Run for Their Lives

The silver-haired participant's departure left everyone in the room looking at one another. From that moment on, at least to those in the room, the silver-haired participant was no longer someone they could call a friend. The continuing tremors gave everyone a bad feeling, especially Cagalli. Pale-faced was no longer enough to describe her condition; her expression was a mixture of worry, grief, and disbelief.

"What's happening?" Miriallia asked, her face somewhat pale as she burrowed into Tolle's arms.

Seeing everyone in the room staring at him, Xiao Ran came to his senses. He stood up, dusted himself off, and feigned confusion. "Could it be a meteor strike? Let's go outside and take a look."

As soon as he finished speaking, another violent tremor nearly knocked everyone to the ground. No longer daring to waste time, they hurried out of the guidance room. The moment they stepped outside, they found the pitch-black building, deprived of power, already packed with people. Their faces were filled with confusion and terror as they hurried toward wherever they intended to go.

"Let's get outside first." Xiao Ran was beginning to feel uneasy as well. Though he knew they should end up safe, it was only natural for him to feel unaccustomed to being involved in such a major event for the first time in his life.

"Yeah." Everyone naturally agreed. Sai was the first to reach the emergency passage and open the door. Seeing that the passageway was already becoming crowded, the others behind him grew anxious as well.

"What happened?" Sai asked a passerby climbing the stairs.

"This place has been attacked by ZAFT. A few MS have broken in." The somewhat chubby passerby looked at Xiao Ran and the others. "You should get out of here too."

The man's words filled them with disbelief. The moment Cagalli heard them, she turned and quickly left.

"Let's go." Xiao Ran deliberately acted as though he had not seen Cagalli leave, merely glancing at the others as he spoke. After all, he was a teacher at the school, and older than Kira and the others. Naturally, he ought to step forward and make some decisions.

Just as Tolle and Sai escorted Miriallia into the emergency passage, Kira suddenly turned and left, chasing after Cagalli, who had gone off alone just as the story had played out. Watching Kira's retreating figure, Xiao Ran suddenly wanted to follow him. Following Kira would have been easy enough, but knowing the plot, he also knew that was not a situation he could handle. He could only quickly grab Kazui, who was still standing there stunned, and follow behind Sai, Tolle, and Miriallia. Before long, they reached the surface.

Outside the academy building, Miriallia stared wide-eyed in disbelief at the enormous combat mecha destroying the city. Red light was everywhere, wreckage everywhere. "A Ginn? Why? Why are ZAFT's MS here?"

"A Ginn? So this is a Ginn?" Xiao Ran stared blankly at the towering machine in the distance. Unlike watching an anime, seeing it with his own eyes made its steel-like beauty, heavy mechanical body, and sense of strength strike straight into his heart. The sheer reality of it instantly excited him. "This is a mecha, a real mecha! Not an anime, game, or model—it's a real giant machine you can pilot!"

"Teacher! Teacher!" Sai snapped Xiao Ran out of his obsession with steel and romance. Grabbing his hand, he ran after the other three in a certain direction. "This isn't the time to space out! We need to get out of here!"

"Huh? Sorry, sorry." Xiao Ran froze for a moment before hurriedly coming back to himself.

Listening to the warning broadcast throughout the Colony Satellite, Kazui said quietly, his face pale, "It's already a level-eight alert. We need to get into the evacuation pods as quickly as possible."

"Right, hurry up. Everyone, be careful and avoid getting hurt." Xiao Ran nodded, and they began to run. From the beginning, Xiao Ran deliberately lagged a few steps behind, running at the very back. He did not want his presence to change their direction from what had happened in the plot and cause them to miss the Strike Gundam and the Archangel.

Although ZAFT had only sent two Ginns into the colony, the destruction they caused was terrifying. Whether it was the colony guards returning fire or the Ginns attacking, the entire factory and academy district had suffered massive damage. Collapsed buildings, huge craters, and explosions were everywhere. It was not that Xiao Ran did not want to influence Sai, Tolle, and the others' choices; even if he wanted to, he could not. There was simply no path ahead of them. They could only blindly avoid the fighting.

Even Xiao Ran, who had been confident, was now panting heavily. A flying stone had grazed his face when he was not paying attention, leaving a faint streak of blood. Then, while protecting Miriallia, several more stones struck his body. They were not serious injuries, but the shock they gave Xiao Ran was immense.

The result was that Miriallia, Tolle, and Sai's favorability toward Xiao Ran rose sharply, while Kazui placed all his hopes in him.

The constant dodging, running, and helping Miriallia and Kazui drained Xiao Ran's stamina rapidly. Although the gravity in the Space Colony was somewhat lower than on Earth, making running easier, his body had barely undergone any training. It could not endure all the frantic running and movement from side to side.

"How much longer do we have to wait?!" Xiao Ran gritted his teeth, wiped the blood from his face, and glared resentfully at the two Ginns that had run him ragged. He had none of that earlier romance left now; all he felt was exhaustion and emptiness. Back on Earth, the plot had moved quickly. In the blink of an eye, the Gundam would appear. But now that it was happening to him, every second felt unbearably long.

"Boom!" Several more minutes passed. Xiao Ran and the others had just rounded the corner of a building when a factory suddenly exploded violently. The hurricane-like blast and debris it kicked up flew everywhere. From the center of the explosion, two MS with no paint or coloration at all flew out through the smoke.

Oh my god, they're finally here. Xiao Ran roared inwardly, finally letting out a breath of relief. His body seemed to fill with strength again. Seeing the two completely unpainted machines, he knew they were his beloved Gundams, but he had no time to marvel at them. All he wanted was for Kira to hurry up, show his power, take care of the Ginns ahead, and let him rest for a while.

The Strike Gundam that emerged from the smoke practically landed beside Xiao Ran's group. Terrified, Sai and the others fled forward in a panic. Afraid of being caught up in the lurching Gundam's movements, Xiao Ran started running too. He wrapped an arm around Miriallia, who had stopped from exhaustion and looked terrified, then pulled her away at a quick pace.

When he saw the Strike Gundam awkwardly dodge a Ginn's attack, the Aegis Gundam also lifted off the ground at almost the same time as the other Ginn. Seeing this, Xiao Ran finally breathed a sigh of relief.

What happened next unfolded exactly as it had in the plot. Xiao Ran's presence had changed nothing. After the Strike Gundam punched one Ginn away, it paused for less than a minute before its movements changed as if a drunken man had suddenly become a fighter. With a running start and a glide, it easily destroyed the Ginn belonging to the ZAFT forces.

Knowing that the Ginn would self-destruct, Xiao Ran stopped Miriallia and the others, who wanted to leave amid the chaos, and hid behind a building. The tremendous blast made his ears ring. The gale was so fierce that even cars by the roadside were blown into the air, accompanied by the sounds of heavy objects crashing to the ground.

Within minutes, the Strike Gundam stood before Xiao Ran and the others. When that familiar face appeared before them, everyone except Xiao Ran went stiff with shock.

"Kira?!" they shouted in disbelief.

After the battle came chaos and devastation. The scarred ground made Xiao Ran and the others truly feel a hint of desolation. It was different from what they saw on television or in the news. Only those who had truly experienced it could understand that personal sorrow.

Miriallia, Tolle, and the others looked at Kira, standing blankly before the cockpit in the MS's chest, and became equally lost themselves. They could not help asking themselves: what was going on? Why had things turned out like this?

"Bang!" Beneath the quiet sky, a gunshot rang out. Xiao Ran touched his burning cheek and felt blood trickling down. He stared in disbelief at a spot less than fifty meters ahead. Six nearly fully armed people stood there, men and women alike. The only thing they had in common was their tattered clothes and injuries of varying severity.

The alarm continued to sound. In the end, the three major Living Zones of the Colony Satellite were nearly empty, making the colony seem all the more hollow and silent.