Mobile Haro SD Aerial
is a Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury fanfic by calumTraveler.
As part of a class assignment, Suletta modifies a Haro to allow Aerial to go to classes with her. What follows sees the plans of many, many groups completely upended.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
- Suletta starts to distrust Prospera much earlier than she did in canon after conversing with Aerial and realizing that her mom is keeping secrets from her for reasons beyond her own good.
- Ericht is canonically completely loyal to Prospera, or at least unable to act against her. Here, Prospera's actions and general character gradually turns Aerial against her mother, with the breaking point happening at Plant Quarta, since the only reason Earth House was at the plant was because Prospera required them to come in person to get the techology needed to save Elan-4 — something she could have easily delivered to them.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Norea is Ambiguously Bi in canon, having moments of Ship Tease with both Sophie and Elan-5. Here, due to Elan-5 being Adapted Out, she's confirmed as a lesbian. Aerial implies she's making out with Sophie while contacting Shaddiq in Chapter 24.
- Adapted Out: Due to Elan-4 being Spared by the Adaptation via very public Faking the Dead, Elan-5 never shows up.
- An Arm and a Leg: This is the title of Chapter 15, which shows that Prospera had to have a leg amputated after injuries in the prior chapter.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The Peil CEOs wanted to dispose of Elan-4 after he outlived his usefulness. When he appears to die, though, it's in a public duel with Guel, forcing them to declare the real Elan dead. Their efforts to find out what happened eventually results in their arrest.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The story is initially Lighter and Softer than canon Witch from Mercury, but things return to standard Gundam-levels of Grey-and-Grey Morality once the true nature of Aerial is revealed. Lampshaded by the author, who asks "Where did my fluffy Crack Fic about SD Aerial being a kid go?"
- Crack Fic: The story focuses on an SD version of Aerial being a kid. This is to be expected. Then we start learning about how Aerial was created, and the story gets grimmer and doesn't look back.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: While Elan-4 is able to avoid being vaporized by a mobile suit weapon for failing Peil Tech, the implants said company shoved into him eventually cause his body to start breaking down, and Earth House is unable to find a way to reverse this. They end up using the process that turned Ericht into Aerial to put his mind inside of Chu-Chu's mobile suit to allow him a chance to survive.
- Didn't See That Coming: Prospera wasn't expecting Suletta to give Aerial a miniature body. The knock off effects of this decision end up derailing several of her plans, as well as those of most of the other schemers in the Ad Stella timeline.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Miorine, Suletta, Guel, and Awrial reveal all of the dirty laundry of the Benerit Group in Chapter 24. While it's clear they did this for the sake of ending Sid group's war profiteering and abuse of Earth, it also has the side-effect of crippling all of GUND-ARM Inc.'s competition, as the company is too young to be involved in all of this and therefore is "clean" in the eyes of the public.
- For Want Of A Nail:
- Aerial noticing that Elan-4 was stalking Suletta leads to a confrontation, which in turn leads to Elan revealing his situation to Earth House. They agree to fake his death so that he can live in peace, and screw over Peil Tech by doing so in a public duel, forcing them to claim that Elan died in an accident.
- Peil's efforts to figure out how Enhanced Person Four died end up exposing the Enhanced Person project, resulting in the four CEOs and the real Elan Ceres being arrested.
- Due to Suletta having to help Miorone carry her father to safety, it's Aerial that kills a terrorist in front of Miorine, and this time Suletta is by her side. The circumstances of said killing (the terrorist jumps into the path of Aerial's attack out of desperation), alongside Aerial's own efforts to justify this, also lead to Miorine being more forgiving of the event.
- Everything from the Rumble Ring onwards is totally derailed after Sophie is captured alive, as Suletta, Miorine, Guel, and Erict put aside their differences and manage to expose all of the Benerit Group's dirty laundry (and that of the SLA as well), resulting in Shaddiq being arrested and his plans falling apart in minutes.
- Internal Reveal:
- Chapter 18 has Earth House learn the true origin of Aerial.
- Chapter 20, in turn, has them see the events of the series' prologue and finally figure out what motivates Prospera.
- Manipulative Bastard: Prospera, as in canon. She seems to have trouble not being this, as she tries manipulating Earth House and her daughters in Chapter 15, despite not only having frayed her relationship with both of them, but also being far less threatening due to recently losing a leg.
- Million to One Chance: During the duel between Earth House and Grassley House, Suletta has Nuno put a small bet on Earth House defeating Grassley House without suffering a single blemish to any of their Mobile Suits, with these exact odds. This leaves Earth House absolutely loaded after they pull off said victory.
- Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Prospera is definitely a member of the story's Big Bad Ensemble, but she can be very immature - besides renaming herself after the protagonist of The Tempest, her reaction to Suletta asking about what happened to her leg is to reference The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's
infamous 'Arrow to the Knee' line. Suletta even calls her out for using said meme ventures after it was popular. - Spared by the Adaptation:
- Elan-4 is given the Faking the Dead treatment by Earth House and eventually goes to Earth to live in peace. When it looks like his body rejecting his implants will kill him anyway, Earth House uses Brain Uploading to ensure his mind survives until they can get him a new body.
-
Word of God confirmed that Sophie's Gundam was disabled without killing her. Chapter 24 confirms this, with Shaddiq trying to free her before she spills on his plans.
- Villainous Breakdown: Shaddiq and Prospera both have epic breakdowns in Chapter 24 when Aerial uploads all of their dirty laundry onto the internet. Prospera has the added blow to her ego when Suletta and all of the Erict clones confront her over how she mistreated them, and is left completely at their mercy.
