The spoiled prince scrunched his nose. “British food?”
Diddy elbowed him hard enough to make him yelp. The kong kept a smile.
“So,” he said while Junior seemed to give an apologetic expression. “You said you had something to tell us, right?”
As the waitress came by, they took their order of fish and chips.
-----
Usso looked at the V2's transformed head piece in the solitude of the small hangar. A military vehicle as big as a Gundam would have never been allowed onto the surface by planetary customs, so he left the torso and legs in space. He had refelected on several occasions that this vehicle would probably come to be associated with him long after he was dead and the only knowledge about the Zanscare war would come from history books.
Technically speaking he used it for only about half the waróthe first half he piloted it’s predecessor, the original Victory Gundam. But by the end of the war several Victory Gundams had been made, while there remained to this day only one V2 that was ever brought into existence. Like the Zeong of the One Year War and the F91 Gundam of the war of Neo Babylon, the V2 was an experimental concept suit that had wildly exceeded expectations and was given as a gift to the top of ace of the waróhim. And of course, the League Militaire recognized it's potential as a propaganda symbol almost immediately because of its Wings of Light.
The wings were unusable nowóthe unique I-Field generator needed to sustain their length and shape was damaged beyond repair. He supposed it could be replaced, but he honestly would rather leave that feature off the suit. Shooting people with his blasters or cutting them with his beam saber at least made him feel like he was in control of what he killedóthere were multiple times during the war that he had destroyed enemy mobile suits in the vicinity with the wings of light without even noticing until after the battle was over. He’d had several nightmares both during and after the war of an ally accidentally straying into his path and being torn to shreds.
If he hadn’t a need to kill with the suit ever again, what was the point in going through all that effort to reinstall its deadliest feature?
'Besides,' Usso thought as he put his hand on the nose of fighter, aware that his reminiscing was getting him nowhere in making his decision. But he was also aware that sometimes ex-soldiers needed their time to recollect. 'There's no other suit in the galaxy that has another Minovsky Drive System I could make repairs with... well... except for THAT one, but if Earth is lucky that suit'll never see the light of day...'
There were other problems with the V2 beyond the MDS, of course. The extremely powerful primary blaster had been lost and replaced with a standard issue beam rifle, and the assault-form parts were all destroyed save for the V-Shield. It lacked the awesome division-destroying offensive power it had during the war, but it retained its stellar maneuverability. The verniers, AMBAC, and primaries were all fully functional, as well as the propulsive elements of the Minovsky Drive System.
It could still fight, and fight very well-- that was all that mattered. And now that he was seriously considering whether to use it again, even for a comparatively low key security job, his nostalgic fondness for it was already rapidly fading.
He looked around the hangar, making sure that no one was there. Then he said allowed, with a nervous, haunted chuckle.
"What do you say, Gundam? You think you can handle one more job?"
The machine didn't answer him. He didn't expect it to. But there were times, especially during the waning days of the war, where it did.
-----
