Chapter 138: The Dream of the Morning, the Song of the Night
The Unicorn Gundam flew between the clouds as Ade sat on the pilot's seat anxiously.
The thing Emma Sheen said was probably a trap, but he still wanted to try it. Anyway, he wouldn't be in danger. In the case that it was true, he would earn a lot. However, when he received Lacus's signal, he forgot everything else.
Although the craft could already be seen on the radar, he hadn't figured out how to save her. She was after all an unarmed woman, and anything that might cause her harm was something he didn't want to see.
Then, extremely abruptly and without warning, he perceived a spiritual fluctuation that he had never seen before, and the so strange and so familiar aura let him realize without any hesitation, "…Lacus?"
There was no time to consider things like why and how it could be Lacus, the figure in his NT induction did a free-fall motion at the acceleration of gravity, and considering the current height of roughly less than 10,000 meters and the necessary cushion —
"More than twenty seconds left." He instantly opened NT-D, "Yang, I believe you, the Unicorn Gundam can do it!"
The unicorn on the Gundam's head split in two from the middle, and the fuselage also followed to reveal the psycho-frame emanating a blood-red glow underneath the suit. The Unicorn Gundam flew towards the location at full speed. Immediately after a few seconds, the induction inexplicably disappeared, but Ade had caught the figure in sight.
"Lacus!"
The Unicorn Gundam flew to a position parallel to the other side, and the MS was operated directly by his consciousness like a human being, carefully extending its hands to cup the figure. The MS slowed down while gently moving the hands to the chest again. Lacus leaped hard and entered the cavernous cockpit. Immediately after the hatch closed, she took off the helmet of her spacesuit and her long, beautiful pink hair spread out with it.
Ade turned off the NT-D and broke free from the restraint, looking at the familiar figure in front of him with mixed feelings for a while. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to say, that he didn't know what to say first.
"Go home, Ade." Lacus smiled at him, "The past is over, a new world begins today."
Lacus was smart. She must have had her reasons for not allowing him to pursue that craft, and whatever happened, he was sure she would explain it clearly. He didn't know what ended and what the new world meant, but for some reason, he was particularly uncomfortable hearing those words.
"Happy birthday." He fished out a small box from his arms. At least, there was one thing he felt did not end, "This is a gift prepared before, I really did not lie to you, it is custom-made. Inside is—"
"Okay, let bygones be bygones. I don't blame you, and you had your just cause." Lacus took his hand and stopped him from opening the gift, "Sometimes, things just turn out this way, we can't help ourselves. But now that it's happened, now that you've chosen to, you have to be determined to go on, that's how I feel about it."
"Inside is a hairpin." He broke away from Lacus's hand and firmly opened the box. Although he couldn't understand what Lacus was saying, his NT's intuition told him that what he was doing now was important, "It looks similar to the one I gave you before, I changed it again according to the mathematical model, I don't know if you like it."
Lacus took the hair card and looked at it carefully for a moment, then sighed deeply and looked at Ade with a misty gaze, "I like it a lot, it's just … just that you're a day late. Really, just a day late."
"It's 9:45 a.m. GMT on February 6th." He glanced at the display, "Alice, get me on Iserlohn, highest priority command."
"Hey, so I can get out?" Alice's image appeared on the screen and waved a hand to Lacus as a greeting, "It's done, Ade~"
"Doctor?" Chang Wufei's voice rang out a moment later, "Did something important happen? I'm getting your red alert."
"Give me help, it's urgent." Ade glanced covertly at Lacus and spoke directly in Chinese, "I'll send you my coordinates, and within an hour, you'll come over with the ship, and then do this and that."
"Salamandinay is still sleeping." Chang Wufei replied in Chinese, "Do you know what time zone I'm in?"
"I don't care what time zone you're in, it's an urgent mission!" Ade said eagerly, "There's no time, my happiness for the rest of my life depends on you, Chang Wufei!"
"…Doctor, you've finally learned to be capricious too." Chang Wufei's old voice somehow penetrated with a joyful sound and let out a pleased laugh, "Don't worry, I'll be right over."
"What's wrong?" Lacus looked at him suspiciously, "Is there anything I can't know?"
"No." Ade replied decisively, "You'll know in a minute."
An hour later, Iserlohn and the Unicorn Gundam broke free of their boson stance at the same time and appeared on the vast ocean. It was dark all around, and the island below was only vaguely visible through the dull moon and stars. After Chang Wufei said hello to him, Iserlohn left in silence.
"Ade…" Lacus had realized what was going on, and the hand holding the hairpin trembled slightly, "Why? It's not necessary."
"It's Midway. The local time here is February 5 twenty-three fifty, just in time." Ade snapped both hands together and said gleefully, "Happy birthday, Lacus."
"I can't believe you kept your appointment this time. …" Lacus looked out blankly through the image coming from the camera and continued after a long time, "I want to go down for a walk."
"Good." He added as an afterthought, "Seems like the exact same line."
He maneuvered Unicorn to land on the island to clear a clearing, then pulled a trench along the clearing with his beam saber. He put Lacus into the circle, followed by himself, and finally sprinkled a circle of insect repellent potion around the trench. After all this, Ade turned around and saw Lacus with her side to himself, looking up at the sky. Bright starlight spilled through the trees on her face, reflecting a forlorn look.
"Aren't you going to ask?" Lacus said softly, "What happened, who took me, where did His Highness Loran go, how did I escape, and so on?"
"My guess is Scirocco, and Corner would be in cahoots with him. Uh, considering Corner's appearance, it couldn't have been Ribbons who did that, could it?" Ade went on with her words, "And you're so smart, I'm not surprised that you can run out."
"So you know Ribbons's existence, then didn't what I do was like…" Lacus smiled bitterly, "Aren't you curious? Why I'm so close to you and the timing is so coincidental?"
"Because the BOSS's conspiracy intends to make further moves against me, or did you lure them there?" Ade finally responded, "Are you implying that I'm going to suspect you? I said a long time ago that although I can't tell the truth of the acting, I believe you, no matter what."
"'No matter what' is not something that can be said so easily and casually." Lacus turned around and looked at him head-on, and her pupils lit up with a disc-like color, "What about this? Do you believe me even like this?"
"… innovator?!" Ade felt the spiritual power that reappeared in his consciousness, and finally showed a shocked look, "What happened?!"
"You even know about the innovators, you know everything, doesn't that make me look more like a fool?" Lacus walked up to him and locked eyes with him, "Look, my eyes glow, just like the characters in cartoons. How about that, isn't that funny?"
"Pretty with glittering eyes, I like you even more." Ade's voice rang out directly in her head, "See, now you can tell if I'm telling the truth, right?"
Lacus looked at him in a daze. Tears gushed out of her eyes without warning and fell across both cheeks to the ground, "I have lost my fertility, my body is full of nanobot, I don't even know if I am considered human now, why, why, why? Things have come to… things to …!"
"It's okay, I still love you." He stared firmly at her and continued in her mind, "I don't care at all about your look now, I love you no matter what you become."
"… No matter what becomes." Lacus choked and repeated in a low voice, "I have no way back, you have to remember to keep the promise."
"What do you mean?" Ade felt that she had something in her words, "I will keep my promise, but—"
"We'll talk about it later, you said you trusted me." Lacus dried her eyes and interrupted him, "I love you, and everything I've done is to create a future that we can be happy together. That's a true statement without any pretense, you can understand that, right?"
"Hmm." Ade nodded, "I understand."
"I didn't betray you even if I became like this, I'd rather die than let a second man touch me, this is a sincere statement without any acting." Lacus looked into his eyes with a burning gaze, "You can understand that, right?"
"Hmm." Ade nodded again, "I understand that, too."
"So it's such a pleasant thing to understand each other." Lacus smiled softly at him, "Although you always do things to make me angry and make me feel that my true heart has been betrayed, I forgive you for all of it. We'll be happy, everyone will be happy, and I'll try to make everyone happy."
"…Lacus?" Although every word was the truth, the Lacus under the starry moon somehow looked like a dream bubble that would break at the slightest touch.
"Good people should get a happy ending, we will be happy and joyful together forever." Lacus took his hand and put the hairpin in his hand, "Hey, Ade, put it on for me, ok?"
It was a job Ade hadn't done much before, but his technique didn't seem rusty, and he easily brought Lacus a new hairpin — he often combed Mineva's hair and braided it.
"It's a little cold." Lacus took the old one back into her pocket cherishedly, "Shall we go back to the cockpit? Luckily, the Unicorn's cockpit is bigger than the V2's."
The two returned to the Unicorn's cockpit and Ade sat back down in his original seat. Lacus was still wearing the same feminine normal suit she had worn when she went out with Loran, and just as the hatch closed, she couldn't wait to pull off the dress she was wearing and toss it aside, revealing the not-so-plain underwear underneath.
"How long has it been since we've really done it the last time? Do you remember? I mean really done it, those perfunctory gestures don't count." Lacus sat across him, and her eyes still lit up, "Ade, come and do it."
"But …" he pointed awkwardly at the screen behind Lacus, "Well, Alice is still there?"
"Let her watch it, it's nothing, it's just AI." Lacus pressed up against his body and blew softly in his ear, "Or have you already lost interest in my body?"
"How can that be, it's just that …" Ade swallowed hard. He felt it was obviously a good time to cement their feelings, "Hey, Alice, why don't you turn off the camera?"
Alice's big avatar appeared on the big screen, spat her tongue at him and made a face, then stared at him and refused to disappear.
"Don't you want to try it? What's it like to do it while mentally resonating?" Lacus expertly undressed him, "Or do you have Tiffa in mind as a candidate? Or is it Haman Karn? It can't be Mineva, can it?"
"What are you thinking? How can there be Mineva?" He protested righteously, "She's my daughter, daughter! Do you understand?"
"You avoided answering that question head-on, and it looks like the answer will embarrass me." Lacus smiled at him indifferently and ran her fingers across his chest from top to bottom, "But now, I'm the only one left as a candidate."
"Alice, I'm really sorry." He stretched out a hand to operate it, and had a hard time concentrating on turning off all the cameras and microphones in the cockpit.
"Trust me, you'll be happy, we'll be happy, everyone will be happy." Lacus stuck out her tongue and ran it tenderly across his neck, whispering in his ear, "Ade, love me."
