On the surface, Saachez appeared to be nothing more than a manic warmonger, but his piloting skills and tactical planning were not to be underestimated.
While spewing nonsensical taunts in an attempt to launch a verbal assault on Roz, his eyes constantly scanned the Penelope, searching for a single opening.
Even though this machine is just hovering, it exerts such pressure... is it just the sheer size?
Saachez didn't know, and he didn't care where the pressure came from, but he heightened his vigilance nonetheless. As a mercenary, while he loved the thrill of war, he was no fool.
He spotted a potential weakness: the cooling fins on the Penelope. These fins on the external flight components looked thin and fragile; surely they couldn't withstand a hit from a linear rifle.
Without hesitation, Saachez let out a wild laugh and slammed his foot on the pedal, sending the Enact Custom surging toward the Penelope.
He fired the linear rifle repeatedly, the pale blue rounds striking the Penelope's frame only to be blocked by the PS Armor, erupting into harmless clouds of soot.
"What's the matter? Where's that reckless monster from a moment ago!?"
Seeing the Penelope remain motionless under his assault, Saachez's mouth didn't stop, but his brow began to furrow. "You weren't acting like such a wooden doll when you were slaughtering the PMC! You think you can block my business like this?"
Realizing the linear rifle wasn't even powerful enough to "give the machine a massage," Saachez maneuvered the Enact Custom to reach for its sonic blade.
The plasma-edged blade seemed like the only option left to break through the Penelope's defenses. But for now, if physical attacks were failing, he would use psychological warfare.
"That efficient, clinical killing earlier—you must have practiced that for a long time, eh? To be honest, I've spent quite a long time training in war myself!"
Saachez continued to circle the Penelope, firing to find an opening while attempting to drag Roz down to the same level as a disgraced mercenary like himself in front of the reporters on the ground.
"After all, I'm a very professional mercenary. I fight whoever the employer pays me to fight, even if it means setting the whole world on fire!"
"But then again, who blames the sword? You think so too, don't you?"
Finally, Saachez found a suitable line of attack. He let out a small sigh of relief. "How nostalgic... a battlefield filled with wreckage where everyone is fighting for their lives."
"If I'm not mistaken, people like you and me, Ali al-Saachez, are the same—vile wretches who enjoy the battlefield and treat the world like a playground!"
In that instant, the Enact Custom lunged at the Penelope. Its left hand drew the high-frequency vibration blade, its pale blue plasma edge extending as it charged.
"Gotcha—"
Just as Saachez saw the blue plasma blade about to touch the cooling fins of the massive component on the Penelope's leg...
The previously stationary Penelope moved.
The lines that had looked like grey paneling suddenly flared with a crimson light. The Penelope slightly raised its head and snapped its right leg upward, delivering a precise kick directly into the Enact Custom's head mono-eye.
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The reason Roz remained motionless was, of course, not because he was dazed or defeated by Saachez's verbal assault.
Knowing the man's identity and recalling the files he had reviewed on the Nahel Argama, an nameless fury had surged from within, scorching his heart.
The images from those records—child soldiers sent to the battlefield under Saachez's influence, nations destroyed by one man's selfish desires—triggered memories of the horrors he had seen before: Blue Cosmos's "Extended" program, and the sight of a devastated Orb that had only begun its reconstruction before his departure.
Roz was furious, but he did not let that rage cloud his judgment. He understood clearly that goading him into losing his cool by any means necessary was one of Saachez's goals.
After hearing Saachez utter his final word over the external speakers, Roz let out a long, slow sigh.
"Ali al-Saachez..."
Without turning on his own external broadcast, Roz stared at the Enact Custom charging toward him, his expression cold and detached. "I'm going to... end you."
There was no exclamation, no passion—just a statement of fact, as if pronouncing a verdict.
The flames of his anger continued to rise until they "manifested" within the Penelope's cockpit. The three letters—NT-D—and that specialized UI interface finally flickered into existence. The seat underwent its familiar transformation, and Roz locked his gaze onto his target, refusing even to blink.
This intense emotion had awakened the "soul" of the Penelope, and she responded to her pilot with delight. The synchronization between Roz's psychic energy and the Psycho-Frame began to climb steadily until...
"Countdown, two seconds... now."
A formal, yet slightly playful voice whispered in his ear.
A ghostly, illusory hand appeared—the sleeve of a black suit covering the arm—and a pale finger pointed toward a specific coordinate right before Roz's eyes.
Roz maneuvered the Penelope to snap its right leg up. The massive foot slammed directly into the Enact Custom's head. The glass visor shielding the mono-eye camera shattered instantly, exposing the internal circuitry.
"Urgh..."
The massive impact forced a groan from Saachez. His plan to strike the Penelope's cooling fins was utterly scrapped by that single kick.
But the physical strain was no longer Saachez's primary concern. He fought the controls desperately, trying to regain his balance, but the Enact Custom slammed into the ground, carving deep furrows into the earth as it skidded.
When Saachez finally forced the machine back to its feet and looked up, his eyes widened. High in the sky, the Penelope stood bathed in a crimson light emanating from every panel line.
He felt it. If the Penelope had previously felt like a controlled campfire, it had now transformed into a "Heavenly Fire" sent to bring judgment upon the world.
Just as the Enact Custom managed to regain its footing, the Penelope raised its Beam Magnum and pulled the trigger.
The Magnum beam—red light entwined with purple high-energy electricity—flared before the eyes of the world once more, surging toward the Enact Custom.
A long-absent sensation, like staring directly into the eyes of Death, washed over Saachez like a bone-chilling wind.
He instinctively slammed the pedals; the Enact Custom tore away from the ground, flying toward the jeep where the reporters were stationed not far away.
The high-energy beam struck the earth. Under the gaze of the news cameras, the soil melted and then cooled, forming a crystalline substance choked with impurities.
High-energy electrical discharge swept across the Enact Custom's left leg, shearing it clean off. The surface-to-air missiles built into the lower leg were detonated by the residual current.
The violent explosion shredded what remained of the Enact Custom's left leg, sending shards of wreckage flying in every direction.
Fortunately, Saachez was piloting a lightweight machine; with a pilot of his caliber at the controls, dodging a direct beam hit was possible, though this evasion had been at the absolute limit.
Looking at the state of his machine, Saachez was already considering a retreat. He might be an unscrupulous mercenary, but the mercenary's code of survival was "run if things look wrong," and staying alive was always priority number one.
However, having revealed his killing intent, Roz's attack frequency was no longer as slow as it had been during the destruction of the PMC base.
The monster-like shriek echoed in the sky again as the Penelope dropped its altitude, diving toward the one-legged Enact Custom. Due to the previous repositioning, the Enact was now hovering directly above the reporters, its linear rifle aimed at the Penelope.
Without a doubt, Saachez was using the journalists as a "human shield."
While the Beam Magnum was unusable because the reporters were directly beneath the Enact Custom, the Penelope was not a machine specialized solely for long-range fire.
Soaring like a dragon, the Penelope shrieked as it accelerated toward the Enact at extreme speed.
"What... is he ignoring the reporters!?"
Seeing this, Saachez could no longer worry about the journalists and pulled his trigger. Blue shells erupted against the Penelope's frame, but the machine's flight posture—and even its forward velocity—did not falter in the slightest.
Inside the cockpit, a sense of relaxation washed over Roz as he heard the voice of the Machine Spirit whispering in his ear.
Now, a translucent figure of a woman in a black professional suit with short black hair floated beside Roz.
She looked at the Enact Custom—which was firing relentlessly while ignoring the war correspondents below—and flashed a mischievous, ill-intentioned grin.
"Roz, for the sake of this world, and for the civilians he's using as shields..."
This unknown Miss Machine Spirit extended her free left hand, clenched it into a fist, and gave Roz a sweet smile. "Give him—this stray dog—an over-the-shoulder throw."
Though her tone held a hint of inexplicable playfulness, Roz, now linked with the spirit, could clearly feel that she meant him no harm.
In that case... there was only one answer.
The Penelope braved the Enact Custom's fire, closed the distance, and reached out with its left hand.
The Enact's cockpit view was suddenly eclipsed by a massive mechanical hand. For a moment, Saachez thought he could hear the metallic shriek of twisting steel. It was no hallucination; as the reporters filmed, the Enact Custom's head monitor began to buckle and deform under the Penelope's grip.
"Wha—urgh!"
A massive centrifugal force followed, pinning Saachez against his seat. The crushing G-force nearly made him vomit his lunch.
Because of the shoulder armor and flight components, a true over-the-shoulder throw was impossible for the Penelope. However, at such high speeds, a side-shoulder slam was perfectly viable.
The Enact Custom was hurled into the ground, its linear rifle flying from its grip. The entire machine tumbled across the earth, only coming to a halt after smashing through a small hillside.
This monster-like battle between two Mobile Suits was captured in its entirety by the journalists at point-blank range. For the first time, the sheer insignificance of humanity when faced with an MS was displayed completely to the world.
....................