Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam.


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Gundam Gemini

Episode Two

Orthrus

Part B

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When Vega saw the pilot eject out of the Garm, she knew she was in trouble.

Even without her instruments, the technopath could sense the energy building in the mobile suit as it prepared to self-destruct. The Scarlet Wolf had mere moments to act unless she wanted to become charred dog meat.

The problem was the Fenrir was being pinned down by its arms against the tunnel wall and with the Garm still going at full throttle there was no way to wriggle free. Its pilot had shrewdly grabbed her by the elbows, so Vega couldn't even shoot or slice her way out. Even if she did, the Garm might just plough into her before exploding.

With time running out, the LIRA ace bet on a daring gamble. She focused on her rifle, technopathically building up its beam energy until it overloaded. The resulting explosion tore off the Fenrir's right arm, but was powerful enough to redirect the Garm sideways. Wasting no time, Vega helped it along with a blazing foot thruster to the chest, before kicking off the machine and breaking free.

While the Scarlet Wolf blasted as far away as her thrusters could carry her, the unmanned Garm drove itself into the wall, crashing and scraping along the rock face until it exploded. The overwhelming power and heat it released was only focused by the confined tunnel and Vega broke into a sweat as she struggled to maintain control of the rattling Fenrir. After a hot, bumpy ride, she finally escaped the blast radius and landed on the floor of the tunnel with a long sigh of relief.

Vega had underestimated the young technopath this time. She had desired to continue their duel, but the LIRA ace should have realised the corner she had forced the pilot into. They must have cared a great deal for the friend they had lost above Lemuria, for only a deep desire for vengeance could have driven them to such desperate measures.

The veteran frowned and unconsciously touched her mask through her helmet; she really should have known, but she had been in this war so long even the Scarlet Wolf had forgotten the power of love.

Pushing away old memories, Vega checked her instruments to see what her inattention had brought her. The Fenrir's right arm was gone, of course, and its crimson armour had been charred almost black, marring the new paintjob, but otherwise the mobile suit appeared intact. Still, never before had the Scarlet Wolf been so wounded, both in body and pride, and her reputation as untouchable was now in tatters.

"I hope you can forgive me, Fenrir…" Vega whispered, brushing her hand against the machine as one would pet an animal. She had grown quite fond of her personal mobile suit over the years and considered its pain her own; as if they were one, Ursula would say.

Next, she checked her radio, but as expected this deep underground there was nothing but static. Vega could only hope the others in the Space Wolves were alright, but for now would have to leave them in Ursula's capable hands. She smiled, imagining the dressing down her second would give her when she got back – if she could that was. Not only was this bunker a maze, the explosion may have closed off the exits, leaving her trapped.

As Vega restarted her thrusters and lifted off to the sounds of the Fenrir creaking and groaning, she found herself thinking of the Garm's pilot and wondered if they had survived the blast. Their skills had only grown since their last meeting, she surmised, and in failing to defeat them the Scarlet Wolf may have just raised up a tiger. Recalling back to when they had ejected from their Garm, Vega realised she knew at least one thing about them.

They had the unmistakeable figure of a young woman.

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When Laura had decided on her plan to kill Vega Aurelia by sacrificing her Garm, she had neglected one tiny detail.

"How the hell do I get out of here…?"

Since barely escaping the explosion with her life, the technopath had drifted through the tunnel until her helmet lights had discovered a small, man-sized opening in the wall. Using the miniature jetpack on her space suit, she had propelled herself inside only to discover another maze of passages made for the bunker's personnel. It wasn't long before Laura got lost and if her oxygen supply wasn't finite, she would have screamed with exasperation.

Without her Garm her suit only had enough power and air for a few more hours, so she had to conserve what she could. But keeping her breathing steady was easier said than done in the face of the dark, abandoned bunker. With only the torch on her helmet as a source of light, Laura floated into the shadows one hop at a time and clutched at icy walls for support, exploring the lifeless ruins for any sign of a way out.

Unnerved by the silence, the orphan distracted herself by thinking of her friends. They must be so worried by now, Milos too, but Laura had promised to come back alive and she couldn't wait to tell the others she had avenged Tully. She was sure Freya would still chew her out though – and speaking of the pink diva, the technopath was reminded how scared she was of ghosts and chuckled imagining her reaction if she were here.

A white figure crossed into the path of Laura's helmet lights and she gasped, slapping her hand to the jetpack buttons on her wrist so she could flee – only to find it was nothing more than a tattered old space suit. The technopath breathed a long sigh, regretting any thoughts of Freya or ghosts. She pushed past and found other ancient debris floating inside the rooms; helmets, chairs, utensils and other signs of human habitation – but none of the humans themselves, living or otherwise.

If the Lemurians had built this bunker they were long gone, perhaps escaping whatever had made that giant crater. Laura wished Milos, Junko or Alice were here so she could make sense of it, if not for their knowledge of Lemurian relics and archaeology then for their company, because the longer she was in this tomb the more chills she got.

Finally, at the end of a long corridor, Laura spied a sliver of light. She raced towards it, almost as if swimming to the surface of a lake for precious oxygen. What she found was a round airlock and light was pouring in through a gap in its side. Positioning herself between the wall and the door, Laura braced her back and pushed with her legs, forcing the steel hatch to groan until it rolled out of the way. Bright light flooded through the corridor and the pilot shielded her purple eyes with an outstretched arm – before they ballooned with awe.

Past the airlock was a yawning cavern within the moon, a vast underground world hidden by the bunker, carved out of white moonrock and held up by hundreds of unnatural obelisks that rose like a city of skyscrapers. Laura was only able to witness the full majesty of the cavern because of the series of intense lights adorning the curved ceiling and each obelisk, powered by some unknown power source. Perhaps a nuclear reactor, reactivated when she had first opened the bunker, the technopath told herself once she had calmed down enough from her initial shock.

Casting her eyes back from the cyclopean city of stone lest she went mad, Laura checked her immediate vicinity and saw what appeared to be ancient mining and drilling equipment. Age and rust had made the giant machines inoperable, but they gave a clue as to how the cavern was formed or expanded from an existing hollow. Was the bunker on Lenos a Lemurian mine? Or an attempt at establishing a moon colony? The questions gnawed at Laura, but it hardly mattered if she couldn't live to tell the tale and she searched the graveyard of machines again for anything she could use.

That's when she saw it, straight ahead, leaning against a lone obelisk of ivory.

A mobile suit.

Laura couldn't believe her frozen eyes, but as she floated closer, propelled by her jetpack, there was no mistake. The tall humanoid machine was like no model she had ever seen, neither a bulky Garm nor a lean Warg, but something in between. Its thick and powerful legs hinted at advanced rocket thrusters beneath, the armoured torso looked solid enough to brush off beamsabres yet was still streamlined for flight, weighty arms hung off its oversized shoulders like compact weapons, and its square head was fashioned to appear as if it wore the helmet of an eastern warrior. Strangest of all, the mobile suit was still a pristine white and looked perfectly new, oblivious to the antiquity surrounding it.

When Laura finally reached the alien machine she paused under its chest, floating with her mouth agape, studying and admiring its design and construction. It was both magnificent and formidable all at once, she thought, and only looked to be asleep as it rested against the obelisk. In particular, the mobile suit appeared to be made entirely of an unknown metal and the technopath found her hand reaching out to touch it.

As soon as she made contact, an invisible current jumped through Laura's space suit and up into her head, overloading her not with electricity but images and information. The technopath pulled back and gazed up again at the face of the mobile suit with a renewed look of awe in her stunned purple eyes.

The white mobile suit was a Lemurian relic, the very thing they had come to find on Lenos, whose signal had led them to the bunker. Laura had found it.

She had only connected with it once, but the technopath already knew this was a relic of vital significance. She could not let it fall into LIRA's hands. Finally taking stock of the relic's surroundings, Laura noticed the obelisk had been some kind of make-shift hangar and the column was lit-up with instruments and equipment. Following the lights, she saw multiple cables sticking out of the rock and into the mobile suit's back that seemed to buzz and hum with electricity. The pilot's lips slowly curled into a smile.

This just might be her ticket out of here.

Jetting her way back to the relic's chest in a hurry, Laura touched it and communicated her commands. A moment later there was a hydraulic hiss and the centre section of the chest armour swung open, falling like a drawbridge and revealing the cockpit. Peering inside with her helmet lights, the technopath performed a cursory check before pushing herself inside.

Laura feared she would find the remains of the previous pilot, but discovered nothing but an empty chair. The faded seat had seen better days, but it would have to do and she strapped herself in. The cockpit door closed, ushering in complete but momentary darkness before the lights flickered back on, exposing a sight that stole its occupant's breath away.

Whereas a Garm had several large monitors stitched together to receive visual information from the head sensor, the relic had one long panoramic monitor curving around almost the entire cockpit. Not only that, the inside was far more spacious than the cramped death traps Laura was used to, forming a perfect sphere she suspected could be jettisoned on command. As for the controls, they were more similar than she had expected, but performed a quick inspection anyway.

Hand controls, check. Foot pedals, check. Throttle, check. Instruments within sight and reach, check. After squeezing the controls and working the pedals a few more times, Laura was satisfied everything was in order and turned her attention to the mobile suit CPU. Flipping the red and most conspicuous switch on, the cockpit hummed with energy before the panoramic monitor lit up with a white screen – and proceeded to be littered with red error windows.

Laura swore and brought up the keyboard, which she began tapping at incessantly. Whatever had happened to the relic, it had scrambled its operating system and the technopath had no choice but to try and rebuild it. Thankfully, Rem still retained the same language as the Lemurians, but there was so much information even a technopath like Laura was having trouble deciphering and sorting it all – it would take days to go through everything.

Reminding herself she only needed to get the relic up and flying to escape the bunker, Laura focused on retrieving only the most necessary functions back online. Soon the panoramic monitor flickered before bursting with colour, showing the cavern outside in perfect detail, and as the technopath worked more instruments began to light up. There was still the engine and thrusters to put in order, but the system was like nothing Laura had ever seen before and she was constantly distracted by the genius of its design – by the thought of what this mobile suit must be capable of.

Amidst the lines of blurred code she failed to comprehend, a few words stood out and caused the young woman to pause.

"Orthrus Gundam…" she read, staring at the letters. "Is that your name?"

Laura's attention was diverted when something began beeping repeatedly inside the cockpit and she spun around searching for the source. She found it coming from the radar, which in turn had found something else – a moving red blip. Something big was out there and it was closing in.

A terrible premonition entered Laura's mind and she found herself waiting with bated breath. When the interloper finally appeared on screen, gliding into view like a bloody apparition, her head shook with wide-eyed disbelief.

"No… that's impossible...!" she whispered, thumping the arms of her chair with tight, trembling fists, but nothing could shake the numbness spreading throughout her body.

The mobile suit on her monitor was missing an arm and almost charred black, but there was no mistaking the distinct red coat that remained or that demonic head. Laura couldn't deny what she saw and the truth slowly sunk in like a reopened wound. The Fenrir had survived and Vega Aurelia with it.

The Scarlet Wolf lived.

When the shock had passed, Laura's gaping mouth clenched into an angry grimace, enraged not only because Tully's killer still lived but also because she had failed to avenge her again. Frustration couldn't even begin to describe what she was feeling; she had thrown everything at Vega Aurelia, including an exploding Garm, and it still hadn't been enough. Just what would it take?

Why couldn't she kill her?

That was when Laura's hateful glare caught sight of something and her depressed lips coiled with restrained glee. The Fenrir must have detected the relic as well, for it was moving towards her on the monitor – and it was limping.

The Scarlet Wolf was wounded.

Not only one-armed and weapon-less, but flying at reduced speed and power. She may have survived the explosion, but she had not gotten off lightly.

And here Laura was inside the most advanced mobile suit she had ever seen, the relic in perfect condition but for its impaired operating system. Her restrained smile transformed into a full-blown smirk and everything she felt before was washed away.

She would never get another chance like this.

The technopath's fingers went to work, beating down on the keyboard like relentless hail. As she raced to fix the relic's OS before the Fenrir reached her, Laura felt her technopathic abilities focus like never before and she fixed line after line of broken code with ease. With her unblinking eyes, she checked between the moving wall of script and the red mobile suit closing in on her.

It was going to be neck and neck.

"Just a little more…" Laura muttered, watching as the Fenrir reached out with its one arm to touch the relic. "…Got it!"

With that exclamation, Laura slammed her palm down on the console. The relic's eyes, which had been cast in shadow for centuries, lit up like a pair of stars. Sensing danger, the pilot of the Fenrir thrusted backwards and found herself watching in awe as the white giant rose from its slumber.

"Go, Orthrus!" Laura screamed, and behind her the cockpit instruments began to glow as the engine whirled to life.

She pushed the controls forward and the mobile suit responded, advancing one step with its giant legs and crushing the cavern floor with a tremor. With the second step, it pulled taut at the power cables tethering its body to the obelisk before breaking free of them in a series of ear-splitting cracks. As the cables whipped around behind it, the groaning coming from the Orthrus' joints lessened until it sounded like a well-oiled machine.

Seeing the battered Fenrir frozen in place, Laura imagined the stunned look on Vega Aurelia's face and grinned. After one last check of her instruments, she rammed the throttle forward and the thrusters on the Orthrus' back ignited, forming a scorching blue inferno. The white machine let loose like a flaming arrow, shooting straight into the path of the Scarlet Wolf.

Only to veer off completely and crash into the cavern wall.

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The moment Vega saw the relic charge, her senses were jolted by a familiar presence and immediately she knew who was inside the mobile suit.

So she had survived.

The ace braced for impact, only to be bewildered when the white machine flew straight past her and smashed into solid rock. Another pilot might pass it off as the antics of a clumsy flier and their accident-prone machine, but Vega knew better. The power alone in those thrusters was enough to put her on guard.

"For once, I might be at a disadvantage…" the Scarlet Wolf whispered, keeping her distance as she watched the enemy pull themselves from the rubble.

Inside the Orthrus, a dizzy Laura groaned and shook herself awake. That was way more powerful than she had expected and she had missed the Fenrir completely. Undaunted, the technopath made a few adjustments to the OS with one hand and piloted the Orthrus about face with the other.

"Let's try this again," she said, muttering a prayer under her breath before taking hold of the throttle once more.

The Orthrus blasted off and this time she almost clipped the Fenrir, who pivoted out of the way at the last second. Avoiding a repeat of her first assault, Laura eased up on the throttle and arced back, again piloting with one hand and making adjustments with the other. Only when the Fenrir was in her sights did she go at full speed again, bearing down on the Scarlet Wolf like a white comet on blue fire.

The speeding relic would surely have shattered what was left of the Fenrir, but Vega danced away at the last second again, like a bullfighter – and swung a flaming red beamsabre into her opponent. Laura banked right in a panic, saved only by the Orthrus' uncanny agility as the blade missed by nanometres, and slammed into one of the obelisks. She cursed, realising Vega had goaded her into thinking she was unarmed, and looked up to find the Fenrir charging in to finish the job.

The neon beamsabre came down and Laura pushed off the obelisk, letting the stone pillar take a nasty gash in her place. The Fenrir chased after her and the Orthrus dodged swing after swing with liberal use of its reverse thrusters. She may only have one arm, but the Scarlet Wolf's swordsmanship was pushing the technopath backwards. A weapon, Laura thought as she narrowly avoided being skewered with the hot oversized poker, she needed a weapon – she knew she had seen something when she was repairing the OS.

The Orthrus suddenly hit a dead end and found itself backed up against another obelisk. Vega pounced and went for the killing blow – only to be parried at the last moment by the relic's own blue beamsabre. As Laura suspected, the Orthrus had at least one weapon – and only one.

"Thank god it still works," she muttered through gritted teeth while wrestling with the Fenrir.

But this was no time to celebrate the marvels of Lemurian engineering. Laura applied more power to the Orthrus' arms and pushed the crimson beamsabre back with her own, throwing a punch with its free arm when she saw her chance.

Vega boosted backwards easily, letting her opponent swipe air, and landed with her beamsabre at the ready. The relic had power, but as she had observed its pilot was unfamiliar with its workings. Instinct told the Scarlet Wolf she should finish this while that remained so and she leapt back into the fray.

Although now armed with a beamsabre, it was all Laura could do to fend off the onslaught of the Fenrir's blade, which danced in the hands of the Scarlet Wolf. The blazing sword slashed high and low, sending the Orthrus scrambling backwards with clumsy steps, and when she tried to counterattack her arms felt slow and heavy. It was ironic, because if Laura was piloting her Garm she was sure she would put up more of a fight – but here she was with two usable arms to the Fenrir's one and losing. The technopath fumed at the realisation and began hammering at her keyboard again with one hand while piloting with the other.

As the fight wore on, Vega couldn't believe what she was seeing. The white mobile suit's reaction time was improving by the second, bending and rotating its joints fractions faster to match the Fenrir. It had deflected her beamsabre with perfect timing, gyrating its hips to redirect the power of her strike, before countering with a cohesive snap of its shoulders, arms and wrist so that the suit's entire body was behind its beamsabre swing.

As Vega dashed backwards to avoid the air-rending slash of azure fire, she knew exactly what was happening. This level of synchronisation between pilot and mobile suit and the rapid new efficiency in its movements could only mean one thing.

"She's recalibrating it as we fight…!" Vega exclaimed with quiet awe, picturing the image of the enemy pilot multitasking quite accurately. "Well, two can play at that."

Whipping out her own keyboard, Vega input some commands before firing up the Fenrir's thrusters and taking off into the air. Laura followed at once, determined not to the let the Scarlet Wolf get away this time, and the Orthrus' engine revved with power as it took flight. The mobile suits became a pair of soaring red and blue lights, illuminating the underground cavern with their radiance as they weaved through the city of cyclopean obelisks like fireflies.

Navigating the towering blocks streaming past on the Fenrir's monitor with one hand, Vega calmly operated her console with the other and rerouted all power to her thrusters. Behind her the Orthrus gave chase, scrambling to keep sight of the red machine corner after corner and not spin out of control. With every junction the g-forces pushed Laura side to side and she struggled to constantly reconfigure the unbalanced thrusters lest she crash into one of the obelisks. What should have taken days of trial and error to calibrate was managed in a few minutes by the technopath in the heat of battle and soon the relic was accelerating through the tight turns with increasing smoothness.

But the Rem pilot paid for her distraction after the next bend, braking and sliding around the obelisk to find the Fenrir nowhere to be seen – not until a red foot fell down on her from above. In a manoeuver mimicking what Laura had done with her Garm, Vega had pulled up the moment she was out of view, accelerating towards the cavern roof before coiling backwards and diving straight where she predicted the Orthrus would appear. The Fenrir connected with the mobile suit's back with a devastating crunch, braking on impact to transfer maximum force, kicking the relic out of the air and into a spiralling freefall.

Laura's cockpit spun like she was caught in a tornado with the addition of screaming alarms and instruments, but she held firm to her controls and powered up her throttle. When the Orthrus' stabilizing thrusters burst with fire all at once, the spinning stopped and the monitor cleared – only for it to display a solid wall of rock straight ahead. The technopath gasped and yanked her controls, trying to veer left, but she was coming in too fast.

In an act of desperation Laura stuck the Orthrus' right arm out, clenched her teeth and braced. The arm and the beamsabre it held buried themselves into the rock face, jolting the mobile suit and its pilot like a runaway train as it was struck, but by some miracle the limb was not torn off and was instead dragged across the obelisk. Although spared from a fiery crash at the expense of its appendage, the relic still bowled along at speed and ripped up a trail of stone and sparks in its wake.

Laura's face contorted as she wrestled with her controls, but she couldn't pull the raging Orthrus free from the rock. A red blur caught her eye and the Fenrir appeared at the other end of the obelisk, blazing towards her like a hawk swooping on its prey. The Scarlet Wolf had its beamsabre drawn back and ready, heralding her explicit intention of slicing the Orthrus in two when they passed.

With her quarry snared and helpless on her monitor, Vega smelt blood and gunned down her throttle. Laura wrenched her controls and banged on her console, her furrowed brow dripping with sweat while her panicked eyes shot looks between the Orthrus' trapped arm and the red executioner charging straight at her. A heart-stopping moment later, the scarlet and white giants met like two jousting knights.

The Fenrir swung its beamsabre, a potent blade with the power of all its gathered speed behind it. Laura followed the path of its dreadful red glow with wide-eyed terror and leaned on her controls one last time. Finally, the Orthrus' right arm throbbed and erupted from its stone prison, benevolent blue beamsabre and all.

It was only for a sliver of an instant, but the two swords clashed, disintegrating the cloud of rock and dust scattered from the obelisk. A fraction of a second later, the Fenrir whizzed past and the Orthrus was left intact. A sigh of relief escaped Laura's lips, only for the pilot to suck in air again when something collided with her from behind.

It was the Scarlet Wolf, somehow having doubled back already and nipping at her heels.

"Impossible… how can it still fly like that?!" Laura hissed and glared at the blackened machine as she dodged another slash.

Inside the Fenrir, Vega smiled, imagining the enemy pilot's confusion as she drummed away at her keyboard. It was a simple matter really; all she had to do was override the Fenrir's safety features and manually power the thrusters to their absolute limit. This allowed her to move in any direction instantaneously, performing impossible manoeuvers such as a rolling turn back in the other direction. The drawback was the toll the g-forces placed on her body but, against the opponent before her, the technopath had no qualms.

When the white mobile suit tried to break away from the obelisk into open space, Vega darted into their path. They traded blows, but with her back to the wall, Laura felt the disadvantage. Time and time again she tried to slip out, but the Fenrir kept her boxed in, hounding the Orthrus with impossible bursts of speed followed by blinding swordplay.

Wielding her beamsabre with only one arm, the Scarlet Wolf rendered the gap between them into an impassable barrier of neon strikes, raking and shredding moon stone as she chased her prey all along the ravaged obelisk. Vega gave no quarter and by staying close with an aggressive assault would not allow the relic any chance to use its powerful thrusters. Laura scrambled point to point, evading the Fenrir's blade, but was always between it and cold stone.
Unable to gather speed or find an exit, the technopath's frustration grew, until she stormed straight into the Scarlet Wolf. Their blades crossed, fusing together into a tempest of sparks, but Vega had the momentum and rammed the Orthrus into the obelisk with a shuddering boom. The crimson beamsabre edged dangerously close on Laura's monitor, forcing the pilot to put her free arm in the way and the metal forearm singed as it was a seared with a melting red line.

Vega pressed forward, redirecting all power to her thrusters until a mighty inferno raged from the Fenrir's back. Laura dialled up her own throttle in response and billowing azure flames escaped from behind the trapped Orthrus. The roar of the two mobiles suits locked in combat was deafening and the air was charged with thick, overflowing energy, the intensity of which caused the hair of the pilots stand on end.

For a mysterious moment, Laura and Vega sensed one another through their machines, like a technopathic connection, and they wrestled mentally as well as physically for dominance – but neither would budge.

The stalemate was only broken when an ominous rumble reached through the blare of engines and into their cockpits like rolling thunder. Laura and Vega both looked up to the roof of the cavern, instinctively waiting for an improbable crack of lightning and their faces were etched with shock when they actually heard it – only it came from below. The long jagged trench the Orthrus had carved with its arm and beamsabre visibly widened, fracturing into hundreds of more fissures as it was aided by the push of their thrusters. The suffering the scarred obelisk had endured throughout their battle finally took its toll and the construct could literally stand it no longer.

With a long thunderous boom, the entire pillar shifted forward as it collapsed – right on top of the duelling technopaths. But in the low gravity environment of the moon, the lumbering tower fell at a snail's pace, almost floating downward like a cloud as it grinded against its broken lower half. A white haze of dust poured out as the obelisk descended only for it to be blown away by the screaming exhausts of the mobile suits still locked in battle.

Even as the mass of rock pushed the pair backwards, Vega refused to concede her hard-fought advantage and tried to crush the relic between the falling obelisk and her beamsabre. Only when a hail of jagged stone broke away from the ceiling did she kick in her reverse thrusters and the Scarlet Wolf narrowly avoided being squashed by a falling boulder. Without the Fenrir to block its path the Orthrus took off, leaving a burnt-out crater on the obelisk and slicing through the rain of rubble to safety.

The pilots ended up on opposite sides of the yawning pillar and found themselves watching with terror as it plummeted in slow motion – and collided into another obelisk. With a mighty series of cracks, each column broke up into several pieces and shattered into a thousand more, before the largest blocks flew into other obelisks and the process repeated itself. Slowly but surely the cyclopean city fell like a host of frail white dominoes and a cloud of dust began to rise from the depths of the quaking cavern.

Without the support of the obelisks, the roof of the cavern began to crumble and pierced the dust cloud below with falling rubble, taking the faded bulbs of the giant lights with them. In the increasing darkness with only the glow of their beamsabres for light, Laura and Vega thought they would be buried alive in the cave-in – until they saw what appeared to be daylight coming out of a hole in the collapsing ceiling. At first their spirits lifted, only to simultaneously snipe a guarded look at the other challenger across the way.

Hands darted to their throttles and they blasted off at the same time, leaving a blaze of furious twin streaks in their wake. Like bolts of azure and crimson lightning, they zigzagged past falling rubble and cleaved through giant boulders, colouring the blackness of the cavern as they raced for the exit. However, the dire circumstances did little to deter their duel and the darkness flickered with the sparks of their clashing beamsabres as they jostled for the lead.

In the midst of their struggle a colossal shadow cast over them, blocking out the light at the end of the tunnel and bathing the mobile suits in night. They pushed off each other, splitting into red and blue lines and watching as the remains of an obelisk dropped between them. But the moment it passed they were back at each other's throats, spiralling like two intertwined serpents as they shoved, kicked and hacked at one another.

They were still fighting when they erupted out of Leno's surface at high velocity and soared back into starry space with the eclipsing glow of yellow Lemuria behind them. Below, the cavity through which they had made their escape crumbled along with the immediate lunar landscape, taking the cavern and its mysteries with it. But the two rivals barely noticed as they continued their duel in open space.

"…aura… com… in… aura…"

The semblance of a voice began to filter through the static of the Orthrus' radio and Laura kept one eye on the Fenrir harrying her on the monitor while inputting her RDF frequency.

"…aura… Come in, Laura! Is that you in that thing?"

"This is Laura!" the technopath replied straight away upon hearing Freya's welcome voice. "Yes, it's me! I'm piloting the relic!"

"What?!" Freya exclaimed, before her tenor changed completely. "Wait a second, don't you know how worried we've bee–"

"Laura!" the unmistakable voice screaming into the technopath's ear and causing her to wince was Milos. "Stay right where you are, the Lionheart will come and pick you up!"

"Milos! What's the situation? Is everyone alright?"

"We're fine, Laura. We've been holding off LIRA since you went underground," the serene tone of Alice informed her, before she sighed with emotion. "It's so good to hear your voice, Laura. Freya was fraught with worry."

"I was not!" the pink diva finally interjected, whipping them with her high-pitched voice. "Laura, are you seriously going to fight the Scarlet Wolf in that piece of junk? Are you insane?!"

"I have her, Freya!" Laura managed to shout and dodge a beamsabre to her cockpit at the same time. "I don't have time to explain, but I have her! With this mobile suit, Vega Aurelia is mine!"

"Wait, Laura! Don't be hasty!"

Freya pleaded, but her warnings fell on deaf ears; Laura only had eyes for the enemy before her. With purple orbs narrowed in concentration and mouth set with determination, the technopath entered a fervent state and blocked everything out but for the red mobile suit charging at her. She met the challenge head-on, propelling the Orthrus forward on blazing blue thrusters for the inevitable clash – only to barrel-roll at the last second.

The rapid manoeuver caught Vega unawares and she swung at empty space. Her upside-down opponent had no such misjudgement and severed the Fenrir's remaining arm with perfect calculation. The limb went flying, but before the Scarlet Wolf's expression could even register with wide-eyed shock, the white relic finished its barrel-roll off with a spinning kick to the Fenrir's back.

The red mobile suit plummeted like a falling meteor and smashed into the moon, leaving a scorching trench as it skidded along the lunar surface. The ordeal shook Vega like a martini until the screech of warping steel finally came to a halt and the winded pilot had to summon the energy to operate her controls. But the Fenrir barely responded and lay twitching on its back, the charred and bent machine almost made derelict by all the damage it had shouldered, and Vega scrambled to regain its functions.

"Major! Major Aurelia!" the voice of one of the Space Wolves managed to patch through to the Fenrir's com and Vega listened while she mashed her keyboard looking for a workaround to her power problems. "Hold on, major! We're coming to assist!"

When the radar began to beep with bodies, the colour drained from her features.

"No! Stay back!" Vega ordered, but it was no good – the damaged com could only receive.

Just as she feared, the two Wargs arrived from space in time to intercept the white relic before it reached the Fenrir. Though they may be fresh and armed with beam rifles, the Scarlet Wolf knew all too well how this would end and she was powerless to stop it.

"Out of my way!"

Laura screamed at the obstacles standing between her and her revenge, and the Orthrus' thrusters flared with cerulean wings as it weaved through a volley of beam fire. By the time the Warg pilots realised the mysterious white mobile suit closing in on them with rapid agility might have superior specs to their own, it was too late. With her gathered speed, Laura tore through the belly of the first Warg and impaled the second from behind with her beamsabre, letting them explode in succession before turning on the immobile Fenrir.

Vega grimaced at having to witness the demise of two of her pilots, but their sacrifice would not be in vain. With the precious seconds they had bought for her, the technopath found a way to reroute power in the Fenrir and blasted off her self-made crater – just before a blue beamsabre stabbed into the moon rock. Manually firing whatever thrusters still worked so that the armless Fenrir floated upright, Vega faced off against her merciless opponent in one last bout of life or death.

The vulnerable sight of the Fenrir unleashed a furious bloodlust in Laura and she rushed in with a savage war cry. After all the Scarlet Wolf's miraculous escapes, she knew this was the one – Vega Aurelia was at the end of her rope and Laura's best chance to avenge Tully had finally arrived. The Orthrus' beamsabre was already in motion across the monitor, razing a neon blue trail as it neared the red shell of the once feared mobile suit, which was attempting a futile retreat.

The Fenrir puffed backwards, its damaged thrusters either sputtering or dead. Too slow, thought Laura, seizing the moment with a predator's fiery gaze. She swung her beamsabre down with everything she had into a powerful, unavoidable strike.

It should have been the last thing the Scarlet Wolf ever saw.

Without warning, the Fenrir's thrusters burst back to life, sending it somersaulting backwards. The red machine pointed its feet straight out, as if to kick the Orthrus, but its timing was off. Laura chalked it up to a last act of desperation – until she remembered this was Vega Aurelia she was dealing with.

At that very thought, the plates on the Fenrir's shins ruptured and erupted with twin rays of crimson light.

Beamsabres, hidden in its legs.

Laura pulled back the moment she saw the flaming red footscythes, but Vega had timed her gambit perfectly and the technopath cursed her stupidity. With a mere flick of her foot the Scarlet Wolf disintegrated the beamsabre hanging over her, snuffing out its azure glow while the weapon was still in the Orthrus' hand, before aiming her other foot at the relic's cockpit – all in a matter of seconds.

For what seemed a terrifying age, Laura shrunk in her seat with bated breath as solid steel was literally boiled and melted metres away in front of her, baking the pilot in her own cockpit. She finally exhaled when the buzz of the beamsabre continued grinding upwards instead – until it pierced the Orthrus' head unit. The monitor went black, sending the technopath back into a panic.

By this stage, the Orthrus' reverse thrusters had finally kicked in and it leapt backwards to safety. From there Laura worked her console, breathing hard as the monitor flickered in and out, but the sensors had been thoroughly burnt. All she could make out was the Fenrir standing its ground with its deadly footscythes at the ready.

The impasse caused the technopath to bite her lip and she weighed her options, knowing Vega Aurelia was doing exactly the same. The Orthrus was unarmed and its sensors were rapidly deteriorating, but the Fenrir had no arms and was barely functioning. Or was it? Laura couldn't be sure what other tricks the Scarlet Wolf had hidden up her sleeve – the footscythes alone had almost undone her. Logic dictated she had only one rational choice.

Withdraw.

Laura discarded the idea in an instant, her body physically rejecting the very notion of running with a shake of her blonde head. Instead, her purple eyes glared at the object of her revenge on the monitor with defiance and the sound of heavy breathing filled the cockpit.

She was so close; Laura could taste Vega's demise. If she let this chance go, she may never get another.

"Laura!"

In the midst of her dilemma, someone called her name. It sounded like Freya.

"The Lionheart is here, Laura! Get out of there! Now!"

Freya's agitated voice seemed distracted and the com crackled. She and Alice must still be holding off the other Wargs, Laura realised.

"No… not yet!" she cried, shaking all over. "I'm not finished here!"

"There's no time, Laura!" Alice pleaded, her usually calm voice yelling with worry. "LIRA's fleet saw through our bluff! Reinforcements are incoming!"

"No! Vega Aurelia is still alive!" Laura's speech trembled and she slammed her fist onto the Orthrus' console. "I can do this! I can avenge Tully! I–"

"Laura Hartmann…"

The deep voice that finally calmed Laura was that of her father, Milos, and the technopath froze.

"Come back to us, Laura. Don't make us bury another friend," the captain entreated his daughter, somehow keeping his tone even in the circumstances. "Your chance will come, but first you need to live to fight another day…. that's an order."

Laura took a moment for Milo's words to seep in before she drew a long breath and buried the fire raging inside her body. As much as it pained her, her adoptive father was right; it would be no revenge if she died along with Vega, only another tragedy, and she had promised Freya it was one that would not be repeated. Not only that, a red warning light began flashing on one of the instruments and Laura realised the Orthrus was running out of power.

The ancient relic had already taken her as far as it could, which made her next actions all the easier on her drained mind.

"This is Laura Hartmann… returning to the Lionheart with the relic," she finally broke the silence and answered, much to the relief of everyone.

The technopath gave the Fenrir on the monitor one last look before tearing her purple eyes away, but not before muttering something under her breath.

"Just you wait, Vega. I will get you one day… I swear it."

Vow made, Laura rocketed off the lunar surface and piloted the Orthrus straight to the Lionheart, which was already passing by above Lenos.

She didn't look back.

.


.

Once she saw the back of the Rem ship carrying the relic speed away, only then did Vega breath a prolonged sigh of relief. She released her technopathic grip on the Fenrir's systems and the machine powered down with a whine, including the monitor and the beamsabres on its legs which extinguished themselves. Thank god she had had them installed after her run-in with the Garm that grappled with her during Operation Eclipse; they were meant to be a handy little trump card should Vega find herself in another bind.

But even they had almost not been enough and Vega went into a cold sweat checking her instruments again, the only sources of light in the darkness. Despite all the damage to the Fenrir its life support was still functioning, but the same could not be said for its power reserves which had been reduced to zero. In other words, the Scarlet Wolf had been running on fumes towards the end and it was all Vega could do to keep the beamsabres fired up to fool the enemy pilot.

Fortunately, her bluff had worked – but only just. Leaning back in her chair, Vega stared into the black mirror of her monitor while recalling the duel that had taken place. It was the closest to death she had ever come, yet somehow fighting for her life for once had been rather thrilling. The Lemurian Conflict, which the Scarlet Wolf admittedly cruised through, suddenly became quite challenging.

"Major Aurelia!" Ursula's shrill voice called out for Vega over the mended com, no doubt alarmed to see the Fenrir in such a state. "Are you alright, major?"

"Still in rude health, as you can hear, Ursula," Vega replied, smiling when she heard a sigh of relief. "Are you still alive too, Luke? Some assistance back to the Blue Crow would be appreciated – that relic did quite a number to my poor Fenrir."

"To think they got even you, major," Luke spoke with rare disbelief as he and Ursula landed on the moon to tow the Fenrir away. "Not only did they kill three of our own, they got away with the relic to boot. Command is not going to be happy."

"What was that relic anyway, major? Was it really a mobile suit?"

Vega pondered Ursula's question and thought back to before the duel, when the Fenrir had touched the sleeping relic. She had been too occupied by the battle that followed, but she had made a technopathic connection in that moment – a short-lived link, but a connection nevertheless. Of the mass of information that flowed into her mind, she was able to recall two possibly valuable items of interest.

One was a map.

The other was a name.

"Orthrus Gundam…" Vega whispered with wonder, to the confusion of her two comrades.

They could not see, but behind the Scarlet Wolf's mask her eyes lit up like the stars.

.


.

When the Lionheart was safely far away from Lenos and the Lux fleet with no pursuers in sight, Freya and Alice ceased their escort duty and docked their Garms back into the hangar bay with haste. The sight that awaited them there was one they would never forget.

"Laura!"

The girl in question turned to find Freya and Alice floating down from their cockpits and she opened her arms to receive their embrace. She was already half out of her spacesuit, the top half of which hung behind her, and her necklace popped out as the three collided.

"You idiot! Don't you dare do anything like that ever again!" Freya chastised the blonde even as she hugged her tight.

"I'll try," Laura joked, getting a good whiff of the diva's shampoo, before pulling back and speaking seriously. "…I almost had her, Freya. The Orthrus just might be more powerful than the Fenrir."

"The Orthrus?" Alice cocked her head and grinned. "Is that what you named the relic?"

"What's an Orthrus?" Freya asked, puzzled.

"A two-headed dog," Milos answered for her, floating down to the girls from behind. The orphans forgot to salute as usual, but he decided to let it pass for today. "A hound from hell, as the myth goes."

Together, the four looked up at the relic standing before them in the dock once reserved for Laura's departed Garm. Even damaged it was still white and magnificent and all the crew not on duty had come down to look at it. Some floated around the mobile suit, touching it, but one very curious mechanic was already inside the cockpit, shouting her findings like a madwoman.

"Oh my god, Laura! This is amazing!" Junko shouted down to the others, watching them from the Orthrus' monitor as she explored the relic's systems by running her rapid fingers over the keyboard. "I can't believe I'm linking up with the OS of a Lemurian relic centuries old! How did you even pilot this? Wait, did you calibrate it on the fly? And what is this thing made of?"

"It's Gundanium…" Superintendent Moses revealed, running his hand down the Orthrus' leg, and the big man had a rare expression of shock. "It's an incredibly rare metal we know the Lemurians used all the time, but we can barely find any these days, let alone process it."

The revelation only got Junko squealing louder with delight and the girls laughed.

"Try not to blow a gasket in there, Junko!" Laura shouted, grinning, and Milos took the opportunity to put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm glad you came back, Laura."

The pilot looked up and saw the relief in her father's dark eyes.

"Me too… captain," she nodded.

"Excellent work, Ensign Hartmann," Sofia's voice surprised them from behind. Milos took his hand away and the four instantly stood to attention as the demon commander joined them.

"To think that the very first discovery of our mission would be this," she continued, admiring the Orthrus with her red eyes. "With this relic, we might be able to improve Rem's mobile suit technology."

"I think we can do more than that," Laura whispered aloud so only her friends could hear and they shared a knowing look.

But for now, the Scarlet Wolf could wait.

"…Hey, what's this?"

"What is it?"

Laura answered Junko's call and floated back into the cockpit to see. Displayed on the monitor, unearthed through the mechanic's detailed examination of the Orthrus' memory banks, was the beginning of the next stage of their adventure.

A star map.

.

END OF EPISODE TWO PART B


Next Episode Preview

LAURA: With the Orthrus Gundam I can finally fight the Scarlet Wolf on equal footing and avenge Tully! Wait, what was that, Junko? I can't pilot it without permission from the president? But that star map is already pointing the Lionheart to another relic!

Next time, on Gundam Gemini:

The White Hellhound.

Just what other secrets are you hiding, Orthrus?


Notes: The second round of Laura and Vega's fight just kept growing! The Lovecraftian cavern came out of nowhere!

To anyone who's read this far, thank you so much! I'd love to hear from you, so please comment or review!