Concede to Final Justice
A.C. 196 Christmas Day: Operation Meteor comes to a close and the entire Earth Sphere turns to the future and the promise of peace, but a lone figure must stir the pot of destiny once again. Huge chunks of concrete and steel jut out of the floor, hundreds of electrical wires spit sparks from shattered remains of radar screens and communications consoles. The roof had caved in from Wing Zero's Buster Rifle blasts despite the five layers of armor above. Technicians and soldiers alike lay crushed under pieces of debris, charred by the numerous electrical explosions and the fireball of rifle energy, the nauseous smell of burned flesh crawls around the room. Dust and smoke thicken the air in the 'castle' turned underground base as survivors of Mariemaya's troops begin to move and assess injuries. **BANG ** A gunshot sounds as all eyes followed Dekim Barton's body in its decent, his head hitting the control room floor with a sickening thud. A clean shot to the temple poured blood as well as gray matter on the rubble littered tile of the command center. The universal gaze traveled to the shooter: an Asian looking girl in the uniform of Marimaya's army. Dark brown eyes were cold as she lowered the smoking gun and snapped a crisp salute to the fallen. "I have executed the rebel Dekim. My apologies to His Excellency," she states in a monotone voice. Turning on her heel, she moved to the main console and opened a public channel. "To the soldiers of Marimaya Kushrenada, this is former second in command Amy Oyama. Lay down your weapons, but do not abandon your will to fight. Dekim Barton is dead by my hand and with him dies the nightmare of an Earth Sphere ruled by military force. So I repeat: lay down your arms but do not relinquish the heart of the soldier that lives to protect the people for in the near future your strength will be needed again. When the time comes we will once again take up arms in a battle not for peace, not for revolution, but to ensure the very existence of humanity. With this I ask again that you lay down your weapons and be ready for the battle to come." Mobile suit fighting devastated a mile above the base, the surrounding forest and the nearby village. Hundreds of mobile dolls and Serpent models lay in varying states of destruction. Slashed by the thermal blade of a scythe, or beam saber, the neo titanium melted like chocolate, severing essential wiring but leaving the cockpit largely intact. "Would you look at that," Duo exclaimed in an unbelieving tone as the remaining manned Serpents simply disappeared from his radar screens. "They're just gone, as if by magic, who is this Amy?" Quatre acknowledged as he guided Sandrock Kai through the MS rubble. "Perhaps the Barton Foundation was able to come up with a cloaking device comparable to the one on Deathscythe Hell." Trowa conceded from the cockpit of Heavyarms Kai. Milliardo interrupted, "Impossible!" as Tallgeese III withdrew its beam saber from the head of the last standing Serpent MS in a shower of sparks, and watched it fall to the dust. The cockpit opened and the pilot slowly climbed out, hands raised in surrender, eyes steady in the face of defeat. "They couldn't have advanced their technology that far in such a short time, given that fact that the gundam engineers died on the Peacemillion." Noin reasoned from her Taurus. "Hey guys you did a pretty good job out here," a familiar female voice admired over the comm. unit, "none of the soldiers are dead, yet you managed to destroy the mobile suits." The source of the signal came from the lead truck of a caravan of Preventer paddy wagons that arrived to take the soldiers into custody and sent to jail. Dozens of armed Preventers piled out of the vans and began rounding up Mariemaya's troops as they emerged from their mobile suits. Some were grizzled veterans who could not let go of the war and others were wide-eyed youths drawn to the promise of glory. "Sally, we should send a group to Mariemaya's underground base. Heero and Relena are still down there," Duo suggested, as he himself emerged from Deathscythe ready to go down. "Don't worry, Lady Une has already taken a separate unit to pick-up Hiro, Relena and any surviving soldiers," the brown haired woman replied. Simultaneously in the underground base Hiro and Marimaya are put on stretchers by medics and taken to the hospital with Relena in tow. Preventers attended to the wounded soldiers and arrested those who would not leave their fallen comrades. These men and women put up no resistance but if anyone had bothered to notice their eyes they bore the glint, not of those who are defeated, but of those patiently tolerating an inconvenience. Despite the hundreds of soldiers who were either injured or arrested, there seemed to be one person missing: Amy Oyama. * * * Atop a hill overlooking the smoldering hole spewing Preventers and choppers airlifting the injured, a figure stood beneath a tree, arms crossed, shoulder lightly leaning on the trunk. "The war is over.for now," Amy said to the girl that appeared in a gray cloud and stood on the opposite side of the tree. "Yes, but there is still some time before the new threat is predicted to arrive. Jylian will stop by later to give you the exact time. I understand that you are of a high rank and possess much experience. One of the new Dimension Masters would like to observe you 'in action,'" the girl stated in a voice of cool detachment, her long Chinese style dress whispering in the chill winter air, her raven locks billowing behind her. "You don't trust me. Very well, if you deem it necessary that he gain 'experience' I have no objections," Amy replied, her face a stone mask of impassivity. The Chinese girl disappeared in the same gray mist as Amy closed her eyes, calling to mind the scene of an MS factory, and fazed out of sight.
* * * As dawn cracks over the Earth Sphere Quatre, Duo, and Trowa gathered in a clearing to pay their last respects to three very good friends. As the three pushed their detonation remotes the giant machines began to glow, a tremendous explosion followed a brilliant flash of light and the small clearing is littered with scrap gundanium. Miles away in a beautiful river valley. "Goodbye Nataku. May your spirit rest in peace," the Solitary Dragon bid farewell to the green and white mobile suit as the same flash and explosion rocked the air. That night at the Cinq Medical Center . . . "Leaving again?" a voice asked as Heero crept out of his room like a shadow dressed in tennis shoes, jeans, tank top and denim jacket. He looked mildly surprised at the former Queen of the World sitting quietly on a chair in the hall, not surrounded by guards or Senators. 'She was waiting for me.' Heero thought, remembering that she was there in the morning when the doctor had reported a full physical recovery but could not say when Heero would wake up. He had been feigning unconsciousness to get her to give up on him so he could leave unnoticed. "And what if I am? What else is there for me to do?" mild anger lay beneath a genuine feeling of emptiness in those last words. "I offer you an opportunity, Heero Yuy," Relena said in a steady voice that belied her uncertainty, "to come with me and travel to the Colonies, to the other nations of the Earth Sphere and see the people you helped during the war. Learn about the dreams the people hold, the hardships they carry with them, and the plans they have for the future." Heero just stood there, an unreadable expression on his visage, considering her offer. 'What others have planned for the future? He had fought for so long for the future of the people.' Relena sat there waiting for Heero to consider her proposal. 'What made her think that this would make him stay when all her other attempts failed before? No, this time is different, this time he doesn't want to walk away from the world.' "Mission accepted."
A.C. 196 Christmas Day: Operation Meteor comes to a close and the entire Earth Sphere turns to the future and the promise of peace, but a lone figure must stir the pot of destiny once again. Huge chunks of concrete and steel jut out of the floor, hundreds of electrical wires spit sparks from shattered remains of radar screens and communications consoles. The roof had caved in from Wing Zero's Buster Rifle blasts despite the five layers of armor above. Technicians and soldiers alike lay crushed under pieces of debris, charred by the numerous electrical explosions and the fireball of rifle energy, the nauseous smell of burned flesh crawls around the room. Dust and smoke thicken the air in the 'castle' turned underground base as survivors of Mariemaya's troops begin to move and assess injuries. **BANG ** A gunshot sounds as all eyes followed Dekim Barton's body in its decent, his head hitting the control room floor with a sickening thud. A clean shot to the temple poured blood as well as gray matter on the rubble littered tile of the command center. The universal gaze traveled to the shooter: an Asian looking girl in the uniform of Marimaya's army. Dark brown eyes were cold as she lowered the smoking gun and snapped a crisp salute to the fallen. "I have executed the rebel Dekim. My apologies to His Excellency," she states in a monotone voice. Turning on her heel, she moved to the main console and opened a public channel. "To the soldiers of Marimaya Kushrenada, this is former second in command Amy Oyama. Lay down your weapons, but do not abandon your will to fight. Dekim Barton is dead by my hand and with him dies the nightmare of an Earth Sphere ruled by military force. So I repeat: lay down your arms but do not relinquish the heart of the soldier that lives to protect the people for in the near future your strength will be needed again. When the time comes we will once again take up arms in a battle not for peace, not for revolution, but to ensure the very existence of humanity. With this I ask again that you lay down your weapons and be ready for the battle to come." Mobile suit fighting devastated a mile above the base, the surrounding forest and the nearby village. Hundreds of mobile dolls and Serpent models lay in varying states of destruction. Slashed by the thermal blade of a scythe, or beam saber, the neo titanium melted like chocolate, severing essential wiring but leaving the cockpit largely intact. "Would you look at that," Duo exclaimed in an unbelieving tone as the remaining manned Serpents simply disappeared from his radar screens. "They're just gone, as if by magic, who is this Amy?" Quatre acknowledged as he guided Sandrock Kai through the MS rubble. "Perhaps the Barton Foundation was able to come up with a cloaking device comparable to the one on Deathscythe Hell." Trowa conceded from the cockpit of Heavyarms Kai. Milliardo interrupted, "Impossible!" as Tallgeese III withdrew its beam saber from the head of the last standing Serpent MS in a shower of sparks, and watched it fall to the dust. The cockpit opened and the pilot slowly climbed out, hands raised in surrender, eyes steady in the face of defeat. "They couldn't have advanced their technology that far in such a short time, given that fact that the gundam engineers died on the Peacemillion." Noin reasoned from her Taurus. "Hey guys you did a pretty good job out here," a familiar female voice admired over the comm. unit, "none of the soldiers are dead, yet you managed to destroy the mobile suits." The source of the signal came from the lead truck of a caravan of Preventer paddy wagons that arrived to take the soldiers into custody and sent to jail. Dozens of armed Preventers piled out of the vans and began rounding up Mariemaya's troops as they emerged from their mobile suits. Some were grizzled veterans who could not let go of the war and others were wide-eyed youths drawn to the promise of glory. "Sally, we should send a group to Mariemaya's underground base. Heero and Relena are still down there," Duo suggested, as he himself emerged from Deathscythe ready to go down. "Don't worry, Lady Une has already taken a separate unit to pick-up Hiro, Relena and any surviving soldiers," the brown haired woman replied. Simultaneously in the underground base Hiro and Marimaya are put on stretchers by medics and taken to the hospital with Relena in tow. Preventers attended to the wounded soldiers and arrested those who would not leave their fallen comrades. These men and women put up no resistance but if anyone had bothered to notice their eyes they bore the glint, not of those who are defeated, but of those patiently tolerating an inconvenience. Despite the hundreds of soldiers who were either injured or arrested, there seemed to be one person missing: Amy Oyama. * * * Atop a hill overlooking the smoldering hole spewing Preventers and choppers airlifting the injured, a figure stood beneath a tree, arms crossed, shoulder lightly leaning on the trunk. "The war is over.for now," Amy said to the girl that appeared in a gray cloud and stood on the opposite side of the tree. "Yes, but there is still some time before the new threat is predicted to arrive. Jylian will stop by later to give you the exact time. I understand that you are of a high rank and possess much experience. One of the new Dimension Masters would like to observe you 'in action,'" the girl stated in a voice of cool detachment, her long Chinese style dress whispering in the chill winter air, her raven locks billowing behind her. "You don't trust me. Very well, if you deem it necessary that he gain 'experience' I have no objections," Amy replied, her face a stone mask of impassivity. The Chinese girl disappeared in the same gray mist as Amy closed her eyes, calling to mind the scene of an MS factory, and fazed out of sight.
* * * As dawn cracks over the Earth Sphere Quatre, Duo, and Trowa gathered in a clearing to pay their last respects to three very good friends. As the three pushed their detonation remotes the giant machines began to glow, a tremendous explosion followed a brilliant flash of light and the small clearing is littered with scrap gundanium. Miles away in a beautiful river valley. "Goodbye Nataku. May your spirit rest in peace," the Solitary Dragon bid farewell to the green and white mobile suit as the same flash and explosion rocked the air. That night at the Cinq Medical Center . . . "Leaving again?" a voice asked as Heero crept out of his room like a shadow dressed in tennis shoes, jeans, tank top and denim jacket. He looked mildly surprised at the former Queen of the World sitting quietly on a chair in the hall, not surrounded by guards or Senators. 'She was waiting for me.' Heero thought, remembering that she was there in the morning when the doctor had reported a full physical recovery but could not say when Heero would wake up. He had been feigning unconsciousness to get her to give up on him so he could leave unnoticed. "And what if I am? What else is there for me to do?" mild anger lay beneath a genuine feeling of emptiness in those last words. "I offer you an opportunity, Heero Yuy," Relena said in a steady voice that belied her uncertainty, "to come with me and travel to the Colonies, to the other nations of the Earth Sphere and see the people you helped during the war. Learn about the dreams the people hold, the hardships they carry with them, and the plans they have for the future." Heero just stood there, an unreadable expression on his visage, considering her offer. 'What others have planned for the future? He had fought for so long for the future of the people.' Relena sat there waiting for Heero to consider her proposal. 'What made her think that this would make him stay when all her other attempts failed before? No, this time is different, this time he doesn't want to walk away from the world.' "Mission accepted."