Kati Mannequin

[Location: AEUG Data Storage Facility. 2307 A.D.]

The desert winds outside the AEU Forward Data Preservation Complex kicked up sheets of dust as the sirens wailed. Deep beneath the dunes, the facility held terabytes of sensitive wartime simulations and confidential intelligence—information Celestial Being would find highly valuable if they intended to dissect global military capabilities.

Colonel Kati Mannequin stood at the heart of the operations command post, the holographic tactical map flickering blue across her glasses. Red markers flashed—enemy Mobile Suit detected. Singular. Fast. And closing.

Her jaw tightened.

“A single signature... a Gundam.” She didn’t need confirmation. No conventional machine moved like that.

Troops scrambled. Armored vehicles repositioned. MS teams deployed in concentric defense patterns, all following the clean and efficient tactical web she spun with precision.

“Patrick Colasour,” she said sharply into the command line, “you will intercept on the west bank of the facility. Wait for my signal. Do not charge in alone.”

From the video feed, Patrick gave a salute so enthusiastic it nearly sent his cockpit shaking. “Understood, Colonel! I’ll show them the might of—”

"Just pilot the damn MS" She cut the line before he could finish the boast. She had no patience for theatrics today.

The Gundam—a advanced machine with angular limbs and an eerie luminescence—broke through the first defensive line with terrifying grace. Particle beams cut through dunes; AEU units scrambled, trying to keep distance. Kati barked orders at rapid pace, turning chaos into a structured fallback.

“Don’t meet it head-on. Force it toward the access bunker. Limit its maneuverability.”

Patrick fired a volley of NGN suppression rounds—experimental, untested—but the Gundam danced between the shots like it anticipated each one. It shattered his rifle with one slash, sending him spinning.

“Colonel! My weapon—!”

“Retreat, regroup, and do not pursue!” she commanded.

Patrick obeyed—rare for him—but the situation shifted too fast. The Gundam didn’t finish its assault. Instead, it landed near the exterior vault hatch, kneeling like a beast inspecting prey.

It wasn’t trying to annihilate the facility. It wanted what was inside.

Kati watched from the camera feed, a knot forming in her stomach. The Gundam pressed its armored hand against the hatch, forcing it open with brute efficiency. A moment later, the cockpit hatch of the Gundam lifted—steam hissing from the seals.

“What is it doing...?” one of her officers murmured.

Retrieving the data manually, she thought. A risk Celestial Being rarely accepted... unless the pilot required direct access for immediate transmission.

---

The figure climbed from the cockpit—dust-coated flight suit, helmet, small frame compared to the machine behind them. They moved with practiced urgency, descending along the hatch ladder toward the entrance. For the briefest moment, the camera feed showed the Meister's face, before GN particles disrupted the feed.

Kati inhaled sharply. For a heartbeat, she forgot the sound of gunfire, forgot the lines of tactical data streaming across her screen. Her vision tunneled to the single figure walking toward the vault.

Her chest tightened. The world stopped.

The facility crew murmured in confusion, but Kati couldn’t hear them. She leaned closer to the screen, her eyes narrowing as though proximity could disprove the image.*

That face— The same hair. The same angle of the chin. The unmistakable familiarity of someone she had once held in her arms. Someone she kissed to bed every night. Read stories to sooth their dreams and watched grow from a defenseless babe, to a capable young adult.

You, Her own child.

Her breath faltered. Her hands, always steady even in crisis, trembled against the command table.

“No...” Barely audible. Barely a voice.

Patrick’s voice crackled through the line, panicked as he tried to re-engage, “Colonel! Orders?! Shall I—”

“Hold your position, Patrick!” She regained her tone, though it shook beneath the surface. “You will not fire.”

She zoomed the camera feed again—slowly, as if sudden movement might shatter the fragile unreality. The distorted image of the Gundam Meister approached the outer vault door, calm, focused, unaware of the storm they had stirred inside the command post.

Soldiers awaited commands. Officers looked to her for direction. Kati heard none of it. For the first time in years, her razor-sharp forecasting, her impeccable tactical logic—all of it failed her.

She had never planned for this variable. Never imagined a scenario where the enemy she had to counter... was the life she once nurtured.

**She straightened slowly. Her expression hardened—not in fury, but in resolve. Her emotions warred behind her eyes, but her duty pressed in from all **sides.

“Colonel...?” an aide whispered.

Kati’s voice emerged low, steady, but laced with something fragile.

“Prepare non-lethal capture measures,” she said with restored composure, almost akin to finality. “No live fire unless I give explicit authorization.”

Her officers exchanged uneasy glances, sensing something unprecedented in her tone.

On the screen, the Meister returned to their Gundam after stealing and destroying from the AEU data reserves. Their machine rising our of the wrecked entrance they made. Ready for combat.

Kati reached out and rested one hand on the side of the display—not touching the image, but hovering near it, as if proximity could bridge years of separation.

Quietly, so only she could hear: “...Why are you here...?”

A mother’s whisper. A soldier’s heartbreak. A forecaster blindsided by the one person she could never predict.*

The alarms continued to blare. The war resumed its roar.

But for Kati Mannequin, the battlefield had transformed into something infinitely more personal.

[Location: AEU Operations Center. 2307 A.D.]

*The bridge of the AEU flagship was unusually loud that morning. Screens flickered with tactical readouts, officers hustled back and forth, and in the center of the room stood Colonel Kati Mannequin, posture straight, gaze sharp, looking like she was moments away from verbally dissecting the universe itself.

And behind her—much too close behind her—stood you.

Kati didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. She could feel the presence, the restless energy, the unmistakable hum of someone absolutely certain they were about to deliver what they believed was a critical tactical insight.

She exhaled slowly. “Not. A. Word,” Her voice came crisply, enough to put the fear of god in those nearby. A few officers stiffened. They knew exactly to whom she was speaking. You, however, did not take the hint.

Behind her, she heard the clatter of an enthusiastic salute, followed by energetic gesturing. Kati’s eyelid twitched. Another “brilliant plan,” no doubt—something wildly reckless, statistically unsound, and somehow guaranteed to result in expensive mobile suits being returned in pieces.

Again.

“Lieutenant,” she said, still not turning, “the last time you insisted on taking independent action, you managed to lose an entire squadron in a maneuver that—according to my analysts—should not even physically function.”

You responded with a spirited explanation. The officers on the bridge watched this exchange with a mixture of awe and dread, like naturalists observing a predator repeatedly forced to share territory with an aggressively overconfident herbivore.

Kati slowly rotated her chair to face you, crossing her arms. Her tone was flat. Clinical. The tone of someone fighting a holy war against a migraine. “You are not a Gundam. You cannot do what a Gundam does. Attempting to emulate one does not make you brilliant—it makes me fill out paperwork. Do you understand how much paperwork is generated every time you ‘innovate’?”

You made a hopeful gesture. Her glare intensified.

“No. You may not try again.”

Behind her, one of the tactical officers coughed lightly. “Colonel, should we still proceed with sortie preparations?”

“Yes,” Kati replied, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’ll deploy the squadron as planned. And he” —she didn’t point; she simply let the pronoun hang like an indictment— “will follow the approved combat formation this time.”

You gave a bright thumbs-up. Kati’s expression froze. She recognized that thumbs-up. It was the same thumbs-up she saw right before your last five catastrophic failures. It was the thumbs-up that heralded doom.

“Someone,” she said to the entire bridge crew, “remind me why we aren’t allowed to sedate him before battle.”

---

Moments later, as the squad prepared to launch, Kati stood at the observation deck, arms folded behind her back, the picture of AEU composure. She watched your unit step into the catapult. Despite herself—and despite everything—there was a flash of something almost fond in her expression.

“You’re impossible,” she murmured. “But... somehow, you come back alive. Every time. Even when you shouldn’t.”

She sighed, returning to her console. Half the bridge doubted you heard her, the other half worried you did.** “Try not to make me regret deploying you,” she added under her breath.**

**Either way, the moment the catapult fired and your suit streaked into open sky, Kati braced herself for whatever improbable chaos you were destined to unleash next. Because if there was one immutable truth of the AEU military Kati learned to accept, it was this: The Gundams were unpredictable. But you were worse.