Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow in concentration as the suit continued to accelerate. She could see that little red speck out in front of her, and she wasn't going to be happy until she had caught up with it. The only problem was that everything worked a little differently in space, which meant that when the red speck suddenly jolted to her left, she was stuck swinging her Mobile Suit's limbs uselessly.

"Come on, Dash," encouraged Char's voice through the pony's headset. "Use AMBAC. That's how you've got to move around in space."

"Right, right," mumbled the Pegasus. She twisted the Gatsby's torso toward her target and then fired her boosters, causing the desired change in direction. "Man, I'll never get the hang of this. Moving in space is so weird. You let up on the controls and you just keep going."

"That's because there's nothing to stop you from moving," explained Char as his Gatsby moved closer, turning from a speck in the distance to occupying the larger part of Dash's panoramic cockpit. "In an atmosphere you've got friction and gravity slowing you down, but out here, you're free to go as fast as you like."

Those last few words brought a smile to Rainbow Dash's face. "Well, when you put it like that…"

Char's Gatsby curled its right hand into a mechanical thumbs-up. "Good. Let's try for another few runs, so we can get you-"

A third channel crackled in over their headsets.

"Mobile Defense Commander Char Aznable, Miss Rainbow Dash is requested to return to the ship and report to Personnel immediately."

"What's up?" queried Dash into her headset.

"That's classified information," replied the voice. "Miss Dash, please comply quickly."

"Ha!" laughed the Pegasus aloud. "Quickly is the only way I comply!"

She twisted her hooves in their controls and spun her Mobile Suit back towards the gigantic frame of Cathedral Cosmos. Char's Mobile Suit followed at her side.

"What do you think it is?" asked Dash of her superior.

"Oh, heavens, I don't know," sighed Char. "I'm kept in the dark about even the most basic of deployments of Mobile Defense. But that's the way Artemis likes to operate. Like we're all cogs in one big machine of his, and he's the one pushing the button. We don't see what it does, but as long as we do our jobs, something happens."

Char delicately pressed his controls forward, causing his Gatsby to tap a button on the side of the ship's hull. A massive hatch opened, and the two floated back inside of Mobile Defense's hangar. Rainbow Dash carefully moved her machine back into the servicing rack it had come off of, and fluttered out of the cockpit.

"Well, whatever it is, it's gonna be awesome!" she giggled, blasting away toward the hangar's exit.

"How naïve," sighed the Zeon ace as he clambered down the ladder from his own mobile suit's cockpit. A Rei waited for him at the bottom of the steps, holding a clipboard.

"Ah, Forty-Seven. You're always a bearer of…" he hesitated. "News."

"Research and Development have completed the plans for the Gatsby Mark II according to your request," she reported stoically. "Production will begin in five hours."

"And when will the prototypes be ready for deployment?"

"Seven hours."

Char patted the clone on the head, making sure to ruffle her hair. "Excellent," he said, beaming. "Make sure the first production model is a Red Comet special."

"But sir," protested the Rei as passively as possible, while smoothing her hair back out. "You already have two personal units."

"The Gatsby's just for giving the fresh blood a chance," he smiled. "And you know how the Nightingale II is. Something's always breaking. I need, for lack of a better term, a daily driver."

"I will put in another request," said Rei Forty-Seven.

"If I wasn't a grown man I'd be skipping around in excitement," cheered the ace pilot.

"I am sure you would, Commander," whispered the Rei as she walked away.

Rainbow Dash zipped through the door, feverishly buzzing her wings to prevent a collision with the front desk. The secretary, a small black-and-red creature, peered up from behind a vast plain of paperwork, stamps, and eraser shavings. He set down the massive ledger he had been paging through and folded his hands together.

"Miss Rainbow Dash, I presume?" he groaned, his voice a work-weary monotone.

"Uh-huh!" squealed the Pegasus from her seat on the floor.

The creature turned back to a filing cabinet and ran a gloved hand through several cabinets before his fingers clamped down over a folder and pulled it out with a flourish. He set it down in front of him and then pushed it across the desk into the waiting hooves of Rainbow Dash.

"You've been selected as a team member for an important mission," his voice lacking the enthusiasm Rainbow Dash thought it should have. "That's all I can tell you. Head to the briefing room listed in that dossier and you'll find the rest of your team. Your team leader will get you up to speed."

Dash blinked, then narrowed her eyes.

"That's it?"

The hedgehog gave her a dry stare.

"Yes. Move along."

Rainbow Dash nodded and then backed out of the dreary office, clutching her dossier tightly as she headed for Briefing Room 22B.

Shadow slumped back into his seat and watched the clock's second hand make a few short, quick jumps. This forced the minute hand to move, which forced Shadow to slide out of his seat and drag himself to the corner workstation computer, where he clocked out.

I really need this break.

He walked to the end of the hall and tossed himself into an elevator, beginning to think up strategies for the upcoming game. He wasn't going to bet all of his bottlecaps on one hand, not again.

"I just want to know why I'm stuck with you," growled Elsa. She wrinkled her nose at the Vocaloid that sat across the table from her.

Miku smiled innocently and kept on singing. "Wah-oh, wah-oh, stuck on you, you and me baby we're stuck like-" Elsa was glaring at her in a manner that convinced her to stop.

"That's enough from the both of you," snapped Jotaro from underneath his cap. He had his feet kicked up on the table and his hat pulled down over his eyes, but evidently he was paying attention. He pulled the brim of the cap up a little and shot disgusted looks at the other two. "Good grief. You're like a bunch of amateurs."

"I'd be more professional if she wasn't singing all day," Elsa snarled. "It gets really annoying really fast. At first you think you can put up with it, but then it starts wearing you down, the j-pop and the nightcore and the death metal and the Eurobeat and eventually you just can't take it anymore!"

The young man frowned. "You're overreacting. Not only is Miss Hatsune a fine individual, but her singing abilities are incredibly useful. Observe."

He swung his feet off the table, stood up, and clearly announced. "Miku, shuffle playlist 'Michael Jackson'."

The Vocaloid smiled, nodded, and proceeded into her own version of "Bad". Jotaro nodded along to the beat, turning to Elsa.

"See? That's good stuff."

The door slid open, and a pegasus floated awkwardly outside, a folder in hoof.

"Umm… is this 22B?"

Jotaro looked back over his shoulder and commanded, "Miku, pause." He then turned to the newcomer. "Yes, this is 22B. I assume you're Rainbow Dash, then?"

"Well, I don't mean to brag, or anything," she said, flying a little loop through the air, then striking a pose. "But I totally am."

Jotaro rolled his eyes. "Yes, you are. Rainbow Dash, welcome to TDA Group 7."

Dash landed at an open chair across the table from Jotaro.

"So you guys are Trans-Dimensional Analysts, then?"

"Yep," sighed Elsa. "And we've got a mission coming up. You'll be our fire support."

"Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh, YES!" squealed Rainbow Dash. "What are we going to do?!"

"We'll be infiltrating the Nexus of Carcosa," explained Jotaro.

YES! AWESOME! THESE ARE THE BEST!

"And recording some readings about the dimension's resonant frequencies, or something."

The Pegasus' enthusiasm deflated.

"Aw, man. I thought it was going to be cooler than that."

Jotaro shook his head. "No, it'll be plenty interesting. Nothing ever as easy as it should be around here. Or, rather, in there. Or… oh, this is too confusing. You know what I meant."

"Yes, sir."

While the mundane description of the mission had put a damper on her excitement, Rainbow Dash realized that all was not lost. Like Jotaro said, nothing ever went exactly as planned. After all, her last mission into the Nexus nearly got her impaled. But, the danger was part of the fun. Hopefully, this would turn out just as dangerous.