“Let me guess,” Hunter replied. “A ‘special’ assignment?”

Instructor Gailen nodded. “An old acquaintance of mine, a man to whom I have long owed a favor, has finally called it in.”

“You and your ‘acquaintances’ are big on markers,” Hunter replied. “So what is it this time? Do me and my team have to win a war all by ourselves?”

“No,” Gailen shook his head. “Not like that. You see Hunter, three years ago as this friend lay on his deathbed, he asked me to assure that his daughter would be kept safe.

“The young lady is a devoted pacifist, and her father greatly feared for her safety after his death. She even built a sort of school, where young people from all over her world could go to learn about what she called ‘Total Pacifism’. It’s a foolish ideal I know, but a favor is a favor.

“Princess Aria, that’s her name, has been captured by the very nation her country is at war with. Her world is in flames and its unsure when the war will actually end, but the fighting is very widespread. She was kidnapped and is being held in a ‘secret’ bunker, I’ve got the location right here.”

“And you want my team to rescue her,” Hunter concluded.

“No, I want you to rescue her, and then keep her safe until the war is over,” Instructor Gailen sighed. “I know it’s a waste of your skills Hunter, but this is important. And if worse comes to worse, you can always end the war yourself.

“Aria hopes that if she can make everyone in the world embrace Total Pacifism there will be an end to all wars, and despite how little of a threat she posses there have been numerous attempts on her life. Consider it a body guarding mission.”

“Fine,” Hunter sighed. “Mission accepted.”

“That’s the spirit!” Instructor Gailen clapped.

* * *

Aria sat peacefully in the center of her cell, eyes closed, deep in thought. The commander of the base would be here soon, if she could only convince him and his men to throw away their weapons…

The door creaked open and General Sagar stepped through with his now customary leer. He shut the door behind him and said something to the guards on the other side, then crossed the metal floor to Aria.

Aria stood and faced him, waiting for him to speak. She quickly downed her now customary mask of submission, and waited without fear. Sagar circled behind and began fondling her roughly.

She stifled a scream. Many higher-ranking officers had been threatening since she’d arrived, but this was the first time any of them had lain a finger on her. Sagar’s unshaven face was close to hers and she could spell alcohol on his breath.

“Come on little princess,” Sagar laughed as he began to squeeze her breasts. “Struggle a little.”

“Please don’t touch me,” Aria said calmly and looked away as tears began to pool in her eyes. “Please.”

“Fight back bitch!” the general ordered as he threw his arms around her and started probing between her legs, looking for the zipper to the army pants they had given her. “It ain’t no fun when they don’t put up a fight!”

“I will not fight you,” Aria trembled.

General Sagar let go of her suddenly and backed away.

“Peace-loving bitch,” he spat. “You won’t even put up a fight for your own virtue!”

“I abhor violence in any form,” Aria replied softly. “That is the way of Total Pacifism.”

“Ain’t a challenge when they don’t fight back,” the general grumbled as he reached for the door. “A course, the longer we’re down here, the less I’m going to feel like challenges.”

The door closed and Aria sank to her knees, trying to hold back the wave of tears. After a few moments she gave up and simply fell into sobbing. She couldn’t fight him, but she didn’t want this to be done to her. She had to find a way to reason with these men.

The metal cell door flew open again and General Sagar stepped back through. Aria let out a gasp of fear as he grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the cell. Was this going to be it?

He pulled her down a long passageway towards the control room. Something was happening.

“The mobile suit has penetrated our forward line!” a lieutenant from a status console shouted. “It’s a Gunjin!”

“Damnit, where did those hypocrites get a Gunjin?” General Sagar shouted. “Where are our defense troops? We had seventy Serpent-Strikers down there!”

“They’re all gone,” the lieutenant replied fearfully. “Destroyed, every last one of them!”

“That’s impossible—”

“The pilot is signaling us!”

“Put him on screen,” General Sagar growled. “Lets see what this bastard wants.”

The main viewer of the command room switched to a grainy image of a pilot wearing a flight suit and a helmet, the unmistakable controls of a mobile suit all around him. He leaned forward and tapped the little camera in his cockpit, shaking the image on there side.

“Hiya,” he said cheerfully. “How we doin?”

“You can’t penetrate this bunker!” Sagar yelled. “You’ll never get in here, even if you come out of your Gunjin you won’t be able to get in here!”

“No problem,” the pilot shrugged. His face was unreadable through the visor of the helmet, but he sounded completely calm and almost jovial. “I just came by to read the meter, can I check a few things?”

“What?” Sagar said callously.

“Just trying to confirm,” the pilot explained. “My data says your control room is forty floors down, right?”

“Yes that’s correct—”

“And the bunker is shielded by fifty feet of concrete, with steel-fired reinforcement every ten feet?”

“Yes—”

“My thingy also says you have a defense screen,” the pilot said. “And my intel data says it’s a five hundred tera-watt generator. Is that right?”

“Yes!” Sagar barked. “Our defenses are impenetrable!”

“I hear that,” the pilot laughed. “Check confirm, your shield is operating at one hundred percent?”

“Yes,” Sagar sneered. “Why are you here?”

“Is that the princess?” the pilot asked. “Princess Aria?”

“I am Princess Aria,” Aria said as she stepped forward. “I beg you to please stop this battle.”

“I’m here for the rescue,” the pilot replied. “You may want to get behind something.”

The room shuddered suddenly. As deep as they were, with the rest of the bunker above them and the shielding, it meant something had hit very hard.

“Sir!” the lieutenant shouted from the console. “He’s penetrated all the way through the shielding and reached our defense screen! Field is holding at—”

This time the control room shook violently.

“The screen is down to fifty seven percent!” the lieutenant shouted. “The Gunjin’s aim is accurate to within a one thousandth of a unit—”

The view screen blacked out and the lights flickered as the room shook even more violently than before, knocking everyone to the ground.

“If he hits the shield in the exact same spot again, the defense screen will collapse!” the lieutenant screamed as he regained his footing and looked desperately at the console. “It—”

The front of the room tore apart ferociously and a spray of debris was thrown back to the back. Aria ducked and curled into a ball, waiting for it to be over.

A giant hand reached through the gaping hole and extended towards her.

“Climb on princess!”

The voice came from a speaker somewhere on the hand, the bunkers power systems had been destroyed and the communications were down.

Not thinking, Aria leapt into the open palm and held on to the Gunjins thumb as it pulled her back through the hole.

The Gunjin cupped one hand over the other, shielding her in a tiny cocoon and protecting her. Aria couldn’t see anything through the Gunjins closed hands, but she could feel it moving.

She wasn’t sure how long the ride lasted. The mech was clearly a flight type, and she had no idea where it was going. The fact that such a suit had been sent to rescue her worried her greatly, because she knew her country did not possess this technology. That meant that she had either been kidnapped yet again, or someone in her homeland had enlisted the outside help of a mercenary.

The cupped hands finally opened and Aria looked out on a sight that touched her heart. It was the old royal palace, where she’d built her school. She was home, and free.

The mobile suit gently lowered her to the ground and she stepped off, looking back for the first time on the machine that had rescued her. The battle mech was humongous, at least seventy feet high from the ground to the top of its head.

A hatch opened on the waste and a black clad figure sprang down, landing in a crouch on the cement in front of the palace, then standing fully to face her.

The pilot pulled his helmet off and gave Aria a bright smile. He was tall and muscular, with broad shoulders and dark brown hair. The flight suit he was wearing hugged the rock hard lines of his muscles and left nothing to the imagination. His smile was friendly, but his deep green eyes took her in like a raptor seeking out pray.

“My name is Hunter Jusenkyou,” Hunter said as he bowed respectfully to her. “I was sent from Gudersnipe by your father’s order, to rescue you and bring you back here.”

“My father died…” Aria said cautiously. “Three years ago.”

“He had friends,” Hunter shrugged. “My instructor at Gudersnipe assigned me to rescue you, then guard you until the war is over.”

Hunter stepped towards her and took a knee. “My sword and my Gunjin are yours, princess.”

“There are no need for weapons here,” Aria shook her head. “I don’t need a mercenary or a bodyguard.”

“Yeah, well I’m not leaving,” Hunter said as he stood back up. “My mission is clear; I have to keep you safe—”

Hunter glanced over his shoulder, then side stepped to see around the massive mobile suit.

“Damnit, they followed me,” he snarled. “Looks like about sixty flight types. They’ve apparently underestimated the value of my life.”

“I don’t see anything…” Aria replied slowly. She followed his gaze and thought she could just barely make out something on the horizon.

The sun was setting and it would be dark in minutes. Between the setting sun and the clouds she was amazed Hunter had detected the mechs approach, she still wasn’t sure she wasn’t just seeing a flock of birds.

“Won’t take me long to take care of them,” Hunter said as he moved back towards his Gunjin. “I’ll be back in a little bit—”

“You can’t!” Aria shouted. “You already killed men to rescue me, I can’t allow any more to die!”

“So you’d rather sit back and be massacred?” Hunter asked, blinking. “Sorry, but that’s just not an option.”

“Hunter, you can’t go off and fight them, you have to stop fighting!” Aria insisted. “If you keep on fighting, the war will never stop!”

Hunter pointed out at the now clear flight of mobile suits approaching. “See those suits? They’re coming here. When they get here, they’re going to start breaking things and hurting people. They are coming, whether I go or not. If I sit here and refuse to fight, they’ll kill me, and you. Pacifism is not an option.”

“When they arrive we’ll reason with them,” Aria countered. “Convince them their ways are flawed. We’ll find a compromise.”

“Hmm,” Hunter scratched his chin. “I never thought of it that way. Why are we arguing? Excuse me while I go reason with them.”

With that Hunter leapt straight from the ground thirty five feet up into the cockpit of his Gunjin and the mech soared off. It moved with speed and grace uncharacteristic for its size. The great limbs possessed a certain fluidity that most mechs lacked; this was no boxy robot, but a sleek war weapon.

The suit was no more than a dot in mere moments, and the horizon became alive with flames. Soon the distant rumbles of explosions reached her ears.

So this was how mercenaries ‘reasoned’ with people.

* * *