Chapter 1-One Year War
December 31, UC0079
The void of space near the asteroid known as A Boa Qu was a writhing, pulsing sea of absolute chaos. Earth Federation RGM-79 GM mobile suits and Ball armed space pods clashed violently with Zeon Zakus, Gelgoogs, Rick Doms and others. Battleships exchanged fire, yellow and red energy beams flashing back and forth, either to miss or strike, causing death and destruction wherever they hit. The surface guns of the great asteroid fortress added their own lethal light to the picture.
In later years this battle would become known as the greatest and most terrible battle of the One Year War. Right now, mobile suit pilot Amuro Ray didn’t care about that. Sitting in the cockpit of the RX-78-2 Gundam, he guided the white, blue, red and gold mobile suit back and forth, protecting the Gundam’s home, the assault carrier White Base. He was also looking for his nemesis, the Zeon ace known as Char Aznable, the dreaded Red Comet. He and Char had a certain score to settle.
“Amuro,” crackled a voice over his radio, “We’ve spotted a new type of Zeon MS and several Rick Doms headed for the reinforcement fleet. Stop them!”
“Amuro felt a flash of intuition when he turned Gundam’s cameras towards the indicated spot.
“Char… that has to be you in that mobile suit. Or is it an armor? Doesn’t matter, you’re going down either way.”
Amuro was just about to accelerate towards this part of the fight when there was a bright flash of light from behind A Boa Qu and all the systems in Gundam went dark for a moment. When his screens came back on, he was surprised to see that the entire battle, MS and warships all, had ground to a sudden, inexplicable halt.
“White Base, what was that just now?” asked Amuro. There was a crackle over the radio for a few moments before Fraw Bow’s voice came back.
“We’re not sure what that was Amuro. Some new Zeon weapon? It’s not very effective if it affects their own troops as well. Better ignore it for right now.”
“Roger that. Gundam heading out.”
The pause in the battle allowed Amuro to fly almost unmolested over to where the strange, leg-less MS was resuming its attack on some Federation battleships.
“Char!!” he roared, aiming Gundam’s beam rifle and opening fire. He wasn’t guessing, he knew the Red Comet was on that suit as clearly as if it had been broadcast in hundred foot high neon letters. Amuro was what were being called Newtypes, humans with extra-ordinary mental powers. It was the opinion of some that the emergence of Newtypes was because of man’s mass migration to the space colonies.
Drawing closer to the huge Zeon MS, Amuro holstered his rifle in favor of his shield and a beam saber. He was just about to slash at the MS when another incredible burst of light blinded all his monitors and then all the systems in Gundam flickered on and off again. Amuro saw something gold and glittering shoot past him. He twisted in his seat to try and get a better look at it but this was a mistake, a mistake that should have cost the young pilot his life. A Gelgoog MS flew up behind Gundam and was about to stab it with a beam saber but was blasted by a bolt of blue energy. Amuro gazed wide-eyed at the MS that had just saved him from death. He thought he was having some sort of hallucination because he thought it looked like a gold-plated version of his Gundam, sunlight gleaming off it’s mirrored surface. Then it was gone, literally in the blink of an eye. It hadn’t been destroyed it was just gone. A Newtype flash of insight was all that saved Amuro from being impaled by one of the detachable, flying arms of Char’s suit. Ducking out of the way, Amuro powered up his beam saber again. It seemed that Char was quite angry with Amuro. That was aces with him as far as the young Gundam pilot was concerned. Before this day was over Char would pay. Oh yes, he would pay very dearly.
Aidan cursed softly to herself. Only quick action on her part had saved Amuro Ray from dying much sooner than he was supposed to. It was just lucky that her Alternity was equipped with these stealth systems, or there would have been even more problems. She didn’t need to be fending off Fed and Zeon MS while searching for Eternity. Speaking of that technological terror, where was it hiding? Ducking in and around the perimeter of the massive space battle, Aidan used her scanning systems to try and pin down its location. Thanks to the mental interface in the cockpit of her Gundam, it was as if she were the mobile suit herself. She saw through its eyes and her mental command it moved. Every slight motion, even the movements of her eyeballs were tracked and copied. And hers was perhaps the only system that could detect the AI super weapon, mostly because the same stealth systems that protected her Alternity were also installed in Eternity. Suddenly alarms began going off in her cockpit. Aidan glanced up at the battle before and as she moved, so did her MS copy her every movement. Here, there and everywhere, points of light like miniature suns were sprouting across the battlefield.
“Oh no… SARA are those what I think they are?” she said,
“Compiling… yes, they are space/time rifts. I guess those ‘reality mines’ they kept going on about weren’t all just talk hm?”
“I don’t need hyperbole SARA, I need options!”
“The ALX-78 Gundam Alternity is equipped with a weapon that can close the rifts, I’m sure Eternity’s aim is to distract you with these so he can go about his business. A clever trick really, you know the Council would have a collective stroke if a MS were to land in, say, Victorian London or…”
“SARA!”
“Apologies mistress.”
Sighing in annoyance, Aidan mentally selected the weapon she needed, seeing its status box pop on the HUD reticle that existed in her mind. She began firing energy bolts at the rifts, praying she wasn’t too late. There was a third bright flash of light, again behind A Boa Qu.
“Eternity has left this space/time,” reported SARA.
“New destination?”
“Processing… February 22, UC0088.”
“That’s near the end of the Gryps War… by the stars!” cried Aidan. She had been attempting to close the rifts as fast as possible, but the little buggers acted like miniature black holes, sucking in anything near them, including MS. What had horrified Aidan so much was she now saw that a rift had opened hear where Amuro and Char were dueling. She immediately dropped her cloak and poured full power into her Gundam’s propulsion, but even in doing that she could see that it was already too late.
Amuro had him; he had him and would have finished his rival if that… whatever it was hadn’t opened up near them. From Amuro’s perspective it looked like a wormhole that he had seen in sci-fi movies. When it had appeared it had begun sucking in everything it could, including Gundam and Char’s suit. Although he had Gundam’s engines at the redlines, Amuro wasn’t so lucky. A wailing alarm announced the onboard systems had shut down the engines to prevent them from exploding. With the loss of resistance, Gundam went tumbling directly towards the rift. Light flared across the screens of his cockpit, blinding Amuro. With a thunk and a whine, all the systems in the Gundam shut down completely this time, plunging Amuro into darkness. Without warning his senses were overcome by white light and excruciating pain, like nothing he had ever experienced. Before this assault on his sanity could tear it apart, Amuro slipped into the cold, quiet bliss of unconsciousness and knew no more.
Chapter 2-End of the Line
December 7, UC0079
The Apsalus III mobile armor rose out of the mountain like a legendary demon. Shaped as it was, like some monstrous underwater creature, it was an easy impression to get. At the center of the massive machine was it’s main cannon, now glowing with gathering power. Instead of a massive blast, it unleashed a thing beam of energy that swept out across the lines of Federation MS. At first it seemed as if the MS teams were about to be destroyed, but when the smoke and fire cleared, the Federation soldiers saw that the beam had drawn a burning line in the rocky ground in front of the Fed ground forces.
From the cockpit of his Gundam Ez8, Shiro Amada gazed up at the massive MA.
“Everyone, listen up. I’m leaving the service,” he said. Before any of the members of Shiro’s 08th MS Team could protest, there was a flash of light and a resounding rumble of thunder.
“Did that thing fire again?” Terry Sanders’ voice crackled over the radio.
“No, it’s something else!” said Karen Joshua, the third of the team’s MS pilots.
Shiro could see from his cockpit, even through a sudden rush of static across his monitors that the light came from over the jungle.
“Hey guys,” the voice of the squad’s radar and communications specialist, Eledore Massis, buzzed over the radio, “I’m picking up a really powerful radar signature that I ain’t never seen before headed straight for that monster Mobile Armor!”
“What?!” Shiro zoomed in his cameras on the Apsalus he saw what looked like a silver mobile suit that had landed on top of the Mobile Armor.
“Aina!” shouted Shiro. He shifted the throttles of his Gundam and the thrusters roared, lifting the Gundam towards the mountain and the Apsalus. Without warning there was another flash of light and a thunder crack. The systems in the Ez8 flickered and the thrusters cut out, crashing the huge mobile suit into a row of abandoned tenements.
“Oh shit! What the hell is going on?” growled Shiro in frustration.
-MSGC-
For what seemed like the three dozenth time, Aidan and her Gundam materialized in a new timeline, but also another major event period in the Universal Century timeline. She had been chasing Eternity across timelines for three subjective hours now. SARA had to stretch her computing capacity trying to calculate the potential space/time damage. They had gone from the last battle of the One Year War, to the Gryps War, to the Eve War, to the shattered world of the AW calendar, to the Cosmic Era twice, back to the UC era and a half dozen more.
Powering up her beam rifle, she swore that this was going to be the last time they would play this game. It would end here. Aiming for the silver figure of Eternity atop the Apsalus, she began firing lances of blue energy. And then she was reeling back in pain as her vision swam with red pain and it felt like a hot pike was being jabbed into her skull.
“nnnnnyahh! Psycommu system? It integrated that already? ARGH!”
Shiro was flying in long ballistic thrust jumps towards the Apsalus when the psychic attack hit him like an entire team of MS. However he was further away and didn’t get the worst of it. Through the haze of pain, Shiro stared up at his monitors as the zoomed in view showed the strange, spindly silver MS fired some sort of large missile from its back. With a snarl, Shiro pulled his triggers and fired everything his Gundam had. A hail of machine gun fire from the Ez8’s head vulcans, chest cannon and 100mm rifle arced towards Eternity and impacted harmlessly against the AI machine. It seemed to be a useless gesture, most of the shots wildly off target due to the distance, but it did serve to distract Eternity for a single moment, as the AI devoted a second to contemplate this insect. At that moment several things happened at once. The missile detonated into a seething miniature sun that began to suck everything and anything in the vicinity into it. With the moment of distraction, Aidan punched two buttons in the holo-cockpit, one to throw up a psy-shield, and the second to activate the Alternity’s special weapon. She was about to fire the weapon when an alarm alerted her to a weapon lock. She dodged to the side just in time to avoid a blast from the Apsalus’ Mega Particle Cannon. Unfortunately, this was exactly what Eternity intended. The Alternity caught a dozen blasts straight in the torso, flipping it over and causing it to crash into the ground. It didn’t stay there long as the undeniable pull of the massive space/time rift.
“All systems have crashed!” she snarled in annoyance, “ I’m going to kill those idiots for practically ripping of my Alternity’s design. Eternity knows exactly how to retune its weapons to disable me. Dammit it wasn’t supposed to end like this…” she said as her golden Gundam vanished into the rift. The last thing she saw was Eternity and the Apsalus vanished in a flash of light and crackling lightning.
-MSGC-
Shiro was running the Ez8’s thrusters at full throttle but he was still being drawn towards the massive energy fluctuation. Around him he could see Jet Core Boosters, Zeon MS, GM’s and Ground Battle Gundams tumbling through the air. His attention was fixed on the Apsalus. His only goal was to get to the mobile armor.
“Commander!” It was the voice of one of his teammates, Karen.
“AINA!” he screamed as Ez8 vanished into the rift.
The rift shrank down to something the size of a mobile suit’s head and floated there, crackling. Without warning, it detonated into an expanding, ring-shaped shockwave that arced up through the atmosphere and through the ground, ripping a mile-wide, mile-deep gash in the ground. And then all was quiet.
Chapter 3: Spaceship Graveyard
????
Amuro decided he wasn’t dead. He based this conclusion on the fact that if he was thinking about trying to decide if he was dead or not would be impossible if he was actually dead so he must then, logically, be alive.
Opening his eyes, which was an effort in and of itself, he found that he was still strapped into the cockpit of Gundam. The systems were down again, the view screens blank. Though his body felt completely drained, as if he had just gotten over a bad case of flu, Amuro reached over his right shoulder and pried open a small cover plate, revealing a single red button. He pressed and held the button until he could hear the familiar sounds of Gundam starting itself back up. One by one the various cockpit displays came back online and Amuro was immensely relieved when the screens came back on and he could look around him.
He appeared to be floating in the midst of a massive debris field. All around him the gutted hulks of long dead space ships floated amidst the background of stars. Amuro recognized several Federation and Zeon designs but many were only vaguely familiar or outright strange. There was one derelict with what looked like huge wheels attached to it! Directly above him, Amuro could make out a huge, beautiful nebula, much obscured by the floating hulks. Wherever this place was it was in a much denser region of space than where Earth’s solar system was located as the young Newtype could actually distinguish the color of the stars from one another. However, now was not the time to really be worried about where in the universe he was at, Amuro needed to see if he could raise White Base. He was just about to activate his comm when his threat system shrieked a warning. Twisting Gundam around, Amuro saw a green, Zaku-like MS flying straight toward him, beam rifle blazing (it was actually a Geara Doga). Dodging the shots with consummate skill, Amuro waited until the strange suit was right on top of him and then slashed out with a beam saber, cleaving the green MS in half. He had no time to rest as another red-colored MS (Galbaldy this time) came at him from below, Amuro opened up with his beam rifle this time, but had trouble hitting the MS. By the time he actually destroyed it, Gundam’s shield had a few new holes in its Luna Titanium armor. Glancing at his sensors, Amuro was shocked to see a huge cloud of green/friendly dots, red/enemy, and yellow/unknown dots flashing across the screen. Just what the hell was going on here?!
The debris field known as the Spaceship Graveyard was not so much like a graveyard anymore. As ships and MS across the field woke up, they did what most people would do in the given situation. They started shooting first and would ask questions later. A Gelgoog and a GM III came back online right in front of each other and simultaneously opened fire, killing each other instantly. A group of Virgo II Mobile Dolls formed a shield sphere with there deflectors and fired at anything that was warm and moving, blasting a few Zakus, GMs, Leos and Hizacks into space junk. A Zeon Musai-class cruiser traded broadsides with a Federation Clop-class cruiser. A team of Dra-C MS opened fire to little effect on an Earth Alliance Agamemnon-class battlecruiser. What began as a bunch of scattered skirmishes quickly evolved into an all out war, the most massive furball in history. And through it all, Gundams and mobile suits fought.
-MSGX-
Heero Yuy had been skirting the edge of the Graveyard, analyzing the situation when he spotted a white MS in the distance. Zooming the Wing ZERO’s cameras in on the suit he noted the strange, fin-shaped apparatus attached to its back and its familiar design aesthetic.
“Hn… a Gundam. One I don’t recognize.”
He was in fact looking at the Nu Gundam. Aboard Nu Gundam, an older Amuro Ray looked back at Wing ZERO, intrigued by the design of its angel-like wings.
“Wow, look at that. That’s definitely a Gundam, but I’ve never seen any MS with a design like that. Maybe I should contact the pilot and try to figure out just what’s going on here.” He was just about to reach for the comm panel when all hell broke loose. From Heero’s point of view, he saw an unknown MS (actually a ZAFT GuAIZ) was about to ambush the white Gundam from behind. Just like that one time with Duo, Heero aimed his Buster Rifle and opened fire, the massive energy beam flying right past Nu Gundam and annihilating the GuAIZ. Amuro took a slightly different view of the life saving shot, to wit, an attempt on his own life. Amuro responded by firing back with his own beam rifle. Heero dodged out of the way, cursing as he did so.
“Dammit, now he thinks I’m the enemy.”
To Heero’s surprise, the fins on the back of Nu Gundam separated and folded in on themselves and opened fire!
“Great, remote weapons. They seem to be something like the Mercurious’ and Virgo’s Deflectors but these shoot back.” In response, Heero leveled the Buster Rifle and fired another massive blast of energy. Nu Gundam’s fin funnels formed a protective I-field in front of the Gundam, shielding it from the worst of the blast.
“Damn!” cursed Amuro, “That’s one powerful rifle he’s got there. Unreasonably powerful. This is gonna be a difficult fight.”
The Wing Gundam ZERO and the Nu Gundam continued firing at each other, each attempting to take the other down. And so Amuro Ray, a Newtype pilot with a Psycho-Frame cockpit and Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier with the ZERO system cockpit, began to duel.
-MSGX-
Duo Maxwell decided that this was probably, no DEFINITELY, his most confusing day ever. One minute he and the others are fighting to stop the Libra from crashing into Earth and then all of sudden his Gundam is on the fritz, there’s funny looking MS flying around and then there’s all this white light and excruciating pain and he’s here. Right in the middle of yet another giant light-fight. Literally out of the frying pan and into the fire. Yep, this day was turning out to be a real fun ride.
Duo was a little mollified when he ducked under a piece of debris that may or may not have been a Core Fighter at one point when he saw a large MS that looked an awful lot like a Gundam swing a massive scythe down at a pair of MS. A Jegan had been trying to guide a crippled GM back to a Federation ship when the Forbidden GUNDAM spotted them and decided to terminate them. Swinging its massive scythe in a downward arc, the Forbidden cleaved through the two MS as if they were made of aluminum and not titanium/ceramic composite. It must have noticed Duo because it turned and shot straight towards him. Duo growled and powered up his Gundam Deathscythe’s Beam Scythe and thrusted towards the Forbidden. Duo’s swing missed as the Forbidden pilot backed off at the last second. As the two Gundams faced each other, Duo grinned.
“There’s only room for one God of Death in this universe buddy!” he said and then punched the throttles up to full, charging straight at the Forbidden, Beam Scythe raised to strike.
-MSGX-
Zechs Merquise or rather Milliardo Peacecraft as he was calling himself these days, was just as confused as Duo. He didn’t have a lot of time to stay confused however as he was almost immediately set upon by various MS of both mundane and fantastic descriptions. Even though he didn’t know it himself, he already scored kills against Zakus, GINNs, a Nemo, several Geara Dogas, some Den’an Zons, and 4 Jenice MS. The Beam Sword and Heat Rod of his Gundam Epyon were certainly a force to be reckoned with. He was just about to slice through another Geara Doga when a beam flashed past the Epyon’s head, a little too close for comfort. Zechs turned to face his new challenger and saw a violently red MS headed straight for him, rifle spitting lances of yellow light at him.
Char Aznable, once known as Zeon’s famous ace, the Red Comet, was the pilot of that MS, known as the MSN-04 Sazabi. He didn’t know where the red Gundam had come from (like everyone else, he didn’t what was happening at all) but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it kill another one of his Neo Zeon pilots. Firing another few blasts from his beam shot rifle caused the red Gundam to dodge up and to the right. Char aimed and fired the Sazabi’s Mega Particle Cannon, tearing a line of hot energy across space which the Epyon almost didn’t dodge if it weren’t for a piece of handy space slag. Char smirked. It seemed this red Gundam was only armed with a beam sword and a heat whip-type weapon and that would make it vulnerable to his long range guns. That view was dispelled a moment later as the Epyon curved around the debris and rocketed straight towards the Sazabi. Char tried to dodge, but Zechs anticipated his move and swung the heat rod up, catching the Sazabi on its right leg. The blow wasn’t serious enough to knock the suit’s leg off but it did dent and scorch the Gundarium armor plating. Char tried to flip forward to blast the Epyon with the Mega Particle Cannon, but Zechs curved around behind him and nearly sliced the Sazabi’s Funnel racks off.
“This pilot is good, perhaps as good as Amuro. All right then, no more games,” said Char. The two pods on the Sazabi’s back opened, realizing the six can-shaped funnels. The remote Newtype weapons immediately oriented on Zechs and opened fire.
-MSGX-
Kamille Bidan in the Zeta Gundam and Emma Sheen in the Gundam mk. II were in the thick of the fighting. They had been fighting with a squad of Marasais but these had then been shot down by a group of Virgos. They had been having a hard time with the Virgos until they had wandered right into a three way melee between a group of ZAFT GINNs and GuAIZ MS, Zeon Zakus, Rick Doms, and Gelgoogs, and Earth Alliance Moebius MA’s and Strike Dagger MS.
“Kamille I think we’re in trouble!” said Emma. The Zeta and the mk. II were flying back-to-back, firing at any MS that dared to come close.
“Really? I hadn’t realized!” Kamille shot back, trying to fire at a fast moving Taurus.
“We need to get out of this, we need to find where the Argama is,” Emma responded, resolving later to have a word with Kamille about snarkiness over the comm. If any of them were still alive by then.
A group of Rick Doms fired their bazookas at some Strike Daggers. The Dagger pilots wisely decided to take cover behind some floating debris. The rounds struck, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. A huge chunk of debris went flying towards Emma and Kamille who were forced to dodge. Emma pulled up, firing her beam rifle at an oncoming ReGelg. The ReGelg dodged to the right, straight into the guns of a Daughtress. Emma’s shots traveled on and nearly struck the MBF-02 Strike Rouge GUNDAM, piloted by Cagalli Yula Athha. Cagalli immediate oriented on the shots and fired her own rifle at Emma. Growling at this new development, Emma attempted to arc around some debris, hoping the pilot would forget her and find easier targets. Cagalli is the tenacious type though, and wasn’t about to let someone who’d just shot at her get away.
Kira, in his Freedom, had been flying alongside Cagalli called to her over the comm.
“Cagalli wait! Don’t get separated!”
“Don’t worry about me Kira. Watch your own back,” shot back Cagalli.
Emma’s threat alarm shrieked as green bolts flashed past her. Twisting around, she saw the Strike Rouge headed straight toward her.
“Tenacious aren’t we?” she rhetorically asked the oncoming MS, aiming her beam rifle and opening fire,
Kira would have followed Cagalli but a Virgo II distracted his attention. Quickly realizing that his beam rifle was useless against its shield, he drew one of his beam sabers and lunged forward, ducking under the Mobile Doll’s beam cannon and stabbing it in the torso. At the exact same time almost directly across, Amuro Ray had been firing at a Hizack. In a strange twist of converging events, a flailing Mahiroo crashed into the Hizack and knocked it out of the way at the same moment that Amuro pulled the trigger. His shots flew through the space where the Hizack had been and grazed the Strike. Kira immediately turned and fired back with his vulcans, Amuro’s Newtype reflexes being the only thing that saved him. Barely dodging Kira’s volley of beam blasts, Amuro flew towards the Strike, dodging up, down, and around to avoid being fatally hit even though a few blasts scarred Gundam’s armor. Closing to beam saber range, Amuro activated one of the beam blade weapons and slashed at Kira who blocked with his own saber. As Amuro Ray and Kira Yamato crossed blades, the Graveyard continued to tear itself apart as people who had been thrown into an unknown situation fought savagely for their very survival.
-MSGX-
Floating inside the hangar of a ruined Irish-class AEUG warship, the golden form of the Gundam Alternity bumped against the wall and began floating in the other direction as dictated by the laws of physics. Within the shell of the advanced, futuristic Gundam, the only person who could stop the battle now raging in these strange doldrums lay unconscious, oblivious to all.
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