Anyone who has read this prior to 1/3/14 (3/1/14 for those of you not in the US) will think most of this chapter looks… familiar. The old version wasn't all bad, so most of it stayed. Wow, it's 2014 already.

One last thing. I just noticed this chapter is a little… Well, it doesn't contain any 'mature' content, but keep in mind that these characters are adults, and as such are privilege to some adult thoughts and experiences. Not enough to earn the "mature" rating, mind you, and the audience for this show has probably grown up significantly since it first aired. I know the author has.

Now then everyone, today marks the end of preparations for the 14th Gundam Fight. After eight long years, it would not be out of place to suggest that all competing teams have had plenty of time to prepare. However, despite such an abundance of time most nations are frantically scrambling to complete their preparations before the Gundam Fight begins! "But why is this?" you may ask, and with good reason. Most nations had previously been able to construct new Gundams and select fresh crew within a span of four years, but they didn't have the United Nations Coalition breathing down their necks the whole time.

We begin today at midday, relative Colonial Time of course, as one team in particular is having some serious issues with new regulations imposed by the Coalition. This team is well-respected within the Colonies, and their nation currently holds the right to rule over all of space. That's right; I'm talking about our beloved nation of Neo Japan!

Today's match is between Domon Kasshu and his very own Gundam!

Let's get things started! Gundam Fight, all set! Ready… GO!

In a high-security hangar on the colony of Neo-Japan, Rain Kasshu ran through diagnostic after diagnostic as her husband put the new 3rd-generation Mobile Trace system through its paces. Brainwaves… Blood pressure… Pulse… Respiration… A distinct yawn emanated from the weary technician. She had seen these same readings on a near constant basis as repeated tests revealed the same results: Domon was having trouble with the trace suit. Oh Domon, it's always something, isn't it?

The past few days had been full of activity, preparing the God Gundam for the Coalition's imposed lockout, after which the Gundam Fighters, their Gundams and their crews, would be kept isolated for a period of twelve hours to be inspected by Coalition forces. Two weeks before this lockout, an enhanced version of the Mobile Trace System was introduced, and the Coalition wasted no time in making this new version the mandated standard for competition. All competing Gundams would need to use this new system, utilizing larger neural-linked microbots instead of the more traditional nano-silica polymer 'Spandex' of all previous Fights. Any Gundam not retrofitted with this system before the lockout would be ineligible for competition. Only one day remained, and Domon was still trying to get the system to do what he asked it to do.

It's almost as if the Coalition is trying to disqualify as many competitors as possible… A violent protest from Rain's stomach interrupted this conspiratorial theory.

From her diagnostic terminal, Rain could clearly see the stress that the God Gundam was being subjected to. With such a low synchronization rate, Domon was practically fighting the Gundam itself just to get it to move. If you would just- The sharp grinding of metal on metal put a damper on Rain's thoughts as a horrendous screech reverberated through the entire hangar. More than one technician dropped what they were carrying to clasp their ears in agony. A quick glance at the diagnostic screen revealed that the Gundam's left knee had slipped a gear, akin to a torn meniscus. Oh no, not now, not so close! "Domon! What's happening up there?"

"I think we're done, Rain" came his voice from God Gundam's loudspeaker. "I can't stand this new Trace System. Three whole days of training and I just can't move the way I should. This thing is coming off!" Despite the gravity of the situation Rain couldn't help but giggle at the thought of this strong, rough man having trouble with his clothes, and God Gundam's sensor suite did its work. "Are you laughing down there, Rain? You should come on up and try this yourself! It's real fun, trust me!" The sarcasm was practically dripping from his Gundam's head unit.

"How bad could it be? I did fairly well in the old model myself, as a matter of fact." Rain retorted, with an equal portion of sarcasm. Fairly well was an understatement if ever there was one. Not many untrained civilians could withstand the forces generated merely by the suit-up procedure, much less an actual battle. God Gundam's cockpit hatch opened with a shrill hiss, and the Gundam lurched as its pilot stepped outside while the trace was still running. "Careful now! Just let the system recycle and you'll be out of there in no time! Get back inside!"

"There's nothing I can do to make this thing work!" Domon's protest was carried by his powerful voice, and a split second later by the God Gundam's speakers. "It's just not keeping up, and whatever's in this suit is pushing back against me, like this!" He motioned to his knee, and the Gundam's arm tried to match his movements. The cockpit hatch angled with the movement of the Gundam's shoulder, nearly dumping its pilot unceremoniously onto the concrete floor a dozen meters below.

"Alright, alright, fine! I'll get back in!" As the hatch hissed shut, God Gundam assumed a neutral standing position and began to power down, the suns in its eyes simmering down to a muted foxfire glow. With its pilot securely within its mechanisms, the Mobile Trace System began recycling its microbot skin into a thick black slurry. "Agh, it ITCHES!" Rain couldn't stifle thought of a young Dr. Kasshu sending little Domon off to school in a heavy coat, eliciting the same response.

But I guess… I guess there's more than one Dr. Kasshu now. She would likely never get used to that, not if Neo Japan kept their meddling fingers in the Kasshu marriage. Eight years of marital bliss, and it still felt like they were just friends sometimes. Apart from the… At least they had one perk of marriage to enjoy freely. Frequently. But after all that, they had nothing to show for it. No little white picket fence, no kids running around in the yard, their father eagerly chasing after them…

"Hello? Earth to Rain!" Domon stood on thin air, standing sideways in… No, her head was against the diagnostic console. She had fallen asleep within the span of a few seconds. How long was I… With no small bit of effort, she pried her face from the angular keys of the console. Domon slowly re-oriented himself in line with gravity. "Hey, are you-…"

"I'm fine, Domon, just a little tired." Understatement of the year. 67 out of the past 72 hours spent awake, two meals in that same time, and the rest of her waking hours dedicated to ironing out the numerous bugs in the Mobile Trace System without so much as a hint of progress, it was a testament to her Fighter's willpower that Rain was even able to sit up straight.

"You're absolutely not fine, Rain." Eight years ago he would have just asked, 'Are you sure?' and let her keep on sacrificing her own health for his benefit. But he wasn't quite the man she married, and not in a bad way. "You've been working so hard on this, it's time to take a break."

"Domon, we… We have to get this working…"

"It works fine, Rain. You know me, I just want things to be perfect. They're not right now, and I guess that'll have to do. I'm not putting you through any more of this." He admitted it? Domon Kasshu admitting he's a perfectionist? Now I've seen everything. Maybe I really am getting delirious.

She let him help her to her feet, her arm around his strong shoulders. Without a word, he started towards the open hangar door. "Now, now wait a minute, we can't just-"

"We're leaving, and you're going to get some food in you. After that, we can worry about getting things finished. We just have to trust our crew on this one." Domon had a bit of a time keeping a straight face on that last statement. In the back of his mind, he knew that was easier said than done.

Most of the preparatory crew was made up of conscripts from Earth, sent up under a labor agreement with most Colonial nations to assist with drop preparations in exchange for an upgrade to their standard of living. However, once they were in space, they had no incentive to do their best. They were already there, and the colonies could do nothing if they decided to get lazy. Trusting them was out of the question, but he had to make some kind of justification.

Domon led Rain down a street that most definitely didn't lead home. "So, where are we going, Domon? I thought home was back that way?"

Domon smiled, as though she should know something already. "We're not going home. There was this new American place that opened up a few months ago that you said you wanted to try. So that's where we're going."

Always so direct, her Domon. "The… That Texas place?" The restaurant in question was a good old-fashioned Texas steakhouse, complete with wagon wheel fencing and a giant Longhorn skull over the door. Even in the Future Century the stereotypes of the modern age persisted.

"Yeah. I thought since this is our last night on the colony, we might as well try it, since we won't get another chance for at least a year." The lights along the streets grew brighter as the artificial sun dimmed behind them, slowly receding into the fabricated night that would grip the colony for the next 14 hours. Neither of them would be aboard to see the next synthetic sunrise.

I wake to the powerful smell of sea and fried rice. As the salt air fills my lungs, waves lap at the wooden hull of the old man's boat, and I hear the excited chatter of the two young children under his care from the other room. As I begin to rise, my hand comes to rest on the spot where she lay no more than an hour before, and the mat is still warm from her, our, residual heat. I can hear her playing with the children, on the deck now, as a young voice calls her "Sis" from back in the kitchen. Three sets of footsteps rush down the deck stairs into the cabin: two light and energetic, the other even more so, but slightly heavier and more deliberate. I hear her call me, inviting me to the first meal of the day, so I pry myself away from the warm mat and stumble through the doorframe.

Everything is on fire. The children scream and scramble up the stairs, tripping and falling back into the blaze. The boat's mast cracks in half and falls on top of the stairway, blocking any easy escape. The young man frantically bats at the flames with a wok, and the old man shuffles towards him coated in thick silver scales. Two hands reach out and drag the young man down into the inferno. She calls me. I turn to her, and flames pour from her body. The scales are on her now, spreading upward from her feet to her eyes, red as the flames, but far wilder and brighter. She burns like a candle, her head surrounded on all sides by the purest blue flame as she sets the boat ablaze.

"Huh, well that was morbid."

Derek Lorenz stood alone on the bridge of the battleship Solstice. It was a magnificent craft; the largest individually-owned vessel ever constructed short of a space station, frequently described as two beveled dagger blades welded opposite one another on a large open ring. Its captain was described far less frequently, and in not as powerful of vocabulary. Of only 24 years, he stood just a hair taller than most of his peers, broad in the shoulders, but not exactly picturesque from spending most of his youth overweight. To any casual observer, he would seem completely average; countless hours had been spent under the knife to remove most distinguishing facial features he once possessed, forming a calculated visage nigh indistinguishable from any of countless European individuals. Even as such, his stature carried a certain presence. His eyes returned their focus to the virtual screen in front of him, displaying a waveform and a timer, which was paused at two minutes and seventeen seconds.

"That was a little more dramatic than usual… I think that might actually be a new one." A datapad hung at his hip, currently displaying technical specifications of a massive white Gundam wielding a crimson boomerang a head taller than the Gundam itself. With a deft swipe the image was gone, replaced by pages upon pages of solid text. Each line was a note of some kind: some thoughts, some recollections, others mindless drivel. There were one or two crude doodles made in the margins of every other page. He quickly scrolled to the bottom and added on a few more lines. Another swipe and the image of the Gundam returned. With that, the datapad resumed its place back on his hip.

"So, where was I…? Something about Hesperus, my shit-list, them being on it… Oh yeah." He casually sucked on the straw of a cardboard hydration box. From the cartoon images on the side, it appeared to be some sort of children's fruit drink. He faced the main screen again, motioning towards the "Record" button on the virtual screen. "Note to self; send a nastygram to Hesperus about their piss-poor work ethic. Deadlines have long since flown by with not so much as a single grovel of forgiveness in my direction. We need to rectify that." He took a few steps forward through the virtual screen, straw in mouth, and set his sights on the massive open ring before him. The lime-green wireframe flickered in protest as a solid body casually occupied its space. "It's such a shame that we're only sitting at 45% combat-efficiency the day before the Fight, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon… What's the ETA on the Warsphere?"

He turned back towards the virtual screen, which had mirrored itself to be visible from its observer's new position. A calendar program scrolled across the months and lit up the 5th through the 27th of August. The juice box fell out of his mouth as he gaped in exasperation. "August? Really? That's like half a year from now! What, are they seriously dragging this thing all the way from Mars on nukes?"

The bridge elevator opened with a whimsical swish, and a hulking shadow stood ahead of Derek. Taller than him by nearly a meter, clicking and whirring servos propelled the figure forward on two oversized, bell-bottomed feet. The light of the sun illuminated a matte-black humanoid chassis with brilliant golden accents along all its organically-shaped armored plates. Its head was similar in form to the beak of a tropical bird, necklessly nestled into the shoulder blades of a broad hydraulic torso. Emblazoned on its left shoulder was a calligraphic '23' set into a bold circle. From its oversized almond eye-sockets beamed a solitary pink optical sensor, swiveling into position to observe its master.

"Affirmative, Master Lorenz, though the chronological estimate is closer to three standard months." The machine spoke in a harsh, synthesized Alto just short of a growl. "The Warsphere is far too large to adequately mount an FTL propulsion-"

"Bullshit, Twenty-Three, the Solstice has one." He knew what the drone meant, but just wanted to give it a hard time. The Warsphere was a weapons platform designed to interface with the Solstice's center ring. It had no provisions for independent propulsion and had to be pulled by a fleet of automated tugs. Entering FTL would tear chunks out of the Sphere as the tugs exceeded lightspeed, while the hulking mass they were dragging would be left behind. "And just because Hesperus is only barely kept afloat by my commissions doesn't give them an excuse to skimp out on the drive units."

"Affirmative, Master Lorenz. However, the logistics of the Warsphere are not conducive-"

"Can it. I get the point." He crammed the straw in his mouth again. Patience was not one of Derek Lorenz' few virtues. "Let's discuss another matter, like where you've been. I called for you almost half an hour ago."

"Affirmative, but from a different location. When I arrived in Port Hangar #3, you were no longer present. I consulted with Twenty-Seven and Thirty as to your location, and they confirmed that you had exited the hangar. They could not, however, confirm your destination."

"And you decided not to use the security cameras to track me down...?"

"Unnecessary. Referring to your usual agenda, your most probable location was here on the aft bridge. From Port Hangar #3, estimated travel time was 15 minutes. However, I found that many of the bulkheads on the primary bridge access hall had been sealed and the locks manually overridden. I bypassed through the residential halls, then maintenance, and finally the express elevator."

Derek felt a glow of satisfaction as his drone explained its actions. Improvisation at this level meant their programming was finally evolving as planned, or at least one of them was. The rigorous tests and obvious wild-goose-chases he put the drones through were beginning to have an effect on their neural network. However, that did not excuse them from following protocol. "You do realize that the express elevator is for VIP use only, correct?" Considering that he was the only VIP currently aboard, the elevator didn't get much use.

"Affirmative. Circumstances demanded that I make a timely appearance and its use was deemed mission-critical. After brief conference, the Legion concurred that such an action would be appropriate."

There it was, 'The Legion', the collection of 31 autonomous learning computers housed in ambulatory mechanical shells that made up his support crew. When all 31 were active simultaneously their networking capabilities provided astounding levels of computational power, as well as rudimentary consciousness. Their first unanimous decision was to name themselves, and they reached a consensus 2.63 seconds after their activation. Their 'Hello World' was delivered from a verse in the Christian Bible in a horrifying monotone chorus, "I am Legion, for we are many." The next few hours were dedicated to writing fail-safes and backdoors into their systems to ensure that the foretold robot apocalypse would be postponed for a few more years, despite their master's previous declaration to never again delve into the black magic of network code.

Derek's expression did not change, despite his legitimate pride in his drone, as he took another sip. "Well, anyway, that's that. Task complete, return to standby on the support vessel and await further orders."

"There are no further tasks required?" The questioning tone was highly unusual for most of the drones. Twenty-Three seemed to be the exception. "Considering how difficult you have been to find today, an explanation as to your request was expected." Coming from any other drone, such a line would have been inconceivable. However, even in its earliest days Unit Twenty-Three seemed to have the disposition of a newborn bear cub; it aimed to please, always staying within earshot of its master unless explicitly ordered otherwise. Again, patience was not one of Derek Lorenz' few virtues, and the drone's efforts to wait on him hand and foot frequently grew frustrating.

"That's correct, you may continue with your business." Just as the words escaped his lips, he realized what a terrible idea that order was. To top it off, the juice box was empty.

Oh now you've done it, you idiot.

"If that is the case, perhaps I can make up for my unsatisfactory performance." The drone's single eye fluttered in what had been interpreted as excitement. "Newly updated Gundam Fight registration has been intercepted. Perhaps you would be interested in reviewing any changes?" He wasn't, but the drone appeared adamant to provide some sort of service while it was in his presence.

So it wants to read to me? Ah what the hell, I've got nothing better to do. And reviewing the cannon fodder one last time can only improve my chances.

Derek stepped back through the virtual screen and brought his palms together. The screen minimized and displayed on a small pane on the control panel. It would likely stay this way until the ship's automated backup saved it with some obscure filename and re-allocated the screen to an operation-critical readout. He sighed, placing his left arm behind his back and grasping the inside of his right elbow, taking position in front of the hulking drone. "Alright, whatever, I won't get rid of you any other way so let's hear it."

The drone's eye fluttered again, and it nimbly plucked the datapad from its master's hip, placing it into a newly-opened port on the right side of its torso. "Very well, Master Lorenz. Let us begin."