8:34am January 9th, CT 0203

"… and ZATIN forces continue to search the hills of Yemen for one of the suspected leaders of the World League. Sources say that it is not long now until we find him and then bring him to justice. Now, in sports news, Neo Ithaca's football team ..."

CLACK CLACK.

The sound of cueballs striking against each other in a small and cosy café.
"Are you sure you should be doing this?" One of the young men playing pool said to the other.
"Yeah, I'm fine with it." The other man watched as the first speaker struck the white ball, and watched it roll across the pool table to strike one of the balls and sink it into a side pocket.
"Hehe, your mistake means another go for me." The other young man said. "You know, you really shouldn't be missing lectures to play pool, you know."
"Ahh, what're you gonna do? I don't like that lecturer. He's so boring! He can wreck interesting topics like how cancers used to work." He looked down his pool-cue as he lined up a shot.
"Your life, Alex." The other young man said as he watched the first one, Alex, make his move. He watched as the ball sped off down the pool table, bouncing heavily off one of the balls near the entrance, knocking another into the pocket and then following it. The white ball bounced off the far edge, knocking a third ball into a side pocket.
"Oh yeah!" he crowed. "Now that's something you don't see everyday!" He made a little victory jump, clapping his hands before spreading his arms in a V form above his head, two Vs formed on both his hands.
"Let's see you do better than that, Henry!" Henry took his pool cue and mulled over his next move.

"Hey, you two, shouldn't you two be at lecture?" A sweet voice came from behind them. The two young men turned to see a girl, in her late teens, with a tray and two steaming cups. She had dark, long hair, and a face with brown eyes that always seemed to sparkle, a smile that would light up even the most despondent man, and outfitted in a cute waitress outfit that kept the men coming back.
"Ah, Mako-chan!" Alex said, greeting her and taking one of the cups. She blushed.
"Geez, I keep telling you, stop calling me that!" she said, a little annoyed. "It's Makoto! Not Mako-chan!"
"But I've been calling you that all the time since we were little, and you don't seem to mind that I didn't lose the habit." Alex said, smiling happily and being adamant about it.
"Here." She said, giving the other cup to Henry.

"One coffee, and one hot tea." She glared at the grinning Alex, before smiling herself. She skipped back to her work, humming a little.
"You were lucky this time, Alex." Henry said, admonishing him as he lined up his next shot.
"Yeah I know. I don't want her chasing me around the café with the idea of bashing my head through that tray like she has before." Alex smiled ruefully at the memory. They returned to their game, but not before Henry noticed the radio was still on.
"Why do you listen to such depressing things? Let's turn this off …" Henry said, reaching over and flicking the off-switch on the small radio attached to the pool table.
"Now then!" he said, brimming with energy, "watch me win!" Alex laughed.
"You wish!"

Two people entered the café. They were both dressed in normal casual clothes, and wearing sunglasses. One was a man, the other a woman. The man looked to be in his early thirties, the woman in her mid-twenties.
"Why did I get "Peeper?"" he complained, exasperated, to his partner. She smiled mischievously.
"The commander has a perverted sense of humour. But you're not much better." She replied, poking his forehead affectionately, before giggling a little.
"Still, yours isn't much better." He replied, with a smug grin.
"Exhibition." Her expression took on a playful, angry look.
"Oh, you …" she growled, before, flicking his ear.
"Oww! Ah, geez Natalise, why did you have to do that for? I can't listen in on bathroom talk between girls if you do that!" he said with a playful smile. He looked around.
"So this is Café 13. I hear that the coffee here is particularly nice, but not as much as the waitresses." Kurt said, looking around and trying to change the subject. He had an impish smile on his face.
"You never change, do you Kurt?" she replied to him with a sigh. They chose a seat and sat down. The two ordered a pair of straight black coffees, and as Makoto rushed to get them their order, she was accosted by a pair of soldiers still in a drunken stupor from the night before. They had staggered in, and took a seat, oblivious to the angry glares briefly shot at them by other patrons at the café.
"Hey babe, how about a mornin' kiss?" one of the soldiers slurred, grabbing at Makoto's skirt.
"Kyaa!" she had screamed, reacting to the sudden movement. She almost dropped the tray with Natalise and Kurt's coffees, but skillfully managed to rebalance the tray.
"What are you saying? I don't kiss guys who stink of alcohol."
"What did you say!" the drunken soldier cried, standing up quickly. He looked around at the rest of the café, and saw that people were looking their way. "What're you lookin' at!" he growled, and the patrons quickly returned to their own duties, ignoring the soldier and Makoto.
"Now then …" he said, grabbing Makoto's hand and pulling her a little closer. He brought his face close to hers.
"Let's have that kiss …" He puckered his lips and went in for the kill. He was very surprised when a lot of hot liquid splashed on his face. He gave a cry of pain, rubbing the hot coffee off his face and raising his hand to slap the fearful Makoto, now trying to free herself of his hand. "Bitch!" he shouted, and raised his hand to slap her. Kurt quickly stood up and reached for something at his waist.

As it descended, a pool cue struck it away. He gave another yowl of pain, and saw who the new offender was. A tallish young man, with black hair, about 5' 8" tall, his face framed by a pair of petite, oval spectacles, had slapped his hand away with a pool cue.
"That's not very gentlemanly of you." He said, with a smirk on his face. They heard a click, and turned their heads to see Kurt putting something away.
"What was that?" the soldier said, eyeing Kurt suspiciously, advancing towards him, the indignity dealt him by the two young upstarts all but forgotten. His partner lay back in his chair, watching the fireworks with a look of great amusement on his face.
"Nothing." Kurt replied coolly. They watched as the soldier approached him.
"Really now?" The soldier said, not quite free of the thought that Kurt was hiding something.
"I thought I saw something metal there. Concealed weapons are against the law, aren't they?" he grinned, showing his yellow, broken teeth.
"You mean this?" he said, holding up a gun with a red cap on the end of its barrel.
"It's a cap gun. See?" he pointed it in the air and fired a few rounds. Other than loud sound and a bit smoke, the gun fired nothing else.
"Right, you're fine … but I'm keeping my eye on you." The soldier turned around and wandered back to his table. Kurt sighed in relief and sat back down.
"That was close. Why do you do that!" Natalise said to Kurt, admonishing him.
"What?" Kurt enquired innocently, his eyes speaking that he did nothing wrong.
"Nothing. I merely went to the aid of a pretty lady." Makoto giggled as she set new coffees on their table.
"So I'm that irresistible, huh?" she said flirtatiously, giving him a wink.
"Oh no …" Kurt replied in kind, "I'm just a ladies' man." Just then, a sharp explosion took place, across the street, sending cars flying. Everyone ducked for cover.

A loud crackle was heard from Kurt's waist.
"bzzt … me in, Pee …me in! This is Ka… we fl… retre… taking heavy fire and need geta…" The soldier, still ambling back to his table, spun around and shot a glare at Kurt.
"I knew it! A League agent!" He ran at Kurt while his partner called for help. "This is Hensers!" his partner shouted onto their radio.
"HQ! We got a pair of League spies at Café 39, Karis Road! Request backup immediately!"
"Geez, just when I was getting to know the girl as well." Kurt sighed. He grabbed Makoto's hand, and pointed a gun to her head. A real one, not the cap gun he had before.
"I'd prefer not to do this," he said loudly, looking at the two soldiers, "but cancel that, or the girl dies." Makoto, stiff with fear, could only just stand there. Natalise sighed, and stood up on the table.
"If either of you pricks move, I'll execute the motherfg both of you!" she shouted at the top of her voice. She pointed her own gun at the onrushing soldier, frozen by Kurt's threat. The soldier smiled.
"Go ahead. Shoot her." He said with a sneer on his face.
"See if I care if the bitch dies. Plenty more where she came from." Kurt frowned. He decided that that was bad.
"In that case …" he said slowly. He quickly turned his gun on the soldiers, shooting the radio of the one calling for help, and then shot the leg of the one who had come at him.
"Go, now!" he shouted at Natalise. She nodded, and they both ran out of the café, Kurt still holding Makoto's hand.

Alex and Henry looked on as the two League terrorists escaped with Makoto.
"Quick, after em! We can't let 'em get at Makoto!" he cried, rushing out after them. Henry quickly followed.
"You're such an idiot! They got guns!" Henry shouted as they chased the two. They pursued the two down the road, as they rounded a corner and disappeared into a building.
"So what?" Alex replied. He held up the pool cue, which he still had.
"I'm pretty good with javelin."

As they came to the corner, they looked both ways to see where the pair went. There was a loud boom above them, and the sound of giant steps. A pair of huge mobile suits emerged from the building. They were rather blocky, and had a large backpack, presumably housing thrusters. Their heads turned around, showing a round ball with an area cut out for the "eyes," and there were a pair of protrusions from the head for other cameras. At the chin level, were two holes, roughly fifty-five millimeters in length. They both bore large rifles, resembling tommy-guns, complete with the drum-clip.
"Wow …" Alex breathed.
"League mobile suits." Looking up, they saw a white object flying around, firing sporadically.
"Look, we got the cavalry coming!" Henry said, tapping Alex's shoulder and pointing the other way. They watched as a squadron of ZATIN military MS came out.

They were a group of ZATIN Assault Knight Units (ZAKU for short) , all of them bearing rifles. The League mobile suits raised their rifles, and opened fire. The ZAKUs quickly dispersed and went for cover behind the buildings, the large caliber bullets from the League MS guns smashing into the buildings the ZAKUs were hiding behind. As they did, the white object made a pass over the field, spraying it with machinegun fire as it flew past. It banked around for another turn, and the two young men could see that it looked like a fighter-plane of some sort. It had swept-back wings, and a pair of huge thrusters on its back, as well as a large gun of some sort. The body seemed rather blocky, but it seemed there was more to the fighter-plane that meets the eye.

As it made another pass, coming from behind the ZAKUs taking cover and exchanging fire with the League MS, Alex and Henry watched as it tore up one of the ZAKUs, raking it with beam shots from a beam-machinegun. The ZAKUs, realizing the threat, instantly activated their beam shields, a curtain of light firing up over their other side shoulder, to shield them from behind from this deadly fighter. The fighter made another pass, this time firing the large gun, a huge energy blast tearing through one of the buildings to blast a hole right through another ZAKU. Realising the threat, one of the ZAKUs holstered its machinegun, and took a long-barreled weapon from its back. It fired on the fighter, almost striking it, detonating when it got near the fighter.

Then suddenly, the fighter did the most amazing thing. It transformed, in front of their eyes, from a fighter, into a MS. Alex could see now that it was coloured white, dark blue and yellow, and as it landed, it took up the large rifle it had on its back and took aim. It fired another blast at the ZAKU with the gun, striking the ZAKU but not penetrating it, but instead impacting on the beam shield of the prepared ZAKU. It then stepped back in surprise as the ZAKUs opened fire on it, some suppressing the other two League MS hiding behind the building they had emerged from. The MS took a lot of heavy fire, hiding behind its own beam shield as they pummeled it with machinegun fire.

Alex and Henry ran to take cover as the ground shook, shaking as the impact of the huge shells from the ZAKU's machinegun rounds fell to the pavement and cracked the cement. Suddenly, the beam shield gave out and the MS was knocked down by the sustained machinegun fire. Alex and Henry looked, and saw the cockpit open, and a person in a pilot suit crawl out. As he ran towards them, oblivious of the two young men there, Alex and Henry looked at each other. They decided on a good course of action.

They rushed the pilot, knocking him out with a pair of blunt implements: Alex's pool cue, and Henry using a loose piece of piping he found nearby. Dragging his body with them, Alex used his sweater to tie him up, and had Henry take his gun. They decided that if he woke up earlier than expected, they'd make sure he wouldn't give them trouble.
As they went up to the MS, Alex noticed large letters burnished on the side:
"PROJECT GUNDAM" and "ZMS-X16 ECHO." He paid them no heed until they clambered inside the open cockpit. Alex had an impish grin on his face.
"Hehe …" he said to Henry.
"Whoever woulda thought that I'd be able to do the same stuff that I see in all those shows?" Henry gave him an exasperated grin.
"You watch too much TV when you should be spending time studying."
"I know, I know." Alex said, heaving the comatose pilot into the strangely open cockpit. They looked down, and saw it was a rather strange one. The whole cockpit was like the inside of a sphere, with blank tiles covering the inside surface of this sphere. In the centre, there was a control chair, presumably where the pilot sat. Alex leapt in, landing on the chair's back.
"Wow, a three-sixty degree panoramic view. Just like those sims at the arcades!" He sat down in the chair, and motioned for Henry to join him. "Even the controls!"
"Now, let's see …" Alex said, and began to randomly press buttons. The tiles began to light up, showing him diagnostics.
"Echo …?" Alex murmured as the name came up onscreen.

Images of the outside from the view of the MS' head began to blink on. Currently, it showed bullets flying over it, the only things blemishing the blue of the colony's sky.
"Hmm …" Alex mused, pressing more buttons. Suddenly, the hatch closed shut.
"Okay! Let's go!" he cried, pushing one of the control sticks forward, and stepping on the middle pedal.

The MS suddenly boosted itself up, and the cockpit began to shake as the sound of bullets ricocheting off it was heard. The Echo had stood up right in the line of fire of the ZAKUs and the two League MS. Alex watched as small tags appeared next to the other MS on the battlefield. The two League MS were marked "Crusaders," and the two ZAKUs were obviously marked as such. Noting the rifle was still in the MS' hand, Alex tried pushing one of the other control sticks, but that simply made the Echo lean forward and then fall down again, flat on its face. A small window opened up on the display, with the image of a man's angry face displayed on it, along with an ID tag on the bottom. Kurt Linch.
"Hey, what the hell you doing Bennere!" he said angrily. Alex realized he couldn't make out his face through the space helmet. Ignoring him, Alex decided it would be best to find the manual for this thing before anything else. Bringing up a menu screen, Alex managed to navigate the menu enough to enter tutorial mode.

After about 15 minutes of browsing through the tutorial, oblivious of the stalemated firefight, Alex managed to get the Echo to stand up. As it did, he pointed the rifle at the two ZAKUs, and flipped a small setting on the control chair to I.
A pair of rods extended from opposite sides of the barrel outwards, past the end of the rifle barrel.Pointing the rifle, and taking fire from the ZAKUs who were suddenly concentrating on the Echo after it stood up. Ignoring the rifle fire, the Echo pointed its rifle at the remaning group of ZAKUs, and then Alex pressed the trigger.
The rifle hummed for a second, and then a large, blue-white blast of electricity arced out from the rifle as the barrel glowed. The blast struck and stunned the ZAKU units, as the energy leapt from ZAKU to ZAKU.

"Cool!" Alex exclaimed, watching as the ZAKUs stopped moving. He turned the Echo around to the Crusaders. The comms window popped up again, this time with the face of the woman from the café. The ID tag named her as "Natalise Jorren."
"Great job, Bennere! Now let's pack up and get outta here before the Zeds send more of those suits."

Ignoring her hail. Alex raised the rifle and pointed it at the two Crusaders as they emerged from the cover of the heavily damaged buildings. Alex opened up his own channel to the two.
"What the hell you doing, Bennere?" Kurt said, a window popping up. He had a playful smile on his face.
"This ain't Bennere." Alex replied. Kurt's smile was gone from his face.
"Who are you? And what are you doing in the Echo!" Kurt demanded. Natalise held a look of concern on her face. Henry came into view of the communication screen.
"And who's he?" Natalise demanded. Alex removed the helmet. Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Kids …. The ones from the café!"
"That's right!" Alex replied.
"We're in this MS for one reason." He warmed up the rifle.
"You took a girl when you left the café. We want you to give her back." Henry put in. Kurt frowned. Henry continued.
"Please comply, and then we will get out of this mobile suit, and give it back to you." Alex looked at Henry and smiled.
"Now let's hope they don't call our bluff."
"I'm not killing people just so I can get Makoto back!" Alex sputtered. Henry held up his hand to calm him down.
"I'm not saying you should. They get their MS back, we get Makoto back."
"Let's hope it stays that way." Alex replied pessimistically. The other two in the Crusaders seemed to consider his proposal for several minutes. They finally came to a decision.

"Take her. She's knocked out, in the warehouse where we came from." Natalise replied. She opened up a private channel to Kurt.
"Jeez, you sure have a way of doing things." She complained.
"What?" Kurt replied, unrepentant. "I thought she needed help, and those two guys didn't seem like the kind who were gonna be gentlemanly." Natalise sighed.
"To your standards, the only one capable of that is you." Kurt laughed. "Well, that must mean that I really am God's gift to women." The two mercenaries watched as the Echo moved to the warehouse and bent over. As its cockpit opened, they saw the two kids step out and into the warehouse.

"World League terrorists! You are ordered to lay down your arms and surrender! Do so and we will treat you less severely!" There boomed a loud declaration as three more squadrons of ZAKUs closed in on all sides, surrounding the three League MS.
"Nuts. Just when we were about to escape." Kurt remarked to Natalise. "Well, surrender isn't an option." His Crusader quickly ducked back into some heavy cover.

"Henry! You get out with that pilot and try to get Makoto. I'll try to stop them by surrendering." Alex said quickly. Henry nodded in response and climbed out, dragging the pilot with him. He alighted onto the Echo's hand, and then got off after it lowered him close to the ground. Leaving the pilot in some cover, Henry ran quickly into the warehouse.

Alex closed the cockpit, getting the Echo to stand up slowly, its rifle pointed in the air in a gesture of surrender. As he did, he suddenly was hit by sporadic gunfire as it stood up. Reacting automatically, Alex pulled the control sticks to the side, accidentally pressing a blue button on the console. The Echo suddenly moved very quickly, leaping to the side, seeming to move so fast it left after-images in the air, made up almost entirely of a mass of sound waves. Alex looked up to see a small box marked "Echo Drive Active."

'I wonder what that does …' he pondered to himself, and quickly called up the manual again. The Echo drive allowed the Echo to move at speeds in excess of mach 12 for microseconds at a time, the main property being a side effect of the drive unit that exerted such bursts of movement. It left a mass energised photons and standing sound waves that seemed to simulate the glowing frame of the MS itself, fading away over the course of 7.03 seconds as the standing sound waves dissipated.

The ZAKUs fired on the Echo again, ignoring Alex's protests of innocence and demands to surrender to them. As it danced from the gunfire of the ZAKUs, he saw Henry emerge from the warehouse, leading Makoto. Firing another incapacitating shot at the ZAKUs, this time they saw its danger and quickly blocked the electrical blast with their beam shields. Alex leapt the Echo up onto a building, which visibly shook as the Echo landed on it. Trying to make them see reason, Alex decided something more drastic was needed.

Changing the setting to "B," Alex depressed the firing mechanism in the cockpit. The rifle shifted, as the barrel shifted back and widened. Three vents opened up along the rifle's back, and then the Echo opened fire. It hummed, energy coursing through into the centre of the barrel and building up for a second, humming loudly as it did. A pinpoint of light was focused on just in front of the barrel's centre, and then the rifle emitted a huge blast of energy, blasting right through two buildings before melting the armour on the one hiding behind the second building. The power suddenly cut out, and the cockpit went pitch black. Alarm klaxons sounded, and a voice over the intercom sounded a warning.

"Warning: power overload. Emergency shutdown, please be patient." Alex sat in the cockpit for what seemed to be an eternity, before the MS powered up again, all power returning. Suddenly, he noticed he was under fire by the ZAKUs again. Switching the rifle setting to M, the vents on the rifle closed up, the barrel closed back up as it was before, and a wire snaked out from the MS' waist and plugged into the rifle. Alex pointed the rifle at the ZAKUs, and opened fire.

The Echo's rifle let loose with a hail of beam shots, the rifle now a high-powered beam machinegun. Raking the squadron of ZAKUs firing on it with beam machinegun fire, Alex sprayed the area as he advanced on them with the Echo, laying down suppression fire. He noticed a light flashing in the corner of his eye, and turned to see a ZAKU sneaking up behind him, its beam hawk glowing as it prepared to cut the Echo down from behind. Alex quickly swung the Echo around, pumping the ZAKU full of beam machinegun fire. It jerked and convulsed as the beam shots struck it, like some sort of mad puppeteer was shaking his hands with the ZAKU attached to them. Turning back around, he pressed a button, the Echo's rifle folding up as it mounted itself on the Echo's forearm and the hand-shield moved forward, projecting a beam shield All the while, Alex drew a beam saber as the ZAKUs got within a range where the Echo's rifle would be useless.

The waist holsters on the side popped open, a white handle flying into the Echo's waiting hand. An iridescent green beam ignited from the handle, and the Echo charged forward, slashing around madly at the ZAKUs. Surprised by this sudden attack, Alex cleft the arm from one of the ZAKUs and the leg from another, before leaping it into the air and activating the Echo Drive to boost it over another ZAKU's head and then landing behind it and decapitating it.

By now, Alex was sweating inside the cockpit from such exertion. There as no time to rationalize or reason as he was in danger of being killed, and he had to protect himself at all costs. Looking around at a screen, he saw one of the Crusaders heft up a large bazooka from the warehouse, and then fire it at the sky. The missile impacted and created an open hole in space, the Crusaders leaping upwards. Alex quickly swung the blade around, fending off the ZAKUs for enough time to fire another weapon.

The rifle extended itself on the Echo's arm, and Alex fired several incapacitating shots, the electricity arcing around as the Echo's rifle panned around the Echo's surroundings. Quickly moving back to the warehouse, Alex had the MS kneel down to where Henry was waving, and lifted Makoto and Henry into the cockpit. Henry was just about to get back out when the more ZAKUs arrived, forcing Henry to step back inside. As the Echo turned, Alex saw a group of his friends emerge from the direction of Café 13.

Zooming in, he saw on the display window his sister Aya, his friends Iain and Jon, and Tim Vaan, a guy who was after his sister. He turned to them, waving to them. Noticing the Echo, with looks of disbelief on their faces, they moved cautiously towards it, through the flaming wreckage that the Echo had wrought. He set down the Echo and let them into the cockpit.
"So this is where you've been!" Jon exclaimed as he saw Alex waving at him from inside the cockpit.
"Adding MS theft to hooky this morning, eh?" Iain said jokingly.
"Come on up and have a look!" Alex was like a kid showing off a new toy.
"Geez, Alex, getting involved in a fight again!" Aya exclaimed, exasperated.
"I can't believe you! From such a respectable household too!" Tim called, joining in with her. The ZAKUs began to move again.
"No time! Get inside, quickly, before they start shooting at you for being League accomplices!" The five quickly clambered on.
After letting five more people in, with a total of eight inside, counting the pilot, Alex had quite a squeeze inside.

As he pondered what to do, he saw the two Crusaders from earlier return through the hole, having been gone not more than six minutes at the most, blasting through the glass shield that had come up over the hole and flying in again. Before he could react, the two Crusaders grabbed the Echo by its arms, lifting it up in the air, and flew back through the hole, fleeing the raking gunfire of the recovering ZAKU units. The group of friends watched as the Crusaders pulled the Echo out into space, in view of a large, white spaceship. Taking it inside, they saw they were in a large MS deck, troops quickly surrounding the Echo with rifles.

"We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up!" The group did as they were told, the Echo kneeling down, and the group emerging out onto the hand. Alex pressed a button, lowering them to the ground. Troops quickly swarmed around and surrounded them. A man in a white coat came up to them, with a stern look on his face. Daring to venture a question, Iain called out to him.
"Who are you? And where are we?" he demanded of this man in the white coat. The man in the white coat simply reached inside, producing a cap and placing it on his head.
"I am the captain. Cees van Kurrel. And this is my ship, the Argento."