“WERE YOU ALL OUT OF YOU GOD-DAMNED FUCKING MINDS?!”
Arkhan had barricaded himself in the conference room and was furiously berating the leaders of the Zeonic and Federation factions. This had gone on for a full three hours and was showing no sign of stopping anytime soon.
“I thought I made it clear that using the nukes was a one-time thing! We already have the elves screaming at us for using the nukes, but you dropped a colony on the Theocracy?! How long was this being planned?! Why did no one tell me?! Were you afraid I would be unwilling to use such a tactic?! I will tell you what is worse than telling you guys to stop such an operation, and that is not knowing whether my own precious creations are secretly going behind my back to commit war crimes! Jesus FUCKING Christ!”
While those who were being yelled at had no discernable facial changes due to their metal forms but if they had flesh and blood faces, they would be filled with a mix of resignation and concern.
“Do you have ANYTHING to say to even attempt to justify the war crime we have committed?! You know as well as I do that we would need to systematically destroy the Theocracy piece by piece! They won’t surrender from this alone, and while this may very well have saved many lives it also made us look like the evilest sacks of shit that ever lived! Even the Theocracy didn’t commit an act of destruction of this magnitude, and now the ecosystem and climate are all out of whack due to the massive fucking mushroom cloud that has been spreading all sorts of shit throughout the world!”
Arkhan sighed and held his head in his hands. Before he could continue his furious rant, a knock came on the door.
“Come in. This had better be good.”
In stepped a group of three people who looked like the build up to a bad joke.
A Lugusian Cardinal, Princess Leona Regulus and Amuro Ray as a Full Armor Gundam Alex walked into a conference room. The Cardinal got down on his knees and held his hands as if to make a terrified prayer.
“So, uh… He said he had something to say to you… So, you don’t have another one of those things, do you? Not planning on using on us if we turn?” Princess Leona was obviously concerned, as was pretty much everyone in the nations outside of the Commonwealth.
“See? This is why we can’t do things like that! We risk tearing this alliance to shreds and turning the world against us if we do shit like this!” Arkhan yelled at Gihren and Revil who were now rigid like lampposts.
“Please….”
The Cardinal spoke up in a terrified voice.
“What? Please what?”
Arkhan was not in a good mood right now. Almost every word out his mouth and in his head was laced with rage and shame at the actions of his creations.
“PLEASE, DON’T LET THE SKY FALL AGAIN!”
“Huh?”
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Now Arkhan was confused. Surely this wouldn’t be enough to break the will of the Theocracy and force their immediate surrender. I mean, they were supposed to be willing to hold out in the face of the apocalypse, the end of the world, but were they really going to roll over?
“What are you saying?”
If they were going to surrender it would mean that the nation that swore to fight to the last man, woman and child was going to give his creations justification for using the ‘colony drop’ tactic in any future engagement. Secretly torn between wanting a quick end to the war and not wanting the usage of colony dropping to be justified by success, Arkhan waited in vain for the Cardinal to try and stab him.
“On behalf of the Theocracy, I offer our unconditional surrender! Lugus is surely angry with us for fighting you, so we beg of you to please tell Lugus on our sinful and abandoned behalf not to drop the sky upon us again!”
Fuck! Now Arkhan was furious for an entirely different reason. Sure, he didn’t want the war to cost more Alliance lives, but the fact that it was now obvious to everyone that the act of dropping a colony on someone was a good way to make them surrender was not something Arkhan wanted at all! He turned to face Gihren and Revil.
“I will deal with your punishment later. Leave. Now. I have to deal with the aftermath of this.”
Things were not nearly as good as he wanted them to be. This war was becoming a nightmare for everyone involved. He would need to take special care from now on or risk the Alliance tearing itself apart, or perhaps turning on the Commonwealth and resulting in a true End War. He already had to now deal with the anger and confusion from his allies, and the amount of talking and placating he would need to do would be legendary.
…
It was almost a year later when the leaders of the Theocracy and the leaders of the Alliance finally got together to discuss the terms of surrender. The Theocracy had effectively surrendered many months prior, in the immediate aftermath of the event known as ‘Operation: Neo British’ to the Arcadians and as ‘The Day the Sky Fell’ to basically everyone else. Mere days after the unofficial surrender had been declared, Alliance forces began to occupy the heavily traumatized Theocracy without facing any real resistance.
The reason the official surrender had been postponed so long was so that Arkhan and Arcadia could attempt to mend the rift that had formed between them and their allies, and that had partially succeeded. Gihren and Revil were to be tried as war criminals despite being on the winning side and having created the device that ended the war. Arkhan considered this as a message to the rest of his creations and citizens that such a thing was NEVER to be done again and by showing that even his closest supporters were not beyond the law, he hoped to make sure that no one ever committed such war crimes again.
He had really hoped to avoid having to kill the two named MSGs, as he could never use their names/ personalities ever again afterwards, but it was the only way he could smooth over relations and show that he didn’t want to do something like a colony drop ever again.
The surrender was to be discussed outside with the elites of every faction present. Gihren and Revil had been brought along for the intimidation factor, but once the Theocracy fully surrendered, they would be sent to prison to await their court martial. They had no intention of running from their fate, as they were loyal Mobile Suit Golems to the end.
This loyalty to the very being that condemned them would be what saved their creator’s life that day, as the conference was about to be interrupted by the very messengers of Lugus who had manipulated humanity for so long. Angered that their extremely convoluted plan had been thwarted by one of the very beings that were supposed to be their willing and mindless pawns, the ‘Angels’ were about to make their presence known.
The fact that THEY were the ones who had taught the art of Hero Summoning to the Theocracy meant they knew just how to permanently kill a Hero who could cheat death even without destroying their escape system. Nobody knew it until they arrived, but the whole of Gaia was now in serious trouble, as a fleet numbering fifty warships was now on its way across the galaxy to deal with those who would survive the wrath of the few Angels that had already arrived in atmosphere to clean up the mess made by their puppets.