Author's Pre-Chapter Note: A fair number of scenes have been changed from how they were shown in canon, and there is some original scenes in this chapter (and subsequent chapters!), so you have been informed.
("Normal Dialogue" / "Thought")
Lyle was a very nervous man.
It had been a few hours since he and Anew had fought each other, grinding down each other's mobile suits. Only by Setsuna's intervention was the duel resolved in Lyle's favour - although the Kurgis pilot nearly killed Anew in the process.
Anew was still moderately injured, in any case. The explosion caused by Setsuna's shot had given Anew a concussion and some internal bleeding, and her cockpit had been partially crushed by the accumulated battle damage (and admittedly also from Lyle tearing the whole block out of the mobile suit), causing both her lower legs to have microfractures in multiple places. However, Anew's pilot suit and helmet, which had shown signs of melting and charring from the intense heat of the explosion, were still intact and had not melted onto Anew's body, which Lyle had feared the most after Anew was confirmed to still be alive.
She had been cut out of her A-LAWS pilot suit - a tricky affair given the aforementioned melting - and then re-dressed in a medical gown for the required regeneration pod treatment. It was still unknown if she would regain consciousness, although the onboard scanner seemed to suggest that the Innovator would be healed after 2 to 3 days of intensive pod treatment. Lyle had been pacing about the small room ever since the treatment started, never keeping his eyes off her sleeping form.
A short tone alerted Lyle of an impending audio call. It was from Sumeragi Lee Noriega, the team's tactical forecaster, although she was currently helming the Ptolemaios II due to Lasse still requiring medical regeneration. In fact, Lasse was currently resting in another pod in the next room to Anew… who had shot him in the first place when she initially turned on them.
"Lockon, how is she?" Sumeragi enquired.
"She's still unconscious. Alive, but with a whole lot of injuries." Lyle replied with a sigh.
"I see. How about yourself?"
Lyle didn't know how to reply. He looked away from the call display despite there being no video, his facial expression nearly unreadable.
"You're worried about her, aren't you? Even though-"
Lyle cut Sumeragi off. "Yes," was his simple, yet shaky reply.
"I understand. Lyle Dylandy, I'm giving you the next 72 hours off. The other Meisters will cover your scheduled duties. But right now, go back to your quarters and rest."
Lyle felt the distinct need to protest that suggestion. "Sumeragi, I-"
"Don't make me have Tieria force you out of the room, Dylandy. This will be for her benefit too. Sumeragi out." The call was cut, leaving Lyle to consider his next actions.
"Sumeragi is right. I suppose some peace and quiet will help in Anew's recovery." Lyle took a whiff off his own shoulder. "And I stink. Shit."
"Wait for me, Anew." Lyle whispered, the lavender-haired woman blissfully unaware in the regeneration pod. The brunette Irishman turned on his heels and left the medical bay, slowly drifting along the Ptolemy's corridors until he reached his personal quarters.
He was just about to unzip and get out of his pilot suit when he heard a knock on the wall next to the open door. Lyle scowled when he saw the identity of his visitor: "You have a lot of nerve to be here, Setsuna."
It only felt right in Setsuna's mind to check on Lyle after the recent charged actions on the battlefield. Having noticed the Cherudim's Meister heading to his room, Setsuna followed him whilst keeping a respectable distance.
"Setsuna! Where are you going?" Saji Crossroad caught up to the 00 Gundam's Meister from behind; Setsuna himself replied without a break in movement, "Checking in on Lyle, seeing if he's alright. Go help out Ian with the repairs."
"Understood. Uh, good luck." The 0 Raiser's pilot stopped and reversed his course, leaving the raven-haired Kurgis man to make his way to Lyle's room. Stopping at the threshold of said room, Setsuna let his presence be known by knocking on the wall next to the door.
Setsuna saw Lyle slowly turn his head back to look at him, grovelling, "You have a lot of nerve to be here, Setsuna."
"Lyle, I-" Setsuna did not have time to even finish his greeting - for whatever use that would have been - before Lyle closed the distance and gave him a strong right hook to the jaw. As Setsuna struggled to get to his feet, Lyle grabbed his shoulders and tossed him across the room, Setsuna bouncing off the opposite wall and onto the room floor.
"Hey what's going on?" Tieria Erde hurriedly rushed over only to find Lyle slowly walking over to Setsuna. Turning to glare over his shoulder, Lyle warned his fellow Meister, "Don't get in my way Tieria! This is purely between me and him." Then Lyle kicked Setsuna in the gut, and while Setsuna tried to put his hands up to cover his face, Lyle instead grabbed Setsuna, by the collar of the latter's pilot suit, with his left hand, lifting him up and putting him against the wall.
"I had it under control! She was going to come back to us!" Lyle furiously bellowed, gut-punching Setsuna to punctuate each sentence. Shaking with anger, Lyle readied another punch stating, "and then you just shot at her!"
Lyle raised his fist up, and Setsuna put his hands up to defend himself… but the fist landed instead next to Setsuna's ear, square on the wall.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Setsuna?" Lyle bellowed, his eyes still glaring daggers at his fellow Meister.
"Lyle… yes, I did shoot at her. I'm sorry." Setsuna croaked out, nose bleeding.
"Is that all you have to say?!" Lyle bellowed, making another punch to the younger Meister's stomach. Tieria made a step forward, but another glare back from Lyle stopped him in his tracks again.
"She… she wasn't herself… At the moment I shot, I was shooting at an Anew with something over her." Setsuna mumbled, himself unclear about the sensations he had experienced at the time.
Lyle's expression turned from pure rage to a mixture of confusion and sadness. He unclenched his fist, only to grab the other half of Setsuna's collar, shaking him. "What do you mean by that? Answer me, Setsuna!"
"I can't… I don't know, Lyle!" Setsuna admitted. "She appeared to be like a puppet, somebody was using her remotely… It's so hard to explain, but I knew! I just knew…"
Lyle released his grip on Setsuna's collar, Tieria rushing to assist the latter in getting up to his feet after slumping slightly on the wall behind. "Get out, Setsuna." The Irishman, still shaking from all his emotions, ordered. "GET OUT!"
Tieria gently and quietly escorted Setsuna out of Lyle's room, but the bleeding Kurgis man had a few words to say before he fully stepped outside. "At the last moment… she somehow was herself. She pulled back… or I really would have killed her."
Despite the remark, Lyle didn't go after Setsuna. He just stood in the middle of his room, fists clenched tightly, Anew's name on his lips and in his mind. The cupboard in his room would, however, soon be the victim of his need to release his pent-up emotions somewhere.
The Ptolemaios II underwent a full check and debug process to ensure the ship's various computer systems were no longer affected by the virus that Anew placed when she was acting in the Innovators' interest. As the final checks passed, the crew on the bridge progressively brought full power back to the ship, restoring the main lighting and automated systems.
"Restoring navigation system. Everything appears to be green." Tieria reported, temporarily taking the helm of the ship.
"No enemy fleet in visual range!" Mileina chirped up from her elevated seat. Her enthusiasm was very quickly shot down by Tieria, who coldly and sternly warned, "Stay alert. They might attempt some sort of wicked deception like last time." While Sumeragi told off Tieria, Feldt noticed something on her console whilst going through the subsystems under her responsibility.
"Miss Sumeragi, it appears that we received an urgent encoded message when our systems were down." Feldt mentioned as she decrypted the message.
A curious Sumeragi inquired, "What does it say?". Feldt, scanning the message, could only reply back with some confusion, "All there is in it are coordinates, pointing to Lagrange 5."
"Lagrange 5? Why does anyone want us there?" The tactical forecaster thought to herself, with no answer forthcoming.
"The exact point is inside Eclipse, an unfinished colony where construction has been suspended." Feldt continued, confusion also written on her face.
"Are we going to Lagrange 5? To respond to someone who sent us nothing but those coordinates?" Tieria raised the obvious questions in the room.
"I'm not sure, but it is bothering me." Sumeragi seemed to concur with Tieria's caution. "I think we should have a meeting to have the others give their input. At the same time… we should discuss what we should do with Anew."
A nervous air seemed to settle on the bridge, as Feldt and Mileina got to contacting the other key personnel to get them to the briefing area as soon as they were free. In the next few minutes, the other Gundam Meisters made themselves present, as did Soma Peries who tagged along with Allelujah. Ian was not physically present due to the extensive damage suffered by most of the Gundams, especially with Cherudim, but kept a video link up from the hangar where he was overseeing the repairs being done by Saji, the ship's other Haros and the Karel maintenance units.
"I understand that the events of the last 48 hours have been tough on all of you, physically, mentally…" Sumeragi began, with a glance at Lyle, "and emotionally, but we are still Celestial Being, and we still have our mission to fulfill."
Seemingly on cue, a file picture of the Eclipse colony was brought up on the floor-mounted screen of the briefing area. "We received an encoded message flagged as urgent during our system downtime earlier. The message only contained coordinates pointing to Eclipse at Lagrange 5."
Setsuna looked pensive upon hearing of this message. Sumeragi continued, "We have no idea who exactly sent this, but-"
"We should go." Setsuna suddenly spoke up, sounding decisive. "Whoever sent this must need our help with something." Sumeragi, Feldt and Tieria, who was still at the helm, all looked at Setsuna with varying degrees of curiosity and confusion.
Over the video link, Ian suddenly chimed in, "I'm in favour of going too." Sumeragi was about to utter a question in response, but the chief engineer preemptively explained, "Linda and the others who fled with her have been continuing their research at Lagrange 5. If everything is on track, we should be able to pick up the upgraded equipment we had suggested before; furthermore, this journey should give us more time to repair the Gundams."
Sumeragi gave it some more thought, then set out her plan. "Then it's decided. Setsuna, you'll take the 00 Raiser to Eclipse; find and make contact with whoever sent the message. Ptolemy will make a detour to draw away the enemy fleet that is likely shadowing us out of visual range."
Setsuna gave an affirmative, "Roger that," with the other Meisters and crew present nodding silently. Sumeragi visibly sighed, the impending topic already making Feldt stare with silent anger at Lyle, and Mileina shiver with nervousness in her seat.
"The other order of business is regarding Anew."
"She is a traitor! She should be shot as an example!" Soma burst out in anger, turning her head to stare at Lyle much like Feldt, who herself added on in a colder tone, "She shot Lasse and almost forced Mileina to release the 00. We cannot have that sort of incident happen ever again. She needs to be removed, permanently."
"Hey, guys, don't you think that's a bit-" Lyle's attempt to assuage the rest of the Ptolemy's crew, in his usual carefree tone, ended in Feldt taking one step forward and decking him with a left hook. Soma looked eager to pile on Lyle, but Allelujah grabbing her upper arm and softly shaking his head made her, rather resentfully, stay where she was.
"And how do we know she hasn't seduced you to their side, Lyle?" Feldt spat out standing right in front of Lyle, her anger bubbling over.
"Feldt!" Sumeragi chastised, and the tactical operator slowly stepped away from Lyle and back into her seat on the bridge, her stare barely moving away from him. Setsuna attempted to help Lyle back up, but the Irishman waved him off, getting back into a standing position on his own and dusting off his uniform pants.
"Look, believe me if you want to, but I convinced her to come back to us in that fight. We were so close to having her back to our side willingly! This close!" Lyle pleaded in Anew's defence, putting his thumb and index finger practically next to each other and raising it up to indicate how likely he thought the negotiation with his lover was going to be successful, before her sudden change in behaviour.
"Yeah, and then she sliced up Cherudim like it was a pancake." Ian snarked, an angry scowl that had been there since Anew's name was brought up still present.
"That wasn't her. At least, not at the last moments of her battle with Lyle, after she restarted fighting him again." Setsuna coolly stated, and everybody else on the bridge was stunned.
"W-what do you mean, Setsuna?" Mileina squeaked.
The Kurgis man looked pensive again. "I… I cannot explain it, but my gut feeling as I went to intervene in that was that she had this… hold over her. Some shadow making her a puppet." Setsuna explained to the best of his own ability - he was himself confused by his own feelings and the weird sensations he was increasingly experiencing.
"How do we know it wasn't an act? Something to excuse her true thoughts?" Soma retorted, marginally less angry than before, to Allelujah's chagrin.
"I shot at her with the intent to kill her." Setsuna stated, Lyle grimacing at the apparent claim he knew was true. "But at the last moment, the hold was not there, and she held back from charging into Lyle."
"Mileina, replay the long-range camera footage from the conclusion of that fight." Sumeragi requested, and the young operator complied with an unnaturally nervous "Mmm."
The screen on the briefing area adjusted to show said footage, slightly grainy from the level of magnification, with the Gaddess closing in on the Cherudim in a sword joust, only to suddenly decelerate before being hit by the beam shot from the 00 Raiser. A simulation of the combat situation, overlaid over the actual footage, confirmed that if the deceleration had not occurred, the shot would have fatally struck the torso of the Gaddess, instead of the arm as had actually occurred.
Tieria, viewing the same footage from the screen at the helm station, pondered for a moment, cursing Ribbons Almark and the Innovators internally. "Even if Lockon and Setsuna are both speaking the truth, there is still the possibility that this… hold could be used on her, against us, again." Tieria spoke out in warning, his tone softer than when he half-berated Mileina earlier.
Sumeragi let out a very resigned sigh. "Once she is awake, we'll place her in our brig until we have a better idea of her culpability... and the capabilities of the Innovators with regard to contacting and controlling her. Any objections?"
Whilst Soma and Feldt were still evidently furious, neither made any sign of dissenting. Ian was called away by something in the hangar and closed the video link from the hangar, and the Meisters all nodded, a frustrated Lyle having to accept the decision despite his desire to let Anew be free. Mileina, the last to indicate her acceptance, looked at Sumeragi pleadingly, but ultimately gave a single nod and returned to staring at her work console.
"Feldt, Soma, the two of you will escort Anew when she is well enough to be moved. Setsuna, prepare to sortie; bring Saji if you have to." Sumeragi ordered. "The rest of you, dismissed; thanks for coming on short notice."
Allelujah Haptism stood outside the medical bay room, staring at Anew in the regeneration pod but hesitant to enter.
In many respects, the scene before him hit uncomfortably close to his heart. It brought him back to his early childhood in the Superhuman Research Institute, where he spent days staring at Marie Parfacy in her own glass-enclosed chamber.
"Marie mentioned that it felt so lonely in that chamber, unable to sense anything but quantum brainwaves. I know this isn't the same situation, not even close, but…"
"Yo!" A shout from behind Allelujah shook him from his thoughts. "Whatcha doing over there, staring at a sleeping girl like that?"
"H-hey, Lockon." Allelujah haltingly replied. "I was just passing by."
"Uh. Sure." Lockon - Lyle - brushed past his fellow Gundam Meister and entered the room, turning on the lights as he did so. "Come in, don't be shy."
"How is she?" Allelujah queried as he took Lyle's suggestion and stepped into the room himself.
"Seems better than yesterday, that's for certain." Lyle mentioned in reply as he took a seat next to the regeneration pod, his voice dropping softer. "This thing is due to be done with treating her tomorrow. After that…"
"The brig. When she wakes up to hear her sentence." Allelujah finished the sentence for Lyle, seeing the Irishman dip his head in what looked like dissatisfaction. Inquisitive, Allelujah asked, "Is something wrong, Lockon?"
Lyle, rather unwittingly, seemed to shed a single, small tear, the trail down his face barely perceptible to the other Meister in the room. "I… should have sought help regarding Anew."
"I'm sorry, what? I don't get you."
"Allelujah... " Lyle turned to face the Kazakh super-soldier, "God, I'm not sure what to say, it's just… I suspected something."
Allelujah's face contorted in fear and confusion. Seeing this, Lyle could only sigh, turn his head back and began to explain himself.
"A few nights ago… Well, before everything went downhill, we were in my room. Holding hands, talking about life and family and all that. And we kissed."
"Uh huh." Allelujah tilted his head very slightly.
"Then she blanked out for a bit. I thought she was stunned by me kissing her but… her eyes had this… weird glow of sorts. Golden, with lines radiating outward."
Allelujah scratched his chin. "Setsuna mentioned yesterday that he felt like some… thing had a hold of Anew when he was coming in to intervene in your fight."
"Yeah. She acted very stiff back then. Almost robotically, even. Come to think of it, her eyes did have that glow the brief moment I saw her get back into her seat." Lyle continued, his hands gripped together.
Allelujah could see Lyle's pained facial expression even as the latter tilted his head away. "You… had her safety in mind, didn't you?" He tried to ask as gently as he could. "You didn't know how they would react if you just up and told them."
"Well your girlfriend certainly would have wanted her dead on the spot."
"Marie would never want that! Soma is…" Allelujah paused, trying to find a suitable adjective. "Sensitive, I suppose. She knows how they do things in the A-LAWS, just not here. I'll get her to come around."
"Amen to that." Lyle unconvincingly replied. "But seriously, don't force her on that. Remember what I told you before? She needs to sort it out by herself."
"I know, Lyle. But sometimes… I suppose it's good to reach out for help from another person who can." Allelujah turned it around on the fellow Meister. He then caught a fleeting hint of white at the corner of the room's window, taking it as his cue to get on with his day. "I'll be off now. Take care, Lockon."
"Alright, see you." Lyle replied, without meeting Allelujah's heterochromatic eyes. A few minutes of quiet would pass before Lyle heard distant shouts and angry arguments, but he did not have the capacity to care for that. Not while Anew was here, but still not really here.
When Anew closed her eyes in the quantum realm, after her heartfelt talk with Lyle, she believed that she was dead, or otherwise imminently about to die.
Of course, as an artificial Innovator, or Innovade, death would entail her personality data and her memories leaving her physical body and returning to Veda, for… whatever purposes the quantum supercomputer had. The end result would still be the same anyways - she would be permanently separated from the people she had grown to care for, trust… and love.
"Celestial Being… would they ever forgive me?"
Linda, Anew's first mentor in Celestial Being, was on her mind. Linda was the one who first introduced her to life in the secretive organisation. Friendly and kind, if a bit stern to those who made mistakes, Linda made sure that Anew, as a new recruit to the organisation, felt at home.
She dwelled on her experiences on board the Ptolemy with Ian, Linda's husband and Celestial Being's chief engineer. Even if his gaze at her was a bit unsettling at times, he was a man with boundless knowledge, and she learnt so much about the intricacies of the Gundams, complex machines of unparalleled capability, from him during her stint in the Ptolemy.
Anew's mind turned to Mileina, Ian and Linda's daughter, and a veritable bundle of energy. Mileina always sought to brighten the day with her humor and enthusiasm. Taking Mileina as a hostage was one of the less pleasant parts of her escape from the Ptolemy, and remained a stain on her conscience.
She mused about Lasse, her fellow ship helmsman, whom she shot when she was 'released' as an Innovator - another black mark against her. They had made a good team piloting the Ptolemy, making maneuvers better suited for a ship half its size, which made said shooting of him, in hindsight, more regrettable for Anew.
Anew reminded herself of Sumeragi, Feldt and the other Gundam Meisters; she reminisced the times and experiences shared as one crew and family. And above all...
She thought, pain beginning to set in her heart, of Lyle Dylandy, and how he loved her so.
"Lyle… Oh, where do I even start?"
Anew's mind made the decision for her, as she recalled their first real meeting at Celestial Being's asteroid base. Lyle had come to thank her for her help with the Gundams, as well as say goodbye as he thought their paths were diverging. She remembered the shock, turning into apparent glee, when she told him she was instead joining them on the Ptolemy. "I liked you, Lyle, all the way back then. Even if I didn't know it at the time."
She recollected that conversation she had with him amongst the green hills, where she found him after he had some personal business to attend to and expressed her concern that the A-LAWS kept sniffing them out. "That was not a lie… the me that was speaking did not know of anything that… I did." She let him get on a first-name basis with her as a way of lightening the mood, and Lyle in turn allowed her to call him by his real name, instead of using his codename Lockon Stratos.
Anew fondly relived the nights, during the relative lull after the Break Pillar incident, where she snuck into his room and sought his company, the stolen kisses in empty hallways, one particular evening where dinner just between them blossomed into so much more…
"I do not regret that night. I gave myself to you in body, Lyle… yet, not all of myself in soul. I… I'm such a devious woman…"
And then Anew's fight with him replayed in her mind. Not a lover's spat, but a full-on duel to the death in mobile suits, after she revealed herself as an Innovator agent, fled the ship, then returned with Revive, Hiling and Ribbon's human agent to complete their mission. She remembered trying to delude Lyle and herself, thinking she never loved him, that it was all an act to cover her true allegiance; his words, his actions in that fight, the fact that he wanted her back even after everything that had happened, shattered that mirage. If not for Ribbons taking control of her body, she would happily be in his embrace again, never wanting to let go.
"I'm sorry, Lyle. I don't deserve you. You… you deserve someone so much better than me, a liar and a traitor. You deserve someone better than I ever was to you."
Grief and sorrow dominated her emotional state as she came to the last and most recent memory - their conversation in the quantum realm.
"At least, we got to talk, one last time. Thank you, Lyle. Goodbye…"
With her mind more settled, somewhat, after those wandering thoughts and reminiscences, Anew waited to lose awareness of herself as a physical, if artificially created, human being, and reemerge as a mass of data within Veda, whatever that felt like.
And she waited…
And waited…
But Anew still felt like… herself. In her bodily form. She felt alive, when she should really have been dead. And she did not believe it.
She peeked open her eyes...
The room was dark when Anew woke up. Her eyes stung and her throat felt parched as she adjusted to her new surroundings.
"I'm… I can feel myself in my own body. And I'm not in the Gaddess anymore." She glanced down to find herself in a medical gown, encapsulated in a cylindrical pod. "This place… am I on the Ptolemy? T-that means…"
She looked around, only finding the messy brown hair of a sleeping Lyle Dylandy. Dressed in his green casual uniform, Lyle was seated on a chair next to the pod, leaning on the pod's exterior, with a hand gently splayed on the curved glass surface. Anew could just about make out in the dark room the outline of his lips - and how they moved ever so slightly to utter her name, even in his dreams.
"Lyle… How much have I hurt you? I'm so sorry..." Anew wept bitterly at her own perceived cruelty, slowly bringing her own hand up to mirror his. But it was at least some comfort to the Innovade, as she gradually fell asleep again, to know that Lyle was physically unharmed, and that he still cared for her.
Author's Post-Chapter Notes:
Well, that's the immediate aftermath of Anew's survival! Please forgive the Ptolemy crew for acting out of sorts, their emotions are still raw and the source of their most recent troubles is (once again) on the ship. They need time to process everything, and before then they may be running on other things besides conscious, rational thought.
Just to clarify, the scene where Lyle points a gun at Setsuna's back doesn't occur here. His anger is ultimately not as intense as in canon (since Anew is alive), and it is not like he would use his free time to 'meet' Setsuna again when Anew's still out like a light.
We'll be following the Ptolemy while Setsuna and Saji are off following the tip to Eclipse, so tune in next time for more original scenes onboard the ship! In the meantime, favourites, reviews and follows are appreciated!
Recommendation: fnlrpa, who's been helping to edit this story, is almost complete with his own story, a more extensive AU that rejigs S2 pretty much from its beginning. Read it from the start at s/13858229/1/In-Another-Time-Another-World ; I assure that you will enjoy it.