#lichty tsery

[laora-ryn]

why lichtendahl tsery is the coolest character in gundam 00

Or, in which Laura thinks a lot about Lichty's prosthetics. Probably even more than the production team did

look i just love lichty a lot okay

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me, last night: i can't write this post, i have a horrific headache and laundry to fold

me, four hours and almost 4k words later: oops

laundry did not get folded

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so i'm gonna preface this with, while i have two degrees in bioengineering, it's been about 3 years since I was in school, and nowadays I do more assistive tech and hardly any prosthetics. so, pls don't take my word as god or anything, I'm just here with feelings and science that is (hopefully) at least 75% correct

uhh slight content warnings for show screencaps with blood/dying in them?? and discussions of things that would probably be considered body horror

it is under the cut because holy GOD it got long

first of all, i would like to put out that i am so upset that we literally only find out about his prostheses when he's dying. it makes sense for the story and for his character, it just makes me really sad that it isn't explored any further. like, even prosthetic limbs or systems in general are barely touched on after this

Louise has a prosthetic arm in s2, and we see the surgical scars briefly during the party scene, where she's talking with Setsuna, but she turns the subject quickly. So like, all we know canonically about in-universe prosthetics is that they exist, and that they work well enough, and look close enough to real limbs, that they pass to people who aren't looking closely.

But at this point in 2308, Louise having a prosthetic arm is considered the last-ditch effort. The way Saji talks, the idea of regrowing her arm in a regen pod isn't out of the question, if it weren't for her particle poisoning. (I have another soapbox here about the pods, lol) So I feel like most likely, by this point prosthetic systems have kind of fallen out of favor, and the favored med tech is regrowth (so long as you have the $$$$$$$$).

Which begs the question of: how long ago was Lichty injured?

"My parents cashed in their chips in the solar wars," and he was injured in the same explosion. Setsuna's scene at the start of ep1, which we're led to believe is the twilight of the wars - at least in Krugis - is in 2301. So, as a guess, he was injured in the late 90's. He's 21 in 2307, born in 2286, so - 11-13. Prepubescent, or barely starting puberty, when he's caught up in an explosion that blows away half his body.

His parents were elevator engineers, but I have to assume that they were working within the atmosphere, possibly at the base, because catastrophic injuries like this + the vacuum = no chance of survival, definitely not long enough for someone to find him and get him medical help. So, he must've been on the surface. Still, it's a miracle he survived at all

The wiki makes it sound like his entire body is mechanical, and "only his mind" remained (???). Personally, that, uh, makes no sense to me, so here's my personal headcanon on how much of his body survived:

Obviously his right side was blown away, we see that in ep 24. But I imagine for him to have any sort of chance of survival, his heart must've been spared?? Which guided my thought process there. So, he's got a little more than half his chest, a little residual abdomen that probably got swapped out for prosthetics anyway, + his left arm.

Which...leaves us with a 12ish year old kid on extensive life support, who needs a new lung, a new arm, two new legs, a new diaphragm with which to use that new lung, and all new viscera, as well as a body cavity that will support all of those shiny new organs, both in gravity and without.

I headcanon that Lichty's got one of - if not the - most extensive prosthetic systems in the world. That his parents knew they were going into the job with risks, knew they were bringing Lichty (and the siblings I headcanon he had, who didn't survive the attack) into the potential crossfire of the war. So, his parents probably had it written into their contract that if anything happens to their kids while they're on the job, they get all their medical care paid for by the company, and they get the best care available.

I headcanon he's Ukrainian, ie HRL, which doesn't seem like the bloc to pull out all the stops to save a single nobody-kid. But assuming he has extended family who assumed guardianship, they would've been able to call in the contract and get Lichty put back together. (Sounds like a long shot to me, tbh, but obviously he survived somehow.)

So this kid's on life support in a trauma center somewhere, probably in Indonesia or maybe China, considering the HRL's elevator is in the middle of the Pacific. He's got an artificial digestive system feeding the parts of him that are left, he's on a ventilator, he's on dialysis, he's got so many tubes and wires coming out of him that he's half-hidden behind them in the hospital bed.

He's in an induced coma for months before he's anywhere close to stable and the doctors feel comfortable waking him up. And even once he's awake, he's kept in a sterile room because half his surface area is still open wounds and they can't risk infection. Everyone he sees, for months and months and months, is either on the other end of a video or in a hazmat suit.

And of course, even once he's mostly stable with machines substituting for the organs he's missing, there's the matter of rebuilding them.

We've got just a couple shots of his prosthetics - honestly, not a lot to go on, but here's the three I'm looking at:

(last image from this post by pwryyynce)

So, what I'm seeing here is that his musculature and bone structure are all made of metal, and probably whatever other structural parts were needed beyond his ribs/synthetic spine. They're covered by what looks like real skin, considering all the blood. I think it's reasonable to assume that they took skin samples and grew duplicate swathes in the lab in the early stages of his treatment, so they wouldn't need to worry about rejection when they grafted it onto him. They probably made or simulated subcutaneous tissue also, so that his arm doesn't look (and feel!!) like skin stretched over a bunch of metal. I feel like probably, people would say something if Lasse threw an arm around his shoulders and ended up with a bruised forearm lmao

What I'm really wondering about is his organs. It's been way too long since I took a biomaterials class, and there would be enough innovation 300 years down the line that all the stuff we use now would be moot anyway, but I wonder how many of his organs were grown or transplanted, and how many were just substituted with mechanical systems that do the same thing.

This is a part I'm really no expert in, but I feel like just putting in filtering systems to replace his kidneys would probably be a lot easier than growing him new ones. They'd make him a functioning urinary system to connect the filters to, but tbh that whole system would probably be easier/simpler to just re-engineer.

I feel like his lung would need to be organic to deal with expansion and just. All that oxygen exchange? But it's entirely possible that a synthetic lung exists 300 years in the future that they could install. Pulmonology isn't my strong suit Px

Digestive system would need to be completely rebuilt, and I've always imagined it as synthetic, just his intestines replaced by a mess of tubing, possibly engineered to increase their overall surface area, reducing the length of intestine needed and leaving room for other systems around them. His esophagus would still be there, at least part of it, so they'd just integrate that into an artificial stomach

What's REALLY tripping me up is his circulatory system. Like, okay, he has a heart, and re-creating the major veins and arteries would be doable, but - interfacing them with the lung so the blood can pick up oxygen?? Interfacing them with the stomach and kidneys and liver properly?? Like, I do not know how you would functionally recreate a capillary bed and that sounds like a job for Future Bioengineers lmao. But I just.

You'd think at first that he wouldn't have as much blood because of all the mechanical systems, and I think he'd probably have less than average, but most of your viscera is involved with processing energy to keep your brain going, right? So your blood still needs to go down to your intestines to get those nutrients in order to bring back up. And, on top of that, his skin - which presumably covers the majority of his body, and definitely covers his limbs and upper chest - is vascularized and needs blood, too.

So, he still needs a decent chunk of blood for his body to run properly, which is great and A+, except for the fact that blood is made in your bone marrow, and guess what he doesn't have a whole lot of, anymore?

I don't know if they'd be able to like, create some kind of system that approximates bone marrow, or somehow supplement the stuff he has left in his left arm and remaining ribcage/breastbone/spine, but this would also significantly impact his immune system since bone marrow is also where your white blood cells come from. So like...that would be a serious issue they would need to address, maybe they'd somehow put bone marrow in his prosthetic long bones, with enough of the hormones/stuff that tells it to keep production of BM up, since it's constantly reproducing itself? Or else just have a whole extra box in his abdomen that's like "no, you make blood now" idk like I said, this is not My Thing

Again his immune system would be fucked, so the Bone Marrow Box would also need to replenish white blood cells, which would not at all help with replacing his lymphatic system. His thymus would probably have survived since it's over the heart, but his spleen is gone and - yeah, I'm not qualified to talk about this lmao

tbh I don't understand the liver or pancreas or gallbladder at all, and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

But! His nervous system! is something i am qualified to talk about, buckle up kids we're going for a ride

because his brain/brainstem/spine to T9 ish, probably, would have survived. Which means his use of his left arm would be 100% intact. Tbh after all this he's almost definitely left hand dominant, even once he gets a functioning right arm again, for reasons I will get into in probably a few paragraphs

For the mechanics of a prosthetic arm, tbh in the 24th century they've probably perfected it. We've come a long way now (well, as of 2018, when I wrote my thesis) in making a hand that can physically move in the ways a real one can. the real problem with fancy stuff like this is controlling it.

Lichty would functionally be a shoulder disarticulation amputee (where your ball and socket joint is disconnected), which is. about as high as you get. Your major nerves to the arm are the radial (back of your arm/hand), median (thumb half of your arm/hand), and ulnar (pinky half of your arm/hand). Those three kind of thread around your collarbone before dipping down into your arm, splitting up gradually into smaller nerves that innervate different parts of your arm and hand.

Sounds great and neat and simple, right? You just follow the nerves and make new wires and attach them to the prosthetic, right?

(((((((:

nerves are a FUCK, and yeah, none of that is how it works, and tbh I feel like evolution just made it overly complicated on purpose, just to frustrate people because oh my god

To slightly oversimplify, you have two different kinds of neurons making up your nerves: sensory and motor. Sensory takes inputs from the endpoints (your skin, typically) and sends them back up the spinal cord to your brain. Motor takes inputs from your brain and sends them down to the peripheral nerves to create a result (typically, muscle contractions). These are not sorted into neat sections within the larger nerves, and aren't especially easy to differentiate, especially if you're just trying to zap a whole nerve with electricity to make the muscle go. you're gonna hit all sorts of muscles, and all sorts of sensory inputs, and it's a mess.

Here's a basic diagram of a nerve for reference:

Basically, what you need to know is that every axon (neuron) is going to innervate a particular muscle fiber, or send a particular type of sensory input for a particular patch of skin. These axons are not sorted neatly by type of neuron or area of the arm/hand. They regularly jump between fascicles throughout the length of the nerve, and fascicles aren't neatly sorted, either. So, trying to target a particular fascicle, for example, is usually a lost cause. (without putting an electrode INTO the nerve, which is a Whole Other Thing that's being studied, but urgh)

Currently, myoelectric prostheses are the 'state of the art,' where there are sensors on the inside of the socket that read muscle activity in the residual limb and use it to power the prosthetic. This...wouldn't work for Lichty for a variety of reasons, and is generally not super well received by patients today, anyway. Typically, if you're lucky, you get 4 electrode sites, so for example, you would be able to flex/extend your elbow, and open/close your hand. Not exactly 27 degrees of freedom, yeah?

A process that tbh could work well in conjunction with future!prosthetic arms is something called targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), where they basically say 'hey Lichty, try and flex your right elbow,' they record which nerve endings in his residual shoulder light up, and then they attach those to the mechanism that flexes his elbow. (Typically they deal with fascicles, if I remember right, but tbh in 300 years I wouldn't be surprised if they could go more specific.) It wasn't the focus of my research - our lab did hands primarily, and TMR is usually reserved for high level amputees, and it's a SUPER invasive surgery, so not a lot of people go for it. But lichty's just about as invasive as you can get lmao, so

TMR can also do some limited sensory feedback! basically, they stimulate different nerve endings and ask him what he feels and where. That's where a phantom limb map comes into play big time. Depending on how complete it is, he could say "yeah it's upper arm, vaguely pressure?" or "yeah it's the back of my upper arm but sort of to the side, and about halfway down, and it's sharp poking." Both the motor and sensory stuff are kind of hunt and peck searching but they kind of have all the time in the world to work with him on this, so I think it'd be a really good option for him!

So, google targeted muscle reinnervation if you wanna learn more! It's cool as fuck, and it's the thing that I think is probably most viable for Lichty to get use of his right arm back! I don't know that it'd give him full movement and full sensation, but it'd be enough to go on - especially since they'd definitely prioritize getting the most common sensations and motions working. A couple people in my lab were looking at combining different movements to reduce the number of movements you'd need for prosthetics in general - moving your wrist at a certain angle to approximate both radial deviation and wrist extension, for example.

Now legs, I am less qualified to talk about. TMR also works for them as far as I know, though balance and gait would be a Whole Thing, he'd have to relearn how to walk, not just because he's been bedbound for so long, but because he has to learn how his new legs operate, and where his new center of gravity is, and just...yeah.

I imagine probably, legs are the last thing they get him working on - they get his torso finished and operational and closed up, and at this point he wouldn't need to be quarantined/sterile anymore. If he really wanted to be up and about at this point, they could get him a power wheelchair, or a one-arm-propel manual chair would work too. Then they'd get him an arm and start him with therapy for that, and skin grafts. Once he's recovered from the arm surgeries and doing well enough they'd probably start talking about prosthetic legs.

Depending on how well TMR works 300 years from now, he'd have to re-learn grip strength, pressure, heat, like he'd have all new baselines for his new limbs which would in particular impact his hand. That'd be a looooot of PT and OT to make sure he doesn't drop or crush stuff on accident. He also may need to learn to operate without proprioception, depending on whether his phantom map included that. Proprioception is knowing where your limb is in space without looking at it - so like, if he didn't have it, he couldn't just like reach over and grab something, or type on a keyboard, without watching his hand as he did it - at least without a lot of practice and trial and error.

also your nervous system does sympathetic and parasympathetic stuff which is like, the automatic 'tells your organs to do their job' except i know next to nothing about that. so uhhhhh I think it'd be reasonable to assume that all the mechanical replacements for organs have their own like, 'battery' and 'brain' in them that keep them going properly and that's all i'm gonna say about that

holy jesus god this nervous system section is like as long as the rest of it combined i'm so sorry

His ribcage would need to be rebuilt in metal, which we can see in the pics. His spine would also need to be, if only to connect his ribs to his new pelvis lmao, but I guess it looks like they built in more metal around his abdomen too, so the spine would be slightly less structural than in the normal body. but - yeah, there would definitely be a lot of work going into into 'printing parts that will keep all these obscenely expensive organs in place and connected to the right things'

(oh that's another thing!! I headcanon that all these custom parts are 3d printed to his specs, in whatever material is best for that particular job. Presumably the material options are a lot more than we have now, and esp the metal structural parts, I think would make a lot of sense to print)

In terms of skin coverage!! Pictures are inconclusive whether he has skin covering his abdomen, or just his upper chest and limbs!! We can see skin on his hip and shoulder, but none in between, but I can't tell whether that's because his side was damaged worse, or if there's no skin there to begin with. Personally I think grafting skin to metal would create all sorts of New Issues that would be more effort than it's worth, but shrug, and also, leaving it open, with just a brace to go around his abdomen as extra support, would give him/his doctors easier access if anything were to go wrong. In my fics I go with the brace solution, because angst, but YMMV

skin coverage brings up all sorts of angst that his silly swimsuit just cracks the surface of. he's def wearing that suit for at the VERY least the skin graft scars, and also probably because he doesn't have skin on his abdomen sdlfkjsodfjsl

The other fun thing that would need to be taken into account for lichty! Is that! He's twelve (ish) when this happens! And twelve year olds! Aren't done growing! Lichty's pretty tall, 5'11" ish if I remember right, so it's not like they just stunted his growth permanently.

If he's 12 when he's injured, I'd guess he's probably 14 ish once he starts looking at getting prosthetic limbs. 14 yo boys aren't done growing either, so they'd either have to make him Weirdly Long for a teenager before he grows into his prosthetics, or make his limbs and torso designs growable to match what they think his height and weight would've been.

Growable limbs would be Really Difficult but probably doable? he'd just have to come in every several months after he's discharged to get Stretched (lol). On the other hand, he's probably actually pushing 17 by the time he's discharged, by which point most teenaged boys are done growing. So, it would make sense for them to make him Long while he's an inpatient, since that last year of therapy would be the most intense/functional, and also when he'd be roughly his adult size. So, he'd be a little disproportionate for a few years, but theyre years that he spends largely in a hospital bed anyway, so it wouldn't be that big of a Thing?

Then, they'd be able to discharge him when he's ready, without any plans to bring him back unless something goes wrong

They would've just estimated what his limb lengths would've been, with some growth room in the size of his chest and his right shoulder. His remaining chest would still be scrawny as a 14 year old, when his torso's closed up, but on the off chance he turned barrel chested by the time he hits 17 lol they'd need a plan for that. Luckily, adult!lichty is scrawny af, so there was probably minimal adjusting that needed to happen there.

The other other thing is, he hasn't gone through puberty yet! And while some of the puberty hormones would still kick in on time, ie the ones that come from his brain, he's also now missing all his reproductive organs. so, he'd need to get injections for the hormones he's missing, probably, because he looks and sounds like he did, indeed, go through puberty

(it's my headcanon that he's infertile even though he desperately loves kids. He and Chris adopt a small horde once they retire peacefully from the job they definitely didn't die doing)

This kid definitely has chronic pain - phantom pain and otherwise - especially when he's in gravity. he definitely has sensory and motor deficits that he gets really good at hiding. he definitely prefers to stay in space because it lessens the pain, and also because it means he doesn't have to walk around, which reduces pain even more. He's probably got a backup cane and/or wheelchair stashed in the back of his closet for bad days on the surface. he probably goes to see dr moreno more than anyone else, which causes lasse and feldt and chris to constantly ask if he's okay, as well as they can around the secrecy rules. he's definitely left handed, and sometimes his right hand is next to useless depending on the day, so he's gotten really good at typing one handed, and maybe even prefers the one handed keyboard he learned to QWERTY or standard DVORAK or whatever they use on the ptolemy lol

uhhh he weighs more than a normal person his size, most probably, because of the metal parts. the blood flow means his arm and legs would be warm, and the skin has nails and hair and wrinkles that make it a convincing enough arm, but if you hold it too tightly or look at it too closely it looks a little off in a way you can't place

he's definitely got a Thing about people touching his abdomen or chest, not even like because he's touch-sensitive like setsuna, just because his stomach isn't gonna squish like everyone else's and that'd lead to way more questions than he's willing or able to answer

an artistic rendition:

lasse: when the FUCK did you get abs like this oh my god???

lichty: nervous sweating

but yea tldr is 'this kid definitely shouldn't be alive, but he is, so laura got to geek out about biotech and uh also his rehab would have taken literal years after the literal years of surgery to put him back together.' in other words he was probably recruited to CB like. Barely a few months after he left the hospital for good

((also, as an aside, i would like to make you all very sad and remind you that lichty's backstory is actually really similar to lockon's, he lost his family in a terrorist bombing as a kid, and was horrifically injured by it to boot. but so far as we can tell, he basically took the exact opposite approach to neil. like yeah, his cheeriness is probably a front at least part of the time, but like, he didn't go off the deep end, and join CB for revenge. he joined to make the world a better place, and never once talked to anyone at all about the stuff he went through as a kid, and never - so far as we can tell - blamed anyone for it))

((like idk guys just. lichty going through the same thing, only worse as lockon, and coming out the other end as an objectively happier and arguably better person, gives me a lot of emotions that i'm struggling to articulate sldkfjaosdjflad))

((also I definitely headcanon that the kpsa did the bombing that killed lichty's family too just because it hurts a lot, especially since lichty's bomb would've been roughly a year after Neil's))

I uh don't really have a conclusion here so. Have 4k words of science dump, thank u all for encouraging me yesterday to write it!!!

[sapphireswimming]

Calisfriendics (a Gundam 00 fic)

More Lasse content for @the-stray-liger woohooooo!!!

Huge thank you to @durinswizardwheezes for proofreading and her husband for the title which I love XD

Words: 3,183 Genre: Friendship/Humor Rated: K Character: Christina, Feldt, Lasee, Lichtendahl Summary: Lasse bemoans his inability to do a proper pushup in low gravity. Chris has an idea.

Read it on ffn here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13177055/1/

[gundamrp]

Today in Gundam History: June 12th

UC 0153: The League Militaire fleet encircles the Zanscare fleet. The Reinforce Junior and White Ark destroy a front-line Motorad fleet commanded by Pippiniden. (Victory Gundam)

AD 2286: Lichtendahl Tsery born. Shown below with Christina Sierra in Gundam Build Fighters, because that’s much, much happier than his fate in 00 canon.

CE 57: Meyrin Hawke born.

[laora-ryn]

The three of them have been living together on the surface for four years, now, still mourning the friends they lost in Fallen Angels.

The surviving crew of the Ptolemaios has been slowly rebuilding on Krung Thep, trying to piece together enough of a team to continue their mission.

So it's a good thing, then, that Setsuna runs into a familiar face on his way to collect Sumeragi.

will laura ever stop writing 17k word oneshots? the world may never know

pls accept my Extremely Long Gundam 00 Feelings Fic featuring an everyone-lives au, lyle punching neil because he deserves it, lots of happy tears, some shenanigans, and also a happy ending

i hope you guys like it <3

[sapphireswimming]

fic title meme: "between here and now"

send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it

OOOOOOOH this is such a good one okay I know what this would be:

Gundam 00, set after the world has announced that they’ll take down Celestial Being in Operation: Fallen Angels

No warnings, but spoilers for backstories

a collection of scattered scenes around the Ptolemy as the crew prepares for the end that is to come. doing whatever they can to get ready for the assault and trying to stave off panic in their down time. wondering if they have a chance of surviving - not many of them fully believe they can win once the world unveils the existence of their own gn drives - but trying not to think about exactly how they’ll die. writing letters to loved ones who will never read them and telling each other about their pasts without caring that it’s s-level security

Sumeragi - without Veda’s support - endlessly revisits each possibility and consequence of all 53 plans and counter plans that scroll down her cabin’s screen, badly rationing the alcohol despite knowing that it’s too dangerous to take trips down to the surface

Moreno immersing himself in charts and procedures on blunt trauma that he swipes away from the screen every time the door to the med bay opens and compulsively arranging and rearranging supplies so that anything he’ll need once the attack begins will always be within arm’s reach

Ian working around the clock with the haros to make last minute adjustments to each gundam, meeting one-on-one with each meister at irregular intervals to make sure that the controls respond perfectly (and refraining from calling krung thep whenever he has a free moment so as not to worry Linda)

Lasse prowling around the ptolemy, wishing there was something more he could do, because no manner of bodily training is going to help and unless they call in one of the gn arms - he’d asked Miss Sumeragi about it but then she vanished into her cabin and Ian’s only response is to ask for another kind of wrench - he just feels so powerless

Feldt quietly working on any number of small and large tasks as people ask her, or mention off-handedly that they should look into, or that she preempts, her hands moving quickly enough that she manages to always stay in the moment, doing anything she can think of to prepare the only family she’s known for what is to come

Lichty volunteering to work double (or triple) shifts on the bridge, running diagnostics, watching every screen at once, lending an extra hand to whatever else needs doing, and keeping everyone’s spirits up with light-hearted conversations so that no one has to worry while they’re on the bridge with him

Chris taking care of everyone: making everyone to take breaks long enough to at least eat some food, forcibly dragging several people to their cabins to sleep, asking people about memories and personal preferences and things they never would have dared to discuss earlier, and hoping that the photos she takes with trembling hands won’t be the only things left of them once this is all over

Tieria fuming at the fact that the world powers have procured gn drives of their own, trying to discover how on earth they could have gotten hold of them, who in Celestial Being can have betrayed them in such a manner, but ultimately understanding that finding out who did it won’t change the fact that it’s been done

Setsuna taking to eating with everyone in the mess hall - voluntarily sitting beside people and clearly listening to their stilted conversations even if he still doesn’t talk much himself - and staring for long stretches out of the glass windows to the endless expanse of space around them, and the glowing planet below

Allelujah seeking out people’s company so that he isn’t left alone with Hallelujah, reading headlines aloud in the briefing room, chattering nervously about any topic under the sun in the mess hall, and, when he’s overstayed his welcome with any one group, retreating to the hangar to see if there’s anything else he can help Ian with

Lockon holing up in his cabin with orange haro, obsessively watching footage of the bombing in Ireland, digging up the KPSA’s every movement, and searching for any mention he can find of Ali al Saachez, knowing, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he should be out with everyone else on the ptolemy but somehow not being able to bring himself to care because in the first time in his life, his family’s murderer has a name and a face

(oh it hurts)

[sapphireswimming]

Aces: Chapter 7 (a Gundam 00 fic)

[read parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 of this still-unnamed, slight-AU]

For Day 7 of @g00week​ (Tomorrow), because that’s when Chris will finally... well... you’ll see

2.5k of humor/bonding, no warnings, no spoilers

The shuttle docked on the Ptolemy and Chris pushed out of her seat, grateful for the chance to stretch her legs again. Trips to Earth were great and all, but she could do without the overnight train ride and being stuck in the shuttle after.

But Lichty and Feldt were waiting for them at the bay door.

“Welcome back!” Feldt said, smiling as Chris joined them in the hallway.

“Yeah, welcome back!” Lichty said, bounding forward to help her with her luggage.

She let him take the duffel bag from her right hand, and Feldt grabbed the book in her left. That just left her with an overstuffed backpack that she hefted further up onto her shoulders.

“Looks like you really hit the jackpot,” Lichty groaned as he realized just how heavy the bag was.

“Oh yeah!” she said, excitedly. “There were all sorts of good sales and I just couldn’t help myself. I got all sorts of things…”

Chris started moving down the hallway and Feldt followed, while Lichty awkwardly scooted along sideways with the duffel bag bouncing against his knees.

“I got some clothes, and some food,” she started counting off on her fingers.

“You didn’t forget to get some fruit, did you?” Lichty asked.

Chris turned around and laughed. “You think I’d forget?” she asked, waving her hands in front of her. “I got some apples and clementines.”

“Yes!” Lichty said, stretching out the word and looking like he would have fist pumped if he hadn’t had both hands full.

“And I got another surprise for everyone,” Chris lilted as she continued walking backwards in front of them.

“Oh man, what is it?” Lichty asked.

She grinned. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Oh, come on,” Lichty groaned. “Come on, please?” Chris just laughed. “Please? Just a hint maybe? Give us a hint,” he begged as she shook her head.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Feldt asked.

“Not for a while,” Chris said, turning around again. “The last meal they gave us on the train was a while ago and I didn’t feel like digging into my bag for chips on the shuttle. Thought that if I opened it, I’d never get it all back in!”

“Well, the mess hall should be pretty empty right now,” Feldt said.

“And that means plenty of room for an unpacking party!” Lichty added.

Doctor Moreno rounded the corner and stopped just in time to avoid a duffel bag to the knees. “What’s this I hear about an unpacking party?” he asked.

“Hey, Doctor Moreno!” Chris said. “I just got back, and brought some stuff with me,” she said and Lichty lifted up the bag a bit as proof.

“We were just going to go to the mess hall to start unpacking some of it,” he added.

“Want to join us?” Chris asked. “I brought clementines.”

Doctor Moreno adjusted his glasses as he surveyed the scene. “I would absolutely love to,” he said, falling into step with them as they crossed the Ptolemy.

Once they got to the mess hall, Lichty hefted the bag on top of the table and Chris pulled it toward her to start unzipping it. The contents of the bag threatened to overflow as soon as it started to open. Feldt rescued the bag of apples that began cascading down the side and the clementines that wanted to follow soon after.

She crossed to the cabinets and retrieved the fruit bowl they owned for just such an occasion, taking them out of the bags and neatly stacking each fruit into a pyramid.

Lichty claimed two of the apples before they could disappear, stuffing them into his jacket pockets for later. Moreno asked him for a Clementine which he doubled back to get, tossing it across the table. He started to peel it and popped a slice in his mouth as Chris began unpacking the rest of the bag.

There were bags of candy and cookies already spread across the table. She added multiple bags of popcorn, “For our movie nights,” she said with a wink. Then came a series of differently flavored teas, their tins clinking against the table as she lined them up.

Next was a layer of clothing—shirts, scarves, and a dress—that she bundled into Feldt’s arms. “It has such a billowy skirt, you’re going to love it,” she promised.

Behind them was a brightly colored bag that Lichty grabbed. “Huh, these are new,” he said, reading the label to discover they were a kind of Filipino shortbread.

“Oh, yeah, those are really, really good,” Chris said. “I cracked open the other bag while I was waiting for the elevator. I think I put the rest of them,” she rummaged around until she found a tin of Italian wafers, “in here!” She pulled off the top and tipped out a bunch of individually wrapped polvoron. “Lasse owes me big for tracking that down,” she said as she set the tin aside.

“Oh, and this worked out perfectly,” she said, pulling out two pairs of aviator sunglasses and handing them over to Moreno and Lichty. “Here you go.”

“For me?” Lichty asked, immediately trying them on.

“There was a buy one, get one half off sale,” she said, shrugging a little and grinning. “How was I supposed to pass that up?”

Moreno turned over the pair in his hands, considering them for a moment before taking his glasses off and tucking them carefully into his shirt pocket. He blinked a little at the bright light overhead, but quickly replaced them with the new lenses and stared at different points around the room to see how they compared.

“Thank you, Chris,” he said.

“Of course!” she replied, brightly. “Thought you could use an update. Or a backup pair, in case you don’t really like them,” she added.

“No, these are wonderful,” he said with a smile.

“How do I look?” Lichty asked, swiveling his head so everyone could get a good look at them.

“Perfect,” Doctor Moreno said.

Feldt leaned over the table to get a better look. “They look really good,” she told him.

Lichty beamed. “Really?”

“Really,” Chris laughed. “They look perfect on both of you. Just like I knew they would.”

“Awesome,” Lichty said as he went to take them off. “Too bad there’s not much use for sunglasses up here,” he lamented.

As both of Moreno’s eyebrows rose, Lichty tried to back peddle. “Uh, I mean these are perfect! And I’ll wear them all the time,” he said, quickly putting them back on as Chris uncovered a few clinking bottles of booze for Miss Sumeragi.

“And Feldt, I got that other stuff we were talking about,” she said, pulling out a large shopping bag and hiding it beneath the table as soon as Lichty tried to peek inside. “Uh no,” she said, “You don’t get to see it yet! It’s a surprise,” she said, handing it off to Feldt who carefully put it under her chair.

Lichty pulled a face but was soon distracted by the long box Chris hefted onto the table. “But this,” she said, with a wild glint in her eyes, “is for everyone.”

“What is it?” Lichty asked, pulling up his sunglasses to get a better look at the printing on the side of the box.

“Trading cards,” she announced with glee.

Feldt and Lichty both looked confused. “Trading cards…?” they asked.

“Yes,” Chris said, pulling off the perforated top of the cardboard box. “They’ve started making trading cards of the pilots from each Bloc. Because of the show,” she said.

“No way!” Lichty said, moving to stand right next to her as she opened them.

“Yeah, I had no clue until I saw these near the checkout of this one place and I was like I need to get these. So they sell them in these mystery packs. Each Bloc is a different color foil, see?” she said, holding them up. “The Union’s silver, AEU’s gold, and the HRL is this bronze-ish color. It would have taken too long to do the math for how many I needed to get for everyone to end up with 3 packs,” she admitted. “So I just…”

“…Bought a box,” Feldt supplied.

“Yep! So hopefully there’s enough in here for everyone to get a pack of each,” she said, starting to count through them. Midway through, she stopped and just upended the box, shaking out the packs and spreading them around the table, sorting them by color.

Lichty extended an arm and swept the rest of her finds off to the edge of the table so they would have more room to distribute them.

“If we don’t have enough for everyone, we don’t have to give any to Tiera,” she laughed. “You want some, though, right?” she asked, turning to Moreno.

“Of course,” he grinned, laying his half eaten Clementine aside long enough to grab a pile and start counting how many packs there were. “If there are enough of these,” he added. “Which… it looks like there will be,” he said before starting to deal them out in piles as if they were playing cards. “Looks like there are thirty six packs, so that’s enough for everyone and then an extra set of each.”

“Mine!” Chris claimed before anyone else had a chance to open their mouths. “They’re mine – I bought them. They’re mine. I get the extras.”

Moreno and Feldt finished divvying up the packs into equal piles. Lichty immediately grabbed one, then paused. “Can I?” he asked Chris.

“Go for it,” she said, and he started unwrapping. Feldt also picked up a pile and Moreno slid one over toward himself as he ate another slice.

Feldt started reading off the backs of the foil wrapped packs. “… Based on the TV spot and featuring pilots and mech units from across the world, this AEU mystery booster pack contains 6 regular cards, 2 uncommon cards, 1 rare card, and 1 sticker.”

“Stickers, huh?” Moreno asked as he carefully tore the corner off of a silver pack.

“I’ll take them if you don’t want them,” Chris offered, a twinkle in her eye.

He looked affronted, pulling his hards closer. “Steal my stickers?” he asked with a crooked grin. “Never,” he said, crumpling up the wrapper and dropping it onto the table where it quickly unfolded from its crinkled ball.

“Oh, well would you look at that,” he said, peering down at his cards. “A Graham Aker. Good beginning. And… another Graham Aker,” he said, flipping to the next one. “Lucky me.”

“What?” Chris pulled his hands down to see two different shots of the Union’s Ace staring up at her. “Oh my god.” She released his hand to grab her six packs and start in on a Union one. Within moments, it was unwrapped, and she flipped through it wildly, face falling as she realized that hers didn’t contain a Graham card. “Noooooo,” she said, “no, no, no.”

“You still have another pack,” Feldt consoled her, picking up the other silver pack and holding it out to her.

Quickly, Chris opened it and rifled through the cards. “What?” she asked in distress as she did it again. “I don’t have one. How do I not have one? It should be impossible not to get a Graham Aker card in a Union pack,” she wailed.

“Feldt, Lichty, do you have one?” she asked, slamming both hands on the table as she leaned over toward them.

Feldt rotated her hand of cards to show that she did indeed have a Graham. Lichty snatched his cards closer to his chest. “So what if I do?” he asked, voice wavering.

“Lichty, give me your Graham,” Chris demanded, holding out a hand.

“No,” he said, moving them over past his shoulder.

“Then trade me your Graham. I’ve got…” she fanned out her cards, “I’ve got a Darryl and Howard, and the guy from Iowa, and two Joshuas, and the ponytail scientist guy, and like five Flags. Here,” he held out a card, “take a Joshua.”

Lichty checked his cards. “No, I have a Joshua too.”

“Fine, then what about Darryl and Howard? Then you can have both of them. Or some Flags,” she offered instead. “Do you want some Flags? I’ll trade you three Flags for Graham.”

“No,” Lichty protested, lifting his cards high up in the air to keep them out of reach as Chris came around the table.

“Fine,” she grumbled, then turned her attention to Moreno. “You’ve got two,” she said. “Will you trade me a Graham? I’ll give you anything I’ve got,” she said.

She didn’t see the slicing motions Lichty made across his neck from behind her. Feldt chuckled.

Moreno raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm,” he said, pulling up his hand to study it. “Hmmm, no, I don’t think so?” he said slowly.

Chris slumped over the table for a moment. “Come on, what do you want? Do you want to trade cards from another Bloc?” She began ripping open another pack. “Here, look, okay, I have two Somas. I’ll trade you a Soma for a Graham,” she said, waving it in front of her.

Moreno pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t know what I’ve got in my HRL pack yet,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure I don’t need a card of the Ace who puts Allelujah in the med bay every time they fight.”

Chris threw his hands up in the air. “Uh, fine! Although technically,” she said, waving a pointed finer around the room. “Technically, these should all be mine. Come on,” she pleaded. “Won’t anyone trade me their Graham?”

Moreno adjusted his glasses and shook his head. Lichty put down his shades again and kept his cards flat against his jacket. Feldt shook her head.

“I hate all of you,” she declared, although there was no real heat behind it. With a long arm, she swept several piles of unopened packs off the table into her arms and moved toward the door.

“Wait, where are you going with those?” Lichty asked.

Feldt stood from her chair. “Weren’t you going to get something to eat?” she asked.

Chris turned toward them again. “No. No, I think I’m going to find someone who will trade me a Graham,” she said, pushing out of the mess hall.

As the door hissed shut behind her, Lichty pulled his sunglasses back up onto the top of his head and leaned over the table, inspecting his cards again. “Okay,” he said, rocking forward on his elbows, “who wants to trade a…”

 Bonus:

Lasse also doesn’t have a Graham, otherwise he would trade with Chris

Sumeragi does have a Graham and while she takes a look at the Billy card while considering a trade, she ultimately refuses to be complicit in fueling this ridiculous crush Chris has

After unwrapping the AEU pack to see Kati looking up at her, she has to excuse herself from the bridge

Chris ends up slipping her double Soma to Allelujah

Tieria doesn’t want to accept the packs at first, but Lockon laughs and takes them for him. It turns out he has a Graham, but he suddenly becomes extremely attached to his cards and refuses point blank to trade anything

Later, he thoroughly examines every card in the quiet of his cabin, looking for any statistics that were unaired or may come in useful and finding nothing

Chris has a blast with the stickers

[sapphireswimming]

Aces: Chapter 5 (a Gundam 00 fic)

[read parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 of this still-unnamed, slight-AU]

For Day 5 of @g00week​ (Unlimited Sky), because there are multiple “left-behind traces of dreams” being trampled in this scene ahahaha

1k of Celestial Being shenanigans, no warnings, spoilers for quantum brain waves

“Oh my god,” Chris said as the spoon fell out of her hand and clinked onto the table. “Oh my god,” she repeated, staring down at her terminal’s screen.

“What?” came the chorus from around the table.

Lockon whipped out his own terminal, quickly navigating toward breaking headlines for news of some fresh horror but didn’t see any new declarations or war or massacres or terrorist attacks or anything that would have warranted that reaction.

“What is it?” Lichty asked from beside her, his own dinner now forgotten.

“Is it some kind of attack?” Lasse asked, leaning forward across the table.

Chris was gaping at the screen, her mouth moving slightly as she quickly scanned the rest of the story. “No,” she says, pulling herself out of it. “No, it’s not anything like that.”

Setsuna leaned back in his chair again. Lockon looked up sharply as Lichty stood to look at the screen over her shoulder.

“Well, don’t keep us in the dark,” Lasse urged.

“It’s the tv program,” she explained, “about the Aces… they’re going to start accepting questions from the audience.”

“What do you mean?” Ian asked, he brow furrowing as he reached for his coffee.

“There’s going to be a special section on the website where you can submit questions,” she read. “And then they’ll take some of those questions to ask the different pilots during their interviews.” She scrolled down a little further. “Looks like you can specify who you’d like to ask or just send in general questions and let the interviewers decide who to ask. And it doesn’t say there’s a limit on how many you can send in…?” she said, clicking around the page to see if she was missing anything.

This news seemed to sink in for some people more quickly than others.

“Ohoho,” Lichty laughed, his breath puffing Chris’ bangs, “we could epically troll them,” he said.

“Well, now’s the time to ask them about all of their secret weaknesses,” Lasse said with a grin.

“For real,” Lockon snorted.

“Imagine everything we could ask them, though,” Ian said. “All the stuff we haven’t been able to find out about them so far.”

“’What are your operational limits?’” Lasse offered, kicking back from the table to balance his chair against the wall behind him.

“Eh,” Ian shrugged. “Between our battlefield analysis and some data Wang Liu May managed to get her hands on, we actually have a pretty good idea about the Flag’s standard capabilities. And since the Enact is pretty much just the AEU’s rebranding of the Flag with a shiny new wrapping, there���s really not much difference between the two of them to speak of.”

“But ‘What kind of upgrades did you give Aker’s Flag for it to be able to keep up with our Gundams?’” Lockon said.

Ian pointed at him. “Exactly. Now that’s something I’d pay good money to find out”

“He’s the one that got up close and personal with you, isn’t he?” Lasse asked, turning to Lockon.

“Yeah, he made me pull out my knife” Lockon grumbled. “He still likes Setsuna more, though,” he said with a wave of his hand toward the meister, who nodded once, solemnly, from across the table. “But yeah. Whatever he’s got going on for himself is above and beyond anything else the Union’s got.”

“Something else I want to know,” Ian said as he carefully set his mug back down, “is why Pieres went crazy around Allelujah in her training run but hasn’t since. And why Allelujah gets such awful pains in his head when she’s around in the first place.” He bunched his hair in his hand for a few moments before scratching the back of his head. “And how can you stop it?”

“So…” Lichty drew out in the following heavy silence. “That’s a question for the Union and the HRL Aces. But what about Mr. AEU himself? What would we ask him?”

Lockon barked out a laugh. “’If you’re an ace pilot, how are you so goddamn useless in a fight?’”

“Yes,” Lasse clapped his hands loudly as he touched his chair back down to the floor again. “Yes, please. Please, can we ask him that. Chris,” he turned toward her with a grin, “is their website up and running yet?”

“Although… would there be a security problem? Submitting something from the Ptolemy?” Lichty asked, worried.

“Not after I’m through with it,” Chris proclaimed as her fingers flew across the keys. After a moment, she paused, and mused, “I wonder if I could ask him if he’s single…”

Lichty pulled a face. “Not Patrick Colasaur…” he asked, now even more worried. “You don’t mean him, right?”

Chris blinked up in surprise and said, “Oh no, definitely not Patrick,” as Lasse began laughing, only sobering long enough to delicately begin an imaginary letter with, “Dear Graham Aker…”

“Are you taken?” Lockon jumped into continue.

“By Gundam?” Setsuna added from his seat with such a straight face that no one could tell if he knew he was adding onto a joke or not.

Lockon started laughing and Lasse pounded the table with his fist, crying, “Yes! Yes!”

Wiping a tear away from the corner of his eye with a gloved hand, Lockon managed to ask, “Are you… are you in love with the Exia?”

“When’s the wedding going to be?” Lasse wheezed, nearly doubled over from laughing so hard and Lockon joined him, hitting his shoulder with a fist for support.

“And will the bride’s side be invited?” he asked, his voice trailing away into peals of laughter.

“But most importantly,” Ian chimed in, chucking at the sight of the two of them laughing uncontrollably, “Have you asked Setsuna for permission?”

The two of them lost it, laughing so hard they couldn’t even respond.

Across the table, Setsuna’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned.

The door hissed open and Sumeragi froze in the doorway as she heard the laughter inside. Her eyes grew wide as she saw Lasse and Lockon huddled together. “What’s… going on here?” she asked, smiling despite herself as she took a careful step inside.

“They’re accepting questions from the public!” Lichty said, straightening as she came in. “For the Ace program,” he clarified. “We were thinking about how we could get them to spill all of their secret weaknesses!”

An eyebrow arched. “Is that what you were thinking?” she asked, looking over to Lasse, still hunched over the table, Lockon thumping him across the back. She finally turned toward the counter, but said, “I don’t think I’d do that if I were you.”

Lichty looked up at her. “But Chris said there wouldn’t be a security problem!” he said.

Chris nodded as he looked to her for confirmation.

Sumeragi sighed before opening the cabinet and fetching out a tray of rations. “I’m sure that’s true, but even with the best security, it’s probably better not to directly ask the Blocs anything that will make them want to look twice at who asked it and why they can’t be tracked down.”

Chris pouted a bit.

“I’m not saying that you can’t send in questions,” Sumeragi asked, turning around as she tore the top off of her tray. “Do you really want to try to justify the security breach to Tieria once he finds out you’ve been submitting obviously pointed questions directly onto a government platform?”

Everyone instantly sobered and grimaced at each other.

“Oh,” Lichty said faintly.

“Yeah, never mind,” Lasse said, wiping his hands down his face.

“Hmm,” Sumeragi hummed as she drew up an empty spot at the table. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

[sapphireswimming]

*Grenade starts playing*

(I’ll let myself out now)