The sky above Neo-Verdia wasn't just a battlefield anymore; it was a screaming vortex of heat and metal. The fight between the Full Armor White Gundam Eagle and the Arancia Gundam had become too heavy for the clouds to hold. Gravity finally won. Like two falling stars, the massive machines plummeted from the atmosphere, crashing into the desolate wasteland just outside the city's perimeter.
BOOM!
The impact sent a massive shockwave of dust and sand into the air. When the haze cleared, the two giants were already back on their feet. The orange armor of the Arancia Gundam flickered under the dying sun, looking like a cursed flame.
Inside the Arancia, Agnes Arbequs was losing her mind. Her pristine world of royal protocols and "perfect" military victories was being torn apart by a "ghost" that refused to die. "Why won't you just break?!" she screamed, her voice cracking.
She slammed her controls forward. The golden ring-wings on the Arancia's back didn't just spin for defense this time. They hissed as dozens of hidden hatches popped open. "Turn into ash!"
A swarm of micro-missiles erupted from the orange wings, trailing thick white smoke as they curved through the air toward the White Gundam.
"AIRIS, data link! Don't let them touch us!" Zaki roared.
"Already on it, Zaki," AIRIS replied, her digital voice overlapping with the sound of alarms. "Deploying counter-measures. Pierce Missile system, active."
The massive, reinforced shield on the White Gundam's left arm let out a mechanical growl as its bays opened. It was a mirror image of destruction. Two waves of missiles met in the middle of the wasteland.
CRACK-BOOM!
The sky turned into a wall of fire. The explosions were so close and so frequent that they created a literal curtain of black smoke and orange flames between the two Gundams.
Agnes didn't wait for the smoke to clear. She didn't care about sensors anymore. She felt the White Ghost's presence. Pushing her thrusters to the red line, the orange Arancia Gundam leaped through the black smoke like a predator. She raised her Beam Great Axe high, the orange energy blade shimmering with enough power to split a building in half.
"DIE!"
She swung the axe down with everything the machine had.
But AIRIS was faster. The AI had already calculated the trajectory based on the displacement of the smoke. "Dodge right!"
Zaki reacted instantly. The White Gundam's new leg thrusters kicked in, sliding the heavy machine to the side just as the axe slammed into the ground, creating a crater where they had stood a second ago.
"Now, Zaki!" Maki yelled.
Zaki swung the White Gundam's right arm, the emerald Beam Saber whistling through the air, aimed straight for the Arancia's neck. But Agnes was no amateur. She let go of the axe with her left hand and reached out, grabbing the White Gundam's right wrist in a crushing metal grip.
The two Gundams were now locked, chest to chest, their metal frames grinding against each other with a sound that could set teeth on edge.
In that moment, something strange happened.
Inside the cockpit, Maki gasped. Her vision blurred, but not because of the energy force. Suddenly, the metal walls of the cockpit seemed to vanish. She felt a cold, suffocating wave of emotion hitting her—like she was drowning in someone else's shadow.
"What is this...?" Maki whispered, her eyes wide.
It was the Mind Space Communication. The same thing Aurora had described. Because of the physical contact and the high-intensity synchronization of the two pilots, the "walls" between their minds had cracked.
Maki didn't see Agnes as a pilot. She saw a little girl standing in a cold, golden palace. She saw a girl crying while a King—her father—looked down at her with eyes that only cared about power. She felt a mountain of ego, but underneath it, there was a black hole of fear. Agnes wasn't fighting for Saturn. She was fighting because she was terrified of being "useless."
"Zaki... stop," Maki breathed, her voice trembling. "She's... she's scared. It's all a lie. Her ego... it's just a mask."
Zaki felt the shift in his sister's tone. "Maki? What are you seeing?"
Maki didn't answer. Driven by a sudden burst of empathy and the need to break this toxic connection, she seized the manual override for the left arm. She slammed the White Gundam's heavy shield into the Arancia's chest, using the sheer mass of the Full Armor Eagle to push the orange Gundam back.
The grip broke. The two units skidded away from each other, kicking up a storm of grit.
"Zaki, I felt her," Maki said, her breath coming in hitches. "She's being forced into this. Her father... he's the one pulling the strings in her head. She thinks if she doesn't kill us, she has no right to exist."
Zaki's expression hardened. He looked at the orange Gundam through the main monitor. He hated the Kings, but he didn't want to be a murderer of a "broken princess."
Zaki clicked the open communication channel, broadcasting his voice directly to the Arancia Gundam. "Agnes Arbequs! Can you hear me? This is the pilot of the White Gundam. Stop this! We don't want to fight you. We aren't your enemies. The Earth Alliance has no intention of starting a war with the citizens of Saturn. You're being used!"
There was a long silence. Only the static of the battlefield filled the speakers.
Then, a laugh came through. It wasn't a happy laugh. It was the sound of someone who had already given up on their soul.
"Used?" Agnes's voice echoed, cold and jagged. "You think you know me, Earth rat? You think you can see into my heart? I am the daughter of King Stevan! My only purpose, my only reason for breathing, is to be the sword that cuts down my father's enemies. If I can't defeat the 'White Ghost,' then I am nothing. I would rather die as a warrior of Saturn than live as a 'useless' failure in my father's eyes!"
Zaki closed his eyes for a split second. He felt the weight of her words. He realized that for some people, the cage was built so deep that they didn't even want the key.
"I see," Zaki said, his voice dropping into a low, serious tone. "Maki, AIRIS... she won't listen. She's chosen her path. If we don't fight her with everything we have, she'll kill us and everyone in the city just to prove her 'worth' to a man who doesn't love her."
He gripped the controls tighter. "Agnes! I accept your challenge. But understand this: if you come at us with the intent to kill, you have to be ready to die. I won't hold back anymore!"
"That's how it should be!" Agnes screamed.
The Arancia Gundam ignited its thrusters, moving with a manic, desperate energy. She picked up her axe and began swinging it blindly. Voom! Voom! Voom! The orange energy blades sliced through the air, leaving glowing trails in the dust.
Zaki steered the White Gundam with expert precision, but the Arancia's movements were erratic—unpredictable because they were driven by pure rage.
CLANG!
The axe slammed into the White Gundam's shield. Then again. And again. Zaki used the shield to parry, but the "Saturn Ring" on the Arancia's back was generating extra torque. Each hit was like a hammer blow from a god. Pieces of the White Gundam's external armor began to fly off. The pristine white shield was now covered in deep, glowing orange gashes.
"She's over-clocking her reactor!" AIRIS warned. "The Arancia Gundam's structural integrity is dropping, but its output is increasing by 40%. Zaki, we cannot keep blocking!"
"I know!" Zaki waited. He watched the rhythm of her swings. He felt Maki's fear turning into focus.
Agnes raised the axe for a massive overhead strike—a "final" move.
"There!" Maki and Zaki shouted in unison.
Zaki dived the White Gundam forward, sliding underneath the arc of the giant axe. It was a risky move that put them inches away from the Arancia's vibrating orange chest plate.
Zaki moved both arms of the White Gundam simultaneously. In each hand, a Beam Saber roared to life with emerald fury.
SHING!
With a dual-thrust, Zaki drove both sabers directly into the Arancia Gundam's waist—the point where the upper body met the legs. A massive eruption of sparks and blue electricity exploded from the wound.
The two Gundams were so close that their heads literally collided with a sickening metal CRUNCH.
Agnes, in a final act of desperation, had the Arancia's hands grab the White Gundam's shoulders. She was trying to rip the White Gundam's arms off with raw hydraulic power. "I'll take you with me!" she shrieked.
"No, you won't!" Zaki roared.
Zaki pulled the sabers out of the waist and, in one fluid motion, swung them upward. The emerald blades sliced through the Arancia's shoulder joints like a hot knife through butter.
The orange arms of the Arancia Gundam fell to the ground, dead weight.
But Zaki wasn't done. He needed to end the fight before Agnes could trigger a self-destruct.
"Maki! The thrusters! Full power!"
The White Gundam's back engines flared with blinding intensity. Zaki used that momentum to pull the Gundam's head back and then—with everything the machine had—he delivered a brutal, crushing headbutt directly into the Arancia's sensor-crest.
The Arancia Gundam's "eyes" flickered and went dark. The massive orange machine, now armless and broken, teetered for a moment before collapsing backward into the dirt.
THUD.
The desert went quiet. The only sound was the crackling of fire and the heavy breathing of the pilots.
The Arancia Gundam lay defeated—a fallen princess in a broken carriage of orange steel.
"It's over," Zaki whispered, his hands shaking on the controls.
Inside the fallen orange cockpit, Agnes Arbequs stared at the dark monitors. She wasn't screaming anymore. She was just silent, looking at the reflection of her own terrified face in the glass. She had lost. And for the first time in her life, she didn't know who she was supposed to be.
To be continued...