Heroes and Ghosts - Ep 2: Friends and Foes

Your own tale of two mecha.
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Rob DS Zeta
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Heroes and Ghosts - Ep 2: Friends and Foes

THIS IS A GUNDAM CROSSOVER... a big one.

Heroes from across the generations are appearing on a strange world, and the dead are returning for a second chance at life. What is happening? How will the warriors react to seeing enemies return?

Find out...

Chapter's in the spoiler box.
Spoiler
Disclaimer: I do not own the Gundam franchise or any other licensed material.

Heroes and Ghosts

Misplacement

xxxxx

Kira’s head hurt… That was all he could tell someone if they asked him how he felt at the moment.

“Agh…” he groaned, clutching his head in agony. “What happened last night?”

The young Coordinator wracked his mind. The last thing he remembered, he was out on the town with Lacus, Dearka, and Yzak. They had been eating at some place Dearka had recommended, and then…

“Did I pass out?” he asked himself, trying as hard as he could to remember. Unfortunately, thinking just caused his head to hurt even more.

Calming himself, Kira tried to think rationally. The first thing he needed to do was get up and find somebody. Surely Lacus would know what had happened. If not Lacus, then Yzak would, at the very least, tell him about how he got hit on the head using the bluntest, most degrading words imaginable.

Rolling himself onto his side, Kira attempted to throw his legs from his bed. Strangely enough, though, all his legs did were land with thuds on the rather hard and firm mattress. In fact, what he was lying on did not feel like a mattress at all. It felt like…

“Grass…?” the nineteen-year-old ZAFT Admiral, diplomat, and hero of the Earth-sphere, Kira Yamato, proclaimed in a voice that could only be described as ‘dumbfounded’.

Letting his eyes flutter open, Kira slowly started to soak in his surroundings. Sure enough, he was lying in a field of grass. Just to check, he dug his hand down below the grass, feeling the cold dirt. This was not the plain sod that covered the fields in the PLANTs. This was real, Earth-grown grass. He took in a breath through his nose, smelling the aroma that filled the air. It was like it had just rained. Pulling his hand back, he found it covered in trickling rainwater.

Pushing himself from the ground, Kira ran a hand through his hair, allowing it to dispel some of the water it had accumulated from the ground. There was no visible sky, so he did not have to worry about the sun hurting his weary eyes. The sky was gray with overcast, a vague white spot being the only sign that there was a sun at all.

The world around the teen reflected much of what the sky gave. It was dreary-looking, to say the least. There was a grayish-tan rock face in the distance before him. It sported a calm waterfall with water that was tainted gray by the sky. The waterfall fell into a river, which ran far and wide into the distance. The grass was green enough, though, as it ran down the hill ahead of him, towards the river.

“Huh…” Kira mused to himself, unsure what to make of his current situation. He had never seen a place like this before, drawing images from old story books to his mind. It was more surreal than anything, especially as he wiped the cool water from his hands.

Finally finding the urge to stand up, Kira wiped the wet grass and loose water from the frock of his ZAFT White uniform. He was rather surprised to see the grass stains form on the white fabric, and dread built in his mind that there was likely more on his back and shoulders. It made him wish that they had gone back to the house and changed their clothes before going out. If Dearka had not been so insistent that they get there ‘before the rush’.

“What kind of ‘rush’ starts after ten at night, anyway.” the young white coat grumbled, trying to find some sort of humor to help ease his mind. It did not work very well, though. He was so used to bottling his emotions, that all of the confusion in his mind was staying right there. In his mind. Being a politician, a military leader, and a public figure had done that to him on only a year. Not to mention the two wars. They had not helped much on that front, either.

Actually, he reminded himself, if it were not for Lacus he would have likely cracked and thrown himself off of a cliff a few years ago.

Deciding that there was nothing helpful in the direction of the river, Kira turned around to see what was in the other directions. To his right was a large forest that eventually led to another rock face. To the left was, much to Kira’s dismay, a cliff that led to another green field. With his flanks hopeless, he turned himself around entirely. He braced himself for more of the field, but most of the green was obscured by something much more prominent in the view.

Two metallic legs, naturally a pair, colored a similar dull gray to the sky. Their appearance caused Kira to blink. Had they been there this whole time? As Kira wondered this, his eyes trailed up the legs, leading him to a pair of folded rail cannons, a familiar torso, and then to the arms. One hand held a white rifle, and the other a black and red shield. Finally, there was the stalwart head and large, folded back wings.

Kira’s eyes went wide at the sight, as it was one he thought he would never see again.

“Freedom…” he said the machine’s name as it stared into the distance, its yellow eyes waiting to be activated. It was the X10A Freedom, his machine from the first Bloody Valentine War.

“I just can’t get away from you, can I?” Kira jokingly nagged at the mobile suit’s imposing figure. It just sat there, of course, it’s cockpit open and the automatic step waiting for Kira to grab on. “It’s like you followed me here.”

Seeing no better option than to take the Gundam’s offer, Kira heaved a heavy sigh and proceeded to approach the automatic step. Upon reaching the step, Kira took hold of the hand grip and stepped on. The mechanism was pressure-activated, so the instant it detected Kira’s weight, it started to lift him up.

Kira took the ride up as an opportunity to look at the landscape one more time. The river in the expanse looked rather peaceful, in spite of the gray coloring. As nice as it seemed, this was no time for him to rest. He had to find out where he was and how fast he could get back to Aprilius One. Unfortunately, the Freedom alone could not get him into space. If anything, it would hinder him from docking at an average spaceport. He would likely have to head to Orb and take a shuttle. As for the Freedom…

“One step at a time.” Kira told himself. He would figure that out eventually. Even if he had to leave it at a Terminal outpost on Earth, three of which he could think of that had mobile suit hangars, he would make sure to preserve this machine.

The sudden feeling of stopping brought Kira back to the present. He had reached the cockpit, so he threw himself into the Freedom’s seat. It was warm, as if having just been occupied. It was like the Impulse had never even touched it. It was exactly as it had been before launching that day.

Kira had never been so content to be in the cockpit of a mobile suit.
Deciding that he had best be getting going, Kira closed the cockpit and proceeded to fire the machine up. It was actually the first time Kira had been in a mobile suit at all in almost six months, but it still came to him without hesitation. He flexed his hands on the controls, grasping them with each individual finger. It was rare that he got to fly a mobile suit without actually going into combat, but this was always the machine he would have wanted to do take a joyride in.

“Kira Yamato,” he mocked himself aloud, a grin appearing on his face. “Freedom Gundam! Taking off!”

Lighting the thrusters, Kira felt the sudden jolt as the Freedom left the ground and blasted into the air with enough force to level a building. Within seconds, they were above the cloud line, tearing across the sound barrier as Kira waited for the Freedom’s computer to obtain data on their surroundings.

xxxxx

Elsewhere, Haman Karn was walking disdainfully through a forest. She grunted a few curses as she clutched her pistol in both hands, checking her surroundings for whoever might have left her here. She was covered in mud, having woken up lying in a puddle of it. She did not know what to make of it, so she simply stood and got herself underway.

It was despicable. The last thing she remembered was fighting Judau and… losing, as much as it pained her to admit it to herself. She had hoped for a tie, but such was fate. Whether it was Char, Kamille, Glemy, or Judau, she was always getting snuffed by boys. And if it wasn’t a pilot crossing her, then it was one getting overly zealous for her, like that creep with the rose, Mashymre Cello… Although, she had to admit, the thing with Cello was entirely her fault in the first place… as was Kamille.

The Neo Zeon leader shook her head, trying to get the thoughts of what had happened before out of her head. She needed to focus on the present. Whether or not she had terrible luck with boys, at the moment she was stuck lugging her half-dead ass through some dark, muddy woods.

“Where the hell am I?” Haman finally asked herself as she pulled another one of her black and gold normal suit’s boots out of the sticky mud of the forest floor. She could not imagine that she was on a colony, seeing as they were not nearly this rural. She had been walking for almost an hour, and she had not seen a single sign of civilization. No human footprints, no animal tracks, nothing. It was like she was only thing in the world that wasn’t a tree, grass or-

splunk

-mud.

Letting out a growl as she shook the brown goo from her boot, Haman looked up. The sky above the tree canopy was gray, likely because of clouds. Weather… That was something that certainly did not belong on a space colony. That meant that she was on Earth, but how did she get here? Naturally, she thought that someone had rescued her from her wrecked Qubeley. What else could have happened?

On the other hand, if someone was to go through all of the trouble of making sure that she did not die from the suicide attempt that she had pulled off for Judau’s sake, why would they just drop her in some Earth forest? Not to mention in the mud of some Earth forest? To her, it seemed to almost defeat the whole purpose of performing the rescue.

Heaving a sigh, Haman stopped to lean against one of the trees. She had been walking for so long, now all of this thinking was actually starting to tire her out. She could barely remember the last time she been able to actually relax. The end of the war, getting backed into a corner like that, had really had a negative effect on her.

“If it hadn’t been for Glemy…” she cursed her former underling. It had been his little rebellion that had really doomed Neo Zeon. Haman herself might be the Ghost of Zeon, but Glemy was the ghost of something much worse. If anything, he was the ghost of Gihren Zabi, and that was something that everyone could do without.

Deciding that she was getting nowhere by just standing still, Haman decisively held her pistol up again and once again started looking for the end of the forest. For her, it could not come fast enough.

xxxxx

“What do you mean ‘there’s no relevant map data’?”

Kira was baffled. The Freedom’s computer had failed to pull up any data on the surrounding area, which bothered him quite a bit. Without map data, all Kira could really do was fly around until he found a city. For all he knew, though, he was in the middle of some uninhabited nation.

One thing that was for sure, though, was that flying above the clouds was out of the question. He needed to be able to see the land. Even if his target locator was active, it would not help him if he came across, say, a little place like Reverend Malchio’s. At this point, any kind of civilization would be a great help to him. He needed to get back to Aprilius as soon as possible, or else he would have a mountain of paperwork waiting for him, not to mention Lacus would probably have him kicked out of the Diplomatic Corps.

As for the Freedom, he really had no idea what to do about it. He had pondered Terminal, the Junk Guild, and a few other solutions, but first he would have to find out where he was. Without map data, he was little more than a fish in the ocean.
If he was going to be a fish, though, the Freedom assured that he would be an extremely fast one.

Breaking back below the cloud line, Kira slowed himself so that he could actually see what was passing below him. At the moment, it was a sea of trees that seemed to stretch on forever. The trees were dark, however, blocking the Coordinator from seeing anything within the mass. It made Kira wish that the sun would come out. The clouds did not seem to want to break, though. It was like the weather of this place was perpetually gloomy.

Moving back up to dodge a mountain, Kira was once again over the clouds. Up here, the sun was shining. The Freedom’s shadow cast a perfect silhouette upon the thick layer of undulating condensation. His only gripe with the clouds was that they were so low that he had no idea about what was below them. For all he knew, he could fly through them and smash right into a mountain.

Pulling his throttle back, Kira slowed his pace even more. He leaned back in his seat and let out a sigh. This was certainly not getting him anywhere productive. At this rate, he could be flying around for days before he found a city. All he could do at the moment was have faith in the direction he was going on, but that did little to nothing for his confidence.

ping

The sudden ping on the Freedom’s dash caused Kira to perk up considerably. Instantly, his negative thoughts went away. Praying that he had thought too soon, he pulled his throttle back even more so that he could come within close range with the flashing blip. Within seconds, the computer was coming up with data.

>UNKNOWN TYPE<

“Huh?” Kira mumbled as the computer brought up some quick analysis that it had pulled off of the targeted object. The label, ‘unknown type’, meant that it was a mobile suit. “A mobile suit? Out here?”

True to its label, the model brought up by the computer was definitely something Kira had never seen before. It had many long, almost seemingly extraneous parts. Large shoulder binders, almost like wings, sat upon the machine’s frame, giving it a very regal appearance. Its head also seemed to be elongated in the back. It was not a Gundam, that was for sure. Whatever it was, though, it did not seem to have any visible weapons, but that did not make it any less dangerous.

Finally coming within range of the strange machine, Kira descended below the clouds again to see his discovery in person.

xxxxx

Haman could not believe how bad her luck was becoming. After trudging her mud-covered self all the way through this forest and finding the end of it, now there was a mobile suit flying somewhere above her. She had not quite reached the end of the woods, but she knew full and well that the incoming mobile suit was not far off.

Upon finally reaching the light at the end of the trees, what Haman found stunned her. Not one mobile suit, but two! Two mobile suits stood not twenty meters from her stop at the dark forest’s edge! The first one was exactly what she had not wanted to see. Blue and white…

“Gundam…” Haman murmured in frustration. The anger, however, did not come solely from the fact that it was the white and blue structure of a Gundam that had appeared in her way. No, it was mainly the fact that the other mobile suit, the one that the Gundam seemed to be investigating, was none other than Haman’s personal mobile suit.

“You’d better not lay a hand on my Qubeley, Gundam!”

xxxxx

Inside the Freedom, Kira’s monitor suddenly zoomed in on another spot. He glanced over, finding something he had wanted to see.

“A person! Is it the pilot?” he asked himself, taking in the odd-looking woman. She had pink hair, though it was a slightly deeper shade than Lacus’s, and wore a very fancy looking suit of gold and black. Her face was one of what appeared to be extreme irritation, which caused Kira to grimace.

“You’d better not lay a hand on my Qubeley, Gundam!”

“What?” Kira exclaimed, feeling the intimidation in the woman’s voice. He thought about getting out and trying to reason with her, but noticed the gun in her hand. It was not pointed at him, though, but he was not positive that she would not just take a shot at him the instant he got out of his cockpit.

So, without further ado, Kira activated the Freedom’s speaker system, which was intended for a much more commanding use than this, and tried to put his political protocol training to use.

“Um… Hi there.”

Haman promptly propped an eyebrow at the nervous greeting. It sounded like a teenager with a frog in his throat speaking. She inwardly laughed at the thought of having to deal with another teenaged Gundam pilot, but she’d have to deal with it for now. He had contacted her, which meant that he was probably willing to negotiate.

“You can hear me?” she spoke loud and clear as she slowly emerged from the tree line and into the dreary field that was separating her from her Qubeley.

“Yes.” Kira confirmed, nodding in out of habit. “Is this your mobile suit?”

“Yes, it is.” Haman claimed, a smirk climbing onto her face as a result of the pilot’s polite behavior. Whoever he was, he was much more civil than the other Gundam pilots she had come against over the years, especially Judau. “I’d be very appreciative if you left it alone.”

“O-Oh!” the pilot stuttered, almost causing Haman to start laughing. She watched with amusement as the imposing machine took a few steps away from the Qubeley. Haman jumped at this chance to get to her machine. Moving as fast as she could without overexerting her tired body, the Ghost of Zeon ran up and mounted her personal specter.

Feeling the Qubeley’s controls in her hands put Haman at ease, allowing her to catch her breath. Finally, she was somewhere that she could actually control her destiny from. It came to her as she shut the hatch and started the mobile suit up: This was a second chance at life for her. She would not squander it this time.

A ringing noise from her console caught Haman’s attention, telling her that the Gundam was hailing her. She thought about ignoring it, seeing as she owed the Gundam pilot little, if anything at all. But, then again, her instincts told her that she might be able to make use of a Gundam as her ally. It would certainly be a nice change from her last situation, when she had at least three Gundams breathing down her neck.

Stroking a button on her console communicator, she answered the hail. An image came onto her screen, showing her the image of a young man spikey brown hair in a white military uniform of sorts. As it was, though, the uniform was disturbed by what appeared to be grass stains. Haman had no place to complain, though, seeing as her lavish flight suit was featuring caked on mud for the time being.

“Who are you? Where are we?” Haman bombarded the Gundam pilot with questions. Now that she was behind the controls of the Qubeley, her confidence in the situation was higher than ever. No way would she let another Gundam beat her. Not now, and not ever again.

“I don’t know.” the young man replied, trying to brush off Haman’s brusque approach. “I don’t even know how I got here.”

Haman did her best to hide her shock. If what the Gundam pilot was saying was true, then he was in a similar situation to her.

“Hmm… That’s not what I wanted to hear.” she stated aloud, giving the boy a grim look. “My name is Haman Karn. And you are…?”

“Kira Yamato. I’m a member of the ZAFT Diplomatic Council and a White Coat in their forces.”

Haman perked an eyebrow at the boy’s titling. From the sound of it, he was some sort of politician-slash-military officer, which made for a dangerous combination.

…or a powerful ally.

However, there was also the matter of fact that she did not have any idea what ZAFT was. She could work around that, though, so long as he was willing to cooperate.

“Kira Yamato,” she said the boy’s name. “I know that this might not be the most opportune time, but perhaps we should join forces?”

Kira gave Haman a questioning look, slightly put off by her sudden offer.

“Join forces?” he inquired, not liking where this was going. Her reaction told him that she was in a situation similar to his, and that could not mean anything good.

“Yes… You do know what that means, right?” Haman questioned the boy’s intelligence, a smirk of amusement crawling onto her somewhat haggard features. “I don’t have any idea how I got here, and you don't seem to be in such a familiar situation yourself.”

Kira felt his eyes widen slightly. She had called him on that. She was right about him, and that meant that they were in a similar boat. Still, there was something about Haman Karn that troubled Kira. Perhaps it was her voice? He could not be certain.

"You're correct about that. I don't know how I wound up here," Kira admitted, not wavering at Haman's confident leer. "However, that doesn't mean that I'm going to just join up with you just like that.”

Haman closed her eyes for a moment, hiding her insatiable urge to roll them at the Gundam pilot. While he was not quite the social master, he at least had the thought capacity for caution.

“Listen,” she started back before Kira could start stuttering again. “For now, we need to work together. You don’t know where you are. I don’t know where I am. It makes us natural allies.”

Kira gave his head a light shake at that. As strange as this all was, the woman made sense. Two heads were better than one, after all.

“Okay,” Kira finally voiced his decision. “I’ll work with you until we find out what’s going on.”

Haman let out a pleased chuckle at this. This one would be easy to manipulate if necessary. She could see it as he struggled to think. He was not used to making his own life decisions. However, she could also feel no Newtype pressure from him. That would likely limit his use as a Gundam pilot, but she could work around that.

“Very well,” Haman said disarmingly, wanting to put the boy at ease so that he could focus. “Here’s to us, Kira Yamato.”

Kira did his best not to grimace again.

xxxxx

Meanwhile…

About twenty miles to the south of where Kira and Haman were ‘celebrating’ their newfound alliance, some other key players were in a different sort of diabolical pickle.

With all of their combined might, Bright Noa, Astonaige Medoz, and Torres were trying to haul open the door to the Argama’s bridge. The ship had no power, thus the doors would not open by themselves. The bridge door especially, seeing as it had extra locks to stop exactly what the three AEUG members were attempting to do.

“This… had better… be the right idea… Torres!” Bright huffed as the three heaved at their quarry once again.

“I’m… sure it is!” the young navigator grunted. Bright was far from assured, though. The other idea was to find their way down to the power core and go for a manual boot up. It was that, or just hit a few buttons on the bridge.

“Stop… arguing… and keep… pulling!” Astonaige cut in as he, being the one closest to the doorframe, wedged his leg up for some leverage.

The three men were the only ones on the ship. They had all woken up in the crew lounge, and were absolutely confused as to what was going on. The only things lighting their way were the emergency lights, and they were rather limited compared to the main lighting system.

Bright was especially confused, considering that he had not been on the Argama in almost six years. The last thing he remembered was the light of the Psychoframe from the Nu Gundam. Next thing he knew, he was slumped in one of the chairs of the Argama’s lounge. A few thoughts came to mind, but Astonaige, whom had already been awake when Bright regained consciousness, had been adamant that they get the power on before they suffocate.

Thus, they found themselves in their current situation.

“For the love of…” Torres started to complain, but cut himself off by collapsing to the floor out of exhaustion. They had been at it for almost fifteen minutes with absolutely nothing to present as success.

With Torres down, Bright and Astonaige backed down themselves to take a breather.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Bright stated with an air of defeat. “How long do you think we have until the oxygen runs out?”

Astonaige looked at the captain grimly. “Well… If all of the doors are locked and shut, and the hangar isn’t locked down, then…”

Astonaige stopped, his features freezing up for a moment. Bright let out an exasperated breath at this.

“Well? How long?”

“I got it!” Astonaige suddenly burst out, his face lighting up with epiphany. “We need to go to the hangar!”

That said, the scruffy mechanic barged down the hall in the direction of the hangar. Bright moved to follow, but stopped. He looked down at Torres, whom was still on the floor. He swept the boy up by his collar and gave him a couple of alerting slaps to the face. This did nothing, though, and Torres remained unconscious with a ridiculous look on his face. Bright sighed and shook his head, dropping the boy before taking off after Astonaige.

Upon reaching the hangar, Bright found it to be mostly dark, but not unoccupied. There was only a sparse group of emergency lights in the expanse of the room, but it still allowed him to make out the dark figures of mobile suits in one of the holdings. He identified a few of them as Nemos, but there were a couple more he could not make out properly.

As for Astonaige, Bright found the green jumpsuited man messing around with what appeared to be a passage door on the far end of the walkway.

“What’s this?”

“A maintenance shaft,” Astonaige replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “This should be able to get us anywhere we need to go.”

Bright blinked at this revelation a few times before feeling his blood start to boil. “Wait! Why didn’t you think of this before?”

“Well, I’ve never used it before,” the mechanic replied meekly, wishing he could back away from Bright just a few inches. “Also, I didn’t think it would be so hard to open the bridge. They don’t train us for this kind of crap in engineering school, y’know.”

Bright just let out another sigh, running his face through his hands in some attempt to ease his frustration. None of this made sense to him, and now he had to deal with, of all things, an absent-minded Astonaige Medoz. It almost made him nostalgic for the asteroid base he had been trying to blow up not an hour ago.

Actually… No it doesn’t.

Before Bright could actually say something to the mechanic, the man was already halfway inside the dark passage. Bright looked back into the abyss of the hangar warily before shuffling into the shaft himself. Of course, it being a maintenance shaft and all, there was enough emergency lighting in here for them to find their way.

“The bridge should be this way.” Astonaige claimed, making a left in the snaking passageway.

“I thought you said you’d never been in here.” Bright recalled, rolling his eyes at the mechanic’s newfound ‘certainty’.

Astonaige, though not seeing Bright, rolled his eyes as well. “Y’know, Captain, I am the chief mechanic of this ship for reason.”

Bright blinked again, realizing that he had just been talked back to. Unfortunately, he could not quite bring himself to argue with Astonaige at the moment, seeing as they were currently hutched over in a maze of corridors that ran through the walls of a warship. He’d make sure to give him a slap later, though, once they were out of this mess.

xxxxx

Back by the door to the bridge, Torres was finally coming around after having passed out from overexertion. He rolled off of his face, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The first thing that registered in his mind was that his cheeks hurt, but he brushed the pain off once he realized that he was exactly where he remembered having been – in the dim corridor of a powerless Argama.

“Aw man…” the navigator groaned, bringing his hands up to massage his head as it pained with confusion. How had this happened? The last thing he remembered was going to catch some sleep after finally settling things with the Titans at Gryps. He had been given a break by the captain while the ship was falling back to Side 1 for resupply.
Next thing he knew, he was waking up in the crew lounge to a frantic Astonaige and a grouchy Bright.

That, however, was not important. What was important was that, like Astonaige had said, they were going to run out of air eventually. That was one fate that Torres most certainly did not want to suffer.

So, not even bothering to wonder where Bright and Astonaige might have disappeared to, the navigator stood and resumed pulling upon the door that impeded his way. He would get onto the bridge no matter what.

xxxxx

“I think it’s right through here.”

Back in the maintenance shaft, Bright was watching Astonaige attempt to pry loose another passage door.

“Are you sure? You thought the one that led to the bathroom was the right one, too.” the captain quipped, really wishing that he had some way to relieve his anger that did not involve rendering Astonaige unconscious. Giving the man a hard time was only a temporary relief.

“I told you that I’ve never used this shaft before, didn’t I?” the mechanic shot back. He was starting to get irritated as well, seeing as he was not having any luck in opening the way.

“Let me see it.” Bright finally snapped, shoving Astonaige out of the way. Pulling his leg back as well as he could in the hunched space, the 33-year-old Bright Noa delivered a harsh kick to the hatch door.

“No, wait-!”

With a loud crack, the door broke from its lock and flow open. Bright’s pleasure on the matter was short-lived, as a loud alarm started blaring not a full second later. The light that had been coming in through the bridge’s windows was cut off instantly as the emergency shutters came down over them. Shutters also covered the door that they had been pulling at earlier.

“What in the world?” Bright complained as he shuffled himself out of the shaft, covering his ears from the clamor. As nice as it was to him to be standing on the bridge of a familiar ship, the sirens were quite a downer.

“You set off the intruder alarm, Captain,” Astonaige stated, though he had not raised his voice enough for Bright to actually hear. “I know how to disable it, though.”

While Bright stumbled around in confused terror, Astonaige moved over to one of the consoles and started typing. Thankfully, all of the bridge consoles had access to the emergency power – as did the alarm system, apparently. He shot in some commands and, within moments, disabled the alarms.

“There we go.”

With the noise gone, Bright uncovered his ears and went straight to holding his head in irate agony. “I’m getting too old for this…” he uttered before falling tiredly into the captain’s chair with a thud.

Astonaige just smirked in amusement as he started typing some more commands into the console. The next step was, of course, to activate the power core. After a moment, the lights flicked on and, much to Bright’s relief, the air conditioning started processing air.

“Okay! The power’s back online!” Astonaige claimed with pride, pumping his fist into the air in joy. “Now I just have to disable the-…”

“Argama, this is Lieutenant Emma,” a message suddenly cut in through the communications console. “Is there anybody there?”

The collective eyes of Bright and Astonaige widened at the voice that filled the bridge, let alone the name it had given.

“D-Did she just say ‘Emma’?” Astonaige exclaimed, bolting up from his seat in the radar chair and darting over to the comm console. Bright quickly joined, just as curious as the mechanic on the matter. The officer snatched up the headset before Astonaige could, wanting to respond personally.

“This is Bright Noa. Is it really you, Emma Sheen?” Bright responded to the incoming signal.

“Captain Bright?” Emma’s voice came through loud and clear as an image came onto the monitor. Sure enough, it was the face of Emma Sheen graced the screen. She looked somewhat worse for wear, but she was certainly alive. “Do you have any idea what’s going on? Where are we?”

“You’re asking the wrong person for that,” Bright said with a hint of sullenness. “We’ve been trying to fix a crisis since… well…”

“Since you woke up?” Emma’s voice finished Bright’s sentence for him. The two men on the bridge looked at each other, recognizing what she meant.

“That’s right,” Bright answered, feeling a small sense of relief come to him. “Give us a minute to disable the Argama’s lockdown. We’ll see you then.”

xxxxx

Outside the Argama, Emma sat patiently in the Gundam Mk-II’s cockpit as Bright’s image disappeared from her interface. She was relieved to see a familiar face, especially after not getting a reply for almost twenty minutes.

The Mk-II was positioned on the ground next to the abandoned cliff-side dock that held the massive battleship. It seemed to be an overgrown base of some kind, but there did not appear to be any defenses, so Emma could not be sure of that assumption.

Like it was with everyone else, it was all so strange for Emma. The last thing she remembered before waking in the grass in front of the Mk-II was Kamille. She had just beaten Reccoa, and then that nutcase in the Hambrabi had fired on them. Reccoa’s mobile suit exploded, and then…

Emma clutched her head disbelievingly at the thought. Had she really… died? Kamille had taken her into an airlock, but she could not recall anything more than asking Kamille to use her life energy. It had all been a spur-of-the-moment thing for her, asking Kamille to do such a thing, but she knew that he could use it. Kamille had that power - the power of a Newtype. He, along with the Zeta Gundam, could stop the fighting.

Now, however, she was here. This place was a mystery to her. It looked vaguely like Earth, though it seemed different. The grass was greener, and the air; the air seemed so much cleaner than she had ever thought it could be. It just felt… different.

Before her thoughts could lead her anywhere, a message came through the comm. The image of Torres came on screen, though there was a rather large bump on his head. “Okay, Lt. Emma. You’re clear to come aboard. Use the-…”

Emma looked at Torres curiously as he stopped talking and looked away in a panicky fashion. Suddenly, an alarm went off in the Mk-II’s cockpit, alerting her of mobile suit detection.

“Incoming mobile suits?” Emma asked herself as she turned the Mk-II around to face the signals. She wanted to see what they were before pulling a weapon. On the horizon, two light-emitting specs soared into view. Her monitor brought them up on her console.

“An unknown type and…” Emma’s blood went cold at the second reading. As quickly as she could while watching the image on her screen, Emma made the Mk-II draw its rifle and direct it at the incoming threat. “The Qubeley!”

“Looks like we weren’t the only ones at Gryps to wind up here…” Torres uttered grimly.

From their spots on the bridge, Bright and Astonaige were both baffled and terrified at the sight of the white Qubeley. To them, Haman and her machine had been destroyed years ago. For Bright, it was an unwanted confirmer. Whatever was going on, it was bringing the dead back to life.

xxxxx
Last edited by Rob DS Zeta on Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Rob DS Zeta
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Re: Heroes and Ghosts - Ep 1: Misplacement

CHAPTER TWO!!!!
Spoiler
Disclaimer: I do not own the Gundam franchise or any other licensed material.

Heroes and Ghosts

Friends and Foes

xxxxx

“Is that a Gundam?” Kira voiced at the sight of the new unknown that was standing before the dormant battleship that had suddenly pinged on his and Haman’s radars. The mobile suit in question reminded Kira of the Strike, thought it did not seem to be quite bright in color. It was a cold silvery gray on the body, and the torso was somewhere between black and navy blue.

Standing out, however, were the reflective gold horns that poked out from the front of its forehead.

“The Mk-II? That pilot’s got some guts pointing his rifle at us like that,” Haman remarked, her tone showing Kira a sense of amusement. She was cocky. “Kira Yamato, let me see what you’re capable of in that flashy mobile suit of yours. See what you can do about that one down there.”

“What about you?” Kira questioned the manipulator as he dove down to avoid the possibility of being hit by the ship’s cannons as they came online.

“I already know how well I can perform, so shape up! Even an old model like that can shoot you down if you let it!”

Haman’s words surprised Kira slightly as he watched Haman’s white suit fall out of pace with him. She was right, though. Kira knew that he could not underestimate an enemy, no matter what mobile suit he was in.

“This is Lieutenant Emma Sheen, of the Argama!”

Kira looked down at his communicator in surprise. They were trying to contact him?

“Unidentified mobile suit, stop your advance at once or you will be considered hostile!” the voice came through the Freedom’s communicator without a spec of static. It had to be that Gundam’s pilot that was talking.

Still, Kira definitely wanted to avoid a fight in possible. He pulled down the Freedom’s thrust and brought it down to the ground about two hundred yards from the other Gundam.

“This is Kira Yamato,” he replied on the open channel. “I do not wish to fight. Please, do not fire on us!” he urged, praying that whatever friction had been caused could be settled peacefully.

“What?” Haman uttered, put off by Kira’s sudden unwillingness to fight. Was he that simple? He charged when she told him to, and now he was stopped when somebody asked him to.

Emma watched the strange looking Gundam as it came to rest before her. It was quite a sight to her, as it looked different than any other Gundam she had ever seen, even the Zeta Gundam. What really got her, however, was how the pilot just stopped after she gave a warning.

“Kira! What are you doing?” Haman called out to her ally. She knew that he had no idea what beating the Argama would mean to her, but just downright stopping was unacceptable. If they fired on him, she’d be able to keep what was left in a coffee can.

“If they aren’t hostile, I’m not going to fight them!” Kira retorted, something that Haman was not used to from a subordinate. She hit the Qubeley’s thrusters at that, and started speeding towards the Mk-II herself.

“If want something done right…” she muttered under her breath as she readied her mind to make use of the Qubeley’s funnels. So long as it was distracted by Kira, she would be able to flank the old Gundam without too much trouble.

“Funnels!”

“Haman!” Kira called up, but it was too late. He saw several little lights emerge from the tail binder of her mobile suit. The Freedom labeled them at remote bits, which put a pit in Kira’s confidence. The Freedom was not made to take on remote weapons, as his fight with Rau Le Creuset had proven.

“Damn! I should have known!” Emma steeled herself, raising the Mk-II’s shield and training her rifle up at the Qubeley.

Then, something unexpected happened.

The little lights began rapidly losing altitude. Several warning lights and sirens began going off in the Qubeley’s cockpit. The funnels were unable to the fight the gravity and were plummeting toward the ground. Haman tried her hardest, but she was too weak to force the weapons to overdo themselves. One by one, the funnels hit the ground, kicking up globs of turf with each crash.

“What?” Emma said with confusion at the sight of the funnels crashing to the ground.

“Damn! The funnels aren’t tuned for use under gravity!” Haman cursed her terrible luck. In her mind, though, this was just a minor setback. She quickly brought out one of the Qubeley’s beam sabers and charged forward. If Kira wanted to get in her way, she would simply have to eliminate him, too.

“Stop it, Haman!” Kira yelled at the charging mobile suit. He immediately moved in front of the defending Gundam and got one of the Freedom’s beams sabers. “There’s no need to fight!”

Within seconds, the Qubeley slammed into the dug in frame of the Freedom. Sparks shot from the clash of their sabers, and clumps of earth flew into the air as the Gundam was pushed back by the tremendous force of the Qubeley’s thrusters.

Emma watched in amazement as the two mobile suits came together with a ferocious crash. Before she could do so much as move to flank, however, the Gundam’s wings extended. This revealed two long cannons, which immediately flipped forward to face the Qubeley.

“Don’t make me use these, Haman! Please!” Kira practically begged. This was the last thing he needed at the moment, but, if Haman was not going to stand down, he would not let her just randomly attack these people.

Haman glared furiously at Kira and his Gundam as several beads of sweat emerged from her forehead. She was exhausting her already tired self, and all for her petty rivalry with the Argama and its crew. Without her funnels, though, she lost her all-range advantage. Then there was the fact that Kira’s Gundam had just sprouted cannons and had trained them upon her. She could see it in his eyes on her console. He was serious.

To put it simply, Haman was outgunned and, as of Kira’s decision to play the defender, outnumbered. Kira’s Gundam was definitely a piece of work. Of that, she was certain.

So, with a growl, the Ghost of Zeon pulled the Qubeley off of the Freedom and put away her saber.

“Fine then, Kira Yamato,” she huffed, almost unable to believe that she was actually standing down. “We’ll do things your way.”

Emma could only stare, dumbfounded at the sight of the Qubeley pulling back from the mysterious Gundam. The blue and silver machine withdrew its shoulder cannons as its pronged wings folded back into place. The air was still tense, though, and Emma refused to lower her rifle from the Qubeley until she was positive that it would not attack her or the Argama.

Meanwhile, the Gundam had turned to face her own, hailing her in the process.

“You said your name was Emma, right?” the pilot asked as she answered the hail. On her monitor appeared the image of a young man in a rather ornate-looking uniform, though it was stained with water and grass marks. “Please, ma'am, forgive my comrade. We’ve been in a desperate situation since we came together.”

Emma was uncertain if she could forgive Haman, knowing what she had done during the last weeks of the Gryps War, but this boy – this Gundam pilot – seemed trustworthy enough. He was so calm in appearance, though. So different from the other young pilots she had been around in the Titans and the AEUG.

“If you it’s possible,” Kira went on. “We are in need of food and shelter.”

Emma recoiled slightly at this. They wanted to come aboard? Haman Karn on the Argama? That sounded, considering what had happened, absolutely crazy. Hell, Emma was not too far from certain that neither the Captain nor the woman would accept it. In wartime, such a thing would be considered out of the question.

…but this was not wartime, was it?

“You’ll have to give me a moment,” Emma told the boy. “That decision is up to the Captain.”

“Please, if you would, apologize to your captain for us.” Kira requested before cutting the transmission and sending a hail to Haman. He had been holding in his exasperation with the woman during his talk with Emma, but that did little to lessen it. These people did not seem evil, nor had they tried to attack the two of them, and yet Haman had tried to send him into battle against them without so much as an explanation.

“I don’t know what your problem is with these people,” Kira said into the comm when Haman failed to respond. He was pretty sure that he could hear her, unless she had switched hers off. “But this isn’t the time or the place to settle it!”

Haman gritted her teeth at Kira’s words. As much as it grated on her nerves to admit it, he was correct. She would have to save destroying the Argama for the future. She would not let him know that, though. She had not foreseen the meddlesome nature of Kira Yamato, and it disgusted her. Meddling kids were what had ruined her plans last time, and now she had one trying to be on her side.

This must be fate… Just you wait, Judau. I’ll find you eventually.

On the Argama’s bridge, Bright, Astonaige, and Torres were getting the bad news.

“What? You can’t be serious!” Torres yelled in outrage. He turned to face Bright, praying that the Captain would not allow what Emma was relaying.

Bright heaved a very long sigh, putting his head in his hands. This entire situation was just getting worse and worse for him. First he had been stranded on this ship – a ship he had not been on in years – and now he was faced with the evident surrender of one his thought long-gone enemies. Were it still 0088, this would be a dream come true.

It was not 0088, however, and this was far from anything that could be a ‘dream come true’.

“I’ll allow it.”

The other two men on the bridge looked at Bright as if he had just pulled out a gun and declared himself the leader of Zeon.

“W-Wha-WHAT?!” Torres snapped, petrified by what Bright was bringing around. He wanted to actually bring the leader of the group that had been their mortal enemy for almost a whole year? “C-Captain! You can’t-!”

“I already have, Torres!” Bright shot back, glaring at the navigator with frustration. The teen seemed to shrink under the leer, as Bright was a much bigger man than he.

Off to the side, Astonaige heaved a very heavy sigh. “I’ll head down to the hangar, I guess.”

xxxxx

“Is there anything to report, Aspin?”

There was no standard lighting in the room, as there was really no need for such a bother. All of the light necessary came from the large computer station that lined the far wall. It had several readouts, images, status pages, messages, and whatever else coming in from all around the planet.

“Believe it or not, P1 has already put itself together.” the man presiding over the several workers managing the wall of information, Apollo Aspin, reported to the man that had just entered the room. Apollo was a mild man, his bright red hair combed straight back and his white coat spotless. He wore glasses, a rare feature among his co-workers.

“Really? I take it the forceful nature of Ms. Karn had something to do with that.” the other man, who remained in the shadows, claimed as he looked towards the wall. He was taking in some of the images, most notably one of the Qubeley and the Freedom Gundam being led towards the battleship Argama at gunpoint.

“Actually, the reports are saying that it was actually Kira Yamato that brought diplomacy to them,” Apollo chuckled. He knew how infrequent it was for him to correct his superior. “Haman was on the verge of attacking the Mk II, but it seems that the engineers’ decision to not tune the funnels for gravity paid off. When they all fell straight to the ground, Kira was able to talk her down.”

“Hmm…” the hidden man scratched his chin. “It seems young Mr. Yamato has progressed quite a bit from his days of throwing pistols at terrorists.”

“Indeed.” Apollo added.

“What of the other groups? Has anyone else awoken?”

“Several, actually,” Apollo nodded, giving the man a smile. “In fact, we just received word that Setsuna F. Seiei and Tieria Erde have met up in Sector 9.”

“Ah… That’s an interesting development. What of the rest of P3?”

“The Archangel is, like all of the warships we’ve pulled so far, in need of a crew,” Apollo reported as he watched a few images come up on the wall. “We will not be able to deploy full crews of those… things until the system cools off again.”

“And that certain man? The one that I had interest in before.”

“He seems to have occupied one of our factories in Sector 11.”

“Oh, really?” the hidden man asked with intrigue. The particular player in question had been one of his planned ‘Enforcers’, but one of the man’s advisors had talked him into making him a player. “Is there anything in it?”

“For him? No.”

xxxxx

“I’m not picking up anything, even on the long range sensors.” Torres informed Bright as he stared dully at the radar station. “No power signs… nothing.”

Bright scowled and shook his head. This was absolutely insane. They were in a desolate field, barren of technology – expect the Argama and her load, that is. Then there were Haman and her cohort in the Gundam. It had been clearly obvious that he was not her lackey, as they had saved Emma from attack, but that did not make Bright trust him.

“Stay here and keep watch.” the man ordered as he turned to head for the hangar and inspect what was sure to be a growing situation.

“What? I have to miss the fireworks?” Torres complained, rolling his eyes.

“I’m sure the fireworks will last long enough for you see it later, now just sit up here and call us if something happens.” Bright added, suppressing the urge to walk over and strike the back-talking teen. He left the bridge and moved through the now properly lit halls of the warship.

Down in the hangar, Emma was out of her Gundam and standing next to Astonaige as they discussed their two visitors.

“Did Haman say anything to you?” Astonaige asked the pilot as she unzipped her sweaty orange-yellow space suit to let some air in. The mechanic was suppressing his feelings of shock at seeing Emma, as he had known her to be dead for several years before now. That did not make her any less real now, though. She was right next to him, clear as day, acting almost as if nothing had happened at all.

“No, but I did hear her voice through the radio. It’s her alright…” Emma claimed, watching the Qubeley as it rested in one of the hangar spaces. Its shoulder binders were folded in, decreasing the amount of space it took up, but that did not make Emma think of it as any less of a threat. At least its funnels were outside, buried in the mud. That put her at ease, if only slightly.

“What about the Gundam? You talked to its pilot, right?”

“Yeah, I did,” Emma nodded, changing her gaze to the Gundam in question. “I told him to wait until we called him out. He seemed like a kid, but… I don’t know. He was oddly dressed, and he appeared to be a little ragged.”

“Ragged?” the engineer looked at the pilot curiously.

“He had grass stains on his shirt.” Emma remembered, thinking it strange. She had woken up on her cockpit, so it was confusing to her as to how such a well-dressed character could have such stains on his clothes.

“Well, I guess we won’t know unless we let him out and ask him…” Astonaige pointed out, sighing. He had a pit in his stomach about what was about to happen. Not about the Gundam pilot, though, but Haman. What would she do? He simply could not think of anything that she could do, aside from pull a gun out and start shooting at everybody. He knew that she was also a political leader, but she was also their mortal enemy.

“Lieutenant Emma…”

Emma and Astonaige looked over to find Bright approaching them. He looked more wearier than anything, as if he had recently received some shocking news. Astonaige understood, though Emma simply passed it off as a side-effect of their current situation. She had to admit, though, Bright did seem a touch more worn than she could recall.

“Captain,” Emma snapped to attention, though it was more of a thoughtless gesture than anything else. She quickly went slack again and shook Bright’s hand when he offered it. She assumed that the handshake was a thoughtless move on Bright’s part. She assumed correctly. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, Lieutenant,” Bright addressed the woman by rank, waving off her concern. He then turned to face the two new arrivals in the hangar, taking a second to count the two Nemos and the Rick Dias that were also in the hangar with them. “Are we ready to welcome our guests?”

Astonaige and Emma steeled at this. Bright was serious if his grim tone was any evidence.

“I guess we don’t really have a choice.” the mechanic grumbled, moving over to where the hangar’s PA system was so that he could address the pilots.

xxxxx

“I wonder…” Tieria Erde muttered to himself as he stood on the side of a tall cliff. It was rare that he found himself in a situation that confused him utterly, but, as fate would have it, this was definitely one of those rare situations. He was dressed in his Gundam Meister uniform, its violet jacket waving slightly in the breeze that was sliding around the bluff.

At Tieria’s flank was Setsuna F. Seiei, his taciturn comrade. Unlike Tieria, the purebred Innovator was dressed in his casual attire of a white button-up under a navy jacket with black pants. His red scarf blew with the breeze as well while Setsuna looked down upon the sea of trees below him. He was lost in thought over his current position. The last he remembered, he had been going to bed after a long day with Ian while they worked on the 00 Qan[T]. Now he was here.

Behind the two meisters were their respective Gundams, Exia and Nadleeh, standing tall over the trees that seemed to drown the area. Their white armor reflected a pinkish orange in the setting sun as their inactive eyes sat dark. It was surprising to see the sunset, since the weather in the area had been dismal only moments before. The clouds had broken only just enough for these last moments of light to reach the two young men.

“There is nothing we can do about it now,” Tieria said stoically as he turned away from the sunset. “Instead of traveling at night, we should stay still and wait for contact from Ptolemy.”

Setsuna turned to look at Tieria. The last he had seen of the violet-toned Innovade was back during their campaign against Ribbons Almark and his Innovators. He had kept his consciousness with Veda, and was… well… Setsuna had not kept himself as informed on that situation as he probably should have. When they first found each other here, it had been shocking, to say the least.

“The computer in my Gundam failed to pull up data on the surrounding area,” Setsuna informed his friend. “Did you have more luck?”

Tieria glanced over at Setsuna for a moment before looking up at Nadleeh. “No… I suffered a similar problem. It seems that my link to Veda has been inexplicably interrupted.”

“You’re awfully calm about it, though.”

Tieria started walking away from his fellow meister, if only to avoid showing him the frustration that was building in his mind. Tieria had been devastated at first, but, upon meeting with Setsuna, his tone on the matter had changed considerably. There were very few scenarios that could lead to this outcome, and Tieria was determined to wait and see if the more believable ones would play out before admitting to the others.

“There is no need to worry, yet,” Tieria did his best to assure Setsuna as he continued to head for the Gundams. “I activated Nadleeh’s distress beacon, so Ptolemy should be en route to our location.”

“We can hope…” Setsuna said in response. He was unusually downtrodden about this turn of events. This place felt wrong to him, but he was not sure what that even meant, let alone what to do about it. For now, all he could do was have faith in seeing Ptolemy on the horizon.

“Faith…”

While Setsuna remained by the cliff, Tieria wandered back into the trees. The spectacled pilot perched himself upon Nadleeh’s foot, determining that he needed some time to clear his head. Though he was not a big fan of being outdoors, especially in this kind of humidity, the violet-haired Innovade decided that it was best for him to get some fresh air while he could. If the weather turned sour again, then he would have to spend some ungodly amount of time in Nadleeh’s cockpit again.

“This is why I prefer space.” he mumbled to himself as he swatted a bug that felt that it just needed to buzz too close to the Innovade’s face.

As he sat, trying to regain his calm, he looked up at the radiant silver of Nadleeh. Its red hair-like extensions blew lightly in the wind, giving the Gundam a sort of peaceful appearance. It perplexed Tieria, though. He had not piloted Nadleeh since Celestial Being’s defeat at the hands of the ESF forces all those years ago. The suit had been all but destroyed, and its solar furnace and GN Drive were later used in the making of Seravee and Seraphim.

Yet, here Nadleeh was. He had woken up with it standing over him. At the moment, he had been too consumed by the confusion of finding himself on the ground to contemplate the Gundam’s appearance, but now it had him positively befuddled. Veda had not made any plans to remake Nadleeh, nor had any of Celestial Being’s engineers mentioned doing such a thing. Still, here she stood, clutching the shield and rifle it had gone out fighting with.

Then there was Setsuna’s Gundam, Exia. Upon further inspection, Tieria had found it to be equipped with the standard GN Sword, not the upgraded sword that the R2 model had been equipped with. It was the original Exia, or at least the one that Setsuna had fought with at the end of ESF conflict. Again, Tieria could not recall there being any plan to restore Exia to this condition.

The strangest things of all, though, were the lack of contact with Veda and the lack of area data in the Gundam’s computers. It was almost as if he and Setsuna were no longer on Earth, a scenario that, while bordering on preposterous, meant that it was possible that what they were waiting for would never come.

xxxxx

Bright was being patient, but so was his nemesis. Haman sat just across the table from him, muddy and tired-looking, as they met in the Argama lounge. Her glare was less severe than he expected, but it was just as sharp as he remembered it being during their last meeting.

“So, you just woke up in the woods? No explanation? No mobile suit?” Bright asked, wanting the pink-haired mastermind to elaborate on her tale – a tale that she had somehow managed to condense into a frustrating five sentences.

“Precisely,” Haman nodded. Her eyes bounced between the captain and his two lackeys, the engineer and the pilot. Kira was sitting next to her, but he was playing the endangered bivalve at the moment and keeping himself shut. “I wandered through the forest for a few hours before coming to the end. That is when I encountered my Qubeley, as well as my accomplice here.”

Kira propped himself up as Haman gestured to him. He was doing his best not to sweat in the face of this almost interrogation. Apparently, his being with Haman was a black spot in the presence these people.

“And you are…?” Bright started, turning his gaze to Kira.

“Kira Yamato, sir,” Kira answered, trying his best not to smile like those political mannerism classes had taught him to. “My story is pretty much the same, except I woke up next to my mobile suit.”

“Really?” Bright asked, this time turning to Emma. “Did you have a similar experience, Emma?”

“I woke up inside the Mk II, actually.” Emma informed the rest.

“I see. Astonaige, Torres, and I all woke up here in the lounge,” Bright gave his own account. “We had to activate the Argama manually, and that was just before you showed up, Lieutenant.”

“So…” Haman spoke, realizing the pattern in their stories. “We’ve all suffered the same sort of beginning here. We all woke up somewhere we weren’t before.”

“That’s right!” Kira felt the need to agree.

“Do you think somebody is responsible for this, Bright Noa?” Haman asked.

“I don’t know…” Bright said, looking at the floor in through. “What was everyone doing before they woke up?”

“I was out with my friends,” Kira started. “We had been eating at a restaurant… That’s all I remember.”

“I’d just been spaced when Chan decided that she had to take off in what was left of the Re-GZ,” Astonaige picked up. He shook his head a little, trying to get rid of the memory. “I think I passed out from the shock.”

The women did not seem too eager to talk, so Bright decided to go next. “I was returning from setting charges on Axis.” he added to the stories being told.

Haman looked up at this.

“You set charges on Axis?” she inquired.

Bright swallowed hard. That was a question he knew would be difficult to answer.

“I’m not sure how you’re going to take this,” he started to spill, taking a deep breath between sentences. “Where I’m from, Haman, you’d been dead for some time.”

He then looked up at Emma, whom was standing. “You, too, Emma.”

xxxxx

Mu La Flaga sat in the Captain’s chair on the Archangel’s bridge, looking out into the stormy night. It was depressing, really. He had been so elated to wake up in his cabin that he had run straight to the bridge to find Murrue.

Murrue, however, was not there. Nobody was. The Archangel was a ghost ship, and he was its dead inhabitant.

After finding the bridge abandoned, reality set in. He was planet-side, as his being able to run informed him. He had natural gravity under his feet, and there was a sky outside the windows, even if that sky was full of rainclouds. It had not been storming earlier, but that was hours ago. He had toured the ship since then, looking for any sign of life. He even went all the way as to knock on the door of the girls’ latrines, but never got an answer.

He was not unarmed, though. The hangar was loaded with a wing of mobile suits, including the Strike. The rest were Murasames, and only three of them at that. Still, they would be useful if the need came to fly. Without a Striker pack, the Strike was only as good as its dual knives.

“So…” the man said to the silence around him. “Why am I here?”

xxxxx

“What do you mean you weren’t able to get Kojiro Murdoch in this round?!”

The rage in the shadowed man’s voice sent a quiver down the spine of the young man in front of him.

“I-I’m sorry, sir!” the young man, a brunette in a lab coat by the name of Ward Carmine. “If it’s any consolation, we were able to supply the Archangel with power, so the guy we did get on it should be just fine!”

“He had better be, Mr. Carmine!” the shadowed man yelled down at Ward, whom was a good head shorter than he. “Mu La Flaga is a key player, like all of the players! If one dies of natural causes, such as starvation from lack of food preservation, imagine what will happen to you! Imagine good and hard!”

“I-I-I’m sorry, s-s-sir!” Ward cowered, taking several steps back in fear.

“Right. Now, when will the system be up and running for the second transfer? I want to test the new arrivals tomorrow and bring in the next batch immediately after.”

“We’ll be able to warp in the missing personnel for the warships in about fifteen hours, sir.” Ward reported as he turned around to his console. “If the maintenance crews stay within standard operating scheduling, the crews should be ready in about thirty hours.”

“I guess that will have to do,” the shadowed man sighed, not particularly happy about their slow progress. “Carry on, then.”

“Y-Yes, sir.”
This one is a tad shorter than the last one (a tad being about 1,500 words :roll: ), but I think it turned out just fine. More will come later! 'Till then, see ya!
Last edited by Rob DS Zeta on Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heroes and Ghosts - Ep 1: Misplacement

Hmm, I actually missed this!

Dude, you included my favorite Gundam girl! I think the only guy who likes Emma Sheen more than me is SoulBroRyu! 8) But I digress. I think this was a good chapter overall. You just need to watch your word usage just a tad. Like when one sentence ended with time and then a few words later, time pops up again. Things like that.

I'm interested to see this dynamic between Haman and Kira. Kira being the idealist that he is and Haman being much more... practical? Pragmatic? In any case, it'll be interesting if you can pull it off right. Bright and Emma certainly won't want to trust her.

You think you might be able to have Duo and Garrod Ran team up? ;)

P.S. Why did you put the chapter in a spoiler box? I don't really see the need for that when it's in its own thread.
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Re: Heroes and Ghosts - Ep 1: Misplacement

MBF-06/ZGMF-X12A Arbiter wrote:Hmm, I actually missed this!

Dude, you included my favorite Gundam girl! I think the only guy who likes Emma Sheen more than me is SoulBroRyu! 8) But I digress. I think this was a good chapter overall. You just need to watch your word usage just a tad. Like when one sentence ended with time and then a few words later, time pops up again. Things like that.

I'm interested to see this dynamic between Haman and Kira. Kira being the idealist that he is and Haman being much more... practical? Pragmatic? In any case, it'll be interesting if you can pull it off right. Bright and Emma certainly won't want to trust her.

You think you might be able to have Duo and Garrod Ran team up? ;)

P.S. Why did you put the chapter in a spoiler box? I don't really see the need for that when it's in its own thread.
Glad you liked it! Emma's one of my faves, too, if only because she's a kickass female pilot that doesn't have romance issues or HABS... I think.

Kira and Haman might just be the most unlikely team ever... Even I'm not sure where this will go.

I used the word 'situation' 7 times. Some form of 'happen' 6 times. The word 'Gundam' 31 times... etc. I'm not used to writing in the 3rd person. :?

As for Duo and Garrod... I don't know. I have Garrod on a 'maybe' list, and Duo... I really don't have any idea about him. He's actually one of the few protags that I have little to no knowledge about (excluding his physical traits and what unit he pilots).

P.S. I put the chapter in the spoiler box to keep make the edit button more accessible. It also makes my paragraphs look bigger... I guess?
*insert witty eyecatch here*
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