Ch 234: Interrupting an interesting scene.

Oda Nobunaga floated high in the sky, standing on one of her rifles. She could see the lights of Tokyo's streets, far behind her. And the quiet up there put her in the mood to reminisce.

Even after living in this era for two years, she still marveled at some of the technological marvels that humanity had created. Things like radios, automatic rifles or trucks would have been priceless advantages during her conquest of Japan back then. Too bad she had been betrayed by his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide back then, forced to commit seppuku to avoid the humiliation of capture.

But fate had given her a second chance. A chance to realize her dreams of conquest and take over not simply Japan, but the whole world.

She snorted at the thought of the Holy Grail, that she had hidden away. That thing could have given her the world on a platter, had she used it to wish for world domination.

But would she have been satisfied ruling over lands and people she didn't personally conquer?

Never!

So she had put the Grail away, finding another use for it later, and worked for the Japanese military since then.

That man Magatsu, who thought himself so clever, was barely tolerable. The type of man who licked her boots when she was standing in front of him, but also called her a 'thing' when he thought she couldn't hear.

She knew he planned to get rid of her the instant he didn't need her anymore. She knew, because she had stayed near him in a dematerialized state a few times.

But he had influence over a significant portion of the Japanese army, and as long as he had his uses, Nobunaga would tolerate him.

Her Master was far more to her taste, as she knew her place in the grand scheme of things. She mostly served as a buffer between Magatsu and herself, insulating her from the worst of his arrogance. Which was fortunate, or Nobunaga would have lost patience and gotten rid of him, convenient or not.

And Kaname had never tried to order her around, despite being her Master. For that reason, and because she sympathized with her circumstances, she was rather fond of the girl, and had several times threatened Magatsu if he went too far in his mistreatment.

But then, some unplanned things happened.

The first was the start of a new Holy Grail War, only two years after the previous one. Major Reiter, of the German Third Reich's Occult Division, had come to Japan, proposing cooperation. She offered her help as Assassin's Master, As well as the first completed Held Kreiger, a series of artificial Lancers. More would come soon after the Nazi occult researchers worked the kinks out of mass-producing them.

And then, there was what happened earlier tonight. She had gone ahead to see this Held Kreiger, only to notice among the passengers a black-haired girl with blurry red marks on the back of her hand.

A Master's stigma, outing her as someone who hadn't summoned a Servant yet.

It would be dishonorable to kill a Master before they summoned a Servant. No bothering to kill her, Nobunaga had only mentioned her to Held Kreiger, who sprang into action.

And then, the girl summoned a Saber who made short work of the fake Lancer, and just as things were getting interesting, those guys appeared all of a sudden.

Since Nobunaga was an Archer, and the real Assassin was on their side, the two Servants who had introduced themselves as Archer and Assassin were clearly impostors. From the little she saw of their fighting styles, she assumed that the one with long purple hair was Rider, and the one with the silver hair and modern firearms… probably was an atypical Caster.

She would have guessed her to be Berserker, if not for him currently being in a basement of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Whoever they were, Nobunaga wasn't foolish enough to take on three Servants at the same time, so she had retreated early.

She had observed them from afar for a little while, and seen an opportunity to try to kill one of the three Masters, deciding to punish them for the falsehood by taking the arm of the purple-haired one. But the Master had turned out to be surprisingly capable and blocked her shot.

But she looked forward to facing them again. A conquest performed without defeating powerful opponents would lack flavor.

A low rumbling came from the skies above the sea, interrupting her musings, and Nobunaga smiled. The Americans were coming.

Several dozens of bombers, accompanied by wings of smaller fighters. She admired those steel birds, and she wanted them. She could already imagine herself sending waves after waves of bombers to pound the armies of other nations into submission.

But before she could start again on her path of conquest, she first needed to deal with a few matters, like this attack. She moved to place herself straight on the plane's path, manifested a half-dozen rifles around her, and opened fire.

Two bombers erupted in flames, leaving their formation as they lost control. Then two more, two more…

She had already downed half of the bombers when the first fighters came close enough to target her, and she diverted her fire at them, one shot per fighter.

Nobunaga had to move to evade a few bullets, but her human opponents didn't stand a chance. A few of the fighters' pilots ejected, opening their parachutes, but Nobunaga shot them anyway, giving them a warrior's death to honor their willingness to fight against her despite seeing what she did to the first bombers.

In less than thirty seconds, Nobunaga had crushed the American air raid. The sea in front of Tokyo was dotted with patches of flames and smoke as the planes' fuel burned on its surface.

She flew back toward Tokyo and landed in the port, where her Master and some officers waited. Most of them saluted, silent, while the one in the center spread his arms wide.

"Good work, Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, Lord Oda Nobunaga." said Major Reiji Magatsu. "If it weren't for you, the imperial capital would be a sea of flames by now. We may come from different eras, but as fellow Japanese trying to protect our country, I want us to continue cooperating and fighting together, side by side."

"Silence. Don't say another word." replied Nobunaga. "Your incompetence caused my country to weaken enough to permit the enemy to invade it. Know some shame!"

"…Yes." replied Magatsu as he lowered his head, looking subdued.

Nobunaga could see through his act at a glance. Under his submissive façade, he was boiling with anger.

"A few of the bombers made emergency landings. Seize them." said Nobunaga, and he nodded, gesturing to one of the saluting officers who left running to transmit the order.

"What about the Saber in the train, the two fake Servants and their Masters?"

"They were too strong not to be the real deal. They simply lied about their classes. I need to collect more information about them." replied Nobunaga, walking away and dematerializing.

Magatsu waited for ten seconds then turned toward his subordinates, his expression once again confident as he looked at one of them.

"The Servants may hide perfectly, but it won't be as easy for the Masters. Order the 4th Battalion to search the city. They are to search for a purple-haired young woman, a dark-skinned one, or a young silver-haired one. They are bound to stand out. They will also check the backs of any civilian's right hand. If any of them wears gloves, get them to remove them to check. And when you find them, gun them down."

"Yes, Sir!" said the subordinate, leaving at a trot.

…

Just a few meters away from Magatsu, Nobunaga, in her dematerialized state, shook her head at Magatsu. As expected, he was both dishonorable and stupid.

But she didn't stop him. The soldiers would be useful to flush her enemies out in the open, and there was little chance that they would rob her of her prey. And if they did, it would only mean that the Servants were incompetent after all and didn't deserve to face her in battle.

…

"How long until they disperse?" asked Hina, giving him a cup of hot coffee.

"Thank you." smiled Noah.

After the fourth destroyed base, the enemy had gotten smart, evacuating most of them to concentrate their forces into a massive group of close to three hundred mobile suits.

The odds were a little too steep for Sumeragi's taste, so she had decided to wait them out. Noah and Hina, using the cover of the cloudy sky and the particles from the solar furnaces hiding them from radars, had hidden in a forest.

Havoc and Athens didn't possess the active camouflage system Black Widow and Hecate had, but they each had small containers holding several camo nets for forest, desert, and arctic.

Covering their mechas with the forest nets had only taken a minute with Noah being able to conveniently walk in the air.

"…If they are smart, they will either stay together and shut down some of their mobile suits for the pilots to rest, with some of them standing guard. If they do that, they could stay together for days. What would you do if you were the opponent's enemy commander, Hina? You have actual military experience, unlike me."

"I would try to set up an ambush." smiled Hina. "I would camouflage some of my troops on the ground, in a forest like we do, or in an isolated spot where their presence wouldn't be leaked on the internet. I would do it while the cloud cover prevents satellite observation. I would use a fraction of my forces as bait and hope to bring us close enough for the hidden troops to take our rear and stop us from retreating."

Noah nodded, thinking. "Ambushes only work if the enemy gets close enough. One option would be to climb all the way up into the Mesosphere. Their beams won't cross a hundred kilometers of air, even if it isn't nearly as dense up there, and we are faster than them so they can't pursue. The issue is that it makes us far easier to detect by visual observation, and their remaining space assets may become involved."

"Not a great idea." nodded Hina. "We could go after their empty bases, but that won't help too much. Bases are fairly cheap to rebuild. We launched this attack to destroy their mobile suits and their means to produce more."

"…If they ground themselves to camp, I will infiltrate them without Havoc. I think I could easily kill a bunch of them and extract easily. I can just teleport to return here."

Hina nodded.

"Speaking about your ability to teleport, didn't you say that you would eventually allow Saki, Akira and I to do so as well? I do not want to sound greedy, but it would have been a good thing to have before the offensive against A-Laws, rather than after…"

"You aren't wrong." smiled Noah. "But there is a requirement to share my power, and that's not one that can be ignored. Didn't the other girls tell you about it?"

"They have been suspiciously vague about it." frowned Hina. "They all told me that there was some kind of initiation. Some liked it a lot, others hated it at first, but then they changed their minds."

"Yes. And it takes some time. That is why we aren't going to do it for now. It would be careless of us to leave Havoc and Athens unattended."

A soft ping came from both the headsets Noah and Hina both wore, and they accepted the communication request.

"Hina, Noah, is everything fine on your side?" asked Sumeragi.

"Yes, no signs of the enemy." nodded Noah.

Both Gundams were using their passive sensors to scan for any incoming threat and would have alerted their pilots.

"Our intelligence suggests that they are evacuating most bases and concentrating their forces on only three formations, each of them consisting of three hundred plus mobile armors. Two are protecting the bases of Marseille and Prague, and the third is the one just north of your position. I want you to link up with Aria, Shino, Saki and Akari, and hit the Marseille group. You should be done before any of the two other groups has time to reinforce them. I will give you the suggested route and coordinates."

"Thank you. Sumeragi." said Hina. Six vs three hundreds were far more manageable odds.

"I have a favor to ask you, Noah, since Aria told me you are good at infiltration." said Sumeragi with a brief hesitation. From her tone, Noah could tell whatever she wanted was something that was very important to her.

"I'm listening." said Noah.

"The flow of data suggests that the enemy commander for the European theater is in Marseille. And… I am pretty sure I recognize her tactics. I think the one we face is Kati Mannequin, a tactical officer like me. We did our classes together, and… we were quite close.

"Say no more." smiled Noah. "I will go and, let's say that I will invite her to come with us. I will go right away. Havoc will follow Athens on autopilot. Give me a few hours of head start, though.

"Yes, thank you." said Sumeragi.

"Pay me a drink when this is over." grinned Noah.

"Says the man who can create drinks out of thin air… I will." replied Sumeragi with a serious tone.

She knew that what Noah had really asked was her consent to take her on a date. She had seen the appreciative glances he sometimes gave her, more or less openly. And she had accepted.

"Great. I will call you upon completion of this mission."

"Best of luck, Noah, Hina."

"Thank you." nodded Hina.

The call ended, and Noah turned to his mecha, kneeling a short distance away.

"Havoc, did you hear?"

"Affirmative." replied the onboard AI with a synthetic voice.

"Until I return, your task is to follow and protect Hina, Athens, and the other members of Celestial Being."

"Acknowledged."

"Those AI really are great." sighed Hina. "Even if I am a bit miffed that Athens scored more kills than I did. I feel useless. Are we even needed?"

"You want the truth?" asked Noah with a grin.

"…No. Forget that I asked. Let me cling to my delusions a while longer." smiled Hina and Noah chuckled.

"How are you going to infiltrate that military base?" asked Hina. "Are you going to use teleportation?"

"Nope." said Noah, starting to remove his pilot suit. Hina turned to the side as he did, blushing slightly. But the fact that she hadn't made a full half-turn betrayed her intent to take a glimpse. Purely accidentally, of course.

"W-What are you doing?"

"Changing my suit. This one isn't suited for infiltration. But to answer your question, it would be pretty bad if I just popped in. For all I know, she might be in the middle of a conference room or something, and if I spook them too much, bullets will start flying, and Kati might be hit. I'll infiltrate the base from the outside."

"Okay? Are you going to ask Aria to bring you in with her stealth?"

"No, I'm going to fly by myself. I'll remain just under the speed of sound when near ground level. The new suit and helmet I'll be making for that will include Stop runes to prevent radar waves from rebounding, so I'll be just as stealthy as our Gundams.

"I see." nodded Hina, looking at him from the corner of her eyes. When he was focusing on creating a black suit and a helmet, she turned her head toward him, and blushed further. He really had the upper body of a Greek god. And his underwear was… he clearly was well endowed under the fabric.

Noah turned his head toward her with a knowing smile, and she hurriedly looked away, hoping he wouldn't say anything.

Thankfully for her, he didn't peep a word as he put on the new suit. It was completely black, with some rigid pieces, clearly inspired from the pilot suits Saki and Akira had worn when they were revived.

"This new suit has another feature that will be quite useful for this infiltration, Hina. Take a look."

Hina turned, and her eyes widened as she only saw Noah's head, as if it was just floating.

"Ah! It can make you invisible!"

"Yes." smiled Noah, putting on the black helmet. A second later, he was completely invisible.

"With this, the only things I need to worry about are thermal sensors. But I don't think they are used much aside for night vision. I'll be going, take care, Hina."

"Yes, good luck." nodded Hina.

She felt a slight swoosh of displaced her, and he was gone. Probably.

…

Noah didn't fly directly westward. He deployed his devil wings and flew up, and up, until he reached the upper mesosphere.

Since he only had his eyes to guide him, he needed to go high enough to see the landmasses above the horizon. It was very cold up there, and the low atmospheric pressure would have killed a normal human in a minute, but Noah could tolerate it thanks to his regeneration and special body. He simply held his breath, and used Purge on himself every few minutes to erase the increasing levels of carbon dioxide before it became a problem.

When he reached high enough to recognize Italy and the Mediterranean sea, he headed for the French southern coast. As night was falling, Marseille would be easy to find. He would only have to follow the biggest concentration of lights.

He flew at near supersonic speed and needed less than two hours to reach his destination, a large military base that, despite its size, was still overcrowded with close to three hundred mobile suits and their support hardware and personnel.

Seeing all those mobile suits, Noah smiled, deciding to follow one of the ideas that crossed his mind on the way to this place.

It would be easy to slaughter all the pilots before they could board their mobile suits. He could wait for them to gather in the cafeteria, fry the lot of them with a Thundergia, then kill those he missed.

But that was needlessly bloody.

His other idea was to simply seize the mobile suits. He had a lot of free space in his inventory.

And he wanted to see their faces, seeing all their mobile armors stolen right under their noses. The sheer impossibility of it might make the decision-makers hesitate more than seeing them turned into scrap metal.

And that was… more leverage, to help convince a stubborn person.

But before Noah got started on his heist, he first needed to locate Kati Mannequin.

Noah scanned the base with Promise, familiarizing himself with its layout, without any of the soldiers and technicians getting a hint of his presence. And to his vast surprise, he saw a few familiar faces.

Kati Mannequin was working in her office, analyzing reports. She had her semi-long black hair in a bum, with her glasses. She looked every bit like the stern disciplinarian she was.

Soma Peries, aka Marie Parfacy, the white-haired, cool girl with dark golden eyes, was another person he needed to extract. Her fate was to become the girlfriend of Allelujah Haptism, one of the four original Gundam pilots. Noah didn't feel any attraction toward her, so he didn't mind helping a bit to help the two star-crossed lovers reunite.

Anew Returner was a tall girl with shoulder length, lavender hair, and reddish-brown eyes. She was an innovado, an artificially born human with customized genes, just like Ribbons Almark, the fiction's ultimate antagonist. This one was definitely an enemy, infiltrating the A-Laws ranks to pull their strings from the inside.

This one needed to be captured and subjugated, as she without a doubt held crucial information.

But the true surprise were two sisters, Meyrin and Lunamaria Hawke, busy working on the maintenance of a customized mobile suit, as they were from another Gundam fiction. Clearly, Lilith had a hand in it, and he made a prayer to her to convey his gratitude.

Of course, this also made him thing that, maybe, in the A-Laws Gundams that he and the rest of Celestial Being had shot down, maybe there were more girls that she had inserted for him to take, but… He decided not to worry about it for now.

Later, he would make sure to obtain a list of those who had died, and if he recognized any names, he could always revive them.

A bell rang a few times, signaling the start of service in the cafeteria, and most of the soldiers started to form a line.

Noah snuck into a weapon depot, hid himself in a corner behind a few crates, and worked on creating another Sanctuary. It only took him a few minutes, and he put it into his sanctuary.

Next, he moved to a corner of the runway, still invisible, and called Aria, updating her on the situation and informing her that he would return with more than one captive.

When he returned to the cafeteria, looking inside through the windows, he saw Kati eating with her sidekick, Patrick Colasour, and a few other officers. The simp was a superior mobile suit pilot, even if he was treated as a complete clown and comic relief in the fiction.

He was later called Patrick the Indestructible because he always survived the destruction of his mobile suit.

Noah waited until they were done eating, placed their empty platters in the receptables for later cleaning, and left, retiring to the dorm complex.

Noah followed them silently. He memorized their room, but didn't take action. Securing Anew took priority.

He returned to the cafeteria and noted that Soma and Anew were eating at the same table. They were later joined by Lunamaria and Meyrin. From the shared smiles and discussions, it was obvious that they were friends.

And yet, the atmosphere overall was tense. It was clear that the recent developments had the soldiers worried. It was hard to blame them.

And Noah was going to do them a huge favor, taking their mobile suits without killing them.

All for the modest cost of a few of them.

Afte they were done, Lunamaria and Meyrin returned to the warehouse, as they wanted to finish troubleshooting a bug on Luna's mobile suit before calling it a day.

Soma and Anew walked back to the dormitory. They opted to tuck in early as they were on watch duty for the later part of the night.

Noah followed them once again, noting the position of Soma's room, and kept following Anew. The girl opened a door near the end of the hallway, and Noah slipped right behind her before the door closed.

Anew loosened her uniform and put her holstered sidearm on the desk. She started a shower, removing her uniform with unhurried gestures.

Noah didn't wait for her to be done undressing. He slipped his right arm around her waist from behind, seizing her left forearm, and pinned her against him, half lifting her while forcing her arms against her sides. With his left hand, his choked her just enough to stop any cry, while his fingers applied pressure on her carotid.

She struggled, but only had a few seconds before the restricted blood flow caused her to lose consciousness. Noah crouched, still holding her, and placed his new Sanctuary on the floor. Seconds later, he was with her inside the (for now) sparsely furnished basement of the manor inside the sanctuary. He placed the half-naked Anew on a bondage bench, her back against the black leather padding, and strapped her in. Leather cuffs on her wrists and forearms, ankles and above her knees. Thick belts around her waist, above and under her fairly (for now) modest breasts kept her torso pinned to the furniture.

He stuffed her mouth with a ball gag and stretched a black latex hood without eye openings over her head, then secured the last strap around her throat. Anew wasn't going anywhere.

Satisfied, he left the Sanctuary, retrieved it, and walked back to Soma's door. He knocked on it. Seconds later, Soma, still wearing her uniform, opened it and looked up and down the hallway, seeing on one and wondering who was playing a prank on her.

She was caught completely unprepared when a fist in her solar plexus stole her breath, and before she could react, she was thrown on the ground, an invisible weight pressing on her, and an invisible hand against her throat, choking her attempts at screaming and pressing against her carotid. Her flailing fists connected with her aggressor a few times, but had no effect, and she felt regret and outrage at the unfairness of her imminent death.

Less than two minutes later, Noah left Soma's room. He had bound her to a heavy bondage chair in the living room of the Sanctuary. She was gagged, but not blindfolded, and still in her uniform.

He returned to the room where Kati Mannequin and Patrick Colasour had disappeared, and knocked on the door.

He waited for maybe twenty seconds, and was about to knock again, when the door opened. Kati was there, wearing a bathrobe. But Noah raised an eyebrow when he noticed the black leather platform boots peeking from under it. Those boots were definitely not part of the military uniform.

She frowned as she looked in the hallway, searching for the one who knocked but seeing nothing. She shrugged and turned back, walking deeper inside the room. Noah slipped in behind her before the door closed automatically.

He had assumed at first that it would be just another room, maybe larger if it was meant for superior officers, but the place was actually an apartment. Noah followed Kati, the Stop runes engraved in his soles silencing his steps.

Kati opened the door to the bedroom and muffled a snort of amusement.

Patrick Colasour was naked on the bed, bound spreadeagled by furry handcuffs, and blindfolded. And from the looks of it, he was very excited.

"Who was it, my love?" asked Patrick, turning his head toward Kati.

"No idea. Whoever it was left before I opened the door. It must not have been anything urgent."

"Good news, then. I was worried we would have to stop for tonight." smiled Patrick.

"No such luck for you." smiled Kati, heading for the attached bedroom.

"Wait a few more minutes like a good boy. I will soon be ready." said Kati with a lustful voice.

"Yes, my Queen."

Noah felt a bit of pity for him. His night was not going to go the way he anticipated.

Kati left the door of the bathroom half open, wanting for Patrick to hear the sounds she made as she prepared. She removed her bathrobe, and Noah saw that Kati wore a black leather bustier and black leather panties, and her platform boots stopped mid-thigh.

Kati opened a box of makeup and selected a bright red lipstick.

But before the lipstick touched her lips, and froze as she heard a soft thud on the floor near her. She saw a kind of tourist souvenir, one of those crystal balls, and frowned as she had not noticed it when she entered. And it didn't seem like the kind of thing Patrick would gift her.

She was about to ask him, when suddenly, she wasn't in her bathroom anymore. She was in a snow-covered land surrounded by a white mist. The sun high in the sky shouldn't have been there, and she didn't feel cold despite her current lightly dressed state.

The only possibility that explained the sun's position, ludicrous as it was, was that she was somewhere in Asia.

"Sorry to interrupt your fun, Major Mannequin." suddenly said someone behind her, and she turned, furious at being caught wearing her current outfit.

She saw someone wearing a pure black leather bodysuit of unknown design and a glossy, featureless helmet hiding his face, standing three meters behind her. He held a gun in his left hand, aimed at her.

"Who are you?"

"It's a nice outfit you wear, Major. And I have an accessory that will complement it well."

The man fished something from his back with his free hand and threw it at her feet.

Steel, hinged handcuffs.

"Surely you do not think that I will just bind myself?" asked Kati, outraged.

"I am the one holding the gun, am I not?" taunted Noah. "For the crime of being too competent, you need to be removed. We can do this by abducting you, or by killing you. Which option do you prefer? You have my word that once secured, you will not be mistreated. We want to keep our options open."

Kati glared at him for a few seconds, considering her options. Finally, she picked up the cuffs, closed the steel around her left wrist, then placed her arms behind her back and cuffed the other wrist.

"Satisfied?" asked Kati with venom in her voice.

"Very. Enter the manor, please, then, first door on the right. You will be secured to a chair and left alone for a few hours. Well, not quite alone. You will have a conversation partner. After that, you will be moved to a more comfortable holding cell and the person who requested your abduction will come speak to you."

"…You never intended to kill me." frowned Kati.

"No." admitted Noah, taking the gun back in his inventory. "Having you cuff yourself save me the trouble to overpowering you. This way, please. I do not want to waste time. I still have things to do tonight."

"What kind of things?" asked Kati with worry as she headed toward the mansion. "Are you doing to do something with Patrick?"

"No. I am not going to touch him. I told you, we want to keep our options open. But he will suffer some embarrassment when your panicked soldiers break your door down and discover him. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes."

"And what reason would the soldiers have to panic?"

The man only chuckled and didn't answer.

Her captor opened the manor's door, and she entered. Her captor walked in front of her and opened the door to the right.

Kati warily entered and froze as she met the gaze of Lieutenant Soma Peries, whose eyes widened.

"M-Major? Were you captured as well?"

"…Yes."

"Sit on the chair facing her, please. You two will have plenty of time to chat later." said Noah.

Kati sent him a malevolent glare before cooperating, and she sat on the second bondage chair.

"You didn't tell me how you brought us on another continent."

"No, I didn't." said Noah, busying himself with strapping her legs against the chair. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, and I lack the time to show you the evidence. Lean forward, please."

She cooperated, letting him remove the cuff and secure her arms to the chair.

"You, are you the one who attacked me?" asked Soma.

"Yes, and I apologize about that. I needed to subdue you before you could alert anyone."

"How did you do it?"

"This suit and helmet can make me invisible. Among other things. Maybe we should add this feature to our Gundams. It wouldn't take a lot of modifications."

"Gundams? You are part of Celestial Being!" realized Soma.

"I am the pilot of the black one, to be precise. Marseille was about to be hit by six or our Gundams Meisters. Including yours truly. But I decided to go ahead, both to abduct the Major and some of the more talented pilots, and to neutralize as many mobile suits as I can."

"If all goes well, the base will be neutralized without a single person being injured, and we will abort our attack."

Noah was done securing her torso to the chair, and loosely fastened the last strap around her throat.

"There. I'm leaving for a while. I'll return later for bathroom breaks and to give you water and food."

…

Lunamaria finally found the reason for the error message the mobile suit displayed when it shut down earlier today.

She was leaning on her back, half of her body inside the right leg of her mobile suit, whose side of the leg armor had been stripped.

"Found it, Meyrin!" said Lunamaria with satisfaction.

"What was it?" asked her little sister. She was a staff officer, not a pilot or engineer, and only had some basic knowledge of maintenance.

"One of the power cables has been dislodged and has been stuck into the ankle's actuator joints. Give me a wrench, size… twenty-five, please." asked Maria, extending her right hand outside without looking.

"Here you go." smiled Meyrin, handing her the requested tool.

"Thank you."

It took her a few minutes of effort to get the power cable where it belonged.

"Almost done. Give me three cable clamps, please." asked Lunamaria, extending her hand.

She waited a moment, but her sister didn't say anything, nor did she provide the cable clamps.

"Meyrin?"

Still no answer.

Frowning, Lunamaria extracted her torso from her Mecha's leg.

Meyrin was nowhere to be seen. She was the only person in the warehouse, aside from two soldiers smoking near the door.

She looked around, but her sister wasn't in the warehouse. Lunamaria suspected she had gone for a bathroom break, but it wasn't like her to leave without a word.

And what was this crystal globe near the toolbox doing there?

Sighing, she fished the cable clamps she needed from the toolbox and resumed her work. When she was satisfied that the issue wouldn't happen again anytime soon, she extricated herself from the leg again and used a remote to move the massive mechanical arm holding the leg's armor plate. She carefully aligned the plate to its fitting and pressed a button. The arm pressed the armor plate, weighing easily two tons, against the leg, and the locks engaged.

Once again, her mobile suit was ready for battle.

And Meyrin still had not returned. Had she done something to make her angry?

She decided to check into Meyrin's room, and was about to pick up the crystal globe, when her surroundings suddenly changed.

…

Noah finished restraining the gagged and hooded Lunamaria to the third bondage bench and left his Sanctuary, retrieving it.

His five unwilling guests were now secured, and it was time to deliver Chaos, Dread and Despair.

Still invisible, he started with the Mobile Suits in the hangars. He knocked unconscious the soldiers near the gate, and transferred the mobile suits in his inventory, running from one to the other, touching them for an instant before they disappeared.

He had managed to empty three hangars, then moved on to all the mobile suits lined up on the sides of the main runway, now using Shunpo to go faster. The enemy was down to maybe a hundred mobile suits by the time someone rang the alarm. The soldiers ran around, their eyes wide as they saw one mobile armor after another… simply disappear.

A few pilots tried to reach their machines, but Noah made sure to prioritize them, and only two pilots managed to reach their mobile suits, only to have them disappear from under them as they started climbing to reach the cockpits.

Fearful screams echoed around, no one quite knowing what to do. They were confronted with a threat they couldn't understand.

They were probably hammering on the door of Kati's room by now, and would soon force their way in.

Noah was tempted to watch the chaos, but he had just given himself a lot of work to do for the next few weeks.

He flew away at a low speed and took his smartphone out, calling Aria.

"Noah? Is everything going well?"

"Yes. More than well, actually. I shoved all the mobile suits I found into my inventory. If you could see the chaos I left behind. The only mobile suits they still have are those on patrol. Are you at meeting point Alpha?"

"We are. So, how many?"

"Major Kati Mannequin, and four others. One is an Innovado."

"An Innovado? That's interesting."

Just from the shift of her tone, Noah could picture her suddenly sitting straight.

"As soon as we return from this operation, I will make her my priority. We need to know where the rest of them are hiding."

"Yeah. With just a bit of luck, we can put an end to those guys. And the three others?"

"A pilot and her sister who looked like a staffer. Separating families is bad, so I took her as well. And it's not because they're both attractive. Not at all."

"Yeah, I'm sure." chuckled Aria. Noah could almost see her eyes rolling.

"And the other pilot is someone connected to Allelujah's past. He will be happy to see her."

"I see. Great job. I'll contact Sumeragi and ask if we go ahead with the attack or move on the other groups. Hey, think she'll ask you to pull the same trick with the other groups?"

"If the A-Laws react as I expect, they'll basically camp around their mobile suits, have their pilots inside, and have all kinds of sensors deployed. Still, I think I could still pull it off despite that." smiled Noah. “Now can you land and leave your mobile suit? I’m about to teleport to you."

"Give me a few seconds… now you can."

Noah teleported to her and deactivated his invisibility.

"Welcome back." grinned Aria, standing in front of her Black Widow. Hina, Akira and Saki were standing beside her, their own mobile suits kneeling in a loose semi-circle.

"Thank you. It went well." smiled Noah. "I secured the targets and stole all of the mobile suits, and they haven't spotted a single enemy while I was doing it. As far as they know, the mechs just popped out of existence one after another."

"I want a suit like this." said Akira. How often had she wished she could just turn invisible and be ignored?

But that could be an issue, and Saki had also realized it. She was gesturing discreetly for Noah to decline.

"I don't think that it would really help you, Akira." refused Noah with a gentle tone. "It would likely make your difficulties at socializing worse."

"…Yes." sighed Akira.

"We need to inform Sumeragi-san and go after our next objective. Let's hit them again while they are off balance." suggested Saki, wanting to change the subject, and they nodded.