It's a light news day today, but be sure to check out the latest developments in the crippling twinkie shortage that's sweeping the nation today. You can't make this stuff up.
...huh?
Zechs and Noin poke around the spot where Heero self-destructed his Gundam, as OZ's troops start collecting all the bits and pieces. Noin remarks that all the important bits were destroyed, and that it's now just a big pile of scrap metal... er, scrap Gundanium. Zechs decides to cart the bits off to the Victoria base - since they have the Talgese to extrapolate from, they can probably actually rebuild the Gundam. Noin is rather reticent about this, but Zechs seems to admire Heero and... wait, you're not going to give it back to him, are you? D'oh!
Meanwhile, Une apologizes to Treize for trying to blow up the colonies. Treize isn't too keen on the whole idea, and would very much prefer to simply eliminate the rebellious elements without popping the space colonies themselves, and sends Une to take care of it (after all, she did so, er, well the last time they sent her up to whack someone). Une gets all happy that Treize is ordering her around - clearly this is not a healthy relationship.
Elsewhere, Duo meets up with Quatre, as both of them are hiding out from OZ's patrols somewhere in Iran, along with Quatre's minions, all of whom are cheerfully wearing fezes. Under the cover of a sandstorm (apparently, although OZ has giant orbiting missile platforms, they don't have any handy giant orbiting spy sattelites) they all sneak off to a convenient secret base. It turns out that several of the middle east nations have gotten snippy about the whole Alliance thing, and kept some of their own militaries active. Quatre being the heir to some major industrialist family from the area, he naturally gets hordes of loyal, fez-wearing minions backing him up, drawn from these hidden forces. Quatre and Duo do the whole apologizing for lack of success bit, then go to the town above the secret base for a bit of partying with the locals, who consider the Gundam pilots heroes for kicking some imperialist OZ butt.
Meanwhile, Relena is in Moscow for no clear reason. Oh, no, wait, Une's going there before heading to the colonies. Okay.
Quatre and Duo have a talk about the whole Gundam thing, and figure out that they're both being sent by the same group, as if nobody had clued into this already. Both of them seem to expect to die, eventually, on their missions, which seems to be a running theme with the Gundams.
Relena goes to a party thrown by some old fellow who seems to remember her from the Peacecraft family. She hangs out a bit there and finds out that all of the people there seem to be pretty snippy about OZ. The old guy has, in fact, asked Treize to come so he can personally ask just what the heck is going on here. But, instead, Treize has sent Une, who barges on in and ambles over to where the old guy and Relena are. Before pleasantries can even finish being exchanged, Relena pulls out a gun and takes a few pot shots at Une, then bolts for it. Une, annoyed, tries to give chase, but is stymied by the other guests, who, inspired by Relena's stupidity... er, I mean, bravery, get in the way. Une sends troops after Relena instead.
Personally, I was hoping for a sequence like in Venus Wars, where the naive girl is inspired to seek revenge against a major enemy leader, finally gets a chance, pulls out the gun and... *click* forgets to turn the safety off. No such luck.
OZ troops show up at the town above the secret base, showing that OZ at least has some intelligent recon capability left. They rig the place with explosives and wander off, knowing that the good guys will have to flee when the place explodes. Quatre and Duo reveal that they can't fight, for fear that OZ will go after the colonies again, so the minions will have to take care of this on their own. Soon enough, everyone goes charging out and engages in a pitched battle outside, with the minions managing to gain a slight advantage over the OZ forces, mainly due to surprise. The civilians and the Gundams go sneaking out under the cover of this battle, seizing the OZ transport planes (OZ /really/ needs to start guarding those things - their transports get stolen every other episode!) and fleeing. Duo takes a few shots out of the back door of the plane, just to salve his wounded pride, but nobody lives long enough to realize it's a Gundam doing it. Heh, heh. The minions head for the hills (literally), although someone probably should have explained to them that giant robots are not the ideal guerilla units. Oh well.
Relena is finally cornered by OZ's troops, but at the last minute, who shows up but Noin! Noin takes charge of Relena over the objections of Une's troops, by shooting the hat off of one of them and insisting that her orders come from Treize. The troops amble off, and Relena gets surly with Noin, wondering if she's just another OZ goon. Noin shoots the OZ emblem off the discarded hat and says, no, she's here to help... Clearly, she's lying about at least some of this...
Next episode: Wu Fei gets a kick in the head! Yay!
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.
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