Author's Pre-Chapter Note: More original scenes, so my pre-chapter note last chapter still applies!
("Normal Dialogue" / "Thought")
"Wait, so let me get this straight. Anew… is back?" Lasse asked, slightly incredulous.
"Yes." Ian replied deadpan.
"And she looks like she feels guilty about everything?"
"Appears so. Mileina was very concerned that Anew wasn't eating much - my little girl was still in distress about it when I checked on her a few nights back." Ian mentioned, sighing at the end.
"And the Innovators hijacked her body at some point while she battled Lockon and could still do so again?"
"Lyle said that, yes, but do you think I can confirm that for you?" Ian gave a look which signalled that he had no more of a clue himself.
"Huh." Surprisingly for Ian, Lasse seemed to take the catch-up talk increasingly in stride. "Who's been helming the ship while I was out?"
"Meisters and that Peries chick, on a rotation." Ian assured Lasse, knowing how angry the latter would be if any incident had occurred to 'his ship'. "Setsuna's out on a sortie to Eclipse - abandoned in-construction colony, was a tip-off from an unknown source - but he should be back soon."
"I see." Lasse zipped up his short-sleeved uniform shirt. "What's next, aliens show up?"
"I will make sure my Haros dogpile you if you're prophetic, Lasse." Ian snarked.
At about the same time that Lasse was getting the brief on what had happened in his absence, Sumeragi and Tieria arrived at Anew's cell. The purple-haired Meister knocked on the cell door before he unlocked it, as a sign of courtesy.
"G-good afternoon, Miss Sumeragi, Mr Erde." Anew greeted the two as they entered her cell. Tieria immediately noticed that Anew looked a lot more well-rested than he was informed of the day before.
"Did Lyle get to talk to her? That would have been the most probable scenario." Tieria idly thought as he closed the door to the cell, ensuring a private conversation except for the required surveillance camera in the cell. Sumeragi got Anew to sit down, wishing for the female Innovade to have some comfort.
"Um… what is this visit about?" Anew asked Sumeragi and Tieria. "Is this… about the Innovators? I'll tell you everything I swear!"
"Yes, Anew, we're here to talk about them and what your role with them was, in relation to the plot to steal the 00." Sumeragi confirmed with the lavender-haired woman. Tieria stood by in the corner, carefully watching Anew's expressions for any signs of acting or concealment of truth. While he trusted Setsuna and Lyle, he still had his lingering reservations, although he also hoped that his reservations would be unfounded after this interrogation.
Anew lightly sighed. "What do you want to know?"
"Let's begin from the start. How long had the plot to plant you in our ranks been active? Do you know about that?" Sumeragi began.
However, Anew did not have the answer that Sumeragi apparently sought. "I don't know, Miss Sumeragi. I was only brought to consciousness about a few months before…" She trailed off, unsure how to continue.
"Before?" Sumeragi prompted, intrigued and confused in equal measure.
"Before Ribbons Almark and the Innovators sealed parts of my personality and arranged for my insertion into your ranks." Anew continued, "through Wang Liu Mei."
"Wang Liu Mei? She was in league with the Innovators?" Sumeragi's eyes widened with horror. Tieria had a similar reaction too, and he continued the line of questioning.
"Was she coerced or-"
"As far as I saw, it was a mutual collaboration." Anew surmised. "But I did not have a lot of interaction with her, so I cannot say for certain."
"Even Wang Liu Mei turned on us. Those damned Innovators." Tieria subconsciously clenched his fists, and it took a while for him to realise and relax his hands.
"You mentioned Ribbons Almark. How was he like to you?" Sumeragi questioned the Innovade.
"...God, honestly. He had the air of a divine creator, and his words flowed like truths… at the time."
"Regene Regetta?" Tieria inquired, with Sumeragi looking at Tieria with renewed confusion from the unfamiliar name.
"Sorry, never saw her a lot. Don't have anything to say about her." Anew replied, and Tieria conceded with a shrug.
"The other pilot with your hair colour. The one we captured." Sumeragi began, only for Anew to near-instantly give up the pilot's name:
"Revive Revival."
"Yes. Revive." Sumeragi confirmed. "What is your relation with him? Is he your handler?"
"We share the same genetic base pattern. As such, Revive and I share an extra-sensory quantum brainwave connection, which he used multiple times to determine my relative distance and bearing from him… and in turn, where we, Celestial Being, were."
"A connection between Innovades sharing a base pattern. Like Regene and myself? No wonder she managed to keep sussing me out back then." Tieria connected the dots in his mind. "The attack on the L3 base. Was that vectored in through this connection?" He asked Anew, seeking some closure for that dark patch of Celestial Being's recent history.
Anew visibly shuddered, remembering the destruction and massive loss of life from that attack. "Y-yes." She admitted, her guilt very much visible on her face.
"The attack when we were resupplying from that Katharon cell-"
"Yes." Anew again admitted her involvement, a single tear escaping her right eye.
"Post-Break Pillar?" Tieria pressed on, the trend forming in his head despite his reluctance to accept it.
Anew regretfully nodded, causing the dread within Tieria to take hold. "All 23 ambushes in those 4 months…" She clarified, "Revive used that connection to confirm our location before every single attack."
Sumeragi decided to interject, seeing the interrogation take a depressing turn. "When this… connection is used by Revive, were you aware of it each time?"
"Yes, Miss Sumeragi. When he needed my location, I would temporarily pause what I was doing at the time, and… recede, if you will, into my mind a bit, so that I did not accidentally expose myself if I vocalised anything." Anew explained. "If I could provide details of where we were, then I would communicate those to him via quantum brainwaves. Otherwise, he would just use the link itself to determine the distance between us and the heading to take."
"I see." Sumeragi mused briefly, seeing Anew fall into a regretful mood again. She glanced at Tieria as if to silently tell him not to bring the mood down further, and Tieria, with an understanding expression, nodded his head.
"Have you been well, Anew? I've heard Mileina got worried about your lack of appetite." Tieria queried, trying to at least temporarily move to a lighter topic. Given her initial expression when he and Sumeragi first came to her cell, Tieria hoped that the expected positive response would get Anew to set aside some of the heavier negative feelings in her heart.
"Mmm, I've been… alright." Anew replied, her complexion barely changing. "I… I'm sorry if I've been a burden to you all since my return."
"Not at all, Anew." Tieria attempted to assuage her. "In general, there's… relief around here that the situation didn't end tragically."
"Anew…" Sumeragi asked with uncharacteristic trepidation, causing Tieria to raise an eyebrow. "If… if we were to ask you to serve again, with us, would you be willing to?"
Anew's eyes shone for a moment (in that they dilated, not glowing as Innovade eyes could when connecting to Veda), but she seemed to shrink back again and turned away from the tactical forecaster. "I… don't know. I doubt that is a good idea in the first place."
"I understand. Just keeping options open." Sumeragi briefly justified her question. "You have anything else, Tieria?"
The purple-haired Innovade shook his head. "We will leave you for now, Anew." Tieria mentioned, with his fellow Innovde only gently nodding. Sumeragi stood up as Tieria got the cell door open again, taking his leave after the tactical forecaster.
"Ah, good as new." Lyle thought as he relaxed in the cockpit of Cherudim Gundam, which had been under repair for much of the past few days after suffering severe damage against the Gaddess. The control sticks moved as they should, the buttons brought up the various menus and settings of the mobile suit, the Gundam's self-diagnostics were all green, and Haro even seemed happy to sit in its dock again, even if it could not show any form of facial expression.
"Alright, now the big boy sniper module." Lyle reached up and brought down the rifle-like controller hanging from the ceiling of his cockpit, checking the sight picture coming from the specialised targeting sensor on Cherudim's head. He moved a few knobs with his right hand, adjusting the magnification and focus of the sight…
… until a hilariously magnified human eye looked back at him in the sight, causing him to blink and tilt his head to see who had interrupted him at a more normal magnification.
"What the - oh, it's you, Ian." Lyle noted, as the chief engineer floated down to stand on the top surface of Cherudim's cockpit block.
"Hello, Lockon. Everything ok in there?" Ian asked, looking down into the open cockpit.
"Yeah, boss. All good. Thanks for the repair job!" Lyle replied in his usual cheerful tone, which failed to get any rise from the older, wizened man.
"Next time, don't let your woman whip your ass in this thing." Ian snarked back, which annoyed the brunette Meister.
"Hey now, old man. I put up a good fight in this thing!"
"Yeah, but Cherudim's meant to fight at range. Sure I suppose shooting things a bit closer is your thing instead of your brother's, but trying to woo back Anew by cozying right up to her is just asking for trouble." Ian kept going, a half-smile forming on seeing Lyle so riled up.
"Man, are you trying to give me relationship advice or something?" Lyle gave a snide remark of his own. "Must have been how he got Linda to swoon for him. Their age gap still gives me the-"
"No, young man, I'm trying to give you a warning. From experience." Ian went serious in voice, and his facial expression lost whatever vestiges of a smile he had. "Love's a drug. Yeah, I get it, I'm married, been in your position. But don't lose your head in there and end up alienating yourself from, well, everyone else."
"Yeah yeah, Ian, I get it, emotions cloud judgement, my brother did that and got wasted in space." Lyle seemed to brush things off. "But don't close your heart off to people who would appreciate it, old man. Anew was your protégé, and I'm sure she would love to be back as a contributing member of this ship. Give her a chance, would ya?"
The two stared uncomfortably at each other, but the chief engineer just abruptly turned and left, seemingly grumbling to himself.
"Ian angry! Ian angry!" Haro chimed in its dock.
"Shut up, Haro."
"This is unacceptable, Miss Sumeragi!" Feldt bellowed on Ptolemy's bridge, where she, Sumeragi and Lasse were having another meeting, a smaller one than the one convened a few days ago. "Anew was responsible for all our comrades' deaths at L3! She is still a clear and present danger to everyone on board Ptolemy! Why are you suggesting now that she be allowed back on duty?"
"Feldt, I understand your concern. But we are already tight on manpower and will need every available hand for the coming battle." The tactical commander replied, noting, "The lab ship is already volunteering to join in, if only for missile support."
Indignantly, Feldt rebutted, "But she almost-"
"She's had time to think over everything she did, Feldt. She understands what she did, and feels immensely guilty for it."
Ian cut in with his view, again using a video link from the Gundam hangar: "If you really have to insist, Sumeragi, put her in the auxiliary station or something. Lasse's good enough to helm Ptolemy again, Linda and I can be in the sub-bridge if you need gunners."
"Gonna need to agree with the old man there." Lasse added on in his usual gruff tone, stretching his shoulders as he got used to his old helmsman seat again. "I usually trust her flying, but if the Innovators get into her mind again I would not want her at the controls. At all." A cough caused him to pause before he gave his own opinion. "I personally think she can be kept in the cell, though. We've operated well enough with lesser people."
Sumeragi sighed, massaging her nose bridge with her thumb and index finger. "We're split. Two for, two against. I want this settled so that everyone can focus on the battle to come, but this is just frustrating."
The bridge door opened, slightly startling Sumeragi, who craned her neck behind her to see Mileina enter and clamber up to her station. "S-Sorry, I needed a bit more time than I expected." The young CIC operator explained herself, although nobody was remotely blaming her for anything.
"Mileina, it's ok." Feldt reassured her compatriot, whom she viewed like the little sister she never had. "We were discussing reinstating Anew to active duty somewhere on this ship. You didn't miss much."
"Oh, really?" Mileina perked up. "That would be great! She looked so miserable, I think she'd want to be actively working again."
Feldt was taken back by that reaction. "Mileina…" She uttered in a barely audible voice, her thoughts continuing with what she intended to ask the younger girl: "Why? Why are you so willing to forgive her? She held you up, took you as a hostage! Surely that must have left a mark on you."
Even Sumeragi herself was surprised. "Are you sure about that?" She attempted to clarify with the teenager, who nodded in return. From the corner of her eye, Sumeragi could see Ian grumble about something off-screen; Lasse just seemed to shrug, taking Mileina's comments and approval rather coolly for their gravity, relative to the topic at hand.
The team's tactical forecaster took a deep breath before declaring, "Per Ian's recommendation, Anew will take up the auxiliary station unless the circumstances demand her piloting skills." Sumeragi then turned to address her tactical operator: "Feldt. Anew will be your direct subordinate for the time being. Do what you must, should her situation call for it."
Feldt acknowledged with steely determination. "I will protect my family. Should she turn again, I will not hesitate." The words resonated in her mind and heart.
"Any other things to bring up?" Sumeragi asked her fellow meeting participants. With no reply indicating as such, she nodded her head and declared the meeting over. Feldt and Mileina resumed their usual duties, Ian cut the video link to head back to working on the Gundams, and Lasse took it relatively easy, just keeping a lookout at the helm.
In a rather ornate, windowless room, Regene Regetta was busy with work of her own.
Ever since the previous battle where the Innovators were still beaten despite Celestial Being being so hamstrung by the sabotage efforts of Anew and Revive - and handily at that - Regene was at a terminal ostensibly to analyse the battle and derive means to ensure future victory against the false followers of Aeolia's Plan clinging onto the mantle of Celestial Being. To herself, Ribbons Almark, and the Innovators, Anew had been rather unceremoniously killed - her Gaddess shot by the 00 Raiser, and the Innovade taken out in the ensuing explosion.
And yet, Regene suspected that Anew did in fact survive. And hence her 'work' was a pretense for her to follow this thread of thought, for her own purposes.
Retrieving information for review was trivial - given Ribbon's shadow control of the A-Laws and perusal of Veda in said control, getting the desired documents, both from A-Laws and the internal databases of the Innovators, was as simple as requesting them through Veda. The more intricate part, at least for Regene, was to derive something from the documents in hand - a deduction, backed up by evidence.
The reports that Revive, Hiling and the human Louise Halvey wrote after their sortie all indicated they saw the explosion of the Gaddess engulf the surrounding space. "But they were retreating. I would be surprised if they could accurately determine Anew's fate as they fled the scene of battle." Regene surmised, setting aside the reports for more valuable data.
What remained of the Gaddess' data recordings were a red flag - Anew's conversation in battle with the opposing Gundam Meister, who appeared to be her lover, leading up to her attempted re-defection, were all captured by the mobile suit's internal recorder, and in turn transmitted to Veda for further 'analysis'.
"I mentioned to Ribbons that Anew should have just had a full, separate cover personality. That way, she would have been insulated from the heavy memories from her time in cover. And in his hubris he did not care."
With the Gadessa's and Gazzaro's data banks quickly yielding nothing of note to her, Regene then attempted to access the Regnant's data storage, given that it was the only unit that survived the sortie relatively intact. Viewing footage from one of the rear optical sensors, she noticed the enemy Gundam grappling with the Gaddess' wreck shortly before escaping the explosion.
"Wait, that isn't a grapple… The Gundam pulled out something… from the front."
Regene kicked against the floor, sending herself and the chair she was sitting on skidding along the hard floor for a short distance, the chair legs squealing harshly at the abuse. "If I'm right… That Gundam tore out the cockpit of the Gaddess. Meaning Anew… could very well be alive."
The implications of Regene's conclusion, if proven true, were potentially massive. Celestial Being would have an Innovator in captivity, something which they apparently, from the perspective of the Innovators themselves, had been desiring for a while. While Anew was not as intimately involved with the Innovators' operations given her more recent awakening and deep cover role, she had enough interactions with the Innovator members that she could potentially give up valuable intelligence to the enemy. However, Regene's mind was not really focused on what Anew's survival meant to the Innovators as a whole, but what this discovery meant more personally.
"Ha! Not only did Ribbons not take my advice regarding Anew, but the woman herself has returned to the humans we sent her to. I can use this to my advantage, usurp his position, and bring about my true interpretation of Aeolia's Plan."
Unbeknownst to Regene - a rather unfortunate situation given how easily it could have been spotted, with the glowing eyes and all - Ribbons Almark was privy to every single thought made by her ever since she first accessed Veda with that intent to delve into the matter of Anew Returner. Ribbons did not step in in any way, like he had done with Anew Returner; instead, he just sat back in his lounge chair and let Regene do all the mental work for him. A smirk crept up his face as he developed his own plans and contingencies given this development.
"So, Anew Returner. It seems you have decided to cheat destiny. In a sense, this is good, for when the time comes, you will… return to use."
Author's Post-Chapter Note: Next chapter, the endgame for Celestial Being begins. And Anew will be along for the wild ride.
Thanks for sticking around! Hope to see you in the next chapter!