-Docking complete. Closing hatch.-

Allelujah Haptism, in his pilot's suit, stepped out of his white-and-orange Gundam, helping his passenger, similarly garbed, out shortly after. Sumeragi Lee Noriega, Celestial Being's tactical forecaster, stood on one of the bridges, waiting for them. Beside her was Ian, Celestial Being's top developer, and Tieria Erde, a Gundam meister.

Quick, familiar greetings were shared before they were whisked away to a container that was attached to the tail of the Ptolemaios. Inside was a black Gundam, looming over them. A small shield-like structure with three spikes protruding from it was mounted onto its right arm, and a three- claw was on the other. It had lines of red running across the mobile suit's chest and another one on the longer edge of its shield. Unlike the other Gundams the four meisters piloted, it had no cone-like structure protruding from its back--the GN Drive.

"I never thought I'd be able to build something like this," Ian commented. "But your specifications were very precise. It was delightful."

"I'm glad they were good enough," Mia replied, staring at the mobile suit. "But are you sure you're willing to give this to me?"

"Well, Veda thought you were qualified to be a member of Celestial Being. It's just a question of whether you can hold your own out there or not," Sumeragi said. "And frankly, I prefer having more people to back up the meisters. I'd rather have a back-up we know about rather than having something like those Thrones come to our aid again. They cause more confusion."

Mia nodded in understanding.

"But I wasn't able to do a couple of things," Ian said. "I'm not too familiar with other energy sources other than the GN Drives that the Gundams use. I wasn't able to properly connect the mirage colloid to the nuclear drive."

"Unable to connect?" she asked, as she followed Ian towards one of the computers hooked up to the mobile suit.

"They got along like a house on fire," Sumeragi noted with a smile.

"It's because they understand each other," Allelujah replied. Sumeragi turned to leave with silent agreement from Allelujah as there was little that they could do from here. Before they left, he asked, "You coming, Tieria?"

"You go ahead," he replied before heading down to where Ian and Mia were.

Allelujah shrugged.

~°~

Ailee and her classmates looked like they'd just seen their nightmares--which, probably to some, was true. A narrative explaining the history and the role of a country in the world's history until this era: citations included. She itched to write of her home country, but with the situation as it is at the moment, she doubted that was a good idea.

"You keep frowning like that and you'll get permanent wrinkles early," Dongwoo commented.

"I have no idea how I'm going to do this," she replied, referring to their homework.

Dongwoo hummed in reply.

"A country?! How are we supposed to pick out of the thousands of places that exist?" she asked.

He nodded.

"And it's due on Monday?" she asked. "Today's a Friday!"

He nodded. Twice.

"How is one person supposed to get all of this finished in two days?" she asked.

"Oh-ho-ho! Someone hasn't been paying attention!" Dongwoo chided playfully.

"Eh?"

"It's a pairwork assignment," he said, smiling at her with a glint in his eyes. "So, how shall we go about it, partner?"

"Partner?" she asked, caught off guard.

He nodded excitedly, then cautiously asked, "...Unless you don't want to?"

"Why not?" she asked brightly, followed by a laugh. "I guess it's no wonder why others aren't as concerned about it as I am."

"Sweet. Where do you prefer to work? In the library?"

She nodded.

~°~

"You're working a lot harder on this than I'd expect you would," Tieria noted. Ian had left them to go on a break.

"I realize that," she replied. "But if I can get this up and running correctly, then I could get this kind of drive installed in the Aegis as well. Besides, even you can't deny that a machine like this, designed for Blitzkreig-type warfare, would be an asset."

"We're trying to eradicate war, not escalate it," he reminded, oddly patiently.

"I know," she said, her fingers ceasing from their typing. "But whether anyone of us likes it or not, where we are right now is right smack in the middle of a war, and it can't be avoided. ...And we need everything we can throw at it to bring it down and make sure it stays down."

"Tell me, what is it that you know about warfare?" he asked, leaning away while studying her with a critical eye.

"Well, for starters," she said. "It takes away everything you hold dear--no matter how much or how few of it you have." Her hands shook slightly, as though she was having a seizure of sorts. She balled them into fists, willing them to stay as they were. "And another thing is that war turns people into monsters. It is in preparation for the battlefield that some sins cannot be forgiven."

"What are you?" he asked, feeling her words and weighing them for the truth.

"What am I?" she asked, more to herself than to anyone else. "I am...Rau Le Creuset's daughter. The tin soldier," she said, with bitterness. "Do you know the story of the tin soldier, Tieria?"

He didn't verbally respond, but waited for her to tell him.

"The tin soldier is the object that can be created with the help of a tool--usually a mould. Even moulds cannot produce the perfect tin soldier because of the crafter's inability. But no one ever thinks that way. The mould is always to be blamed, even when its flaws were there because of the crafter. The tin soldier, the fruit of the mould, is the soldier born and bred to fight and protect the princess and all things that she considers precious.

"When the first tin soldier was a failure, they threw the mould and the soldier away, and tried again. But the crafters were incapable. No matter how much time they spent trying to create another, better mould, the first mould was always the best. And therefore, no other mould could be used. However, the mould was unstable, and could only produce one proper tin soldier. They would have to make do. But the child of royalty, for whom the mould and the soldier were created, thought that there was no need for them, and that the burden of the task was unnecessary, running away from it all.

"The mould was cast into the fire with much cruel glee from the crafters, and the tin soldier left to rot away... Until the child of royalty would find need of it again.

"So, yes, Tieria, I know about war. I know how it turns people into monsters, who turn others into machines or even worse monsters. I know how painful it is. And I know how to fight in it. Rau Le Creuset was more than just an anthropologist, more than just an artist who barely seemed to make ends meet. He was a genius in many ways, and a skilled fighter. I may not be as qualified as my father, but I inherited something from him, other than my features.

"...Because the person that is Mia Le Creuset is the imperfect successor of the man that was Rau Le Creuset, who was worth more than they made him out to be.

"Tieria?" she called. He hummed a questioning reply. "I think Ian has been thinking that the mirage colloid could work while the Phase-Shift armor is . But it can't. The nuclear drive isn't strong enough for that. If you'd like to have both, then, we'd need a bigger nuclear drive."

"I don't understand how nuclear energy can't compete with the GN Drives," he mused, standing next to her and reading the things encoded into the computer.

"I guess it can only be said that Master Aeolia Schenberg was truly a master," she replied.

A/N: Aeolia Schenberg, in the story of Gundam 00, was the founder of Celestial Being and the man who created the GN Drives and Gundams (the concept, at least) three centuries before everyone else, and yet his technology is state-of-the-art. Here, when I wrote 'Master Aeolia Schenberg', I was actually hoping to use 'Aeolia Schenberg-sama' but I'm trying to refrain from using honorifics that don't appear in English and that's the closest I got. >.>