Reid was unaware that Code Amelias had regained freedom in her loli form.
For Reid, Haman's abrupt departure without a word had left him mentally paralyzed for a full hour.
Unable to come up with a good explanation for Ange about the current situation, Reid could only push the matter aside. He didn't even bother checking out of his room, slipping directly back to the Hermes Zero before stealthily departing from Colony Satellite Border 4.
Once in space, Reid realized the Death Vanguard hadn't been hesitating about attacking Colony Satellite Border 4. Instead, they had skipped Border 4 entirely and moved on to assault Border 2 and Border 1.
Upon reflection, this made sense. After the commotion he and Haman caused yesterday, that old fox Maziar Rhona probably genuinely believed important figures from Neo Zeon were hiding in Border 4. Without thorough investigation, he wouldn't dare launch a rash attack.
However, Maziar Rhona had already announced the Cosmic Babylon Empire's name to the world. Even if the battle at Border 4 encountered setbacks, there was no turning back - he could only skip Border 4 and attack Border 2 and Border 1 first.
Fortunately for Reid, this was good news, making it easier for him to sneak into Colony Satellite Border 1 amid the chaos.
Just as Reid anticipated, using stealth capabilities, he first piloted the Hermes Zero away from Colony Satellite Border 4.
Then he disabled stealth, took a wide detour, and approached the rear of the battlefield between Border 1 and the Death Vanguard.
After reactivating stealth, he drifted to the outer wall of Colony Satellite Border 1, using the Lambda Driver to shatter a section of exterior glass before stealthily infiltrating the colony.
Due to the ongoing war, the Federation forces in Border 1 definitely wouldn't immediately send someone to investigate just because some glass broke.
After all, from the surveillance cameras' perspective, the broken glass appeared more like deterioration from age rather than a Mobile Suit breaching the colony.
Once the Hermes Zero entered Border 1, things became straightforward. The Cosmic Ark Training Ship carrying the F91, operated entirely by complete novices (almost everyone aboard was incompetent), had already run aground on a hillside.
The camouflage covering was, to put it mildly, utterly useless.
Reid couldn't fathom how blind someone would have to be to miss the massive white object protruding from the green-yellow edges.
So Reid directly piloted the Hermes Zero to descend while disabling stealth, then shot through the hangar door of the Cosmic Ark Training Ship.
Since Border 4 hadn't fallen at this point, the main characters naturally hadn't fled here as refugees.
Thus, the F91 sat quietly in the ship's bay, with the surrounding technicians immediately fleeing when an unknown Mobile Suit forced its way in.
None of the personnel present possessed protagonist qualities - no one dared to jump into the F91's cockpit and attempt to activate the Mobile Suit for defense.
So Reid directly had the system recover the F91, then ignored the worthless Cosmic Ark Training Ship and headed straight for the Border 1 military factory where the F90 III Y Star Cluster Gundam was located.
The crew of the Cosmic Ark Training Ship facing this supernatural phenomenon believed they were finished.
Even if they showed the hangar surveillance footage to their superiors, the higher-ups would definitely claim the video was edited. How else could they explain a 20-ton (fully equipped weight) Mobile Suit vanishing into thin air?
"You crew members must have secretly sold off the Mobile Suit and cooked up some unbelievable excuse for yourselves."
Thus, when the F91 vanished, the crew of the Cosmic Ark Training Ship immediately disbanded on the spot. Everyone was left to fend for themselves, as if they had abandoned ship, with no idea who took the F91. At least this reason was ten thousand times better than the Mobile Suit disappearing into thin air, and if caught, they might get lighter sentences.
Of course, the crew of the Cosmic Ark Training Ship had no real reason to worry.
Because just over ten minutes later, the military factory at Frontier 1 was invaded by an unknown Mobile Suit.
The Mobile Suit fought its way into the factory warehouse, stole the stored F90 III Y Star Cluster Gundam, and then vanished without a trace. It directly became one of the urban legends among future residents of Frontier 1 in this universe: "The MS with Teleportation Abilities."
However, this urban legend was actually the truth.
After Reid recovered the F90 III Y Star Cluster Gundam, he immediately chose to return.
After feeding the two Mobile Suits to the Factory Module, Reid stayed in the Factory Module for two days straight.
During these two days, Reid didn't do much research. The only productive thing he did was synchronize the technology extracted from the two Mobile Suits to the research institute and notify Nein to begin designing his bound Mobile Suit.
The main reason Reid didn't return home for two days was to wait for the bite marks and scratches on his body to fade.
Even if he had to confess, showing up with those marks would definitely lead to much harsher punishment than without them.
Of course, after two days, Reid still mustered the courage to confess to Ange about the battle involving Haman, prepared to face the consequences.
The outcome was predictable: Ange called the Xia sisters; Noin called Une; Murrue, though unaware of the time-travel situation, knew Reid seemed to have had an affair with someone she didn't know, so she wanted to call Bargiruel but was refused.
Thus, for seven days a week, Reid would only have two days off from then on (the Xia sisters counted as one). The rest of the time, unless someone was supervising him while he was researching or doing serious work, he had to "contribute" daily.
Feeling guilty, Reid had no choice but to agree to these humiliating and physically draining terms.
For the following period, Reid described himself as suffering yet happy—aside from having "not a drop left" every day, everything else was fine.
It's safe to say that only Reid's current robust physique and the side effects of the Fortitude skill Heero triggered were truly impressive; otherwise, Reid felt he might not live to see 30.
Fortunately, Ange and the others didn't intend to drain Reid completely. Noin only participated in one session before returning to the officer academy, as she was swamped with the entire officer training program for the New Misurugi Kingdom.
Une only came every other week, as she was even busier than Noin.
But the remaining days were quite free, and they kept Reid occupied for a full month before letting him off.
To be precise, the reason they let him off was that serious business came up: Terminal sent a message via the junk dealer Lowe Guele that Lacus and her team in South America were about to crash and burn.
Moreover, Lowe Guele didn't just bring a distress call; he also delivered a Terminal-compiled action report on Lacus's team and the reasons for their impending failure.
First, the most critical issue: the biggest reason Lacus's six-member team was failing was their inability to resist intervening in the battlefield to protect civilians.
According to the report, Lacus and the others had a very rough start when they first entered South America.
Since this operation was more about gaining experience, Andrew Waltfeld and Jane Houston didn't guide Lacus and the other three like babysitters.
The destinations for each mission were decided through discussions among Lacus and her three companions. Andrew Waltfeld would only intervene to stop them when he saw particularly inappropriate actions.
Lacus and the others were well aware that their wilderness survival and battlefield experience paled in comparison to Andrew Waltfeld's, so they always followed his advice whenever he said something shouldn't be done.
Thus, in the early stages, Lacus and her group didn't cause any major incidents. The intelligence they gathered from locals was mostly outdated, and by the time they arrived at locations, they would only find scorched earth and ruins.
At such times, all they could do was have Miriallia take photographs for documentation, as there was little else they could accomplish.
This was why Reid observed complete silence from South America during the first few days.
Thinking about it, it made sense. In the eyes of South American locals, Lacus and her group probably appeared as wealthy kids coming for adventure.
Those with malicious intentions were likely dealt with privately by Andrew Waltfeld and Jane Houston.
As for those without ill intentions, why would they lead these "children" into war zones?
However, as they ventured deeper into South America, even random wandering would eventually lead Lacus' group to encounter refugees driven from their homes.
That was when Lacus and her three companions experienced firsthand the saying "poverty breeds desperation."
Lacus' first attempt to distribute food to refugees directly escalated into a robbery, with some even attempting sexual assault.
Andrew Waltfeld and Jane Houston had to open fire, eliminating over half of the refugees before the crowd dispersed. Among the dead were many young children.
This made Lacus and her companions fully aware of the brutal social environment they were in.
No one would listen to reason when dealing with people starving to death - they would dare anything to survive.
It was then that Lacus' group understood why Reid constantly repeated that he couldn't manage everyone.
Previously, Kira sometimes thought Reid was quite cold-blooded. Now it appeared Reid had simply seen through the nature of things - don't interfere with what you can't manage, or it will only yield negative returns.
For example, the refugees who had been driven back by gunfire reported Lacus' group's possession of a small spacecraft to local warlords the next day, directly leading to hundreds of armed civilians coming to rob them.
Well, actually, the arriving forces couldn't really be considered warlords - at best they were bandits, without even a single Mobile Suit, arriving only in a small jungle tank.
Faced with this situation, Athrun had to pilot the MBF-P04 Gundam Green Astray to eliminate the bandits, wiping out their entire nest.
Whether it was Lacus' good luck or Athrun unconsciously attracting young girls again,
after clearing out the bandits, they naturally rescued some enslaved civilians.
Among them was a thin, dark young girl named Ashley Oliveira who requested to join their team. Her parents had been killed by the bandits, and she had only escaped violation because of her young age and small, dark appearance. Without protection now, she certainly wouldn't survive.
After communicating with her, Lacus discovered the girl was originally from a wealthy family and had received decent education. Not only was she familiar with the local terrain, but she also spoke several local minority languages.
In the end, everyone decided to bring the young girl along as their guide.
With a local leading the way, Lacus's subsequent operations proceeded much more smoothly.
Through Ashley's communication with the locals, they often obtained precise battlefield locations.
This allowed Lacus to gradually penetrate deeper into the conflict zones between the Atlantic Federation and the South American Resistance Army. Not only did she witness firsthand the hellish reality of the battlefield, but she also successfully executed several missions to cover civilian evacuations.
However, all evacuated civilians were later handed over to the Junk Guild for relocation assistance—a decision they would come to regret in the future.
Setting aside the issues with the Junk Guild for now, those who frequently tread by the river are bound to get their shoes wet.
During subsequent operations, Lacus's team began encountering both the Atlantic Federation and the South American Resistance Army. Fortunately, they managed to navigate these situations unscathed by using press credentials issued by the New Misurugi Kingdom.
In fact, during one rescue operation, Lacus's team accidentally stumbled upon ZAFT's new prototype unit—the nuclear-powered ZGMF-X999A Production Prototype Zaku.
(Note: There is no inconsistency here. During the South American War of Independence, the Junius Treaty had not yet been signed, allowing both the Earth Alliance and PLANT to openly develop nuclear-powered mobile suits. Counterintuitively, official lore confirms that after the Junius Treaty was signed, both factions genuinely abandoned nuclear-powered units—at least publicly—and ceased further development.)
After a brief skirmish between Lacus's team and the Production Prototype Zaku, Kira and Athrun seamlessly coordinated to sever the mobile suit's shield-bearing left arm. The pilot, Courtney Hieronymus, realizing his opponents were formidable, chose to retreat.
Subsequently, the Zaku's spike shield was repurposed as a shield for the Green Astray, since Reid had not equipped the Green Astray with one.
However, Lacus's team soon faced a setback.
Because Jane Houston had been spotted, her ex-boyfriend Edward Harrelson—now a hero of the South American resistance—actively sought her out.
Unbeknownst to him, Jane had already learned (through intel collected by Une when persuading her to surrender, including photos and videos of Edward with new girlfriends) that he had cycled through three girlfriends within a month of her being declared MIA.
Thus, Jane had no intention of reconciling with Edward. Even if she had truly died, his haste in finding three new partners before her body was cold was beyond excessive.
Still, some camaraderie remained. With the South American Resistance Army's assistance, Lacus's team found it easier to rescue civilians amid the chaos.
Unfortunately, the South American Resistance Army had ulterior motives—they covertly relocated officials' family members and spies among the refugees.
When the Atlantic Federation uncovered this scheme, they naturally launched attacks against Lacus's team.
To everyone's surprise, the Universal Backpack Green Astray and the Forbidden Blue successively repelled seven or eight assaults by the Atlantic Federation.
Upon receiving these reports, the Atlantic Federation military speculated that high-value individuals must be within the team—why else would two exceptionally powerful mobile suits be deployed as escorts?
Consequently, the Atlantic Federation deployed the Archangel—which Reid had previously returned—to South America, akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Accompanying them was a brand new Gundam - the GAT-XX370 Striker Gundam (translation seems problematic), piloted by former Gundam Calamity pilot Olga Sabnak. (He underwent drug enhancement again, as this Mobile Suit could normally only be piloted by top-tier Coordinators)
Naturally, the original Raider Gundam and Gundam Calamity were also present, though their pilots had been replaced by Dana Snipe from the future Phantom Pain unit.
At this point, Kira and Athrun had no choice but to face overwhelming odds.
Had they still been piloting Freedom and Justice, they might have stood a chance.
But with just the Universal Backpack Green Dyne and Forbidden Blue's capabilities, they were already struggling against the nuclear-powered Striker Gundam. Adding two more nuclear-powered second-generation G Weapons inevitably led to their defeat.
In the end, Athrun used Forbidden Blue to block all three enemy units, creating an opportunity for the transport plane to activate its stealth system. He then employed the 2887 Method for a desperate escape.
Similar to the incident with Aegis, Athrun was left covered in wounds from the explosion. Though Ashley Oliveira later recovered him, he had completely lost combat capability.
However, the rescue operation revealed a critical flaw - the transport plane's stealth movement generated significant heat signatures. The Atlantic Federation forces tracked these heat trails and have now driven Lacus and the others deep into the Amazon rainforest, their current status unknown.
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