Palmerston North, in UC 105, has a permanent population of around 100,000.
It can be said that nearly two-thirds of the population of the New Zealand region resides in this city and its surrounding areas.
Because the historic Massey University is located here, the demographic of Palmerston North is notably young.
Consequently, the forced arrests carried out by the Man Hunter units triggered a violent resistance from the local populace.
At the Kimberley New Zealand base, the Federation's Penelope—which had only recently been assigned to the Kimberley unit—was currently on standby.
Since Kenneth Sleg had not yet completed the handover process for the Kimberley unit, Lane Aime's superior was still Kimberley himself.
Lane sat in the cockpit, waiting for the sortie order from Kimberley.
Over the comms, requests for reinforcements crackled intermittently; the Man Hunter units were finding it difficult to advance due to a large number of civilians using semi-automatic rifles to snort their progress.
On the cockpit monitors, Lane could see a live feed from the front line showing streets filled with banners and graffiti reading "MAN HUNTERS GET OUT."
Young people were using various tools to scatter self-printed flyers detailing the Man Hunters' arrests of innocent civilians. There were also civilians armed with various semi-automatic rifles, using buildings as cover to fight back.
The weaponry available to the Man Hunter units was relatively limited—mostly pistols, batons, and a few rifles.
Their most powerful asset was the light machine gun pod mounted on the crotch of the Man Hunter Jegan units. This lack of heavy firepower was exactly why they were being pinned down by civilian rifle fire.
However, Lane could see Man Hunter Jegans kicking through low-rise buildings regardless of whether people were inside. Residents were buried under the rubble or killed outright by the Jegan's movements.
"Man Hunter advance obstructed... Mafty search operation delayed."
"Jegan Squads 10 and 11 dispatched. Gustav Karl Squad 9 is sorting..."
"Is Mafty really over there?"
"Who knows? Since Commander Kimberley says they are, he must have received intelligence from some channel..."
Occasionally, voices would discuss the New Zealand operation over the comms channel, only to be silenced immediately.
"This is as tragic as the records of Oenbelli..."
Watching the Jegan squads arrive at the so-called "battlefield" on his screen, Lane sighed and slumped back in his seat, staring up at the hangar ceiling displayed on his monitors. "Is doing this... truly right?"
Beep, beep, beep...
A sharp alarm snapped him back to reality. He instinctively looked at the central window of the cockpit display. Thanks to the slight broadcast delay, he saw the entire event unfold.
The Man Hunter units, which had been advancing smoothly with the support of two Jegan squads, were suddenly struck.
A yellow beam hit a Man Hunter Jegan in the midsection, melting a massive hole through it.
"Hostile MS suddenly appeared in the combat zone... Radar scanning malfunctioning. Suspected Minovsky Particle scattering. Judging by the video feed—it's the Zeon Remnants!"
A panicked voice screamed over the comms. The previously relaxed hangar instantly turned frantic as the maintenance crews began to sprint.
"Penelope, please prepare for sortie. Repeat, Penelope, prepare for sortie."
The request for launch came through. Lane closed the live stream window and pulled down his helmet visor.
"Lane Aime, Penelope, launching."
-----------------------------------
On a street in Palmerston North, a Jegan ignored the hail of semi-automatic rifle fire raining from the windows of residential buildings. Its head-mounted Vulcan cannons roared, sweeping the street with heavy fire.
Concrete structures were instantly punched full of gaping holes, while the wooden houses suffered even more catastrophic damage.
Nearby, a Man Hunter Jegan belonging to the Man Hunter units came to a halt in front of a building.
The gunner stationed in the crotch-mounted machine gun pod began spraying lead into every visible window.
"Static... Careful! 103 has been destroyed! Repeat, 103 is down!"
A frantic voice suddenly broke over the comms. "It's the Zeon Remnants!"
Upon hearing this, the Jegan that had been strafing the street ceased its fire. The pilot instinctively raised its shield, scanning the sky frantically.
In the next second, a black shadow descended from the heavens. Heat short-knives extended from its feet as it stomped directly onto the Jegan's lower back, kicking the machine face-first into the dirt.
The black MS raised its right fist—now encased in what looked like a massive gauntlet—and turned in full view of the armed civilians and the surrounding mobile suits.
As it pivoted, the heat short-knives in its feet twisted deep into the fallen Jegan's midsection.
The Armed Armor VN activated its additional armament known as the "Fire Punch."
The specialized bars on the gauntlet suddenly flared with a brilliant yellow light, overflowing with such immense heat that the surrounding air began to warp and shimmer.
Retracting the foot blades, the thrusters on its back erupted with thick plumes of blue flame, propelling the Banshee toward the Man Hunter Jegan at terrifying speed.
"You bastards... just how much more are you going to tear this world apart!?"
Shinn roared inside the cockpit, swinging the Banshee's left arm in a devastating arc.
Faced with the oncoming fury of the Banshee, both the pilot of the Man Hunter Jegan—who was frantically trying to back away—and the gunner in the crotch pod were paralyzed with despair. The contempt they had shown moments ago was gone.
In the next instant, the scorching fist reached the gunner. His upper body was instantly seared, carbonized, and then shattered by the impact of the Armed Armor VN.
The waist armor behind the gunner fared no better. The moment the gauntlet made contact, the metal began to heat and liquefy.
The destruction tore through the internal frame, the various components, and the cockpit, until it punched through to the other side of the machine.
Under the gaze of everyone present, the Man Hunter Jegan was first sent flying by the Banshee's white-hot gauntlet. Molten iron splattered across the pavement like liquid fire. Then, while still in mid-air, the entire machine snapped in two from the force of the blow.
Thump...
The once-raucous street, previously filled with the constant crackle of gunfire, fell into a deathly silence.
The Banshee's attack was so brutal that it momentarily paralyzed everyone on the scene with sheer awe and terror.
But in the next heartbeat, the residents who had been using their windows as cover resumed firing on the Man Hunter units, who were now left without MS protection.
In the wake of this sudden reversal, the Man Hunter units could only beat a pathetic retreat, leaving a trail of corpses behind.
Shinn could hear the cheers of the civilians as they drove the Man Hunters away; he even saw a few bold youngsters leaning out of their windows, rifles slung over their shoulders, holding up phones to take selfies with the black giant in the background.
However, Shinn knew all too well that the battle was far from over. And... the most important thing was still Luna and Mayu.
Beep, beep, beep...
A notification pinged. In the bottom right of his vision, a short text message appeared.
[We've evacuated safely! (^▽^)]
Followed by that short, characteristically Mayu-style sentence was a photo taken on a phone—a shot of the Banshee's back from the street.
"Phew... finally..."
Relief washed over Shinn. He instinctively manipulated the controls to make the machine glance back. He spotted a small black sedan driving against the flow of the crowd, heading away from the Banshee's position.
The reason he had rushed here so frantically was that during the comms between the Nahel Argama and Luna, they had reported being trapped in this very sector. Now, he could finally breathe a little easier.
"Static... Shinn, the enemy is coming." Roz's voice crackled over the channel.
"Graham and the others couldn't stop them?" Shinn was surprised that an enemy could slip through Graham Aker's interception net.
"It's the Penelope—the Federation's version." Roz paused briefly before continuing. "He likely realized where Graham's line was and took a long detour. Furthermore, it looks like the Kimberley unit is ramping up their commitment; reinforcements from other sectors are already on their way."
The Kimberley forces consisted of numerous regional units.
Although the Australian branch had been crippled previously, other units could still utilize Keasariya transport planes to rapidly deploy to the New Zealand theater.
"Understood."
Glancing at the civilians who were still dangerously close to the Banshee, Shinn manipulated the controls to make the machine take two quick strides before leaping into the air.
Once at a sufficient distance from the ground, thick blue flames erupted from the verniers, the scorching gale knocking over many of the onlookers below. The thruster fire propelled the Banshee, steadily increasing its altitude.
Just then, Shinn heard a familiar sound.
It was the unique hum of the Penelope's Minovsky Flight system.
To an enemy, the sound carried a crushing sense of pressure. But to Shinn and the others, it was a sound they knew all too well.
An inverted triangle marker flashed onto the screen of the Linear Seat panoramic cockpit.
"...I see you."
Watching the rapidly approaching marker, Shinn gripped the control sticks tight.
He activated the Voiture Lumiere propulsion system.
The thrusters on the Armed Armor DE, which had been spitting blue flames, suddenly began to emit a spectrum of multicolored particles.
They formed a small set of light wings trailing behind the machine, looking as though it were dragging a magnificent, shimmering cloak through the sky.
-----------------------------------
Upon hearing that the initial vanguard had collided with the "Zeon Remnant" interceptor force, Lane Aime chose to take a long detour without hesitation, flying toward Palmerston North from outside their interception grid.
While his personal instinct was to break through the "Zeon Remnant" blockade head-on, Kimberley, having assessed the situation, issued a direct order to bypass them.
The reasoning was sound: "Palmerston North is in a critical state. Support our allies first, then encircle the enemy."
Thanks to its miniaturized Minovsky Flight system, the Penelope consumed very little fuel in cruise mode, allowing it to maintain sustained aerial combat. However, as the reality of Palmerston North unfolded beneath him, Lane was momentarily stunned.
"This place..."
Lane's expression turned complex as he gazed at the ravaged town. Corpses were everywhere—some from the Man Hunter units, but far more were the civilians of Palmerston North. There was also a massive amount of destroyed housing, all leveled by the Man Hunter and Kimberley MS units during the civilian uprising.
Beep-beep-beep-beep!
A rapid alarm blared. Lane instinctively looked toward the coordinate indicated by the HUD.
A black machine with a golden horn was charging toward the Penelope, its left fist radiating an orange glow and trailing dazzling light shadows in its wake.
At such close proximity, Lane instinctively raised the multi-purpose shield on his right arm.
In the next second, the scorching "Fire Punch" slammed into the Penelope's shield. The heat-resistant armor of the shield was instantly melted through; following that, the Mega Particle Cannon and beam saber housed within the shield were incinerated.
The intense thermal energy directly detonated the small missiles stored in the multi-purpose shield, the resulting explosion blasting the Federation's Penelope backward.
Lane looked at his status monitor with lingering fear; it showed that the shield's armaments were completely offline.
To destroy the Penelope's multi-purpose shield with just a single punch...
But there was no time for awe. A thick, white beam saber suddenly extended from the right arm of the black unicorn-like machine, swinging down toward him. Lane didn't hesitate to activate the beam saber on his remaining shield to parry the blow.
The two beam sabers clashed, their I-fields grinding against each other with such intensity that the arms of both mobile suits trembled.
"Static... So, the Federation is even deploying a Gundam just to protect their political achievements in Palmerston North?"
Shinn's voice crackled through the short-range communication channel.
"That's not it! This is just..."
Hearing those words, Lane instinctively moved to retort, but in the end, he found himself at a loss for words. The comms channel fell into a heavy silence.
Shinn manipulated the Banshee Norn, lifting its left leg and delivering a powerful kick toward the Penelope.
Seeing the massive foot hurtling toward him, Lane instinctively maneuvered the Penelope to raise the mangled wreckage of his right-arm multi-purpose shield to block.
The heat short-knives effortlessly pierced through the shield's remains; the orange-yellow blades came within a hair's breadth of slicing into the Penelope's actual arm.
"Ugh...!"
A surge of massive force followed, and the Penelope was kicked backward by the Banshee. Immediately after, the Banshee retreated a short distance, retracting its beam saber, though its arm remained raised.
The forearm beam emitters, originally used for the sabers, suddenly functioned like beam cannons, firing two white bursts at the Penelope. Then, the beam sabers reignited instantly as the black machine lunged forward once more.
Lane piloted the Penelope in a sharp vertical climb, narrowly evading the two beams meant to pin him down, but in the next second, he was forced to raise the beam saber on his left-arm multi-purpose shield to parry the incoming strike.
The two beam sabers clashed once more, high-energy particles and static electricity spraying in all directions.
The surrounding environment seemed to dim momentarily under the sheer intensity of the contact.
"If you deny what I said, then what exactly are you doing here?" Shinn's voice crackled through the short-range comms, thick with irritation. "Is it only in your interest when Earth is plunged into chaos?"
"You're the ones trying to throw the world into chaos!" Lane countered, seizing on a perceived flaw in Shinn's logic. "You're just like Mafty—nothing but disruptors of the Federation's order!"
"Is that so..." Shinn frowned, staring at the Penelope before him. "The civilians you've been senselessly persecuting certainly don't see it that way!"
"What?"
Before Lane could fully process those words, the Banshee Norn surged with increased output, violently parrying the Penelope's beam saber aside.
Then, the Banshee delivered a highly practiced whip-kick—a maneuver that would seem utterly shock-inducing to a standard UC pilot—slamming the Penelope directly toward the ground.
"Ugh... aaaaah!"
The vibration and impact of the Penelope hitting the earth forced an involuntary cry from Lane. His beam saber carved a jagged furrow into the pavement, the asphalt melting and boiling into a foul-smelling sludge.
When Lane finally regained his senses, he realized he had been kicked onto a main thoroughfare. This entire sector was a graveyard of corpses and ruins created by the ongoing conflict.
Thick, black smoke billowed from the skeletal remains of burning houses. The civilian search-and-rescue teams, which had formed spontaneously, scattered like frightened birds at the sight of the Penelope.
Thud... thud... thud...
The rhythmic sound of a heavy MS walking echoed nearby. Hearing the movement, Lane gritted his teeth, forced down the throbbing pain from the impact, and slammed the pedals.
The Penelope's thrusters erupted, forcing the machine from its back into a standing position. The resulting gale sent corpses tumbling across the street, even igniting the clothes on some of the bodies.
Finally, Lane laid eyes on the mysterious, advancing MS. Through the thick veil of smoke, a single green mono-eye flared to life.
.....................