Lunamaria, a young woman whose performance within ZAFT could only be described as "stunning," possessed formidable talent for combat.
Although she was unfamiliar with long-range sniping, her melee instincts—which were even sharper than Shinn's—were enough to make her the tip of the spear for breaking enemy lines back in ZAFT.
However, aboard the Nahel Argama, a ship teeming with "artificial geniuses" spawned by Blue Cosmos, the somewhat specialized Luna felt as if she had been buried in the background.
On the rare occasions she did sortie, she was relegated mostly to a defensive role.
The primary reason for this, however, was that Shinn and Luna had joined the ship so abruptly that Roz hadn't been able to prepare any specialized enhancement designs.
The Destiny and Impulse, which had been hauled onto the Nahel Argama along with them, had merely been retrofitted with Minovsky Reactors and panoramic cockpits before Roz plunged headfirst into building the Banshee Norn for Shinn.
The new machine originally envisioned for Luna remained stuck in the conceptual phase.
Roz had considered letting Luna pilot Shinn's Destiny in the meantime, but after a trial run, she had waved off the suggestion. Her reason: "The OS presets are weird; recalibrating them is a pain."
The Destiny's OS and its vast array of parameters had been painstakingly adapted by ZAFT specifically for Shinn.
Some of the operational logic was entirely different from a normal pilot's—it was like a standard FPS player using left-click to fire and right-click to aim, while Shinn's setup used right-click for melee.
Having endured high-intensity warfare from CE71 through the Gryps Conflict, Luna was quite satisfied with her current peaceful life.
Yet, seeing Shinn still rushing to the front lines while she could only remain on the Nahel Argama in a defensive posture left her feeling somewhat frustrated.
"Saving the world or whatever... I don't get it at all. I only ended up on this ship because I was afraid that single-minded idiot would get bullied..."
Thinking back to how she had been pushed by the momentum of life—half-willingly following Shinn to sneak aboard the ship inside a cargo container—Luna's expression turned complex.
"But... our world was turned into a mess by people exactly like you, wasn't it?"
Looking at the notification box in her cockpit, Luna glanced at the Sword Silhouette that had just been catapulted from the Nahel Argama, carrying its two massive blades as it flew toward her.
The Impulse's Force Silhouette detached. The large shield on her left arm retracted and folded, turning into a small buckler barely larger than her forearm.
The stabilizer wings on the Sword Silhouette pivoted; the drone units guiding the pack's flight detached and transferred to the discarded Force Silhouette, which promptly pulled a U-turn and flew back toward the Nahel Argama.
As the Sword Silhouette docked with the Impulse, the surging power of the Minovsky Reactor pulsed through the machine.
The Phase Shift armor doused the Impulse in a vivid, battlefield-conspicuous red. The electrical thrusters of the Sword pack erupted with thick, blue plumes of flame, propelling the suit toward the GN-X marked by Roz.
"Don't even think about starting another Gryps Conflict here. Repent!"
Luna holstered the beam rifle with her right hand and drew the two anti-ship swords from her back with both hands.
Beam blades ignited along the edges. She joined the two massive swords together, wielding them like the blades of a windmill. "...With your lives!"
The twin-linked anti-ship swords were shifted to her right hand as the Impulse's left hand drew a beam boomerang and hurled it toward the GN-X.
Due to the increased power output, the boomerang's rotation was incredibly fast, the beam blade blurring into what looked like a solid disc of light.
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As a member of the Lord God squad, Morphine felt her luck had truly hit rock bottom. Her role was supposed to be a combat medic, yet she ended up being the one stuck with the dirty work of sniping allies from the shadows. Was the team really that short-staffed?!
Well, it seemed they actually were. Of the original eight-man squad, only three remained. Four-Eyes had been pulled away by Alejandro, and their captain, Black Flag, was currently nearby being pinned down and beaten by several ReZELs alongside nine GN-X units.
Although the Sengoku Astray displayed many "Super Robot" traits, after several exchanges, the ReZEL squad had already learned how to handle it with ease.
"This is just... the worst luck!"
Watching the Impulse—which had suddenly swapped armaments mid-battle and was now charging directly at her with a clear target lock—Morphine gritted her teeth. "I want to live, too!"
Regarding the boomerang-like gadget the Impulse had thrown, Morphine knew such a weapon existed, but this was her first time facing it.
To be safe, she kept her machine moving constantly across the sky to ensure the "dart" didn't catch her on its return arc.
Luna, however, didn't care that her attack had missed. In fact, she never expected the beam boomerang to destroy the GN-X in the first place.
Like a cowboy drawing a revolver, Luna manipulated the Impulse's left hand to reach around from the front waist and draw the beam rifle stored on the rear skirt armor.
"Don't think Shinn is the only one who's grown. I've improved plenty myself!"
Watching the beam boomerang as it missed the GN-X and began flying back toward her, Luna raised the beam rifle in her left hand.
"At this size, I can hit it!"
Gazing at the beam boomerang whose spinning blades had blurred into a solid disc within her reticle, Luna pulled the trigger without hesitation.
A green beam erupted from the muzzle, precisely striking the left side of the boomerang and shattering the high-speed rotating beam blade.
Fragments of light of varying sizes scattered forward like a blast of beam-shrapnel, surging toward the GN-X.
This was the level of accuracy Luna had achieved through grueling marksmanship training.
While she wasn't yet at the level of Roz and the others who could use a beam rifle like a sniper weapon, her precision was firmly in the "elite" category.
"What?!"
Seeing the wall of beam shrapnel flying at her, Morphine tried to evade, but in the next second, a green beam struck the GN-X's left leg. The machine's balance was instantly shattered in the explosion.
Then, a flurry of beam fragments large and small pelted the GN-X. In a single second, a vast array of components on her status display turned red, and several others went dark entirely, showing they were offline.
Seeing the Impulse closing in while still pouring out beam fire, Morphine gritted her teeth and forced the GN-X to draw its beam saber with its left hand, igniting the red blade.
Timing the Impulse's approach, Morphine swung the beam saber violently in an attempt to cut it down.
Compared to the massive blade of the anti-ship sword, the relatively puny red beam saber lasted less than a second before being batted away by the immense kinetic energy of the rotating anti-ship sword.
Morphine desperately tried to raise her beam rifle for a point-blank shot, but the anti-ship sword—having just finished its downward cleave—swung back up in a reverse strike, severing the GN-X's arm that held the rifle.
"Wait—"
Seeing the Impulse adjust the trajectory of the anti-ship sword once more, and spurred by the terror of death, Morphine instinctively tried to beg for mercy.
But in the next instant, the beam anti-ship sword came down from above, splitting the GN-X—and its Solar Furnace—cleanly in two.
The wreckage exploded on either side of the Impulse, the flames and red GN particles forming two brief fireworks in the middle of the chaotic, shell-torn battlefield.
Morphine didn't even have time to utter her final words. She died under Luna's blade, just like any other soul lost to the tides of war.
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"Morphine... is dead?"
Looking at the notification popping up on the Lord God bracelet on his left wrist, Black Flag—whose mental state had been deteriorating ever since his teammates started dying one by one—instantly spiraled into a breakdown.
Following that was a rage ignited from deep within his heart, lasting until the Sengoku Astray's massive, repaired left arm was struck by a ReZEL's Mega Particle Cannon.
The violent explosion nearly tore the repaired arm clean off, finally snapping him back to reality.
It was only then that he saw the dire situation they were in. The "aces" piloting the GN-X units—whose only actual combat experience was in security and peacekeeping operations—were being routed by the Nahel Argama's MS forces, veterans of the Gryps Conflict. GN-X units were being shot down in droves; of the original force, barely one in ten remained.
As for the ReZELs that were originally being besieged by three GN-X units each, they had systematically dismantled their attackers with ease. Now, they were turning back, launching a coordinated assault on the Sengoku Astray.
"Grahhhhh!"
Black Flag roared, his inner fury fueling his Ripple Breathing Technique. Golden flames, mixed with blue particles, flowed along the blade that had only recently been repaired.
The Sengoku Astray swung its blade at the nearest ReZEL.
Despite the distance between them, the sheer force of the swing manifested a sheet of golden flame, and a blue "blade pressure" tore through the fire, flying toward the ReZEL.
"Cheap tricks..."
Evelyn, piloting her ReZEL Type-C, expertly dodged the blue blade pressure. Her remaining missile pods swung open, and a dense swarm of missiles erupted, blanketing the sky as they surged toward the Sengoku Astray.
The Sengoku Astray had just raised its repaired left arm to aim at the sky again.
"Where are you looking?"
Kakyoin Tsubaki manipulated the two Mega Particle Cannons in her hands, accurately striking the already battered repaired left arm and the "Oni Mask"—which was already malfunctioning after being kicked by Evelyn's ReZEL earlier.
Two massive explosions followed. Black Flag watched helplessly as his already failing short-range particle burst device went completely offline, while the shield-like armor of the left arm was shattered.
This revealed the composite weapon system inside—consisting of a GN-X beam rifle and two missiles—and the three-fingered repaired hand.
Black Flag fired the two missiles at Kakyoin Tsubaki, who had initiated the attack. Seeing them easily dodged, he discarded the now-useless missile rack, and the three-fingered hand gripped the handle of the GN-X beam rifle.
"Lock-on complete. Launching missiles."
At that moment, Louise, who had moved to the Sengoku Astray's left flank at some unknown point, pressed the button on her control stick. Her remaining missile pods opened, unleashing a full salvo at the Sengoku Astray.
Their strategy was simple: focus fire on the Sengoku Astray's repaired arm, which had clearly become its new weak point.
Faced with the overwhelming swarm of missiles, Black Flag could only pull the trigger in desperation, attempting to intercept as many as possible. However, it was clear that marksmanship was not his forte.
He gritted his teeth and pushed his Ripple Breathing to the limit, trying to reinforce the relatively thick repaired arm of the Sengoku Astray as he held it up as a shield.
As for the other, still-intact original arm, it had to be saved for the counterattack; he couldn't afford to lose it here.
For the Ripple Breathing Technique, metal was not a particularly efficient conductor; it couldn't store energy. To get any effect, he had to keep the energy flowing constantly, like a wide-open faucet.
Feeling his energy draining away like a reservoir with its gates flung open, Black Flag's face turned pale.
Wave after wave of explosions erupted against the golden flames of the left arm and across the Sengoku Astray's body.
After enduring the bombardment from Evelyn, Black Flag felt he had reached his limit; the golden flames on the arm flickered precariously.
But immediately following that was the missile barrage from Louise.
Amidst the tremors from the successive explosions, Black Flag collapsed into a state of total exhaustion. The flames of the Ripple Breathing Technique dissipated, and he could no longer maintain the reinforcement of the Sengoku Astray's left arm.
In a single instant, the E-Carbon armor reached its breaking point under the bombardment, and the entire massive left arm was torn away by the missile strikes.
"Damn it..."
Black Flag forced out his last ounce of strength. He was acting now solely on the sheer will to survive and his hunger for revenge.
But in the next second, he heard the deafening shriek of massive thrusters.
A red silhouette charged toward him like a runaway dump truck, wielding an anti-ship sword.
The Psycho Zaku's anti-ship sword clashed precisely with the Sengoku Astray's katana, while the machine itself slammed into the Sengoku Astray with immense kinetic energy.
Before the exhausted and slow-thinking Black Flag could react, four mechanical arms raised four beam gatling guns and began spraying the connection point of the Sengoku Astray's remaining giant arm.
The beams easily shredded the foam armor and the mechanical structure of the linking device, finally severing the giant arm from the main body.
The Psycho Zaku tore through the gap created by the destruction of the joint, sending the Sengoku Astray tumbling through the air.
Then, a giant claw glowing with golden light gripped the Sengoku Astray's head. Shinn, operating the Banshee Norn, exerted force and ripped the head camera and a portion of the upper chest straight off the frame, crushing it in the machine's hand.
Fortunately, the area around the shoulders remained intact, allowing the Sengoku Astray's original hands to function marginally. However, through the torn upper chest, the outline of the cockpit was now faintly visible.
The string of relentless attacks cleared Black Flag's mind slightly. He maneuvered the machine to raise its hands, channeling the last of his particles into the arms.
Suddenly, the Penelope appeared, swinging the large beam saber that had previously served as its shoulder cannon, severing the Sengoku Astray's hands.
The particles stored in the severed hands detonated like two bombs, forcing the Penelope back momentarily.
Seeing the Sengoku Astray still struggling before him, Roz didn't hesitate to draw his Beam Magnum and fire a single shot.
Purple lightning swirled around a high-energy red beam as it flew toward the crippled Sengoku Astray.
"Grahhhhhhh...!"
Driven by survival instinct, Black Flag screamed. The Sengoku Astray's mangled arm-stubs were raised, and the remaining particles surged from damaged conduits to form a pale blue particle storm.
It managed to stall the Magnum beam for a fraction of a second, but the purple high-energy electricity bypassed the storm, carving into the Sengoku Astray's frame.
It lasted only an instant. The unshaped particle storm was blown away by the Beam Magnum, and the beam struck the Sengoku Astray with precision.
An instant before the Beam Magnum dispersed the particle storm, Black Flag used every last bit of his strength to stomp the pedal, shifting the impact point from his chest down toward his waist and abdomen.
Immediately after, a searing heat rose from beneath his feet. He watched as the bottom of the cockpit turned glowing red.
Following a point-blank explosion, his left leg was blown off once again. The massive impact shattered his helmet visor; shards of glass carved deep gashes into his face.
Blood flowed continuously, only to be dried instantly by the high temperatures.
As the area hit by the Beam Magnum twisted, the entire machine was wrenched and torn apart. The batteries detonated, and the subsequent explosion sent a rain of parts flying into the ocean.
"Phew, is it over...?"
Looking at the scene, Roz breathed a small sigh of relief but remained on high alert.
Whether it was truly over was something he'd have to ask Big Haro later. But before that...
Roz fired several more Beam Magnum shots at the locations where the larger wreckage of the Sengoku Astray had fallen, blowing massive geysers of water into the air.
"All units, return to ship. Nahel Argama, begin the breakthrough," Roz commanded over the comms. "As for that machine that crashed on the deck... recover it for now. I want to know why he was being sniped by his own people."
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Not long after the Nahel Argama departed.
Splash...
A lone figure, trailing blood, crawled onto a piece of wreckage floating on the sea. Though the fragment was small, it was buoyant enough to keep him adrift.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Black Flag tore off his shattered helmet and coughed up mouthfuls of swallowed seawater. He ignored the constant bleeding from his face, which had been gashed open when the visor exploded.
By now, he could already see shark fins circling in the distance.
It had to be said—the cockpits of the Strike series seemed to possess a sort of causal-law ability; even when the machine was utterly destroyed, they somehow managed to preserve the pilot's life.
During the previous explosion, the Sengoku Astray's cockpit had first been squeezed out through the gap in the upper chest as the frame twisted; then, Black Flag had been thrown out through a breach in the cockpit itself, slamming into the surface of the ocean.
Beep, beep...
Just as Black Flag reached the end of his rope, a notification pinged from his Lord God bracelet, causing his heart to nearly skip a beat.
He hurriedly checked the display, only to see a message that made his eyes widen in shock.
[Agent: Four-Eyes, Deceased.]
[ Squad Survivors: 1/8]
Black Flag stared at the information in a deathly silence, his breathing seemingly frozen.
The oath to "bring everyone back alive"—the goal he had always practiced and pursued—had been ruthlessly crushed by reality.
"Grahhhhh! Amuro! Alejandro!"
The last straw had finally broken the camel's back. Black Flag tried to stand up, but his feet slipped on the wet surface, and he collapsed back onto the armor plating of the Sengoku Astray's wreckage.
"I will... I will absolutely kill you all!"
Rage surged within his soul, but his body had long since run out of strength. Amidst Black Flag's unwilling, grief-stricken roars of fury, the rescue ships of the three major powers began to close in.
Survival no longer mattered; the burning desire for revenge now utterly consumed his heart.
....................