Chapter 2: How Many Miles to the Battlefield? (Part 1)
Heyo, it's The Draigg here again! Just to do a little bit of house cleaning before we get to the reactions and commentary, I should note that the transcription of the episode will be in bold text, while commentary and narrative stuff will be in normal text. I'm sure you guys would figure that out anyway once you started reading, but I wanted to be absolutely sure you understood that. Now, let's get on with the reactions!
XXX
A title card is displayed, showing the title, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080, before fading to black.
We fade up to a shot of a Principality of Zeon submarine cruising under the chilly Antarctic waters. It carries a strike team of Zeon mobile suit commandos, named Steiner, Garcia, Misha, and Andy. A voice starts talking over the shots of the sub.
"5 knots to target point. Cyclops Unit, ready for launch." calls out the operator of the Zeon sub.
"Cyclops Unit ready for launch." Steiner calmly says.
The Zeon operator continues his launch preparations. "Launch bays immersed. Open hatches number 2, number 4, number 1, number 3. Launch Cyclops Unit."
Hatches on the bottom of the sub open, and a team of Hygogg mobile suits dive out. Each one of them is colored sea blue, while Steiner's is colored darker, as per his leadership status.
"Ooooh, those things are so cool!" cheered Ruby.
Yang enthusiastically nodded. "Yeah, looks like they're packing a lot of power!"
"Those things are a lot sleeker than the mechs Atlas uses." Blake commented.
"It makes sense, considering they're being used underwater." Weiss added.
Steiner opens comms to the rest of his team. "All units keep depth at 150 and head for the target point."
"Roger." the others respond.
"We're lagging 15 minutes behind schedule," Steiner notes, pulling a cigarette out of the box with his teeth. "Accelerate to 30 knots. We'll land at 1500 hours as planned. Reports say there's a fog on the surface and the temperature is -12 degrees."
The rest of the squad preps themselves for battle. Andy grooms his hair in the reflection of his monitors. Misha takes a swig from a flask dangling from the top of his cockpit.
"The insides of those things look clunkier than the Paladins I've stolen. No hologram readouts or anything." Roman observed. He got some mean glances from nearly everybody by saying that.
"Misha, you can warm up but don't go nuts with the booze," Steiner tiredly says, as if this has happened before. Misha chuckles and puts the flask back.
"Now that's just a plain lie," Roman snorted. "I fought you brats with at least two tumblers of the good stuff in me while piloting that Paladin."
"Yeah, and we kicked your ass. So what does that say about you?" was Yang's retort.
Roman sneered at Yang while Neo had a small chuckle at her partner's expense.
"I'm reading a warm current flow from the iceberg," reports Garcia, tying a headband around his forehead. "This undersea passage may lead us into the base."
"Garcia, Misha, proceed ahead on course as planned. Andy and I'll go check out the passage." orders Steiner.
The squad replies, "Roger."
As the team breaks up, Andy and Steiner's Hygoggs enter an underwater tunnel. Meanwhile, Garcia and Misha launch themselves to the surface, beginning their assault on an Earth Federation base. Misha draws first blood, launching several missiles from a pod attached to his Hygogg's arm. He takes out a few hangars and buildings with them, before sliding to a halt. Garcia, meanwhile, starts firing on the base's runway, and also crushes an airplane with his mobile suit's arm. The base is thrown into a complete panic as sirens blare.
"Whoa, missile and laser arms!" Nora cried, her eyes gleaming in excitement. "We should get those!"
"That would be problematic for a number of reasons, Nora." Ren chided.
"We're under attack by two Gogg-types. Under attack by two Gog-types. Brown Unit, set up a defensive line. Transport team, hurry up and get those containers loaded!" A Federation operator orders from the base's command center. Several GM mobile suits launch out of underground bunkers to meet the attacking Hygoggs.
"Those ones look a lot closer to what we're fielding at the moment." Winter said, observing the blockier white and grey GM mobile suits.
"We still got two more left! Even if we hurry, it'll take ten minutes to load them!" a worker from the cargo crew reports.
"You've got five minutes!" the Federation operator barks back.
"Get real!" the worker shoots back. The shot shows the crates being slowly loaded down a sloping elevator, towards a waiting space rocket.
Steiner and Andy come out of the water near a large maintenance tunnel. Meanwhile, Misha is attacking a GM mobile suit. He manages to blast apart the GM's hand holding its rifle. The disabled hand starts to break off while the gun is still firing, and the bullets manage to hit the GM cockpit by accident, putting the suit out of commission. Misha chuckles and pops the lid off of his flask.
"Well, that's just plain unfortunate..." sighed Pyrrha.
Jaune scratched his head. "I guess they don't have very good armor plating."
A short distance away, Garcia is pinned down behind a destroyed cargo plane by two GMs. Sliding out of cover, he quickly grabs one of the GMs to use as a shield. After firing a few stray shots at its comrade, the other GM stops firing. Garcia makes sure to fire on it, making it disabled. Then he finishes off the GM he was using as cover. Garcia can't help but smirk to himself.
"That was even worse…" Pyrrha murmured.
"Those soldiers mustn't be very well trained," said Ironwood. "Otherwise they wouldn't have shot their own ally."
"Hey Captain, I don't see it in the transport plane." he reports to Steiner.
"Same story at the hangars," Misha adds, looking into a partially destroyed hangar. "I think these ground targets are all decoys."
"Andy, what's happening on your end?" Steiner calmly asks, while taking cover from a GM in the tunnel.
Andy's Hygogg is shown ascending a cargo elevator. It's slightly battle damaged, with only one missile pod on his mobile suit remaining. "I'm on a lift near the exit," he reports.
"Check it out. Watch your step." says Steiner.
"Yes sir!" Andy crisply replies.
Andy's Hygogg makes it to the top of the lift, revealing it to be the same on the cargo was on a few minutes ago. The shuttle's engines are starting to smoke, getting ready to launch. "Captain, they've got a shuttle getting ready to launch. It could be on the containers they're loading into it!" he reports.
"Can you send me a visual?" Steiner asks, having taken out the GM that had him pinned. He's now ascending the elevator too.
"Just a still, I've got video problems." Andy says, his image crackling on Steiner's view screen.
"Fine, do it," says Steiner. He sees an image of the crates being loaded onto the rocket on his screen. "Keep it from launching! You're authorized to use your missile!"
"I wonder how big the explosion would be if a missile really hit that thing…" Yang idly wondered aloud.
"If it was loaded with combustible dust, the whole base would be devastated. It's a risky thing they're planning to do." was Weiss' reply.
"Yes sir!" Andy says. He readies his missile pod to shoot, but, he's forced behind cover by a GM. "They've got a GM covering it, I'm pinned down! It's gonna get away!"
The crates finished being loaded onto the rocket's shuttle, and the hatches close. Steiner is getting closer to Andy on the lift.
"Hold on, Andy, I'm coming." reassures Steiner.
The launch tower pulls away from the rocket and the shuttle. The engines are starting to smoke more.
"They've started the countdown, there's no time!" Andy exclaims. "I'm gonna go for it!"
"Andy, wait!" Steiner yells over his comm line.
Andy pulls himself out of cover, firing a few small shots in the direction of the GM. He then aims his missile pod at the rocket and gets ready to fire. However, the GM fires on him again, hitting Andy's Hygogg straight in the chest. The inside of the cockpit is shredded by gunfire, Andy included.
"Those bullets hit him directly right off the bat. Did he not have Aura or something?" Ruby asked.
"Correct," said the voice out of nowhere. "The world where this show has come from has no Aura nor Dust to speak of."
The room went silent as the episode briefly paused to let that sink in for everyone.
"Is… is that even possible?" Yang couldn't help but ask.
"It's fiction, kiddo. Anything's possible." said Roman, before taking another drag of his cigar.
"Well yeah, this is, but I wonder if a world like that really exists out there…" Yang mused further.
Ironwood grimaced slightly. "Combat would require a stronger breed of men and women if none of them can use Aura at all."
Winter nodded. "I wonder how they handle it all…"
Roman gave a shrug in Winter's direction. "Same way anybody handles bad shit. Just surviving. There's not a whole lot to it. You'd think you military types would know that."
That earned Roman two looks of scorn from both Ironwood and Winter.
"It's a shame that people have to fight each other that way…" lamented Pyrrha. Jaune gave Pyrrha a small pat on the shoulder at that.
"They must be pretty brave then, if they have nothing to back them up…" quietly said Ruby, with a mix of both sadness and admiration in her voice.
Blake nodded to Ruby's comment. "People are capable of a lot of things when pushed up against the wall."
A rather somber mood filled the room as the feature resumed playing on the screen.
"Andy!" Steiner yells, getting to the top of the elevator just in time to see Andy's mobile suit fall over. The missile pod fires off, jostled by the impact of the fall. The explosion launches Andy and Steiner's mobile suits out of the elevator area. They couldn't stop the rocket from launching.
The rest of Cyclops Team looks on as the shuttle flies through the air, towards its destination. It's headed for outer space.
Amid the ruins of the base, Steiner has climbed out of his mobile suit and is now holding Andy's body in his arms. He grimaces, before unleashing an anguished yell to the sky.
Ironwood frowned at that sight. It felt sadly familiar.
On that note, the shot pans to the sky and then space, where the opening credits start to play.
As the (rather upbeat) opening theme plays, it shows images of the crest of Earth. Then, it moves to a shot of a space colony, Libot, rotating in space. Then, daily life on the colony is shown, with people commuting through the city to work, and school children running to their classes. Not much is different from your average town. But instead of Earth, it is space where people are born and raised… And die.
"I wonder if we'll ever be able to build such things someday." Weiss couldn't help but say that, looking in awe at the space colony.
"Perhaps someday, sister…" Winter said, equally in awe.
After the credits sequence, focus is shifted on the school children shown in the credits. More specifically, Alfred and his friends Telcott and Chay. Al sticks his tongue out at a girl named Dorothy before sitting with his friends to have lunch.
"Al, c'mon! They've got hamburgers today!" Telcott says to Al as he sits down with drinks.
"Aw, it's just that synth meat again…" Al scowls as he gives his friends drinks.
"That's the third time this week. I'm getting sick, it's gross!" complains Chay.
"I'm with this kid, it sounds terrible!" announced Nora to nobody in particular.
"Don't they already have meat like that made out of plants or something?" Yang asked.
"Yeah, but only Ren eats that. I don't understand the appeal at all!" replied Nora.
Ren gave Nora a patient look. "It's healthier and tastes the same as normal meat. If you'd just try it, I know you'd like it, Nora."
Nora shook her head. "No way! I'd know the difference. It just wouldn't be the same!"
Ren just sighed and dropped the subject. That would be a battle for another day.
"C'mon, complaining won't make it taste better." Telcott teases.
"I wish I was like you, you can eat anything you want…" Chay grumbles.
"My mom says there's less stuff because of the war with the Zeon and the Federation." notes Telcott.
"Blockades," Ironwood flatly stated. "A classic technique. Starving out the enemy is always the preferable solution than fighting them."
"But General Ironwood Sir, those are just normal people!" observed Ruby.
Ironwood let out a small sigh. "People always shoulder the burden of the government's actions, civilian or not."
Al takes a sip of his drink and audibly cringes from the taste. Then, hearing Telcott's remark, he asks, "Hey, what do you mean with the war against the Zeon and the Federation? What does that have to do with us at all?"
"It keeps the supply ships from coming in all the time," explains Telcott, before taking a bite of his synthetic meat. Looking at his friend's lunches, he then says, "Hey, I'll eat those if you don't want 'em, okay?"
"Sure…" Al and Chay reply at the same time. Telcott puts the lunches under his tray, while a smirk grows on Chay's face.
"I've got something really cool to show you," Chay says, adjusting his chair. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. "Ta-da! A Federal Forces rank badge! A real one!"
Al takes immediately to the red and gold ranking badge. "Oh wow, can I hold it?"
"Just a little. My big brother's a mobile suit pilot." Chay brags. Al takes the badge from Chay's hand and looks it over.
Al asks, "He gave it to you?" while Dorothy can't help but listen in, annoyed in the background.
"Uh-huh, and it was a lotta trouble too." replies Chay. By now, Dorothy is walking over to the group.
"Cool, I don't believe it! A real badge from a Fed pilot!" Al gushes.
Ironwood rubbed his temples. "Uniform parts aren't meant to be souvenirs like that. This Federation army is hardly impressive so far."
Dorothy choses this time to barge in. "He's making it up. The Federation doesn't even have any mobile suits, you dummies."
There's a beat as the group watches Dorothy walk past them. Tolcott is still eating his pilfered lunches.
"Man, girls don't know anything," Chay finally comments.
"Yeah," Al agrees, "she's just an idiot. The Federation has mobile suits. Don't act like such a know-it-all!"
That comment gets Dorothy to storm back over to the table. "They do not have mobile suits!" she protests.
"Yeah, well, they didn't have them before but now they do." Chay replies smugly.
Dorothy huffs, "You're just making it up!"
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" Yang chanted.
"Chay's right!" Al says getting out of his chair. "I should know, as a matter of fact I've seen mobile suits!" Chay and Telcott gasp at this "revelation" (read: blatant lie). Regardless, Al continues, "I'll have you know my dad works for a shipping company and he showed me one at the space port. It was a mobile suit being shipped to Side 7."
"Hmpth. Liar," challenges Dorothy.
"The mobile suit I saw was black and big and looked really tough, so there!" Al smugly counters.
"And my girlfriend lives in Vacuo, you just haven't met her." Jaune snarked. That got a laugh out of Nora and a chuckle out of Ren. However, Pyrrha looked slightly unhappy with that joke.
"Where's your proof?" Dorothy immediately asks.
"Proof?" Al parrots.
"I knew it, you were just fibbing about the whole thing. I'll bet that pilot rank badge is a fake too!" Dorothy follows up.
"Why you…!" Chay angrily says as he stands up and grabs Dorothy.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" Dorothy replies in turn. Then, with the tact that only children can have, she then kicks Chay straight in the balls.
"Ooohhhh shit!" Yang cried. "I like this girl's style!"
Jaune visibly winced at the sight of some family jewels being damaged.
As Chay slumps to the floor in agony, Al tries to grab Dorothy to retaliate. But in the process, he trips over Chay, and drags Dorothy down with him. Al and Dorothy start to throw elementary school-level insults at each other as they fight on the ground.
The shot fades into Chay and Al sitting at the front of the class, while Dorothy looks like she's crying to the teacher.
"Dorothy's such a jerk…" Al grumbles.
Chay agrees. "Yeah, they don't come worse than her… Dumbo, she doesn't even know a real badge when she sees one! I'd like to show her up…"
"Get real," Telcott says, "She'll just talk you to death". On that note, Dorothy sticks her tongue out at the boys.
Yang nudged Weiss with her elbow at that comment. That just earned Yang a heavy eye roll from Weiss.
A while later, the boys are walking home from school, down the street.
"We need proof to show 'em, like a snapshot or video of the mobile suit." Chay schemes. "Hey Al, didn't you say you were meeting your dad today?"
Al stops to reply to Chay, who's standing in front of him. "Uh-huh."
Chay briefly smirks, before the scene cuts to Al running home. Running up the walkway, he calls out, "Hi mom!"
"Hi there, honey," Al's mom replies as she's watering plants. As Al runs inside to his room, she calls after him. "Alfred, weren't you going straight over to the space port?"
"I forgot something," Al hurriedly says, packing a video camera in his bag. Running out the door, he shouts out "Bye, mom!"
Winter raised an eyebrow. "Is she not going to take him there? He's a child!"
"Meh, kids learn how to handle themselves early if you let them. They're kinda like dogs that way. Right, Neo?" said Roman. Neo nodded at her partner's rather questionable advice.
As Al rides the bus to the space port, he thinks about what Chay told him earlier, "Just get some pictures of that mobile suit from the space port. That'll be our proof. Do it, and I'll give you the rank badge!"
Now at the space port, Al makes his way past the crowds of people walking. At the entrance, he goes to a ticket counter to get an entrance pass.
"Alfred Izuruha, age eleven, code number 0039295MC. Okay, here you go. Your father's ship'll be at gate 23. I think it'll be docking in about 10 minutes." the counter clerk says, handing Al his entrance pass.
"Thanks!" Al says, running off. His hat briefly flies off due to low gravity, but he grabs it before scampering off again.
Ruby idly commented, "I wonder how it is to be all floaty like that. Hey Weiss—"
"No Ruby, we're not using my Gravity Dust for that!" Weiss firmly and swiftly cut off.
By now, Al is sneaking around the back area of the space port, looking around for evidence of a mobile suit. Hiding behind some crates, he uses his camera to zoom in on a nearby shuttle. The cargo being unloaded is the crate that was onboard the rocket that launched earlier.
"Darn it all…" Al mutters to himself. "There's nothing at all that even looks like a mobile suit…"
Al climbs out from his hiding spot, and tries to sneak away. However, he is then caught by a rather large and imposing space port worker.
"You there, what's a little boy doing here?" the worker asks as he walks up to Al.
Thinking quickly, Al thinks of an excuse. "I'm looking for a bathroom. Is there one in here?"
"Go straight out of the hallway, at the lifts," the worker says. "The third door. And don't wet yourself."
As Al walks back out of that area, he calls back, "Thanks mister!"
"Hey, what's going on up there? Anything wrong?" a different dock worker asks the large one.
"Relax, a kid wandered in. Everything's okay up here." the large worker replies back.
Taking that answer, the other worker then says to the others "All right guys, on with the inspection."
As the screen fades to black, the crate begins to open. On the inside, the head of a mobile suit is briefly seen. It has two antennae on the front of it, like horns on an ancient battle helmet.
Ironwood massaged his temples again. "Is there seriously no security in place to stop that from happening…?"
INTERMISSION CARD
XXX
As you may have guessed from the ending point of this chapter, I'm going to be handling each episode in halves. Otherwise, I feel that the chapters would run on for too long, and you would probably lose interest in reading something that lengthy. So, the chapter is being cut here. But at least there's the next chapter to look forward to!
This is The Draigg, and I'm signing off for now!
