"What do you mean, you saw Amuro? Colonel Bright."
In the surveillance room of the Moon Base, the officer in charge of monitoring scratched his head as he looked at Bright. He clearly didn't understand the meaning behind Bright's words.
Just moments ago, Bright had suddenly burst into the surveillance room and explicitly demanded to review the footage from the spaceport corridor.
Now, under everyone's watchful eyes, Bright had already operated the equipment to replay that specific segment of video several times.
Given Bright's prestige, these officers were willing to do him a favor even without official authorization just to check the footage. Besides, with so many people watching, it was impossible to tamper with anything.
"Is there a possibility that the surveillance has been modified?"
Bright frowned, watching his own movements on the monitor.
"Technically yes, but it's impossible to pull off. Overwriting a surveillance feed requires hacking into our internal system. While the video is being overwritten, the cameras automatically disconnect, and the screens would enter standby mode."
The officer in charge explained, "But from this morning until now, the system has been running normally. The footage is perfectly fine; there isn't even a trace of it in the system logs."
"Colonel Bright, we've watched this clip six times already. All we see is you suddenly drawing your pistol, standing there in a daze, and then jogging a few steps as if looking for something."
The officer sighed, summarizing the video that had played repeatedly before them.
"Is it possible you've been under too much stress lately and experienced a slight hallucination?"
'It couldn't have been a hallucination.'
Bright was firmly convinced of this because he had felt that lingering body heat on the glass. Without a doubt, that "Amuro" was a real entity.
Was it a clone? Or was it... the original himself, who had been missing for all these years following the "Miracle of Axis"?
Bright pondered this, but with so little evidence, he couldn't reach a definitive conclusion.
"...Perhaps you're right. Maybe I really should get some proper rest."
Bright buried the matter deep within his heart.
"My apologies. Sorry to have interrupted your work."
"Don't worry about it. It seems the escalating actions of Mafty and the massive amount of tasks assigned by the Earth Federation have put too much pressure on you and the 13th Autonomous Corps."
The officer in charge of the room sighed. Clearly, he knew how much stress was on the 13th Autonomous Corps—a unit that only returned to the Moon Base for resupply once in a long while. Or rather, such rumors had long since spread among the officers at the Moon Base.
"If the legendary Amuro Ray had appeared at the Moon Base, surely he would have been recognized from the very start."
"Everyone hopes a legend like that would return to lead us against Mafty."
'Amuro fighting against Mafty?'
Bright considered the possibility for two or three seconds before abandoning the thought.
With the current state of the Earth Federation, even Amuro wouldn't be able to stand it anymore.
-----------------------------------
Six or seven hundred meters might not be much for the Earth—human-built highways are generally measured in kilometers.
But a warship six or seven hundred meters long is a gargantuan beast.
And yet, just such a gargantuan beast had "vanished" in the Indian Ocean, right under the nose of the Federation military.
Four burly machines with a distinct Jegan aesthetic were secured to four sub-flight systems, searching the Pacific for any trace of the Nahel Argama.
"We can't find it at all... there's absolutely nothing on this stretch of sea," one of the members of this MS squad complained.
"We haven't seen a single one of those green light particles everyone's talking about."
"We've got Mafty in Australia, and now it looks like a bunch of Zeon Remnants have broken in... I wonder when things will finally quiet down."
"Probably never. Every day, a Mafty branch pops up out of nowhere. How many branches have we wiped out lately?"
The captain commanding the MS squad spoke from another machine; clearly, this line of work had left him somewhat numb as well.
"It's just a pity those Mafty branches we crushed didn't even have a single MS. Just a bunch of guys who only know how to collect money. Wiping them out doesn't even require us to step off our flight boards."
Another team member joked, "I feel like my Gustav Karl and this flight board have fused together. I'm afraid I won't even need legs soon—let's just turn the flight board into the Gustav Karl's legs."
"Alright, that's enough joking. Once we finish scouting here, we move on to the next area," the captain of the Gustav Karl squad cut off the chatter. "We have a heavy mission load today!"
In UC 105, the Earth Federation's grip on the planet had weakened considerably due to space colonization.
Consequently, seeing a single squad patrolling a vast expanse of sea was a common sight. This provided the breathing room necessary for the operations of Mafty and the Nahel Argama.
A short distance away from the Gustav Karl squad, beneath the calm surface of the sea, a massive warship was maintaining a submerged course toward Australia.
"Australia... that's the gathering point for those Mafty forces, isn't it?"
Looking at the analysis report in her hand, Murrue Ramius frowned slightly. "I still need to confirm—are you absolutely certain Char will go there?"
"Positive and certain," Roz Links nodded. "It's only a matter of time. He will definitely join Mafty, because for him, it's the perfect springboard to launch his own operations—whether it's to rendezvous with the real Mafty or to seek out Zeon Remnants."
"Besides, I found this over here."
At that moment, Big Haro projected an image onto the screen.
It was a young man dressed in extravagant red clothing. The highly distinctive mask and helmet made it immediately obvious who this young man was impersonating.
"The Char of 0079..."
Looking at that iconic outfit, Roz Links fell into a silence.
Although we knew this Char was young, we didn't expect him to be this young.
"In any case, this is the most likely candidate. The first time he appeared, he stood on the spot in a daze for a long time," Big Haro explained. "The area where he first appeared was roughly Florida, in America."
Upon hearing the name of that region, the expressions of Roz Links, Murrue Ramius, and Natarle Badgiruel all turned somewhat strange.
It couldn't be helped; Florida was simply too... "extraordinary." It was as if it possessed some kind of meme—no matter the world, Florida always carried an aura of "you might not survive, but you'll definitely put on a show."
Compared to Roz Links' past hearsay, Murrue Ramius and Natarle Badgiruel—who were former Atlantic Federation soldiers of the SEED Earth Alliance—naturally understood that place much better than he did.
"Could it be cosplay? Just like Roz," Natarle Badgiruel pondered, speaking with her usual rigor. "After all, in a region like Florida, it wouldn't be strange for someone to do something like that."
Once he heard the news originated from Florida, even Roz Links began to question the authenticity of this "Char."
However, the only certainty was that Char was indeed on Earth.
"But this is our only clue. Regardless, we have to go there and check it out." Roz Links scratched his hair. "What if I happen to sense Char's brainwaves while I'm there?"
To ensure he could find Char successfully, Roz had specifically gone to the Courtyard to memorize the "feel" of Char's brainwaves from various time periods.
Now that all clues and objectives pointed toward North America, there was only one answer.
"The ship will remain submerged until we reach the junction of the Atlantic; then we will surface and activate the Mirage Colloid system."
Murrue Ramius did not intend to keep the Nahel Argama in submarine mode for too long. After all, launching from underwater required flooding the catapult decks, which prevented a rapid deployment.
Besides, given the Federation Navy's underwater warships and MS models—which hadn't been updated in ages—the armaments on the Nahel Argama's belly were more than enough to handle them.
-----------------------------------
Florida, inside an abandoned house.
Char was using a communicator he held in his hand to search for information regarding "Mafty."
The reason he had a communicator at all was that upon returning to the abandoned house, Char had encountered a bit of that American-style "zero-dollar shopping."
Two "humanoid cotton-picking machines" had attempted to mug Char, who looked like a mere college student. However, they were taken down in the next second, and their communicators, guns, and money were all packed up and taken by Char.
In any case, he finally had weapons and funds; the next step was to formally seek out Mafty.
Currently, there was an organization known as the "Mafty forces" on the surface—likely a self-organized group—gathering in Australia. However, if he were to go there himself, the journey would simply take too much time.
Char intended to find a "Mafty branch" within the state of Florida.
He didn't particularly care if they were the real deal. Given the local geography, these so-called "Mafty branches" would most likely be wiped out by Federation troops eventually anyway. He merely wanted to use them as a springboard to gain the attention of the real "Mafty."
After all, the real "Mafty" would certainly have information channels to keep track of these "Mafty branches" operating under their name.
And Char had absolute confidence in his own piloting skills.
....................