The Jegan Type D and the Sinanju stood there in the midst of the battlefield, facing each other, indifferent to the surrounding houses and roads being struck by beams and the repeated explosions erupting around them.
"What is it? Is there something else you need to do? Vessel of Char's will."
Char looked at the Sinanju with great interest, questioning Roz Links.
Facing this "Amuro"—who had chased him through a shopping mall but now, while piloting an MS, claimed to be the vessel of his own will—Char was very curious to see what his next move would be.
He had to admit, however, that the Sinanju was a machine very much to his aesthetic taste; this "Amuro" clearly understood him quite well.
"You shouldn't exist in this era, and neither should I..."
Roz thought for a moment before speaking.
At this point, he really wanted to rely on the performance gap between the Sinanju and the Jegan Type D to capture the Char before him.
However, glancing at the current Kimberly offensive and the precarious defensive line of the "Mafty Army" as the Kimberly forces tightened their blockade, Roz decided that now was not the right time to capture Char.
Perhaps driven by his own personal curiosity as well, Roz really wanted to see what this decaying world would become under the actions of both himself and Char.
"But as the one he designated as the vessel of his will... I have an obligation to show you, and the world, the possibility of his will."
"Then let me, a ghost, see it—this possibility you speak of."
Char licked his dry lips and narrowed his eyes slightly.
As their conversation ended, the sound of an explosion suddenly tore through the sky.
The tail of a Federation sub-flight system was hit; trailing a plume of thick smoke, it wobbled through the air for a moment before crashing into a nearby parking lot.
The Gustav Karl it was carrying took the opportunity of the platform's destruction to descend from the sky, landing near the Sinanju.
The Gustav Karl raised its beam rifle and pulled the trigger at the Sinanju. A pinkish-purple beam erupted from the muzzle and streaked toward the suit.
Feeling a slight electric sensation in his brain, Roz raised his shield into the path of the beam.
An explosion bloomed against the shield, but the Sinanju's posture remained unchanged; even the paint on the shield was undamaged.
In the spirit of returning the favor, Roz raised the Sinanju's beam sniper rifle and pulled the trigger on the Gustav Karl in front of him.
Two yellow beams flew one after the other toward the Gustav Karl that had just attacked.
One yellow beam struck the Gustav Karl's right hand holding the beam rifle, instantly blowing the right forearm and the rifle into a heap of fragments.
Along with the explosion, the Gustav Karl's posture warped, and it uncontrollably lurched to the side.
However, it was a blessing in disguise; the remaining yellow beam struck the shield on the Gustav Karl's left shoulder, blowing it to smithereens.
Seeing this, the Gustav Karl raised its remaining left arm and aimed at the Sinanju.
Two grenades launched from the housing in the Gustav Karl's left forearm, streaking toward the Sinanju with the help of their propellants.
Roz pulled the trigger. The Sinanju's head-mounted vulcans began to fire, easily striking the two grenades that appeared "sluggish" in Roz's eyes.
As the two grenades were intercepted by the vulcans, two resulting explosions erupted; the soaring flames and smoke nearly obscured Roz's vision.
But in the next second, a Gustav Karl charged out from the fire and smoke, its remaining left hand holding a white beam saber high as it slashed toward the Sinanju.
Roz maneuvered the Sinanju to block the first strike with its shield, catching the attack right at the suit's wrist.
As the Sinanju exerted its strength, even a machine of the Gustav Karl's weight class was forced back several steps by the push.
Having gained a bit of maneuvering space, the Sinanju raised its shield.
Without even deploying the internal beam axes, Roz swung the left arm as if wielding a katar, slicing off the high-raised left arm and the head of this sole remaining Gustav Karl.
Even without using the built-in beam axes, the Sinanju's shield was sharp enough; at the very least, it had no problem hacking through an MS like a greatsword.
With the slash of the Sinanju's shield, the mid-air Gustav Karl also shifted direction under the force.
But a second later, the Sinanju's shield changed orientation and stabbed directly into the waist and abdomen of the Gustav Karl's wreckage, the red tip of the shield piercing straight through the back of the machine.
Accompanied by the sound of short-circuiting, brilliant sparks began to erupt from the Gustav Karl's body.
The Sinanju casually pulled its shield out of the Gustav Karl, allowing the wreckage to slump to the ground following the momentum of the withdrawal.
Ignoring the sparking Gustav Karl lying on the ground, the Sinanju's mono-eye shifted to the right side of its head monitor, glancing at the Jegan Type D piloted by Char, which had been watching the show this whole time.
Immediately following this, the thrusters on the Sinanju erupted with blue flames, and pale green light particles scattered from the engines.
"This is..."
Watching the green light particles appear within his own cockpit, Char's eyes widened slightly.
What were these particles? Why were they appearing inside his cockpit?
Before his questions regarding Roz could be answered, a new mystery had emerged.
He watched as the Sinanju charged toward the battlefield, which had long since fallen into total chaos, leaving behind only a trail of shimmering dots formed by the green light particles.
"...Since both the 'Second Coming of Char' and the 'Vessel of Will' have taken action, I, as the 'Ghost of Char,' cannot afford to be lazy either."
Char sighed, casually bestowing upon himself the title of "Ghost of Char."
After all, strictly speaking, the "him" of this world had died long ago; he was merely a fragment of his past self brought into this era. Being called a "ghost" was only fair.
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"Ugh... Mafty, there are too many of them!"
Gawman, piloting his Messer, slid behind a building using a hover-like movement.
In the spot where he had just been standing, several missiles detonated the moment he left.
With that level of fire density, even the Messer's heavy armor would have been stripped bare, if not destroyed outright.
Furthermore, for Mafty, their greatest strength had never been the "meat grinder" of a frontal engagement; they specialized in hit-and-run decapitation strikes behind enemy lines.
Now, however, the grinder formed by the Kimberly Force's frenzied assault had completely locked down their flanking tactics.
The moment they attempted to maneuver, the convoys would unleash a massive barrage of missiles at the Messers.
"We're going to be dragged to our deaths! Do something, Mafty!"
At that moment, Fencer, another Messer pilot, maneuvered his unit to intercept a beam shot from a Jegan Type D.
The Messers' shields had reached their limits. If this continued, it was only a matter of time before they were destroyed.
Hathaway grit his teeth. While piloting his Messer Commander Type to destroy a Jegan Type D, he began to rack his brain for a countermeasure.
'What do I do? What do I do...'
The sound of high-output thrusters roared in the sky. A blue-and-white "plane," carrying two Proto Fin Funnels, was raining down a massive barrage of suppressive fire upon the Kimberly Force.
Graham, piloting the Delta Gundam Kai, was well aware of his machine's armament. It was excellent for hit-and-run tactics, but it lacked the staying power for a battle of attrition like the one before him.
He might love closing in for melee combat, but that didn't mean he was a fool.
Just as Graham was starting to feel a headache coming on, four purplish-red beams and one yellow beam fell from the heavens, precisely destroying one Gustav Karl and three Jegan Type Ds.
The Sinanju descended from the sky. The rocket launcher slung under its beam rifle fired repeatedly; the rockets, already loaded with fragmentation warheads, burst in mid-air, the fragments creating "no-go zones" across the field.
One Jegan Type D failed to dodge in time. Its right shoulder and right leg were shredded by the fragments, sending it crashing to the ground.
Landing from above, the Sinanju stepped precisely onto the downed Jegan.
The Jegan's head monitor was crushed under the Sinanju's foot; severed lines sprayed hydraulic fluid, which began to pool on the ground.
Suddenly, a curtain of small missiles appeared in the sky, streaking toward the Kimberly Force's remaining MS.
Three ReZELs hovered in the air, utilizing their Defenser B-Units to pour out continuous fire, taking complete control of the airspace.
Directly in front of Gawman, a Gustav Karl that had been raising its beam rifle to fire was suddenly sliced apart. A ReZEL equipped with the Defenser B-Unit destroyed it from above using its twin shoulder-mounted Mega Particle Cannons.
The purplish-red beams acted like long, slender beam sabers, cutting the Gustav Karl into several pieces.
With the entry of the Sinanju and the high-altitude ReZELs, a breach was instantly torn into the previously deadlocked frontline.
"That's..."
Hathaway's eyes widened slightly as he looked at the ReZELs in the sky.
Even though the ReZEL model was getting on in years within the Federation, its tactical niche and performance meant it remained part of the Federation's first-tier MS lineup.
But the ReZELs before him clearly didn't belong to the Kimberly Force. And judging by their movements... were they "Full Frontal's" people?
Just who is he to be able to get his hands on machines like those... and as for Anaheim Electronics, giving such units to "Full Frontal"—have they lost their minds?
Hathaway naturally assumed that these ReZELs were aid provided to Roz by Anaheim.
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Sharing the same thoughts as Hathaway was Kimberly.
The appearance of the Delta Gundam Kai and the Sinanju had already sent his perfect operational plan spiraling into a total failure, leaving Kimberly's resentment boiling over. Furthermore, the thought that this might be secret aid from Anaheim Electronics made him even more frustrated.
At that moment, the Anaheim supervisor stationed with the Kimberly Force was using his communicator to contact the leadership at Anaheim.
Ever since the incident involving the "Modernization Upgrades of the Sazabi and Delta Gundam Kai," Anaheim's leadership had been in a state of confusion, constantly scouring the company's project logs to see which project team was responsible for these masterpieces.
But then, over the communicator, they heard a roar of fury from Kimberly.
"ReZELs?! You actually dared to sell those machines to them?!"
How could Kimberly fail to recognize the ReZEL Type Cs soaring through the sky?
Although their numbers were currently somewhat limited, they still held a vital place within the Federation military's tactical system.
And now, an active-duty model that hadn't even been phased out yet had appeared in the hands of the enemy.
Hearing Kimberly's roar, the Anaheim executives on the other end of the line felt a cold sweat break out.
While Anaheim usually moved a few machines under the table to aid anti-Federation forces to ensure "business stability"—and the Federation generally turned a blind eye—selling off active-duty units was another matter entirely. Which "genius" had done this?
They weren't ready to die just yet!
Kimberly looked at the panicked Anaheim supervisor and laughed in spite of himself, pushed to the brink by this wave after wave of "backstabbing."
His position was certainly forfeit now. His troops and MS had suffered heavy losses, and the blockade line he had maintained had been punctured by a single Mafty pilot in a Jegan Type D due to his own impulsive missile strikes.
Looking at the screens showing his devastated forces, Kimberly closed his eyes in pain.
"Order the units to retreat. We won't be taking this town today."
On the monitors, the troops who had been pinned down and unable to even lift their heads began to withdraw from the Oenbelli area without looking back as soon as they received the command.
As for the section of the blockade that Char had shattered with his Jegan Type D, those units retreated silently while the remaining teams adjusted their positions, doing their best to ensure that the blockade of Oenbelli remained in effect.
"...I lost this time, Mafty," Kimberly sighed, looking up at Oenbelli on the map.
"But next time, I won't be the one commanding the battle."
..................