Gundam Wing UN war. The long awaited sequel to chapter 4

Chapter 5

Note – earth 1, Gundam earth, earth 2 our earth 100 years in the future.

Italics thought

You know, as I write this outside my house there is snow on the ground. I like snow, snow drops the temperature of water and thus makes it more likely to freeze the freezing of water produces ice and ice means iceboating! Cause I'm crazy enough to spend a day out on a frozen lake hoping for wind.

-Begin-

Life for Quatre Rebarbra Winner was not the greatest thrill a minute lifestyle type of life. Rather a larger portion of it was filled out doing paperwork. A very much greater portion in fact. And there were the news conferences, press interviews, hiding the fact that he had been a Gundam pilot until very recently. So much that was a challenge to deal with. But three weeks after his last act of piloting a Gundam, hopefully forever, life had, more or less, returned to normal. True there was a bit more paperwork than usual but Quatre could plow through the worst of it.

After another long morning of the papers Quatre took a lunch break, as usual. And as usual to avoid being to stuffed up from spending all his time in an office Quatre went out for lunch. He walked out of the office that was the main headquarters for the various enterprises that the winner family persevered in he went to his vehicle and told the driver the restaurant he desired to travel to today. After arriving he got a seat immediately, as usual, he sat down and made his order. Then he waited for the food, he was going to have to wait a while, the restaurant was notoriously slow. While waiting a man in a black suit approached him. "Excuse me sir I have a few questions for you. I hope you would be kind enough to answer them to the best of your ability."

While quatre had been relaxed his Gundam training made him more alert than most people even at his most relaxed. Having been prepared for this man Quatre simply replied, "Fine."

"My first question is, you do manage and/or own this colonial facility correct?"

"Yes I do."

"So in owning this facility am I correct in assuming you either do know everyone who resides in your colony, or colonies or you can discover this knowledge with ease."

"You most certainly are, unless they have arrived here without going through the entry procedures. In which case I can only offer so much help in finding any person." Quatre wasn't sure if he liked the path of conversation this man was insinuating.

"Then tell me would you have the ability to find the whereabouts of this man?" The man handed a slip of paper over to Quatre. The slip read, 'pilot of the Gundam 04 sir'.

Quatre looked at the slip; it had included the word 'sir'. He re-read it that sir meant a lot more than a mere title of respect. This guy, or the people he worked for, knew something about him being a Gundam pilot. Or assumed he carried some relation to the Gundam. "I'm sorry I can't help you with that. Gundam pilots tend to very adept at evading security measures."

"Really 'sir'," the man said sir with obvious sarcasm, "It's not impossible to find a few war records, maybe not official ones but records none-the-less with general descriptions about the various Gundam pilots. My advice is to find 'him' fast or else this colony will be dragged into the war on the basis of it containing a Gundam mobile suit carrying a clear alliance."

"You wouldn't!" Quatre threateningly whispered.

"We would."

"What do you want?"

"One of two things, either you and your various associated properties declare allegiance with the sentarius forces or the Gundam sandrock faces our champion in one on one no holds barred combat." The man leaned forwards as he spoke those words and his voice dropped to a hair more than a whisper.

"I would never hand these colonies over to the sentarius forces." Quatre said quietly but somewhat infuriated.

"Then the Gundam sandrock must face our own Gundam unit in one on one combat to the death."

"I can't pilot a Gundam now, in case you haven't noticed I am the leader and owner of the L4 colony system, all of it, as well as current manager of the Winner family fortune."

"Notice I never said you yourself would have to be in the mobile suit. You simply have to get it to the battle location with a pilot. We don't care who, although it probably should either be a top level pilot or a bottom ranked loser. Since he will most likely be killed anyway I suggest that you send the second."

Quatre sighed; it was either a one on one duel or get the whole colony involved. "Can I get time to find a pilot?"

"Three weeks." The man said, "It's two more weeks than I would give you but you're getting it at the behest of my commander."

"Fine, where do you want the battle to occur?"

"The coordinates will be sent to you in due time. My guess is no later than tomorrow."

"Right." Quatre sighed, where would he get a pilot. Sure it would be one of the Gundam pilots but they would have to be able to use sandrock. The question was which pilot was least necessary to whatever front they were on. There were going to be some phone calls made tonight.

-That night-

On his seventh and final contact of a Gundam pilot quatre got Thomas on the line. The rest had failed because they all were currently involved in a mission.

Duo was busy preparing for an assault on a small series of factories in northern California.

Wufei was deployed along the Earth 1 Yangtze River in order to deal with a large hostile force that was headed down the river.

Heero was still protecting the space colonies, and while what exactly he was doing news of a successful assault that had taken three colonies back thus far had implied what he was doing.

Trowa was caught in the middle of some battle somewhere and was thus left completely busy at almost all times. Devin had in fact deployed to back him up due to the chaos that was going on in earth 1 Western Europe.

Bekah had been deployed to Earth 2 Africa in order to guard a factory that manufactured adamantine vespite, mobile suits and guarded a key diamond field.

Tom however was simply acting as a reserve guard to what had been a rumored assault at Earth 2 New York City, but in fact had been directed at the Caribbean, it had been crushed and the preventer/un alliances hold of North America remained secure. Thus when he asked it Thomas was available to help him in a Gundam related issue the reply was positive, he could be there by the next day.

Quatre was thankful for the assistance but he would have to try and limit the military appearance in his colonies. He already had the Maguanac corp. and a small expansion to the corp. made up of volunteers only deployed in colonial defense but that was already a bit much. So arrangements were made to make Tom's arrival as inconspicuous as possible.

The next day Tom arrived at the L4 colony with his own Gundam in tow and managed to get in contact with quatre. Tom had arrived fully informed about the general nature of the mission and thus had some idea of what to do. Meeting quatre at the end of the day he did his best to discuss his general plan. "Greetings Mr. Winner." He said politely upon entering.

"Hello Thomas and you can just call me Quatre. With all you're doing for me it's the least I can do." Quatre motioned for tom to sit. "Well since you are an official Gundam pilot I would assume you have some idea of what's going on."

"A little more than I would figure you know. But I may be wrong about how much you know."

"What I know is that there is a confirmed force in the battleship Rondo that is within striking range of the L4 colonies. The Rondo is a large ship; it may contain a force of up to 250 mobile suits. And we don't know how many more enemies could arrive in three weeks time."

Tom nodded, "So you went with the action that was least likely to get your colonies involved in war. I see what you're saying. Continue, this is a fresh perspective of what I have."

"So when the man approached me with the offer of having a one on one duel settle this all I naturally took it with no other reasonable option presenting itself."

"Remaining un-allied would be key to the 'no-other-option' thing correct."

"Exactly."

"Fine, there's already a plan underway to deal with the enemy force if they become a threat. And I will pilot the Gundam sandrock if you feel that you should not get involved."

"Thank you." Quatre said ever grateful sounding. "You have no idea what you've done for me."

Tom grinned, "Oh I've got some idea. I can stretch my mind in ways most people don't quite perceive. So where's sandrock?"

"It's in a secret hangar. I do let the public acknowledge the presence of the common mobile suits, but a Gundam would be too much."

"Right, I'll get to practicing with the sandrock right away." Tom said. He respectfully bowed to quatre.

"You don't need those formalities in private with me after this."

Tom shrugged, "It's just respect. Manners, I learned them when I was a kid they've been engrained in me harder than any military doctrine."

"All right I guess I can live with a little more bow and scrape." Quatre said with a tone of light humor in his voice. Tom sighed. "I guess you should start training right away then."

"No." Tom said in an instant. "I just want to know where the Gundam is and how to get there. I understand that I need to use sandrock in battle but I think one hour of simulation training will make little difference."

"Oh alright then. So do you want to go to the Gundam?"

"No. I'd prefer to take some time to relax." Tom sounded exasperated. "You have no idea how horrible it is to wait and wait for a massive assault and then find that it doesn't come. Getting three hours to unwind would be more than enough for me." He sighed, "Even if it's just some extra sleep."

"Oh alright then. You're staying here am I correct?"

"Yep."

"Well then I'll get someone to direct you to your room."

"Thank you."

Quatre watched tom walk out, while he seemed cheery enough his stride, and once he considered himself out of any real obveservationally critical persons his facial expression changed to one of general discontent. Quatre could understand his feelings. Out of all the members of the UN Gundam pilot test project he had the most normal everyday history. A nice little nuclear family, relatively little immediate loss, good grades in school, by no means did he have a Gundam pilot background.

But still he had Gundam pilot abilities. His scores, while lacking a real specialty, were all very well rounded on a higher over all level. His piloting, which was divided up into various skills as well, had shown no particular tendencies to any sort of combat style, but still was well rounded with average abilities. Emotionally he seemed to be not overly affected by the war and the fighting and all the other grandiose elements of combat. But it wasn't impossible to pick up on at least some dislike of what he was doing. Quatre had seen that himself. Still he seemed motivated by something, not quite to a level of blind faith in the UN forces but still to a level where his sense of logic could be knocked out of proportion if the right order came along. Although what that would be Quatre wouldn't guess.

Still all in all with his little inner moral compass pointing in the direction he didn't seem like the type to complain about helping out quatre with this affair, rather he seemed to understand and sympathize with his cause totally and was almost willing to step into the duel. A fact quatre didn't like for the enthusiasm and danger both. But still he was the only one and he couldn't get any better.

"So I guess I'll have to live with it for just a while." Quatre sighed, what a lie.

Meanwhile in his own room tom was admiring the overall 'fanciness' of it. He had never been a real rich kid, at least not by local standards. Although he felt had he moved to any number of other places he would be considered such. But the elegance of the room could be admired in a few minutes he just had to make a short report first. Breaking out a small communications device designed specifically for nearly impregnable communications anywhere tom plugged it into an external power source and simply entered the frequency he wanted to and got the right person on the line.

"Thomas here, is command Reichard there?"

"Yes hold on I'll get him." A base minor lackey replied. Tom idly stared at the screen with some odd, yet somehow understandable look on his face, as he waited. After three minutes the lackey talked again, "The commander will speak to you now. Just wait a moment while I switch over."

There was some static and then a face appeared. It was the harsh face of the commanding general for the former state of New York greater area, the man who held direct rank above him when he had been stationed in the area, Gundam pilots having a high yet awkward rank. "Thomas I trust you have arrived. So how's things."

"Well enough I suppose. I am at winner mansion. I have spoken with him specifically he says tomorrow I will begin Sandrock simulations."

"Good. What do you know about the enemy?"

"Nothing yet, zechs had filed a report with something that may fit the bill but I only got part way through on the way here."

"All right, read up on that ASAP." Tom gave a 'command accepted' grunt. "And one more thing, what is the state of winner's 'inner fire'?"

"Well I can understand why he's not piloting the Gundam with his position and all. But I think overall Gundam or not his will seems somewhat more spent that someone like him can let it get for long. I hope that I can give his some more motivation. I don't know what I can do exactly but I'd like to try sir."

"As long as what you do isn't detrimental then I'm okay with it."

"Thank you sir."

"Roger, over and out."

"Over and out." Tom sighed; he felt quatre didn't need to pilot the Gundam if he did not want to. But still Quatre seemed to lack some sort of confidence or inner fire. There was a word that tom was just one hairs breadth away from finding the quality that quatre lacked but he couldn't pinpoint what it was.

The next day practice with sandrock began. Since Quatre wouldn't want to risk damaging the Gundam it was done in a simulator. So with some instruction from quatre about the basics of fighting with sandrock, as well as the gundams various quirks and other little things the simulations began.

At first Tom's ability with the Gundam paled in comparison to Quatre's. He was never able to equal Quatre's ability. However as time progressed he was able to reach a level that should have been good enough to deal with the strange Gundam mobile suit. At least according to the data derived from the battle the mobile suit had with the man called Zechs marquise.

Thankfully the film had been recorded and data had been gathered from that so that they had an estimation of both the mobile suits abilities and armaments. However this estimation was not guaranteed to be completely accurate. So the computer simulation had a good 15 added to all of the abilities that could be assumed by the tape. This was at tom's own request and more often than not the pilots who input data on the Gundam based on those abilities was either tom or quatre. Eventually after two weeks they had what the pair figured was a decent simulation opponent to fight against.

Finally two days before the battle was to occur Tom was watching over the 250 troops that were being sent to make sure than no matter how many enemy soldiers participated in the battle the battle would remain 1-1.

Quatre was overseeing the process as well, it being his colony and all. During a relative lull in the process quatre made a final check with tom, "Is everything ready?"

Tom was looking at a list, "Not everything, but for the point in the plan that we are in, yes."

"Good. I have one more question."

"Yes."

"Are you ready to pilot the Gundam?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Are you sure you want to pilot the Gundam?" Quatre asked.

"Yea." Tom said.

"Are you sure you're sure?" Quatre asked again. It was blatantly obvious to Tom what he was really asking, but literally was the manner in which tom chose to answer him.

"Yes I'm sure. I will pilot the Gundam since no other suitable pilots can be found in time."

Quatre looked at tom. He had looked at quatre while answering the question but was already back to the reading off of the list. Something beeped out of a communicator and he ran to answer it. When he was done quatre knew what he wanted to ask. "Why do you pilot the Gundam?"

"Other than the fact that I have to?"

"I mean do you have a cause, a reason to fight for some belief?"

Tom put a pen to his chin in thought. "I guess I do. I was raised with little sadness in my life. I won't complain about that. True I may not like the circumstances now but since I can't change them I think I should deal with what the cards have dealt me."

"What?"

"Well there's more. I figure since I know what it's like to have a good life I think since I've been dealt these cards I should try and do what I can to let as many people experience that type of life."

"That's what you think."

"Yep."

"I see." Quatre thought, why did he have his opinion he does. Why was he stuck in peace mode? It wasn't a bad position to be in, but it had risked the lives of millions of people. Quatre thought about it, if possible he would always want to avoid fighting, but he was already prepared for it with the Maguanac corp. and the 200 or so other volunteers that consisted of the colonies defense force. Pacifism was a nice ideal, but if there wasn't a group of people willing to support it. The enemy outside was not part of that group and thus conflict was certain. Since there was no route about the conflict quatre had chosen to try and not get involved personally as best he could. True it was far from perfect. No it was just plain wrong, the man had suggested that the battle could be someone else's but it really was his own.

What was he to do? If he participated it would become blatantly obvious what his past was, the past of a Gundam pilot. And while it was true that the Gundam pilots were somewhat liked by the majority for their acts of help during the Libra fight and the eve wars there were plenty who disliked the gundams. Of course it would do little for tom's life if he were to die for Quatre's battle. But then again Quatre couldn't die either. But that still didn't mean it was right to just stick the kid into this. He had a noble and worthy idea and enough events like this could warp his sense of his ideal. The zero… Well quatre had seen that first hand.

After everything was done tom got ready to do one last simulation. Quatre approached Tom, saying a few words tom visibly relaxed. "You sure about this, it's gonna be an important battle?"

"Yes I am."

"Fine then I'll take of tonight's practice run. I hope you're sure about this."

"I most certainly am sure. And besides you need the rest anyway."

"All right I'll take the night off." Tom turned and got ready to go. He paused for a moment and faced quatre, "Thanks." He said before he strolled of to turn in early for the first night in three weeks.

Quatre looked at tom; he really wasn't ready for the battle. That thanks had revealed a lot to him. Quatre had his plan set and ready though, he would need to get a lot of things done.

Then two days later after all the preparations were made Gundam sandrock deployed right on time with the requested time. Upon arriving at the pre-determined battle site he met his mysterious foe. "It's the Heolster!" Someone shouted from an observation post.

"It is." Tom said from his mobile suit cockpit, "But it looks different than before. Something has been changed."

"Greetings." The challenger, John Reynolds, said from his cockpit. "I'm glad to see that you accepted my challenge. Now I won't have to use these guys." On his cue 250 mobile suits popped out of the battleship behind him. "I won't have to use them, they'll just stand by and watch until you're dead and then we'll rush you."

"Right." Quatre's voice came across. "That's the event we planned for. I suppose since he's revealed his plan let's reveal ours." On Quatre's cue 250 mobile suits appeared from various natural shelters designed for colonial defense. Also 8 small battleships with various large cannons arrived on site, and while the enemy didn't know it each one contained four mobile suits.

"By definition 250 on 250 is one on one." Tom's voice came out. "But I guess since you guys have one massive well armed battleship and we have a bunch of little ones we can exaggerate the numbers a little." Gundam Apollo came out from behind a larger rock that had been somewhat armored. "Gundam pilot you will now face off with Quatre Rebarbra winner in a one on one battle."

Inside his cockpit Reynolds grinned, this had been what he had hoped for. Not dealing with some useless extra but fighting the original Gundam's pilot. "Alright then let this duel begin." He said with a grin. "I hope he can manage to survive the battle."

Quatre pulled out his dual heat shotels. "I'm not worried about that, unlike you I know what I'm fighting for and because of that I'm much stronger."

Heolster activated his beam sword. "Good because I know why I fight as well and my belief is at least as strong as yours. After all I want this contest to come down to skill and skill alone!"

Then they charged each-other.

-End-

All right, so this will be a two part little thing. That's ok. Just now this section may actually increase to have a lot more chapters if the chance of having multiple two part things increases. So don't believe my earlier mentioned 'plan' even if I put it down earlier this chapter. Cause I didn't plan and I don't remember most of what I wrote.

Also I wanted to keep you guessing at who was going to pilot the Gundam in that last part right until the end, that above all else is something I'd like to hear you're opinions on. And if you tell me it's not the best, as long as it's criticism, not a flame, then it's ok.