PHASE 2: G.U.N.D.A.M.

Onogoro Island, Orb's military base, 2.15 p.m.

The smoke cleared off and standing on what was once a hangar, now a pile of boulders was two grey mobile suits. Both of the robots look similar in terms of appearance.

"Wow, this is just like what the captain had told us, Lilliana," Rosé said excitedly while looking around, admiring the technologies and computers in the suit's cockpit. "Hey Lilliana, did you hear me?" She asked frustratingly when her sister did not reply.

Lilliana was busy altering the Operating System in her suit as she ran through the keyboards with amazing speed with her fingers. "Indeed it is," she replied coldly and looked at the monitor which reflected herself in her now bloodied white Lolita dress.

Moments ago, the two sisters sneaked away when the others' attention was onto the video. The video was part of their plan to sneak into the hangar which contained the mobile suits that she and her sisters were tasked to hijack. Although the maintenance workers did put up some resistance, they were reduced to mere corpses mercilessly by the two.

Before Rosé could give Lilliana a remark, their monitor beeped. "What?" she asked herself and looked at the monitor which showed three approaching mobile suits. The ground then shook a little as the three suits landed.

Rosé looked at the monitor then at the display screen in front of her. Carefully, she observed the three mobile suits that just landed.

Standing in the lead of the other two suits is one of the Orb's mass-produced transformable mobile suits that can morph into a fighter jet mobile armour, the MVF-M11C, Murasame. The Murasame's right hand held a beam rifle while its left hand held a shield which is also the unit's head when transformed into its mobile armour form. A beam saber is mounted onto the left side of the unit's hip armour.

Standing behind the Murasame is two of Orb's other mass-produced suits, the MBF-M1, M1 Astray. Unlike the Murasames, the M1-Astrays was Orb's first ever mobile suit produced to be put into service during the first Bloody Valentine war. Although lacking the feature to transform into a mobile armour, just like its more advanced unit, the Murasame, the M1-Astray is also equipped with a beam rifle, a long shield that could cover the entire unit's body and two beam sabers mounted onto their backpack that functioned as a booster.

"Hey, who's piloting the relics from the previous war?" the sound of a male came out from the Murasame's external speaker as it trained its beam rifle onto them. The two M1-Astrays behind it did the same while covering half of their metallic bodies with their shields.

"Identify yourselves or we will treat you as hostile," the pilot in the Murasame added.

No response from the two grey mobile suits.

"Hey Lilliana, you want to test out the suit's capabilities first behind handing it over to SIREN?" Rosé asked through video contact with Lilliana.

"Ah," Lilliana nodded to her sister's proposal and pressed a red button that was located at the left side of the main display screen. Rosé did the same and pushed the same button located at the same place.

A pair of yellow and green lights flashed before a wave of colours sweep through the two grey suits. A wave of red and pink filled the dull colours of Rosé's mobile suit, turning her grey suit into a red mobile suit. The same thing happened with Lilliana's suit albeit a different scheme of colours; a set of white, red, yellow and blue coloured her once grey mobile suit.

"Shit!" the pilot of the Murasame took this as a hostile intent and raises his beam rifle.

But the reaction time was slower than Rosé who charged forward first with her red mobile suit and took out a pair of daggers from the hip compartment of her suit. The two M1-Astrays could barely react as they watched Rosé thrust the dagger into the cockpit of the Murasame.

The pilot screamed and gurgled in his own blood before falling silence as the mobile suit limped; his dying moments broadcasted through his suit's external speakers. The red mobile suit dislodges the dagger and looked over to the other two Orb mobile suits with its green menacing eyes as the inactive Murasame falls down to the ground.

Lilliana, with the help of her suit's thrusters, dashed towards the M1-Astray on the left while taking out both the daggers from the white suit's hip compartments and sliced the suit's beam rifle in half before it can even train it and fire. She then spun her unit around and impaled the M1-Astray's torso with the dagger. The mobile suit would share a similar fate with its leader.

Trying to catch the white mobile suit off-guard and avenge his comrades, the remaining M1-Astray dashed towards Lilliana. The pilot tosses his rifle aside and took out his beam saber only to have his suit's right arm sliced off by the Rosé.

"Girls don't like rude men you know," Rosé smirked, looking at her crippled enemy take a step back.

She then tackles the Astray to the ground and stood over it. The red mobile suit held its dagger with both hands over head and is about to stab her downed prey but before she could go for the kill, the alarm in her mobile suit beeped.

The two girls inwardly thanked their enhanced reflexes as they side-stepped and avoided a line of beam that zipping pass the two mobile suits.

"Who was that?" Rosé grunted as she scanned her monitor for the one who just fired at her and her sister while adjusting her unit. She then looked over to her sister's white mobile suit.

"Lilliana, did you see who shot at us?!"

"My radar is showing no reading," Lilliana replied while scanning around for the source where the beam came from.

"Where are you…?" Rosé hissed underneath her breath.

Kyle brought his unit's beam rifle down after firing a warning shot to the two mobile suits, barely preventing one of them from killing the pinned-down M1-Astray.

"All energy redirect back to the suit's weapons," Kyle said behind his black flight-suit and the computer beeped. "Relieve outer Mirage Colloid particles," the computer beeped again and the cockpit hummed into live as all the monitors and screens lighten up.

A set of words were then displayed onto the monitor in front of him.

Generation
Unsubdued
Nuclear
Drive
Assault
Module

A pair of blue light flashed.

"Kyle Tsui, Strike-R Gundam, beginning mission," a hissing sound was heard as the image of a black mobile suit kneeling down on one knee slowly became visible. The Strike-R stood up, blocking the sun light with its black metallic armour.

The new mobile suit resembles the other two with its notable difference being its larger shoulder armour and eye colour. Compared to the other two units, the Strike-R's back is equipped with a backpack with bigger thrusters, signifying its more powerful boost.

"Targets confirmed; GAT-X105 Strike and MBF-02 Strike Rouge. Strike-R, engaging in combat with the stolen mobile suits," Kyle said and the alarm rang almost immediately. He brought up his unit's anti-beam shield that covers a majority of its body when the Strike and the Strike Rouge fired its Close-In Weapon System installed on both sides of the unit's head at him.

Moving its shield aside, the Strike-R trained its gunblade; a unique mid-range weapon that can transform from a beam rifle into a blade. The two units would dash away as the black mobile suit fired a few shots at the them.

Rosé grunted as she landed her Strike Rouge just as Lilliana did. "I don't know who you are or what you want but you will regret firing at me and my sis," she hissed deadly and dashed her unit to the front and brought both the Strike Rouge's daggers up.

Anticipating a close-range attack, the Strike-R prepared itself to engage the red mobile suit. In a series of mechanical turns and slides, the gunblade's body opened like a pair of jaws and reveals a blade sliding outwards before locking it in place. The final transformation has the handle of the rifle swivel into the grip of a blade.

A wing-like yellow light burst out of Strike-R's booster as it dashed to the front with the blade brought back. Sparks burst when the two mobile suit's weapons clashed together. The Strike Rouge's power was proved inferior to its black counterpart when the Strike-R easily threw its crimson adversary's daggers away from its hands. Kyle then swung his unit's shield outwards and smashed the Strike Rouge away.

Before he could follow-up with another attack, the alarm in Kyle's unit blared and he stepped on the pedal and pulled the handle to the back to bring his unit dashing backwards and avoided a line of beam that barely zipped pass him. Kyle turned his unit around and saw the Strike standing there with a stolen M1-Astray beam rifle in its hand.

The white mobile suit sent another barrage of beams out from its beam rifle only to have the Strike-R avoid all the beams with finesse. She grunted frustratingly and again sends another barrage of beams to her adversary who avoided them all while closing the distance between them.

When Kyle was close enough, the Strike thrusts its dagger which it held in its left hand. Kyle already anticipated this and brought his unit low just in time and brought the Strike-R's shield up vertically to stop the white mobile suit's movements. He then made a low swing upwards with his blade only to cut the Strike's beam rifle in half instead when the white unit dashed away at the last second.

"What is with this mobile suit?" Lilliana grunted while struggling to adjust her unit as it landed roughly.

Kyle dashed towards the Strike after the beam rifle that he split into two exploded. He quickly halted and jumped back when a rain of missiles came showering at his unit from above, separating the black mobile suit from its white adversary. Kyle looked over to the radar and saw a few incoming mobile suits.

Probably reinforcements… He thought to himself and looked back over to the two Gundams when the alarm in his cockpit ran again. The two Gundams took this to their advantage and fired the CIWS to Kyle who brought up his mobile suit's shield and reflected all bullets away.

"Lilliana, let's retreat," Rosé's voice came from the speaker in Lilliana's cockpit. "We'll let the others handle him; we'll be in deep trouble if the mobile suits are damaged any further."

"Roger," Lilliana replied flatly

The two units' booster came to life as they slowly ascend from the ground and flew away from the battlefield, emptying the ammo in their CIWS to cover their escape.

"Trying to escape?" Kyle shouted and was about to pursue them when another rain of missiles came falling from above again, forcing him to cover his unit's body with its shield.

"Did I get him?" a young man asked to himself after firing a barrage of missiles from a pair of wing-like booster jetpack that his mobile suit is equipped with.

Having a deep lavender colour platting for their chest and red for their torso, the entire mobile suit is in grey excluding their black joints. Their head resembles a safety helmet with an antenna sticking up on its right and instead of having separated eyes, their vision cameras are somehow connected and greatly resembles a visor.

The grey mobile suit carried a beam rifle and a slightly large shield; a beam sabre can also be seen on both sides of the hip armour. Equipped on the back of the mobile suit is a wing-like booster jetpack, the Jet Striker. Built to increase the unit's mobility, the Jet Striker also comes with four missile-pods with two on each side for offensive purpose.

"Careful, you might hit Ms. Rosé and Ms. Lilliana," an older man said and drove his mobile suit that differs from the other men to the front of a total of 7 similar mobile suits, signifying his higher rank among the other 7 mobile suits.

His mobile suit is almost similar to the other 7 mobile suits if it wasn't for its blue colour body platting rather than a deep purple body platting and its white body colour instead of grey. A pair of 'V' fin under a diamond shaped protrusion is located on its forehead and not to mention its improved thrusters installed everywhere. Just like the other 7 dark lavender mobile suits, the improved unit is also equipped with the Jet Striker backpack.

"Alright, you know your tasks. We will assist the ground forces and provide them a distraction to escape," said the captain as he turned his unit around and received a 'Yes, sir,' from the other 7 mobile suits. At that, they begin to descend.

"Let's see how many mobile suits we can capture…" The captain trailed. "All for the perseveration of our Blue and Pure World!"

The team of mobile suits dispersed when a few lines of beams zipped pass through them.

"What?" one of the pilots shouted while struggling to stabilize his unit in mid-air. A black mobile suit that looked like it had wings dashed past them and flew to the sky. "The missiles didn't work? What strong armour!"

"Now is not the time to be praising others!" the captain shouted and aimed his unit's beam rifle to the sky after avoiding another line of beam that came from the sky, the shooter camouflaging itself in the blinding sunlight.

"It's only one unit; all squads proceed to 'O' formation and shoot that damn thing down!"

As ordered, the squadron of 8 mobile suits formed an 'O' shape around and began blindly firing upwards.

"Captain, the sunlight is blocking us. We can't see the enemy," one of the pilots grunted and sent a few shots of beams to the sky, unsuccessfully hitting their target.

"Continue shooting," the captain barked back at his men.

Using the sunlight as cover, Kyle carefully observes the new squadron of enemy mobile suits as they take potshots at him from below.

"Enemies confirmed; seven units of GAT-02L2 Dagger L and one GAT-04 Windam. Strike-R, beginning to wipe out the enemies," he said in a flat tone.

After blocking a beam with his shield, the Strike-R dashed downwards towards the enemy mobile suits. The speed of the black mobile suit closed the distance at the blink of an eye as he transforms his gunblade into blade mode.

With an outward swing, the Strike-R slices through a Dagger L in a hit-and-run fashion. It then quickly flew around and struck another grunt mobile suit across the torso as the first Dagger L explodes.

"Scatter out!" yelled the captain piloting the Windam. The remaining mobile suits break formation to prevent themselves from being easy target for their black adversary and begin firing at Kyle after gaining distance from him.

As the Strike-R avoid getting hit, a Dagger L draws its beam sabre and dashes towards the former. The grey enemy mobile suit swings its sabre at Kyle who then parries it away with ease with his blade. With the torso wide open and his quicker reflex, he follows up with a cut across the cockpit and is rewarded with a scream before an explosion.

Quickly reverting his gunblade to gun mode, he then accurately shoots a stray Dagger L in its torso as it was aiming its beam rifle at the black Gundam.

"Flank the bastard!" a furious captain yelled over the sound of his subordinate's mobile suit exploding into pieces. The three remaining Dagger Ls took their captain's order and moved into position; each taking the Strike-R's sides.

Two Dagger Ls begin firing and provide cover fire while the other dashes forward to engage the Strike-R in a melee. Kyle responded by dashing towards the leading Dagger L and slices off the arm welding the beam sabre with his blade as the latter was about to swing at him. He then spins his mobile suit around and kicks his disarmed enemy towards the line of fire of its comrade and would be cruelly shot by one of their own.

Not giving time for the pilot to grieve, Kyle aimed and sends three shots to his enemy; hitting the arm, chest, and torso of the mobile suit before it falls and explodes.

Realizing their dwindling numbers, the two remaining enemies begin sending a barrage of beams at the Strike-R who avoided them all with grace.

"What the hell is this mobile suit?" the captain in the Windam yelled in a mix of exasperation and fear, looking helplessly as the Strike-R dashes pass and cut down the last Dagger L and sends the mobile suit falling in a ball of flames.

The Strike-R turns around and stares down the remaining Windam as if mocking him; grease and oil trickling down the blade of his weapon as it was the blood of his fallen comrades.

The captain slams and tightly clenched fist onto the dashboard of his cockpit, seething in anger at how his men were slaughtered helplessly by this unknown enemy. They were given a task; it was supposed to just aid their ground forces in the attack to Orb's military bases and to steal the weapons there. While the primary objective has been achieved somewhat, the encounter with this unknown black mobile suit and the death of his men were unexpected.

Rage and vengeance getting the better of his judgement, the captain drew out his mobile suit's beam sabre and made a mad dash towards the Strike-R.

He thrusts the beam weapon forward.

Almost in superhuman reflex speed, the Strike-R dodged at the very last minute before the beam sabre could come into contact. Side-stepping, the black Gundam slices off the Windam's right arm with ease like hot knife through butter.

The Windam took a second to adjust and recover from the recoil only to have the tip of the Strike-R's blade pointing at him after adjusting. The captain shut his eyes, fully expecting to join his fallen comrades at the hands of this black mobile suit.

But the final blow didn't come.

Opening his eyes, the image of the Strike-R pointing its weapon at him greeted him. Rage once again taking over, the captain switches on the external speaker of his mobile suit.

"What the hell are you waiting for? Do it!"

The captain was welcoming death itself but there was no response; only silence, much to his annoyance.

"Who are you people?"

The question came as a surprise to the captain. Not only at the fact that the pilot of the black Gundam actually responded but also at how young the voice sounded like. Probably no older than twenty.

"Are you Blue Cosmos?"

"Huh?" the captain murmured, caught off guard with the question. Fear still in his system as he pieces the reply to that question in his mind.

"That archaic organization? No, we are not but I can't say I don't sympathize with their sentiments," the captain replied.

"…"

The captain noticed the response or lack thereof from Kyle. He continued on.

"Coordinators rapes the very natural order of humankind. Genetic modifications? Don't fuck with me. Who are they to defy God's creations? Yes, we are carrying out God's will. We carry out this holy war in His name. For the preservation of our blue and pure world!"

The captain felt a power surging through him as he continues his passionate rant and is empowered even more at Kyle's no response to it.

"We-," the captain tried to say before getting interrupted when an image popped out on the screen of the captain's monitor. He had difficulty making out the pilot's face as his helmet's visor was obscuring his face.

"Coordinators should not exist huh?" Kyle asked.

"Yes, that's right. The world doesn't need freaks of nature walking on it," the captain retorted.

There was a brief pause.

"Then why were we created?"

"What…?" the captain was confused by his opposite's emphasis on the word 'we'.

"Saying that Coordinators are a defiance of God's creation and yet Naturals played God in creating us to fight them; to fight your wars," hisses Kyle dangerously, his grip tightened.

"Kidnapping, drugs, brain experimentations; how are Naturals different than the enemy they claim to fight? How ironic that they play the noble hero façade while their hands are covered in blood or does that not count because we are the ones who pulled the trigger?"

The realization then hit; he finally understood what 'we' meant. The captain's hands began to shake violently again and sweats began to form on his face. He had heard of rumours from the first and second Bloody Valentine War where Naturals, driven into a corner by ZAFT and the Coordinators's vast superior technologies, mobile suits, and piloting skills, begin an underhanded practice and developed soldiers to offset the difference between Naturals and Coordinators via human experimentations.

"Don't tell me…"

"You know what?"

"…that you're…"

"The likes of you…"

"…you're an…"

"…should just…"

"…EXTENDED."

"D I E."

Kyle brings his head up, revealing his grey eyes darkened with unyielding rage yet sends spine-tingling chills to the captain and roots him onto the chair of his cockpit.

Paralysed with fear, the captain fought hard to move his hands. His Windam draws another beam sabre with his left hand and slashes blindly. At this point, it is fear that is moving the mobile suit.

The Strike-R dodges the uncoordinated attacks. As if toying with his panicking prey, the black mobile suit moves in and slices off the Windam limb by limb; starting with the left arm, right leg, and then the head unit.

"D-…devil, it's the devil!" The captain shouted in fear and curled into a ball within the Windam's cockpit, his body thrown around violently from his mobile suit being disarmed by the Strike-R.

The Strike-R then drives his gunblade into the cockpit; the enormous size of the blade thrust into the captain's body and crushes him within his cockpit-now-turned-coffin. The Windam's external speaker was still on as Kyle hears the combined sound of metal and flesh crunching, the captain's screaming forever silenced with the sound of blood gurgling.

The Windam deactivates and falls down. Kyle looks on coldly through the Strike-R'a blue eyes as the last enemy mobile suit explodes into a ball of flame before shattered parts of its body fall to the ground below.

A beep sounded in his cockpit and brought Kyle's attention onto the screen. It was an encoded message from Archangel.

"ANGEL HAS DESCENDED. RENDEZVOUS AT POINT-119."

The message reads.

Another beep sounded, this time it was an alarm. Kyle brings his attention onto the radar and spots three dots approaching his direction. It was the Orb military mobile suits approaching his location.

The black Gundam collapses its gunblade into a small structure and stores it on a mounting on its rear skirt armour. A pair of yellow wings of light spread from the Strike-R's booster as it flew away from the battlefield, leaving behind a trail of particles that looked like feathers.

Archangel bridge, 6.00 p.m.

The crew of the Archangel ship looked into the monitor as it was showing the news channel. A few hours had already passed after an epic battle that had just taken place in space. With all their mobile suits dispatched to the surface, the enemy space-ship didn't stand a chance against the legendary legged-ship, the Archangel.

After the one-sided battle, the Archangel descended onto Earth to meet up with their comrade in their hidden-base situated nearby the island nation of Orb.

The slide door slides open as Kyle Tsui appears on the other side of the door.

"Good work Kyle," Mia La Flaga greeted as the black-haired man entered the bridge of the battleship. "How are you feeling?"

"No problem," Kyle gave a nod in return, acknowledging Mia.

"Though we indirectly picked a fight with the terrorists and the whole world as well. After all, nuclear weapons are still prohibited," the blue-haired pilot of the Archangel said wryly from his seat, his hands behind his head.

Mia placed her index finger on her lips, "The news is on. Elaine, put the channel onto the main monitor."

The blonde-headed girl nodded and turned over to her monitor and swept her fingers on the keyboard.

"Thank you," the brown-haired captain then has her eyes glued onto the main monitor.

The theme song of the news channel would eventually bring all their attention to the monitor.

Orb Daily Network news studio, 6.00 p.m.

The ODN, or rather known as Orb Daily Network to the country, is the country's local news network. Their bravery and commitments in their jobs had always never failed to bring live coverage of any incident relating to the nation to be viewed worldwide.

A woman in her early thirties, sat behind a desk filled with papers scattered apart in front of a set of lights and the camera crews, signifying her rank as an anchor-woman. She had a pair of dark blue eyes and long curly golden hair that reached to her back. She wore a pink collared shirt under a black coat and a pair of slack pants. She also wore a pair of black high-heels shoes to match with her appearance.

"Tomoe, are you ready? We're getting ready to go live in 30," the cameraman said as he positioned the camera onto the anchor-woman who he referred to as Tomoe.

Tomoe nodded and arranged the scattered papers into one pile and placed it neatly in front of her. She then took out a make-up kit from her handbag and affirmed her appearance one last time. Abruptly, she placed her make-up kit back as the cameraman gave the signal of countdown before they went live.

"3, 2, 1," the cameraman signalled and pointed to Tomoe as the theme song for their news broadcast was played.

"Good evening everybody. I am Tomoe Kawasaki and you are watching ODN news," she introduced herself as always in a calm demeanour. "We bring you breaking news as terrorist attacks have been reported earlier today. The attacks were highly concentrated on Onogoro Island where Orb's military bases are located."

The director, who stood beside the cameraman, gestured to somebody. There was then a video-footage of the aftermath of the attack being played. Bodies of both civilians and military workers being lined up under a sheet of white cloth covering them was shown, blood and disintegrated body parts littered around the ground. Boulders that were once a part of a building scattered around the battlefield; some unfortunate vehicles were smashed into metallic pancakes.

"The reason for the attack was unknown. However, the terrorists were reported to have a large variety of Earth Alliance Federation mobile suits in their hands and a video-jack delivered earlier today before the attack alleges the terrorist's ties to Blue Cosmos. The Earth Alliance Federation had strongly denied of any relationship with the terrorist organization and strongly condemned the attack."

After that, another video-footage replaces the former, this time the setting shows a press conference. The representative of the Earth Alliance Federation stood proud against the flickering flashes from the cameras. With a strong influential voice, he protested at the suggestion of the terrorist attack being launched by the Earth Alliance Federation. There was then a thunderous applause being heard in the footage.

"Next on, we have a report of the sightings of an unknown mobile suit that helped retaliated the terrorists. No information was found regarding the mobile suits; the Earth Alliance Federation, Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty and Orb deny ownership of the mobile suits. We've acquired an on-the-scene footage from an anonymous source. We will now play the video-footage."

Tomoe then licked her dried lips as she rearranged the pile of papers in front of her. She could faintly hear the director asking one of the crews to play the video-footage. After that, a blurry and shaky video footage was played.

The video replays the attack that took place earlier in the day but only the latter part. The footage shows the Dagger Ls and Windam engaging in combat with a black mobile suit in the air. Engaging would seem like an overstatement as the video shows the Dagger Ls promptly being taken out by the unknown black mobile suit. The video ends with the black mobile suit utterly destroying the Windam before flying away from the battlefield.

Archangel bridge, 6.24 p.m.

"Wow, looking good there, Kyle," the blue haired man whistled while looking at the footage of the Strike-R in action. Kyle ignored it but the man had already expected it from him. After all, the young pilot has always had a mysterious persona given his relatively unknown background.

"I must admit," Mia trailed and placed her hand on her chin. "The mobile suit's abilities were beyond my expectations," she said with a proud smile implanted on her smooth features.

"Captain- I mean, Mia, Terminal have sent us a report of the attack," informs Elaine Elsman as she decodes an encrypted message on her computer terminal.

The blonde captain turned to the CIC officer, "What does it say?"

Elaine sweeps her fingers onto the keyboard to decode the message. The loading screen pops out with the progress of the decoding represented by percentage. At the speed of it, the encoded message appears to be long as it was taking some time for it to decode. The blonde CIC officer has a figurative sweat drop rolling down her cheeks, imagining piercing glances at her direction impatiently waiting for the message.

She would be saved by the concluding news that is still displayed onto the main monitor of the Archangel. Everybody, bar her, has their attention turned to the screen once again.

ODN news studio, 6.29 p.m.

"Well, that concludes the news for today. Please tune into ODN news next time for more updates, I'm Tomoe Kawasaki," the reporter concluded and stacks her notes neatly together before she looked into the camera again.

"Up next, we have a special programme coming up in conjunction with the eve of the century in the Cosmic Era calendar and also a special recap on the tragic incident that befell 10 years ago."

"The disappearance of Supreme Chairwoman of PLANT Lacus Clyne and Leader of Orb Representative Cagalli Yula Athha."

Archangel bridge, 6.30 p.m.

The mood in the room immediately turned sombre. The mere mention of the names Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Athha served them a fresh reminder of the dark incident despite it already being 9 years since their disappearance. The Eternal, Kusanagi, Strike Freedom, Infinite Justice, Akatsuki, and Impulse were among those that have perished. The Archangel was the only sole survivor from the incident but official report has it designated as MIA with the rest.

"We've spent years in space searching for them yet still no news," lamented Mia, pinching her temple as her shoulders sunk.

"The top guys from Terminal asked us back to Earth, maybe there's progress in the investigations? Come on, the latest attack in Orb could mean something!" The blue-haired pilot interjected, trying to brighten up the mood in the room.

"I do appreciate your optimism Steven," Mia replied with a soft smile and then turned to Elaine, "Speaking of Terminal, what is the content of the message that they sent?"

"We've just finished decoding the message…" Elaine trailed off, her fingers typing across the keyboard as her eyes scanned through the content of the message sent by Terminal.

"The attack on Orb Military base was not the only attack carried out. It was censored on mainstream media but Carpentaria base, Gibraltar base, Mahamul Base, and several smaller bases also reported a small-scale attack as well with minimum casualties. Terminal reported that the objectives of both attacks is unknown but multiple mobile suits from Orb and ZAFT were stolen."

Mia recalls that both the Strike Gundam and Strike Rouge Gundam, mobile suits used in the previous PLANT-Alliance war, was among those stolen in the attack earlier. Even with their intervention by deploying Kyle and his Strike-R Gundam ahead to Orb, they were unable to prevent the theft of the Gundams.

"ANGEL is to standby for further instructions on Earth and to investigate the whereabouts of the terrorist who we believe is still within the country and as well as ensuring cub is protected," Elaine continued reading the report on her computer.

All eyes are then onto Kyle.

"That means you have to go back to school," said Mia to Kyle, a small mischievous grin almost forming on her face.

"You lucky dog," chirped Steven.

"… Huh?" A dumbfounded Kyle muttered, much to the amusement of the rest of the Archangel crew.

"Man, I wish I could join you. Imagine all the pretty college girls," Steven groans as he threw an arm around Kyle's shoulder and jokingly pulled him into a lock.

"No way man, you'd be immediately reported to the police as that creepy old guy harassing all those girls," added the co-pilot who is a younger man in brown hair in his early twenties.

"I'm not that old!"

The crew burst into laughter except for Kyle.

Another beep from Elaine's computer pulled her ocean blue eyes back onto the screen, the blonde had to read the new message twice before her eyes opened widely at the new information.

"Mia, they've found him!"

"Shinn Asuka has been located."

TO BE CONTINUED…