Chapter Eighty-Four: The Queen Unit and the Great Han Cavalry

It seems General Halbaton is prepared to pay any price to bring that thing down onto Earth. And yet, having reached such a point, he still insists on hiding it.

Kei, aboard the Wesalis, folded his fingers and gazed thoughtfully at the battle erupting before him.

"If the assault team does not sortie, won't things become even easier for us?" Captain Addis asked in confusion. With the battlefield so heavily in their favor, why did Kei sound faintly worried?

"With only warships and mobile fortresses, they are already completely unable to contend with us. And he has recognized that..." Kei gave a soft laugh. "A fine general. He was the one who first ordered these things to be built."

Kei understood perfectly well that Halbaton hoped to preserve the new warship and the Assault unit. The original development plan for the G-Weapon X series machines, these five creations that had transcended their era, had first been championed by him.

"Then at least let us prove your judgment correct through this war," said Kruz, the fires of countless explosions reflected in the surface of his mask.

"Got it!" In its assault form, the Aegis clamped down hard on the prow of a warship, then fired a volley from its multi-phase gun. The ship's bow was blasted to splinters, and the vessel fled in panic.

The Aegis Gundam, piloted by Aslan, shifted fluidly between its S and A forms across the battlefield. Enemy ships and enemy machines were scarcely any match for it; they were either crushed into scrap by its four steel claws or shredded to fragments by its multi-phase gun. The red figure darting freely through the battlefield gave, for a moment, the illusion of the Red Comet. In truth, that was not far from the mark: the Aegis had originally been designed for use by commanders, and so its head was fitted with a larger sensor array, namely the horns, or antennae. Combined with its red paint scheme activated under PS armor, it was, quite literally, a machine of red and three.

"Taken!" The Antigonos of the Eighth Fleet was pierced clean through the main control room by a prow anchor that had appeared from nowhere.

The Blitz Gundam, piloted by Nicole, possessed the Mirage Colloid system, and he fought like an assassin, flickering in and out of sight on the battlefield. He specialized in striking warship control rooms and weapons supports. By the time the Alliance saw him appear, the exploding anchor hurled into their faces was the last thing they would ever see.

And perhaps because of that depraved bastard October from before, this innocent piano boy had gradually begun to darken. The sight of blood and flame in the destruction of enemy ships excited him, and a warped smile had begun to creep onto his lips. October, just what in the world did you do to Nicole before you died, you and your lover-brother?

"Take this!" The Storm Gundam joined its 94mm high-energy beam rifle and 350mm rocket launcher together, forming an ultra-high-pulse long-range sniper rifle. It fired once at a warship a kilometer away, and the ship instantly became a sieve.

The Storm Gundam, piloted by Diego, was the longest-range machine among this generation of G-Weapon units, and also the one with the greatest firepower. Lacking any close-combat means and any strong fire-support role, its place on the battlefield was to stand behind its allies and fire cold shots. Conveniently, Diego himself was the sort of low-key, shameless rogue who reveled in such things; his later, unhesitating surrender was proof enough that he loved sniping from the shadows. Pilot and machine were perfectly suited to one another, an ideal match. From that day on, Diego set foot upon the promising one-way road known as sniper.

The battlefield collapsed in total rout, and all this was caused by only three G-Weapon units, a handful of disposable ZAKUs, several Nasca-class ships and Loraicia-class ships that were little different from transport vessels, while the foreign reinforcements never made a move at all.

General Halbaton, your judgment is correct. It is only the timing that is catastrophically wrong.

The instigator himself was drenched in cold sweat aboard the Eighth Fleet's flagship.

"Sellux has been hit, and is combat ineffective!"

"Cassandra has lost signal!"

The first page.

"Antigonos and Boutremius have been sunk!"

"Only six minutes since the battle began, and we've already lost four warships?" Hoffman, in his spacesuit, sprang to his feet in shock, his face full of disbelief.

General, how do you feel now?

"Enemy ships, Nasca-class approaching! The enemy is targeting Sellux and Cassandra!"

"What?"

The two warships retreating toward Earth were pierced through by innumerable beams. The fatal blows came from the 120-centimeter single-barrel high-energy beam cannon of a Nasca-class vessel, blasting straight through their hulls and carving out two enormous cavities.

Under the pull of gravity, the wreckage of the warships was falling toward Earth. There was no hope of survival for the soldiers aboard them, and certain regions of Earth were about to be afflicted as well.

"Aslan is too naive. If we go too easy on them, those people will simply take up arms again and join the fight against us." Clearly, the order to attack the withdrawing fleet had been given by Kruz.

"Still, Nicole's change really is dramatic. If it were the old him, he would have shown more mercy. In any case, this kind of change is a good thing for a soldier." Kruz found it strange. Just what had caused that innocent boy to change so drastically?

"Achoo!" A burly man slammed his head into the instrument panel from the force of the sudden sneeze. "Damn it!"

A silver-white streamlined S-type machine emerged from the void, its rounded contours utterly unlike the G-Weapon units on the battlefield.

Its abrupt appearance brought the nearby battlefield to a five-second silence, after which countless beam missiles swarmed toward it.

"Fool!" The burly man's eyes flashed red, and strange purple light began to flicker across the interior walls of the cockpit.

The silver-white machine's shoulders—those broad shoulder pieces, each about half the size of the body itself, much like the guards on Vegeta's battle armor—rose slightly. Then, from its tail fins, it suddenly released several small remote devices. These little floating units could fire beams comparable to a beam rifle, shooting down the incoming physical rounds one by one. The remaining beam attacks were all absorbed by the purple light that the machine suddenly unleashed.

At once, part of the battlefield's attention was drawn to it.

"Since I've been discovered, I'll just have to force my way in!" Within the silver-white machine sat the real October First, Junxun, the long-missing Zaftra faction player.

The machine: Modified Kyubey
Player-exclusive machine of October First, Junxun

Attribute: P14260
Attack, defense, mobility, movement: 7
Terrain affinity: space, ground, water
Equipped weapons: dual-purpose beam cannon (beam saber, beam cannon), funnel cone cannons
Special skill: Mirage Colloid system beam interruption (spending 10 EN activates a special field that blocks all beam attacks for 5 seconds. Afterward, the skill enters a 5-minute cooldown and cannot be used.)

This scenario is titled "SD Gundam G Generation: Overworld." This world has a very interesting mechanic: every machine possesses an ability called Development. Once a machine reaches a certain level, it can be developed into a higher-tier machine or an original machine.

This machine was developed after Emu was upgraded to level 4. Combined with the Mirage Colloid data stolen by October First, its load was reduced and its overall mobility improved. Paired with his own innate talent, it was practically a heavier, more long-range version of Hell Death Gundam.

All of this work had been done at the scrap merchant's place, personally modified by Ro Coul, who also made copies of several machine data files along the way.

"Black Wing Samurai... Black Flame Dragon!"

P.S.: The one who has abandoned all restraint: idling around, keeping a low profile, and lurking beneath the surface.

P.S. 2: In this chapter, Kyubey appears, and I even complained about Vegeta's shoulder guards. So tell me, in which anime manga about romance did the shoulder-guard design outshine the characters themselves? You may answer in the comments. I want to see how many readers think the same way I do.