Just as Kira turned to help Siegfried, Duel pressed in again despite its damaged chest. In rage, Kira lost control and drew the Armor Piercer dagger, thrusting it toward the cockpit when Duel failed to evade.
"Yzak Joule!"
Held back by Zero, Dearka saw the scene and panicked. Relying on PS armor to tank several linear cannon shots, Storm fired its beam rifle at Assault.
At that moment, Assault moved as if boosted by instinct. It tilted aside to evade the attack, and the Armor Piercer continued its thrust. That brief fraction of a second was enough for Duel to shift its frame, avoiding a direct cockpit hit, but the right shoulder joint could not escape. The blade plunged deep, triggering an explosion in the power lines.
If someone asked how Siegfried saw Nicol, before he ever sat in an MS, the impression from the original story made him think the other boy was pitiful. He had even thought that if there was a chance to save him, it might be worth trying. But after their first clash and especially now, after being driven almost to a dead end by Thunder, there was only one thought left in Siegfried's mind: kill Nicol.
The problem was that Thunder's Mirage was far too lethal for ordinary mobile suits. On Archangel, the onboard computer could calculate Thunder's movement range from its firing coordinates, then use area fire to force it to activate PS armor. A mobile suit computer could not do that, its firepower could not cover a wide area, and its plain armor could not survive even one hit from a Beam Rifle.
"Using a mass production unit to fight Thunder, is that something a human should be doing?"
As Thunder was forced to reveal itself by the Porcupine Formation, the GINN drew the Heavy Slash Blade and slashed down hard. Nicol relied on PS armor and blocked the strike with the claw-shaped anchor on the left arm, then used the right arm's Trident Assault Shield System to shift position and activated the Beam Sword, cutting diagonally toward the GINN's cockpit.
In the next instant, Siegfried seemed to sense the attack in advance. The GINN grabbed Thunder with one hand, pushed its thrusters to the limit, and used the enemy machine as the center while his own arm became the axis. He swung around to Nicol's back.
Before Thunder could adjust while still locked in its slashing posture, the Heavy Slash Blade stabbed straight into a gap in the waist armor.
"Badgiruel! Gottfried, take aim!"
No matter how powerful PS armor was, an MS could not be entirely built from such costly material. At the joints and connections between armor plates, there were always weak points that could be pierced.
The GINN's strike seemed to damage some internal system of Thunder, and the whole machine lost mobility for a moment. Following the rule of finishing off a wounded enemy, Siegfried immediately called out to the bridge.
Badgiruel reacted almost at the same time as Siegfried. As soon as the GINN drove the Heavy Slash Blade into Thunder's waist, the Gottfried turret began to deploy. While everyone clenched their teeth and counted down the seconds, the heavy High Energy Beam Cannon finally fully unfolded, locked onto the motionless Thunder, and fired a merciless green beam.
"Nicol!"
On the other side, Dearka, who had just rescued Yzak Joule, cried out in shock. No matter how hard Storm pushed, it could not instantly reach Thunder. At the moment when it felt like even breathing had stopped, Nicol finally restored power, and the black machine shifted slightly. The green beam struck Thunder's left leg.
"Damn it!"
Siegfried could not blame Archangel. Badgiruel had reacted fast enough, but a large main gun took too long to deploy and aim. On a battlefield filled with neutron interference, a warship hitting an MS without fleet-level saturation fire was mostly a matter of luck.
The GINN had really done all it could, and Siegfried understood more clearly why ZAFT was willing to bear the blame of attacking neutral civilian colonies just to seize the five G units. In continuous combat, no one felt the helplessness of ordinary MS against PS armor more deeply than he did. Even if PS armor drained power and could not be mass produced, for ZAFT, which relied on GINN with live ammunition as its main force, such technology had to be crushed as early as possible.
With one leg destroyed, Thunder retreated without hesitation, and Siegfried had no intention of chasing. Even if he caught up, the GINN had no way to break the armor, and hitting joints or stabbing waist gaps could only be imagined, not repeated at will. Storm was already approaching with the damaged Duel, while Assault on his side had burned through more than half its energy, and the remaining two ballistic units were in no better shape.
Taking several deep breaths, Siegfried slowly calmed down from the surge of emotion and looked at his hands. That sense of prediction felt far clearer than the first time, and he could not tell if it was the so-called SEED ability.
As Archangel sent out the return signal, Zero and Assault returned one after another. After a moment of hesitation, Siegfried was the last to head back to Ganaku.
After leaving the cockpit and seeing Marduk still trying to ask questions, he stepped off the GINN's armor and drifted out of Ganaku faster than even Kira or Mu.
With the Gamov's assault failing, not only was Duel damaged, but Thunder had also lost a leg. Siegfried could not help wondering whether Yzak Joule had been injured in the face as in the original timeline. In his memory, it was because of this injury that Yzak Joule later completely lost control and fired on a shuttle full of civilians.
"If he wasn't injured, would the later battles be easier?"
While trying to recall the already blurry plot and gripping the handrail to move forward, Siegfried felt that Cruze Team was already half crippled. Out of four G units, two were damaged, and while he could not clearly see Duel's condition, Thunder had undeniably lost a leg. Even if Cruze Team had spare parts or seized them from Heliopolis, with their current speed and a rendezvous with Eighth Fleet within half an hour, there was no way repairs could be finished in time.
"Sai, that was really dangerous just now. I almost thought you were going to…"
The one who interrupted Siegfried's thoughts was Kira, who hurried after him from Ganaku. The boy seemed to have something to ask, but did not want to say it in front of others.