Performance Tests [OPEN]

[jesus_is_gundam]

While everyone else was busy going shopping down on the planet, Setsuna had more important things to do. Namely, take his Gundam out for a test run.

Everything had gone smoothly, and all systems were functional. Which bothered him a little bit. There had been certain subtleties to the 00, sometimes it would pull on a hairpin turn, an occasional rattle in the cockpit when he pushed past a certain speed... none of those things were there. The suit was perfect. Too perfect. It was almost as if the suit was brand new.

Except the 00 Raiser had been through hell, and the odds of its GN drives being repaired after Exia and 0 Gundam exploded were faint at best. It did have all the hallmarks of Celestial Being's craftmanship, but even so, Setsuna couldn't help but wonder where did this suit come from? And its GN drives? Two more questions to add to the growing pile, and he still had no answers.

"Gundam..."

As he exited the machine, he half expected to have Trudy screaming at him again about him not asking permission before launching previously. As if he needed her permission, or anyone else's, to take his own suit outside. But as he lowered himself from the cockpit to the ground, those concerns went right out the window as he noticed the two suits docked behind Dynames.

...so, he was here now. And off in the distance he could see that Tieria's suit, which had disappeared briefly, was back again. Which meant that the four of them were together again. The thought brought the smallest of smiles to the corner of his mouth, though only for a brief moment.

"Allelujah..."

As his feet hit the hangar floor, he scrapped whatever plans he did have. After all, if Arios, along with its predecessor Kryios, were both here, his comrade was sure to show up soon enough looking for them. Setsuna would just hang out by his own suits and wait for him.

Comments

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna opened his mouth to respond, and even mentally lined up all the syllables necessary to inform his comrade that he was wrong. It was only the simple fact that Allelujah should know that he (Alle) and Soma took a leave of absence together about a year ago that forced him to close his mouth without saying a word.

After a moment of quiet confusion, he approached Alle, and seemingly began a visual inspection of him. Like he was looking for any sign that this wasn't the same person he knew. But he was the right height, right age, right hair style, and even had the right scar on his forehead.

...okay.

He sort of figured because of Tieria's... situation with Veda may have somehow caused his memory issues. But Allelujah?

"What's the last thing you remember before waking up here?"

[praises]

Indeed he was one and the same, and though Setsuna was a fair deal shorter and slimmer, Allelujah was looking none too comforted by his fellow meister's inspection. Brows furrowed, Allelujah gripped the omnicomm, lips pressing into a thin line as if each word that would follow was difficult to dredge up.

"We were discovered by the UN and attacked a third time. I was captured and imprisoned after Kyrios was badly damaged." And Hallelujah was killed. "I don't know where, or for how long."

It was clear that he bore the weight of his ordeal—the days had been long, a seamless blend of torture for information on Celestial Being that he had refused to give up, time after time. Allelujah kept his gaze focused on the ground for the time being. "I was still there before I ended up in this place."

He looked back up then, a creeping touch of fondness melting into the melancholy. Allelujah had always been (vaguely) sentimental.

"I had never known what happened to you, or Tieria. If anyone survived."

[jesus_is_gundam]

There was only silence as an immediate response from Setsuna. How could Allelujah forget more than a year of his whole life?

"...we survived. As did Feldt Grace, Miss Sumeragi, Ian Vasthi, and Lasse Aeon." Notably absent from that list were Chris and Litchty. He'll let Alle put two and two together on that one.

"You were kept in a Dissident Detention Center located in what used to be HRL territory. We rescued you from that place over a year ago." Setsuna's normal stoic expression curved downward into a slight frown of concern. "You've forgotten a lot."

[praises]

Rescued? Allelujah couldn't help a harried knee-jerk response: "Is that even possible? Setsuna, I couldn't forget if something like that happened."

Allelujah rarely forgot anything, the good and the terrible alike. He appeared as though he truly believed that too, even if he was quickly starting to look sheepish for his small outburst.

"... This is the first contact I've had with any member of Celestial Being since that time."

[a_mere_human]

Again there was that pause of Setsuna clamping down on his knee-jerk response of you're wrong. How does someone go about explaining to someone else the life that they don't even remember living?

Setsuna came to the conclusion that he couldn't, his frown deepening with that realization.

"Allelujah..." First Tieria, now Allelujah. Even Lockon never remembered the last few days leading up to his death. What was happening in the pod caverns?

[praises]

He realized the strain he must be putting on Setsuna (what reason would he have to lie to him?), and though he still didn't understand much of it, Allelujah straightened his stance in an attempt to diffuse some of the tension. For the first time since Setsuna asked about Soma Peries, Allelujah again looked at the omnicomm for lack of anything else appropriate to do. His reluctance was only a product of his honest confusion, after all.

"Even if I don't understand, I'm sorry." What else could he say now? "But if this really is the current situation ..."

[a_mere_human]

The apology was largely ignored. Not out of callousness, but, well... that was just Setsuna.

"It is," he confirmed. "This is larger than anything we've ever had to deal with before."

[praises]

He decided it was better to let it lie. Though Setsuna looked older than Allelujah remembered, he was still the same as ever. And he'd always trusted him on the severity of situations they'd been in; this time would be no different, even if he still had questions. One of which was quite prominent—Setsuna had said, 'we.'

"Are there any more of our comrades here?" Allelujah cast a long look to what areas of the hangar he could see. A repaired Kyrios. What looked like Virtue. ... Dynames. More that he felt like he should be able to recognize, but didn't.

[a_mere_human]

"Tieria Erde is here, as well as Feldt Grace." There was another uncharacteristic pause as Setsuna realized he was about to drop another bomb on Alle's head, but it was too late to stop now. "So is Lockon Stratos... somehow..."

Rather than let that hang in the air too long, Setsuna simply steamrolled on. "Veda is also somewhere on this ship. Along with all of our Gundams, including both of yours."

And here comes Feldt~

[pinkbridgebunny.livejournal.com]

Speak of the girl, here comes Feldt from the 00's cockpit. She hadn't been able to find anything wrong with the systems, which puzzled her. That suit had always had a couple of flaws, mostly just minor things, but they had never been able to completely debug the system.

She was about to tell Setsuna about this, but her attention was caught by Allelujah. She hadn't seen him arrive, but she knew that he had to be here if the Arios and Kyrios were here.

"Allelujah!"

[praises]

It was a lot to take in. Each name registered one after the other, though it was less than he had hoped for with the broken state Celestial Being had been left in.

And ... Lockon? How—?

Allelujah was ripped from that precarious thought train by the familiar voice. Though Setsuna had said she was here, it still took him by surprise. His attention was caught as he craned his neck to spot the familiar splash of pink emerging from a nearby gundam's cockpit.

"Feldt ..." He almost said to himself, before smiling. He then projected his voice a bit better.

"It's been a long time."

[a_mere_human]

"Feldt Grace," Setsuna stated quietly to himself as he looked at her. He was going to have to find some way to warn her about Allelujah's memory issues. Still, the look that he gave her might tell her that something was off.

[pinkbridgebunny.livejournal.com]

She gave Allelujah a rare smile as she climbed out of the mobile suit and headed to where the two Meisters were talking. She held the Red Haro in her arms, almost like the way she used to hold Lockon's Haro. She looked over at Setsuna for a moment. "I wasn't able to find anything wrong with it."

Her attention then went back to Allelujah. "It's good seeing you again." She was glad to see another Meister here. They had a full team now, even if one of them was technically dead.

[praises]

"It's almost hard to believe," Allelujah began, glancing once at Setsuna, Feldt, the omnicomm, and then to the gundams. Though the matter of Lockon was still an unsettling one (that probably wouldn't fully hit him until he could see the other meister alive and breathing for himself), it was good to see that Celestial Being had lived on, no matter how fractured it was. That they had wound up together again. For the first time since entering the hanger, Allelujah turned his curiosity towards the towering mobile suits themselves.

"You said Veda was here," the Kyrios pilot mentioned, voice quieting. He assumed it was safe to speak, but secrecy was second nature by now. "Do you know its status?" Did it still belong to them?

"And that unit ..." Allelujah trailed off. Kyrios he recognized, but it was clear his focus was on the sleek orange suit docked next to it.

[a_mere_human]

"Veda seems to be under our control, but we're unsure if Stacy has compromised the system somehow," he answered. His eyes followed Alle's, and ended up settling on the Gundam.

"That's the GN-007 Arios Gundam," he informed him. "Successor to Kyrios."

He looked over at Feldt. "Allelujah recalls being captured and held, but nothing after that," he stated, explaining why Alle didn't recognize his own suit.

[pinkbridgebunny.livejournal.com]

She was quiet for a few minutes as she thought about what he said. It was like what Tieria said. "It's like before, with Tieria. He didn't believe Lockon's death until he confirmed it with Veda."

She then looked back at Allelujah. "Haro has information on Arios if you want to look it over, or you can see the suit itself."

She was always ready to talk about the Gundams, as long as who she was talking to was a member of Celestial Being.

[praises]

"I see." Stacy, the AI they were now under the ordinance of. In theory, anyway—Celestial Being had never done well with the "order" of things, whether they individually agreed or not. Terrorists and all. And if Tieria was with them, they'd in time they'd get to the bottom of what was going on with Veda, which would help a great deal with their security.

He hoped.

For now though, he was alert and listening to Setsuna and Feldt tell him about his own gundam.

"Arios," Allelujah repeated in wonderment. "So Kyrios had a successor." On impulse, he stepped forward, intending to see the unit for himself. Thinking better of going alone, he turned back to his companions. "I'd like to see it for myself, if possible. Feldt, would you like to go? Setsuna, too." Not that he knew for sure if Setsuna would be interested in accompanying them, but he felt it was only polite to offer.

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna looked over at Feldt. "If you're finished with the 00..." then he saw no reason why not.

*whistles*

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Ooh, ooh, I wanna see, too!" a likely aggravatingly familiar (to two present individuals) voice rang out from nearby. The braid-bearing derp jogged over to this new pow wow of arrivals, a soda cup and takeout bag in hand after his day's trip down to the Shore Leave planet.

Suddenly, Duo slowed and stopped in his tracks when he'd gotten close, giving Allelujah a good, long lookover- silent save the obnoxious sound of his sipping through the straw in his cup. He appeared to be in some sort of deep contemplation.

Finally he gulped down his soda and popped the straw out of his mouth. "Hey buddy, swipe your bangs over for a sec."

/facepalm

[pinkbridgebunny.livejournal.com]

She stopped as she was heading towards the Arios. It took some control not to just facepalm right there. She blinked at Duo's last statement. Just what was he going at. She knew that the other pilot had let her see his suit, but she couldn't let him get near Arios, he should have known that.

"Duo, you know that we can't let you near the Gundams," she said. He should have realized that he wasn't going to get allowed near the Gundams of Celestial Being.

HAHA so alle - setsuna - duo - feldt?

[praises]

Allelujah also paused, looking quite lost for words. He had never seen this boy before in his life, though that didn't seem to bother the raucous if not friendly newcomer in the slightest bit. He was about to pass a surreptitious glance to Feldt, as if to say, "You know him?" (and about the Gundams—) but the odd request threw him for a second time.

"Over?" He reached up slowly to move the already changing sweep of his bangs. Gone was the grey eye, replaced by the gold. Allelujah, however, remained the same.

Sure!

[jesus_is_gundam]

There was only a slight look from Setsuna to Duo, as if to say what was the point of that?

Yup! Duo you've gotten dangerously genre savvy.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Zero-Three."

Duo gave a big, wide grin, sipping at his soda again before continuing,

"That's your callsign, ain't it?"

Turning to Setsuna he nodded his head towards the wall-Meister. "So where's Oh-Four?"

Context was overrated, anyway. "And look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way; I'm just sayin'," he belatedly replied in Feldt's direction, as if he suddenly remembered he'd been denied.

o7

[pinkbridgebunny.livejournal.com]

"I can't let you near the suits," she said to Duo. She knew that Setsuna or another one of the Meisters would do something to him before he could get to the suits. She knew that Haro wouldn't let him access the systems in Dynames if he could even get in the cockpit.

She looked back at Allelujah as he moved his hair. She didn't know why he had asked that, but she wanted to have the Meister look over his suit.

oh god he has no idea what's going on

[praises]

"Zero ... three?" Clearly there was something important Allelujah was missing, or that was what he thought, if his expression was anything to go by.

And given Setsuna and Feldt's reactions, he had to assume this was actually normal behavior.