"Yes!"
Kira wasn't stubborn. After hearing Mr. Mu's reminder, he headed straight toward the Archangel.
"Finally decided to head over?"
Eno quickly noticed the Strike Gundam's movements. As he watched it draw closer to the Archangel, a glint flashed in his eyes.
Just as he'd expected.
As long as he applied enough pressure, the Strike Gundam would move toward the Archangel to seek support.
It wasn't hard to understand. The Strike Gundam was currently the last Mobile Suit, and in this situation, the Archangel would never let it fall so easily.
So once he showed that he had enough of an advantage, the Archangel would surely let the Strike Gundam retreat in order to protect it.
That was exactly what Eno wanted.
Actually, besides preventing Michel from meeting a tragic end, there was another reason Eno had chosen to launch a direct assault on the Strike Gundam: what was happening right in front of him.
He planned to use the Archangel to get out of the battlefield.
The problem was how to approach the Archangel without raising suspicion, and how to deal with its crew after getting aboard and escaping the battle.
The latter had never really been a problem.
That was because the Archangel had its busty captain, Murrue Ramius, and Mu La Flaga.
Unlike the other Earth Alliance soldiers, who were determined to kill ZAFT soldiers, those two had their own sense of honor on the battlefield.
As long as he boarded the Archangel, they wouldn't shoot him on the spot. At worst, they'd take him into custody and hand him over to military authorities. Even then, he'd still have a chance to talk to them.
It was the former that posed a problem—
But now, it seemed everything was going according to plan.
"Eno, what the hell are you doing?"
Eno's thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from his cockpit.
He turned and saw that Michel, who had been assigned to attack the Archangel, had come charging over.
"Michel! What are you doing?!"
Watching Michel charge off as soon as he'd spoken, Eno was so angry he nearly cursed.
"I'll take care of this guy!"
As he spoke, Michel pulled the trigger on his M69 "Elephant" Modified Heavy Particle Cannon.
Beep beep beep!
Hearing the radar's lock-on warning, Kira, who had grown used to beam cannons, turned and raised his shield to block the shot.
Then he drove his Mobile Suit straight toward Michel.
Whoosh!
Michel quickly piloted his Mobile Suit backward to dodge the Ship-Slicing Blade.
Then he raised his gun again and fired at the Strike Gundam.
But this time, because of the timing and angle, the Strike Gundam didn't use its shield. Instead, it dodged sideways.
Boom!
A moment later, the heavy particle cannon's beam struck the colony. A residential building collapsed instantly, and the deafening explosion and shock wave made Kira's pupils contract.
"Die!"
Seeing the Strike Gundam dodge the beam without moving away immediately, Michel locked on again and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Rumble—
The heavy particle cannon tore through another building on the ground.
"This can't go on!"
Looking at the devastation left by the beam cannon, Kira grew increasingly troubled.
"Damn it, this guy's slippery!"
Noticing how fast the Strike Gundam moved, Michel called out to Eno, who was keeping watch nearby. "Eno, come help me surround him!"
"What?"
But before Eno could even finish wondering what Michel meant, Michel charged forward with his beam cannon firing, trying to drive the Strike Gundam toward Eno.
"Aslan! Go help Giles!"
Cursing Michel for practically throwing his life away, Eno raced after him.
Was fate really impossible to change?
Was Michel really destined to die at Kira's hands, just as Eno remembered?
If so, what was the point of Eno's existence?
If fate couldn't be changed, then what did it mean that Eno Kamal, who had been supposed to die, had come back to life?
At the same time,
the fighting near the Archangel was still going on.
The Ginns' missiles attacked the Archangel relentlessly.
ZAFT's Mobile Suits darted through space, launching attacks without restraint.
By comparison, the Archangel could only defend itself, lest it harm the colony.
But the missiles the battleship dodged kept hitting the surface or the central shaft, causing numerous explosions. The guided warheads fired by the battleship also damaged the colony.
Beep beep beep—
A piercing alarm rang inside Orni's cockpit.
Orni hurriedly raced upward toward the connecting shaft inside the colony to take cover.
"Not a chance!"
Seeing this, Mu quickly pressed the battleship's main cannon firing button.
Bang!
Rumble—
A moment later, the Mobile Suit piloted by Orni was hit by the battleship's main cannon beam.
"Oh no!"
At that moment, Mu let out a startled cry.
The Mobile Suit's explosion ignited another support shaft, setting off a chain of explosions one after another.
In just a moment,
the support shaft toppled, trailing flames and smoke. The immense impact made the entire colony groan as it was crushed.
"Orni!"
Seeing his teammate's death, Axi, who had been drawing enemy fire as a wingman, roared and charged forward.
The main attacker, Giles, also fired the M68 "Leopard" three-tube short-range missile launchers mounted on his legs.
Seeing this, Aslan forgot about the Strike Gundam and piloted his Mobile Suit over to help.
But with the wingman no longer drawing fire, every missile Giles fired was intercepted by the Archangel's automatic defenses.
Some of the missiles only narrowly missed the Archangel before hitting the ground and the connecting shafts.
The central shaft had reached its limit under the excessive strain.
With a series of deafening crashes, the central shaft—the colony's backbone—could no longer hold together and began to break apart.
The remaining support shafts snapped one after another like broken strings, slamming into the ground and accelerating the colony's collapse.
The frame began to warp and bend, twisting out of shape under the crushing pressure.
Without its main support shaft, the outer wall could no longer hold. Under the centrifugal force of the colony's rotation, it began to peel away layer by layer along its structure, breaking apart.
Like lightning spreading across the colony, cracks immediately appeared everywhere.
The sudden change left both sides frozen for a moment.
Beep beep—
But the missiles showed no sign of slowing.
"Ahh!"
Axi's terrified scream rang out as he died.
His Mobile Suit was hit by an anti-aircraft warhead and burst into sparks.
"Axi! Orni!"
The sudden disaster jolted everyone back to their senses. Seeing one comrade after another die, Michel was consumed by rage. "You're dead!"
Roaring, Michel piloted his Mobile Suit straight toward the nearest target, the Strike Gundam.
Bang—
But Kira blocked the beam with his shield.
As the two Mobile Suits crossed paths, Kira turned and threw his Beam Boomerang at Michel.
Clang!
The Beam Boomerang came out of nowhere. With little experience fighting against one, Michel had both legs sliced off in an instant.
"Michel!"
Eno's heart clenched at the sight.
After weighing his options, Eno gritted his teeth and charged forward anyway.
If he had to, he'd give up on escaping aboard the Archangel!
"Die!"
At the same time, even with his Mobile Suit off balance, Michel forcibly locked onto Kira's machine and managed to pull the trigger.
Bang!
A lethal beam burst from the front of the beam cannon.
But as Michel's expression shifted from delight to bewilderment, the Strike Gundam lowered the shield it had used to block the cannon and charged toward him, sword raised.
"Ahh!"
Kira roared, his face twisted by the pressure, and swung his sword at Michel.
Michel felt a chill run down his spine.
As the tragedy unfolded before him, Eno took a deep breath in the speeding cockpit, steeling himself.
Bang!
Before Michel could react, a powerful impact shook the outside of his Mobile Suit.
The machine, unable to dodge the Ship-Slicing Blade, was shoved sideways.
As Michel's pupils shrank, a Mobile Suit with a paint scheme unlike that of an ordinary Ginn took his place. The Ship-Slicing Blade cut diagonally through half its body.
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