trans_9 | A frank exchange of opinions [closed]

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A frank exchange of opinions [closed]

Allenby yanked the last of the wires out of Nobel Gundam's cockpit with a grunt and dropped them on the floor. She straightened up, looking down at the pile of circuits, transmitters, and wires that had once been the Berserker System.

"Sorry, Doctor Belliman," she said. "I know you spent a long time makin' this and all, but it never was any good." She did feel bad about that. The doctor was a nice guy, for all she hated his invention. But she doubted he'd disagree if he knew about this.

...Though he might disagree with this bit. She brought her foot up and slammed it down hard, and was rewarded with a very satisfying crunch. That was it for the Berserker System. Picking up the remains, she stomped out onto the cockpit door and looked around. "Anyone out there watch out!" she yelled, before hurling the pieces as hard as she could. She was a model of responsible Gundam maintenance, absolutely.

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"You're making a mess," she was informed from below. Not that he cared, as he wasn't going to be the one to clean any of it up. And so long as her mess didn't extend into CB territory, he'd leave it at that and continue walking on by.

Allenby shrugged. "I'm just doin' some work on my Gundam--and I said to watch out," she called back dismissively. The guy didn't sound like he actually cared that much, but apparently he could make the effort to criticize.

On the other hand... if someone else got their hands on that stuff, they might be able to reconstruct it for their suits. Allenby jumped down and then paused. The guy, or his voice, was kinda familiar. "Hey, aren't you one of those CB guys?" she said as she began picking up the scattered bits of circuitry.

He paused at that. "That thing is not a Gundam," he informed her. It was growing annoying how many people called their suits that just because it had a V-crest on the forehead. Particularly since he knew full well when she did with her suit.

He didn't bother answering her second question, but she could probably guess whether or not he was from CB.

Allenby's eyebrows contracted and her fists tightened as she ran in front of him. "And just what do you mean by that, huh?" she said, glaring up at him. "Listen, buddy, just 'cause my Earth uses Gundams different than yours does--" better than his did-- "doesn't mean it's not a Gundam!"

Yeah, this was the same guy all right.

Setsuna glared down at her. Somehow, when he next spoke, he managed to keep his voice level and neutral. "All it is, is a toy. A prop. Gundams weren't made to be entertainment." ~~Screw you, Bandai :|~~

Allenby's voice was distinctly... neither of those things as she replied. "You think Nobel Gundam is a toy?! You don't understand anything about the Gundam Fight, so don't go saying things like that! Sure, people watch us on TV, but it's not just about that!" ~~That Gunpla says differently, Setsuna.~~

"What I understand is that its a ridiculous farce of a tournament to decide who rules the Earth Sphere Federation for four years." ~~Then screw that Gunpla too. :|~~

The arrogant son of a--!

Allenby had just one reply she could make to the jerk's attitude, when he didn't know a damn thing about the Devil Gundam or Domon or DG Cells or a world where war didn't kill millions of people all the time.

That reply was an uppercut aimed right towards his self-righteous chin, very hard and very fast.

Setsuna saw it coming at the last second, but didn't make any attempt to dodge. He ended up falling to the ground, and listened as Stacy informed Allenby that she got a violation for striking a fellow crewmate.

He pushed himself up onto his an elbow, and looked at her with a blank expression. Getting into a pointless altercation wasn't on his list of things to do, so he was waiting to see what her next move was. If she was angry, he'd allow her that one hit. She may have been annoying, but he hadn't classified her as an enemy. Yet. But if she intend to be a threat, she'd pay with her life.

"Shut up!" Allenby yelled at the ceiling. Like she was going to listen to anything Stacy told her to do. Especially when it came to punching people.

She glared down at Setsuna. "You're not gonna fight?!" No, okay, the answer was obvious. Damn. She really wanted one--Allenby wasn't going to just clean his clock if he was just going to stand there like a post. Yeah, she'd hit him because he'd made her mad, but she also wanted to have a proper fight--see if she could communicate with him by using her fists.

Looked like it'd have to be words, then. "Fine. Tell me why using your Gundam to kill hundreds of people is so much better than the Gundam Fight."

"Killing you would serve no purpose," he responded coldly. He understood that others couldn't cross that threshold, but if he was going to fight, it would be to the death. This wasn't worth killing for.

He picked himself up easily, and continued to stare blankly at her. Honestly, if she had to ask a question like that, she had no idea what it meant to be Gundam.

"Because... when we're done, the world won't need Gundams at all, anymore."

Allenby had to restrain herself from throwing another punch at Setsuna for that. "Who said anything about killin'?! I don't kill people!" She'd never killed anyone, although she knew she could have when she'd been infected with DG cells. Which was a big part of the reason she had a fistful of busted Berserker system now.

Plus, Setsuna really was full of himself if he thought he could beat her in a fight so easily.

"Just what do you mean, you won't need Gundams? If we didn't have Gundams it'd be right back to the same stupid wars." She really couldn't envision a world where people didn't fight at all.

Setsuna had a gun, knives, and explosives on him. Killing someone and beating them in a fight were two completely different things.

Setsuna did believe in a world where people could understand each other. Even if he also believed that there would be no place in that world for someone like himself. "If the world doesn't learn anything from your Gundam Fight, if nothing ever changes, then what are you fighting for?"

Well now that's just silly, Setsuna. Everyone ~~in G Gundam~~ knows that the best weapons are one's fists, especially when clearing large chunks of rubble.

Allenby was taken aback at his question. She'd never really thought about the Fight in those terms. "Well--we're fighting 'cause that's what humans do," she said. "I mean, everywhere in history there's no time when there wasn't at least one war over land or religion or something else that's dumb." She frowned. "And I fight--"

--because Neo-Sweden had wanted just a tool, a perfect Fighter that would net them easy victory and rule over the Federation, but that wasn't her reason for fighting anymore. "Because the Gundam Fight gives everyone a fair chance. To fight usin' our true strengths and understand our opponents through our fighting. I got friends from lots of other nations because of the Gundam Fight!"

"That's not 'what humans do!'" He spat back. She might be annoying, but that was the first thing she said that truly pissed him off. He wasn't going to accept 'human nature' as either a reason or an excuse for countless years of bloodshed.

"Violence is a choice. One that has terrible consequences." Consequences he was very conscious of. "All you've done is find a way to hide from them," like the rest of the crew and their damn sensoriums, "but you're still making the same decisions."

Allenby felt a small surge of satisfaction at seeing that anger. Finally something that wasn't blank-faced superiority! Not that she agreed with him, but it was nice to see some emotion already.

"We're not hiding from nothin'," she said. "If anything it's 'cause we know about our violence that we found a way to channel it so that it doesn't hurt so many people! We fight to win, not to kill. There's a difference!" She looked down at the circuits in her fist for a second. "I'm not sayin' people don't try to abuse it. Some nations don't care if they put a murderer in their Gundam. But those Fighters never win."

In a way, Allenby didn't have as much belief in humanity as Setsuna did. There were too many people in too many governments who were corrupt and cared only about power--she didn't think there would be a way to keep those people from ever causing problems.

That's why Setsuna kills those people. He had faith in humanity as a whole, but some people definitely had to go.

"And your Gundam Fight doesn't do anything to stop these people from becoming twisted to begin with. Who rules the world is less important than whether or not people are living better lives within it." He wasn't ever going to be satisfied with only 'less worse than before' as a result.

...well maybe he did have a point there. Allenby had seen how devastated the Earth had been by the Fight, and that was probably the biggest thing about it they had to fix.

But she still couldn't agree with him. "Look--I admit you've got a point about people on Earth needing to have good lives. But just how do you plan on keeping people from becoming evil at all? Are you just gonna point your vulcans at 'em and tell 'em to behave?"

Allenby had no problem beating the crap out of bad guys, but most of the ones she'd met really enjoyed being that way. As far as she could tell, they'd twisted themselves up on their own. The rest just needed a good pounding to sort them out and open their eyes--

--so really, the solution in all cases had been fists, specifically Gundam fists, as far as Allenby was concerned.

"No." That would make them dictators.

"Well then how are you gonna do it?!" she demanded.

"Together. With my Gundam." He really can't explain it any better than that.

"What kind of an answer is that?!" Allenby threw her hands up into the air. Dammit! She wanted to pop him one again, because the way things were going nobody was going to understand anyone unless fists came into play.

"You can't go around saying, 'your Gundams are crap,'" she pitched her voice low in imitation there, "and then not even be able to explain why your way of usin' Gundams is better than everyone's!"

He went back to being nonplussed by her anger.

"You'll understand eventually." Or she won't, and he might have to kill her. Either way, not everything could be put into words, or should be, for that matter.

Some things people had to experience for themselves first hand.

Oh for--!

"So until 'eventually' comes I gotta put up with you insultin' me and my Gundam and my friends that haven't hatched out of those pods yet?" She slammed her fist into her hand, as it was a better alternative to clocking him again. He looked like he was back in unresponsive snob mode.

"You come out with all this stuff about humans and choices and then you lock back up again, and you don't even do anything when I hit you! Why can't you try actually communicating something?!"

"I did." Try communicating something. In his own special ~~and indecipherable to most people~~ way. And if she couldn't understand even that much, then there was little point in continuing the current conversation. Words would do him no good here.

So he started to walk past her.

Oh now that just wouldn't do at all. Allenby followed at once. "No ya didn't. You insulted me, then you started talkin' about war and humanity and now you're back to not sayin' nothing! I could get it if you'd fought back, but ya didn't even move!"

It was that which bothered Allenby the most. "If you're bad at communicating with words, why couldn't you try communicating with your fists?!"

"That's absurd." He uses knives, silly.

Though, truthfully, he had no reason to fight her, so he didn't fight her. There was really no greater reason than that.

"No it's not!" ~~Yes it is, Setsuna, you've hit it right on the nose.~~ "What's wrong with you! You talk real vague and you act like you don't get mad, but I just saw it! So howcome you won't show me your feelings in a fight!"

It made perfect sense to Allenby. Martial artists expressed their feelings to each other by using their fists.

Except Setsuna's not a martial artist. He's... well, a terrorist, really.

"That isn't my way of fighting."

"Then what is your way? You can't expect anyone to understand ya unless you can show them what you mean somehow."

It was too--what the hell was the word. Too vague. Allenby wanted details. "So you wanna stop humanity from fighting. And you do--armed interventions. That means when you catch people startin' a war you go in your Gundams to blow them up, right?"

That seemed to be the gist of what Feldt had told her, anyhow.

She was persistent. But Setsuna could stonewall like nobody's business.

"Your point?"

"Just who were ya shootin' at when you intervened? The soldiers, or the people who started the wars in the first place?"

Setsuna might be able to stonewall, but Allenby was determined to get the full story out of him. If he thought he was so much better than she and her Earth were, he needed a damn good reason.

He did have a damn good reason. Beyond the fact that her ~~Gund~~ Mobile Suit was hideous. He just couldn't articulate it.

"Whoever we needed to," was the cryptic answer she got back in response. She could make of that what she would.

"So if I ask ya if you'll mow down hundreds of people who are only there 'cause their governments made them be there, your answer's gonna be yes, and you think it's morally better to do that than the Gundam Fight," Allenby said flatly. "Well, if that's the case, you and your Gundam are both trash."

She meant it, but it'd be a lie to say that she wasn't also hoping that the insult to his Gundam would provoke him into another display of emotion, if not a punch of his own.

Unfortunately, there was no such display of emotion. Mostly because he knew that no one really made those soldiers, the A-Laws, Katheron, or anyone else open fire on each other.

"Hate me if you want," he stated in the same empty monotone. "There's nothing I can say that'll change your mind on the matter." And for the moment, he was through trying.

Allenby stopped short. "I don't want to hate you," she said. There was a difference between not liking someone, even what was shaping up to be a really strong dislike, and hating. "That'd be dumb. We've all gotta restore Earth. What I don't get is why you think CB's got the only right way of usin' Gundams when it hurts people as much as any regular war!"

Setsuna might think he was through explaining, but Allenby could be very annoyingly persistent. "What happens after you intervene? Do you make the two sides talk to each other?"

Setsuna didn't stop, and continued on, putting some much needed distance between them.

"We have our ways and we have our reasons. I doubt you'd understand."

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A frank exchange of opinions [closed]

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