The Sanc Kingdom is reborn! However, no one wants a repeat of its earlier chaotic downfall hence the newly crowned queen of the Kingdom, Relena Peacecraft is more than willing to see the formation of a dedicated Defense Force to defend the country. However, the world wonders how this new version of an old sovereign country would use its new defense forces on. The Answer is quite simple, Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum!
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Want Peace, Prepare For War
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Prelude: The Seed
deathzealotzero
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Foreword
Okay. I am sure many of you are quite familiar with the original version of this story that I did as a one-shot short story for my Garden Collection or The Eylsium Gardens for Spacebattles. Over the years since I originally wrote it, I have wanted to further explore this idea a bit more as it was something I could easily explore in my mind. First as a second "chapter" to be posted on the Garden Collection which would be further along the timeline exploring my own version of the Maganac Corp and how they managed to get all the way to Europe for the Battle for the Sanc Kingdom. Then maybe a short three-to-five-chapter novella story that explores the last third of the original Gundam Series. However, various reasons over the years prevented me from doing this, but as I was trying to figure out what to do for this year's July Session of the Camp National Novel Writing Month when after going through more than a few different ideas in the weeks before the start of the session I finally decided to give this project a decent try after rereading a few of my favorite Gundam Wing fanfiction stories in the days before the start of the July Session.
First of all, I am going to go on a limb and mention that there are already going to be some major differences between this story and the larger overall storyline of the original series. Outside of the original change in the character of Relena Peacecraft that came from the original short story version of this larger story. Mainly, like many of my past Gundam projects, there are going to be new mobile suits, new ships, new characters, some repurposed from my other stories or even from the expanded universe of the Gundam After Colony timeline, and even new overall larger ideas to the storyline. Therefore, I am warning you all right now that things are going to be quite different. So please if this isn't your cup of tea turn back now for things are going to be quite different.
With that said everyone, I do hope you all enjoy this story. For I have had it simmering in the back of my head for several years now along with some further ideas that I have gotten over the years for Gundam Wing fanfiction. So please! Do enjoy the story.
Prelude: The Seed
Originally, when I heard that Miss Relena was going to be elevated to become our new Queen for our reborn country, I was a bit skeptical as I had been expecting her older brother Millardo was going to become our king, as he was older and actually had plenty of experience which I believed we would need in the coming months after bring our country back from death. Not to mention I had run into the man a few times during my time with the Alliance military before returning to my home in the rural areas of the former Sanc Kingdom which would lead me to becoming a key member of the former Chief Representative Rex's plan to further the program started by Queen Katrine nearly two decades ago. However, I now must say that while our new queen isn't her brother, with all of his experience, she still the granddaughter of Queen Katrine and the younger sister of the Lightning Count…
- Taken from the Private Journals of Lieutenant Colonel Brian Carter, Sanc Kingdom's Royal Defense Forces
Queen Katrina Memorial Military Facility
Outskirts of Peacecraft Family Estate
Sanc Kingdom, Northern Europe
August 12, After Colony 195
In the massively sized military bunker turned underground mobile suit hanger the normal noises of a mobile suit hangar in use could be heard as various mechanics and technicians went about their various jobs maintaining the several dozen or so mobile suits that called the huge hangar home. Into this symphony of noise, four new figures entered the hangar with two of them freezing in outright sheer amazement and shock at the entrance at the existence of numerous mobile suits in the hangar. While the remaining figures looked on in sheer pride and satisfaction at the sight of the hangered mobile suits.
"As you can see Highness, we are not going to be caught unaware by any sort of enemy again," the first figure mentioned with quiet pride in his voice as he waved his hand at the busy hangar.
"How is this possible Chief Representative Rex?" the shocked figure of newly installed Queen Relena Peacecraft of the Sanc Kingdom managed to ask the first figure, Chief Representative Vingt Rex of the Sanc Kingdom's Parliament. The middle-aged man only chuckled before looking over at the hangar with a proud look on his face.
"Well, your highness this underground bunker was first built around AC 155 or so by your grandmother, Queen Katrina Peacecraft to serve as the main base of the Kingdom's small but dedicated security forces after she first took the throne. This was mainly due to her having taken part in the First Lunar Resource War as a teenager and she believed such a thing would be needed due to these experiences. It would later be converted into a mobile suit hanger and vastly expanded in AC 178 about two years after the OZ-06MS Leo Series was first rolled out by the Romefellar Foundation and its associated companies" the Chief Representative explained to his new queen with a wave of his hand around the large underground space that now surrounded the four of them.
"It was around that time that Queen Katrina and my father entered a deal that would have us buying heavily damaged Leos from the Alliance through various different cutouts and such. As it was far cheaper for the Alliance to simply replace a Leo with a newly produced machine instead of repairing a damaged mobile suit therefore, we got them pretty much dirt cheap. The Alliance believed that we were scrapping them, which we were, but one in five machines was moved here and fully repaired. The money we made from scrapping the other machines and selling off the remaining parts allowed us to quite easily repair them. Over time as the program continued on we started to give them a few modifications," the man concluded his explanation nod with a nod upwards at the many like new, modified, OZ-06MS Leo mobile suits that were now standing in front of them safely in their various hanger maintenance scaffolds spread across the entire open space of the underground bunker. Each Leo was painted in a white and silver scheme that made them pretty much stand out compared to the drab olive green paint job the Alliance Terrestrial Army gave their machines or the royal blue paint job that was given to the machines in use by the Alliance elite Speciale Mobile Suit Unit and now used by the recently formed OZ Military.
"What sort of modifications did you make to them Chief Representative?" the second figure asked with a frown eying the lines of white-painted modified Leos before the Queen could continue asking her questions to the man. This made the old Chief Representative blink in surprise at her for a brief moment who after a moment looking over at the Queen would turn back towards the woman.
"Well, Lieutenant Noin the first major upgrade of course was bringing them up to modern specs for more than a few of these machines are over a decade old, the second was adding a new more efficient reactor, then thanks to the extra power we gave them a pair of beam sabers, then a beam rifle, and finally a new shield replacing the older one. From there we pretty much rebuilt the torso and head of the machine as a means to set apart these machines from your typical Leo in use by the Alliance or now by OZ," the surprised man answered to the figure of Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin, the Queen's new Knight and bodyguard making the veteran mobile suit pilot eye the nearest of the stored mobile suits and seeing the differences from the Leos she was used to. She could clearly see the mentioned new beam sabers stored on the Leo's waist, similar to the few custom Taurus prototypes she had seen during her time working with them at the Lake Victoria Base. Though she was quite a bit more surprised about the additions to the waist, and the larger torso of this new version of the Leo. Not to mention, the new head design which she believed was somewhat based on that of the original Tallgeese prototypes, like the one now in use by Relena's older brother. Though Noin liked the more horn-like attachment at the top of the head to that of the crest-like addition of the Tallgeese design. She briefly wondered privately in her head how these additions would improve the basic design of the Leo. As she has never been a fan of the design of the machine during her time in the old Speciale Mobile Suit Unit. Shaking her head she turned her attention to the storage racks along either side of the stored mobile suits to see that modified Mark IV Beam Rifles were stored next to each individual hangered Leo mobile suit, along with a larger kite-looking shield instead of the standard circular shields used by other regular Leos she was familiar with, but what really drew her attention was a second different looking rifle stored next to the beam rifles.
"What about those other rifles? I do not recognize them at all," she mentioned with a frown eying these new rifles. Thanks to this she didn't notice the Chief Representative actually looking a bit thrilled at someone putting forth these questions. This saw the older man come alongside the Lieutenant and look over at what she was talking about before chuckling lightly at what he saw she was talking about.
"That Lieutenant is the brand new M165 120mm Heavy Assault Rifle, a weapon design that is heavily based on that of a failed prototype rifle, the M160, to equip the old Bloc 4 Leos as mobile suit-to-mobile suit combat had increasingly become more common," the man mentioned proudly making Noin look over at the man in some surprise for she was quite aware of that original prototype design but never seen in herself. Still from she understood that particular rifle design had a few issues mostly with its barrel design and that it didn't have the overall superior ammo capacity of the smaller, more favored M120 Rifle design that remained in general use by Leos today.
"Huh. What about the heating problems suffered by the weapon's barrel during testing?" she asked the man now quite interested in she could see these weapons quite useful to the nation if Romefellar decided to take on the small country. As the original M160 Heavy Rifle design not only sported an increase in the caliber of the weapon but sported a slightly improved bullet design that was made to pierce through mobile suit armor. Something that would become quite useful to their new defensive force for the Sanc Kingdom as from what she heard there were reports of brand-new armor designs in development along with other such increases to the basic mobile suit design. However, the issue really with the design was that the barrel of the weapon warped when firing a long burst of the weapon for some reason or another which prevented it from being fully produced.
"From what I know Lieutenant they cut back on the overall firing speed of the rifle just a tad from normal mobile suit machine gun rifles and designed a new more rugged barrel design which gave us a pretty solid anti-mobile suit weapon but one that still has an issue or two to its design," the man explained with a short frown on his before shaking his head, "Sorry I don't know more about it, but I can let the man who brought us the design about your interest, and he can most assuredly answer any of your further questions. Is there anything else you want to know about the mobile suits or their weapons?"
This made the two newcomers to the Kingdom blink in some surprise at this admission before Queen Relena suddenly stepped forward once more as she eyed the large mobile suits gathered around the four of them. She had been watching the various techs and such go about their jobs throughout the hangar where she started to wonder something about the Chief Representative's story about the machines. Something was further expanded due to her bodyguard's questions about the new mobile suits.
"Lieutenant sorry to bud in on your questions and such but I have been wondering something else about the Chief Representative's story about these mobile suits that I want to be answered by him," she said addressing her bodyguard surprising the Lieutenant from her overall excitement about these mobile suits and their weapons.
"Of course, your highness," she replied bowing her head towards the younger woman before taking a step back allowing the new queen to address the chief representative who had also taken by surprise by their queen's new questions.
"Thank you, Noin," she gave the older woman a brief smile before turning to address the old chief representative who turned his own attention to the young queen.
"I have been wondering Chief Representative on how you could fully repair and upgrade these mobile suits. For you have needed some sort of source for the parts and such as according to my own limited knowledge of such things you could only have gotten them from providers associated with the larger Romefellar Foundation," she wondered out loud with a small frown on her youthful face as she stared once more at the large mobile suits in front of them.
"That is quite true your highness, but that is another major part of this whole larger project that came into being only in the last decade or so," the man mentioned after a moment of silence and what looked to be an impressed look at his young ruler.
"As before then we either got the needed parts and such from the machines we did scrap or from the black market which for years had been swamped by mobile suit parts. However, soon after the Alliance invasion of the nation, I managed to do something that really expanded the project vastly, the construction of a dedicated large scale electronic factory inside the old borders of the Kingdom. This factory was mainly for producing cockpit electronics and other such similar bits of electronics to that of the mobile suit factories located elsewhere in Europe, like the big one at Corsica," the man mentioned with a pleased look on his face making the two newcomers look in some surprise at the man.
"In fact, that is how we were able to produce those new assault rifles the LIeutenant was interested in as well alongside the rest of the Kingdom's, if small, industrial capability," the man mentioned with a short chuckle before turning his attention back to the young ruler to see looking quite impressed with what he had mentioned.
"I'm sure that also created tons of jobs and such for the Kingdom's citizens, especially after a brutal invasion," the queen mused out loud a moment of thought making the Chief Representative look even more impressed while Lieutenant Noin simply hid a smile for she has only been with Relena for a few weeks but she had already noticed that the younger woman was quite smart and quick on her feet.
"You are quite correct your highness! Combined that with the construction of the Alliance's Cinq Military Base in the northern part of the country, it did help in the recovery of the country after the invasion," he mentioned with a nod of his towards the young woman who only nodded back at the man before she once again looked back up at the various mobile suits arrayed in front of her.
"One last question for you Chief Representative," she mentioned with a frown and turned back to address the man who looked quite interested.
"If the Kingdom had all of these mobile suits, why weren't they used during the Alliance Invasion?" she asked with a frown and was quite surprised to see the mixed anger and sorrow on his face.
"Two things your highness. The first being not having the needed trained pilots for all of the mobile suits, at the time, and your father's Total Pacifism ideals saw him ordering what units we did have manned not to launch. Not that we have time to do anything for the Alliance attack came quite fast and with no warning at all," the Chief Representative explained with a sigh looking up at the mobile suits himself.
"I take it then Chief Representative you were not all that happy with my father then?" Relena finally asked after several moments of mournful silence between them all about the man who had originally fathered the new young queen.
"Honestly I was quite angry with him at the time but with his death due to the attack and the brief bit of chaos swallowing the country that followed? I can't really stay angry at him for long," he replied after another moment of silence before he continued on.
"Your father your highness had only taken the throne about five years previously thanks to the death of your grandmother. We showed him what his mother had built here soon after that and he wasn't all that impressed. For like I mentioned he had been a longtime follower of Heero Yuy's Total Pacifism ideals and really didn't like us stockpiling mobile suits like this. He never ordered us to dismantle these machines true, but he never did anything else with them. He pretty much acted like this didn't exist at all," he continued on with a sorrowful look on his face as he looked over the still bustling hangar before he suddenly looked up and over at his new queen with a panicked look on his face.
"Are you going to follow through with your father's policies?" he asked with almost pleading eyes, making Relena chuckle slightly at the man's expression breaking the solemn air from the earlier explanation.
"No Chief Representative I am not going to ignore having a suitable Defense Force for this nation that I found myself leading. Granted yes, I do still believe in Total Pacifism but you forget your older brother here pretty much helped raise me after all," Relena mentioned with a nod to hereby silent fourth figure, one Pagan Rex, Relena's overworked butler and manservant who was also the Chief Representative's older brother who nodded his head at his lady's attention.
"No Pagan has explained to me the weakness of the Total Pacifism idea in that it does not prevent that single madman or woman from coming in and destroying everything thanks to no weapons being created to defend the people from such people. I still like to see it coming to pass but I am not a naïve little girl anymore sadly. That girl is no longer me," Relena mentioned with a sigh and a shadowed look on her face as she finished her explanation. The Chief Representative blinked at this before straightening up in attention and bowing towards the young woman he was finding himself respecting immensely. Lieutenant Noin meanwhile smirked slightly at this and her lady's response for she knew that while Relena was her own person she was still the younger sister to Zechs Marquise.
"What are your orders then ma'am?" the man asked as he rose from his bow and looking over at her in some interest.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum. Want Peace, prepare for war," Relena replied as she stared up at the rows of white-painted Leos as with a sigh.
"Yes, your highness!" the man barked out with an almost gleeful sound but was stopped by the raised hand of the queen.
"That said Chief Representative, I do want to talk to the pilots of these mobile suits and other important members of this project over the coming days. As I want to make sure that while they would fully defend this country and its people from any threat that they are not going to cross a line. As I have seen numerous examples over the past few months of mobile suit pilots going that extra mile to be cruel to their opponents or even firing on civilian targets," she mentioned out loud making the older man look quite surprised at this but after a moment he could only nod. For he too had heard about things happening across the planet and now in space during this large-scale war happening across the entire Earth Sphere. So, he shouldn't really be all that surprised and not to mention she did mention that she was still, somewhat, a follower of her father's Total Pacifism policy therefore he could see her hoping that no one under her control steps over a line.
"I shall arrange it as soon as possible your highness," the man mentioned in reply making the young queen nod back at him.
"Thank you," she mentioned quietly before giving the gathered mobile suits one last, almost hopeful, look before turning to leave the facility with her three attendants quickly following behind her. Once more, the massive underground bunker and mobile suit hangar only the sounds of a busy hangar became normal. Many of the personnel working haven't even noticed the four guests in their midst at all.
Post Chapter Notes
Okay! After some years I decided to see about exploring this old idea of mine. Basically, this will, kind of, explore the second half of the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing anime series with one major change in that Relena Peacecraft is more on board with the building of a dedicated Defense Force for her country, the Sanc Kingdom. Even though she is a believer in the Total Pacifism policy of her family. Hence, some things are changed from the original series of events from the series due to this change in the character of Relena. Though, things would be vastly different with the story even with that change in the character of Relena. As for the life of me I cannot help but fiddle and such with the overall larger story so a few further things would be a bit more different from the original series. This is mostly from what I mainly change with such stories so expect some stuff that I have done with my other Gundam stories. I.e New characters, New Ships, and New Mobile Suits added to the story alongside some changes to the basic storyline of the series to make it more interesting. Not to mention kind of throwing the whole official timeline of the series to one side and only really using it for a sort of guide to the rest of the story. You have been warned!
That said, yes, this story has pretty much had been left by myself pretty much for years just wallowing in my short story collection, The Garden. I had ideas, in the past, to expand it from the original short scene into a couple of more short chapters and while some of these ideas will be added to the larger story, I may have forgotten one or two of them hence this overall larger story will be quite different from my own original idea on to expand on this story. Just to let you all know for I am sure I have mentioned a few of these ideas to a couple of my fellow Gundam fanfiction writers, or just simple Gundam fans, over the years since I originally posted that original chapter in the Garden all those years. I already kind of added some further bits to the original version of this old chapter. Mainly some touch-ups and expanding on some bits of the chapter to make more sense. Hence, I am simply informing of you all of this before anyone else mentions it to me if I ever manage to post these completed chapters to anyone of the various platforms, I usually post things on. Thanks!
Okay. One last thing to briefly mention here is that I am going to mainly avoid having people call Relena your majesty and similar such phrases only really using highness, your grace, or your highness as I believe that works far better than all of the darn "yes your majesty" and similar phrases all over the darn place. Also unlike other stories out there I am not going to have Highness capitalized unless it is necessary. Can you tell that I have had enough of that through the likes of Code Geass? Laughs. Though I do admit that I still enjoy listening to Lelouch's various late-season speeches and the responding "Yes Your Majesty" always gives the shivers. Anyways! Just thought I mention it here! So no one goes huh what about this or something.
Okay. That is about it from me. The next chapter shall further explore the change to Relena's character and start introducing some new characters along with a few others I have roped in from expanded side material of the After Colony Timeline. So I shall see you all, Stage One: A World Watches.
New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Want Peace, Prepare For War
An Alternative Universe Novella Fanfiction
Written by,
Willliam R. Woods
"deathzealot", or "deathzealotzero"
Foreword
Okay. I am sure many of you are quite familiar with the original version of this story that I did as a one-shot short story for my Garden Collection or The Eylsium Gardens for Spacebattles. Over the years since I originally wrote it, I have wanted to further explore this idea a bit more as it was something I could easily explore in my mind. First as a second "chapter" to be posted on the Garden Collection which would be further along the timeline exploring my own version of the Maganac Corp and how they managed to get all the way to Europe for the Battle for the Sanc Kingdom. Then maybe a short three-to-five-chapter novella story that explores the last third of the original Gundam Series. However, various reasons over the years prevented me from doing this, but as I was trying to figure out what to do for this year's July Session of the Camp National Novel Writing Month when after going through more than a few different ideas in the weeks before the start of the session I finally decided to give this project a decent try after rereading a few of my favorite Gundam Wing fanfiction stories in the days before the start of the July Session.
First of all, I am going to go on a limb and mention that there are already going to be some major differences between this story and the larger overall storyline of the original series. Outside of the original change in the character of Relena Peacecraft that came from the original short story version of this larger story. Mainly, like many of my past Gundam projects, there are going to be new mobile suits, new ships, new characters, some repurposed from my other stories or even from the expanded universe of the Gundam After Colony timeline, and even new overall larger ideas to the storyline. Therefore, I am warning you all right now that things are going to be quite different. So please if this isn't your cup of tea turn back now for things are going to be quite different.
With that said everyone, I do hope you all enjoy this story. For I have had it simmering in the back of my head for several years now along with some further ideas that I have gotten over the years for Gundam Wing fanfiction. So please! Do enjoy the story.
Prelude: The Seed
Originally, when I heard that Miss Relena was going to be elevated to become our new Queen for our reborn country, I was a bit skeptical as I had been expecting her older brother Millardo was going to become our king, as he was older and actually had plenty of experience which I believed we would need in the coming months after bring our country back from death. Not to mention I had run into the man a few times during my time with the Alliance military before returning to my home in the rural areas of the former Sanc Kingdom which would lead me to becoming a key member of the former Chief Representative Rex's plan to further the program started by Queen Katrine nearly two decades ago. However, I now must say that while our new queen isn't her brother, with all of his experience, she still the granddaughter of Queen Katrine and the younger sister of the Lightning Count…
- Taken from the Private Journals of Lieutenant Colonel Brian Carter, Sanc Kingdom's Royal Defense Forces
Outskirts of Peacecraft Family Estate
Sanc Kingdom, Northern Europe
August 12, After Colony 195
In the massively sized military bunker turned underground mobile suit hanger the normal noises of a mobile suit hangar in use could be heard as various mechanics and technicians went about their various jobs maintaining the several dozen or so mobile suits that called the huge hangar home. Into this symphony of noise, four new figures entered the hangar with two of them freezing in outright sheer amazement and shock at the entrance at the existence of numerous mobile suits in the hangar. While the remaining figures looked on in sheer pride and satisfaction at the sight of the hangered mobile suits.
"As you can see Highness, we are not going to be caught unaware by any sort of enemy again," the first figure mentioned with quiet pride in his voice as he waved his hand at the busy hangar.
"How is this possible Chief Representative Rex?" the shocked figure of newly installed Queen Relena Peacecraft of the Sanc Kingdom managed to ask the first figure, Chief Representative Vingt Rex of the Sanc Kingdom's Parliament. The middle-aged man only chuckled before looking over at the hangar with a proud look on his face.
"Well, your highness this underground bunker was first built around AC 155 or so by your grandmother, Queen Katrina Peacecraft to serve as the main base of the Kingdom's small but dedicated security forces after she first took the throne. This was mainly due to her having taken part in the First Lunar Resource War as a teenager and she believed such a thing would be needed due to these experiences. It would later be converted into a mobile suit hanger and vastly expanded in AC 178 about two years after the OZ-06MS Leo Series was first rolled out by the Romefellar Foundation and its associated companies" the Chief Representative explained to his new queen with a wave of his hand around the large underground space that now surrounded the four of them.
"It was around that time that Queen Katrina and my father entered a deal that would have us buying heavily damaged Leos from the Alliance through various different cutouts and such. As it was far cheaper for the Alliance to simply replace a Leo with a newly produced machine instead of repairing a damaged mobile suit therefore, we got them pretty much dirt cheap. The Alliance believed that we were scrapping them, which we were, but one in five machines was moved here and fully repaired. The money we made from scrapping the other machines and selling off the remaining parts allowed us to quite easily repair them. Over time as the program continued on we started to give them a few modifications," the man concluded his explanation nod with a nod upwards at the many like new, modified, OZ-06MS Leo mobile suits that were now standing in front of them safely in their various hanger maintenance scaffolds spread across the entire open space of the underground bunker. Each Leo was painted in a white and silver scheme that made them pretty much stand out compared to the drab olive green paint job the Alliance Terrestrial Army gave their machines or the royal blue paint job that was given to the machines in use by the Alliance elite Speciale Mobile Suit Unit and now used by the recently formed OZ Military.
"What sort of modifications did you make to them Chief Representative?" the second figure asked with a frown eying the lines of white-painted modified Leos before the Queen could continue asking her questions to the man. This made the old Chief Representative blink in surprise at her for a brief moment who after a moment looking over at the Queen would turn back towards the woman.
"Well, Lieutenant Noin the first major upgrade of course was bringing them up to modern specs for more than a few of these machines are over a decade old, the second was adding a new more efficient reactor, then thanks to the extra power we gave them a pair of beam sabers, then a beam rifle, and finally a new shield replacing the older one. From there we pretty much rebuilt the torso and head of the machine as a means to set apart these machines from your typical Leo in use by the Alliance or now by OZ," the surprised man answered to the figure of Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin, the Queen's new Knight and bodyguard making the veteran mobile suit pilot eye the nearest of the stored mobile suits and seeing the differences from the Leos she was used to. She could clearly see the mentioned new beam sabers stored on the Leo's waist, similar to the few custom Taurus prototypes she had seen during her time working with them at the Lake Victoria Base. Though she was quite a bit more surprised about the additions to the waist, and the larger torso of this new version of the Leo. Not to mention, the new head design which she believed was somewhat based on that of the original Tallgeese prototypes, like the one now in use by Relena's older brother. Though Noin liked the more horn-like attachment at the top of the head to that of the crest-like addition of the Tallgeese design. She briefly wondered privately in her head how these additions would improve the basic design of the Leo. As she has never been a fan of the design of the machine during her time in the old Speciale Mobile Suit Unit. Shaking her head she turned her attention to the storage racks along either side of the stored mobile suits to see that modified Mark IV Beam Rifles were stored next to each individual hangered Leo mobile suit, along with a larger kite-looking shield instead of the standard circular shields used by other regular Leos she was familiar with, but what really drew her attention was a second different looking rifle stored next to the beam rifles.
"What about those other rifles? I do not recognize them at all," she mentioned with a frown eying these new rifles. Thanks to this she didn't notice the Chief Representative actually looking a bit thrilled at someone putting forth these questions. This saw the older man come alongside the Lieutenant and look over at what she was talking about before chuckling lightly at what he saw she was talking about.
"That Lieutenant is the brand new M165 120mm Heavy Assault Rifle, a weapon design that is heavily based on that of a failed prototype rifle, the M160, to equip the old Bloc 4 Leos as mobile suit-to-mobile suit combat had increasingly become more common," the man mentioned proudly making Noin look over at the man in some surprise for she was quite aware of that original prototype design but never seen in herself. Still from she understood that particular rifle design had a few issues mostly with its barrel design and that it didn't have the overall superior ammo capacity of the smaller, more favored M120 Rifle design that remained in general use by Leos today.
"Huh. What about the heating problems suffered by the weapon's barrel during testing?" she asked the man now quite interested in she could see these weapons quite useful to the nation if Romefellar decided to take on the small country. As the original M160 Heavy Rifle design not only sported an increase in the caliber of the weapon but sported a slightly improved bullet design that was made to pierce through mobile suit armor. Something that would become quite useful to their new defensive force for the Sanc Kingdom as from what she heard there were reports of brand-new armor designs in development along with other such increases to the basic mobile suit design. However, the issue really with the design was that the barrel of the weapon warped when firing a long burst of the weapon for some reason or another which prevented it from being fully produced.
"From what I know Lieutenant they cut back on the overall firing speed of the rifle just a tad from normal mobile suit machine gun rifles and designed a new more rugged barrel design which gave us a pretty solid anti-mobile suit weapon but one that still has an issue or two to its design," the man explained with a short frown on his before shaking his head, "Sorry I don't know more about it, but I can let the man who brought us the design about your interest, and he can most assuredly answer any of your further questions. Is there anything else you want to know about the mobile suits or their weapons?"
This made the two newcomers to the Kingdom blink in some surprise at this admission before Queen Relena suddenly stepped forward once more as she eyed the large mobile suits gathered around the four of them. She had been watching the various techs and such go about their jobs throughout the hangar where she started to wonder something about the Chief Representative's story about the machines. Something was further expanded due to her bodyguard's questions about the new mobile suits.
"Lieutenant sorry to bud in on your questions and such but I have been wondering something else about the Chief Representative's story about these mobile suits that I want to be answered by him," she said addressing her bodyguard surprising the Lieutenant from her overall excitement about these mobile suits and their weapons.
"Of course, your highness," she replied bowing her head towards the younger woman before taking a step back allowing the new queen to address the chief representative who had also taken by surprise by their queen's new questions.
"Thank you, Noin," she gave the older woman a brief smile before turning to address the old chief representative who turned his own attention to the young queen.
"I have been wondering Chief Representative on how you could fully repair and upgrade these mobile suits. For you have needed some sort of source for the parts and such as according to my own limited knowledge of such things you could only have gotten them from providers associated with the larger Romefellar Foundation," she wondered out loud with a small frown on her youthful face as she stared once more at the large mobile suits in front of them.
"That is quite true your highness, but that is another major part of this whole larger project that came into being only in the last decade or so," the man mentioned after a moment of silence and what looked to be an impressed look at his young ruler.
"As before then we either got the needed parts and such from the machines we did scrap or from the black market which for years had been swamped by mobile suit parts. However, soon after the Alliance invasion of the nation, I managed to do something that really expanded the project vastly, the construction of a dedicated large scale electronic factory inside the old borders of the Kingdom. This factory was mainly for producing cockpit electronics and other such similar bits of electronics to that of the mobile suit factories located elsewhere in Europe, like the big one at Corsica," the man mentioned with a pleased look on his face making the two newcomers look in some surprise at the man.
"In fact, that is how we were able to produce those new assault rifles the LIeutenant was interested in as well alongside the rest of the Kingdom's, if small, industrial capability," the man mentioned with a short chuckle before turning his attention back to the young ruler to see looking quite impressed with what he had mentioned.
"I'm sure that also created tons of jobs and such for the Kingdom's citizens, especially after a brutal invasion," the queen mused out loud a moment of thought making the Chief Representative look even more impressed while Lieutenant Noin simply hid a smile for she has only been with Relena for a few weeks but she had already noticed that the younger woman was quite smart and quick on her feet.
"You are quite correct your highness! Combined that with the construction of the Alliance's Cinq Military Base in the northern part of the country, it did help in the recovery of the country after the invasion," he mentioned with a nod of his towards the young woman who only nodded back at the man before she once again looked back up at the various mobile suits arrayed in front of her.
"One last question for you Chief Representative," she mentioned with a frown and turned back to address the man who looked quite interested.
"If the Kingdom had all of these mobile suits, why weren't they used during the Alliance Invasion?" she asked with a frown and was quite surprised to see the mixed anger and sorrow on his face.
"Two things your highness. The first being not having the needed trained pilots for all of the mobile suits, at the time, and your father's Total Pacifism ideals saw him ordering what units we did have manned not to launch. Not that we have time to do anything for the Alliance attack came quite fast and with no warning at all," the Chief Representative explained with a sigh looking up at the mobile suits himself.
"I take it then Chief Representative you were not all that happy with my father then?" Relena finally asked after several moments of mournful silence between them all about the man who had originally fathered the new young queen.
"Honestly I was quite angry with him at the time but with his death due to the attack and the brief bit of chaos swallowing the country that followed? I can't really stay angry at him for long," he replied after another moment of silence before he continued on.
"Your father your highness had only taken the throne about five years previously thanks to the death of your grandmother. We showed him what his mother had built here soon after that and he wasn't all that impressed. For like I mentioned he had been a longtime follower of Heero Yuy's Total Pacifism ideals and really didn't like us stockpiling mobile suits like this. He never ordered us to dismantle these machines true, but he never did anything else with them. He pretty much acted like this didn't exist at all," he continued on with a sorrowful look on his face as he looked over the still bustling hangar before he suddenly looked up and over at his new queen with a panicked look on his face.
"Are you going to follow through with your father's policies?" he asked with almost pleading eyes, making Relena chuckle slightly at the man's expression breaking the solemn air from the earlier explanation.
"No Chief Representative I am not going to ignore having a suitable Defense Force for this nation that I found myself leading. Granted yes, I do still believe in Total Pacifism but you forget your older brother here pretty much helped raise me after all," Relena mentioned with a nod to hereby silent fourth figure, one Pagan Rex, Relena's overworked butler and manservant who was also the Chief Representative's older brother who nodded his head at his lady's attention.
"No Pagan has explained to me the weakness of the Total Pacifism idea in that it does not prevent that single madman or woman from coming in and destroying everything thanks to no weapons being created to defend the people from such people. I still like to see it coming to pass but I am not a naïve little girl anymore sadly. That girl is no longer me," Relena mentioned with a sigh and a shadowed look on her face as she finished her explanation. The Chief Representative blinked at this before straightening up in attention and bowing towards the young woman he was finding himself respecting immensely. Lieutenant Noin meanwhile smirked slightly at this and her lady's response for she knew that while Relena was her own person she was still the younger sister to Zechs Marquise.
"What are your orders then ma'am?" the man asked as he rose from his bow and looking over at her in some interest.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum. Want Peace, prepare for war," Relena replied as she stared up at the rows of white-painted Leos as with a sigh.
"Yes, your highness!" the man barked out with an almost gleeful sound but was stopped by the raised hand of the queen.
"That said Chief Representative, I do want to talk to the pilots of these mobile suits and other important members of this project over the coming days. As I want to make sure that while they would fully defend this country and its people from any threat that they are not going to cross a line. As I have seen numerous examples over the past few months of mobile suit pilots going that extra mile to be cruel to their opponents or even firing on civilian targets," she mentioned out loud making the older man look quite surprised at this but after a moment he could only nod. For he too had heard about things happening across the planet and now in space during this large-scale war happening across the entire Earth Sphere. So, he shouldn't really be all that surprised and not to mention she did mention that she was still, somewhat, a follower of her father's Total Pacifism policy therefore he could see her hoping that no one under her control steps over a line.
"I shall arrange it as soon as possible your highness," the man mentioned in reply making the young queen nod back at him.
"Thank you," she mentioned quietly before giving the gathered mobile suits one last, almost hopeful, look before turning to leave the facility with her three attendants quickly following behind her. Once more, the massive underground bunker and mobile suit hangar only the sounds of a busy hangar became normal. Many of the personnel working haven't even noticed the four guests in their midst at all.
-o-Chapter End-o-
Post Chapter Notes
Okay! After some years I decided to see about exploring this old idea of mine. Basically, this will, kind of, explore the second half of the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing anime series with one major change in that Relena Peacecraft is more on board with the building of a dedicated Defense Force for her country, the Sanc Kingdom. Even though she is a believer in the Total Pacifism policy of her family. Hence, some things are changed from the original series of events from the series due to this change in the character of Relena. Though, things would be vastly different with the story even with that change in the character of Relena. As for the life of me I cannot help but fiddle and such with the overall larger story so a few further things would be a bit more different from the original series. This is mostly from what I mainly change with such stories so expect some stuff that I have done with my other Gundam stories. I.e New characters, New Ships, and New Mobile Suits added to the story alongside some changes to the basic storyline of the series to make it more interesting. Not to mention kind of throwing the whole official timeline of the series to one side and only really using it for a sort of guide to the rest of the story. You have been warned!
That said, yes, this story has pretty much had been left by myself pretty much for years just wallowing in my short story collection, The Garden. I had ideas, in the past, to expand it from the original short scene into a couple of more short chapters and while some of these ideas will be added to the larger story, I may have forgotten one or two of them hence this overall larger story will be quite different from my own original idea on to expand on this story. Just to let you all know for I am sure I have mentioned a few of these ideas to a couple of my fellow Gundam fanfiction writers, or just simple Gundam fans, over the years since I originally posted that original chapter in the Garden all those years. I already kind of added some further bits to the original version of this old chapter. Mainly some touch-ups and expanding on some bits of the chapter to make more sense. Hence, I am simply informing of you all of this before anyone else mentions it to me if I ever manage to post these completed chapters to anyone of the various platforms, I usually post things on. Thanks!
Okay. One last thing to briefly mention here is that I am going to mainly avoid having people call Relena your majesty and similar such phrases only really using highness, your grace, or your highness as I believe that works far better than all of the darn "yes your majesty" and similar phrases all over the darn place. Also unlike other stories out there I am not going to have Highness capitalized unless it is necessary. Can you tell that I have had enough of that through the likes of Code Geass? Laughs. Though I do admit that I still enjoy listening to Lelouch's various late-season speeches and the responding "Yes Your Majesty" always gives the shivers. Anyways! Just thought I mention it here! So no one goes huh what about this or something.
Okay. That is about it from me. The next chapter shall further explore the change to Relena's character and start introducing some new characters along with a few others I have roped in from expanded side material of the After Colony Timeline. So I shall see you all, Stage One: A World Watches.
Stage One: The Stage is Set
deathzealotzero
Mecha Guru
- Location
- Las Vegas, NV
Stage One: The Stage is Set
When word started to come in that the newly reborn Sanc Kingdom had started to build up its own Defense Forces, complete with mobile suits, I had some trouble believing it. As in the past, the Kingdom had followed the total pacifism policies of its King who had been a longtime follower of Heero Yuy. No matter what its previous monarch, Queen Katrina had followed a bit more of a "want peace, prepare for war" policy. Not to mention the idea of such a small nation somehow managing to somehow get their hands on the overall ability to develop their own mobile suits was a bit laughable. However, soon I received hard intelligence from agents seeded in the newborn country and I was quite surprised seeing the pictures attached to the intelligence which showed numerous mobile suits, similar in built to our own Leos, in various areas of the newly reborn Kingdom. Soon afterward I wanted to launch an immediate attack on the new country before it could get its legs under it and get experience in the use of their new mobile suits, which would be quite bad in the long run, therefore I put forth a proposal for the immediate invasion of the Sanc Kingdom to the higher ups due to this idea in my head. However, my proposal was rejected out of hand, mostly as, at the time, OZ and Romefellar itself were focusing on what was going on in space with the colonies. Therefore, months later when events on Earth itself started to draw the attention of the Romefellar Board and their assigned military leaders the Sanc Kingdom's Royal Defense Force was a solid, experienced, force and would be quite a hard nut to crack even by our own brand-new mobile dolls…
- Taken from an interview with former Major James Harrison, OZ Intelligence Bureau, Commanding Officer, Terrestrial Intelligence Office, circa. April, AC198
Royal Suite
Governmental House
New Port City, Sanc Kingdom
August 26, After Colony 195
Standing at the massively sized window of the Royal Suite of the Governmental House of the Sanc Kingdom, which dominated one wall of the large room that is called the Royal Suite, the short white uniformed figure of the newly invested Queen of the Sanc Kingdom, one Relena Peacecraft, looked outside of the building. Mostly she watched the people of the city moving about on the streets in front of the large government facility that was built into the center of the overall large port city. Many of them looked quite pleased to see the facility once more alive and well, though a few looked at the fancy uniformed guards standing at the two main gates of the facility, and the even larger-sized guards standing behind the gates, with some concern. Still, many of them looked to be quite happy to once more have a monarch leading them into the future even more so when they all found out that she was actually the daughter of the kingdom's previous King and his queen, who had been well-loved by the populace of the small kingdom since her father's rise to become King.
Sighing, the young queen turned her attention to that of the four towering figures standing behind the walls of the main gates and the more human-sized guards outside of the gates. These were the newly titled SK-06MS Royal Leos of the newly announced and formed Sanc Kingdom Royal Defense Forces. It had been nearly two weeks since she had been shown the massively sized military bunker and mobile suit hangar that was built almost underneath the larger Peacecraft Estate just outside the confines of the city by Chief Representative Rex, and her now famous order. Soon afterward she had signed the order to start forming the new Royal Defense Forces, to protect the country, alongside the more elite Royal Guard, who would protect her own person, along with any members of her family. Both forces would sport mobile suits, the entirely rebuilt forms of regular-old OZ-06MS Leos which had been named as the SK-06MS Royal Leos by the Chief Representative during his speech announcing all of this a week later to not only the Kingdom's Parliament by to the larger overall populace of the country. She knew that there was even a plan to further produce a more ornate version of the basic Royal Leo for use by the Sanc Kingdom Royal Guard using parts and such that the Leo Upgrade Program of the Kingdom had stocked up over the years. Though, from what she understood Noin was arguing for something else to become the primary mobile suit of the Royal Guard. Relena thought such things were quite ridiculous, as why would she need full-sized mobile suits to guard her person, still, she wasn't going to fully argue with her newly promoted chief bodyguard, Captain Noin. As she knew that the mobile suit had become the primary overall weapon of any military, private paramilitary, or even terrorists during the modern era. Hence, a general needs to have mobile suits in her own guard force.
Soon after these speeches and the reveal of the upgraded Leo mobile suits four of the new Royal Leos had started to stand guard right behind the main gates of the Governmental House while a full squadron of a dozen of the machines started to patrol and stand guard around the castle-like Peacecraft Estate. Another squadron of twelve machines, meanwhile, started to patrol the large stretch of shoreline right outside of the city. Then along with a reduced squadron of former Alliance FR-15 Wyvern Reconnaissance Fighters, a half-dozen Royal Leos equipped with MSE-9 Flight Packs would start patrolling the Kingdom's own limited airspace. Before finally, four whole squadrons of the Royal Leos started to call the former Alliance Cinq Military Base, located roughly opposite of the Royal Forest from New Port City, home. With the former larger aircraft hangers, originally built to service the large CC-160 Mobile Suit Transports, being hastily converted to maintain and store modern mobile suits. Machines that would rotate with the ones on patrol or guard duty across the kingdom.
All of this, at first, concerned the citizens of the Kingdom but were not starting to get used to it, with only a small minority of citizens remaining concerned about the outright militarization of the country. However, hopefully, that should start to wane down due to the Chief Representative's planned largescale information program to the citizens of the country not only further noting that these measures are only to prevent another invasion from destroying the country but also setting up dedicated interviews of many of the mobile suit pilots by the Kingdom's own small network of news agencies to show them all the real faces behind the large mobile suits that become seen across the small country. Not to mention the planned speech she was supposed to be doing at tonight's festivities to celebrate the official formation of the Royal Defense Forces.
"Highness your Three O'clock appointment is here," came the calm yet aged voice of Pagan Rex, her longtime butler and now chief aide from right outside of the door leading to the Royal Suite which drew the young woman's attention from the window and her reflections on what had been happening over the past few weeks. She was quite amused that Pagan had taken up building a dedicated staff to serve her both here at the Governmental House and at the larger Peacecraft Estate, but still personally dealt with her schedule and served as her secretary.
"Thank you Pagan, but please do remember what I told you earlier," she mentioned to the man who entered with a smooth bow and a small smile at her mild admonishment about him outright remaining as her personal secretary when he was also head of her now larger staff.
"Your Highness, Major Brian Carter of the Royal Defense Forces," he mentioned a moment later as he led a tall blond-haired man into the suite who bowed alongside the older man. Relena could only blink in some surprise for the man greatly resembled her own brother, Milliardo. After a moment she noticed the differences, mainly having shorter hair, and as the man smoothly straightened up from his courtly bow, she saw the man had hazel eyes over her brother's own pale blue.
"Your Highness?" came the concerned voice of Pagan which drew her attention and saw that she had been staring at the younger man for over a minute which made her blush slightly before she calmed herself.
"I'm quite sorry, but I'm sure you are aware that you greatly resemble my brother in looks," she mentioned turning to the tall man, who looked to be around a similar age to her brother as well now that she looked a bit more at the now amused-looking man. He wore the same general uniform design that Noin, and her loyal former OZ personnel, had started to wear when becoming her bodyguards. Though this man's looked to be more similar to that of the uniform mainly worn by the former Speciale Mobile Suit Unit and now officers of the new OZ Military but of a different color. Without the opened jacket of Noin's new uniform instead sporting a closed jacket that looked different from that of the OZ Uniform.
"It is quite alright Your Highness, as you are quite correct, I was kind of expecting your surprise about my appearance. As I am quite aware of how similar I look to your brother as I have met him a couple of times during my time serving in the Alliance military/" the man started to say with a small smile on his face, "In fact, after I returned home, I did some research and found that we are actually distantly related."
"Oh?" Relena managed to say in response to that, but really, she shouldn't be all that surprised for he was indeed nearly a twin to her own brother.
"Yes, I am your fourth cousin, once removed I believe," he mentioned with a bow of his head towards her making her nod in return at him before shaking her head to clear it from these thoughts and to focus on the real reason for the man's arrival. She was still excited that she managed to find family, after not only losing her adopted father to a Romefellar Foundation-ordered assassination but losing her adopted mother to some sort of mental breakdown that saw her committed to a psychological hospital in the nearby city of Tokyo to that of the Darlian Estate. The rest of the extended Darlian Family were either too far apart or for some reason had been lost in some way. Something that she had recently found out was that her adopted father, and his family, had lived in Sanc and had lost a good majority of his family during the Alliance invasion of the kingdom.
"That is quite excellent, and everything. I am sure I shall invite you along with your family for dinner one of these days to get better acquainted but right now that is not what you are here for Major Carter," she mentioned before waving a hand towards her desk and turning to Pagan while the major took one the chairs placed in front of the desk at her silent direction.
"Thank you, Pagan, for escorting the Major here. I shall call you or Myrna if we needed anything else," she mentioned the man who only answered with a quick bow before leaving them alone in the suite. She then turned her attention back to her guest and took a seat behind her, utterly, massively sized desk. Something that she grumbled about nearly daily to many of her close advisors.
"As you know Major I have been interviewing many of the pilots and important figures associated with the Royal Engineering Group and the overall larger program to give the Kingdom its own dedicated mobile suit combat force," she started off looking over at the man who was calmly watching her as she started her often repeated spiel she had given to many of the pilots and important figures in the previous week or so. She had wanted to get the measure of these people before she would have to trust her own life and the lives of the people she now came to lead to them in the days ahead.
Over the course of those interviews, she had been surprised to find that the vast majority of the pilots and senior figures in the Program were actually Sanc Kingdom-born, and wanted, truly to defend their country from any enemy that would harm it. While the handful of non-Sanc Nationals who are part of the program had either married into a family from the Kingdom or for some reason decided to come live inside the former Kingdom. Mainly, thanks to yet another idea that her Chief Representative had in previous years, mainly recruiting outside of the kingdom for needed personnel. Then there had been the surprise that several of the Sanc-born pilots and personnel of the new Royal Defense Force were actually trained via the Alliance military in a few different ways. Including the man who was sitting in front of her right now and the person who had actually started the whole thing of having the Alliance training them before returning home to give their country that needed experience.
"As in the past few months during the course of this current series of conflicts, I have personally witnessed several instances of mobile suit pilots not only firing into crowds of civilians without any sort of care but being cruel to their enemies during combat. Hence, I do not want any of the pilots that would be piloting our new mobile suits to be from the same stock," she mentioned a bit more coldly than in her earlier introduction. This made the man blink in some surprise before he started to look a bit uncomfortable at what she had said before he started to look a bit annoyed at the end of her comment but looked to have understood what she was saying.
"I understand that your highness, but if any of the pilots under my command end up doing anything like that, I would fire on them myself. I never endorsed it while I was in the Alliance military and I am not going to let anyone here do that either," he mentioned in reply to that making Relena nod in some understanding for that was usually the response from every one of the pilots at her opening remarks.
"Very well Major I do believe you and every single one of the pilots who have said similar things to me during their own interviews. Luckily you didn't try to question my trust in the new Defense Forces and their pilots like the Noembreux Twins did during their interviews," she mentioned with a small smile on her face at this while the Major himself blinked in some surprise before groaning out loud and facepalming.
"I am quite sorry for them your highness but there is a reason that they are like that," the man managed to say after some moments making Relena nod in understanding.
"Yes, the Chief Representative explained it to me that the vast majority of their family had been killed during the Alliance Invasion when a squad of Alliance Leos advanced through their village during the opening minutes of the invasion. The result of which nearly demolished every single village building killing many of the village inhabitants as a result of many buildings being destroyed," Relena replied with a sigh and narrowed angry-looking eyes to one side of the room, away from the man in front of her. When she had heard that story, she had immediately gone to personally meet the twins, at their assignment at the Cinq Military Base and apologize to them as well as explaining the reason for her statements. They had been surprised by this move and they apologized in return for their own statements to her. The Major meanwhile looked pained at the mention of the story.
"On a lighter topic, I have counter-signed General Rex's order to promote you to Lieutenant Colonel and the position of overall commander of the Defense Force's Mobile Suit Forces. It will be formally announced tonight at the party," she mentioned after several moments of silence between the two of them, both lost in their own memories. At her comment the Major looked up in some surprise, first at the mention of the new overall commander of the Royal Defense Force, a woman who had been part of the original Sanc Kingdom Security Forces who lived through the invasion unlike many of the Security Forces, not to mention was the first cousin of the Chief Representative, and secondly, the mention of the order to promote him and give him the position of commanding officer Sanc Kingdom Royal Defense Forces Mobile Suit Forces.
"I'll be honored highness," the man managed to say after some moments shocked silence from him. Something made Relena smile slightly at the man and his almost embarrassed air at the idea of being promoted.
"Very well, I do believe that is everything I need from you Major," she mentioned as she got up from her chair before continuing on with a beaming smile, "I shall see you tonight then at the ceremony."
"Yes, your highness!" the man replied as he too got out of his chair and accepted the hand from Relena before bowing over her hand and kissing it gentlemen-like before retreating from the room and a now blushing form of his queen.
"Well, that was interesting!" came an amused voice from one side of the room where Captain Noin appeared from her hiding spot cleverly hidden behind a pair of bookcases. Noin had been with Relena for every single one of the interviews as Noin didn't really trust anyone with the safety of Relena right now. The Major in particular had worried Noin as he had been an Alliance officer and everything, but she shouldn't have worried for she too had been surprised at the clear resemblance between the Major and Relena's brother. The photo that came with his file had for some reason darkened his hair and sported a small goatee which changed the outline of his face.
"He was quite cute," she mentioned as she up alongside her charge with a teasing smile on her lips.
"Noin!" the young woman said to her bodyguard with a glare and another blush, "He is my cousin!"
"Please! He is only your Fourth Cousin, Once Removed. There are some couples I'm aware of from my time in OZ and Romefellar that are like Second Cousins or something," she mentioned with a wave making Relena look a bit surprised and a bit revolted at that thought before she shook her head drastically.
"I am not crushing on my cousin!" she managed to say to the older woman with another glare before she sighed and looked back at the window with a thoughtful look on her face, "Besides, you know who has my heart Noin."
This saw the older woman sigh almost mournfully and nod in agreement with the vastly younger woman. Both of them had surprisingly quickly clicked with one another soon after Noin started to take care of the younger woman as a favor to her older brother. Mostly, as they both were strong and confident woman as well as hopelessly in love with strong warrior type of men. The figure of Zechs Merquise, in reality Relena's brother Milliardo Peacecraft, for Noin and the mysterious Gundam Pilot Heero Yuy for Relena. Such a strong connection between the two helped both of them during these dark days.
"Anyways. I need to get ready for the ceremony tonight so if you please Captain can you call Myrna," she ordered after several long moments between the two making the Captain nod and bow toward the younger woman.
"Of course, Your Highness!" she replied and retreated out of the room.
"Oh, Heero where are you," Relena whispered towards the window and with a sigh turned away to start preparing for her role in tonight's festivities.
Main Courtyard
Peacecraft Estate
That Evening
In the massively sized main courtyard behind that of the main, castle-looking, private estate of the Peacecraft family a large party was underway as the sun started to dip towards the waves of the nearby Baltic Sea. Dozens of figures of the Kingdom's high society and simpler folk were gathered together for not only the party itself but also the official celebration of the formation of the Kingdom's Royal Defense Forces. Hence, along with the partying civilians, there are dozens of uniformed military personnel who were gathered for this official celebration. While a half-dozen of ornately painted up Royal Leos were arranged all across the courtyard with a pair of machines flanking the large dais and elegant-looking podium that took up one end of the courtyard. The remaining four Royal Leos were positioned in the different corners of the courtyard looking down at the various parts of the ongoing party. Standing on a shadowed balcony that was somewhat hidden by one of the standing mobile suits were a couple of figures as they observed the ongoing party. One of the figures was fancifully dressed, as she had been part of the party till only moments before then, while the large, almost beefy, sized man standing next to the shorter woman was dressed in a somewhat more military feel but not at all similar to the uniformed men and woman of the new Royal Defense Force gathered at the party. In fact, his uniform had more common with that of the higher-end officers working with that of the leaders of the Romefellar Foundation.
"So, you see my dear Count the Kingdom and this new Defense Force of theirs have somehow managed to pull mobile suits from somewhere," the young blond-haired woman managed to say with a huff and wave towards the mobile suit that somewhat blocked their view of the rest of the party.
"I do see that Lady Dorothy, and I am now wondering how in the world they managed that all under the eyes of the Foundation," the man mentioned with a rumble from deep in his chest and a glaring frown on his face as he stared up at the towering mobile suit.
"Oh, that, well dear Queen Relena shall answer that in just a moment with her speech Count Brooks. From what I understand it is similar to the speech given to the newly seated Sanc Kingdom Parliament by the Chief Representative about how they managed to get themselves mobile suits," the young woman mentioned with an airy wave towards the dais on the other side of the courtyard from their position. The large man at her side only nodded at this before turning his attention away from the towering mobile suit, he had already deduced that it was heavily based on the basic design of the OZ-06MS Leo, and towards the ground where the figure of the large machine's pilot was talking to a few young women from the party which made the Count shake his head with a frown. For they really shouldn't have been able to be on this balcony and talking if that pilot was actually in their cockpit as he would noticed via the equipment in the cockpit. The other three mobile suits standing at the corners of the large courtyard were also out of their cockpits either standing at the attention at their machine's feet or chatting with nearby partygoers.
"I'm kind of disappointed really that they let the pilots be out of their cockpits like that," he rumbled out a moment later to his companion making the young woman chuckle lightly into her hand before shaking her head.
"Oh. That is mainly due to their orders from their leader, General Marianne Rex, and the Chief Representative himself for they are trying to get the populace used to the massive giants in their midst from what I understand," the lady mentioned making a bushy eyebrow raise on the face of the man as he turned to look down at the young woman, a girl, really that he knew to be one of the numerous grandchildren of Duke Dermail Catalonia, overall leader of the Romefellar Foundation itself. She had managed to quite easily enter the country as she had been accepted by a new private school that the Queen had ordered to be opened for the use of children of high society Europe, mostly as a way to pass her own interpretation of the Total Pacifism Policy to those countries. Still, he was quite impressed with her information-gathering skills when he first arrived a few hours ago. He had been quite surprised at the massive forms of the mobile suits patrolling around the shore near to that of the Port Facility he had arrived at from across the Baltic Sea and the loyal countries of the Foundation when Lady Dorothy had arrived to pick him up.
"Well, maybe they are not complete idiots," he managed to say with a sigh turning his attention back to the party just in time to see an older man a bit older them himself approaching the podium at the center of the dais, which he quickly identified as Chief Representative Vindt Rex, the overall man in charge of the Kingdom's new Parliament and one of the main underlings of the new Queen of this country. The man wore a dark blue, almost black, uniform similar in nature to the one he was currently wearing but sporting a more open coat, larger epaulets on his shoulders, a sash that went across his torso underneath the jacket, and a tied fancy-looking ascot around his neck. A bit for fancy looking than his own uniform, but of a style he knew that other countries had some variant as it was popular with the high society of the world over a century before the modern day.
"Oh. Looks like it is starting," Lady Dorthoy mentioned from his side making him nod and leaned forward slightly to get a better view of the older man and to also hear him a bit better.
"If I may get your attention, please," the man said into the microphone in front of him which soon sent his voice booming across the courtyard. At the corner of his eye, Count Brooks noticed the figure of the nearby mobile suit pilot had started to step away from the admiring ladies to stand at attention in front of his machine's foot. While the ladies started to move towards the center of the courtyard along with numerous others that been conversing at the edges of the courtyard.
"I'm sure you are well fed and everything by the Estate's magnificent staff, but I do believe it is time for our lovely queen to make her grand entrance," the Chief Representative mentioned with a few laughing at the quick quip he thrown in at the start before they all turned their attention to that of large doors that were right behind the dais.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Sanc Kingdom, and visiting guests, I give you our queen, Relena Peacecraft!" the older man gleefully bellowed into the microphone and then stepped to one side before taking a quick knee and bow along with several other nearby attendants. A moment later found the large doors slamming open and a dozen more fancy-looking guards, complete with ornate-looking spears in their hands, marched through the door before joining the half-dozen guards already surrounding the dais. From where he stood Count Brooks could see that while the spears the guards carried were more decoration than weapon, they still sported a hefty-looking sword at their hips. He was also sure every single one of the guards had a pistol on them somewhere along the fancy uniforms. Not to mention he was sure that there were most likely several further guards, including one or two snipers, hidden elsewhere in the courtyard along with the paired flanking mobile suits that had always been fully manned, and armed, unlike the other four units in the courtyards. Though he wasn't really sure about lance-like weapons those two mobile suits carried along with a differently designed shield in the other arm.
"Here she comes," whispered Dorothy at his side, and a moment later the figure of Queen Relena Peacecraft gracefully walked through the doors, in an amazing-looking white colored dress and silver tiara at her brow, with another of the uniformed guards at her side in a gentlemen-like escort position complete with one of the queen's arms tucked into their elbow. Though unlike the earlier guards which sported feathered helmets this particular guard did not sport any headgear therefore the Count could easily see the face of the guard and he inhaled in some surprise drawing a look from the young lady at his side.
"That is Baronet Lucrezia Noin," he whispered to her before focusing back on the spectacle going on in front of them. A moment later, the figure of Noin led the queen to the podium before with a bow towards the young woman taking a position a step behind her charge. This was followed by a brief greeting between the queen and her chief representative who soon took a position on her other shoulder opposite Noin. With that, the Queen turned towards the gathered partygoers standing in front of the dais with a bright smile.
"Greetings everyone I am quite glad to see you all here this evening. I'm sure you are avidly waiting for my speech that I promised you all, but I am afraid that I must delay it for a brief few moments. As I need to discharge a duty to one particular officer of our own newly formed Royal Defense Forces," the young queen started off with a soft and elegant sounding voice, something that drew the Count's attention making him shake his head to clear it.
"Will Major Brian Carter please attend me?" the queen was now saying and soon a tall uniformed helmeted figure stepped up from the crowd and quickly took a knee in front of the podium. The queen meanwhile stepped around the podium to approach the kneeling figure of the uniformed man.
"This is Major Brian Carter, who I have recently found to be my Fourth Cousin, Once Removed, making him a distant relative but still family of myself. However, that is not the reason he is here this evening kneeling before me," the young woman was saying, and Count Brooks was impressed that without the microphone at the podium, her voice still carried well over the courtyard. His eyes did narrow a bit at the mentioning of this man a distant relative of the Peacecraft Family, as from what he understood much of the family had been killed by that of the Alliance during the Invasion with only the Prince and Princess being saved from the slaughter.
"No, the good Major spent eight long years serving as a member of the Alliance Military, an organization that had been reasonable for the invasion of our small little kingdom all those years ago. After his service to the Alliance ended, he returned home to allow his fallen nation to use his hard-earned experience in the forming of a dedicated defense force for the Kingdom if it ever was fully revived enough to require such a thing," she went on with a soft smile glancing down at the kneeling figure before accepting a drawn sword from Noin who had stepped around the podium as well to take position alongside her queen. Count Brooks, though frowned a bit further for that was quite a surprise and he wondered briefly if the man's connection to the Peacecraft had been revealed during his time in the Alliance, but he highly doubted it for he is still alive after all.
"For that service alone to not only the Kingdom itself but myself, I am now knighting him as a member of the Order of the White Rose," she explained, and a deep breath seemed to be drawn from the collective throats of the crowd though both Count Brooks and Lady Dorthoy up on their balcony frowned in some confusion. They knew knighting was a big thing, especially in the circles they frequent, but this looked to be quite a bit more than that. Brooks took a quick look around and saw that the handful of guests to the country were also a bit confused by this announcement while those who were locals looked quite surprised at this announcement. Still, the young Count decided to turn his attention back to the dais. A moment later, he watched as the queen used the sword in the ancient ritual of knighting touching the blade to each shoulder of the kneeling man. That done she then passed the sword to that of her bodyguard once more and accepted a more ornate white and silver colored sash from the figure of the Chief Representative who like before was on her other side. She then leaned down and draped it over the head of the man almost catching the seam with that of the man's helmet before it settled on the shoulder and over his torso to his waist.
"Rise, Sir Brian of the White Rose," Queen Relena directed with another soft smile, and the man after a moment of silent surprise did so and the crowd went wild. The guards slammed the butts of their spears to the ground while cheering and even the manned mobile suits on either side of the dais got into the act slamming their more mobile suit-sized lances they carried to the ground as well. As this happened the figure of the new knight and the queen were quietly talking to one another before the Chief Representative stepped forward with a raised hand and a beaming smile on his face.
"We are not done just yet everyone," the man mentioned after several moments to get the crowd to quieten down. He then turned on his heel to bow his head towards the queen who finished up her discussion with the new Knight to look back over the crowd.
"Before I go any further, I need to explain something to our esteemed guests," she mentioned with a smile looking over the crowd at particular members, which he had noticed earlier were guests to the country along with him still the young woman was shocked him with looking up at him directly at their balcony before bowing her head slightly at the two of them before shifting her attention back down towards the crowd.
"The Order of the White Rose was first created by my many times great grandfather King Ricardo who was the first monarch of the Peacecraft Dynasty and the man who had also personally forged the Sanc Kingdom out of the chaotic times that predated the beginning of the After Colony calendar. Onto his six main lieutenants and followers, he titled them Knights of the White Rose. Whose significance is yet another long story and we do not have time to explore tonight I'm sorry say," she started to say with a small smile on her face making a few of the locals laugh quietly under their breath and making Brooks wonder briefly what story she was talking about but focused on the Queen as she continued on with her story.
"Since the time of King Ricardo and his lieutenants, only nine others have been knighted as part of the Order with Sir Brian here now becoming the sixteenth, and only living, member of the Order. Hence, you can now appreciate the honor this happens to be," the queen explained making the various guests mixed in with the crowd now understand everything while Count Brooks looked quite shocked for he had heard of such orders of knighthood which are rarely if ever awarded, the Order of Saint George from old Britain being a major example, but this is the first time he had actually seen it.
"Still as mentioned we are not yet done with poor Sir Brian here, for in part to his actions in becoming one of the key trainers and architects of the current Mobile Suit Forces of the Royal Defense Forces he is to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and overall commanding officer in charge of said Mobile Suit Forces," the queen mentioned to the crowd before turning and accepting a pair of more fancy-looking epaulets from her bodyguard before with the help of the Chief Representative at her side managed to swap them with the less fancy version the Major had been originally been wearing. The crowd, as Count Brooks watched, looked a bit less then thrilled then the earlier awarded knighthood making him a bit confused before turning his attention back to the dais.
"With that, you are dismissed Lieutenant Colonel," the young queen bid the officer who replied with a deep courtly bow towards her before leaving the dais behind and taking a spot along the rest of the guards in the front of the dais. That done the queen moved back behind the podium and looked over the crowd with a bit of a small smile on her face.
"Now we have come to the main event of this evening my speech that will hopefully answer more than a few of your questions about not only the newly formed Royal Defense Forces but where in the world these mobile suits had come from," she said with a wave at the two flanking mobile suits starting what looked to be what Count Brooks was here to hear.
"So, the story begins during the teenage years of my Grandmother Katrina where she took part in the First Lunar Resource War. Something, from what I understand brought disfavor to her from the rest of the family. Still after the end of the war, Katrina returned home knowing that she may end up being banished from the family for daring to become a soldier and fight in a war, a war that the Sanc Kingdom had no stakes in," the young queen was explaining drawing in her audience with a calm soft sounding voice as she looked around the gathered crowd.
"However, I am sure many of you who have some interest in our own recent history know where this is going," the queen mentioned with a slight almost saddened smile on her face while a few others in the crowd either flinched or outright gasped in some form of surprise at this comment from the Queen. Count Brooks looked down at Lady Dorothy who only shrugged at him in some confusion of her own.
"Yes, she returned to this fair Estate just in time to witness the Christmas Massacre which saw a good portion of her family killed by a mysterious terrorist attack leaving her as the oldest member of the direct Royal Family alive. She soon took the throne as Queen Katrina the First, the first ruling Queen of the dynasty since the granddaughter of King Ricardo, Queen Marianna," the queen went on with the story and the Count took a brief moment to look around to see the crowd where becoming quite enthralled with the story, and he briefly wondered how this would lead up to the answers he was seeking.
"However, after taking the throne Queen Katrina was quite aghast at the state of the country's own security forces. As they were pretty much nothing more than poorly trained law enforcement which she believed needed to double as a defensive force if needed. Therefore, from there she made the goal of her reign to fix this travesty and as part of this project, she ordered the construction of a few different bunkers across the country to serve as dedicated bases for the Security Forces. She did it this way instead of actually building proper above-ground bases to prevent the Parliament from guessing on what she was spending the funds she requested on," this drew some surprised looks and gasps from the gathered crowd, but the queen didn't let it stop her and went on with the story.
"Over the next fifteen years or so Queen Katrina worked hard to increase the training for the security forces and constantly fought the Parliament for the required funds to equip them all properly before finally, she received an interesting proposal from her chief aide, one Artemis Rex. The year was After Colony 178 and the proposal called for the kingdom itself through a couple of different cutouts to start purchasing damaged or outdated OZ-06MS Leos directly from the Alliance. As at the time, it was cheaper to produce a whole new mobile suit than repairing a damaged machine or upgrading an outdated one," the Queen went on with the story though this time Count Brooks looked quite surprised at this reveal before looking over at the mobile suit literally almost next to him once more not even listening to the rest of the Queen's speech.
He stepped slightly to one side to further inspect the mobile suit in the shadowed area of its lower back. After a brief moment, he saw what exactly he was looking for and he shook his head with a frown. For he had presumed that they were heavily based on the basic Leo design, like the infamous WMS-03 Maganac design, not simply upgraded Leos themselves. He really should have known better for unless the Kingdom had some sort of larger industrial sponsor like the Maganac Corp and the larger Arab Liberation Front sported then it would have been almost impossible that they would have been able to design, and build their own brand new mobile suit design. Hence, they would have been left with just improving the basic Leo design which made far more sense in his mind. He couldn't believe that he hadn't even thought of that when he first saw these so-called new mobile suits. Turning to his companion he saw that the young woman was quite enthralled with what the Queen was saying during her little story, and he shot another look down at the dais itself, just in time to hear what they were calling these mobile suits.
'Royal Leos indeed,' he thought with an internal snort before sighing as he turned away leaning a bit towards Dorothy which attracted her attention back to him.
"Lady Dorothy, I have all that I need, therefore, I shall be now heading back to the hotel to prepare myself for the flight back," he mentioned to his young companion who had jolted in some surprise at this statement which saw her turning her entire attention to him.
"You don't want to listen to the rest of the Queen's speech milord?" she questioned with a frown on her youthful face eying the dais again at the corner of her eye.
"No. As I mentioned I got the answers I sought with what she said about the mobile suits themselves," he explained to her with a wave towards the nearby mobile suit making her raise one of those crazy forked-looking eyebrows at him before she nodded.
"I understand milord. Shall I'll escort you out then?" she questioned him before he smiled down at her before shaking his beefy looking head and shot another look at the dais.
"No, milady. I shall see myself out," he mentioned with a short courtly bow towards her before quickly making his exit leaving the young woman alone on the balcony who had turned to listen as Queen started to wind down with her speech.
"As my dear cousin likes to say the stage is now set," she whispered to herself before she gave her own lady-like curtsy towards the dais and the podium as the queen started to wave at the now adoring crowd in front of her. With that, she made her own exit, not even noticing more than a few eyes on her as she left the estate.
Post Chapter Notes
And that is the first official chapter of the story! I hope you all enjoyed it! I really did enjoy writing it! Though that said! When I originally planned this chapter, I made more than a few assumptions about the overall larger After Colony timeline that were quite wrong. Hence, I made some minor changes to my original plans, mostly seen in the Prelude and a couple of things here in the first chapter. The first major thing that I had to change was that the OZ-02MD Virgo Mobile Dolls were not rolled out just yet. They are only just getting the data from both Mercurius and the Vayate to allow the final design of the Virgo. So, I had to change some things about it, mostly the Royal Leos equipped with Laser Weapons. Something that was mentioned in the prelude before I changed it. The other thing that I changed from my original planning for the chapter was that Noin was going to mention to Relena during the closing of the first scene that she had managed to track down Quarte and Heero, therefore, was now going to see about going to retrieve them. Again. The Gundam Pilots are all still in space, and by now I believe Quarte is in the process of constructing Wing Zero. I think. I really do not know how that series of events drops onto the timeline.
That brings me to something else that I wanted to mention. Really, the official timeline for Gundam Wing, which is seen on the Gundam Wiki, really doesn't have set dates on events happening between the Battle of New Edwards, where the Gundams take out the leadership of the Alliance, and the fracturing of OZ with Trieze stepping down from commanding OZ sometime in early September. So outside of that date of Trieze stepping down and the fracturing of OZ as a result I am going to be a bit loose with dates. Hence, I am just going to create my own dates for some of the events that happen during this time. I really hope that no one will be upset about it. This is already seen in the Prelude with a general date of Relena arriving and then being made the Queen of the Sanc Kingdom as somewhere around very early August. This chapter meanwhile is a few weeks afterward and sets up events a bit for further chapters. Mainly, the populace of the Sanc Kingdom and Romefellar becoming aware of the new mobile suits that is the Royal Leo and the formation new Royal Defense Force of the Sanc Kingdom. Speaking of Romefellar knowing about the Royal Leos my original plan actually had poor Broom Brooks being assassinated by a Sanc Kingdom soldier as to prevent Romefellar from getting a clue, but I think that was a bit too dark for anyone associated with the Kingdom to do really.
Okay. One final thing to mention is a couple of minor things that I am having in this story, the first of course being the introduction of my first original character for the story, my own favored OC Brian Carter. Here he is a distant relation to Relena, and that is mainly thanks to using Zechs as a basis for his character in my other stories. Shrug. Thought it was a fun little nod. The other thing is that I introduced the figure of Broom Brooks, from that of the G-Unit Manga, as a Romefellar Stooge who is observing the speech of Relena where she explains the back history of how the Sanc Kingdom managed to get their hands on their own mobile suits. That does bring me to something that I kind of had to redo somewhat for this chapter as I already explained everything to the readers at large during the last chapter how that happened therefore didn't really need to explain again, even if it was as an excuse to have a character themselves listen to the story. Hence the reasoning is that while the early parts of Relena's speech remained, as it expanded, somewhat on the original story the latter half was pretty much cut after said character heard the more important part of the overall larger story. Therefore, dear reader, you are quite welcome that I recognized that before I managed to post the chapter. Snort.
Still, if you couldn't guess I really had some fun in this chapter. Mainly with the second scene and a couple of bits with the first scene. As I really channeled my outright love for sci-fi stories that feature some form of space-age aristocracy or nobility, like say Battletech or the larger Honor Harrington Series. Mostly, the former for it does sports large mechanical combat vehicles like a mobile suit or Gundam. Hence, why mobile suits are standing guard like they are more human-sized guards, look at the famous images from Battletech which have a pair of Griffin Battlemechs flanking the royal throne of the Lyran Commonwealth. This is mostly thanks to Gundam Wing really leaning on that vibe of sporting such nobility and knighthoods in the story itself. Yes, I know that is mostly on the enemy side of the story and everything, but I still liked the whole thing which is why I really expanded on that in this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it as well for like mentioned I did have fun writing it.
With all that said I do believe that is about it for my notes for this chapter. I shall hopefully see you all in Stage Two: Gathering Allies and Influence.
EDIT: Before I post this, I need to ask my readers if I should try to copy the overall feel of the next episode previews featured in Gundam Wing. By that I mean should I put in a next chapter preview for the next chapter alongside its title? Anyone?
When word started to come in that the newly reborn Sanc Kingdom had started to build up its own Defense Forces, complete with mobile suits, I had some trouble believing it. As in the past, the Kingdom had followed the total pacifism policies of its King who had been a longtime follower of Heero Yuy. No matter what its previous monarch, Queen Katrina had followed a bit more of a "want peace, prepare for war" policy. Not to mention the idea of such a small nation somehow managing to somehow get their hands on the overall ability to develop their own mobile suits was a bit laughable. However, soon I received hard intelligence from agents seeded in the newborn country and I was quite surprised seeing the pictures attached to the intelligence which showed numerous mobile suits, similar in built to our own Leos, in various areas of the newly reborn Kingdom. Soon afterward I wanted to launch an immediate attack on the new country before it could get its legs under it and get experience in the use of their new mobile suits, which would be quite bad in the long run, therefore I put forth a proposal for the immediate invasion of the Sanc Kingdom to the higher ups due to this idea in my head. However, my proposal was rejected out of hand, mostly as, at the time, OZ and Romefellar itself were focusing on what was going on in space with the colonies. Therefore, months later when events on Earth itself started to draw the attention of the Romefellar Board and their assigned military leaders the Sanc Kingdom's Royal Defense Force was a solid, experienced, force and would be quite a hard nut to crack even by our own brand-new mobile dolls…
- Taken from an interview with former Major James Harrison, OZ Intelligence Bureau, Commanding Officer, Terrestrial Intelligence Office, circa. April, AC198
Royal Suite
Governmental House
New Port City, Sanc Kingdom
August 26, After Colony 195
Standing at the massively sized window of the Royal Suite of the Governmental House of the Sanc Kingdom, which dominated one wall of the large room that is called the Royal Suite, the short white uniformed figure of the newly invested Queen of the Sanc Kingdom, one Relena Peacecraft, looked outside of the building. Mostly she watched the people of the city moving about on the streets in front of the large government facility that was built into the center of the overall large port city. Many of them looked quite pleased to see the facility once more alive and well, though a few looked at the fancy uniformed guards standing at the two main gates of the facility, and the even larger-sized guards standing behind the gates, with some concern. Still, many of them looked to be quite happy to once more have a monarch leading them into the future even more so when they all found out that she was actually the daughter of the kingdom's previous King and his queen, who had been well-loved by the populace of the small kingdom since her father's rise to become King.
Sighing, the young queen turned her attention to that of the four towering figures standing behind the walls of the main gates and the more human-sized guards outside of the gates. These were the newly titled SK-06MS Royal Leos of the newly announced and formed Sanc Kingdom Royal Defense Forces. It had been nearly two weeks since she had been shown the massively sized military bunker and mobile suit hangar that was built almost underneath the larger Peacecraft Estate just outside the confines of the city by Chief Representative Rex, and her now famous order. Soon afterward she had signed the order to start forming the new Royal Defense Forces, to protect the country, alongside the more elite Royal Guard, who would protect her own person, along with any members of her family. Both forces would sport mobile suits, the entirely rebuilt forms of regular-old OZ-06MS Leos which had been named as the SK-06MS Royal Leos by the Chief Representative during his speech announcing all of this a week later to not only the Kingdom's Parliament by to the larger overall populace of the country. She knew that there was even a plan to further produce a more ornate version of the basic Royal Leo for use by the Sanc Kingdom Royal Guard using parts and such that the Leo Upgrade Program of the Kingdom had stocked up over the years. Though, from what she understood Noin was arguing for something else to become the primary mobile suit of the Royal Guard. Relena thought such things were quite ridiculous, as why would she need full-sized mobile suits to guard her person, still, she wasn't going to fully argue with her newly promoted chief bodyguard, Captain Noin. As she knew that the mobile suit had become the primary overall weapon of any military, private paramilitary, or even terrorists during the modern era. Hence, a general needs to have mobile suits in her own guard force.
Soon after these speeches and the reveal of the upgraded Leo mobile suits four of the new Royal Leos had started to stand guard right behind the main gates of the Governmental House while a full squadron of a dozen of the machines started to patrol and stand guard around the castle-like Peacecraft Estate. Another squadron of twelve machines, meanwhile, started to patrol the large stretch of shoreline right outside of the city. Then along with a reduced squadron of former Alliance FR-15 Wyvern Reconnaissance Fighters, a half-dozen Royal Leos equipped with MSE-9 Flight Packs would start patrolling the Kingdom's own limited airspace. Before finally, four whole squadrons of the Royal Leos started to call the former Alliance Cinq Military Base, located roughly opposite of the Royal Forest from New Port City, home. With the former larger aircraft hangers, originally built to service the large CC-160 Mobile Suit Transports, being hastily converted to maintain and store modern mobile suits. Machines that would rotate with the ones on patrol or guard duty across the kingdom.
All of this, at first, concerned the citizens of the Kingdom but were not starting to get used to it, with only a small minority of citizens remaining concerned about the outright militarization of the country. However, hopefully, that should start to wane down due to the Chief Representative's planned largescale information program to the citizens of the country not only further noting that these measures are only to prevent another invasion from destroying the country but also setting up dedicated interviews of many of the mobile suit pilots by the Kingdom's own small network of news agencies to show them all the real faces behind the large mobile suits that become seen across the small country. Not to mention the planned speech she was supposed to be doing at tonight's festivities to celebrate the official formation of the Royal Defense Forces.
"Highness your Three O'clock appointment is here," came the calm yet aged voice of Pagan Rex, her longtime butler and now chief aide from right outside of the door leading to the Royal Suite which drew the young woman's attention from the window and her reflections on what had been happening over the past few weeks. She was quite amused that Pagan had taken up building a dedicated staff to serve her both here at the Governmental House and at the larger Peacecraft Estate, but still personally dealt with her schedule and served as her secretary.
"Thank you Pagan, but please do remember what I told you earlier," she mentioned to the man who entered with a smooth bow and a small smile at her mild admonishment about him outright remaining as her personal secretary when he was also head of her now larger staff.
"Your Highness, Major Brian Carter of the Royal Defense Forces," he mentioned a moment later as he led a tall blond-haired man into the suite who bowed alongside the older man. Relena could only blink in some surprise for the man greatly resembled her own brother, Milliardo. After a moment she noticed the differences, mainly having shorter hair, and as the man smoothly straightened up from his courtly bow, she saw the man had hazel eyes over her brother's own pale blue.
"Your Highness?" came the concerned voice of Pagan which drew her attention and saw that she had been staring at the younger man for over a minute which made her blush slightly before she calmed herself.
"I'm quite sorry, but I'm sure you are aware that you greatly resemble my brother in looks," she mentioned turning to the tall man, who looked to be around a similar age to her brother as well now that she looked a bit more at the now amused-looking man. He wore the same general uniform design that Noin, and her loyal former OZ personnel, had started to wear when becoming her bodyguards. Though this man's looked to be more similar to that of the uniform mainly worn by the former Speciale Mobile Suit Unit and now officers of the new OZ Military but of a different color. Without the opened jacket of Noin's new uniform instead sporting a closed jacket that looked different from that of the OZ Uniform.
"It is quite alright Your Highness, as you are quite correct, I was kind of expecting your surprise about my appearance. As I am quite aware of how similar I look to your brother as I have met him a couple of times during my time serving in the Alliance military/" the man started to say with a small smile on his face, "In fact, after I returned home, I did some research and found that we are actually distantly related."
"Oh?" Relena managed to say in response to that, but really, she shouldn't be all that surprised for he was indeed nearly a twin to her own brother.
"Yes, I am your fourth cousin, once removed I believe," he mentioned with a bow of his head towards her making her nod in return at him before shaking her head to clear it from these thoughts and to focus on the real reason for the man's arrival. She was still excited that she managed to find family, after not only losing her adopted father to a Romefellar Foundation-ordered assassination but losing her adopted mother to some sort of mental breakdown that saw her committed to a psychological hospital in the nearby city of Tokyo to that of the Darlian Estate. The rest of the extended Darlian Family were either too far apart or for some reason had been lost in some way. Something that she had recently found out was that her adopted father, and his family, had lived in Sanc and had lost a good majority of his family during the Alliance invasion of the kingdom.
"That is quite excellent, and everything. I am sure I shall invite you along with your family for dinner one of these days to get better acquainted but right now that is not what you are here for Major Carter," she mentioned before waving a hand towards her desk and turning to Pagan while the major took one the chairs placed in front of the desk at her silent direction.
"Thank you, Pagan, for escorting the Major here. I shall call you or Myrna if we needed anything else," she mentioned the man who only answered with a quick bow before leaving them alone in the suite. She then turned her attention back to her guest and took a seat behind her, utterly, massively sized desk. Something that she grumbled about nearly daily to many of her close advisors.
"As you know Major I have been interviewing many of the pilots and important figures associated with the Royal Engineering Group and the overall larger program to give the Kingdom its own dedicated mobile suit combat force," she started off looking over at the man who was calmly watching her as she started her often repeated spiel she had given to many of the pilots and important figures in the previous week or so. She had wanted to get the measure of these people before she would have to trust her own life and the lives of the people she now came to lead to them in the days ahead.
Over the course of those interviews, she had been surprised to find that the vast majority of the pilots and senior figures in the Program were actually Sanc Kingdom-born, and wanted, truly to defend their country from any enemy that would harm it. While the handful of non-Sanc Nationals who are part of the program had either married into a family from the Kingdom or for some reason decided to come live inside the former Kingdom. Mainly, thanks to yet another idea that her Chief Representative had in previous years, mainly recruiting outside of the kingdom for needed personnel. Then there had been the surprise that several of the Sanc-born pilots and personnel of the new Royal Defense Force were actually trained via the Alliance military in a few different ways. Including the man who was sitting in front of her right now and the person who had actually started the whole thing of having the Alliance training them before returning home to give their country that needed experience.
"As in the past few months during the course of this current series of conflicts, I have personally witnessed several instances of mobile suit pilots not only firing into crowds of civilians without any sort of care but being cruel to their enemies during combat. Hence, I do not want any of the pilots that would be piloting our new mobile suits to be from the same stock," she mentioned a bit more coldly than in her earlier introduction. This made the man blink in some surprise before he started to look a bit uncomfortable at what she had said before he started to look a bit annoyed at the end of her comment but looked to have understood what she was saying.
"I understand that your highness, but if any of the pilots under my command end up doing anything like that, I would fire on them myself. I never endorsed it while I was in the Alliance military and I am not going to let anyone here do that either," he mentioned in reply to that making Relena nod in some understanding for that was usually the response from every one of the pilots at her opening remarks.
"Very well Major I do believe you and every single one of the pilots who have said similar things to me during their own interviews. Luckily you didn't try to question my trust in the new Defense Forces and their pilots like the Noembreux Twins did during their interviews," she mentioned with a small smile on her face at this while the Major himself blinked in some surprise before groaning out loud and facepalming.
"I am quite sorry for them your highness but there is a reason that they are like that," the man managed to say after some moments making Relena nod in understanding.
"Yes, the Chief Representative explained it to me that the vast majority of their family had been killed during the Alliance Invasion when a squad of Alliance Leos advanced through their village during the opening minutes of the invasion. The result of which nearly demolished every single village building killing many of the village inhabitants as a result of many buildings being destroyed," Relena replied with a sigh and narrowed angry-looking eyes to one side of the room, away from the man in front of her. When she had heard that story, she had immediately gone to personally meet the twins, at their assignment at the Cinq Military Base and apologize to them as well as explaining the reason for her statements. They had been surprised by this move and they apologized in return for their own statements to her. The Major meanwhile looked pained at the mention of the story.
"On a lighter topic, I have counter-signed General Rex's order to promote you to Lieutenant Colonel and the position of overall commander of the Defense Force's Mobile Suit Forces. It will be formally announced tonight at the party," she mentioned after several moments of silence between the two of them, both lost in their own memories. At her comment the Major looked up in some surprise, first at the mention of the new overall commander of the Royal Defense Force, a woman who had been part of the original Sanc Kingdom Security Forces who lived through the invasion unlike many of the Security Forces, not to mention was the first cousin of the Chief Representative, and secondly, the mention of the order to promote him and give him the position of commanding officer Sanc Kingdom Royal Defense Forces Mobile Suit Forces.
"I'll be honored highness," the man managed to say after some moments shocked silence from him. Something made Relena smile slightly at the man and his almost embarrassed air at the idea of being promoted.
"Very well, I do believe that is everything I need from you Major," she mentioned as she got up from her chair before continuing on with a beaming smile, "I shall see you tonight then at the ceremony."
"Yes, your highness!" the man replied as he too got out of his chair and accepted the hand from Relena before bowing over her hand and kissing it gentlemen-like before retreating from the room and a now blushing form of his queen.
"Well, that was interesting!" came an amused voice from one side of the room where Captain Noin appeared from her hiding spot cleverly hidden behind a pair of bookcases. Noin had been with Relena for every single one of the interviews as Noin didn't really trust anyone with the safety of Relena right now. The Major in particular had worried Noin as he had been an Alliance officer and everything, but she shouldn't have worried for she too had been surprised at the clear resemblance between the Major and Relena's brother. The photo that came with his file had for some reason darkened his hair and sported a small goatee which changed the outline of his face.
"He was quite cute," she mentioned as she up alongside her charge with a teasing smile on her lips.
"Noin!" the young woman said to her bodyguard with a glare and another blush, "He is my cousin!"
"Please! He is only your Fourth Cousin, Once Removed. There are some couples I'm aware of from my time in OZ and Romefellar that are like Second Cousins or something," she mentioned with a wave making Relena look a bit surprised and a bit revolted at that thought before she shook her head drastically.
"I am not crushing on my cousin!" she managed to say to the older woman with another glare before she sighed and looked back at the window with a thoughtful look on her face, "Besides, you know who has my heart Noin."
This saw the older woman sigh almost mournfully and nod in agreement with the vastly younger woman. Both of them had surprisingly quickly clicked with one another soon after Noin started to take care of the younger woman as a favor to her older brother. Mostly, as they both were strong and confident woman as well as hopelessly in love with strong warrior type of men. The figure of Zechs Merquise, in reality Relena's brother Milliardo Peacecraft, for Noin and the mysterious Gundam Pilot Heero Yuy for Relena. Such a strong connection between the two helped both of them during these dark days.
"Anyways. I need to get ready for the ceremony tonight so if you please Captain can you call Myrna," she ordered after several long moments between the two making the Captain nod and bow toward the younger woman.
"Of course, Your Highness!" she replied and retreated out of the room.
"Oh, Heero where are you," Relena whispered towards the window and with a sigh turned away to start preparing for her role in tonight's festivities.
Main Courtyard
Peacecraft Estate
That Evening
In the massively sized main courtyard behind that of the main, castle-looking, private estate of the Peacecraft family a large party was underway as the sun started to dip towards the waves of the nearby Baltic Sea. Dozens of figures of the Kingdom's high society and simpler folk were gathered together for not only the party itself but also the official celebration of the formation of the Kingdom's Royal Defense Forces. Hence, along with the partying civilians, there are dozens of uniformed military personnel who were gathered for this official celebration. While a half-dozen of ornately painted up Royal Leos were arranged all across the courtyard with a pair of machines flanking the large dais and elegant-looking podium that took up one end of the courtyard. The remaining four Royal Leos were positioned in the different corners of the courtyard looking down at the various parts of the ongoing party. Standing on a shadowed balcony that was somewhat hidden by one of the standing mobile suits were a couple of figures as they observed the ongoing party. One of the figures was fancifully dressed, as she had been part of the party till only moments before then, while the large, almost beefy, sized man standing next to the shorter woman was dressed in a somewhat more military feel but not at all similar to the uniformed men and woman of the new Royal Defense Force gathered at the party. In fact, his uniform had more common with that of the higher-end officers working with that of the leaders of the Romefellar Foundation.
"So, you see my dear Count the Kingdom and this new Defense Force of theirs have somehow managed to pull mobile suits from somewhere," the young blond-haired woman managed to say with a huff and wave towards the mobile suit that somewhat blocked their view of the rest of the party.
"I do see that Lady Dorothy, and I am now wondering how in the world they managed that all under the eyes of the Foundation," the man mentioned with a rumble from deep in his chest and a glaring frown on his face as he stared up at the towering mobile suit.
"Oh, that, well dear Queen Relena shall answer that in just a moment with her speech Count Brooks. From what I understand it is similar to the speech given to the newly seated Sanc Kingdom Parliament by the Chief Representative about how they managed to get themselves mobile suits," the young woman mentioned with an airy wave towards the dais on the other side of the courtyard from their position. The large man at her side only nodded at this before turning his attention away from the towering mobile suit, he had already deduced that it was heavily based on the basic design of the OZ-06MS Leo, and towards the ground where the figure of the large machine's pilot was talking to a few young women from the party which made the Count shake his head with a frown. For they really shouldn't have been able to be on this balcony and talking if that pilot was actually in their cockpit as he would noticed via the equipment in the cockpit. The other three mobile suits standing at the corners of the large courtyard were also out of their cockpits either standing at the attention at their machine's feet or chatting with nearby partygoers.
"I'm kind of disappointed really that they let the pilots be out of their cockpits like that," he rumbled out a moment later to his companion making the young woman chuckle lightly into her hand before shaking her head.
"Oh. That is mainly due to their orders from their leader, General Marianne Rex, and the Chief Representative himself for they are trying to get the populace used to the massive giants in their midst from what I understand," the lady mentioned making a bushy eyebrow raise on the face of the man as he turned to look down at the young woman, a girl, really that he knew to be one of the numerous grandchildren of Duke Dermail Catalonia, overall leader of the Romefellar Foundation itself. She had managed to quite easily enter the country as she had been accepted by a new private school that the Queen had ordered to be opened for the use of children of high society Europe, mostly as a way to pass her own interpretation of the Total Pacifism Policy to those countries. Still, he was quite impressed with her information-gathering skills when he first arrived a few hours ago. He had been quite surprised at the massive forms of the mobile suits patrolling around the shore near to that of the Port Facility he had arrived at from across the Baltic Sea and the loyal countries of the Foundation when Lady Dorothy had arrived to pick him up.
"Well, maybe they are not complete idiots," he managed to say with a sigh turning his attention back to the party just in time to see an older man a bit older them himself approaching the podium at the center of the dais, which he quickly identified as Chief Representative Vindt Rex, the overall man in charge of the Kingdom's new Parliament and one of the main underlings of the new Queen of this country. The man wore a dark blue, almost black, uniform similar in nature to the one he was currently wearing but sporting a more open coat, larger epaulets on his shoulders, a sash that went across his torso underneath the jacket, and a tied fancy-looking ascot around his neck. A bit for fancy looking than his own uniform, but of a style he knew that other countries had some variant as it was popular with the high society of the world over a century before the modern day.
"Oh. Looks like it is starting," Lady Dorthoy mentioned from his side making him nod and leaned forward slightly to get a better view of the older man and to also hear him a bit better.
"If I may get your attention, please," the man said into the microphone in front of him which soon sent his voice booming across the courtyard. At the corner of his eye, Count Brooks noticed the figure of the nearby mobile suit pilot had started to step away from the admiring ladies to stand at attention in front of his machine's foot. While the ladies started to move towards the center of the courtyard along with numerous others that been conversing at the edges of the courtyard.
"I'm sure you are well fed and everything by the Estate's magnificent staff, but I do believe it is time for our lovely queen to make her grand entrance," the Chief Representative mentioned with a few laughing at the quick quip he thrown in at the start before they all turned their attention to that of large doors that were right behind the dais.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Sanc Kingdom, and visiting guests, I give you our queen, Relena Peacecraft!" the older man gleefully bellowed into the microphone and then stepped to one side before taking a quick knee and bow along with several other nearby attendants. A moment later found the large doors slamming open and a dozen more fancy-looking guards, complete with ornate-looking spears in their hands, marched through the door before joining the half-dozen guards already surrounding the dais. From where he stood Count Brooks could see that while the spears the guards carried were more decoration than weapon, they still sported a hefty-looking sword at their hips. He was also sure every single one of the guards had a pistol on them somewhere along the fancy uniforms. Not to mention he was sure that there were most likely several further guards, including one or two snipers, hidden elsewhere in the courtyard along with the paired flanking mobile suits that had always been fully manned, and armed, unlike the other four units in the courtyards. Though he wasn't really sure about lance-like weapons those two mobile suits carried along with a differently designed shield in the other arm.
"Here she comes," whispered Dorothy at his side, and a moment later the figure of Queen Relena Peacecraft gracefully walked through the doors, in an amazing-looking white colored dress and silver tiara at her brow, with another of the uniformed guards at her side in a gentlemen-like escort position complete with one of the queen's arms tucked into their elbow. Though unlike the earlier guards which sported feathered helmets this particular guard did not sport any headgear therefore the Count could easily see the face of the guard and he inhaled in some surprise drawing a look from the young lady at his side.
"That is Baronet Lucrezia Noin," he whispered to her before focusing back on the spectacle going on in front of them. A moment later, the figure of Noin led the queen to the podium before with a bow towards the young woman taking a position a step behind her charge. This was followed by a brief greeting between the queen and her chief representative who soon took a position on her other shoulder opposite Noin. With that, the Queen turned towards the gathered partygoers standing in front of the dais with a bright smile.
"Greetings everyone I am quite glad to see you all here this evening. I'm sure you are avidly waiting for my speech that I promised you all, but I am afraid that I must delay it for a brief few moments. As I need to discharge a duty to one particular officer of our own newly formed Royal Defense Forces," the young queen started off with a soft and elegant sounding voice, something that drew the Count's attention making him shake his head to clear it.
"Will Major Brian Carter please attend me?" the queen was now saying and soon a tall uniformed helmeted figure stepped up from the crowd and quickly took a knee in front of the podium. The queen meanwhile stepped around the podium to approach the kneeling figure of the uniformed man.
"This is Major Brian Carter, who I have recently found to be my Fourth Cousin, Once Removed, making him a distant relative but still family of myself. However, that is not the reason he is here this evening kneeling before me," the young woman was saying, and Count Brooks was impressed that without the microphone at the podium, her voice still carried well over the courtyard. His eyes did narrow a bit at the mentioning of this man a distant relative of the Peacecraft Family, as from what he understood much of the family had been killed by that of the Alliance during the Invasion with only the Prince and Princess being saved from the slaughter.
"No, the good Major spent eight long years serving as a member of the Alliance Military, an organization that had been reasonable for the invasion of our small little kingdom all those years ago. After his service to the Alliance ended, he returned home to allow his fallen nation to use his hard-earned experience in the forming of a dedicated defense force for the Kingdom if it ever was fully revived enough to require such a thing," she went on with a soft smile glancing down at the kneeling figure before accepting a drawn sword from Noin who had stepped around the podium as well to take position alongside her queen. Count Brooks, though frowned a bit further for that was quite a surprise and he wondered briefly if the man's connection to the Peacecraft had been revealed during his time in the Alliance, but he highly doubted it for he is still alive after all.
"For that service alone to not only the Kingdom itself but myself, I am now knighting him as a member of the Order of the White Rose," she explained, and a deep breath seemed to be drawn from the collective throats of the crowd though both Count Brooks and Lady Dorthoy up on their balcony frowned in some confusion. They knew knighting was a big thing, especially in the circles they frequent, but this looked to be quite a bit more than that. Brooks took a quick look around and saw that the handful of guests to the country were also a bit confused by this announcement while those who were locals looked quite surprised at this announcement. Still, the young Count decided to turn his attention back to the dais. A moment later, he watched as the queen used the sword in the ancient ritual of knighting touching the blade to each shoulder of the kneeling man. That done she then passed the sword to that of her bodyguard once more and accepted a more ornate white and silver colored sash from the figure of the Chief Representative who like before was on her other side. She then leaned down and draped it over the head of the man almost catching the seam with that of the man's helmet before it settled on the shoulder and over his torso to his waist.
"Rise, Sir Brian of the White Rose," Queen Relena directed with another soft smile, and the man after a moment of silent surprise did so and the crowd went wild. The guards slammed the butts of their spears to the ground while cheering and even the manned mobile suits on either side of the dais got into the act slamming their more mobile suit-sized lances they carried to the ground as well. As this happened the figure of the new knight and the queen were quietly talking to one another before the Chief Representative stepped forward with a raised hand and a beaming smile on his face.
"We are not done just yet everyone," the man mentioned after several moments to get the crowd to quieten down. He then turned on his heel to bow his head towards the queen who finished up her discussion with the new Knight to look back over the crowd.
"Before I go any further, I need to explain something to our esteemed guests," she mentioned with a smile looking over the crowd at particular members, which he had noticed earlier were guests to the country along with him still the young woman was shocked him with looking up at him directly at their balcony before bowing her head slightly at the two of them before shifting her attention back down towards the crowd.
"The Order of the White Rose was first created by my many times great grandfather King Ricardo who was the first monarch of the Peacecraft Dynasty and the man who had also personally forged the Sanc Kingdom out of the chaotic times that predated the beginning of the After Colony calendar. Onto his six main lieutenants and followers, he titled them Knights of the White Rose. Whose significance is yet another long story and we do not have time to explore tonight I'm sorry say," she started to say with a small smile on her face making a few of the locals laugh quietly under their breath and making Brooks wonder briefly what story she was talking about but focused on the Queen as she continued on with her story.
"Since the time of King Ricardo and his lieutenants, only nine others have been knighted as part of the Order with Sir Brian here now becoming the sixteenth, and only living, member of the Order. Hence, you can now appreciate the honor this happens to be," the queen explained making the various guests mixed in with the crowd now understand everything while Count Brooks looked quite shocked for he had heard of such orders of knighthood which are rarely if ever awarded, the Order of Saint George from old Britain being a major example, but this is the first time he had actually seen it.
"Still as mentioned we are not yet done with poor Sir Brian here, for in part to his actions in becoming one of the key trainers and architects of the current Mobile Suit Forces of the Royal Defense Forces he is to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and overall commanding officer in charge of said Mobile Suit Forces," the queen mentioned to the crowd before turning and accepting a pair of more fancy-looking epaulets from her bodyguard before with the help of the Chief Representative at her side managed to swap them with the less fancy version the Major had been originally been wearing. The crowd, as Count Brooks watched, looked a bit less then thrilled then the earlier awarded knighthood making him a bit confused before turning his attention back to the dais.
"With that, you are dismissed Lieutenant Colonel," the young queen bid the officer who replied with a deep courtly bow towards her before leaving the dais behind and taking a spot along the rest of the guards in the front of the dais. That done the queen moved back behind the podium and looked over the crowd with a bit of a small smile on her face.
"Now we have come to the main event of this evening my speech that will hopefully answer more than a few of your questions about not only the newly formed Royal Defense Forces but where in the world these mobile suits had come from," she said with a wave at the two flanking mobile suits starting what looked to be what Count Brooks was here to hear.
"So, the story begins during the teenage years of my Grandmother Katrina where she took part in the First Lunar Resource War. Something, from what I understand brought disfavor to her from the rest of the family. Still after the end of the war, Katrina returned home knowing that she may end up being banished from the family for daring to become a soldier and fight in a war, a war that the Sanc Kingdom had no stakes in," the young queen was explaining drawing in her audience with a calm soft sounding voice as she looked around the gathered crowd.
"However, I am sure many of you who have some interest in our own recent history know where this is going," the queen mentioned with a slight almost saddened smile on her face while a few others in the crowd either flinched or outright gasped in some form of surprise at this comment from the Queen. Count Brooks looked down at Lady Dorothy who only shrugged at him in some confusion of her own.
"Yes, she returned to this fair Estate just in time to witness the Christmas Massacre which saw a good portion of her family killed by a mysterious terrorist attack leaving her as the oldest member of the direct Royal Family alive. She soon took the throne as Queen Katrina the First, the first ruling Queen of the dynasty since the granddaughter of King Ricardo, Queen Marianna," the queen went on with the story and the Count took a brief moment to look around to see the crowd where becoming quite enthralled with the story, and he briefly wondered how this would lead up to the answers he was seeking.
"However, after taking the throne Queen Katrina was quite aghast at the state of the country's own security forces. As they were pretty much nothing more than poorly trained law enforcement which she believed needed to double as a defensive force if needed. Therefore, from there she made the goal of her reign to fix this travesty and as part of this project, she ordered the construction of a few different bunkers across the country to serve as dedicated bases for the Security Forces. She did it this way instead of actually building proper above-ground bases to prevent the Parliament from guessing on what she was spending the funds she requested on," this drew some surprised looks and gasps from the gathered crowd, but the queen didn't let it stop her and went on with the story.
"Over the next fifteen years or so Queen Katrina worked hard to increase the training for the security forces and constantly fought the Parliament for the required funds to equip them all properly before finally, she received an interesting proposal from her chief aide, one Artemis Rex. The year was After Colony 178 and the proposal called for the kingdom itself through a couple of different cutouts to start purchasing damaged or outdated OZ-06MS Leos directly from the Alliance. As at the time, it was cheaper to produce a whole new mobile suit than repairing a damaged machine or upgrading an outdated one," the Queen went on with the story though this time Count Brooks looked quite surprised at this reveal before looking over at the mobile suit literally almost next to him once more not even listening to the rest of the Queen's speech.
He stepped slightly to one side to further inspect the mobile suit in the shadowed area of its lower back. After a brief moment, he saw what exactly he was looking for and he shook his head with a frown. For he had presumed that they were heavily based on the basic Leo design, like the infamous WMS-03 Maganac design, not simply upgraded Leos themselves. He really should have known better for unless the Kingdom had some sort of larger industrial sponsor like the Maganac Corp and the larger Arab Liberation Front sported then it would have been almost impossible that they would have been able to design, and build their own brand new mobile suit design. Hence, they would have been left with just improving the basic Leo design which made far more sense in his mind. He couldn't believe that he hadn't even thought of that when he first saw these so-called new mobile suits. Turning to his companion he saw that the young woman was quite enthralled with what the Queen was saying during her little story, and he shot another look down at the dais itself, just in time to hear what they were calling these mobile suits.
'Royal Leos indeed,' he thought with an internal snort before sighing as he turned away leaning a bit towards Dorothy which attracted her attention back to him.
"Lady Dorothy, I have all that I need, therefore, I shall be now heading back to the hotel to prepare myself for the flight back," he mentioned to his young companion who had jolted in some surprise at this statement which saw her turning her entire attention to him.
"You don't want to listen to the rest of the Queen's speech milord?" she questioned with a frown on her youthful face eying the dais again at the corner of her eye.
"No. As I mentioned I got the answers I sought with what she said about the mobile suits themselves," he explained to her with a wave towards the nearby mobile suit making her raise one of those crazy forked-looking eyebrows at him before she nodded.
"I understand milord. Shall I'll escort you out then?" she questioned him before he smiled down at her before shaking his beefy looking head and shot another look at the dais.
"No, milady. I shall see myself out," he mentioned with a short courtly bow towards her before quickly making his exit leaving the young woman alone on the balcony who had turned to listen as Queen started to wind down with her speech.
"As my dear cousin likes to say the stage is now set," she whispered to herself before she gave her own lady-like curtsy towards the dais and the podium as the queen started to wave at the now adoring crowd in front of her. With that, she made her own exit, not even noticing more than a few eyes on her as she left the estate.
-o-Chapter End-o-
And that is the first official chapter of the story! I hope you all enjoyed it! I really did enjoy writing it! Though that said! When I originally planned this chapter, I made more than a few assumptions about the overall larger After Colony timeline that were quite wrong. Hence, I made some minor changes to my original plans, mostly seen in the Prelude and a couple of things here in the first chapter. The first major thing that I had to change was that the OZ-02MD Virgo Mobile Dolls were not rolled out just yet. They are only just getting the data from both Mercurius and the Vayate to allow the final design of the Virgo. So, I had to change some things about it, mostly the Royal Leos equipped with Laser Weapons. Something that was mentioned in the prelude before I changed it. The other thing that I changed from my original planning for the chapter was that Noin was going to mention to Relena during the closing of the first scene that she had managed to track down Quarte and Heero, therefore, was now going to see about going to retrieve them. Again. The Gundam Pilots are all still in space, and by now I believe Quarte is in the process of constructing Wing Zero. I think. I really do not know how that series of events drops onto the timeline.
That brings me to something else that I wanted to mention. Really, the official timeline for Gundam Wing, which is seen on the Gundam Wiki, really doesn't have set dates on events happening between the Battle of New Edwards, where the Gundams take out the leadership of the Alliance, and the fracturing of OZ with Trieze stepping down from commanding OZ sometime in early September. So outside of that date of Trieze stepping down and the fracturing of OZ as a result I am going to be a bit loose with dates. Hence, I am just going to create my own dates for some of the events that happen during this time. I really hope that no one will be upset about it. This is already seen in the Prelude with a general date of Relena arriving and then being made the Queen of the Sanc Kingdom as somewhere around very early August. This chapter meanwhile is a few weeks afterward and sets up events a bit for further chapters. Mainly, the populace of the Sanc Kingdom and Romefellar becoming aware of the new mobile suits that is the Royal Leo and the formation new Royal Defense Force of the Sanc Kingdom. Speaking of Romefellar knowing about the Royal Leos my original plan actually had poor Broom Brooks being assassinated by a Sanc Kingdom soldier as to prevent Romefellar from getting a clue, but I think that was a bit too dark for anyone associated with the Kingdom to do really.
Okay. One final thing to mention is a couple of minor things that I am having in this story, the first of course being the introduction of my first original character for the story, my own favored OC Brian Carter. Here he is a distant relation to Relena, and that is mainly thanks to using Zechs as a basis for his character in my other stories. Shrug. Thought it was a fun little nod. The other thing is that I introduced the figure of Broom Brooks, from that of the G-Unit Manga, as a Romefellar Stooge who is observing the speech of Relena where she explains the back history of how the Sanc Kingdom managed to get their hands on their own mobile suits. That does bring me to something that I kind of had to redo somewhat for this chapter as I already explained everything to the readers at large during the last chapter how that happened therefore didn't really need to explain again, even if it was as an excuse to have a character themselves listen to the story. Hence the reasoning is that while the early parts of Relena's speech remained, as it expanded, somewhat on the original story the latter half was pretty much cut after said character heard the more important part of the overall larger story. Therefore, dear reader, you are quite welcome that I recognized that before I managed to post the chapter. Snort.
Still, if you couldn't guess I really had some fun in this chapter. Mainly with the second scene and a couple of bits with the first scene. As I really channeled my outright love for sci-fi stories that feature some form of space-age aristocracy or nobility, like say Battletech or the larger Honor Harrington Series. Mostly, the former for it does sports large mechanical combat vehicles like a mobile suit or Gundam. Hence, why mobile suits are standing guard like they are more human-sized guards, look at the famous images from Battletech which have a pair of Griffin Battlemechs flanking the royal throne of the Lyran Commonwealth. This is mostly thanks to Gundam Wing really leaning on that vibe of sporting such nobility and knighthoods in the story itself. Yes, I know that is mostly on the enemy side of the story and everything, but I still liked the whole thing which is why I really expanded on that in this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it as well for like mentioned I did have fun writing it.
With all that said I do believe that is about it for my notes for this chapter. I shall hopefully see you all in Stage Two: Gathering Allies and Influence.
EDIT: Before I post this, I need to ask my readers if I should try to copy the overall feel of the next episode previews featured in Gundam Wing. By that I mean should I put in a next chapter preview for the next chapter alongside its title? Anyone?
"If you want peace, prepare for war" in a nutshell and the nations must always be ready in case of an invasion or terrorist attack.
They're fighting over the Moon huh?
Improvise, adapt and overcome.
Plus it saved the costs of having to build new expensive mobile suits when you can just modify the old ones and upgrade them.
Such an Aggressive Negotiations for a Diplomatic Solution.
This story is great and I will be looking forward for more with great interest.
deathzealotzero
Mecha Guru
- Location
- Las Vegas, NV
Pretty much! That is something I always was a bit annoyed about with Gundam Wing. The whole thing with Total Pacifism was such a stupid idea in pratice. Sigh.
That is actually from what little I know about Katrina Peacecraft from the Frozen Teardrop Manga in that she fought on the moon using the Wyvern so sort of pre-Tallgeese Prototype mobile suit equipped with a precursor to the Zero System onboard. So I added a bit more to the whole thing and had small conflicts like this First Lunar Resource War being a thing earlier in the After Colony era.
Pretty much.
Shrug. That was basically from a guy who is a Romefellar hardliner who ran their intelligence Earth office for them.