Muruta Azrael raised an eyebrow, looking completely indifferent.
"Forget it, it's all the same. Since they've shown up here, they'll meet the same end as the Orb Union. Why bother worrying about them? Send the three of them out."
"Yes, sir!"
As he spoke, Azrael walked over to the seat beside the captain's chair and sat down, mindlessly fiddling with his hands.
On an aircraft carrier positioned near the front of the combat zone, the Mobile Suit bay doors creaked open. Giant Mobile Suits began to deploy from the deck.
Alarms blared inside the cockpit of the Barbatos, which had just landed on the fourth aircraft carrier. Mikazuki frowned slightly, stepping on the pedals as the thrusters flared, lifting him off the carrier's deck.
Whoosh!
A railgun round tore through the space he had occupied just a moment before, plunging into the sea.
"Are those... Mobile Suits?"
Mikazuki saw three Mobile Suits approaching from the distance. That last attack had come from one of them.
"Guys I haven't seen before. Whatever, I'll just finish them off first."
Lifting his left arm, he aimed the mortar forward.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Three shells streaked toward the three units, forcing the tightly knit formation to break apart.
"Hahaha! Is that the one? Hey, Shani, Orga! That unit is my prey!"
(Translator's Note: Because the pilot of the Calamity Gundam in the Three Biological CPUs shares a name with the leader of Tekkadan, I've used a phonetic variation for Orga here. He isn't exactly a major character anyway.)
Orga Sabnak gave a cold snort. "Suit yourself. Hey, Shani, get me to the ground."
"Go by yourself," Shani Andras replied with a gloomy, eccentric tone.
Orga shouted back in annoyance, "What was that? You bastard, if I could fly, would I even need you? Stop talking nonsense and get me down there now, or I'll kill you first!"
The GAT-X131 Calamity Gundam piloted by Orga was a ground-use unit with no independent flight capability. Consequently, it usually moved by standing atop the Raider Gundam while the latter was in its Mobile Armor mode.
These three units had been developed specifically to counter the four Gundams stolen by ZAFT, and their performance far exceeded that of the original five units from Project G.
Take the Calamity, for instance. Simply put, it was similar to the Buster Gundam, categorized as a long-range support Mobile Suit that focused on heavy firepower from a distance.
However, it was significantly more powerful than the Buster. Its armor utilized the latest Trans Phase Armor (TP Armor), an evolved version of Phase Shift Armor.
While standard Phase Shift Armor indicated its activation through color and reverted to gray when deactivated, Trans Phase Armor only powered up at the moment of impact. This allowed the unit to conserve a massive amount of energy.
That saved energy could then be diverted to high-consumption beam weaponry. The only real drawback was the one mentioned beforeit couldn't fly.
Eventually, the Calamity was carried to the land by the Forbidden Gundam. Mikazuki narrowed his eyes. As the Raider closed in on him, he stowed his mace and pulled the Sword Mace from his back.
A single sweep of the bladeBang!
"Agh!"
The Raider's pilot, Clotho Buer, let out a scream as the powerful impact rattled him. His unit immediately reverted to Mobile Suit mode.
"You bastard! Die!"
The Raider's mouth housed a 100mm energy cannon, which erupted with a massive burst of crimson energy.
"Annoying. Get lost!"
Mikazuki didn't even try to dodge. He allowed the beam to slam into the Barbatos, staring through the glare as he closed the distance to the Raider.
"What?"
Clotho's exclamation was cut short as the Barbatos brought the Sword Mace crashing down on his unit's head, sending it tumbling into the ocean.
"Mika! Get back here and help! The local units are swarming the Archangel!"
Glancing back at the Archangel, Mikazuki landed on the Pacific Fleet carrier again. He smashed his sword into the bridge before taking off once more.
With four warships destroyed by the Barbatos, the pressure on the Orb fleet fighting the Pacific Fleet finally lessened.
However, shortly after the Barbatos left, the Raider erupted from the sea. Half of its head had been mangled beyond recognition.
Inside the cockpit, Clotho's face was twisted in a ghoulish mask of rage, his head covered in blood beneath his helmet.
"Bastard! I'm going to kill you! I'll kill you!"
Aboard the flagship of the Earth Alliance Pacific Fleet, Muruta Azrael, the leader of Blue Cosmos, found his gaze fixed on the Barbatos again. His expression was grim.
"That machine actually blocked a beam head-on and trashed the Raider like that... What exactly is it?"
The Supreme Commander of the Pacific Fleet, who also served as the flagship's captain, glanced at Azrael and spoke.
"Word is that even the legendary Creuset Team of ZAFT was no match for it. The Archangel's safe journey from Heliopolis all the way to Earth is entirely thanks to that unit. Its origins and name are a total mystery. We only know that the ZAFT military gave it a codename."
"A codename?"
"The Wolf."
Azrael narrowed his eyes, a smirk playing across his lips once more.
"The Wolf, huh? Interesting. Then... what about that unit with the wings?"
The Commander followed Azrael's gaze to the screen displaying the Freedom Gundam and shook his head. "Never heard of it. Is it a new unit from Orb?"
"No... performance like that is beyond Morgenroete's capabilities, no matter how skilled they are. It might be a ZAFT machine, or more likely..."
Azrael's eyes gleamed with a strange, eerie light.
The Commander's pupils shrunk as he gasped, "A nuclear drive?"
The crew members turned in confusion toward their commander. He cleared his throat.
"It's nothing. Continue the operation!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Report! Unknown signal detected at seven o'clock!"
On the other side, as Mikazuki was preparing to return and support the Archangel, an alarm flared in his cockpit. A signal appeared on his radar.
"Hmm? This is..."
"Mikazuki... Augus!"
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