Suzaku moved out with three teams of super soldiers and a small group of Cataphracts.
They didn't need to go far; they discovered an elevator that led underground. The facility was unguarded. In fact, it had no security whatsoever.
'This is wild. Is the South Pole completely abandoned in this world?'
A simple Legion overwrite was enough for the elevator to turn on, and the small army went down to the facility underground.
"...What the…"
The Gundam Force Knight's eyes widened as he saw rows and rows of GN drives, and at the back, there were lined up mobile suits.
"This is a military manufacturing plant!" He exclaimed in surprise as he looked at the soldiers
"Notify His Majesty! Tell him we found a treasure trove of stuff!!"
"Yes, My Lord!" One of the Commandos immediately contacted the Command Centre.
"Send in the stealth spaceships and collect the machines and the GN drives. We will find a purpose for them." Marcus replied to his soldiers.
"As you wish. Men on the double collect this military hardware." Suzaku immediately ordered the soldiers.
"Yes, My Lord!"
And so after a couple of hours, all of 30 GN Drives and the GN-X mass production units were moved to the Holy Byzantine Empire's military outpost.
They will be moved to Lagrange 3 R&D, where the Mobile Suit developing teams will play around with them.
On that note, Marcus sent a request to make a Gundam with one of these Red GN drives as he has a specific mercenary in mind to give it to.
He is thinking of hiring a 'local' to help him remove Celestial Being's stranglers and work as a handyman for Marcus.
This way, he won't need to reveal his ties with an Empire from a different reality.
A machine with GN tech is better in this situation.
~~~
"What do you mean, Team Trinity and THAT base went silent! Who could know about them!?" A light brown-haired man ranted into his phone as he just learned that he lost key important assets before the operations even started!
There is a third faction of some sort that knows about him!
"As I said, Mr Corner, Team Trinity is not reporting in, and the facility in Antarctica went silent just hours ago."
A man on the other side of the line said with a concerned tone.
'Damn it all! Who could know about my family plans!? Who could possibly leak!?'
None of that made sense. All of his allies are deeply invested in his plans; everyone has poured an enormous amount of money and time.
To pull something like this would be hard without his knowledge.
'I can't send a simple investigation group… there were 30 GN-X in that facility! It's a small army capable of fighting Gundams.'
'And I was so close as well.'
He gnashed his teeth before sending items flying from his table in sheer frustration. A certain assistant was looking at the current head of the Corner family, throwing a temper tantrum.
This was Ribbons Almark, an Innovade and one of the Veda's biological terminals.
Because of him, the Corner family was able to embed into Celestial Being to this extent. Even he was surprised that someone discovered their work and is now taking over.
It should have been impossible!
Yet this was only the beginning, as a certain empire is starting to squeeze this world from the shadows.
~~~~~~Year 2307 A.D~~~~~~
Two years were spent in the shadows to prepare for Celestial Being's grand reveal.
Out in the open was similar. Anaheim grew to the point that it became a manufacturing juggernaut that is producing the new Over Flags for the Union. At the same time, they make all manner of batteries, prosthetics, factory robotics, and AI chips.
With Union's help, Anaheim became a trillion-dollar company that is hard to ignore. While the military tech is only for the Union, the same can't be said about the civilian sector.
Things like prosthetics are widely available across countries, and the same goes for new civilian-grade chips. In a matter of two years, Marcus became Union's Golden Boy.
Marcus didn't even notice how quickly time passed as he was invited to a reveal of a new mobile suit just North of the AEU Space Elevator.
This machine's name was AEU-09 AEU Enact.
"To think that AEU would invite us." Graham fixed his tie as they were on the route to the military base for the grand presentation.
"AEU just wants to show us directly that they have what it takes to compete." Billy Katagiri was there as well, dressed in a suit.
"Is it? They had no scientific breakthroughs for the past several years. If they had something fascinating to keep their investors happy, they would have revealed at least some of the prototype technology." The blonde man ranted a bit. He feels that AEU is trying to brag with hot air.
"They most likely used some of the leaked Flag's data to build their 'new' Enact." He rolled his eyes before looking at Marcus, who was with his wife. They were looking through the window of the transport plane.
"What do you think, Commander?" Graham asked Marcus, who had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander of MSWAD.
It was a tactical move from the Union's High Command, which wanted to keep him tied to the Union. They all thought that he wanted a higher position. Which is not wrong, as he is climbing the ranking ladder.
"Hmm?" Marcus turned his gaze to the side and looked at Graham.
"You are not wrong. AEU was buying a considerable amount of Anaheim's stuff. Thinking that it would help them reverse engineer and make it into military grade." The Inventor Emperor casually shrugged.
"I predict we will be looking at a carbon copy of the Union Flag, not even the Over Flag." He said with a bit of bored tone.
The Lieutenant was a bit bored and tired; the past two years were pure grind for him. It reminded him of when he was waging war against his old man. He barely had any time to spend with his new son, named after the famous Roman General who had beaten Hannibal and brought Rome to a new age.
His son with C.C. was special; he knew it. Hell, he is a bit biased; all of his children are talented and crazy. His two oldest started attending a special elementary school. At the same time, his second daughter is starting to grasp letters and numbers.
Apart from family, his empire is unlocking Eezo's true potential. The Star Fortress project is full steam ahead.
His Empire was rapidly growing, as was his company in this reality; the only issue was that he barely had any downtime.
'And soon, I will see Exia in person.' Internally, he sighed as he wrapped his hand around his wife.
"Well, at least we will have a bit of amusement out of this." Graham leaned into his seat as he placed his hands behind his back.
He wants to see how much they copied the Union's Flag.
"I guess we will," Billy replied with a nod as he continued to read his book. It was on quantum science, a bit too much for Graham.
'Why do I have to be the one who doesn't have anything to do…' The blonde man complained to himself.
Marcus brought his wife, and now his attention was on her, while Billy was reading a book! It only leaves him!
'Ugh…'
~~~
A bit later, in a specially prepared arena, a light-green mobile suit was destroying set targets while showcasing its manoeuvrability.
It would swirl and flip as it shot the targets out.
"Huh, not bad," Graham commented as he watched this machine dance around the arena.
"It's nothing impressive, a literal Flag's copy," Billy added his two bits as he was certain now after watching the whole thing in person.
"Oi! I heard that!" The mobile suit looked at Billy.
"At least it has a good sound pick-up system." The brown-haired mobile suit developer's sweat dropped as he commented on Enact's pilot's behaviour.
Graham laughed at this as they saw a red-haired man getting out from the mobile suit's cockpit and starting to wave his hand angrily at Billy and the blonde Flag Pilot.
Marcus ignored all of this as he and Milly looked at the sky toward the Space Elevator.
'It's here.'
The Inventor Emperor looked with a slowly growing smirk. It has been two years since he saw a new Gundam.
He can finally see it in person, the GN-001 Exia, Aeolia Schenberg's ideology given physical form, that's what this machine is to Marcus. A machine he will add to his collection, just like the rest.
But, for now, Celestial Being has a mission to fulfil.
The mobile suit descended and landed smoothly, without a sound, beside Enact.
"Is that part of the demonstration?" Graham looked confused.
"Enact! Do you read me, Enact!?" One of the AEU officers tried to contact the new AEU mobile suit.
"The radio is not working!" The Commanding Officer complained, and Billy and Graham noticed.
'Radios are not working, is it because of this machine?'
Sure enough, the Enact's pilot got back into the suit and decided to fight it.
The mech pulled out a sonic blade; the noise of that thing made Marcus's group grimace as they needed to cover their ears.
"Patrick, you damn fool!" The Commanding Officer complained as the Enact tried to fight the newcomer machine.
But it was over in a flash as the Celestial Being's Gundam effortlessly cut off the newest AEU's mobile suit hand and then, with a spin, chopped it into small parts.
'T-The way it moved! Does it have our Neural Interface!?! Impossible!'
"Sorry, can I borrow those?" The Over Flag Pilot grabbed a pair of binoculars from the soldier who was sitting below him.
Graham was utterly shocked by what he just saw. So he needed to check it out!
"Hey!" The soldier complained that his belongings had been taken.
"I said, I am sorry."
'What are you, where did you come from?' The blonde was becoming obsessed with what he was seeing.
He checked from top to bottom until he saw a word on the mech's head…
"...Gun…dam…"
"...Is that… this mobile suit's name?" The blonde man lowered the binoculars and watched the Gundam turn and fly away.
"...How can it move like that without any propulsion? And what is that light?" Billy commented, perplexed by what he had just seen.
While those two were pondering on what this was, Marcus and Milly were simply watching the show with small smiles on their lips.
Their two years of preparation are drawing to a close. Now that Celestial Being has emerged, they can start moving their pieces into place.
After Gundam Exia left, the presentation ended. A soldier rushed in, warning that it was not safe and urging everyone to evacuate.
The Marcus group didn't stick around as they swiftly left the area in an armoured SUV.
"Commander, you have been quiet the whole time. Do you have something on your mind?" Graham asked Marcus as the van drove away from the military base, where the space elevator battle was unfolding between the Gundam and AEU forces.
"What do you think is that green light that is emitted from the back of that machine?" Billy asked Marcus for his opinion as he checked his laptop to see if he could get more details.
"It's more than the simple light. Think from the perspective of technology and its progress, what we just saw was not simply light from a mobile suit. What we saw was a completely separate branch of technology that is not related to anything we have." Marcus said while looking through the window.
"...Y-You mean… these machines… they don't use any of our current technologies!? B-B-But…" Billy's brain short-circuited for a second as he recalled what he saw.
At some point, he came to the same conclusion. It's just that he didn't want to accept it.
"...But…to achieve that… how long were these machines in development!?"
~~~
500 powers stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1000 Power Stones = 2 Extra Chapters
And so on, You know what to do.
~~~
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