Gundam Unicorn: Narrative of Truth

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Narrative, or the Gundam franchise.


Industrial Six, Side 7

September, UC 0097

The emptiness of space.

Vast, imposing, and full of possibilities.

That's what many people thought when they laid eyes upon the blackness littered with stars.

And many people sought to make their mark out there.

However, not everyone was in it for glory. Some were in it for profits, such as the company assigned to transport some top secret cargo to Industrial Six.

"This is the Rainbow Runner of Munei Heavy Shuttles," the transport's captain radioed, "requesting permission to enter Side 7 with private mobile suit escorts."

"We read you loud and clear, Rainbow Runner. Permission to dock is granted," the controller replied. "Proceed to designated docking bay."

Off to the side, in one of the refurbished GM Quels, a young man in his late teens blew a strand of sandy brown hair out of his green eyes. "About time we got this mission done," he remarked, "I'm pooped from the travel."

"Yeah? Think you're the only one, Joseph?" another pilot joked.

"Hey! For the last time, I prefer to be called Seph!" the pilot, Joseph 'Seph' Matthews complained playfully.

"Seph sounds rather girly if you ask me," the same pilot retorted in a friendly manner, "your real name has the real meat!"

The brown-haired pilot rolled his eyes. "Y'know, I've been curious as to what the cargo is that the shuttle's carrying," he remarked.

"Yeah," a third pilot remarked, "the details the Ming Institute issued to us are rather scant for a security mission. I'm surprised that DarkSpace just accepted the job like that."

"Honestly, I've been curious ever since the mission began," Seph stated. He rolled his shoulders and gripped the controls of his unit. "What's so important about it, anyway?" The three PMC GM Quel pilots continued to chat meaninglessly as they and the ship were guided into Industrial Six's docking bay. The docking port was practically full, but thankfully there was a space left for the ship to dock. Seph guided his machine closer to the Rainbow Runner and adjusted his GM Quel for touching down. "Looks like our job is over," he thought. Suddenly, he got a notification from his DarkSpace employers. The young man brought it up on his machine's monitor, and his eyes widened in surprise at the contents. "The heck?"

"What is it," one of the wingmen asked.

"I... I've been asked to test pilot the new unit?" Seph blinked in confusion. "But why me?" He checked the message again, but it was still the same.

"To: Pilot Joseph Matthews
From: Dr. Lombardi, R&D Division

Message: Hello. I am happy to see that you have brought the cargo into the colony intact. But the job is only half complete. As it stands, we still need to test it out and make sure the new piloting system works. If all goes as planned, we will consider showing this new system's potential to the EFSF top brass. Therefore I am requesting that you are to be the test pilot for the new machine. You will be paid extra as compensation for this task."

Now Seph was completely mind-blown; it was very unusual for security personnel to be drafted for additional duties outside of their purview. It was even more unusual that his PMC was even forwarding this to him. Then again, given the operating expenses of being a private mobile suit pilot, it did not sound half-bad at all. He decided to accept it. He typed back his response, and within minutes he got a reply.

"Excellent. We expect to see you within the hangar in three hours." Little did he know, that his response would change his life forever.


Two days later...

Seph walked down the corridors of the Ming Institute facility located within Industrial Six. As instructed, he was to report to Dr. Lombardi in the heart of the facility. He was in actuality a bit nervous, as well as excited. Never before had he been asked to pilot a new prototype machine. His eyes flicked down the corridor until he spotted the door he was looking for.

"The flight test center..." Seph leaned into the security terminal next to the door. Putting his hand on the biometric scanner, Seph was also given a retinal scan. With his handprint and eyes checking out, the door opened. Inside he could see the huge shape of a new mobile suit, almost completely hidden by shadows. His eyes roved up the entirety of the machine and he shuddered a bit. This thing looked imposing. "What is that?" Seph could not make it out, but there was a strange tingling feeling about it.

"That, Joseph, is the machine you're going to test pilot," a voice said. The young man yelped and spun to face the speaker. The man behind him was none other than Dr. Noel Lombardi, the chief of Ming Institute's R&D Division. He stood at five foot ten, and had messy blonde hair that contrasted with his brown eyes. He wore a white lab coat over a brown shirt and blue jeans, and his ID badge hung around his neck. He held in one hand a data tablet and he smiled. "I see you arrived just in time."

"Yeah. So, what kind of new piloting system are we testing?" Seph asked.

"Remote piloting," Lombardi said as he unveiled some specs.

Seph eyed the specs curiously. "Remote piloting? That's new," he remarked.

"We call it the Neuro-Link System," Lombardi explained, "and for good reason." He tapped the specs and brought up a blueprint. "The Neuro-Link System replaced the standard cockpit in a mobile suit with this special computer here. It receives the pilot's brainwaves as they are amplified through a helmet designed for the task. The computer then transmits the pilot's thoughts to the systems necessary for movement, etc. It's meant to limit the cost of human lives in battle, which could save many pilots from suffering injuries or worse."

The system did seem like a good idea, Seph mused. "And you want me to see if it works, right?"

"Exactly," Lombardi remarked with a grin.

"Sounds like you're making pilots obsolete," Seph joked.

"Not entirely," the head of R&D joked back. "This is only a test system. If it works, it could be used in the future, but right now, we're still trying to work out the bugs."

"Well," Seph cheered, "then I'm the man for the job! Watch me smoothly guide that baby with my gentle hands."

Lombardi chuckled at Seph's enthusiasm. "All right. If you'll follow me..." He turned and guided Seph to a pod of some sort set up next to the shadowed mobile suit. "But first, let's show you the suit you'll be piloting." He nodded at a technician and she nodded back. She tapped a switch and the lights flared on, exposing the mobile suit in its entirety. Seph's eyes widened. It was a dark purple mobile suit, in a shade that bordered on black. "That's... the Unicorn? I thought they were all banned and dismantled!" The young PMC pilot could still remember the alarm and panic over the news regarding the 'Axis Shock' that the notorious Unit One caused during the Laplace Declaration a year and a half ago.

"Relax. That machine may look like it, but it is not the same suit," Lombardi explained. "It's meant to deceive enemies and throw them off balance."

"Wait... so a fake Unicorn," Seph raised an eyebrow.

"Yes." Lombardi nodded. "Now, come on. Let's get you suited up."


The next day...

Seph was dressed up in a unique pilot suit. It was the same type that was used by most pilots of the previous Unicorn Gundams, but he was not actually going to sortie in the mobile suit physically. Instead, he was to get into the pod and hook up mentally to the new machine. "Hmm... certainly kinda miss getting into an actual cockpit," Seph thought aloud.

Lombardi chuckled a bit. "Relax. Just think of it as such," he remarked as he gestured for the young man to step in. Seph did so, and much to his surprise, the pod's seating layout did resemble the real deal, but there were no controls. Seph sat down in the seat as the engineer backed up. As the cockpit closed up, the systems came online, including avionics and monitor. As the view cleared up, Seph was treated to a view of the MS hanger that the Dracon was in, as though he were actually in the mobile suit. It was then that the radio sparked to life. "Mr. Matthews," a female voice called.

The comm screen came up on the display images on his helmet visor. The woman speaking was in her early twenties, with chocolate brown hair and sky blue eyes. Her skin was tanned and she wore a nice light purple tank top that showed off her toned shoulders and arms. "I'm going to be the one who gives you your instructions," she said. "I'm Tina Hendricks."

"Nice to meet you!" Seph chirped.

Tina gave a cute and light laugh. "Alright, flyboy," she said, "let's get to work. Let's go through your standard preflight checks, as well as your wireless connection to the Dracon. Can't have you having hiccups in the system."

"Okay," Seph remarked. "So... what first?" He looked around, and much to his surprise, he could... he didn't know how to explain it, but it felt like he was moving his head, and yet not. He could vaguely feel something, but he could only describe it as a slight sensation of something else moving in his neck. The head of the new mobile suit was also turning, the exact same movement he was thinking about. 'Weird,' Seph thought as he scratched his head, not realizing what his MS was also doing.

"Be careful," Tina cautioned. "Every action you think of your machine also does."

"Wait, what?" Seph stopped scratching, and turned to see the Dracon's hand emulating the same pose he was doing with his hand. "Um... did the Dracon just scratch it's own head?"

"It did," Tina remarked. "So be careful."

"Oops," Seph now felt sheepish. "Anything else," he said, trying to move on.

"First up is the flight check. From the way your machine moved, I can safely say the wireless link is working properly," Tina said. "So, move the Dracon to the hangar bay exit."

At those words, an alarm began to ring and the personnel that were present began to scurry away or donned their helmets.

"Here goes." Seph could see that there were no pedals in the cockpit. Instead, he began to think of walking, as though he were doing it himself. True enough, the mobile suit actually began to move. After a few experimental steps, he began to move more smoothly at a walking pace.

"Okay. So far things look good," Tina noted.

"This feels so weird," Seph remarked.

"Think of the Dracon as more of your own body," Tina suggested, "in a sense now, you are the mobile suit, and the mobile suit is you."

"Okay." Seph focused more on the machine, and sure enough, he could start to sense its movements more. "Wow..." He slowly looked at the hands of the machine and flexed them.

"That's it," Tina encouraged, "you're getting the hang of it. Now, let's get you ready to launch for your test flight."

"Okay." Seph slowly moved the Dracon towards the doors, flexing the limbs as he walked. "Uh... Just one question. Why does this thing have wings?"

Tina then gave a serious expression. "We'll cross that bridge with more test flights," she said, "remember, there are many details that are top secret, and we can only reveal them to you in due time."

"Okay." Seph nodded. He stopped near the edge of the hangar bay and crouched, pushing off the floor with the Dracon's powerful hydraulics.

"Course is clear, Dracon," the control room announced, "you are clear for take off."

"All right." Seph straightened the machine and focused on the flight pack. "Joseph 'Seph' Matthews, Dracon. Launching!"

The flight pack kicked on, and Seph felt the faintest sensations on his real back, like the flight pack was actually pushing him, but in reality he wasn't even moving.

"Okay... not launching," Seph sighed, "what am I missing?"

Tina rolled her eyes. "You have to focus on it. Let the action take hold. Let it happen, and don't force it." She checked the specs. "At least according to the theory behind the system, anyway."

Seph took a breath. He refocused his thoughts to that of a bird, soaring through an endless sky.

The flight pack responded. He felt the ground beneath his machine's feet leave, and he could sense a sort of weightlessness in his stomach. "Thrust increasing," Tina indicated, "you're getting the hang of it, Mr. Matthews."

"Okay. Let's see..." Seph thought about increasing speed, and he suddenly felt the frame he was controlling jerk as the thrust output reached 75 percent. "Whoa!"

The Dracon shot forward out of the test bay. Seph felt mobile suits accelerate before, but now it was as though he were feeling the full inertial forces on the Dracon itself! "Whoa! This is insane!" Seph remarked as he tried to adjust the Dracon to a stable flight path. "I've never even flown a mobile suit like this before!"

"Calm down," Tina coaxed, "think of it as you doing the flying, and less of the mobile suit."

"Okay... Okay. I got this." Seph slowly eased back on the controls, and he found that it was a lot easier to control the suit now that the thrusters weren't going at three quarters full power. "I... I actually think I could get used to this."

Tina smiled at the test pilot for a bit. Moving onto her checklist, she began, "alright, let's start with the basics. I need you to fly along the route mapped out on your HUD as part of our basic flight test. We'll also be giving you prompts for certain maneuvers along the way, so pay attention."

Seph nodded, aware of the Dracon's head doing the same. "Sure." He adjusted his flight course and started to follow the route he saw blinking on the HUD. It was a straight shot through a debris field, but thankfully the route avoided the worst of it.

Tina was nodding and humming in approval. "Looking good, but stay sharp," she reminded.

"Will do," Seph remarked. He continued to follow the path, every so often flexing the Dracon's limbs to get used to them. It was then that a prompt and proximity alert blared in the cockpit. "Mr. Matthews, evade!" The pilot yelped as he twisted the Dracon's frame. The dark colored machine barely avoided a chunk of debris as he weaved. However, the maneuver prompts kept coming as Seph was having to roll and speed around the debris that had drifted around Side 7. The dark colored machine was almost impossible to see against the blackness of space. The only tell tale sign was the glow of the thrust exhaust as he peeled around another chunk of debris before emerging back into the emptiness. "Man! That was intense!" Seph exclaimed.

"Nice, Mr. Matthews," Tina said with a smile, "you've completed the first phase of the test."

The pilot shifted as the Dracon continued on its course. "What next?" Seph asked, a grin crossing his face.

"Next up is the agility test," Tina read off the check list. "Your objective is to avoid the drones as they fire on you. Three hits and you are then considered 'dead'. Is that clear?"

"Roger that," the Dracon pilot affirmed. Soon enough, four GM Quels appeared on his radar.

"Good luck." Tina cut the line and Seph flexed the Dracon's hands.

"Okay. Let's do this!" he muttered. As the GM Quels came into range, Seph received the radar warning tone from an enemy lock on. "Yipes!" Seph braked by cutting the thrust and then he whipped the Dracon's frame around, barely dodging a laser beam as it sped past the right leg. The other GM Quels moved to flank Seph, aiming their training rifle lasers as they attempted to catch him. The pilot juked and dodged, trying to master the Dracon's agility. "Okay! Now how am I supposed to take them down?" he wondered.

"Your objective is just to evade these guys for two minutes," Tina berated, "this is an evasion test, Mr. Matthews!"

"Oh, right! Sorry!" Seph remarked. He checked the countdown on his suit's HUD. "Okay. Let's see..." He twirled around and ducked behind some debris, using the Dracon's dark color to his advantage.

"Wow, this thing really flies," Seph marveled as he darted around the airspace. The GM Quels had a difficult time keeping pace with their test target. The dark colored mobile suit flitted past one, and he wagged the Dracon's hands as if taunting. "Nyah!" he jokingly teased. Then he flew on, laughing a bit. "This color scheme is amazing!"

Tina facepalmed at this. "Mr. Matthews! Take this test more seriously!"

"Sorry!" Seph apologized. He spotted the Quels returning and he darted behind some debris. The dark colored armor was a real benefit, as in the blackness of space, one could barely see him. "Like vanishing into shadows," Seph beamed.

"Okay. And time... done!" Tina alerted him. "You completed the evasion test."

"Great!" the pilot chirped. Seph looked to Tina on the HUD of the Dracon. "Oh, and by the way, I'd prefer it if you called me Seph," he remarked. "Mr. Matthews makes me sound too old. I'm only nineteen." He gave an embarrassed grin at that last part.

"Then you can call me, Tina, if it's all the same," the assistant spoke with a smile.

Dr. Lombardi pretended to be stern in his expression, but given how screwed up the world of the Universal Century was, this small instance of young adult flirting was one of the few natural good things to enjoy.

Seph winked. "You got it, Tina," he joked. "So, what's next on the list?"

Of course, things were about to take a turn for the worse, and young Seph had no idea of what he was about to get roped into... or the situation he'd find himself in.


Inside Industrial Six...

Unbeknownst to everyone in the Ming Institute, there were two operatives hacking into the facility in order to access the program. One operated the hacking device, while the other was on another computer. "This had better work," the first figure muttered. "We cannot have the fool exposing us."

"It will do the job," the second figure assured his comrade. "That little device has given us an edge. It will also be what pushes them to acknowledge the folly of their foolish actions to resist."

"Either that or they will try to figure out what did it," the first figure noted.

"Relax. It will work as planned. And then they will see how foolish it is. The Grand Design will come about. There is no way around it." The second figure sneered as he typed in the command. "For our noble cause... Let this new beast fail before it finds its wings!"

"And who better to help us foil that old era fossil than that self-righteous fool from Londo Bell?" The other agent was eyeing a video feed of the famed Ra Cailum. It and its even more famous Captain Bright had a particularly annoying tendency to stick their noses into others' affairs, from Char's Rebellion to the Laplace Incident. It would be sweet irony to use Bright to bury the past and the truth for good.

"Yes. This way, no one will be able to resist us!" the second figure grinned. "Now, is the device inserted?"

"Yes. It is. It's downloading the virus now." The first agent examined the feed on the device, watching as the downloading bar crept up. On the left side of the screen displayed the machine currently in use, along with the pilot's vital signs.

"I think it's about time to call in the favor..." The second agent sent out an alert message over Federation channels. It would explain that illegal human experiments were going on at Side 7, and that all EFSF units in the vicinity should immediately respond as a test subject had stolen an experimental mobile suit and was running amok.

The alert was sent out, and within moments, chatter began to fill the laser waves as they responded.

And within the system, the virus went to work.

"Hasta la vista... Dr. Ming," the first agent grinned as everything fell into place.


Testing Site

The first sign something was wrong came with a slight hesitation with the Dracon's movements. "Huh?" Seph looked down at the hands of the machine, trying to flex them. They responded, but they seemed to be... delayed.

"The heck is going on?" he asked.

Back in the test center outside of Seph's pod, warning alarms were blaring as several readings on the Dracon dipped into the red. Dr. Lombardi stood up from his seat as the staff tried to get things under control. "What's going on," he demanded, "Tina!?

"It's not good, sir!" Tina cried. "A virus has entered the system! It's causing the Neuro-Link to suffer disruptions!" Her hands flew over the keyboard as she spoke. "I don't know what happened, sir!"

"Pulse reversal detected," on of the operators reported, "the Neuro-Link signals are going to overload the system!"

"Seph!" Tina got on the comm line. "There's been an issue with the system! It's going to overload due to a computer virus!"

"What? Hang on..." On the screen, Tina watched as the Dracon sluggishly turned back towards the colony. "Just let me.."

"No! Eject now!" Tina pleaded.

But by then it was too late.

"He's crazy," another assistant said, "he's fighting the backflow!"

"The system's going critical!"

"Shut it down! He's going to get killed!"

"SEPH!" Tina screamed, getting to her feet.


Space

Seph juked and jolted the Dracon back to the colony, only for the system to reach critical.

The next thing he knew, a searing pain lanced through his head and he screamed, his hands flying to his head, as the Dracon did the same thing. From an outsider's perspective, it seemed as if the Dracon were in pain, arching its back as it clutched at its helm. Its optics flashed, and then its arms and legs spread as if being shocked. But to Seph, the pain was very real.

It felt like his mind was being split in two, or rather as if he were being torn free from something. He felt nothing, not even his own breathing, as he drifted loosely, feeling his mind starting to grow hazy. Panic suddenly flooded his awareness as he realized he could be dying. He tried to cling to his human body, but then he was bodiless, and in a desperate act, latched onto the closest object he could find. He didn't know what it was, but it was familiar and at the same time foreign. He felt himself becoming more cognizant of his surroundings, and he felt something else, too. He didn't know what else he was feeling, but it became a mere byproduct as exhaustion and the pain took its toll.

The last thing he recalled before blacking out was Tina's panicked voice echoing in his head...


Space Between Side 7 and Luna II

Londo Bell Lt. Commander Chase Lee raced around in his custom blue Delta Plus as two trainees in ReZELs attempted to lock on to him. "C'mon! That the best you kids got?" he asked over the comm. Chase maneuvered hard in his Wave Rider mode, breaking their lock-on signals for the third time since the exercise started. The Ra Cailum had been ordered to take part in training exercises to increase the proficiency of the EFSF pilots in MS combat. While the Federation had not collapsed as was feared from the Laplace Declaration, relations between the nations of Earth, space, and the Moon were still very tense. Still fearing the possibility of Zeon uprisings, the General Staff HQ had relegated several Londo Bell units to focus on improving the Federation's combat readiness.

Chase maneuvered hard in his Wave Rider mode, breaking their lock-on signals for the third time since the exercise started. The Ra Cailum had been ordered to take part in training exercises to increase the proficiency of the EFSF pilots in MS combat. While the Federation had not collapsed as was feared from the Laplace Declaration, relations between the nations of Earth, space, and the Moon were still very tense. Still fearing the possibility of Zeon uprisings, the General Staff HQ had relegated several Londo Bell units to focus on improving the Federation's combat readiness.

His alert beeped as he saw them coming back around. His blue eyes flicked over the console as he scanned them. "Okay, kiddies... show me what you got!" he remarked. The trainees came at him, their machines splitting up for a flanking attack. "Good, good, come at me," Chase goaded as he executed at hard spin left. The two trainees aimed their guns and fired their training lasers. One barely missed his machine, and Chase grinned.

Braking hard, the Wave Rider ace quickly transformed the Delta Plus into MS form, causing the two ReZELs to rapidly overshoot. "Not bad, but not good enough!" Chase shouted. He aimed his training laser rifle and snapped off two shots. They were perfect hits on both ReZELs. "Bingo, both of you are dead," Chase remarked, "you're out."

"Aw, c'mon! I thought we had him on the ropes!" one of the trainees replied as they both moved back to the sidelines.

"Just be thankful that it's training and not the real thing. You still live to learn something new," Chase reminded bluntly as he took a sip of water from his bottle.

The two trainees groaned, but acknowledged what he was saying.

As the exercise concluded, Chase began to think to himself about the state of affairs across the Earth Sphere. Even with the Laplace Declaration by Mineva Lao Zabi, neither the Federation nor the Zeon remnants were willing to come to the table. If anything, the Federation doubled down on its control over the Earth Sphere and increased the size and presence of its military aggressively. The Zeon remnants and Spacenoid independence movement likewise did not back down, and were even more aggressive in their dissent against the Federation. This increased polarization across the spectrum increased the political and social tensions among the territories of Earth and space, and neutral entities like Side 6 were having a much harder time not taking sides. In the midst of this lack of change in the status quo, Mineva vanished along with her closest allies after an agreement with the Federation to seal away the Unicorn Gundams and all psychoframe technology. The whole mess was just a tinder box waiting to explode, he thought grimly.

'Nothing has changed...' Chase lamented to himself, 'in a way... it's mercy that Amuro is not here to see where we're going...' He closed his eyes and sighed.

But then...

His comm began to beep. He changed his radio frequency to match the incoming call. Soon enough, he was greeted with the visage of the Ra Cailum's famed One Year War captain, Noa Bright. "Captain Bright, sir," Chase greeted.

"I see the exercise is complete. How did the trainees fare?" Bright inquired.

Chase just shook his head. "They're making progress," Chase said, "but the candidate pool is becoming less and less promising. Morale is low, and it feels like that fewer and fewer pilots are joining because they actually want to fly."

"That may be. But who knows?" Bright remarked. "However, there is another matter that has come up."

Chase then closed his helmet visor. "What's going on?"

"There's an emergency alert being sent out." Bright reached over and tapped something on his command seat's arm rest before the information was relayed to Chase.

The young Delta Plus commander opened the window and read over the message. As he did, his face took on a frowning, troubled expression. 'An illegal research project involving a stolen mobile suit,' he thought with exasperation, 'as if we didn't have enough of this jazz...'

"Captain Bright," Chase looked back, "you know what this means."

"Crux, return to the ship for rearmament and your next mission briefing," Bright ordered, "the Ra Cailum will be going on combat alert soon."

"Roger that, sir," Chase acknowledged, "but what about the noobies?"

"Send them back to base," Bright said. "They've done a good job, but they're not ready for this kind of work."

"Aw, c'mon! Why do we have to go back to base?!" one of them complained.

"Yeah! We can hold our own just as well!" the other shot back.

"Not with your flying today," Chase shot back. "The rest of you are to return to Luna II for debriefing," he ordered, "that's a direct order. This is now Londo Bell jurisdiction."

"Yes, sir..." both rookies muttered as they turned and flew back to their designated carrier. Chase watched them go before turning back to Bright.

"This is Crux, returning to the carrier." The Delta Plus flew back to the ship. As he flew though, Chase couldn't help but wonder what kind of experimental suit was on the loose at this point. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same..." the Londo Bell commander grimaced. He glanced back at the carrier ahead of him, not knowing just how much his life was going to change.


Magallanica, Side 3, Republic of Zeon

Banagher glanced at the form of the mobile suit he had once piloted, now deemed a forbidden technology, with a forlorn expression on his face.

The Unicorn Gundam had been stripped of much of its armament and sealed up with restraining tape and bolts to prevent its movement. It's true that Mineva made an agreement with the Federation government to seal away the Unicorn and the Banshee from the world's prying eyes, but she had stopped short of actually dismantling them. Nevertheless, Mineva and Captain Otto agreed that there was too much unknown about the psychoframe's true origins and capabilities, and that they might have breached a realm of the divine that no mortal should have control over.

Banagher thought to himself, 'did I really go too far?' Nothing had really changed, other than an increase in public fear and suspicion of Newtypes. While Mineva delivered her speech exposing years of the Federation's coverup of Laplace's Box and their abuse of power stemming from it, the powers to be were quick to shift public scrutiny from the scandal to the raw power of time manipulation and psychic manifestation that the Unicorn displayed through its psychoframe. Naturally, many became afraid of this newfound power, and thus the public in Earth and space allowed the Federation to maintain the status quo, out of a shared fear that the psychoframe had become too much to handle. This necessitated him and Mineva having to move Magallanica and the Nahel Argama to the Republic of Zeon to avoid the Federation forces sent to capture them. Now they could only work from the shadows to keep the Federation and Zeon from engaging in further hostilities with one another, and to seal away the psychoframe technology so that neither side would be able to exploit it.

"What are we supposed to do now, Unicorn?" Banagher asked his mobile suit.

The Unicorn was supposed to be a symbol of hope and a blessed future. Now it invoked fear and raw power that those in both the EFSF and Zeon wanted either destroyed or controlled. Thanks to the Federation media blitz, both sides had more justification for their hostility and entrenchment. As the Federation central government solidified its power and stripped more powers and sovereignty from its member states, Zeon likewise exploited the fallout from the Laplace Incident, using the Unicorn as evidence of the Federation's destructive intent, and Laplace's Box as justification for its radical brand of Spacenoid sovereignty, which advocated for even more war between Earth and space. To Banagher, this seemed wrong. Very wrong.

"Father... Grandfather..." Banagher shook his head, "where did we go wrong?" There had to be an answer. An answer to the question.

The sound of footsteps behind him caused him to turn, coming face to face with the woman whom he had made the difficult decision with.

"Banagher..." Mineva Lao Zabi said his name.

Banagher had a solemn look on his face. "Where did we go wrong?" he asked softly.

"We did not go wrong on any aspect," the princess admitted. "It was something else that interfered. Unfortunately, I don't know what did..."

Banagher and Mineva just stared at each other, unable to say anything else. However, after a minute of silence, Banagher's lips quivered as he tried to hold it in.

She stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm sorry, Banagher..."

Banagher finally let it out, hugging Mineva in return and crying. He tears fell onto Mineva's orange hair. Mineva felt tears coming to her own face and she buried her face in Banagher's neck, weeping quietly in time with him.

The both of them felt that they had failed in some manner. Now, because of that, the nations of Earth and space were going to pay the price going into the next century. If the Republic of Zeon folded, the Federation would undoubtedly move to strip the other colonies and nations of their autonomy in centralizing power. Unfortunately, the leaders of Zeon themselves had their own plans, having manipulated and created the Sleeves from behind the scenes. If Foreign Minister Monaghan Bakharov had his way and became the Prime Minister, no doubt that he would exploit Laplace's Box to justify his militaristic version of Spacenoid independence, establishing the Side Co-Prosperity Sphere and sanctioning the nations of Earth to try and starve them out. Needless to say, those nations would never overlook such actions, and the Federation would feed off of the resentment to justify its own militarism and power. In the end, it seemed that Full Frontal had won. From across the hallway, the couple were watched by a certain blond pilot, wearing the uniform of his former service that now sought to prosecute him.

Riddhe ran a hand through his hair, unable to believe how much things had changed. At first it seemed like it was for the better, but now... now he didn't know what to think.

"What did we miss?" Riddhe felt something was missing, but he did not know anymore. After the Laplace Incident, any illusions he held about the Earth Federation's righteousness was shattered. All they were concerned about was to double down and dominate the Earth Sphere, completely doing away with any semblance of morality or democratic ideals. That, and with the populace of space being divided on the issues of Laplace's Box and the Unicorn Gundam, it seemed that both the Federation and select radicals inside Zeon would get what they wanted, one way or the other. Now Riddhe and the rest of the Nahel Argama were on the run, designated as renegades to be hunted down with Banagher, Mineva, and their sympathetic Zeon followers. While the Republic of Zeon agreed to shelter them, Riddhe knew that they had their own agendas, and if the Federation did not dissolve them first, it was only a matter of time before Bakharov would find a way to dispose of them as obstacles to his plans.

While the Unicorn and Banshee were still intact, there was a fear of their powers going out of control, and no one wanted to find out what would happen to either of them or their pilots if their powers increased. All in all, it left the Mineva Faction in a vulnerable position... and it really ate at Riddhe.

None of them had any idea just how much things were going to change though...

Chapter 1 End


And thus begins my Season 2 project proper. After much wrangling around, with the advent of Gundam Narrative, it gave me and Titanic X a fresh premise to begin to work around. There is a larger conspiracy behind the Universal Century, but the Mineva Faction is isolated and badly demoralized. However, the events regarding the Ming Institute and the Dracon are about to set into motion a series of events that will completely redefine the UC era to come.

Anyways, read, fave, and review as you please!

Thanks, and God Bless!