Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam.

As always, special thanks to LW for taking time out of her busy schedule to beta-read this. Thank you!


Gundam Gemini

Episode Twenty-One

The Wolf and the Hound

Part B

.

The Lemurian desert was not a place for the faint-hearted that night.

In addition to subzero temperatures and pitch-black darkness, the land was plagued by a ferocious sandstorm that raged with deathly howls and stinging gusts. Trapped within the belly of the rampaging beast, the ancient ruins of Lycia were completely cut off from the outside world and not even the light of the moon and the stars above could penetrate the swirling tempest. It was akin to a waking nightmare with no end in sight.

But as morning approached, the high-pitched wailing softened and the sand-infused winds began to die down. The sky gradually brightened and a golden disc peeked over the horizon, diffusing the dust and the darkness with gilded rays. Vanquished with the dawn of the Lemurian sun, the sandstorm finally disappeared and silence reigned as the land returned to the world of light. Beneath an unblemished blue sky, the ruins of Lycia basked under the warmth of the new day and its leaning towers cast long shadows across the sands once more.

The wondrous phenomenon would have made for a picturesque photo… if not for two unnatural specks on the horizon.

"Crow-class warship detected on the edge of our radar," an operator reported on the Lionheart's bridge. "Designating it as LIRA stealth ship the Blue Crow."

"They arrived on time. A good sign, I guess," Milos muttered from the captain's chair.

"Punctuation doesn't necessarily translate to trustworthiness, Captain," Sofia frostily admonished her superior from the CIC. "Need I remind you we're dealing with the Lunar Fox?"

"I'm well aware, Commander," Milos replied, paying no heed to her obvious irritation. He'd made a point of telling Sofia about the unconventional joint operation first before he told the crew and to say it had gone poorly would have been an understatement. Still, after some wrangling, she had agreed to the operation and with the XO on board the rest of the crew fell in line with her. All that was left was to execute their agreed upon plan and rescue the pilots.

"Commander, we have a visual from our drones." The operator's report was followed by top-down footage of the city ruins appearing on the main monitor which zoomed in on an unusual circular structure among the dilapidated skyscrapers. The footage was then overlaid with a CG schematic which showed the two images were identical. "It's a perfect match, Ma'am. We've found it."

"Excellent," Sofia nodded and took control of the monitor, switching it to a full view of the CG schematic. "This proves the Lemurian bunker is of the same design as a schematic found in another relic, meaning the two are one and the same. It has three well-defended main entrances positioned in a triangular formation around the city and a fourth, less-defended entrance in the centre of the city. The distress signal we received could not have been sent unless our missing pilots made it to the central command centre, making it our primary extraction point."

The red-eyed XO completed her explanation with a sigh of satisfaction. It might have taken her all night and several cans of coffee to discover the relevant records but it had been worth it. Now, so long as Laura and Freya had made it through the night – and the Lunar Fox kept his end of the bargain – the rescue operation had the highest possible chance of success.

However, the moment Sofia let her guard down, the footage cut to black from an apparent explosion. The operator reported the drones had been shot down and an inspection of their last recorded images showed Gorgons in the city.

"It looks like they won't make it easy," Milos growled before checking his watch. "It's almost time for the joint operation to begin. Is the Gungnir ready?"

"Primed with PP and ready to fire at will, Captain."

"Good. The target is the bunker's south-western defences. Get ready to fire on my mark," Milos ordered, keeping an eye on his watch as he waited for the operators to input the coordinates before bellowing, "Mark! Fire!"

At the appointed time, both ships simultaneously unleashed twin beams of light – one purple and one red – that arced through the blue sky before striking the edges of the ruins with two almighty explosions. While the Blue Crow obliterated the defences at the south-eastern entrance by using its stealth to get within range for a well-aimed shot of its beam cannon, the Lionheart's powerful Gungnir Cannon had allowed it to maintain its distance before it sliced a long smoking trench into the landscape with a purple wave of energy. The beams were made even more deadly thanks to the presence of oxygen which superheated the air around them and expanded their radius of destruction, causing Gorgons and SAM batteries alike to go up in smoke.

"Target destroyed! No enemies detected!"

"The Blue Crow is reporting the same!"

The operators announced their findings and the images of two smouldering craters appeared onscreen. Allowing himself a quiet fist-pump, Milos extended his hand and gave his next orders.

"Take us in, Helmsman! We'll destroy the northern defences with our beam cannon next – right after we drop off Team Orthrus at the city!" he bellowed. Although Team Orthrus currently consisted of only two mobile suits, he knew they would not be fighting alone. Reflecting on how many people had united for the sole purpose of saving four lives despite their differences, the captain felt his spirits lift and whispered in a low voice, "Hold on, Laura… we're coming for you."

.


.

"Anti-air defences have been neutralised, Team Orthrus. Your orders are to deploy as soon as we reach the city."

"Understood. Awaiting launch clearance," Alice replied to the operator as she checked the instruments inside her cockpit one last time. She was halfway done when a familiar face appeared on her monitor.

"Feeling better, Lieutenant?" asked Ray who was also in the midst of performing final checks.

"Peachy," she answered without even looking, "But I'll feel even better once Laura and Freya are back safe and sound."

"Well, it looks like we'll have some help out there in that regard," the former ace remarked. "The captain and XO seemed fine with it but do you think we can trust LIRA?"

"I don't know but as long as they don't get in our way I won't blow them out of the sky," Alice bluntly responded before pausing. "…Ray, let me take the lead on this one."

The request surprised the warrant officer.

"Are you sure? The Jabberwock's sniper rifle won't be much use on the frontline."

"I won't be taking the sniper rifle."

On cue, Junko's jovial face appeared onscreen with an answer as if she had somehow sensed Ray's puzzled expression.

"Alice, the Jabberwock's equipment change is complete. Now you'll be felling those Gorgons left and right!" the maintainer happily exclaimed with a fist pump while Ray took a peek at the Garm prototype with his camera.

"…Understood, Alice," he nodded, impressed. "I've got your back out there."

"I appreciate it, Ray," the blonde replied with a rare, tiny smile.

"Alice outranks you anyway so that makes her team leader!" Junko teased the older man before a voice distracted her off-screen. "You're clear for launch, you two! Good luck and make sure to say hi to Laura and Freya for me when you rescue their sorry behinds!"

"Roger that, Junko. We'll be right back – all of us," Alice declared as the Jabberwock was moved to the catapult and she stared down the runway. "This is Alice Carol. Jabberwock, taking flight!"

The catapult activated and sparks flew as the Disappointing Angel was launched out of the Lionheart and straight into the ruins outside. Spreading its wings, the Jabberwock ignited its thrusters and returned to the Lemurian skies but this time, the white and blue mobile suit was equipped with twin rifles and no shield. Before, Alice had always let Laura or Freya take the lead while she covered them from the safety of the rear. Now, she was willing to risk her own life and fight on the frontlines if it meant she could save her precious friends.

Pushing on her throttle, the blonde took off towards the centre of the city with Ray following close behind her in the Hermes. Even without the threat of surface-to-air missiles, it wasn't long before they met resistance in the form of Gorgons swarming on the ground and firing into the air with their rifles en masse. The nimble Jabberwock and Hermes rolled left and right, using their superior speed and the leaning towers to avoid the blinding salvos of purple beams, but no matter where they turned another host of Gorgons was waiting to greet them.

When they spotted several enemies armed with portable missile launchers, Alice and Ray immediately pulled up just as warning sirens alerted them to the warheads homing in on their tails. Drawing the heat-seeking missiles high into the air while dodging more beams, the Garms suddenly split up and spun on their backs before neutralising the gathered projectiles in a crossfire of blue beams. A cascade of mid-air explosions followed, creating giant smoke clouds which were rapidly dispersed when the Jabberwock and Hermes zipped through them to make an emergency landing on one of the rooftops.

"Lionheart, Gorgons with heat-seeking missiles detected! Requesting fire support on the following positions!" Alice shouted while inputting the coordinates as she and Ray took cover from the relentless onslaught of purple beams.

"Copy that, Team Orthrus. Hellfire missiles are on their way," Sofia promptly responded as she directed the CIC operators to fulfil the request. "Fire!"

On the outskirts of the ruins, the Lionheart's missile silos opened and a dozen red-tipped rockets launched into the sky before plummeting towards the ground. The resulting explosions rocked the entire city and caused whole buildings to tremble as fire and dust were thrown up into the air. Once the smoke cleared, it briefly appeared that the Gorgons had been annihilated but seconds later the sky was painted violet again as their beams flew overhead with renewed fury.

"Lionheart, there's more resistance than expected! Requesting more fire support – lots of it!" Alice made the desperate appeal only to receive a less than ideal reply.

"Negative, Jabberwock. If that first bombardment didn't do it, the second will just be a waste of ammunition," Sofia explained over the comm. "Unless you have a justifiable target like before, we need to conserve our Hellfire missiles for other threats – like LIRA for one."

"But Laura and Freya…"

"Forget it, Alice! Hellfire missiles weren't made for ground targets anyway!" Ray reminded her while popping up to take shots over the building's edge with the Hermes. "Besides, we wouldn't want one of these ruins to fall over and block the entrance before we got Laura and Freya out."

Alice bit her lip. Sofia and Ray were right; there wasn't a magic bullet or a Gundam that would make the rescue operation go faster. She wondered what Laura or Freya would do in her position but shook those thoughts away before they could take root. She was the team leader now and the decision was up to her. They still had air superiority; if they could just reach the city centre and clear the area, they could perform the extraction before getting out of the way of danger. But with only the Jabberwock and the Hermes, such a plan was short-handed.

"Alice, behind you!"

The blonde finally noticed the strange lull in the barrage from below and spun around just in time to see a winged figure soar straight up into her line of sight. It was a Gorgon equipped with a flight pack and its rifle was trained on the Jabberwock. Gritting her teeth, Alice regretted leaving her shield behind as she brought up her guns as fast as she could.

But before either of them could get a shot off, a red beam pierced the Gorgon through the chest and it exploded into a spectacular fireball right in front of the Jabberwock. Several more Gorgons took to the skies but they too were shot down as a pack of black mobile suits flew into their path and dismantled them with astonishing efficiency.

"The Space Wolves…!" Alice muttered, unsure of whether to be thankful for their sudden appearance or not. When her comm rang seconds later with a caller from an unknown source, it came as no surprise and she opened the channel with a snap of her voice. "Who is this? Identify yourself!"

"Ouch. No need to bite my head off…" a man with a mellow tone answered. "Just thought I'd give you a friendly greeting in light of this historic joint operation. The name's Luke Valorie, lieutenant and temporary leader of the Space Wolves."

Looking around with the Jabberwock's cameras, Alice found Luke's Warg crouching on another tower in the distance. It was the only one with a sniper rifle and must have had the Jabberwock in its sights because it waved.

"Alice Carol, lieutenant junior grade and temporary leader of Team Orthrus," she gruffly replied. "And before you ask, no, I didn't need your help."

"You're welcome anyway," Luke joked before he became unexpectedly sheepish. "Uh, hey, listen… Our squad is down two and your squad is down to two… Why don't you fly with us? What do you say?"

There was a pause as Alice considered the proposal but her answer was obvious. To save Laura and Freya, she had to put aside her antipathy towards the Space Wolves and fight alongside them. It was also a matter of survival against a common enemy.

"…What took you so long to ask?" she eventually retorted as the Jabberwock and Hermes reactivated their thrusters and blasted off into the sky.

Avoiding the purple barrage following their departure, the pair joined the Wargs at the back of their flying v-formation as they prepared to make another run over the city.

"Just so you know, you mediocre RDF pilots should feel honoured to fly with Lady Vega's Space Wolves!" A mean-spirited voice informed them before a doll-like girl with blonde hair materialised on their monitors and glared at them with her ruby-red eyes. "Just follow our lead – and don't even think about trying anything funny unless you want to be soot on my beamsabre!"

The appearance of a little girl on his screen had Ray doing a double-take and her warning went right over his head.

"Who the hell let a grade-schooler into the Space Wolves?"

Said grade-schooler's face turned lava-level red so quickly it looked like steam might start whistling out of her ears.

"For your information, I'm nineteen and I'm the best pilot in the Space Wolves after Lady Vega, you balding old uncle!"

"U-Uncle? Maybe to you, you little pipsqueak!" Ray shot back while subconsciously touching his hairline only to freeze when the girl's portrait was overlapped by the intimidating face of a scarred man. Getting the distinct feeling he did not want to be alone with this bear-like individual in a dark alley, the former ace was already working on an apology when he received an unexpected question.

"…Ray-Man, right?" Pavel asked, eliciting a dumbfounded expression from Ray.

"You… You know who I am?" he stuttered in disbelief.

"Of course. We had to rewrite our training manuals because of what you showed a Garm could do," said the veteran. "An ace like you should be flying near the head of the formation. Charlotte, make room for Ray-Man."

"What?! There's no way!"

"Just let him fly behind you then," Luke suggested, ribbing her further by adding, "You know he's good."

The Scarlet Cub clicked her tongue.

"Fine… but this doesn't mean I accept you as leader, stupid Valorie! I can't wait until Lady Vega comes back!"

"You and me both…"

The Wargs adjusted their formation and the Hermes flew closer to the front, trailing behind only Charlotte who was at the head of the pack. Moments later, their radars alerted them to a swarm of red specks closing in from the distance and they spotted another flight of winged Gorgons vying for control over Lemuria's skies. Despite being outnumbered three to one, the Space Wolves did not shy away from the challenge and instead rocketed headlong into the fray.

The two sides made contact at high speed, weaving through each other as they left a multicoloured lightshow of beams, contrails and explosions in their wake. But it was the Wargs and Garms that made it out the other side intact while the mangled and severed remains of a dozen Gorgons plummeted from the sky like purple rain. Having eliminated half the enemy in one fell swoop, the joint squadron swiftly reassembled their formation before turning around and finishing off the rest.

However, as soon as Charlotte cleaved the last winged Gorgon in two with her beamsabre, the purple barrage from the ground resumed with renewed fury. Breaking formation, the squad scattered to the four winds seemingly in a panic but it was a ruse. Splitting into pairs, one pilot drew the anti-air fire of the Gorgons while the other – a Warg pre-armed with explosives – began performing bombing runs and the ruins shuddered from the cascade of explosions.

"That's it! If they outnumber us, we'll just have to grind our way to the city centre – one block at a time!" Luke shouted, landing his Warg on one of the towers to provide covering fire with his sniper rifle. However, the substitute leader had barely lined up his sights when he felt a tremor and saw the Jabberwock landing beside him. "Alice? Don't you want to equip your sniper rifle first?"

"Don't need it," the Disappointing Angel boldly replied before aiming her dual rifles over the edge and sniping unsuspecting Gorgons two at a time. "I can hit my targets just fine from this distance."

Whistling, Luke took a moment to admire his one-time rival's sharpshooting skills before joining her in rapidly discharging his sniper rifle.

.


.

When they heard the thunder-like rumbling from above and felt the entire bunker quake so much that dust shook from the ceiling, the trapped pilots knew their rescuers had finally arrived.

Dousing the embers of their fire, they abandoned their makeshift camp and boarded their mobile suits with the intent of leaving the underground bunker behind once and for all. If what Junko had told them was right, the Lionheart and the Blue Crow would be neutralising Lycia's anti-air defences while their mobile suit teams fought their way to the city centre. Assuming all went well, Team Orthrus and the Space Wolves would either fight their way into the central elevator and extract them or they would meet them on the surface.

Whatever the case, the quartet weren't waiting for them.

"I still can't believe Milos agreed to work together with LIRA…" Freya exclaimed bitterly while they booted up their operating systems and performed final instrument checks. "As if the Scarlet Wolf wasn't bad enough, now we have a truce with the Lunar Fox too? What is this world coming to?!"

"Would you rather not see the light of day again instead?" retorted Ursula, who by this point was beyond exasperated by the Diva's dramatics. "On the contrary, it sounds exactly like the sort of thing Commodore Sparrhorn would do."

"He understands that working with the enemy is a small price to pay if it can get his best pilots back," Vega chuckled before suddenly pausing in thought. "Although I have the distinct feeling a warm welcome won't be on the cards when I make my triumphant return…"

Laura stifled an inadvertent groan when she realised the same 'warm' welcome was waiting for her aboard the Lionheart except in her case it was in the form of her worrywart father.

"L-Let's just cross that bridge when we come to it…" she tried to change the subject only for the inadvertent admission to raise more than a few eyebrows. Clearing her throat, the Gundam pilot tried again. "…Talk about the future is cheap unless we can get out of here first – preferably alive."

"Well said, Laura," Vega heartily agreed and looked at each of them in turn. "Let Operation Perseus begin!"

The Fenrir raised its fist high into the air and the others followed suit albeit with far less enthusiasm. As the RDF pilots had discovered, the Scarlet Wolf's passion for operational titles bordered on the obsessive and she had insisted on concocting one. After indulging her, they gathered at the hangar entrance and before long their escape was in full swing.

Ramming the giant hangar doors apart, the four mobile suits rushed out into the open with their rifles at the ready and immediately blasted two Gorgons on either side. The virus-controlled machines crumpled to the floor with smouldering holes in their chassis but the quartet were already hurrying down the corridor in a single file. Having memorised the shortest route to the central elevator, the Orthrus led the way with its Solar Shield up while the others followed close behind, using the narrow passageways to their advantage as they swiftly eliminated any obstacles that appeared before moving on.

At first, they encountered very little opposition but as time went on, more and more Gorgons began getting in their way. By the time they reached their destination – an enormous, lofty chamber with a round platform in the middle for the elevator shaft – it appeared the whole base had been re-alerted to the intruders and dozens of the pilotless purple mobile suits were already waiting for them. But despite the searing torrent of violet beams aimed at them, the quartet did not stop. Instead, they charged straight ahead, protected by the Orthrus' Solar Shield, before they broke formation and opened fire.

"Damn, they just never end!" yelled Freya, gritting her teeth as the Brunhild's shield took the brunt of the plasma meant for her. "Take a hint and stay dead already!"

"I don't think they can hear you!" Ursula remarked before boosting out from behind the cover of the Brunhild and exhibiting her superb marksmanship. "They may outnumber us but it's within expectations!"

"Indeed, just like stirring a hornet's nest," Vega grinned as the Fenrir agilely thrust between targets before slicing and dicing them. The first to flank the enemy, the Scarlet Wolf impaled one Gorgon through the chest with her beamsabre and held up its lifeless body as a makeshift shield while providing crossfire with her rifle. Although there were no human pilots inside, the virus still avoided friendly fire which worked in favour of the ace's tactics. "A little bit too easy though, wouldn't you say, Hellhound? I'd much rather be fighting you."

"Don't start!" Laura warned her adversary as she fought her way to the centre. Dashing forward, the Orthrus shield-bashed the Gorgon guarding the elevator and sent it crashing into its allies. After they fell over like bowling pins, she fired off a few shots to make sure they stayed down before announcing one of their objectives had been met. "Elevator secured! Fall in!"

The others gathered around the platform and used the nearby support pillars as cover from the remaining Gorgons. Although most had been transformed into scrap metal, even more of the mindless killing machines were pouring out of the three tunnels leading into the chamber and were threatening to overwhelm the quartet. But even with beams flying across the room and tremors coming from above, the women remained steadfast.

"Reinforcements coming from our rear!" Freya warned, single-handedly holding them off with her beam rifle. "You might want to start that elevator up! Like right now!"

"Already on it!" shouted Ursula, placing one manipulator on the platform console while covering the Brunhild with her rifle. "Overriding locks… Priming the hydraulics… You need to buy sixty seconds!"

"Sounds like we're up. Ready, Laura?" Vega asked as she smirked with anticipation.

"You know I am," Laura countered with annoyance before her amethyst eyes turned to the front and focused. "Mode Change!"

The technopaths simultaneously activated their relic cores and Pandora Particles began to transmute the Gundanium that made up their mobile suits, causing them to glow like miniature stars. Blinding light inundated the chamber and when it finally subsided, the Orthrus and Fenrir stood wearing gold and maroon armour. In any other circumstances they would have immediately battled following a mode change but today they fought as one, storming a tunnel each to stem the tide of Gorgons.

Literally falling into the Gorgons, Vega picked them up one after another using her Gravity Field and threw them back from whence they came like ragdolls. Knocked off their feet and flattened against the walls with the power of artificial gravity, they were easy targets for the Fenrir's rifle. With rapid-fire aim, Vega picked off the motionless Gorgons in mid-descent before diving past their remains and falling headfirst into the tunnel. Slashing her curved red beamsabre from side to side, the ace carved her way through the enemy's reinforcements until she reached the centre and came to a sudden stop.

Bits and pieces of the Gorgons she had eviscerated – picked up by her Gravity Field – continued to fly past at lightning speed, striking another company of the purple mobile suits who immediately began firing at the Fenrir. When the purple barrage merely warped around her field and blackened the concrete walls instead, Vega smiled and brought her hands up like a conductor. The ground began to tremble and the Gorgons were compelled by an incredible force to fall to their hands and knees as cracks began to spread across the ceiling. Seconds later, having compromised the structural integrity of the tunnel to breaking point, the Scarlet Wolf descended back towards the central chamber and left the Gorgons to be crushed by the falling rubble.

Meanwhile, Laura used the Gundam's Solar Mode to staunch the flood of Gorgons in her own way. Marching straight into enemy fire, she absorbed the onslaught of beams with her golden Solar Armour while shielding Ursula and Freya. At the same time, she let loose violet-hot Solar Beams from her rifle which burned through rows of Gorgons at once, incinerating them almost entirely into ashes.

Reaching the entrance of the tunnel funnelling reinforcements into the chamber, Laura could have used the narrow passage to her advantage and continued firing. Instead, she had the Orthrus open its arms to absorb as much plasma as possible as the Gorgons unleashed a concentrated beam barrage. Watching her energy meter rapidly fill until it was maxed out, the blonde grinned and hit a button on her console which opened the Gundam's chest cavity.

The resulting Solar Flare ripped down the tunnel in a blinding flash of light, vaporising everything inside before erupting out the other end in the shape of a flaming cross. Reeling from the recoil, the Orthrus struggled to keep the powerful chest cannon under control with Solar Mode's weaker thrusters and its feet scraped against the ground as the mobile suit slid backwards. Before the energy meter emptied completely, Laura angled the massive beam upwards and sliced through the tunnel roof like a hot knife through butter.

The blazing pillar of fire finally went out and the Gundam's armour returned to ivory white just in time to see the Fenrir escape as both entrances collapsed. The bunker was shaken by the tremor that followed but once it faded, Vega landed next to the Orthrus and the Fenrir transformed back to its original rose red. Admiring their handiwork together, the Scarlet Wolf smiled widely and nodded with approval.

"It appears we have a tie, Hellhound," she announced, beaming her jovial self onto the Gundam's monitor. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Trust you to make everything a competition," Laura derided the ace before her lips curled into a smirk. "That said, I was more efficient."

"An oversized chest cannon is hardly efficient," Vega shot back but she could not keep from grinning. "Still, I do believe we make a fine team."

"Yeah, well, don't get too comfortable," the blonde promptly dismissed the notion. "I can promise you this will never happen again. Ever."

"Discarding me so soon after our night of passion already?" the masked woman accused with practiced melodrama. "How cruel of you to toy with my heart, Hellhound."

Blushing like an overripe tomato to the sounds of Vega's playful laughter, Laura was just about to stutter back a denial when a giant face took up their monitors.

"Hate to interrupt your little chat but CAN YOU STOP FLIRTING AND HELP US?!" Freya screamed, and judging by her pink cheeks she had been listening in. "And if you don't get on the elevator now, I swear, we're going to leave both of you behin–"

The Pink Diva was interrupted when an earthquake even more powerful than the previous ones rocked the chamber and the ceiling began to crumble.

"What did you do, Laura?!" shouted Freya as rubble and dust came raining down.

"I-It wasn't me… It was Vega!" Laura yelled back while looking around in a panic.

"Don't blame me for your blunders, Hellhound!" Vega angrily refuted the accusation as she dodged the increasingly giant rocks smashing into the concrete floor.

"Shut up, all of you, and get on!" an exasperated Ursula screamed over their bickering and everyone herded onto the elevator platform with great haste. However, in addition to the falling rubble they also had to contend with a renewed beam barrage as more Gorgons charged out of the remaining tunnel not yet buried under debris.

"You better hurry it up, Ursula, because we're like sitting ducks out h–" Freya hadn't even finished speaking when a massive slab suddenly fell from above and squashed the Gorgons, rubbing them out of existence with barely a shudder. "…Never mind, scratch that."

"Done! Here we go!" Ursula proclaimed with relief as she activated the elevator.

They felt the machinery below them hum with power and the circular gate above them spiralled open, revealing a long dark shaft leading back to the surface. Seconds later, the lift engaged its hydraulics and before they knew it the platform was being shot straight into the air. Or at least, that's what they had expected to happen. Instead, they discovered they were moving at a painfully slow pace as the bunker crumbled around them.

"Hey, Ursula, what gives?!" cried Freya as she levelled an accusing stare at the brunette.

"What did you expect?! This is a civilian elevator – it's not meant to carry military hardware let alone four mobile suits!" snapped Ursula as they moved at a snail's pace.

"Hold on! I have an idea," Vega declared and Mode Changed the Fenrir back to the colour of maroon. Expanding her Gravity Field, she caught the others inside, bestowing them with weightlessness and allowing the elevator to swiftly carry them out of the bunker just before the roof collapsed. However, the sheer amount of falling debris created a rapidly expanding cloud of dust that followed them up into the shaft and momentarily blinded them. When the cloud finally dissipated, they saw they were still travelling towards the surface with the help of Gravity Mode, floating in mid-air as tiny lights lining the length of the shaft flickered by at regular intervals.

"Uh, this might sound like a stupid question but… why didn't we just fly up the shaft to begin with?" Freya asked, and like the others she thought the danger had passed as they relaxed under the feeling of weightlessness.

"Because the gate to the surface won't open unless we activate the elevator," Ursula explained, pointing up with her Warg's manipulator.

"So… why is it still closed?" The diva's question was met with an unsettling pause as the quartet stared at the impenetrable wall of solid titanium they were racing towards. "…Oh my god, you've trapped us inside a giant pancake maker! You had one job, Ursula!"

"Shut up! It's not my fault everything here was due for maintenance three centuries ago!" the brunette shot back.

"Oh my, this is a pickle, isn't it?" Vega nonchalantly remarked as the Brunhild and Warg tried and failed to hit one another while floating behind her. She considered cancelling Gravity Mode to slow the elevator down again but there was a chance it might break if the burden of four mobile suits suddenly materialised.

"It's okay, I think I've got this…" said Laura before she bit her lip and lowered her voice. "…But you need to spin me."

Needless to say, the masked woman was perplexed.

"Pardon?"

"You know? Like a drill."

"Ah." A smile graced Vega's lips as she put two and two together. "Well, this should be interesting…"

Using its manipulators, the Fenrir spun the Orthrus as fast as it could and Laura activated Burst Mode, transforming her mobile suit into a raging tornado of fire. In an instant, the shaft became blisteringly hot like an oversized oven as heat and orange particles radiated from the whirling red Gundam before it rocketed off towards the gate. With only moments to spare, Laura gathered the Burst Particles above the Orthrus and used her technopathic powers to mould them into the shape of a massive drill.

She finished it just in time and the Buster Drill slammed into the impenetrable gate with a fiery explosion. At first, it appeared the gate had withstood the blow but when the smoke parted the Gundam was still there holding the drill in place, spinning along with it as its thrusters fired at full blast. Spewing flames and sparks, the Buster Drill was just an orange blur as it bored into the titanium doors which began to glow red at a rapid pace. From below, it looked like a blinding sun had been placed at the summit of the shaft and Vega and the others shielded their eyes as embers rained down on them. When the gate ultimately buckled, it happened without warning as the Buster Drill literally melted a hole into the titanium before spiralling straight through to the other side.

.


.

On the surface, the sand at the centre of the Lycian ruins was blown high into the air before the Orthrus erupted from the ground in a pillar of fire. Seeing blue skies spinning on her monitor, Laura immediately deactivated Burst Mode and the Buster Drill dissipated into the aether while the Gundam's red-hot armour reverted back to white. She then attempted to reduce her thrust to stick the emergency landing but being a human spinning top had left the pilot completely dazed.

As a result, the Orthrus ended up stumbling along the ground before crashing unceremoniously into a sand dune headfirst. The others exited the bunker soon after, propelled through the giant hole and into the air when the elevator came to a sudden stop at the unearthed doors by ramming into it. When Vega realised they were outside she switched off Gravity Mode and they were all sent plummeting towards the ground. But while Freya and Ursula joined Laura in face-planting their mobile suits into the sand around the entrance, Vega somehow managed to land the Fenrir perfectly on its feet.

"Ah, praise the sun! Truly, your life-giving rays have been sorely missed…" proclaimed the noblewoman with a long sigh, basking in the daylight with her arms outstretched while the Fenrir mimicked its pilot. "Wouldn't you agree, ladies? …Ladies?"

When she finally looked down, she discovered the other mobile suits were sprawled comically around her in the sand.

"I agree that we should never do that again…" Ursula groaned as her Warg shakily picked itself back up and shook the sand out of its parts.

"For once, I think I agree with you…" muttered Freya who, much like her Garm, lay spread-eagled on her back. "You're lucky your screwball idea worked, Laura, seeing as you almost baked us to death!"

"It was either that or being flattened into pancakes…" Laura groggily replied, trying to regain her bearings as she pulled the Orthrus' head out of the sand dune. "But hey, it worked, right? The Drill Relic actually did what it was originally designed to do and got us out of that death trap–"

The Gundam pilot stopped mid-sentence when she identified movement on her monitor and realised she had spoken too soon. Like a bad dream, purple manipulators began to sprout from the shifting sands and fallen rubble as their owners slowly clambered out of their graves. The hexagonal heads that emerged may have been cracked and battered but their beady eyes darted about with life before locking on to the quartet's mobile suits one after another. As the women suddenly found themselves surrounded on all sides, they realised the Gorgons must have been guarding the bunker's entrance before the Buster Drill had hurled them into the sands where they had lain buried until now.

"Twenty… Thirty…. Forty…" A tense Laura tried counting the Gorgons off on her monitor but they never seemed to end. "I hope everyone has enough ammo left."

"Funny you should ask – I'm on my last plasma clip," Vega replied with slightly less bravado than usual as the Orthrus and Fenrir found themselves standing back-to-back. "But isn't this the perfect opportunity for your Solar Mode?"

"Can't…" the blonde reluctantly answered as she was forced to divulge one of the Gundam's weaknesses. "Burst Mode overheats the Gundanium too much. So Mode Change is out of the question for at least the next ten minutes…"

"That's ten minutes we don't have…"

"What about Gravity Mode?"

"I could deflect the beams with Gravity Shield but not for all four of us – not against these numbers," the masked woman revealed as she identified anti-air missile launchers amongst the Gorgons' various armaments. "Ideally, we'd fly out of here but it appears our new friends won't make it easy for us…"

"Talk about 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'…" Freya grumbled as she checked left and right on her monitor only to find enemies at every turn. "If I knew this was going to happen, I would have stayed down in the bunker."

"You can jump back in if you want," Ursula half-jokingly suggested, searching the ground for cover only to conclude they were hopelessly exposed. "But after that last quake, I'd be surprised if there's anything left of the bunker now."

"Humph. Nope, I'm staying right here," Freya replied with a defiant smirk on her face as the Brunhild and Warg backed up against one another. "How else am I going to see the priceless look on your face when I save your sorry behind?"

"You took the words right out of my mouth…" Ursula retorted through gritted teeth.

With their white, red, black and pink mobile suits assembled in a square formation and pointing their rifles in all four directions, the chatter of the pilots went silent as they prepared to make their last stand. The Gorgons now numbered almost a hundred and the presence of some in the ruined buildings gave them the advantage of high ground. They had not fired a shot yet but appeared to be gathering their forces and it was only a matter of time before they made their assault.

Finally, the Gorgons became eerily still and raised their rifles all at once, signalling the slaughter was about to begin. Laura and the others tensed, not daring to even blink as they kept their fingers on their triggers. But before either side could get a shot off, a series of explosions engulfed the Gorgons as bombs and beams rained down on them from above.

Following the trail of smoke and flames whooshing up towards the sky, the four pilots whipped their heads back and witnessed the most welcome and unusual sight yet. Roaring overhead in a never-before-seen mixture of black, white and blue, a joint squadron of Wargs and Garms were unleashing devastation on the Gorgon horde from the air. With remarkable precision, they bombed one side of the enemy encirclement and sniped the Gorgons armed with missile launchers in the surrounding buildings, thus opening an escape route for the quartet in one pass before hightailing it out of there.

"The Space Wolves!" Ursula cried with relief, watching as the Wargs narrowly avoided the retaliatory barrage of purple beams from the Gorgons.

"Did you see that, Laura? Alice and Ray were with them!" Freya exclaimed next, scarcely believing her eyes. "The cavalry's here!"

"This is our chance – we'd best not waste it!" Vega declared and they all nodded in agreement.

"Let's go! Back to the skies!" shouted Laura as she rammed her throttle to full power. "Go, go, go!"

Still feeling the highs of having just cheated death, the four mobile suits ignited their thrusters with azure infernos and charged towards the opening in the Gorgon lines. Shooting any surviving Gorgons in their path on the charred wasteland while dodging beams from behind, they gathered speed, spread their wings and took flight. Finally leaving the ruins far below, the quartet felt an exhilarating rush of freedom as they rapidly soared into the sky and reunited with their friends.

"Laura! Freya!" Alice was the first to greet them as their mobile suits flew side by side, her strained voice finally breaking with sheer relief at the sight of the pair. "I was worried I'd never see you again!"

"It's good to see you too, Alice," smiled Laura, taking a moment to appreciate the tearful blonde on her monitor after having been apart for a day. "I promise we'll make it up to you and everyone else later but we got Junko's message. So, Milos really made a deal with the Lunar Fox?"

"We couldn't have rescued you without LIRA. The captain only did what he had to do to save you," Ray chimed in with a flash of his trademark grin. "By the way, glad to have you back, Lieutenant."

"Don't forget me!" cried an indignant Freya as her portrait suddenly popped up and overshadowed the others. "I had to suffer cohabiting underground with the Scarlet Flirt and the Demon Commander's long-lost sister too, you know! Meanwhile, I bet Ray has been slacking off this whole time!"

"Not true! I've been pulling my weight like everyone else!" Ray shot back. "In fact, I've already prepared a change of diapers for you back at the Lionheart, you brat!"

While Team Orthrus celebrated their reunion, a similar event was happening with the Space Wolves.

"Lady Vegaaaaa!" The cry of delight belonged to none other than Charlotte whose Warg buzzed around the Fenrir like an overexcited puppy. "Oh, Lady Vega, I'm so glad you're back! While you were gone, I couldn't eat or sleep, and everyone was so mean to me but especially Luke!"

"Oh my, it sounds like I've put you through quite the ordeal, Charlotte," Vega chuckled as she piloted the Fenrir through the purple storm of beams coming from below. "And I promise I'll hear all about it later – just as soon as we intern these antiquated admirers back into the ground where they belong."

"It's only been a day…" Ursula interjected, exchanging a sour glare with the cub before things predictably devolved into a shouting match.

"Don't think you've won just because you got to spend the night with Lady Vega!" Charlotte angrily pointed at her rival through the screen as her cheeks turned pink. "O-One time doesn't mean anything!"

"W-W-What are you implying, you idiot?!" Ursula retorted before blushing bright red as a pixelated picture formed unbidden in her mind. "N-Nothing of the sort happened so get your mind out of the gutter!"

"Ah, music to my ears…" a voice happily sighed as the two fought and Luke appeared on the Fenrir's monitor looking like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Welcome back, Major. Command of the Space Wolves is all yours again…"

"Oh? Is that relief I detect in your usual sarcasm, Luke?" asked Vega, grinning as though she already knew the answer. "And here I thought you would relish your newfound responsibilities while I was away."

"Oh, I relished them all right, Major…" the dishevelled man replied with a self-deprecating smile. "So much that I never want them ever again…"

"For the record, Major, Lieutenant Valorie came into his own by the end," Pavel helpfully informed her and Vega chuckled as Luke squirmed like he had made a serious mistake.

"Then I was right not to be worried," the Scarlet Wolf proclaimed right before opening a universal channel and changing gears. "Space Wolves, fall in!"

At the sound of their leader's voice, the Wargs instantly regrouped into a v-formation behind the Fenrir like well-trained hounds and even Ursula and Charlotte stopped their bickering. Seeing the discipline of their rivals, Team Orthrus did the same behind the Gundam and the two squadrons flew side-by-side as they prepared to re-enter the fray.

"Try not to fall behind, Hellhound!" Vega goaded her nemesis as the Fenrir edged ahead of the Orthrus.

"This truce can't end soon enough…" Laura muttered under her breath before pushing her throttle all the way forward.

Now thirteen mobile suits strong, the joint squadron roared over the ruins and straight into a storm of plasma beams. Weaving through the purple rays with nary a scratch incurred, they were like aerial dancers in an intense lightshow and for a moment it was as if the city of Lycia had come alive again. But while they danced in the air, it was a different story on the ground as Gorgons burst into flames one after another, whittled down with each overhead pass of bombs and concentrated beam volleys.

"Not so tough now, are you?!" Freya gleefully declared as she shot up several Gorgons in a row – including one that was in Charlotte's sights.

"Hey, that one was mine!" the Lux prodigy angrily shouted and showed up on the Brunhild's monitor with a pout on her lips. For a split second, Freya was genuinely stunned.

"…Why's there a kid on my screen?" she asked innocently, which only served to rile up Charlotte even more as her face turned purple with rage for the second time that day.

"I'm not a kid!"

Deliberatively bumping her Warg into the pink Garm, they jostled in mid-flight for a moment before a spray of purple beams forced them to veer apart. Checking their rear cameras, they discovered a squadron of winged Gorgons were on their tails and more were launching into the air from outside the ruins. Acting on instinct, Freya and Charlotte wordlessly swerved in opposite directions and caught the enemy in a pincer movement before mowing through them like they were merely overgrown lawn grass.

"We're surrounded! They must have more reserves hidden around the city than we thought!" warned Ray, swinging the Hermes around to take on another enemy squadron only for a Warg to pull ahead of him.

"Stay behind me! I'll act as a decoy," Pavel ordered, bringing up his shield and charging into the line of fire before Ray could say a word.

Shooting at as many Gorgons as he could to catch their attention, Pavel absorbed the relentless return fire using his shield before breaking through the enemy's formation like a cannonball. The Gorgons scattered out of the way and turned around to give chase, never noticing the blue Garm targeting them from above. With the Lemurian sun to his back, Ray fell upon the enemy like a swooping hawk, taking them out two at a time using rapid bursts of his twin rifles before the Hermes emerged from underneath the explosions.

"As expected of Ray-Man, your abilities are everything I've heard and more," Pavel complimented Ray and the ace almost teared up at the amount of respect he was finally being shown.

"Y-You're not too bad yourself," Ray replied, blinking away the salty discharge in his eyes before a nearby series of explosions put him on guard. Seeing a Warg and Garm fly out of the smoke that was now a raincloud of falling Gorgon parts, he relaxed and heard an unfamiliar woman's voice on the comm.

"I guess I was mistaken about Team Orthrus being a bunch of oddballs," Ursula admitted, turning to her unexpected partner on the monitor with a pleased look in her eyes. "At the very least, you're much more professional than that Freya girl."

"Are Pavel and Luke… close?" Alice suddenly blurted out with a creepy smile on her face. "Like, how often are they together? Do they… bunk together?"

"Excuse me…?" Ursula cocked a perplexed eyebrow and sensed she would have to withdraw her earlier statement already.

"What is she talking about?" asked Luke.

"Don't ask," Ray and Freya advised in unison before the latter changed the subject. "Has anyone seen Laura?"

"If you mean the Hellhound, she's over there with Lady Vega," Charlotte reluctantly informed her and, judging by the pout on the cub's lips, it was painfully obvious she was jealous. "How dare she… That's my spot!"

Indeed, amidst the bursts of light and explosions in the distance, a pair of red and white dots were twisting across the sky like intimate dance partners as they annihilated wave after wave of winged Gorgons in perfect unison. After having battled one another so many times in the past, Laura and Vega were discovering they didn't just make for heated rivals – they also made for formidable allies. Knowing each other's piloting styles inside out, they achieved a dance-like coordination in battle – a dance usually reserved for their duels to the death but which they now directed at a common enemy. No matter how many Gorgons the virus threw at them, they were no match for the combined speed and marksmanship of the Orthrus and the Fenrir working as one and the purple mobile suits dropped from the sky like flies.

"I believe I had the most kills that round, Hellhound," Vega boasted to her rival after their most recent victory. "That should put me ahead on the scoreboard by one."

"Must everything be a competition with you?" Laura growled even as she couldn't help but add a correction. "And for your information, it's a draw!"

"Oh, so you've been keeping count? Good to know," the masked woman teased and the blush on Laura's cheeks was as red as the swarm of dots suddenly flashing on their radars. "Ah, more lambs to the slaughter. Ready for another round, Laura?"

"I am, but I don't know about our mobile suits…" the blonde cautioned as she checked the Orthrus' beam energy readings with concern. Being outnumbered, their ammunition levels were dropping fast and there were still no signs they were anywhere close to defeating the Gorgon horde which continually replenished its seemingly limitless numbers. And while Laura still had Mode Change up her sleeve, the fact that Vega had used Mode Change less than her since starting their escape made her wary. She did not want to be caught in a situation where the Orthrus could not defend itself against the Fenrir's powerful modes.

However, it appeared Laura would have no choice as the next wave of attackers were coming in hot. Gritting her teeth, she prepared to technopathically shift the Gundam to Pulse Mode and let the chips fall where they may. But before she could, a salvo of missiles slammed into the Gorgons at high speed and blew them out of the sky. Looking up from the explosions, Laura saw the Lionheart soaring over the city and the next thing she knew a familiar voice was greeting her over the comm.

"Laura! Are you alright?!" Milos shouted, desperate to hear his daughter's voice.

"Milos!" Laura broke out into a smile and answered. "I'm fine! Freya too!"

"Thank god…" the captain sighed, feeling relief finally wash over him before the Lionheart's radar indicated more enemies were incoming. Pursing his lips, Milos straightened his cap and got back to work. "We'll handle the enemy reinforcements, Team Orthrus. Meanwhile, you finish off the Gorgons left on the ground!"

"On it!" Laura nodded before sending the Gundam flying in the opposite direction to regroup with the others. Checking her rear camera as she left, she saw the Lionheart launch another volley of Hellfire missiles into the air – just as a black ship appeared from behind the white battlecruiser and did the same.

"Commodore!" Vega exclaimed, watching as the Blue Crow's missile barrage combined with the Lionheart's to decimate the approaching Gorgons. "You must have been incredibly pained by my absence to have turned to the RDF's Relic Hunters for help."

"Don't flatter yourself, Aurelia," Jonas retorted, appearing on the Fenrir's monitor with his usual taciturn expression. "If anything, you weren't gone long enough for my liking."

"Well, know that I appreciate your efforts. That said, don't shed tears of happiness at our reunion just yet; we still have a battle to win," said Vega as she piloted the Fenrir back towards the city centre. "And here I was looking forward to my 'welcome back' party…"
"The only 'party' we'll be having will be mine if I get to keep my head after sticking it out for you…" the Lunar Fox corrected her gruffly but the Scarlet Wolf was already long gone and he resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose.

With the addition of the two ships providing fire support, it wasn't long before the battle culminated in a swift victory. Blown out of the skies and razed to cinders on the ground, the Gorgons were simply no match for the combined might of the LIRA and RDF Relic Hunters when they worked together. When the fighting finally stopped, the ruins were strewn with the blackened remains of the ancient mobile suits and smoke billowed up into the air around the joint squadron as they hovered over the battlefield.

"I'm no longer detecting any enemies, Lionheart. I think they've all been neutralised," Alice reported, landing the Jabberwock on the roof of a building as she continued scanning the area.

"Finally!" Freya shouted, landing the Brunhild next to the Jabberwock. "There must have been hundreds of them! Hard to believe we beat them all…"

"Consider it a lesson in the importance of air superiority, Valstein," said Sofia, whose appearance on the monitor had the Diva sitting at attention. But instead of a complete lecture, the XO surprised them with a faint smile. "While it's good to see the both of you back unharmed, don't think for one second that means you can slack off."

"O-Of course not, Commander! Didn't even cross my mind!" Freya lied, clearly unnerved by the gap between the Demon Commander's expression and her words.

Meanwhile, the captains of the two ships were conferring with each other on the end of their temporary alliance.

"The joint operation has been a resounding success, Captain Hartmann," Jonas announced to his counterpart as his moustached visage was beamed to Milos' chair monitor from the Blue Crow. "The enemy has been routed and our people are safe… which means our cooperation is coming to an end."

"For what it's worth, I appreciated the help, Commodore. You kept your word and didn't shoot us in the back," Milos responded as he surveyed the ruins outside on the Lionheart's main monitor. "But the next time we meet, we will be enemies."

As the captain finished speaking, a red and white blur flew across the screen and he watched as the Fenrir and the Orthrus landed on the ground.

"Laura, I'm glad you're alive and all but holy cow! A night in a Lemurian bunker with all its technological wonders? I'm so jealous!" Junko practically shouted Laura's ear off over the comm as she finally unleashed her excitement now that the battle was over. "Tell me everything when you get back – and I mean everything! Don't leave out any details!"

"Alright, alright! Geez, I know the drill by now but this time at least let me take a shower first…" Laura sighed before her comm chimed with another caller and her purple eyes narrowed. "Sorry, Junko, I'll get back to you later."

With the hit of a button, Junko's animated face disappeared mid-sentence and was replaced by Vega's masked visage.

"Well, Hellhound, it appears our time together is finally drawing to a close," the Scarlet Wolf lamented to her rival with a tiny smirk on her lips. "I know it will be immensely difficult for you but try not to take our separation too badly. After all, I want you to be at your best for the next time we meet…"

"Oh, it's difficult alright… stopping myself from killing you right now, that is," Laura quipped almost immediately, having grown used to Vega's teasing in only a day. While she really had considered fighting her nemesis right then and there, the Gundam pilot's better judgement had prevailed and she stayed her trigger finger. For one, she wasn't sure who had more juice left in their mobile suits and besides, the Lionheart and the rest of her team would be thrust into another battle they were probably ill-prepared for if she suddenly broke the truce. "I hate to admit it, but it's like you said when we first met and you pulled that crazy stunt: I want to settle this fair and square in battle. Orthrus against Fenrir. Ace against ace…"

"…Victory or death," Vega finished for her and the pair nodded in a rare moment of agreement. "You'll get your wish. We both will. Perhaps sooner than you think…"

"What the hell does that mean–"

Laura's query was cut off when the ground began to rumble underneath them before transforming into a full-blown earthquake. Like a forest weathering a sudden storm, the ruined towers shook and swayed, shedding even more rubble which jittered along the ground. Inside their cockpits, LIRA and RDF pilots alike had to hold on to their seats as they were shaken like martinis and the high-pitched wailing of their relic detectors nearly deafened them.

"It appears our truce may have just been extended!" Vega shouted over the comm with a tinge of excitement in her voice but Laura couldn't hear her. The incessant noise of the Gundam's relic detector together with the earthquake had triggered an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach like she was forgetting something. When she finally recalled what it was, the words left her lips with an alarmed whisper.

"Project Chimera…!"

.


.

The Lemurian city of Lycia had withstood many disasters over its lifetime. The Cataclysm, the abandonment of its inhabitants, centuries of neglect and the encroaching desert were just several of the events it had been forced to endure. But in only a single day, it had seen battle, bombardment, incineration – and now an earthquake which threatened to tear what remained of the ruins apart.

Feeling the tremors grow increasingly violent as they perched atop the city's oscillating buildings, the Space Wolves and Team Orthrus immediately took to the safety of the skies just before the spires sank beneath them. Like toy blocks caught in a whirlpool of quicksand, the rusted skyscrapers shifted and slanted at their foundations until they collapsed and disappeared into thunderous clouds of dust. When the ground finally stopped shuddering and the haze settled, an enormous crater filled with rubble and sand had appeared in the centre of the ruins.

And at the bottom of that sandy pit… something stirred.

First, there was a claw. A giant, jagged pincer that looked like it could easily cleave a mobile suit in two. The appendage erupted from the rubble and was soon followed by another as a beak-shaped head dripping with sand emerged between them. Lined with triangular eye-like sensors, it appeared to scan its surroundings before the earth shook again and the rest of its body surfaced above the parting rubble like a submarine rising from the depths of the ocean.

"That's… Project Chimera?" Freya whispered as she and the others stared at their monitors with bated breath.

Standing inside the crater, glistening with a bright magenta sheen as it finally basked in the light of day, the Chimera had finally revealed its true form as that of an enormous robotic scorpion. In addition to its claws, it had an armoured torso made of ridged sections that tapered off into a long, curled tail and six legs that resembled giant spikes and kept its entire body low to the ground. Standing at almost the same length as the Lionheart when taking its curled stinger into account, the Chimera was truly a giant... but something told Laura it was far more dangerous than a simple scaled-up replica of an arachnid.

"Chimera? That's a bloody scorpion!" Luke sarcastically pointed out only for his words to soon be forgotten when alarms went off on both teams.

"High concentration of Pandora Particles detected!" reported one of the Lionheart's operators and Milos leapt into action.

"Hard to port! Now!" he bellowed just as the tip of the Chimera's tail flashed with purple light.

The resulting beam of raging energy pierced through several buildings before grazing the Lionheart's hull and violently rocking everyone inside. Far from finished, the Chimera then swung its flexible tail sideways and went after the Blue Crow, burning more buildings in half as the stealth cruiser hastily got out of the way. When the beam finally dissipated, half the city skyline had been cleaved in two and the fallen rubble had created more clouds of dust and ash. The sheer amount of destruction wrought by that lone beam left the watchers speechless.

"Careful! It's the same virus that controlled the Gorgons!" Laura warned. "It sees us all as hostiles!"

"No kidding!" Charlotte proclaimed as she regrouped with the rest of the scattered mobile suit teams to retaliate while above them the Lionheart and the Blue Crow did the same.

"Prepare the beam cannon! We have to take that thing out before it gets another shot off!" Milos ordered as he re-straightened his cap. "Just what the hell did the Lemurians build this time?!"

"Negative, Captain!" Sofia replied as a diagram of the Lionheart's firing range and the Chimera's relative position appeared on the main monitor. "We don't have the angle while the enemy is in that crater! We either need to gain more altitude or retreat!"

"Captain, detecting a resurgence of Pandora Particles within the enemy!" the operator reported. "It's going to fire again!"

"Damn!" Milos' closed fist crashed into the arm of his chair before he shouted more orders. "Evasive manoeuvres! Gabriel, time to switch to our Brimstone rockets!"

"I've already instructed the crew to load them up!" Sofia responded just as a familiar moustached face appeared on the captain's chair monitor.

"Captain Hartmann, the Blue Crow will mirror the Lionheart's retreat." Wasting no time, Jonas greeted his counterpart by getting straight to battle strategy. "We'll force the enemy to fight us one at a time until we can both strike with overwhelming firepower."

"Sounds a bit too textbook for the Lunar Fox…" Milos grunted. "But I'll oblige!"

At the accusation of being 'too textbook', Jonas grunted himself but only once the RDF captain had disappeared from the monitor.

"Did you get that, Vega?" he asked, switching comm channels to the ace who he already knew perpetually used her technopathic powers to listen in. "If so, then assist the RDF mobile suits in distracting the enemy."

"Oh, I think we can do more than distract the enemy, Commodore," Vega grinned and glanced at the Orthrus before ramping up her throttle. "Come, Space Wolves! Let us see who can slay the Chimera first – us, or the White Hellhound!"

"I knew it…" Laura muttered but as she watched the Space Wolves race past in their Wargs with the Fenrir at their head, she felt a fire ignite inside her. "…Well, I'm not going to sit here and let you win! Come on, Team Orthrus!"

Heeding her call, Team Orthrus roared through the sky, becoming four blue streaks that quickly caught up with the Space Wolves just as they were about to make their run. The Orthrus and Fenrir were in front, jostling for lead position until the last second when the joint squadron let loose a hail of beams on the Chimera as they flew past and drenched hot plasma all along the scorpion's back. The cascade was then followed up by a fiery chain of explosions as the Lionheart and the Blue Crow both launched a full barrage of missiles at the same time. With so much military ordnance aimed at one target, the resulting fireballs and shockwaves were so intense that the enemy was subsequently obscured by the smoke.

"Did we get it?" Freya asked aloud as they all waited with bated breath. When the dust finally settled, they were dismayed to discover the Chimera was still fully intact.

"We didn't even leave a scratch…" Alice whispered, poring her eyes over a close-up image of the mech's spotless purple armour which was emitting a faint glow.

"Mode Change…!" Laura exclaimed, recognising the familiar signs of PP transmutation immediately. "It's made of Gundanium!"

Having ascertained the secret behind the Chimera's invincibility, the joint squadron realised they needed to formulate a plan. Before they could, however, the armoured ridges along the scorpion's back flipped open to reveal hundreds of silos and a swarm of missiles were suddenly launched into the air. The heat-seeking projectiles went straight for the joint squadron which scattered and either shot down the missiles or lost them in the maze of buildings that were still standing. Amidst the explosions and clouds of smoke that followed, the Chimera continued to blast beams at the ships with its beam-stinger and used its giant claws to clear any debris out of its way.

"Fascinating… Its design defies all laws of physics but when you consider the fact that even a thin layer of Gundanium can be transmuted to withstand sophisticated weaponry, everything makes sense…" Junko muttered over the comm, clearly engrossed by the Chimera attacking her friends.

"A little busy right now, Junko!" Laura gasped as she weaved the Orthrus through the ruins at high speed and the missiles chasing her ploughed into the buildings with explosive results. "But when you're done writing your love-letter to the Lemurians, a little help would be appreciated!"

"Well, have you thought about using the Gundam's Solar Flare?"

"Can't! I'd leave myself open to the Fenrir," Laura quickly explained.

"Then maybe… hitting it from below?"

Although Junko sounded unsure, Laura figured it was an idea worth trying and floored her throttle, sending the Orthrus on a heading straight for the Chimera. Freya and Ray followed after her, keeping low and threading their mobile suits between the scorpion's talon-like legs until they found themselves underneath the belly of the beast. At the same time, Vega, Ursula and Charlotte joined them from the other side and the six of them fired furiously at the Chimera from below. Bolts of plasma slammed into the giant machine, dispersing the great shadow it cast over the mobile suits with red and blue light, only to fizzle out against a purple force-field which left the armour untouched.

"Not again!" Freya whined. "This is why I hate bugs!"

"Arachnid, actually," Ray corrected her except all he accomplished was making the Diva even angrier.

"No one asked you!"

Finding their beams ineffective, the pair flew towards the rear and escaped followed by Ursula and Charlotte. Meanwhile, the Orthrus and the Fenrir went in the opposite direction, dodging the Chimera's snapping claws as they flew out from under it before searching for weaknesses by blasting at its face.

"On second thought, you're probably better off trying to overload the Chimera's invincibility mode with a heavy, concentrated beam," Junko advised her friend who grunted in frustration.

"I'll consider it as a last resort!" Laura replied, yanking at her controls while eyeing the Fenrir on her monitor with suspicion. "Where's the Lionheart? Is our fire support ready yet?!"

"It is now, Lieutenant." Sofia's icy voice on the comm silenced her and Team Orthrus was all ears. "Clear the area!"

The joint squadron immediately dispersed and in the next moment the Chimera was blasted on both flanks by the beam cannons of the Lionheart and the Blue Crow. Having reached an appropriate altitude and distance, the two ships appeared to be dangling in the air from their sterns as they roasted the scorpion in an inferno of blue and red flames. But despite the intense and sustained plasma discharge, the Chimera's glowing purple armour held up and it appeared totally unfazed as it redirected its stinger to return fire. Knowing the ships were sitting ducks while firing, the pilots could only watch as a violet shaft of light burst from the tail, overwhelmed the Lionheart's blue beam and struck the battlecruiser along its keel.

"We're hit! Thrusters Two, Three and Four are offline!" reported a panicked operator as the Lionheart's bridge shook to the wails of alarms and flashing red lights. "We're losing altitude!"

"Full power to the remaining thrusters! We need to stabilise before it hits us again!" Milos ordered, hanging on to his seat as the ship began to tilt.

"Missiles at twelve o'clock!" yelled another operator.

"Fire the Vulcan cannons! Don't let them near the ship!" barked Sofia.

The wave of missiles closed in on the Lionheart only to be mowed down by a storm of bullets from the Vulcans on the ship's bow and they exploded in mid-air. However, the crew's relief was short-lived when the Lionheart's radar surged with another wave of fast-moving red dots.

"There's too many!" the operator shouted. "The Vulcans won't be able to target them all!"

Gritting his teeth, Milos was about to order his crew to brace for impact when the main monitor was suddenly filled with explosions as the missiles were obliterated from the sky. The radar now showed a single large object instead and they saw the Blue Crow nearby, having flown to their rescue with their own CIWS. The generous act by a former enemy almost had Milos speechless but when Sparrhorn's moustached face appeared onscreen he quickly twisted his lips into a begrudging smirk.

"The Blue Crow will provide the Lionheart with covering fire, Captain Hartmann," Jonas informed him before smirking back. "No need to thank me."

"Oh, I won't!" Milos growled before turning to bark orders at his crew. "Operator, where's our propulsion? I needed those thrusters at full power yesterday!"

"Maintenance reports that our remaining thrusters have sustained more damage than expected, Captain!" the operator answered. "At best we can only muster thirty percent power!"

"Initiate emergency repairs immediately! Do whatever it takes to get our thrusters back to full power because if we don't we're–"

"Captain, our sensors are detecting another spike of Pandora Particles from the Chimera!" Sofia interrupted. "It's going to fire!"

"…toast," Milos quietly finished as he and the rest of the crew stared down the barrel of the glowing stinger on the main monitor.

Laura had been relieved when the Lionheart had survived the first beam but when she saw the Chimera preparing to fire again that feeling quickly gave way to fear. The battlecruiser had clearly been immobilised and smoke was billowing up from its burned underside as it made an unwilling descent. It was a sitting duck and the faces of Milos, Junko, Sofia and all her friends suddenly flashed through her mind as she leapt into action.

Along with the rest of the joint squadron, she launched a hasty assault on the Chimera, doing anything she could to stop it from firing. Zigzagging through the battlefield as missiles exploded and beams whizzed by, the Orthrus flew down the length of the scorpion's body while firing its rifle at close range until it reached the tip of the tail. Landing directly on top of the stinger, Laura continued firing and watched as her beams fizzled out harmlessly against the glowing purple armour. Grunting with frustration, she pulled out her beamsabre and began slashing and stabbing at the cannon instead, spraying sparks everywhere.

"Stop! Stop!" Laura cried, growing more desperate with each futile strike as the torch of plasma failed to leave even a mark. It didn't help that she could feel the temperature inside her cockpit rising as the beam-stinger reached critical mass and knew that the moment it did, it would fire a Pandora Particle charged beam that would obliterate the Lionheart from existence. Driven by the paralysing fear of more loss and grief, Laura ignored the threat posed by the Fenrir and prepared to use her last resort. While she knew there was a good chance Solar Flare would not work after the ships' main cannons had failed, such was her desperation that she was willing to try anything to disrupt the Chimera.

But before the technopath could change modes, she heard a voice on the comm.

"Out of the way, Hellhound!"

Looking up, Laura saw the Fenrir falling from the sky feet first like a maroon meteor and instantly she knew exactly what Vega was up to.

Flying out of the way with seconds to spare, she watched as the Fenrir fell upon the Chimera's stinger with an almighty Gravity Kick and the immovable appendage finally began to budge. Feeling the full weight of extreme gravity from the Fenrir's expanding field, the scorpion quivered until its legs buckled under the pressure and it crashed to the ground with an earthshaking boom. The stinger followed suit only it bent like a jagged hook that was sent plunging into the Chimera's armoured back. Applying even more power to her Gravity Kick, Vega rode the tail all the way down until the crushing impact and boosted to safety just before the cannon fired.

The stray beam tore down the Chimera's body in a straight line, scorching its purple armour and a kilometre of earth in front of it in a blaze of blinding light. Everyone watching thought the ancient weapon had surely destroyed itself but when the fire finally died down they were shocked to discover it was once again still intact… except for the burnt cavity in its back. Seeing the chink in its armour, Laura knew what she had to do.

"Now, Laura!" Vega shouted and watched as the Orthrus' armour switched from white to gold. When the Gundam's chest plate opened, its chest cannon was already swirling with radiant amethyst energy.

"Solar Flare!"

The intense, wide-radius beam flooded the hole in the Chimera's back and burst out the other side. Not only was the scorpion melted from the inside out but the crater itself was also transformed into a violet inferno of dancing flames and rising ash. The explosions that followed pulsated throughout the mechanical arachnid, grotesquely expanding and misshaping it to such an extent it began to collapse in on itself. Once Solar Flare dissipated, Laura and Vega took it as their cue to hightail it out of there.

As the Chimera finally met its demise, it let off one last massive explosion which roared high into the sky and threatened to engulf them. But through the thick smoke, the Orthrus and the Fenrir could be seen soaring out of the flames like triumphant white and red streaks against a black canvas.

.


.

Over the course of a few hours, the landscape of Lycia had changed completely from the long-undisturbed Lemurian city it once was to the charred ruins of a still-smouldering battlefield it had become.

Almost all the towers in the city had either crumbled down to their ancient foundations or been burned in half by the Chimera's beam-stinger. As a result, the ground had virtually vanished, having been buried by a thick layer of rubble and soot. At the centre of the city where the scorpion had exploded to kingdom com there was now a massive black crater devoid of both structures and life. The blast had scattered the carbonised remains of the Chimera everywhere and the ruins were littered with mechanical scorpion bits of differing sizes along with the dismembered parts of the defeated Gorgon horde.

"Glad that's over…" muttered Freya, using her Garm to kick a detached Gorgon head down into the crater. "Once again, those Lemurians sure built some crazy stuff. Makes you wonder if there's more out there like that monster…"

"There's no ifs about it," Ursula answered, standing beside her erstwhile enemy in her Warg. "We were just lucky we never encountered something like this until now."

With the battle over and the truce intact, the joint squadron was using the rare moment of respite to survey the damage and mingle. Aside from their mobile suits, there were no remaining signs of life in the ruins which had returned to a state of stillness and silence.

"That Chimera was way too powerful…" a subdued Charlotte murmured as she studied the vestiges of the scorpion's broken tail which now lay strewn across several streets. "If Rem or Lux had gotten their hands on that relic…" She shuddered. "Maybe it's for the best that it was destroyed."

"Are you kidding?! Think of all the technological advancements we may have missed!" Junko practically shouted into the pilot's ears through her comm. "Not to mention what we could have discovered in the ruins! But like always you bonehead pilots keep destroying everything!"

"S-Shut up! It's not my fault!" Charlotte shouted with a bewildered look on her face as she wondered who was hurling baseless accusations at her. "Pavel, some weird girl is picking on me! Pavel!"

"Sorry, Charlotte… I've got my own problems over here!" Pavel replied while sounding uncharacteristically distressed, and a familiar voice could be heard badgering him with questions on the other side of the comm.

"S-So, Pavel, do you have someone special in your life? Or maybe someone you're interested in?" Pavel didn't usually scare easily but Alice's intense interest in his personal life, not to mention her creepy panting, was enough to frighten even the older veteran. "Y-You can tell me… I promise I won't judge…"

"H-Hey, give it a rest, Miss Alice… Pavel is married!" a perturbed Luke futilely intervened even as he pondered where the level-headed woman he had met earlier had gone.

"She's not hitting on him…" Ray sadly informed him with a long, weary sigh. "It's something much worse…"

Seeing the dead, sombre look in the ace's lightless eyes, Luke suddenly felt like he had found a kindred spirit.

"…You've got it rough too, huh?"

While Team Orthrus and the Space Wolves were getting to know each other better, the Lionheart had landed on the desert sands to initiate repairs to its damaged hull and thrusters. Full repairs would have to wait until they could get to the nearest RDF shipyard on Lemuria but they could do enough now to ensure they made the journey in one piece. At least the air conditioning still worked, thought Milos as he finally allowed himself to relax.

"Captain Hartmann, if that is all then the Blue Crow will be departing first."

The voice from the chair monitor came from Jonas Sparrhorn and Milos straightened up at the sight of the legendary commander. He didn't want to show weakness in front of the enemy after all, even if they had been brothers-in-arms only moments ago.

"Already? Feels like we've been stuck together forever at this point," Milos joked before his eyes narrowed and his curiosity got the better of him. "You know, it just crossed my mind but you could attack the Lionheart now if you wanted…"

For a moment, a wily smirk appeared on the Lunar Fox's lips and Milos felt a chill run down his spine.

"Oh, the thought did cross my mind…" Jonas cryptically paused and let his counterpart sweat for a few good seconds before continuing, "…but I think I'd much rather have you owe me one. Until the next time we meet… White Lion of Rem."

The screen went black as Jonas abruptly cut the transmission and Milos was left stewing in his own vat of anger at being toyed with.

"You damned Lunar Fox! I'll be glad to see the back of you!" he screamed as he shook his fist, startling everyone on the bridge. When the captain finally noticed the scene he was making, he froze, cleared his throat and carried on as if nothing had happened. "Commander Gabriel, give out the order to return to the ship. It's time we left this desolate hellhole ourselves…"

"Yes, Captain," Sofia replied while keeping an amused smile to herself. "Team Orthrus, this is the Lionheart. Return to ship. I repeat, return to ship…"

The order reached Laura while the Orthrus was standing on one of the few remaining skyscrapers and she frowned slightly. Taking in the devastated landscape beside the Gundam was the Fenrir and its pilot who had most likely already received her own summons to return to the Blue Crow.

"Well, unless something else unexpected happens, I suppose this is farewell…" Vega lamented for the second time that day as she powered up her thrusters to leave first. "Do try your best not to miss me, Hellhound."

"Hey…" Laura spoke up and the blonde looked as if she wanted to get something off her chest. "Why did you save the Lionheart? You didn't have to…"

The technopath's seemingly innocent query was accompanied by a grimace and clenched fists. She wasn't sure what she was feeling but she didn't like it. Perhaps it was the fact that she hated being in debt to the Scarlet Wolf of all people. All she knew was how desperate she had been to save the Lionheart from the Chimera – to save herself from further despair – only it was Vega who had instead become its saviour… and by extension her saviour as well.

"It's not as if I was trying to save it… It was just good timing," Vega offhandedly replied, unaware of Laura's confusion, before smiling softly. "Until we meet again, White Hellhound."

With those parting words, the Fenrir took off and flew into the sky along with the rest of the Space Wolves. Laura watched for a time until Vega had become a red dot in the distance before she powered up her own thrusters and took off. But as the Orthrus joined the rest of the Garms in making their way back to the Lionheart, Laura realised she still could not shake that unwanted feeling.

Vega was her enemy. Laura was driven to fight her – to kill her – with revenge as her impetus. But now, after having met and fought together with her, something in the foundation of their relationship was starting to crumble. When she thought back to their encounters, she could no longer separate the Scarlet Wolf from the woman. All those battles she had fought against her – all those intense duels and even the moments of tragedy – had not been experienced by her alone. She had experienced them together with Vega. Like it or not, they shared an inescapable bond and the feeling Laura had was the orphan doing all she could to reject it.

Contemplating this realisation together with the conversation from last night, Laura knew she could not leave things as they were. If she did, things might never be the same. Her revenge might never be the same. She had to act now before it was too late.

"Laura? Where are you going?" Freya asked, perplexed, as she saw the Orthrus turn around.

"Orthrus? Turn around at once and return to the ship!" ordered Sofia but the pilot had muted her comm.

Flying at top speed, the Orthrus caught up with the Space Wolves just before they were about to dock inside the Blue Crow and Laura turned her outer speakers on at full blast.

"Vega Aurelia!" she bellowed. "Get your butt out here right now and let's do this!"

Stunned by the bold challenge, the Space Wolves were rendered almost entirely speechless and could only stare at the lone, suicidal Gundam in their midst.

"…What did you do to her?" Charlotte narrowed her angry red eyes at Vega, voicing aloud what all the other Space Wolves were already thinking.

"Sounds like you spurned her…" Luke gawked with a slack-jawed expression, unsure of whether to laugh with pure mirth or hold his breath in sheer terror.

Ignoring the snide comments of her squadron, Vega gave her rival her full attention.

"Laura Hartmann…" she respectfully acknowledged the Gundam pilot while being quietly bewildered by her actions. "While I said not to miss me, I didn't expect you to come running back to me this fast… What do you seek?"

"A duel, of course! What else?!" Laura barked, so irritated she didn't care that her comm-link was open to both sides. To the surprise of all who knew her, the blonde sounded as if she was raring to go and it was like they were listening to the overconfident Laura of old. Instead of bewildering her further, the phenomenon only sparked Vega's interest.

"Are you sure?" the Scarlet Wolf crooned, goading her. "The Gundam must be running out of fuel and power by now. I doubt it can even Mode Change."

"The same goes for the Fenrir so that just makes us even!" Laura countered. "Now are you going to whisper sweet nothings into my ears all day or are you going to accept my challenge?!"

"I accept." Vega answered instantly and confidently, much to the chagrin of her appalled second.

"Major!" Ursula chastised her superior to no avail. "You can't be serious!"

"Oh, I'm deadly serious, Ursula," the masked woman replied with a daredevil grin. "So serious that I'm ordering the Space Wolves not to interfere. This is between the White Hellhound and I."

Leaving her dumbfounded comrades – and one very irate commodore who discovered the Fenrir had blocked its commlink – behind, Vega fired up her thrusters and followed the Gundam high into the sky. But as the white and red mobile suits ascended to the heavens, there was just one last obstacle to their duel.

"LAURA! Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" Milos screamed out of the Orthrus' comm so loudly Laura was sure the whole world could hear his white-hot rage. "You get back to the Lionheart right now or else I'll–"

"Stay out of this, Milos!" Laura cut her father off and promptly deactivated her comm system.

With no one left to interfere, the fated adversaries were free to engage in single combat under the eyes of the Lemurian sun. Their respective allies could only watch on from below as the two mobile suits reached an agreed altitude before darting horizontally in opposite directions. They were like two gunslingers counting down their paces before they would turn around and draw their weapons. After a heart-stopping wait, the Orthrus and the Fenrir finally circled to face one another and, with guns blazing, the duel began.

Knowing their depleted mobile suits could lose power at any second, Laura and Vega were resolved to end things as quickly as possible and they charged at each other at full tilt. Hot red and blue beams zoomed past their monitors, missing only by a hair as both pilots manoeuvred as little as possible to maintain speed. But as the distance between them rapidly closed, their aim grew more deadly and their mobile suits suffered superficial plasma burns. Eventually, they ran out of ammunition and simultaneously discarded their spent rifles before drawing their beamsabres at the very moment they intersected.

Like red and white knights jousting on horseback, they passed one another in a flash and there was a cloud of sparks where their beamsabres had clashed. Knowing whoever had the smallest and quickest turning radius would have the advantage, Laura immediately leaned on her controls and swung around only to discover the Fenrir was already right in her face. Their blades clashed again before they repeated the same manoeuvre, raining sparks over the desert as they collided again and again in increasingly short intervals. Locked into this situation, both pilots knew all too well that even the slightest mistake would mean death.

This is it, thought Laura as she struggled to keep her eyes open. This is how it should be. The rush of adrenaline in her veins. The strain of the g-forces against her body. The burning desire to kill overriding her instincts. She had almost forgotten it but this was the true state of their relationship – they were not and could never be anything but enemies.

Unfortunately, Laura had not accounted for one key difference between this battle and their previous encounters.

"What's gotten into you, Hellhound?" Vega's seductive voice hummed over the comm, causing Laura to scowl. "Why so eager today? It's not like you."

"Shut up! You're ruining the mood!" the Gundam pilot snarled while fending off the unwanted caller both onscreen and off. "I just couldn't let you leave without trying to end this once and for all. It might be my last chance…"

Before my empathy overcomes my hate, thought Laura. To her annoyance, Vega responded by chuckling.

"Oh, is that all? I thought for sure you had fallen for me…"

"Not a chance in hell!"

Fury reignited within Laura and she threw the Orthrus at the Fenrir only for a high-pitched alarm to sound inside her cockpit. Glancing at the flashing red light on her console, she knew the Gundam had just run out of propellant and was about to fall out of the sky. Driven by desperation, a wild plan formulated inside her mind and she flew straight into the red beamsabre being thrust at her. Letting it pierce through the palm of the Orthrus' manipulator, she grabbed onto the Fenrir and held on for dear life. Almost immediately, both mobile suits tumbled out of the air and accelerated towards the earth.

"Are you trying to kill both of us?!" Vega accused her rival as they both spun out of control inside their cockpits.

"No!" Laura replied mid-grapple. "Just you!"

The Fenrir released a burst of fire from its thrusters to try and escape the Orthrus only for the flames to fizzle out as it too ran out of propellant. With the ruins of Lycia growing closer on her monitor with every second, Vega was forced to use her last resort. Changing the Fenrir's armour from red to maroon, she tried to use Gravity Mode to mitigate the velocity of both mobile suits but could not slow them down completely and they continued to fall.

As a result, the Orthrus and Fenrir ended up plummeting straight into one of the few buildings still standing in Lycia. Like a bullet, they smashed through every level – causing rippling waves of dust to explode out of the windows floor by floor from top to bottom – until they hit the ground floor with a seismic crash. When the dust settled, both mobile suits lay sprawled on their backs amongst the rubble within their own personal craters, staring at the clear blue sky above through a long series of giant holes in the crumbling ceiling.

"Well, that was about as pleasant as expected…" Vega spoke first and her initial concern went to how maltreated her poor Fenrir must appear. There was no question in her mind that the White Hellhound had survived but Laura's response was not quite what she had anticipated.

"…Why were you holding back?" Laura whispered, her voice full of quiet resentment. "If you could still use Gravity Mode, why didn't you use it on me?"

"Now where would the fun be in that?" Vega nonchalantly replied but judging by the Gundam pilot's explosive response, she had clearly struck a nerve.

"I don't need your kindness!" Laura yelled, and Vega heard the sound of rubble being disturbed as the Orthrus got to its feet. The Fenrir did the same and the two battered mobile suits disengaged their flight packs which dropped to the ground. As ludicrous as the idea even was, it appeared the duel was about to continue. "This is a fight to the death… so take this seriously!"

"And how do you expect me to do that…" Vega scoffed, "…when we're both out of weapons?"

"Oh, I'll show you how…"

Outside the building, the Garms and Wargs hovered over the crash site, having no idea if their respective aces had survived the fall or not. Suddenly, a red mobile suit fell- no, was punched through the building's outer wall and just like that the Fenrir was unceremoniously knocked into the street. Beaming the footage back to their ships, the entire crew witnessed the Orthrus stomp through the hole in the wall as it resumed attacking the Scarlet Wolf with only its fists.

Almost immediately, both crews erupted with cheers as they supported their corresponding champion. On the Lionheart's bridge, Milos was on his feet – all anger towards his disobedient daughter momentarily forgotten – as he screamed for Laura to 'finish her'. Junko, for her part, was glued to her monitor and throwing punches like she was an overenthusiastic boxing match spectator. Even Sofia and Sparrhorn, never ones for open displays of emotion, were secretly pumping their fists in support. Outside, the atmosphere was no different as Team Orthrus and the Space Wolves jostled for who could be the best cheerleaders.

"Get her, Laura!" yelled Freya who was practically foaming at the mouth. "Show that she-wolf who's boss!"

"Fight, Lady Vega!" Charlotte shouted over Freya, shouldering the Diva's Garm in mid-air with her Warg. "Make that thieving hound regret ever challenging you!"

While the two squadrons veered between squabbling and cheering, only Ursula looked on at the duelling mobile suits with concern.

"Major…" she whispered, wincing as the Fenrir took a fistful of Gundanium to the face.

"How barbaric…" Vega grunted inside her cockpit as if she had suffered the blow herself before her red lips curved. "But two can play that game!"

Transferring the momentum from the punch, she spun the Fenrir around on its heels and kicked her opponent right in the torso. The Orthrus was sent flying back against a wall which crumbled under its weight before the mobile suit crashed to the ground, shaking its pilot like a maraca. Dazed but still determined, Laura growled and quickly stood the Gundam back up.

Charging at full pelt, she tackled the Fenrir and rammed it into the remains of another building, demolishing it in half. Picking the Fenrir up by the shoulders like a ragdoll, Laura was in the process of propelling it towards another building when the red mobile suit latched on to the Orthrus' arms with an iron grip. Using the Gundam's momentum against it, Vega reversed the situation and swung Laura into another wall. When the Orthrus did not break through, the Scarlet Wolf assisted it with a combo of powerful punches which were only stopped when the Gundam headbutted the Fenrir and put some distance between them.

"Serious enough for you yet, Hellhound?" Vega huffed while grinning. "I must admit, I'm having a bit of fun…"

"You might be…" Laura retorted, out of breath. "But for some of us this is no game..."

"Revenge isn't meant to be fun…"

"If you know that then hurry up and help me end this…"

Coming to an unspoken understanding at last, the aces launched themselves at each other for one final bout. The flurry of fists, blocks and counterattacks that followed was a blur to their friends watching and it was as if Laura and Vega themselves were duking it out in person. While the Orthrus was more powerful and protected by Gundanium armour, the Fenrir was nimbler and recovered faster. Both had extraordinary reaction times and the two technopaths were so focused they ignored the alarms wailing inside their cockpits.

Finally, the battered mobile suits pulled back their arms for one last attack. Mustering every ounce of power they had left, Laura and Vega released a guttural roar before sending their crumpled manipulators rocketing towards each other. The passionate fists of warped metal flew through the air at the same time and it was anyone's guess what would happen next; the only certainty was that this would decide the duel.

In slow motion, the fists closed in on their monitors and just as they were about to make contact… everything went black.

With their adrenaline running high, it took a moment for Laura and Vega to realise that neither of them had been knocked out and that the alarms that had been wailing inside their cockpits were now silent. After pushing their mobile suits to the limit, they had finally run out of power… and at the most crucial of moments at that. Feeling a mixture of relief and frustration, Vega quietly chuckled while Laura closed her eyes and exhaled. When they were both sufficiently prepared, they opened their cockpits and stepped outside.

The first thing they noticed were the Orthrus and the Fenrir, standing like statues with their arms extended towards each other's head units. If their batteries had only lasted a fraction of a second longer, they would have hit each other in a cross counter. Instead, the White Hellhound and the Scarlet Wolf were gazing at one another across the way made by their open hatches. Like their mobile suits, they both looked worse for wear.

"…Satisfied yet, Hellhound?" Crossing her arms, Vega stared at Laura like her rival was a child who had just pointlessly thrown a tantrum but there was a hint of amusement in her voice. Curiously, her mask had not been dislodged even the slightest during the fight and remained perfectly in place.

Searching deep within herself, the Gundam pilot found her answer.

"Yeah… I am." Laura paused and sighed before her lips curled into a smirk. "…For now anyway. I still haven't given up on trying to kill you one day."

"Come and try anytime," Vega smirked back. "I'll be waiting."

As strange as it sounded, the restoration of the status quo filled Laura with relief. Having tested her resolve, she now knew that while her hate for Vega may have waned, that did not mean that her vendetta was over. She had simply come to accept her mutual respect for her nemesis as well as understand the full magnitude of what the orphans had sworn to accomplish. Killing Vega was no longer just an act of revenge for Tully's death but a responsibility she had to bear.

A hot desert wind blew, causing Laura to turn away, and the breeze caught something on her chest. It was her amethyst necklace which had fallen out after her flight suit had partially unzipped during the brawl. The jewel shone brightly under the Lemurian sun and instantly caught Vega's eye.

"That necklace…" she whispered, almost breathlessly.

When Laura looked up, she could have sworn the blood had drained from Vega's face. Her lips were pale and slightly ajar but it was difficult to read the Scarlet Wolf's full expression while her white mask covered her eyes. Laura found herself clutching her necklace protectively.

"It's mine…" she answered guardedly, sensing that something was amiss. "Why?"

Vega didn't answer. She appeared frozen in place, spellbound by the amethyst ring… and how it matched its owner's eyes.

At that moment, the wind picked up again but this time it was the result of the Brunhild and Jabberwock coming to retrieve the Orthrus.

"If you're both done with your little playdate, it's time to leave!" Freya shouted from her Garm's speaker as she landed beside Laura.

"We have new orders, Laura," Alice told the pilot as her Garm seized the Orthrus by the arm. "Ready?"

"Yeah…" Laura mumbled, momentarily distracted by Vega before nodding. "Let's go."

She hopped back into the cockpit but felt the masked woman's gaze burning into her long after she closed the hatch. Once Laura was inside, Freya and Alice activated their thrusters and picked the Orthrus up by the arms to transport it back to the Lionheart. As the Garms lifted off, Vega braced herself against the blustery winds blowing sand into her face and dishevelling her long silver hair. But throughout the miniature sandstorm, she continued to stare almost longingly at the Gundam – even reaching out for it with a faintly trembling hand – before it disappeared into the sky… leaving Vega grasping nothing.

"Got your Pulse Relic, Laura," Ray informed the blonde as they flew back. The picture of the Hermes carrying the Gundam's unique flight pack along with Ray's portrait popped up on Laura's monitor, concealing the shrinking image of Vega she had been studying. "Better luck next time when the Gundam is at full strength."

"Thanks, Ray," Laura replied before putting the Scarlet Wolf and her strange behaviour out of her mind. She leaned back in her seat to finally relax until she recalled what was waiting for her back at the Lionheart and shot straight back up. "Oh shoot! …Is Milos still mad?"

"Actually, he was jumping up and down rooting for you last I heard," Freya laughed.

"He was like a supercharged soccer dad, Laura…" Junko jumped into the discussion and tittered. "And don't worry; I have the embarrassing video to prove it!"

"He also sounded distracted after hearing of our new orders so hopefully he's forgotten all about your stunt by now," said Alice, piquing Laura's curiosity.

"That's right… What was that you said about new orders, Alice?" she asked as the Lionheart came within view outside.

Turning to Laura, the Disappointing Angel smiled and decided to spare her friend by giving her the short version.

"We're meeting up with the Eureka."

.

END OF EPISODE

.

Next Episode Preview

FREYA: It's a shame Vega Aurelia got away again but at least we don't have to put up with her anymore. Being stuck in the same bunker as that flirt was driving me crazy! I know I'm cute and all but show some self-restraint, girl… Wait, what? She's acting all weird now? Like I care!

Next time on Gundam Gemini,

The Man from Eureka.

What is it with all these weirdos and their creepy obsession with Laura? She's lucky she has me to keep an eye on her!

.


AUTHOR NOTES

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, many apologies for the long wait. Illness and subsequent writer's block took me out in the middle of this (again) but I managed to get back on track. Now, I'm feeling much better and writing every day (using a 15min timer and writing in shorts bursts works wonders!).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the conclusion to Episode 21. It was certainly an action-packed chapter (although, according to my beta, there was even more yuri-bait than action...) but there was a lot I wanted to fit in. Vega and Laura finally met, butted heads, joined forces against a Lemurian raid boss, and then settled their differences (partially) through a good old-fashioned fistfight. One left the encounter feeling re-invigorated in regards to their goals and resolve, but the other... well, let's just say the true consequence of their encounter will be revealed next episode.

The 'next episode preview' above is for EP22 but we will be skipping it to go straight to the climactic two-part finale, EP23 and EP24. As I have mentioned, these were already written a few years ago but on review they require significant revision (on top of new additions for new characters and developments). However, I'm already making progress on EP23 and still believe I am on track to finish GG this year.

Well, that's all from me. Apologies again, hope you enjoyed reading, and please stick around for the first-half of the finale. I leave you with the true preview for EP23.


.

Next Episode Preview

VEGA: What if you were given the opportunity to reverse the greatest mistake of your life? The chance to wipe away the years of guilt and regret that had consumed your very soul? Would you take it? Even if it meant sacrificing everything? Everything… including your revenge?

Next time on Gundam Gemini,

The Wolf of the End.

If sacrifice is an expression of love, then I will show my love is the most powerful force in the universe.