If the Penelope's previous combat style was "efficient," then after the activation of the NT-D—and under the request of this new Miss Machine Spirit—its movements had become "brutal."
Perhaps it was the influence of the machine's physical silhouette? Because the core unit was rigid and formal while the external armor was monstrous, it had birthed this Machine Spirit—one who looked proper on the outside but possessed a wicked personality, like a cat that enjoyed toying with its prey.
CLANG...
Before the Enact Custom could even scramble to its feet, the Penelope lunged down, seizing the back of the Enact's head.
With the roar of the Minovsky Flight Craft, the Enact Custom was dragged along, its body grinding ruthlessly against the earth.
Dirt and stones slammed into the Enact's armor. The friction of the high-speed movement and the violent tremors sent a chorus of metallic shrieks through the frame, a scream of structural integrity reaching its absolute limit.
With a sudden, violent whip of the Penelope's arm, the Enact Custom's head was twisted clean off. The decapitated, one-legged machine was hurled away once more, looking for all the world like a rat being toyed with by a cat.
Dirt and trees collapsed in its wake. Inside the cockpit, now a black void due to the loss of the head monitor, Saachez was being bounced around so violently he nearly flew out of his seat.
At this moment, he desperately hoped his pilot suit was sturdy enough; otherwise, a breach would turn him into a human pinball, and he was the ball.
As the mangled Enact Custom tumbled into the nearest active combat zone, Roz glanced at the severed head held in the Penelope's hand.
Accompanied by the screech of twisting metal, a spray of components, wires, and internal parts erupted from the shattered visor like juice from a squeezed fruit.
Under the sheer crushing force of the Penelope's grip, the entire head monitor was compressed into a lump of scrap metal.
Casually tossing aside the unrecognizable hunk of junk, Roz maneuvered the Penelope toward the struggling Enact Custom, which was currently twitching on the ground, a far cry from its former arrogant glory.
'Wait... have we fought our way over to this sector already?'
Roz narrowed his eyes as he spotted the Exia nearby, which had just finished dismantling several PMC Enacts.
-----------------------------------
"Terrible, absolutely terrible..."
Finally managing to catch his breath, Saachez frantically switched the monitor output to the cockpit's waist cameras to restore a view of the outside world.
He gritted his teeth as the status display flickered entirely in red. The head and left leg were completely blacked out on the diagnostic sub-screen.
The linear rifle was gone—though that thing hadn't been able to scratch the Penelope anyway, so losing it didn't bother him much. But now, his only remaining weapons were the sonic blade and the air-to-ground missiles tucked in the right leg.
He ignored the machine cannon mounted above the cockpit; its caliber was a joke in this situation. The thrusters were still operational, but their output had dropped significantly.
"Fine... then that's how we'll play it..."
Running was out of the question now. But if he gambled everything on a single desperate strike...
Saachez narrowed his eyes, looking toward the blue-and-white machine that had just finished off the last PMC Enact nearby.
"Hey! Raven! And the Gundam! I surrender!"
His external speakers were still functional, and Saachez's voice rang out with a hollow sincerity, as if he were truly ready to throw in the towel.
But it was that very voice that made Setsuna F. Seiei, sitting inside the Exia's cockpit, widen his eyes.
Gray, blurred memories flashed before Setsuna's eyes: the training, the killing, the fanatic religious dogma... everything eventually locked onto the face of a man with messy red curls.
He wanted to see if this was truly the man from his past. He had too many things he needed to ask.
With that thought, Setsuna signaled with his lights. He was always a man of action, and since the Enact Custom appeared defenseless, he assumed there would be a window of time for a "conversation."
The triangular sensors atop the Exia's head pulsed, sending a light signal to Saachez.
"The Gundam... wants me to come out of the cockpit?" Saachez saw the signal and frowned. "Is this brat trying to humiliate me... or is this a golden opportunity?"
An opportunity to hijack a Gundam and seize a lifeline.
"Okay... okay! I'm coming out!"
The drum-shaped cockpit of the Enact Custom slid outward like a drawer.
"Sorry... I think I broke something in the crash. I can't stand up." Saachez waved a seemingly functional right hand, while his left arm and legs lay limp in the seat, perfectly mimicking a man with broken bones.
It was a total lie. If he wanted to, Saachez could lunge forward in an instant, slam into the Exia, and take the machine by force. He had absolute confidence in his close-quarters combat skills.
Then, to Saachez's hidden smirk, Sumeragi's horror, and Roz's deepening frown...
Setsuna opened his cockpit and stepped out.
"What do you know... he's just a kid," Saachez muttered, his right hand creeping toward the emergency controls.
Time waits for no one. Before he realizes what's happening, now is the best—
Just as Saachez was about to strike, a reddish beam slammed into the ground near the Enact. Purple high-energy electricity lanced out, shredding everything in its vicinity—including the Enact's remaining right arm and leg.
A violent explosion followed. Without the cockpit's outer protection, the shockwave nearly tore through his pilot suit and flung Saachez into the air.
The internal organs felt like they were being pulverized; his visor shattered, sending glass shards deep into his face.
Bloodied and broken, Saachez lay helpless in the exposed cockpit. As the Penelope descended toward him with a monster-like roar, his survival instinct forced out a smile that looked more like a pained grimace.
"Heh... can we make a deal?"
"A deal? Now? He must be joking!" The Miss Machine Spirit laughed hysterically in Roz's ear, as if she had just heard the greatest comedy of the century.
But Roz wasn't laughing. He frowned, glanced at Setsuna still standing outside his cockpit, and then turned his cold gaze back to the wreckage of the Enact Custom.
Then, the Penelope's massive foot came down, crushing Saachez and the remains of his machine into the dirt.
The existence known as Ali al-Saachez was snuffed out like a crushed tomato. Red blood mingled with oil and hydraulic fluid, splattering into the air before mixing with the dust of the earth.
The mercenary who claimed to "treat the world like a playground" met his end right there. There was no desperate duel, no brilliant exchange of maneuvers; he was simply stepped on until there was nothing left.
-----------------------------------
"Get back in your cockpit, Setsuna F. Seiei."
Roz's voice crackled over the comms—cold, stern, and cutting through the daze that had gripped Setsuna as the situation spiraled. The boy, snapped back to reality by the command, quickly scrambled back into the Exia.
"I don't know what kind of idiocy possessed you... but we are going to have a long talk about this after the battle," Roz said. He glanced at Setsuna, then turned the Penelope's sensors toward a squadron of military-green Enacts screaming toward their position. "And I won't be speaking to you as a collaborator, but as a fellow soldier sharing this battlefield!"
The Penelope leveled its Beam Magnum and pulled the trigger without a hint of hesitation. The red beam, wreathed in violet high-energy discharge, lanced through the air toward the AEU reinforcements.
One particular Enact—whose pilot was shouting something over an open channel about "2000 simulations"—had its left arm and leg sheared off before tumbling into the forest below. Every other machine in that formation was vaporized, blooming into a sky full of jagged scrap and fire.
Dusk had arrived without notice. The setting sun bled across the war-torn land, a landscape long infected by greed and conflict.
The light caught the Penelope, coating the massive machine in a faint, golden aura that shimmered against the crimson glow of its active NT-D lines.
The battle raged on elsewhere, but Roz no longer had the heart for it.
He stared at the new Machine Spirit occupying his field of vision. She floated there in her black professional suit, a wicked grin on her face as she cradled her own cheeks with her hands.
Despite her appearance and the brutality they had just shared, a strange sense of peace washed over him.
In a fleeting moment of trance, he felt as if he could sense her breath through his helmet—a soft, gentle brush against his skin.
How was she born? Why this specific form? Roz had a mountain of questions for her, but for now, they were silent partners in the fading light.
-----------------------------------
The battle in Moralia, having lost Saachez as its backbone, offered no further effective resistance. It was utterly dismantled, crushed like dry leaves under a relentless storm.
The Penelope trailed behind the four Gundams of Celestial Being, cruising at high altitude. Roz didn't even need to scatter Minovsky particles; by hugging the Gundams' GN particle wake, his radar signature remained ghosted to the outside world.
Sitting in the cockpit, Roz felt his knuckles whiten against the controls. Every time he thought of Setsuna's stunt—stepping out of the cockpit mid-battle—his pulse quickened with frustration.
Beside him, the short-haired woman in the black suit seemed to sense his rising agitation. She stopped observing the Gundams ahead and drifted over, wrapping her arms around Roz.
Her right hand phased through his helmet, cupping his jaw while her index finger traced a gentle line across his cheek. Unlike the Unicorn's spirit, this one's embrace was fervent, laced with a hint of dangerous playfulness.
"What should I call you?"
After a moment of silence, Roz steadied his emotions and voiced the question that had been weighing on him.
"A name is just a designation to me. RX-104FF, Penelope, Machine Spirit... you may call me whatever you wish." The spirit buried her head in the crook of Roz's neck, breathing in greedily despite being a soul-body. "Though, if you wish to give me a proper name, I would be most delighted."
"Then... your birth. What is the reason for your existence?" Roz asked, wanting to hear the answer directly from her.
"I don't know," she replied, her tone suddenly turning dead serious. The atmosphere in the cockpit froze instantly. Just as Roz was about to change the subject, a peal of laughter rang in his ear. The spirit was doubled over, clearly satisfied with her little prank.
"We were born because the Psycho-Frame you crafted resonated with your powerful psychic will," she explained after catching her breath, floating back in front of him. "And I am simply a signal captured by you by sheer chance out of millions, billions of possibilities—much like the birth of human consciousness."
Though she appeared vivid to Roz, she remained translucent, allowing him to see the scrolling data on the monitors through her. She had taken over the Penelope's flight controls, which was fortunate, or Roz might have accidentally drifted into the back of a Gundam.
"As for my form... it is simply a deconstruction of this machine's exterior and interior, filtered through your subconscious aesthetic. Every machine you build with your own hands will give birth to a different personality... down to the last micron, I am tailor-made for you."
To prove her point, she spun around in mid-air. Her black suit trousers shimmered and shifted, transforming into a combination of black high heels, silk stockings, and a pencil skirt.
She was hitting every one of Roz's "preferences" with surgical precision, even as Roz realized just how wicked this "Miss Penelope" truly was. You can't exactly fight a spirit, so he had no choice but to let her tease him.
"But what about the standard frames from the Courtyard? Do they not work?"
"It would be much harder. Those spirits lack a fixed form; their machines are their bodies. Manifesting like this is nearly impossible for them." She leaned in close, her hands cupping his face through the visor. "Our birth stems from your talent, My Beloved Pilot. Any more questions? I'll tell you anything I know."
"None for now," Roz exhaled, feeling a sense of closure. He had wanted to ask the Unicorn's spirit this back in the SEED world, but the endless cycle of combat and development had pushed it aside, and the Unicorn had fallen into a deep sleep before he got the chance. "Back to the first topic... a name."
Naming was not Roz's strong suit. Left to his own devices, he'd probably pick something like "Axis" or "Gryps." He shook his head to clear the clutter, and his eyes fell on the emblem on his chest. He remembered the Black Haro that had handled his paperwork and given him his callsign.
"How about... AllMind?"
"AllMind... I see. The AI from the records." The spirit—now AllMind—smiled and took a half-step back, performing a graceful bow. "Then, AllMind is at your service. Since I am linked to your mind, I know exactly what that name implies. Please... use me to your heart's content."
Hearing the deliberate double entendre, Roz caught her subtle, knowing smirk and could only let out a long, weary sigh.
-----------------------------------
After cruising for a period of time, the five machines landed on an uninhabited island.
"No matter how you look at it... it's still so huge."
Looking at the machine before him, Lockon Stratos, who had just left the cockpit of Dynames and reached the ground, had a somewhat complicated expression.
He had rushed over the moment he heard Setsuna F Seiei was exiting his cockpit; naturally, he had also witnessed the scene behind them where Saachez was stepped on and turned into tomato paste by Penelope.
It should be noted that after learning they were to launch an attack on Moralia and the PMC organization within it, he had searched through a great deal of data, hoping to take advantage of this operation to take him out.
One of the reasons he joined Celestial Being was because his parents had been killed during childhood in an attack by the PMC organization "KPSA." His hatred for war, coupled with his hatred for KPSA, had sustained him.
Knowing that the person crushed to death by Penelope was the leader of KPSA, Saachez, a sense of powerlessness from not being able to kill the enemy with his own hands, mixed with the refreshing feeling of a great vendetta being avenged, filled his heart. This caused his mindset when looking at Penelope—or rather, Roz Links—to change.
However, regardless of how he felt, one of his two pillars had been destroyed. He either had to find a new pillar or turn the remaining pillar into a solid foundation. As the oldest member of the team, Lockon knew very well what he should do now.
"Yeah... so this is Penelope?"
At this time, Ian, the mechanic responsible for machine maintenance in Celestial Being, also came to Lockon's side, carefully examining the Penelope before them. "But speaking of which, the seam lines on it seem to be emitting a red glow? In the video data you guys brought back originally, these seams were all gray, right?"
"I don't know... maybe it was repainted? It's not like they stuffed LED strips inside."
Lockon watched the figure descending to the ground from Penelope using a hoist rope.
But after seeing Roz reach the ground, take off his helmet, throw it onto the beach, and walk angrily toward Setsuna—who had just descended via hoist rope as well—Lockon noticed something was wrong.
"Wait, him walking toward Setsuna is..."
Before Lockon could react, Roz suddenly grabbed the collar of Setsuna's pilot suit, lifted him up, turned slightly, and delivered a heavy, powerful slap directly across the face of Setsuna, who had just taken off his helmet.
This standard "Bright Correction Slap" sent Setsuna flying, crashing onto the sand.
"Setsuna!"
Seeing this scene, Lockon and Allelujah Haptism subconsciously took two steps forward, and Tieria Erde even reached out to touch the grip of his pistol.
"You bastard, leaving the cockpit during combat while piloting a Gundam..."
Roz's anger didn't seem to have faded. Looking at Setsuna, his eyes looked as if they were about to spit fire. "Do you really realize what you're doing? Do you even care about your comrades at all!"
Although the previous communication with the Machine Spirit had relaxed him a lot, seeing Setsuna's calm expression—the look of "completely not realizing what he had done"—caused a flare of nameless rage to surge within him.
"Please stop."
Seeing Roz staring at Setsuna as if he wanted to follow up with another punch, Tieria frowned, drew his pistol, and pointed it at Roz.
"Ultimately, you are merely a collaborator of Celestial Being. Setsuna's matter is an internal affair; you have no right to interfere."
Regarding the matter of Setsuna leaving his cockpit, the Celestial Being pilots had intended to settle the score after Roz had left and the machines were stored away.
They hadn't expected Roz Links to follow them specifically for this purpose, which instantly threw their plans into disarray.
Clack...
The head monitor of Penelope turned slightly, disengaging the lock on its head vulcan cannons to aim directly at Tieria Erde.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa... let's not be so confrontational," Lockon Stratos said, clearly hearing the mechanical sounds coming from Penelope. He rushed forward and pressed down Tieria's muzzle.
Seemingly seeing that Lockon had neutralized the threat from Tieria, Penelope observed for a short moment before turning its head back to its original position.
"I'm not doing this as a collaborator this time, but as a comrade-in-arms who fought alongside you on the battlefield..."
Having said that, Roz turned around, spreading his hands and looking at Tieria. "In that capacity, is there anything wrong with me hitting him?!"
"Alright, alright, calm down..."
Looking at Roz, who was in the heat of his anger, and Tieria, who was repulsed by Roz's current conduct, Lockon sighed.
It seemed he was destined to be the peacemaker...
"Setsuna, you know why you got hit, right?"
Lockon took a couple of steps forward, shielding Tieria, and looked down at Setsuna, who was still lying on the ground, having not yet come to his senses.
"I... had some questions I wanted to ask him."
"Not everyone is worth communicating with. That guy Saachez had his hand on the control stick; he clearly intended to launch an attack."
Lockon continued, "He probably wanted to seize the Gundam... Besides, the identity of a Celestial Being Gundam pilot has an S-rank confidentiality level. You should know that."
"You are going up against the entire world! If your Gundam is stolen, do you have any idea what your comrades would have to face?!"
Roz turned and walked to Setsuna's side, reaching out to grab his collar and hoisting him up.
"In the best-case scenario, you die instantly. In the worst-case, you're captured and tortured, and your machine is dismantled by the three superpowers, who will then absorb the technology to turn it against your comrades!"
Roz felt his "Personality Correction Punch" itching to go, wanting to give Setsuna a proper thrashing. "Your teammates wouldn't just have to deal with the three superpowers' new machines; they'd have to come up with a plan to rescue you and destroy the captured, dismantled unit!"
"Just now, you were handing them that opportunity on a silver platter, turning yourself into a butcher's knife aimed at your comrades, the button that triggers a new arms race. Not to mention there's a group hiding in the shadows wanting to throw this world into chaos. Is this the future you're looking forward to?!"
"I..."
Bombarded by Roz's rapid-fire delivery of information, Setsuna, who hadn't yet recovered from his dazed state, was completely stunned.
"...As I thought, I still need to give you a beating to wake you up."
Although Setsuna wasn't like Yzak, who used to be at loggerheads with him, Roz could see that Setsuna was simply desperate for answers to his inner questions—so desperate that he forgot to consider the consequences of his actions.
But clearly, a problem child like Setsuna wouldn't learn without a little "correction."
.....................