Chapter 5: Reflections in a Brown Eye (Part 2)
And here we are, about to wrap up the second episode of Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket! Again, I highly recommend to those of you who haven't seen it yet to go check it out. I'd say that it makes a pretty good introduction to the Universal Century of Gundam, if you don't want to start at the original series. Hopefully, I'm inspiring some of you guys to go watch it with this story. Speaking of this story, let's get it on already!
XXX
INTERMISSION CARD
Al is looking downtrodden as he sits in a leather armchair. He's now in his school principal's office, watching as the principal types in something on her computer at her desk.
Pulling up Al's grades, the principal turns to face him. "Alfred Izuruha."
"…Yeah?" Al timidly replies.
"I think you know why I've called you here. The scores on your tests are bad. Very disappointing… Algebra: D+, Language: C-, Science: C-… Look at me when I'm talking to you, young man!" scolds the principal. Al picks up his head to look directly at the principal.
"If these scores continue like this, I will either have to consult a counselor or call your mother in here. Now which will it be?" continues the principal.
Al couldn't help but groan at the mention of his mother.
"Now which will it be? Your counselor, or your mother?"
"Now that's a tough choice…" Ruby lamented
"I'd go for the counselor." Jaune said. "My mom would rip my head off for sure."
"Oh, I doubt your mother is that bad." Pyrrha said.
"Well, I wouldn't mind you meeting her. You'd see it then," was Jaune's reply.
"Oooohhhh!" Nora called out to her friends, teasing them.
"This reminds me, Nora," Ren chimed in. "We need to go over your test scores too."
Nora seized up at the thought of it. "Whoa, hey, what's that? It's the show! Let's keep watching it and not talk about that, alright?"
Jaune gave Ren an appreciative look for getting Nora to stop. Ren gave him a small nod and smile in return.
Al doesn't respond, and the scene transitions back to Al's classroom. As Al walks in with head hung low, his friends notice his return.
"Hey look, Telcott, he's back!" Chay points out.
As Telcott and Chay bring Al over to the window they were looking out of, Chay continues to prattle on. "Hey man, you're still alive? What did that crazy old bat say?"
Leaning out of the window, Al finally says something. "Aw geez, she says that she's gonna call my mom about how bad my grades are… When my mom finds out, she's gonna kill me and then ground me for the rest of my life…"
"Geez…" Telcott moans.
"Gosh Al, your mom's really tough." observes Chay.
"Oh boy oh boy, you can say that again." bemoans Al.
Telcott places a friendly hand on Al's shoulder. "Hey Al, cheer up!"
The scene transitions from there to later that night, at Al's home. Even though it's dinnertime, Al's mood has not improved since earlier in the day.
"You look depressed, Al." Al's mother observes over dinner. "Problems at school?"
"No…" deflects Al. "Not really."
"Well alright then." says Al's mom. "Your test scores should come out soon, right?"
Ruby felt Weiss looking in her direction. She struggled to not look in the heiress' judgmental eyes.
Even later still, Al is still moaning about the fact that his grades are terrible.
As he walks into his room and sets up his collapsible bed, Al muses, "She must be psychic…"
Flopping onto his bed, Al stares at the ceiling. He can't help but remember and daydream about the Zaku he saw the other day. It's still very clear in its mind, as it takes off and flies away.
Suddenly, Al grins. He's made up his mind. He's going out to see that Zaku that got shot down again.
Turning off the lights in his room, Al opens the window and climbs out. Shimmying down the tree next to it, Al makes it to the ground and starts to sneak past the fence that divides his and Chris' houses.
"Hold it!" Chris' voice calls out. Al jumps a little in shock.
Al begins to excuse himself, before trailing off once that he sees that it's Chris. "I'm sorry, I…"
"What do you think you're doing out here this late?" Chris asks with a small smile.
"Seriously!" protested Weiss. "No wonder he's doing badly in school!"
"It's just a show, you should really just relax." Yang said, trying to calm Weiss down. Not that it did too much, considering the contempt still visible on Weiss' face.
"Uhhh… I'm meeting my friends for a dare. Please don't tell my mom that you saw me, okay?" lies Al.
"Oh, like a secret mission, huh?" asks Chris.
Al nods. "Do ya promise?"
Chirs hummed in reply. "Okay, I'll promise you!"
Taking this chance, Al begins to run away from the fence.
"Hey Al!" Chris calls to him. "If you bring me along next time, I'll be sure not to tell anyone!"
Al stops in his tracks and considers this. "Well, the truth is…" Al begins, before thinking back.
In his mind, Al still sees the pilot's face clearly. He remembers the words that he said before running off. "Keep this a secret, okay?"
"The truth is…" Al says, "That girls aren't allowed. They can't come. See ya!" At that, Al begins to run away again, leaving Chris hanging.
As she watches Al hop over another fence and run down the sidewalk, Chris says to herself, "Girls aren't allowed, huh?" From the look on her face, she seems to be taking this in stride.
Al keeps on running through his neighborhood, past all the dimly buzzing street lights and houses with their lights off. It doesn't take long for him to reach the forested hill where the Zaku crash landed. It's still there, having not been fully hauled away yet.
Climbing onto the leg of the Zaku, Al flashes around the flash light that he took with him. "Hey, looks like they took all the weapons away…" he thinks to himself out loud.
Continuing onwards, Al reaches the cockpit, its hatch still open. Al looks amazed as he checks out the inside area, seeing the pilot's seat and all the levers and controls. All of the sudden, as Al leans in to get a closer look, he accidentally falls into the seat. The hatch to the cockpit closes after him.
"Damn! What the…!" Al exclaims as he flails around in the darkened cockpit. Fortunately for him, his random thrashing pays off.
The cockpit's screens and interior lights turn on, after Al accidentally kicks a control panel. Al looks quite surprised at what he managed to accomplish by sheer accident. "Hey, this thing is still working!" he comments to himself.
"That's… irresponsible, to say the least." observed Blake.
"No kidding." Weiss agreed.
"But hey, it's the law of dibs." Yang noted. "If you find something in the woods, it's automatically yours."
"There's no such law, and you know it!" Weiss bitterly said.
"I wish there was…" Ruby moaned from her chair. If only she was allowed to take home the cool stuff she found outside. Like that one weird misshapen hornet's nest, or the cool stick that reminded her of Magnhild. Nora would've liked that as a gift for sure.
"What is the problem with security in this world?!" an exasperated Ironwood said.
Sitting up in the pilot's seat, Al chuckles to himself as he looks around the cockpit. Then, remembering something, he roots around his pockets until he finds the thing he's looking for. Al laughs even more to himself as he sticks on the pilot badge that he got to his shirt. As Al leans back into the chair, he begins to flat out laugh at all the luck that he's having.
As the shot pans away from the outside of the mobile suit upwards, Al's laughter fades away into the dark night sky.
Meanwhile, back over with Cyclops Team, they are preparing a small commercial vessel in a battleship's hangar. As the crate with the mobile suit parts is being loaded in, Bernie goes over the controls and panels of the ship's cockpit. Suddenly, he hears people talking to the side.
"Hey, careful with his arm now!" admonishes one soldier to another.
Turning around, Bernie sees two Zeon soldiers carry a corpse dressed in a space suit into the cockpit. As the soldiers strap the body into the co-pilot's seat, Bernie can't help but ask, "Uh, who's that?"
"It's a body." a soldier replies, before turning to his comrade. "Okay, we're done."
"Hey buddy," Bernie wryly comments to the corpse. "Guess you had some bad luck too, huh?"
After placing the dead guy's hand on the controls, Bernie looks back out of the windshield. He can't help but gasp in shock as he notices the soldiers aiming a rifle at the cockpit. As the soldiers shoot the corpse in the head, Bernie gasps at what he sees.
"Whoa!" Ruby cried in shock. Her fellow Beacon Academy students let out various gasps of surprise as well. They certainly covered up the small giggle Neo let out upon seeing the body's face getting blown in.
"Why'd you do that to a corpse?!" exclaimed Yang.
"Makes things look more authentic." Roman breezily replied.
Ironwood was loathe to admit that Roman Torchwick had a point. "Especially if traveling through a battlefield."
"Barbaric…" Pyrrha muttered under her breath.
"What the…?" Bernie asks himself, looking over at the now unidentifiable corpse. His face contorts with a mix of horror and shock as he looks at the hole in the body's space suit helmet.
"Special forces vessel, clear to launch." comes a voice over Bernie's radio.
"Roger." Bernie says, snapping out of his look.
The cargo shuttle looks pitifully small compared to the rest of the ships of Zeon's Von Helsing fleet. Against the cruisers and battleships, Bernie's small ship might as well be a fly against a rhinoceros.
On the bridge of the fleet's flagship, Zeon operators are beginning to launch their orders.
"Fourteen minutes to operations start," one member of the bridge crew states. "Beginning Minovsky Particle broadcast."
"He's here," Captain Von Helsing, the fleet's namesake, notes. "Special forces out in front."
"Special forces vessel, launch out and proceed towards Side Six!" the bridge crewmember orders.
"Roger." Bernie copies. Firing the thrusters on his cargo ship, Bernie flies past the ships of the Von Helsing fleet.
Bernie looks anxious as he looks at the colony on display on his computer screen. He's heading back to the place where he got shot down.
"Five minutes to operation start," reports the bridge crewman.
In response, Captain Von Helsing orders, "Launch mobile suit teams now!"
"Launching mobile suit teams!" the bridge crewman announced.
Various Zeonic mobile suits detach from their home ships. All sorts of models fly past Bernie's small freighter. Gelgoogs, Zakus, Rick Doms, and the like all zoom past the Special Forces ship.
"There they go…" Bernie mutters to himself as he watches the mobile suits. He then sees a bunch of lights and flashes go off near the space colony, as the fleet's attack has started. "They've started… Aughh!"
Bernie yelps as debris from a destroyed mobile suit comes too close for comfort near his ship. The arm of a destroyed Zaku collides with the back of Bernie's ship, making it shake a bit.
"Grrr… let's do it!" Bernie grunts, putting on his game face.
The cargo ship begins to fly through the skirmish between Zeon's forces and the Earth Federation's mobile suits. Zakus and GMs are hit and slashed left and right. A Rick Dom and a Gelgoog manage to hold their ground against a few GMs. The Gelgoog in particular manages to get the jump on a few Federation GMs by hiding a solar panel and then ambushing them.
Bernie is visibly sweating as he soars through the battle. "C'mon, you pile of junk!"
The Zeon forces are beginning to route the Federation mobile suits. GM after GM are destroyed as Bernie tries to fly his way around them.
"Commercial transport Aqua Verde requesting landing clearance. Commercial transport Aqua Verde requesting landing clearance! Aughh!" Bernie yells into his radio, right before a particle beam shot shoots right past his ship. "Aqua Verde here, please come in! I need landing clearance NOW!"
The controllers at the colony's space port hear his call. The gate to port number four opens, waiting to receive Bernie's ship. Guidance lights are shined to help guide in the cargo vessel.
"It worked!" Bernie smiles to himself.
As Bernie flies into gate number four, the Gelgoog makes a strafing run on the suits near it. A GM covers Bernie's ship, allowing it to get in. However, the GM is quickly destroyed against the Gelgoog's gunfire. Fortunately for Bernie though, he manages to pilot the ship safely into the hangar.
Meanwhile, inside the colony, Al wakes up inside the still online mobile suit's cockpit. He had fallen asleep there last night. As he opens his eyes, he notices the explosions of the nearby battle up in the sky.
"Whoa, a battle…" Al comments. "They're fighting right outside the colony…"
Al watches the battle a little more, before drifting off back to sleep.
Back at the space port, Bernie's ship pulls into the docking area, where it's then locked in place by large safety clamps. As soon as the airlock seals up and air is restored to the port, a customs official and a few port crew members come in.
Bernie climbs out of the ship's hatch, and immediately grimaces at the sight of the customs official waving him down to the official's mobile desk platform.
"Imagine if we had mobile desks!" Ruby gushed. "You wouldn't have to get up all day!"
"And you'd have all your class materials with you…" Weiss mused in agreement.
"Ugh, I think mobile lockers is good enough already..." Jaune groaned. There was no doubt in his mind that you could pull some mean pranks with a mobile desk like that.
Putting on his best fake smile, Bernie makes his way over to the official and says, "Ah geez, it's a mess out there. They got my buddy! …Sorry, but could you help get him for me?"
The dock workers in the background move to go retrieve the corpse from the cockpit. Meanwhile, the customs official asks, "Your passport and landing permit?"
"Boy, I sure wish the Riah government would be on top of this thing, if you know what I mean." Bernie complains. He takes the proper documents out of the binder he's carrying and slides them over to the customs official.
As the official checks the documents on his terminal, Bernie continues to talk. "I can't believe that mobile suits are fighting within the perimeter. They're gonna ruin my business, ya know?"
"Name and identification?" coolly asks the official.
"Uh, it's Walter Peterson. I.D. number PG4098376," rattles off Bernie.
"I need your flight manifest, invoice, and receiver's credentials." the official orders. Bernie hands over his binder to the official.
Turning around to look at the dock workers carrying the body, Bernie yells at them, "Hey, be careful! He's not a doll, you know!"
The official cuts off Bernie's yelling. "And your receiver's credentials?"
Bernie looks nervous. "Uhh, I'm sorry sir, that's all the papers I have..."
"Without credentials, we're going to have to inspect your cargo," the official informs Bernie.
"I'm not a—"
"Are you carrying something you wouldn't want us to see?"
"It's just drugs and hookers, officer!" Yang quipped. Nora, Jaune, and Ruby chuckled at her joke.
"You'd be surprised at how easy it is to smuggle that stuff," Roman said to nobody in particular.
"We get it, you're a criminal!" Yang groaned.
"I'm a man of wealth and taste, blondie!" Roman retorted with a shit-eating grin.
"No, that's not it at all!" Bernie says, trying to put on his charm. "Aww c'mon! It's just one form, I have the others."
"We're not doing this because we're bored!" the official snaps. "Now you get your papers ready!" Turning to the microphone on his platform, the official then barks, "This is platform B4-23! Inspection!"
Bernie barely manages to hold back an annoyed growl. All of the sudden, he's saved by a voice coming from behind the official.
"Wait, it's on time!" Steiner says, coming in the port with Garcia and Misha. "Start unloading her!"
"Yes sir!" Garcia and Misha reply simultaneously.
As the Cyclops Team members float towards the ship, the official yells, "Hey wait! We have to inspect that, don't touch it!"
Steiner scratches the back of his head as he floats over to the official's platform. "We're very sorry about this, sir. I'm here as a representative for the receiver." Steiner then digs around in his work jacket for something, and pulls out a piece of paper. "Here you go, the appropriate credentials."
The official looks over the paperwork. "Well, the forms seem to be accurate… But it's only applicable when it's completed and sent by the appropriate sender."
Steiner takes off his hat and holds it against his chest, trying to look honest and demure. "That's only some construction equipment in there," he explains. "But we have to get it in today, otherwise they'll hit us with late charges. I-if that happens, our company can face bankruptcy!"
Getting into the official's face, Steiner "desperately" cries, "And if that happens, I'll never be able to face my client! Please sir, you must understand! We don't have the time!"
"Oh, alright, alright!" the customs official relents.
"You mean it?" Steiner asks, overcome by fake tears. "Oh, thank you so much!"
"We're too busy with this battle and we've got ships waiting. Just have all your paperwork in order from now on!" warns the official.
"I don't see what's so hard about that," Winter said. Seeing the questioning looks Yang and Nora were giving her, she added. "Paperwork runs the world, you know."
Bernie looks absolutely amazed that Steiner was able to pull that off. His acting saved them from blowing their cover, after all.
Cut back to Al running down the street. As most people would tell you, falling asleep in the place you snuck out to until the morning was a bad idea. So, in that regard, Al sprinted as fast as he could back to his home.
"Oh man, I fell asleep!" Al moaned to himself. "Mom's gonna flip if she finds out about this!"
Weiss was almost at a loss for words. "You're… just a terrible child. The worst ever."
"Of all time?' Ruby asked.
"Indeed," Weiss nodded.
Al slid down a stairway's rail and started to wait at the edge of the sidewalk, looking for an opening to cross. A truck carrying some cargo dive past as Al jogged in place. Seeing an opening, Al runs across the street.
A loud horn blares as an identical looking truck swerves out of the way and slams on the brakes. Al barely manages to duck out of the way in time. "Wow, that was really close!"
As two other similar looking trucks come to a stop behind the one that almost hit Al, the driver leans out of the window and starts yelling.
"You stupid kid, are ya trying to get yourself killed?!" Bernie shouts.
"Honestly, I'm surprised he isn't dead yet," Weiss groaned.
"Yeah, he doesn't have a sense of self-preservation, does he?" added Blake.
"Huh?" Bernie and Al gasp at the same time, recognizing each other immediately. After briefly looking at Al, Bernie ducks his head back into the cab of the truck and starts driving off, the other trucks following closely after him.
Al remains on the ground, still surprised that he ran into Bernie again. As he watches the trucks drive away, a sudden flash of inspiration crosses Al's face. He starts to run after the last truck in the convoy, Garcia's. Even with all his sprinting, he's still a distance behind.
Fortunately for him, Garcia's truck stops at a stoplight. That allows Al to close the distance, running as fast as he can. Once the light goes green, the truck starts to catch up with the others. But, that one break is all that Al needed to catch up. Reaching out with his arms, Al manages to grab and hold onto the railing of the truck's trailer.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, Al says to himself, "They're back! The Zeon soldiers came back to this colony! They're back again!"
Al begins to laugh at his luck. Not only is he going to meet real soldiers again, he's going to have a chance to run into the pilot he met in the forest once more. Al's laughter fades away as the shot zooms out, showing the colony. At the sight of the city, the episode fades away into the end credits.
The lights brightened again at the end of the episode, signifying that it was indeed over.
"Urgh, Al is one of the stupidest children I've ever seen!" Weiss complained.
"Really? I can name a few more," Roman jeered.
"Again, we just need to wait for his character development," observed Ren.
"Forget about him, what about that space fight? It was awesome!" cheered Nora, punching the air in excitement.
"Yeah, it was pretty cool!" agreed Ruby.
"I liked it when they shot the body in the head," voiced Neo's Scroll. Nearly everybody groaned at that, to which Neo responded by blowing everyone a raspberry.
"I'll admit, those special forces guys knew how to smuggle cargo, even if they had to bullshit through customs," Roman then added.
"I'd say overall, we're getting an accurate look at a military operation so far," commented Winter.
Ironwood glowered slightly. "Well, at least one side is competent. Seriously, these Federation people are grossly incompetent. No wonder they're seeming to have a hard time against… Zeon, was it?"
"I hope everyone gets a lot smarter in the next episode, otherwise I feel like I'm going to explode…" Weiss groaned in frustration.
As if on cue, the theater lights began to dim, signaling that the next episode was about to start. Everyone stopped talking and turned back to look at the screen, with some of the audience looking forward to it in anticipation.
XXX
Bam, the second episode is done now! I feel that I did a pretty good job describing that big battle there. That's one of the reasons I wanted to write this, to get a better feel for writing combat. Writing space combat is a whole different beast than writing normal combat between people, I feel. I hope it was good enough for you all!
This has been The Draigg, and I'm signing off for now!
