"Okay, the first experiment, think of a shared experience between the two of you,"I tried to blank my own mind, then tried to connect with her mind in the same way she did with mine earlier where even the private thoughts of old tv shows were shared. But it came up blank.
"I am."
It was a curt short response, but one that rang false to me given we were still experiencing the scene where Amuro first met Lalah. It was really odd to see, maybe because we were hearing Amuro's thoughts as he looked at her, maybe because neither of us had ever experienced a "love at first sight" style meeting with someone else.
It wasn't like Amuro took a look at the girl and said to himself, 'I'm in love' but rather he gained a sudden level of captivation with Lalah that made it obvious what this event was. Still, unlike before this event hadn't so far led to anything tragic…
… till Amuro started to move into the Gundam.
"Maybe open up more?"If I had lips they would be bitten as the Gundam was joined by a Gelgoog. The two got into an epic battle that ignored that their machines arrived without weapons so that they could draw said weapons from their backs."Before Amuro starts to have a proper nightmare again?"
The Gundam leaped over the beams the Char Red Gelgoog sent his way, his beam saber slashing down to cut the ZEON machine's rifle in half. But Char kicked him away before Amuro could make a second slash.
I supposed it wouldn't be long before the Elmeth joined the fighting here… given how Amuro was getting glares from Lalah.
"I'm trying! Maybe you could give some more direction than a shared experience?"
"It shouldn't matter as long as you're so open with the idea that I get it too… which you've avoided doing."
In this state, Sayla's rage felt like my rage. Which was far more dangerous than one would think, given that we were both connected to Amuro's mind. That rage transferred to him, what was once a desperate battle against Char's Gelgoog had become a savage beat down from the Gundam. It didn't so much slash at the Zeon machine as it did hammer into it, hacking through the shield, through the arm, and only barely straying from slashing the cockpit in a single go.
"See he's mad now!"My mental yell, an action caused by the previously mentioned anger, had an effect on the world. The world shifted and my Custom GM popped out of nowhere to cut Char in half."Oh, fuck this. I'll do it myself."
It had been a mistake to expect a young girl to open herself up so much when she'd spent the majority of her life hiding behind aliases. Hiding her true feelings on politics, lying about her parents… her brother. It was wrong to expect that type of person to easily give parts of herself over to someone else.
But I was an open book in my prior life, I'd used to reveal too much about myself at the worst times. Something that I had managed to unlearn since coming to this time. I wasn't the heavily traumatized teenage girl, I was the perfectly adjusted man.
So I focused, I did my best to recall a home that I once lived in. The memory was strong, the environment shifting in perfect detail. And with that home came the mood that I most associated with my childhood.
Peaceful chaos. Screaming children but more from excitement than anything negative. The peaceful chaos was something I found such contentment in.
The long kitchen of my house was nosy with the sounds of child Pat rampaging around after having too much sugar. But there was a general change compared tomymemories. Rather than the Irish skyline waiting outside the backdoor, the skyline had an entire city above me. My surprise spread to Sayla… it was lucky that she contributed this to something else.
"This is Island Iffish, the capital of Hatte,"I was tempted to block out Sayla's thoughts, because I could feel my mind turn to what happened to where we were. Side 2's controller colony. Thinking about what happened to that wouldn't calm Amuro down.
Thinking about the mass murder and resulting colony drop enraged me.
So I resisted pushing my thoughts into the boy, I let his own mind use the tone I'd set prior to filling in the details. It wasn't long till Amuro popped into vision as that young boy from earlier again.
"Thank god," Sayla's mind popped out. I could tell she was barely restraining herself from recalling the fate of this colony. There was such relief from her that it sped into our connection with Amuro. This was a good thing too, it let him feel the world around him with things that brought him relief; gizmos and circuit boards were littered across the kitchen floor. And beside him was the form of an equally young girl in a familiar yellow dress.
It was a mini Lalah. Odd… I hadn't thought of her, maybe Amuro did?
"So that's Lalah,"Salya mused, her mind bringing up the image of Lalah's animated face to contrast against the child before us."I expected her to be older… given Casval's feelings for her."
I mentally shrugged, whatever that meant.
"She's about Amuros age, so what we're looking at is a much younger version. Lalah was the girl in that earlier… nightmare. Surprised you only noticed now."
"It's hard to pay attention to all the details in this place. It's too quick for details to really be understood when things get too chaotic. But I think that I am getting a grasp on it now."
I wondered why I was so much better than this. Sayla had her Newtype abilities awakened much earlier than mine. Perhaps being aware of the extent these powers could go allowed me to use them with far more confidence? Leads to a better grasp on the abilities inherently? It was all in the mind after all.
The younger Lalah handed the younger Amuro a screwdriver, she giggled and did a number of other innocent actions that you'd expect from a calm dream. The environment was calm enough to drag me into this vibe. I started to become more than a viewer of the events before me.
I started out as a faded ghost-like figure, so I grabbed onto this vibe and I tried to link it to my own memories. Events that caused me to be so calm were similar to this. Eventually, I entered the scene.
"How did you do that?" Sayla asked, her shock rumbling through the scene so hard that I nearly lost this connection. Before I could warn Sayla to be careful Amuro glanced up at me, his eyes wide in surprise.
"Who are you?"
I should've expected that response the second I could feel myself becoming a proper part of this dream world. But for some reason I expected the boy's mind to take more time to realize that I was interacting with the world. I suppose that was a dumb idea, given even before this I could affect the boy's mind.
"I'm a friend, Patrick."
I held out my hand, but the young boy glared at it instead. He went as far as to puff up his cheeks and cross his arms. Sayla couldn't help but comment on how adorable Amuro was as a young boy.
"My father says that I shouldn't talk to strangers."
"Well, your father is a smart man…" I stealthily tried tothinkof something to say without broadcasting it to the young boy. Given the location we were in, it didn't take me long. "But you see kid… this is my house."
I pointed out the window to the city in the sky.
"Oh… how did I get here then?"
"Well… I'm going to be upfront with you. You're not here."
"Oh… you're an insane man who's kidnapped me," Amuro said.
… Sayla's laughter combined with Lalah, almost hiding it from Amuro's notice it seemed. I also found it funny, though not enough to force me to laugh as well. So I took this in good humor, but I knelt down to Amuro's level and stared at him right in the eye.
"We both know the truth. You've retreated into your own mind Amuro. You've got to wak-"
What happened next was more than enough to interrupt me.
The entire house shook, the ceiling collapsing and separating me from Amuro. It was only the knowledge that none of this was real that stopped any of the debris or dust from affecting me. Everything here was an illusion, so as long as I could keep that in both my conscious and unconscious minds then I shouldn't have any trouble reconnecting with Amuro in this mental landscape.
"What happened?"Sayla asked.
"Amuro couldn't deal with the truth yet?" I pondered, scratching at this mental form's chin. "This could be hard-"
I heard a click and reacted quickly moving far away from my spot as if I teleported. Moving in this mental space was less about actually moving and more just imagining it, so going through all the steps of moving was just wasted energy.
"What the hell!"Sayla's voice.
The spot I'd been standing near exploded in a hail of gunfire, blasting away the kitchen sink and all of Amuro's remaining gizmos too. I didn't bother dodging the next time, I merely raised my hand and froze the bullets midair.
"How did you do that?"
"Nothings real here, it's all a matter of willpower… I just think and therefore things happen,"
"I'd say perception rather than willpower," Char rebutted me.
"Six of one and seven… of the other… " I trailed off, noticing the deceased man talking directly before me. The thought came to me that ghosts were real in the Gundam universe and Newtype Ghosts were potentially as powerful as Force Ghosts.
"Must everything be a reference to pre-space culture?" Char asked me, his eyes hidden behind that goofy mask of as a ghost this man dressed in his full Commander's uniform, for someone that hated the Zabi's he sure loves their colors. "You're broadcasting this all you realize?"
I punched him in the face rather than responding to that, but the man became a mist that I passed through. I readied myself for a sudden counterattack, glancing to the cabinets but nothing came.
"Was that really Char?" Sayla's shaken voice piped in.
"I can't be sure, it could be some sort of manifestation of Amuro's trauma," I replied, thinking of the typical tropes about such mental spaces. "But it could also be the leftover thought waves of-"
The distraction answering her question caused me to let the mental Char kick me through the walls of my childhood home. I could feel the dirt crumble beneath my body as I cut through the lawn. I couldn't fucking believe that I'd really been Char Kicked… through my favourite flower bed too.
"You're really weird."
But looking at the house from the outside was almost nostalgic to me. I hadn't seen that place in over a decade, not since we moved out. But those nostalgic feelings couldn't be basked in as Char came out of the home with a miniature version of the Zaku's machine gun. Just like before it was a useless gesture as I merely raised a hand and froze midair.
But this time I didn't stop there, I spun them around to face him and shoved the bullets right back at the ghost.
They bounced off him like he was made from Luna Titanium… before he suddenly appeared right in my face and slapped me with his rifle. I flipped in the air and landed on the ground, fast as I could I imagined myself onto my feet but Char had swapped out his rifle for a human-sized heat axe.
"What the fuck is going on in this fucking kid's head!" I yelled while parrying each strike of the weapon with hand chops. My mind knew there was no difference between that axe and my hands, so I didn't think much of it. "Sayla! Any time you want to lend a hand please!"
"I'm trying!"Her yell seemed to be true because I could spot a transparent version of Sayla nearby in the yard. Not that such a thing helped me this second."We're not all super talented on our first chance using exotic powers! I don't even know how to read minds!"
As true as the statement and excuses were, the thread of thought distracted me from my defense. This allowed a sudden gut-punch from Ghost Char to surprise me, causing me to react to it as if it was real. I could feel the air leave my body and my body flew upwards into the sky. I let myself be carried by the momentum but I swung out a leg that managed to smack into a chasing Char.
Like everything else I'd tried nothing seemed to affect this fucker. Only push him back at the most. It was then that I considered the equipment the Mental Zeon Ace was using.
"I'm so fucking stupid," I groaned, floating in midair above the smirking Red Comet. "I'm thinking that we're guys fighting. But he's just going around as a guy-shaped Mobile Suit."
I focused on visualizing a weapon everyone in this mental landscape would be very familiar with. It felt clunky in my hands, like it was designed for someone with rigid fingers. But the form mattered not when all I had to was think about firing and it would land on target.
"You bastard," Char growled at the sight of a human-sized version of the beam sniper rifle that had killed him.
I merely smiled in return, before imagining myself point blank next to him even while firing at him from my vantage point above him. Two blasts of pure pink energy lanced through Char, finally doing some damage to the man.
But rather than pain, his response was to snarl. His body soon started to twist and bend in odd ways till it started to brighten. Soon enough the body started to decrease in size, enough so it neared only five feet tall. His hair darkened along with his skin and a familiar pink dot soon sat on her forehead.
The Char form was disguised. A form powered by Amuro's perception of the man, probably both my own and Sayla's as well. To us Char was a deadly foe, and I knew that he would've probably killed me if I had been on my own in real life.
No, the true person attacking me here was;
"Lalah Sune," I spoke clearly, even though her hand was crushing my throat. Once more, it wasn't like this was my real body so my mental projection of a throat didn't matter towards whether I could actually breathe. "... You were my third guess if there was someone behind this coma rather than it being an accident."
She blinked.
"Who was your—"
While Lalah was distracted with 'verbally' asking me that question, I kicked her in the face. That would teach her.
I hadn't heard from Sayla in some time, which either meant that the woman was so focused on Amuro that she lost contact with me or that the woman had already woken up Amuro and Lalah had transferred over to my mind.
Something became quickly apparent as I continued what could be charitably called an imagination fight. This wasn't really Lalah Sune. Oh, for sure she acted like her, reacted like her. Make fun of Char and the miss blew a gasket. But the truth of the situation was clear to me now that I had been fighting against her for a few minutes. This was just an echo of her pain reflected on Amuro, brought to life by Amuro's own power.
Now, I ain't no Newtype expert researcher, so I couldn't hope to guess if this was better than some sort of remote attack the real Lalah was using against Amuro. But I was sure it was deal-able by me regardless.
Though given the things happening during this fight of wills… I could do without fighting the imprint of a crazed Char Fangirl.
I went through a miniature O'Neil Class Space Colony, the landscape spilling out of like a bowl of soup. I managed to grab a lump of trees and chucked them at the girl with enough force to light the things on fire. But somehow the water of the colony all swirled out to protect the girl without her making a motion.
The fiery trees went out and she managed to ram into me with so much force that I was almost tricked into forgetting none of this was real. Almost forgot that I wasn't really floating in the void of space without a normal suit, this was a rather dangerous mind frame to find myself in.
Her wicked series of punches were combined with a set of weaves and ducks that championship boxers would be jealous of. My nose disappeared inside my skull, my ribs shattered into dust and finally, my shoulder blades were three feet behind me. This was the level of willpower this fucker had.
Luckily… I was basically Buu or Cell from Dragon Ball in this situation. My body came back before it even fell down, my fist punched through the… little girl's stomach. Now, what happened next surprised me as I found my arm stuck as I tried to move back.
I want to say I held myself bravely against the assault that came next, that like before when I no sold her attacks I had the advantage. But that was a while ago, now she had the advantage. My instincts to pain were hard to consciously resist the natural response the human mind had to being punched or slashed or kicked and so on.
She wasn't a real person, so this wasn't a big deal for her. The Lalah Imprint could go on forever as long as the target had belief in her. And while that might have sounded like just ignoring her and focusing really hard on the fact she wasn't real would solve this problem. I had found out that that approach didn't work for me.
It just left a wide opening for the Imprint to attack me.
If I was an idiot, there wouldn't be anything I could do. But as I wasn't one, I knew in this realm of thoughts, I willed my body into melting and rapidly escaped the onslaught with nary a scratch.
"Char totally fucked Garma!" I yelled, catching the Imprint off guard as I sent an imagined image of Char kissing the late Zabi man. This wasn't true as far as I was aware, but this line of discussion randomly opening up did cause the girl to finally pause her efforts once more. "Like in showers and everything. My incredible Newtype powers told me."
Our surroundings shifted, moving from the depth of space… where we had been surrounded by mini-space colonies… to a hotel room. It was sparse with detail, only that there was a room with a shower, a bed, a bed stand, and finally a blonde shifting a purple-haired dude. This was more information than I had ever shared, never even thought about the hotel room. Either I shared too much or this Imprint took it from me.
Now, in any other situation, I would've been worried about the person pulling information from my head. But right now I had my head in the game, so I quieted my mind.
"This isn't real!" Lalah's Imprint yelled, sounding disappointed at the lack of mano a mano action. Far more upset that it wasn't real than the idea that it could be real. "It lacks details, where is the bit of dirt, the bit of dust, or the sweat of Garma's brow as he's embraced? There's no lust in their eyes, never mind love! This didn't happen!"
… This was not the response I thought the Imprint was going to have. But I guess this proves that Lalah loved Char enough to share him… or rationalized it as the man getting close to one of his targets.
"Your right," I said, my fingers morphing into the barrel of a revolver. "But bullets are very real!"
I fired, hitting the imprint of a girl six times in the chest. The first round flung her against the window, the second cracked the glass before the third broke it and sent her through the window. The last three I shot at her as she fell down. When it finally finished I noticed that their body had crashed through a car on the outside of the building, basically cutting it in half.
And blood pooled all around it.
"I guess I can leave now-"
Lalah's hands once more gripped the front of my throat, trying to squeeze the breath out of me.
"I have not finished with you yet, I will never let you go!" Her body pulsed, shifting from the form of Lalah Sune to the body of an older gentleman. One in a Zeon Uniform and had a grand mustache. "I will embody all those that you've killed!"
Ramba Ral's face was very interesting as a choice.
"I didn't kill Ramba?" I questioned, once more ignoring the attempt to snap my neck from pressure alone. "That was Amuro. I think? Really can't recall if he did or if it was a suicide… was it a suicide?"
"MY WRATH WILL NOT BE-"
It was then I was punched in the face.
Not in the mental world, but in the flesh and blood world. Suddenly I was back in the med-bay of the White Base on my ass with a bloody nose and Lt Bright standing over me with this look of wild panic all over his face. To the side was Sayla, who was just as panicked but also next to a now awakened Amuro, and Ensign Yashima who was far more composed as she came over to me with a bundle of paper towels for my nose.
I almost thought I was still trapped in that mental battle, but there was one sensation this had that the mental landscape lacked. The floor was cold. Throughout that entire event, the feel of cold or heat... those weren't experiences that happened.
"Okay," Yashima grumbled, her annoyance at the situation clear. It was probably annoying not having any idea what was going on. "Let me see that nose."
I did so, letting her gently poke at it. Which from lack of pain alone told me Bright hadn't broken it. Merely burst a blood vessel. My fellow Ensign regaled me with this factoid and I decided to use my voice once more.
"So… did my waking up later than those two-" I pointed toward Amuro, who was busy changing into clothes under the covers of his blankets, and Sayla who was bravely looking away from the late in light of the embarrassment he would've felt at being watched. "-worry you that much? Or is my face so punchable that as my superior officer you were compelled to punch it? Because from what I'm told either one is likely."
As usual, my attempts at humor didn't help to lighten the mood. But it didn't cause anyone to frown at me either, so I considered that a win in of itself.
"No, but with Ensign Mass returned from the shared... experience awake as did Amuro but you didn't. We were left with little choice but to contend with this as if an emergency was going on. Frankly, we tried yelling at you at first, then moved onto poking, then slapping before finally I punched you."
"Guess, I'm lucky I wasn't stabbed."
Lt. Noa moved towards me, but Amuro beat him to it, hopping over to me with a shoe on and without his blue Federation Uniform buttoned up. His right hand reached down to grab hold of mine pulling me to my feet and giving my hand a meaty handshake.
"Thank you," Amuro said, his eyes wide and the smile on his face matching. "You have no idea what it was like in there. The experiences… the nightmares, it was like it would never end. She'd made a personal hell… just for me."
Amuro's voice became meek, he lost his smile and his entire body quivered slightly. There was something broken in the boy, a shimmer of light seemed to escape from his eyes and it reminded me of the CareBares…
… one of the movies where some villain sucked all the joy out of the world.
I wondered if the fact that the appearance of his attacker here was Lalah hurt him more than the experience itself. From what I recalled, Amuro had formed a deep spiritual connection with the girl. It was enough that he would be affected by said connection for the rest of his life. Lalah Sune wasn't just a very powerful Newtype, not to Amuro Ray. They were very close to me calling them soulmates.
This experience could very well be equal to the girl's actual death in terms of traumatizing Amuro. Only with the added negative of there being no helpful Newtype Ghost trying to help him out.
I finally responded to the boy by patting his shoulder and giving him a tiny smirk.
"You want to recover from this, you are going to need to lean on your friends," I informed him. I wasn't sure if this was the right advice. But I knew of the sorta trouble Amuro would be in after this war. This should at least give him some help there. "Connect with them, keep in touch. Don't just appreciate them, help them as much as they do you. Emotionally especially. Because all this… this experience was all bad vibes."
"Bad vibes?" Amuro quirked an eyebrow, more confused than before.
"Right, bad vibes. Sorry, I don't have a better word for it," I grimaced as we separated. "But what seemed to have happened is that all the Bad experiences, all the bad vibes. They stored up as negative feelings, like hatred, in Char and when I killed him it got routed into you by way of the girl. Lalah Sune channeled not just Char's bad vibes but her own. Poured her heart right into you. Now, you want to make some good vibes."
"So you want me to go and be happy?" The doubt in the boy was strong. I couldn't help but openly laugh;
"We're in the middle of a warzone," I replied. I thought of the Mobile Suit Gundam series so far and of what Amuro would've already experienced at this stage. "It's no small task. But the little things can matter. Someone hands you a lunch, maybe you once gave food to someone who was hungry. There's a good vibe. Share a damn hug, there's another one."
"So… focus on the good? Not the bad?" It seemed that I confused Amuro even more.
"Look at it as trying to experience more good, even if it comes in smaller chunks than the bad experiences."
I doubted my words would have too much of an effect on Amuro, as he was a bit stubborn. Set in his ways. Though from the expression on Sayla's face. It seemed that something I said got through to her. No doubt part of it was from something she saw once we were separated. But I was sure that Sayla considered just how much of Amuro's future I knew in the first place.
She might try and keep a closer eye on Amuro in the coming years given what I showed a while back. Noa and Yashima also took note of how traumatic this experience obviously had been for the boy, but I am not sure what actions they were thinking of. I had shared thoughts with Sayla, which made guessing what she'd do easier.
If guessing what Bright Noa and his first officer were going to do was easy, then the Zeon Forces would've destroyed the White Base months ago.
Sayla came over to Amuro, not saying a word and led him back to the bed. I guessed that the boy was still pretty tied as the Ace Pilot konked as soon as his ass hit the mattress. We all exchanged a nod as we left the room so he could have some rest.
"Ensign," Bright snapped, causing me to salute the man instinctively. He smiled slightly before putting his hand forward for me to shake, which I did without any hesitation. "That was a good job there. I had been worried that we had lost Ensign Ray to some Zeon mental attack."
"Just doing my job, sir. Shooting down Zeon war machines and entering the minds of our pilots," I replied with a small grin that I hoped he took as an attempt at humor. "Just what someone signs for when enlisting in the Earth Federation Space Force."
"Right," Lt. Noa replied, rapidly glancing at Yashima with a small frown who merely shrugged. "Before I relieve you for your own rest, as I am sure that this was mentally exhausting, do we need to start worrying about Zeon repeating this attack?"
I gave the idea some thought. Given I never understood just what Scirocco would do to Kamile in Zeta Gundam, I couldn't be sure that this was something of the same style of attack. Though, I doubted we'd see a repeat of this anytime soon. Even a decade from now there would be only one or two people capable of doing this as they were dying.
"I doubt it," I replied eventually, scratching my chin as I considered my wording carefully. "Like I said to Amuro. This was Lalah channeling the combined pain of herself and Char into Amuro and a lot of other little details that are hard to explain. Basically, unless new technology is developed that makes this easier, being hit by lightning is more likely than a repeat of this."
"Still, it worries me. As the closest thing we have to an expert on Newtypes I am going to order a report on countermeasures you can think of. But first, make sure to get at least two to three hours of rest."
With that Bright turned and walked away from me and Ensign Yashima.
"Well, I hope he's not looking for official language and terminology."
It's like he wasn't around when I started talking about bad vibes. All I am missing is a tie-die shirt and some flowers and I would've looked and sounded like a 1960s hippie during their heyday.
The White Base was operating on a smaller crew than the size of the ship would have you believe. This leads to a few places feeling very ghost-like. The lunch room was pretty empty for instance, not something the Vanquishment's lunchroom ever suffered from. Though, I suppose saying suffer was a lie, as it was almost nice to be able to spread my legs, and just take more space than I ever needed.
So I had taken up a lunch of nutrient paste, potatoes, and a bit of jello for dessert. This was where a member of the White Base found me sitting as they came in. Hayato Kobayashi came in with some blonde dude not much older or younger than him.
The two noticed me with a smile. I couldn't recall if I had ever met Hayato prior to this interaction, so I played straight with the two.
"Hello, Ensign Patrick Colasour," I said, introducing myself while waving an arm for the two to set with me. "I'm afraid I can't recall if we've met before? Sorry, not only am I bad with faces but also names. It's more than a bit embarrassing."
"It's okay, we only shared a meeting," The blonde explained. "I'm Private First Class, Job John and this is Corporal Hayato Kobayashi."
I couldn't help but let out a small laugh as the two sat next to me all nonchalantly.
"You can tell that you two aren't academy trained," I said with a smile, my head resting on the palm of my hand with my elbow on the table. It was probably a rude posture to take, but I never cared about that when it wasn't required. "No one would ever approach a superior officer without saluting at least if they came from any proper training regime."
At my word, the two leaped back to their feet and saluted me with a loud 'sir' that rang out in the empty mess hall.
"None of that now, at ease," I responded, trying to keep a small but noticeable smile on my face. "I wouldn't expect a few months of heretic combat to instill proper military decorum. Just proper military skills."
Hayato frowned at me as he sat back down, but Job seemed to take my words at face value. At least in how I intended. I noticed that Hayato's frown only grew deeper as the seconds went by, so I decided to be upfront with it.
"Corporal Kobayashi, is something bugging you?"
"Permission to speak freely?" He asked as if I was a mouse trap ready to ensnare its prey.
"Of course, I want you to think of me as any other White Base pilot. If you think I am full of crap, just say so."
"Thank you, sir," Hayato took a bite of something… not sure what it was, to be honest. Some sort of fish paste thing. When he finished what was in his mouth he spoke up again: "I think proper military discipline is important to a well-run ship."
"I don't think I ever said otherwise," I replied earnestly, mashing up my potato a bit with a fork. "You've confused discipline with decorum. I don't blame you, as it's the easiest method to teach discipline, keeping proper decorum is the first step in the academy. But it's not necessary when dealing with a single ship with little interaction with other military personnel who'd be unaware of how rapidly you guys went from Civs to Military crew."
"But other superior officers we've seen have demanded it from us, I saw one Colonel slap Amuro across the face once for being disrespectful."
"Far be it for me to be dismissive of officers of no doubt higher rank than me," I said, staring him right in the eye. "But I don't expect strapping a jetpack on a fish would create a great flier. So why would putting a civies into a warship make them soldiers? That Colonel was a fool."
This time, Job got insulted by my remark.
"Hey, we're great soldiers. I know for a fact that the White Base is more effective than most other units in the Federation! Don't be saying we're bad now just to win an argument."
"Oh, don't get me wrong," I replied, waving a fork full of potatoes around the air. I took a bite and managed to put out a very audible sentence in spite of the mash in the way of my teeth: "You guys probably have The Federation Ace, Amuro Ray. Who by himself has more kills than the majority of crews I am aware of when counted up together. No doubt you two have shot down enough enemies to be considered aces yourself… but that makes you good pilots, grand crewmen, and even great warriors. Not great Soldiers."
"I don't get it?" Hayato said, coming back into the conversation with less anger and more annoyance. "It seems like semantics to me."
"Amuro Ray once ran off with the Gundam right?" I asked the question as if answering it truthfully wasn't admitting their fellow pilot had committed a serious crime. Desertion wasn't a minor thing, it was a major offense. Desertion while stealing military equipment was even worse.
"W-what? How-"
"Job!" Hayato yelled out, stopping his friend from revealing something that would've also gotten them all in trouble.
"It's fine, but it does prove my point. Amuro Ray is a prodigy pilot. The best in a generation. On the battlefield, he's honed his skills, and already proven he's a pilot with near no equal. But he was never given basic training. He never had the importance of command, the importance of stead face discipline in the heat of battle. Few of you have. So sometimes cracks appear. The saying goes that pressure makes diamond but-"
"-it also crushes coal."
I turned to face Kai Shiden, the guy who had smirked in a way that few could pull off. Full of self-confidence, but also he understood exactly what he was capable of perfectly. This was someone that understood who they were, even if it had taken time to find it. My early meeting was odd but it was obvious that he was trying to befriend me.
"You loons don't get it," he said sitting next to me as he stole Job's uneaten lunch. "He's saying it takes more than skills to be a good soldier. It is in the decorum, which takes time to learn."
"Exactly what I mean. Unlike skills, there's time invested in hammering in proper military decorum. Just can't be skipped. Frankly, I could do without all the 'sirs' and stuff. But it's really helpful when working with larger task forces. Keeps things polite, keeps the chain of command easy to understand in a crisis too."
The three of them grew silent for a few minutes before the blond spoke up once more:
"You are a weirdo."
Hayato seemed slightly alarmed at his friend's insult towards me, while Kai laughed loudly in his chair.
"I've been told that before."
Truthfully, it was something that I had been told since I was a small child. From my personnel files here I get that impression too. Patrick Colasour had been a weird guy. Someone who despite my insistence in training decorum had managed to come out of basic training very little of it but a big mouth. No doubt he could've lived to become akin to his 00 Counterpart.
That is if he hadn't been destined to be killed by Gato.
I managed to finish the rest of my lunch before Kai piped in with a question.
"So are the rumors about your womanizing ways true?"
Hayato and Job perked up at the offering of a new topic. I briefly wondered how I'd gotten that reputation, but considered that I came off as if I was flirting with people back before coming to this universe. So that probably carried over as a flaw.
"That depends, if you mean I get turned down a lot then ya!" I said, laughing slightly at my own misfortune. "To be honest, I have amnesia of most things from before the war started. So if I got the reputation for what I used to be like, I can't really comment on it."
"That sounds pretty tough," Job remarked as he speared a carrot with a fork, stealing his lunch back off Kai as the other lapsed attention on the meal. "I can't imagine not remembering my parents or my friends."
The mood shifted suddenly, growing somber. I recalled that at least Hayato lost his family during the attack on Side 7 in the beginning of the anime. So I can imagine this is a sensitive topic, something that I shouldn't wade into if I wanted to keep myself out of trouble with members of the crew.
"I am done eating," I proclaimed suddenly, which was an odd thing to mention even for me. From the lack of food on the tray, it was obvious I had finished. I stood up with a smile and a thumbs up to the table: "I would love to continue to chat guys but Lt. Noa wants a report on Newtype countermeasures."
Before they could ask me any questions I was already leaving my tray over at the bay. As I exited the room though, I adjusted my collar as sweat started to pool there. It was odd, as a spaceship the White Base had the ability to perfectly control its temperature. It shouldn't be so hot as to cause this amount of sweating.
It was only as I noticed just how bright the ship had gotten that I realized just what was happening.
"The Colony Lazer," I muttered, shutting my eyes tight as I held onto the rail with one hand. There was something indescribable about the experience. My senses were overloaded with information, it was like I could smell people burning alive.
More importantly, feel their terror as they died.
If I had kept my eyes open I would've noticed the red lights start flaring before the White Base's alarms started blaring. I shuddered forward, letting the rail system carry me forward even while my body screamed from the terror it'd sensed happening.
"All pilots, to their machines!" Came the voice of whoever was operating the comms station. "Pilots to their machines, we have Zeon ships on the scope."
The sensation passed as I continued on, thankfully the layout of the ship was simple enough for me to traverse it even with my eyes closed. I headed into the locker and changed into my normal suit before the trio from the lunch room had managed to arrive.
When I went into the hangar, a crewman there yelled out:
"The Lt. wants you to take over the Alex since Amuro is still not cleared for duty."
"Nope, I am going to keep clear of that unit," I shook my head, ignoring the yelps of confusion from them. "The Alex is not a machine I can take out for trouble. I got to tweak it, tune it for my use, hell I have to get used to it. No, I am better off with my GM, my performance will be better."
Probably will get into some trouble with Bright over that, but there was no way I was going to get into something designed specifically for one person alone. The Alex was a sensitive piece of machinery, requiring hours of modifications to let anyone else get a good performance in it. If I was to pilot it, I would end up over-correcting my course drift, under-correcting my limb movements. About the only thing I was sure I wouldn't have much trouble with were the thrusters.
More powerful than a normal GM's thrusters sure, but they were still the same principle.
I leapt over the crew men, ending up right on the railing to my GM's cockpit thanks to the low gravity of the hangar. I got loaded onto the launcher as the bridge connected to my GM's comms.
"Ensign, I gave the crewmen orders to get you in the Alex," Bright's annoyed voice piped into my ear. "What are you doing in the GM?"
"Sir, I presumed you wanted me to stay from crashing into the White Base, sir," I replied smoothly, but probably too glibly. Sometimes there weren't enough sirs to add to make a statement not full of cheek. Sometimes the sir makes it even worse. "The Alex is too much of a machine for me to even walk around the hangar in. Never mind piloting it in combat."
"... Very well, proceed to launch."
It was only as I yelled out my Mobile suit's name, my rank, and all that other customary stuff that I recalled that there were no engagements right after the Solar Colony had fired. And this was something that I found especially odd as there was only a single Mussai out facing us.
Which was a Task Force consisting of White Base, Vanquishment, a Magellan Class, and a couple of Salamis Class ships. So a single Mussai with no visible mobile suit presence was more than a bit odd. It was freaky. Frankly, I expected it to do a suicide run.
Other GMs launched from the nearby ships, as well as the Guncannons and the original Gundam from White Base. There was a quick order given as soon as the Mussai opened a wide bandwidth comms call.
"This is the Riotous, escorting his grace… Sovereign of the Principality of Zeon. Degwin Sodo Zabi. We are to negotiate with Admiral Revils."
… wait what?
Author's Note: Before I edited this for this site, I think I vaguely recalled this section of the story lasting longer, but I guess that's the whole 'pacing' differences I discussing earlier.
