Summer had officially hit Neo-Verdia. The sweltering heat was heavy, but the overall vibe around the academy was anything but sluggish. Today was the annual school summer festival, and the entire campus had been transformed into a massive, colorful labyrinth of outdoor stalls, bright banners, and delicious smelling food booths.
After all the intense battles, canyon ambushes, and heavy drama from the past few weeks, this sudden burst of normal teenage life felt almost surreal to the crew of the White Ark.
Class 2-B which included Zaki, Maki, Airis, Aurora, Tasya, and Agnes had decided to go all out this year by opening a specialized Summer Maid and Butler Café. The concept was simple but chaotic: the boys were forced into formal butler suits with stiff collars and long waistcoats, while the girls wore classic, frilly maid outfits with matching headbands.
"I still don't understand why I had to be dragged into this," Zaki muttered, tugging uncomfortably at his tight black bow tie as he carried a tray of iced parfaits across the bustling classroom-turned-café.
"Oh, stop whining, Zaki! You look incredibly sharp!" Tasya laughed, practically gliding past him with a bright, energetic grin.
Tasya and Maki were completely in their element. They had thrown themselves into the maid persona with 100% commitment. Every time a customer walked through the door, they would sync up perfectly, bowing and chiming out, "Welcome home, Master!" in high-pitched, cheerful voices that left the customers totally charmed and throwing their wallets at the cash register. They were running around the room, singing cute little rhyming spells over the omelet rice and making sure every single person was entertained.
Over on the other side of the room, Princess Aurora handled her tables with a completely different kind of charm. Even in a frilly maid outfit, her natural royal bloodline shone through. She poured tea with effortless, breathtaking elegance, her posture perfect and her voice soft and soothing. She didn't need to do any over-the-top cutesy performance; her sheer grace was enough to make her tables the quietest and most respectful in the room.
Then there was Agnes.
Agnes stood by the corner table, her face bright red, her hands gripping her menu pad so tightly it was crumbling at the edges. This was her absolute nightmare. She was incredibly stiff, her posture rigid like a soldier standing at attention rather than a maid serving sweets.
"H-Here is your iced matcha latte, sir," Agnes said, her voice dropping into a flat, nervous monotone as she slammed the glass onto the table a little too hard, making the liquid splash slightly. "Please... consume it before it gets warm."
The group of male students sitting at the table stared at her for a second, completely frozen. But instead of being annoyed, their eyes suddenly lit up with absolute adoration.
"Whoa... a tsundere maid! That's peak!" one of the guys whispered frantically to his friend. "She's so intense, it's amazing! Miss! Please scold me more while bringing the bill!"
Agnes blinked, her face burning even hotter as she took a panicked step back. "Wh-What?! No! I am just trying to complete my service shift!" Her awkward, clumsy shyness was accidentally turning her into the biggest attraction for the male customers, much to her utter confusion.
Meanwhile, Airis was doing her best to handle her own set of tables with a simple, straightforward approach. She carried the plates perfectly, her robotic processing allowing her to calculate the exact balance needed to never spill a drop. But then, a group of regular academy kids looked up at her and smiled. "Hey, Airis! You gotta do the magic spell! Make the food delicious!"
Airis paused, her processing unit instantly looking up the required data for 'cute maid actions.' Without a single shred of hesitation, she brought her hands together, forming a heart shape with her fingers, leaned forward, and tilted her head with a perfectly calculated, adorable smile. "Moe Moe... Kyun! Please enjoy your meal, Master!"
"PFFF—!"
The guys at the table practically exploded into fits of pure, unadulterated joy, clutching their chests from the sheer lethal cuteness of the delivery. Zaki, watching from across the room, could only facepalm. "Airis, please don't overcharge your cute parameters in public," he thought to himself.
But while the other boys in the class were just doing standard, bare-minimum butler duties, Zaki was a completely different story. Maybe it was his natural instinct to protect and look after people, but he treated every single female customer with an overwhelming amount of genuine respect and polite care. When an elderly lady or a nervous freshman girl sat down, Zaki would bow softly, pull out their chairs, speak in a calm, gentle tone, and anticipate exactly what they needed before they even asked.
"Here is your fresh strawberry shortcake, miss. I made sure the kitchen added a little extra whipped cream just the way you requested," Zaki said, giving a soft, reassuring smile to a group of female third-years.
The girls instantly swooned, their faces turning pink as they giggled into their hands. Within two hours, word had spread across the campus about the "Gentleman Butler of Class 2-B," and a massive line of female students began wrapping around the hallway just to get a table in Zaki's section.
Aurora, who was currently wiping down an empty table nearby, watched the massive crowd of girls practically throwing themselves at Zaki. She puffed out her cheeks, a distinct wave of jealousy washing over her chest. She let out a small, quiet huff, clutching her serving tray tightly against her chest as she mumbled under her breath.
"Stupid Zaki... he doesn't even realize what he's doing to them," Aurora whispered, her purple eyes narrowing as she watched him politely chuckle at a customer's joke. But despite her jealousy, a small, fond smile crept onto her lips. That's just who he is, she thought. He's just naturally kind to everyone.
While the academy was alive with the sounds of festival music and laughter, a completely different kind of energy was pulsing deep inside the underground hangar of the White Ark.
The lights were dimmed, focusing primarily on a massive central maintenance dock. Feres stood on the pilot's gantry platform, dressed in her sleek black pilot suit. Her left arm the brand-new matte-black cybernetic prosthetic glowed with a faint, steady blue light along its neural pathways.
Standing below her on the ground deck were Klaus and Airi Kimeza. They had worked around the clock for the past forty-eight hours, taking the heavy armor plates, frame structural parts, and hydraulic systems from the captured and stripped Bishop Mobile Suit to forge something entirely new.
"Are the neural sync lines fully stable, Airi?" Klaus asked, his eyes locked on his holographic status monitor.
"Yes, the feedback loop is perfectly mapped to her prosthetic," Airi replied, her fingers flying across her keyboard. "The machine will read her cybernetic arm's signals as a direct extension of its own framework. Feres! You can board the cockpit now!"
Feres nodded confidently. She climbed into the linear seat, the heavy armored hatch sealing shut above her, plunging her into the familiar, warm glow of the panoramic monitor screens. She took a deep breath, placing her real right hand on the right control stick, and her mechanical left hand on the left control grip.
"Initiating primary power drive. Connecting neural link," Feres murmured.
Outside, the massive Mobile Suit suddenly shuddered. The heavy fusion reactor deep inside its chest hummed to life with a deep, vibrating roar. The blank, dark visor of the machine suddenly split, and two sharp, brilliant green optical eyes flashed to life in the darkness of the hangar.
Feres closed her eyes, focusing her mind. The connection didn't feel heavy or jarring like the old Bishop unit. It felt fluid. It felt alive.
"Let's test the auxiliary systems," Feres muttered, focusing on her left arm's neural link.
Suddenly, two massive mechanical sub-arms, folded tightly against the machine's heavy backpack structure, smoothly unfolded. They extended over the shoulders like giant iron wings. Gripped tightly within these sub-arms were two massive, elongated titanium tower shields that covered both flanks of the machine with absolute protection. With a flick of her left wrist, the sub-arms rotated the shields flawlessly, creating an impenetrable defensive wall in front of the suit.
Feres's eyes widened in sheer awe. For the first time, she could truly understand what her older sister, Augustina, felt whenever she controlled a heavy-class tactical Gundam. The absolute power, the perfect defensive coverage it was beautiful.
Feres grabbed her pilot microphone, a proud, beautiful smile breaking across her face. "The movement is perfect, Uncle Klaus, Aunt Airi. I've decided on the name for this machine. From today on... this is the Aster Gundam."
As the hangar lights fully illuminated the unit, the sleek white and deep yellow armor plates gleamed under the fixtures. And painted beautifully on the center of both massive titanium shields was a crisp, elegant emblem of a blooming Aster flower a symbol of patience, love, and the ultimate promise to return from the battlefield alive.
Meanwhile, far away from the peaceful atmosphere of Earth, deep within a highly classified underwater research facility hidden beneath the oceans of a colonial territory, the mood was toxic.
Armen Itsuki slammed his fist violently onto his sleek, metallic desk, shattering a glass display screen into a spiderweb of cracks. His face was twisted into a mask of pure, unbridled rage.
"Incompetent fools! Absolute garbage!" Armen roared, his breathing ragged.
He couldn't accept it. The Polar White Gundam a masterpiece of colonial engineering that he had poured millions of credits and resources into along with its elite pilot, had been completely and utterly decimated by the White Ghost in their last engagement. The defeat was a total, humiliating blowout.
Because of that failure, Armen's status among the high colonial councils had plummeted. He was now the laughingstock of the military developers. But what made his blood boil more than anything else was the realization of who had defeated his creation. It was Klaus and Airi Kimeza his former research colleagues from years ago who had betrayed the colonial vision and fled to Earth. And now, he was being publicly humiliated not even by them, but by their teenage twin children and Airi's artificial intelligence.
"They think they've won," Armen hissed, his fingers curling into claws as he stared at the massive holographic display in the center of his laboratory. "They think their little AI, AIRIS, is the absolute pinnacle of neural evolution."
Behind him, several loyal engineers and rogue scientists stood at attention, watching the data streams.
"If Airi can build a system that synchronizes with the human soul... then I will build something that completely tears it apart," Armen snarled, a psychotic, brilliant glint flashing in his eyes.
He pulled up a massive encrypted data file. It contained the complete, raw combat telemetry and neural wave recordings that Dr. Lena had secretly scraped from her encounter with the White Ghost before her retreat. Armen had spent the last forty-eight hours breaking down the coding of AIRIS, finding its operational frequencies and its emotional triggers.
"Behold our countermeasure," Armen whispered, pressing a central activation key.
A massive crimson code matrix flooded the laboratory screens, rewriting the framework of their development network. The letters locked into place, forming the acronym of a terrifying new autonomous system: ANITA—Anti Neural Intercept Technical Augmented.
Unlike AIRIS, which was built to harmonize, grow, and protect its pilot through emotional understanding, ANITA was engineered with a singular, dark purpose: to actively intercept, disrupt, and violently jam the neural pathways of any surrounding AI systems, forcing the opposing pilot into a state of severe neural overload and mental collapse. It was a parasitic, predatory AI designed specifically to hunt and kill AIRIS.
Armen turned his gaze toward the massive construction bay behind the glass partition of his lab. Hanging from heavy steel cables in the darkness was a giant, terrifying new silhouette. It was a brand-new Gundam frame—currently just a raw, exposed skeletal structure of high-density black alloy and exposed crimson neural cables. It looked less like a machine and more like a demonic skeleton waiting to be clothed in armor.
"Install the ANITA core into the prototype frame immediately," Armen ordered, his voice dropping into a cold, venomous whisper as he watched the crimson lights of the new AI blink to life on the mainframe. "Let the Kimeza family enjoy their little festival on Earth for now. Because when this monster wakes up... their precious White Ghost will be stripped of its wings, and I will personally watch their children burn in the cockpit."
Deep within the dark servers of the underwater lab, the ANITA system let out its first operational hum, its crimson code searching, waiting, and locking onto the distant signature of its digital sibling.
To be continued...