Well, you guys know the drill by now, huh? I'll go chapter by chapter and explain anything I think you guys might have been confused about and basically outline the story again (in case you forgot something). A TON of work goes into this chapter because I have to spend so much time re-reading each chapter and thinking about every word I wrote. Hope you appreciate it!

(Part I): Prologue; "Fragility"

The story opens with a narrative from Akiko's point of view-- what she's seen on the ship where Beliv has been holding her captive since Christmas Eve. She doesn't know what else in the world there ever was, but she's determined to find something else. Doesn't that speak a little bit about her father right there?

Milliardo and Relena's father's grave has a little bit of symbolism throughout the story. Do you pray when you need help? Whenever they visit the grave, it shows that something is bothering them a lot. Milliardo was worried about the Sanc Kingdom from the beginning.

I just realized that section with Phailin went a little fast, so I'll try and explain a little better. Phailin's father was the King of Thailand's brother, and her mother was daughter of the village head. With both of them dead, the leadership would have passed to her. That's also the reason why she was educated in Bangkok. I realized I hadn't really mentioned that anywhere earlier in the story. Guess I'll have to note that and go in to the story and fix it.

(Part II): "Dawn"

Here's where the conspiracy starts, on Phailin's part. I was going to actually let you listen to the entire conversation between her and her uncle the monk [I almost typed "monkle" *_*], but I decided that I might as well save the issue of Phailin's pregnancy for the end of the fic. We had Noin to deal with anyway, and I like to keep a little mystery shoved in there. You figured out why she'd been acting less and less capable throughout the story, right?

Next comes the conversation between Marie and Fortuna. I hint rather strongly that Fortuna had a disliking for Shenlong, and that she'd thought him weak. I was beginning to work out the conspiracy about the four original Gundams around this time, so this was my clue that Shenlong was a resulting prototype, not before Fortuna's time.

There are a lot of things I probably should have added more of in the previous books, like where Cammie Exeter appears on her little history project. She played a pivotal role in bringing Operation Comet to light, and if you didn't remember her from the first Gundam conference in AC 206, you're left a little out of luck. I'm going back to edit, so you may want to check back in a few months in the previous books to see what's changed. It's going to undergo a major overhaul.

(Part III): "The Player's Strategy"

God, I must have been watching the Matrix before I wrote this chapter. Seriously, I used a lot of quotes from it. Well, I got some requests to have a little session with Quatre and Trowa, but there's a reason why I don't want them together the whole fic. I'm not really into the yaoi thing, and I kinda got this idea about Dorothy, which I'll explain in detail later. Also, I've always sensed that Quat and Trowa have this great friendship, and affairs such as theirs can absolutely ruin a friendship like that. I didn't want that to happen, either.

The whole conversation in capitals was a little confusing, I bet. This one was between Zero and Fortuna. You can always tell because Fortuna ("Mother_Source") is the only one that calls him "dear" and "love" etc. There was Zero, acting completely indifferent as usual. He wanted to hide the information from Heero because he didn't realize it was important, and thought it might just cause unnecessary confusion. It's a good thing she was commander of the whole expedition, wasn't she?

Cammie Exeter was the last leg of a very long line of hands. The last piece of the puzzle has finally been revealed, but it's got a lot of edges. Lucky for us, Heero is good at puzzles. I know I've got to go back and add some more stuff about the war from this disc. It started with Treize, which is how Heero found out all that history on him. Oh well . . .

(Part IV) "The Trail of Blood"

Treize is talked about a lot in this chapter. I was determined from the start to keep him on as a character-- I just couldn't find a way to replace his personality (As you may have guessed, he's one of my favorite characters.) I pretty much went down the list of people who'd know anything about the conspiracy until we hit Phailin again. Those herbs and Phailin's nausea was another little hint. Let's count the quotes--there's one in there from Carl Sagan's "Contact"-- "How did they survive this technological adolescence without killing themselves." Thatz about it for this chapter.

(Part V) "Don't Breathe"

The story takes a big turn here. Just when the situation turns worse is when the truth can finally be revealed. All the stuff in the chapter was self-explanatory, I think. I wanted Marie and Treize to have a deeper connection in this story so I could bring everything together nicely in the end of the book. I couldn't figure out how the Yuys and Maxwells were going to rescue the kids anyway so I just let them tag along behind where Marie had gone.

(Part VI) "Hope Doesn't Die Easy"

Sophie and Duo have kinda been more minor characters than I originally planned. Besides, I wanted to show that not everybody is so happy with the situation, even though there's hope. I didn't want to turn the Maxwells into Heero and Relena. That would be kinda boring, no?

In case anyone didn't really understand the whole gundam thing, here's how it breaks down: Inimicus is Fortuna's sister gundam, born of the same ship (The Laiva). Epyon was Penna Nulles' (Yeah I know I spelled it wrong through most of the latter half of the book. I'm fixing it don't worry.) brother much in the same way. I gave the gundams characters because I really think they were more intelligent than the show lets on (which is probably due to bad scripting on the American side) and I don't think Tallgeese just sprang up out of nowhere.

Rule No. 43 of writing: NEVER KILL OFF A MAJOR CHARACTER WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS. I couldn't have killed Marie. The alien thing was a little abrupt, which reminds me of yet more I must go back and tweak, but every good scifi story has aliens, right? No, seriously. Think about it. I kind of got inspiration for this from the last few Star Trek movies: First Contact and Insurrection. They've been watching our planet, waiting for our species to advance just a little farther, then they'll call and say hello to the human race. Look what we've got here, the entire universe could be yours! The reason why they hadn't contacted previously was that they didn't think we were ready; that we warred too much. But Marie figured that we weren't going to change, and we were already pushing our way into space, so why not? That was a little bit like the "My Teacher _______" series from Bruce Coville. Yeah, I know they're kids books but I still love them! Besides, where else would Fortuna and Zero and the others come from? They don't use fuel like conventional mobile suits . . .

(Part VII): "Shinjite"

Count the Quotes: "Sometimes, I do what I want to. The rest of the time, I do what I have to"-- Gladiator, used (not to the exact word) by Marie to Akiko when the girl didn't want to leave the Laiva. I think I should be a parodist . . .

Anyway, There's not a whole lot to explain here, I don't think. I'm going to go over (once more) why the Phantom Runners wanted Wufei as this, and here it is: Wufei is a gundam pilot. People look up to him and respect him. No one is willing to acknowledge that Wufei might not have been the pest person for a leader, but he happened to be the only one free enough from other things to do Trowa's little job. Besides, the news about the Chang and the Phantom Runners would get out, and the feeling of having someone more experienced would help the general population feel more comfortable with letting the Phantom Runners to continue fighting Beliv.

Before I forget, it sure seemed like it took a long time for Marie to accept what her father felt about her, huh? That was intentional. Repetition is sometimes required to get the point across. I wanted the audience to get a feel for how Treize really acted (in my opinion), though, so they wouldn't be outright repulsed by the ending. I'm going to go off-track for just a minute to say that I believe Treize was a true romantic. I agree with a lot of his ideals, once you get past the way they first appear. He's one of those people that it's impossible to really hate.

(Part VIII): "Losing Faith"

The little iced-tea revelation of Une's was pretty well orchestrated, now that I read back over it. It took me quite a while to get everything right. You should feel so lucky to have met an author absolutely obsessed with her computer and word processor.

Phailin's back . . . yet another sign that something's up while still being fairly cryptic . . .

This was one of those chapters that took a while to work on, because I put a lot of thought into it. That conversation between Nulles and Fortuna, for instance, was really hard to orchestrate. I'm not a quick person with words, and my analytical personality won't let me get away with simplistic conversation. See what I mean? (That's why I can't stand "dubya" but I'll leave that for another time . . .) I tried to give the impression of what the gundams symbolize in my mind--poetic soldiers of justice, each word in that description as a separate ideal and one at the same time. Fortuna and Zero were meant for each other. I mean, their creators actually had planned that they would fall in love. That's why Zero's behavior was so confusing to everyone, even his own pilot. Well, I guess it all comes to light later, huh?

(Part IX): "The Death of Optimism"

Let me clarify that the conversation at the beginning was between Fortuna and Inimicus, not Fortuna and Shenlong.

Ok, Vincent's a very special case. As we all find out later (but the details aren't real in-depth), Captain Ingraham of the Gayla (Beliv's ship, in case you forgot) was deeply involved with the Operation meteor stuff. Those of you who have played FF7 and have found Vincent will kind of recognize his character (at least the way he looks). He was one of those boys that got messed up after they used Heero as a lab-rat. They wanted some adults to experiment on to see if it would do the same thing, only it didn't seem to work with them. Those memories, as they came back, had the same effect on his as if he was experiencing it for the first time. That's why the reaction was so bad. I didn't have time to fit Heero's own decision to take the chemical stuff, but he was in bed for a couple of hours. Akiko didn't really have trouble with it, as Heero suspected.

Now comes the issue of Dorothy. If you think way, way, way back (yeah I know, BC stuff here) I mentioned that I was going to mutate the characters a little in my own opinion about how the characters would feel after ten years of peace. I think that Dorothy really came back to Beliv out of nostalgia. She'd forgotten exactly what war was like, after so long, and in my opinion I don't think she would have been too comfortable with Beliv. I don't think Dorothy was ruthless in the way Beliv was, rather that she was more like Treize, seeing a kind of beauty in violence. I think she sensed that she herself was in danger in Beliv, and someone as Narcissistic as her would not have stuck around long. Why not help Quatre?

(Part X): "Sunset"

Inimicus's name means "Enemy" in Latin. (Literally. I do my research.) She's everyone's enemy. She especially hates Zero and Fortuna, if only because they're so similar to her. This girl had serious ego problems, but see how she ended up, right? That's basically my revenge for all the egotistical snooty bitchy #$*@ *#$@&$ *#$)*$&%@#$*($&$& etc people I have to deal with. Yeah, I'm messed up, so what?

Ok, the Sanc Kingdom's fallen three times: once at the hands of a coup, once by invasion, and once at the hands of its own people. It was kind of Milliardo's fault by letting all those questionable people run around inside his country, and look what it got him. Some people have no appreciation for their benefactors, let me tell you.

Count the Quotes: Occum's Razor from Contact . . .

I don't know exactly how I came up with that energy for thought stuff. I think I might have actually formulated it while reading a SOBE label, but I can't be sure. So basically, accept it and get on with life. Don't bug me about it or I'll summon Inu-Yasha and make him slice you in half with the Tetsusaiga. Seriously. Mara has his calling card.

Last but not least, Vincent. Jaque Ingriham murdered his wife and son. There's a lot of statements in this story about family, and lost families, regained families, etc. My point is (and I never really got around to mentioning it in the last chapter. I should probably go back and edit it) that family is important, no matter who you consider your family. We all need someone to depend on, and Vincent's loss was so great that he felt the need to go kill someone.

(Part XI): "Falling Stars"

I can't really find much to explain out of this chapter, except maybe the Manganacs' suicide run. I just thought, what else could have caused that much damage to a ship as large as the Gayla? I was thinking about Operation Meteor, and the connection kinda went from there. In a long, long time of fighting, the Manganacs never lost a soldier. I wondered what would happen if one of them died. When Rashid came to rescue Quatre and Dorothy and Milliardo out of the Sanc Kingdom, I just took the opportunity to project my own future in that regard.

It really took a lot of coordinating to get this battle the way I wanted.

Also, Heero had a reason for holding Zero back from going in for Fortuna. He didn't want to risk his own butt. It sounds a little selfish, but imagine how Heero must have felt! I wouldn't have wanted to dive back in there if I had a family waiting back home.

Three more to go . . . Think I'll do it tomorrow, go take some pain medication and go to bed . . . ahhhhhhhh

(Part XII): "Unplanned Fortunes"

God I can find absolutely nothing to explain in this chapter. I apologize if I fried your brain over all that "earthian philosophy. I have way too much time to think, I think. Well, time to stop hinting and actually reveal why Phailin wasn't doing her own fighting . . .

Count the Quotes: "You're sure?" "Yes." "You're positive?" "No, only fools are positive." --numerous Terry Pratchett novels.

(Part XIII): "One Breath"

Can't find much here either. Umm . . . Ideas anyone?

Well, there's Treize, if that wasn't obvious. Some of you guys may think it was kind of stupid to shove him back in, but I have a very profound reason: He was an important part of everything that happened in the war of AC 195, Marie's coup in AC 196, and the war in AC 207-208. I don't think Treize should have ever died in the first place, and I don't think that's how destiny had it planned. Since the universe's reverted back to its rightful form, some fluke allowed a death to be undone. This is allowable due to the theory I propose in the last few chapters: All things being fundamentally energy-- body and spirit-- nothing truly dies. Matter becomes energy, and therefore energy must be able to convert back to matter. Maybe I study theory too much, but it makes sense to me.

(Part XIV): "Epilogue: AC 218; Resiliance"

This is just a filler chapter, basically. I needed 15 chapters, so here that thing went. There were a lot of kids running around, so I'll list family stuff for your convenience.

First off, there's Heero, Relena, Akiko, Raina, and their twin brothers Bejiro and Hideaki. That's the Yuy family

The Maxwells are Duo, Sophie and Vincent (as always).

The Bartons are Trowa, his lady Anja and their daughter.

There's Quatre and Dorothy. I left the audience on their own to figure out what they were up to. I'm not telling.

There's the Changs, Wufei, Phailin, Merian and her twin brothers

There's the Peacecrafts, Milliardo, Noin, little Quatre and Deanna. (An older brother and a younger sister. Hmmm . . .)

There's the Khushrenadas, Treize, Une and Sonya.

There's the Nolons, Mariemaia, Cam and Treize the younger.

There's the loners, Dennis and Tovah, and last but not least Akiko's boyfriend Akira.

Yeesh.

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Owowowowowowow my braces really hurt. I just got the wire changed and it's thicker than the last one and it really HURTS! Ah, agony. Can't take Ibuprofen, 'cause it'll make me fall asleep . . .

Well anyway, I hope you enjoyed my fic-- I mean book-- I mean--

Seriously, I want to thank you guys for sticking with me. This project would have never gone through without the support of my friends and fans. I'm going to be so lonely now without this thing to work on, so please tell me what you'd like me to work on next (you can find the descriptions at the end of ch. 14 in case you skipped over them the first time).

Sayonara, kentou!

-Itsumo