldier like me."

Kati looked at them in eyes, "While both of you are under my command, I am going to assign you to guard the prisoner in case the facility he is at will come under attack, which I estimate will be likely. Any questions?"

Once again, the soldiers both spoke in unison, "No, ma'am!"

"Our ship will leave by 0700 hours tomorrow. You are dismissed." Soma and Andrei turned and left the office after they gave her a salute. Soma looked at Andrei and asked, "Are you ready to fight the gundams again?"

Andrei looked at her with resolve, "I am ready to maintain this peace, no matter who the enemy is." Some felt something ominous about that statement but shoved that in the back of her mind. They had more important work to do.

Author's Note 2

From time to time, I'm going to leave a longer author's note at the end explaining why I changed things, well at least the major things. So, in this chapter I will cover why I changed Louise, Saji and Andrei. For some background, the changes were made to try to fit into the rough time the actual show had. No more than one episode. Feel free to stop reading the note if you aren't interested.

So, Louise, who I personally thought the romance angst with her and Saji dragged a lot and was the second worst part of the show (Don't worry, I'll cover the worst later), got pushed into the background as the civilian perspective so we could see life on the ground. I really liked that in season 1 and felt Louise could cover that nicely. She won't show up as much in the fic, so be aware of that. And don't worry, I have a plan with how to deal with Nena when the time comes.

Saji was mostly unchanged, though his arc is more focused on him realizing his little bubble kept him form being the person he could than getting Louise back. I liked his arc so keeping it was a no brainer, just needing a little modification.

Andrei was a character that I thought had some wasted potential. He mostly simped for Louise and had a few scenes related to him and his father. It was effective but could have been used better/expanded in my books. I found I could play up a tragic angle on his character which I hope you guys see in the upcoming chapters along with his anger at his father.

And I'm not saying that my version of the story is any better than the original. Like I said before, I love 00, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. If you prefer the original, more power to you. Next time I cover episode 3!