Gundam: A Gundam Enthusiast's Journey with a Mecha Girl

Tohru and Miriam were talking back and forth, leaving Cagalli bewildered. However, Tohru's last sentence really surprised Cagalli.

"Really? He's a natural person? Can a natural person operate MS so well?"

Seeing Cagalli's surprised expression, Kira smiled slightly.

"Then, Cagalli, I'll tell you our story with our teacher."

Cagalli was taken aback. How come this celebration party had turned into a story about a man before she had even said a few words?

But before she could stop him, Kira had already started talking on his own.

"That day, when I first met my teacher..."

-----------------

In stark contrast to the bustling atmosphere at the banquet, the prison in Bananadia was eerily quiet.

Raven led Al to the cell where Andrew was being held.

"What's wrong, great hero? Instead of celebrating your victory, you've come to see me, a defeated general."

Andrew lay on the bed, his voice tinged with languor.

"Can't I come over for a drink?"

Raven shook the bottle in his hand.

"You definitely took that bottle of wine from my house! How come I never realized you were so shameless?"

"Stop yelling. I also brought you your most treasured coffee beans."

Elle was still wearing the gothic Lolita dress that Elsa had given her, and she placed the several paper bags she was holding on the table.

"Raven, I'd like to see Miss Elsa."

"Elsa lives next door, she must miss you a lot."

El ignored Andrew and only turned and left after Raven nodded to her.

"So, what exactly do you want from me?"

Andrew took the cup without hesitation and filled both of their glasses with wine.

Tell me what you know about the defenses. Although fighting our way through is an option, I want to avoid combat as much as possible.

Raven spread a map on the table.

"Alright, a defeated general should act like one. Anyway, those garrison troops can't stop you. Telling you sooner will save us a few deaths."

Andrew agreed with surprising ease, but he knew that Raven had more than one request.

"Besides that, I just wanted to hear you talk about PLANT. Although I've heard some things from Miss Lux, your view of PLANT is definitely different from Miss Lux's."

"Wait, you've also seen Miss Lux? The PLANT songstress?"

Andrew was somewhat surprised.

"It's just a matter of some karmic connection."

Andrew stared at him for a while, then shook his head and let out a soft chuckle.

"Since you know Miss Klein, some things are actually easier to say..."

Chapter 49 PLANT's Situation

Aslan passed through security and entered the Klein residence carrying a bouquet of flowers.

"You've come, Aslan. Wasn't the last time we met at the Junius VII Memorial Ceremony?"

Lux's voice came from the end of the corridor, followed by light and hurried footsteps. She rushed to the door to greet him, giving Athrun her signature smile, but Lux paused slightly when she saw the red military uniform Athrun was wearing.

"Uh, I have to go back to the front line later, so I'm in a hurry and came here in my uniform. Sorry."

Aslan explained somewhat awkwardly.

"fine."

Lux quickly put her smile back on her face.

"I've been so busy with all sorts of things that I haven't been able to contact you properly... Ahaha, Ant!"

Behind Lux, a large group of colorful Haros tumbled down the stairs, chattering away. Among these round Haros was a square-headed mechanical pet with a completely different design from the Haros.

"This is?"

Aslan saw the square-headed mechanical pet; he didn't recall seeing it when he last visited Klein's residence.

"This is Little Ant. A friend I met on the Archangel gave it to me. Didn't Aslan see it before on the Vesalius?"

Lux bent down, cradled the little ant in her hands, and introduced it to Aslan.

Aslan then remembered that he seemed to have seen it on the Vesalius on its return journey.

How could I forget something like this? Have I been neglecting my fiancée too much?

Aslan asked himself.

However, for Aslan at this moment, he really doesn't have much room to care about other people's feelings.

Since returning to PLANT, the experiences he had on the battlefield had been lingering in his mind.

'I joined the military to prevent things like Junius 7 from happening again, but what did I do on this mission? I destroyed a colony and then drew my gun on Kira. I didn't join the mobile suit to do these things...'

"Athrun?"

Lux looked at Athrun, who had suddenly frozen in place, and couldn't help but ask.

"Uh, sorry, I was daydreaming." Just as Aslan was feeling embarrassed, he remembered that he was holding a bouquet of flowers in his arms. "These flowers are for you."

"Wow, thank you, Aslan."

Lux reached out and took the flower, then lowered her head to inhale its fragrance. When she looked up, her radiant smile was even more beautiful than the flower in her arms.

She handed the bouquet to the butler and led Aslan into the mansion, but as Aslan passed a room with a half-open door, a sound coming from the crack in the door made him slow his pace involuntarily.

"The election of the Chairman of the PLANT Supreme Council is nearing its end, Mr. Guest. Judging from the current situation, the new Chairman is indeed Chairwoman Sara, right?"

"Judging from the vote count, Chairman Sara is leading by several percentage points. To be honest, while I personally have great respect for Mr. Klein's contributions to PLANT over the years, in times of war, Chairman Sara, with her military experience and more assertive style, is indeed more reliable. No one wants to repeat the mistakes of Blood Valentine..."

-----------------

At the same time, in a meeting room of the PLANT Parliament Building.

“You’ve already won, Patrick.”

Siegel's voice carried a hint of weariness. Although he had anticipated the current election situation, the reality still left him somewhat discouraged.

"Whether it's the position of Speaker or the breakthrough operation, in the end, it all went according to your wishes. But never forget that war is just a means, not an end."

However, Patrick did not take Siegel's outdated arguments to heart.

“But Siegel, if the war isn’t won, then nothing matters, is it?”

"I mean, how far do you want to win before you stop? The more the war spreads, the more hatred will accumulate. Once it gets out of control, it will become a fight to the death, and then it will be difficult to stop."

"It is precisely to avoid that situation that I must end this war as soon as possible; the breakthrough operation exists for this purpose."

Patrick’s eyes held absolute confidence in his beliefs as he turned to look at Siegel, his voice firm and resolute.

"Moreover, we Coordinators are a completely new species, and there is absolutely no need for us to coexist with Naturals."

Although Siegel sensed Patrick's strong will, he still chose to try his best to persuade him.

"A new species? What kind of new species can't even reproduce? Even with the implementation of the forced marriage law, the birth rate of the third-generation adjusters is still declining. We are not on the path of evolution at all."

Siegel's persuasion was obviously ineffective, Patrick replied without hesitation.

“You’re too pessimistic, Siegel. With the excellence of us Coordinators, such difficulties are only temporary and will eventually be overcome. When we joined forces to build PLANT, we faced far greater difficulties than we are now.”

"Patrick, what do you take life for? Life is conceived, not manufactured!"

"It seems your views are not only pessimistic, but also outdated."

Patrick's tone carried a hint of disappointment.

"Your advocacy of intermarriage with natural humans will only pollute the genes of us Coordinators, eventually causing us to degenerate back into a species as ignorant as natural humans."

Patrick pushed open the door and walked out of the room. Without waiting for Siegel's response, he lost interest in continuing the debate with Siegel, leaving Siegel alone in the dimly lit conference room.

“We haven’t evolved, Patrick.”

Siegel closed his eyes and remained silent for a long time.

If his country is about to slide into an abyss of chaos, he must make a decision before it becomes too late.

'It's time to contact Halbarton and Orb.'

-----------------

"Aslan, you're leaving already? Father wants to see you. It would be wonderful if you could stay and have dinner with us."

“I’m sorry, it’s time for me to get back to the team. Yzak and the others are still fighting on the front lines, and I can’t stay in PLANT forever.”

"I see. Then there's nothing we can do."

Lux's tone carried a hint of regret, but the gentle smile on her face remained unwavering.

"But I will definitely come to visit again during my next vacation."

Aslan dared not look at Lux's face again. After hastily leaving those words, he turned and left in a hurry.

He couldn't remember what he had just talked about with Lux. As his return to the team drew near, his mind was filled with thoughts of the battle on the front lines.

I'm such a bad fiancé.

Aslan thought this to himself, but still silently drove his car back to the military camp as fast as he could.

Chapter 50 Short Sword L's First Battle (Part 1)

Earth orbit, Eighth Fleet flagship, Menelaus hangar.

Lieutenant Rand Bauer nervously performed final adjustments to his new vehicle before the sortie.

Short Sword L, that's the model of his new vehicle.

Unlike the Mobius he had used before, this was a weapon of the same specifications as the King and Sig equipped by ZAFT on the other side.

Lieutenant Rand was one of the few surviving MA pilots from the previous low-orbit battle. He remembered that in that battle, the Eighth Fleet's MA forces were easily defeated by ZAFT at the beginning of the engagement.

Faced with hordes of King and Higu, the Allied forces' Mobius was utterly helpless.

Lieutenant Rand is only alive today because he is incredibly lucky.

That's right, it wasn't because of his driving skills, but simply because he was lucky.

On the day of the low-orbit battle, Rand's Möbius was fortunate enough not to be shot down in the first wave of fire. However, when he performed a turn maneuver according to the established tactics, his Möbius was naturally locked onto by the enemy.

The alarm blared incessantly in the cockpit, just as Rand saw the King that had locked onto him point its gun at him.

A green beam of light pierced precisely through the cockpit of King's aircraft.

Then Lieutenant Rand saw a blue mobile suit, quite different in appearance from King and Sig, charge into the enemy ranks. His beam rifle locked onto the second King at close range, pulled the trigger, and a green beam pierced the target's chest. He then used the momentum to spin the suit and used the shoulder-mounted weapon to smash the third King's suit.

Lieutenant Rand later learned that the mobile suit was called the Shortsword.

King and Higu, who had flaunted their power in front of Mobius, were no different from Mobius in front of the short sword.

Later, Lieutenant Rand instinctively followed the short sword in his Möbius, watching as it shot down all the enemies that stood in its way.

Now, he will be piloting a mobile suit similar to the one that saved his life, the Dagger.

Although the technicians told him that the Short Sword L was a simplified mass-produced version of the Short Sword, the blue streak he saw that day, freely roaming through the universe, still lingered in his mind.

'Can I do the same thing as that mobile suit?'

As Lieutenant Rand was thinking this, he heard the angry roar of his superior, Major Bobran.

"Rand, are you scared out of your wits? Stop hogging the catapult! You're holding up the entire sortie order. Get your squad out there and get moving!"

"I'm so sorry! Rand, Empty-mounted Short Sword L, sortie!"

After a strong push, Rand's Dagger L took off from the Menelaus, which had been modified into an MS-equipped unit. The combat assistance program inside the Dagger L displayed the battlefield situation captured by the mobile suit on the screen in front of Lieutenant Rand.

'This is far more advanced than the Möbius series; that thing is practically a flying coffin.'

Lieutenant Rand muttered something to himself.

A moment later, his two wingmen were also ejected. They were also Dagger Ls, but they didn't have assault backpacks and were only equipped with the basic shield, beam rifle, and beam saber set.