Zechs Merquise
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In the fictional universe Gundam Wing, Zechs Merquise (German 6, pronounced "Zex Mar-key", but in Japanese,ゼクス・マーキス like "Zex Mar-kiss"), is a legendary Mobile Suit pilot, belonging to the OZ Faction. Renowned for his amazing skills in combat, his exploits earned him the title of the Lightning Count. A personal friend of OZ leader Treize Khushrenada, Zechs is often the commander of important missions, and receives his orders directly from Treize.
However, Zechs has a very important past. His real name is actually Milliardo Peacecraft, heir to the former kingdom of peace, the Sanc Kingdom. After the destruction of his homeland by Earth Forces, he donned his iconic mask, and left behind the name of Peacecraft, for his new moniker, Zechs Merquise. He is also the older brother of the pacifist hero, Relena Peacecraft, and the rival of Heero Yuy throughout the show.
Bio
- Real Name: Milliardo Peacecraft
- Aliases: Lightning Baron, Lightning Count, Preventer Wind
- Age: 19 (GW)
- Ethnicity: Northern European
- Birthplace: Sanc Kingdom
- Height: 184 cm
- Weight: 76 kg
- Eye Color: Blue
- Hair Color: Platinum Blond
- Mobile Suits: OZ-06MS Leo, OZ-07AMS Aries, OZ-00MS Tallgeese, XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero, OZ-13MS Gundam Epyon, OZ-00MS2B Tallgeese III
- Affilation: OZ, Sweepers, White Fang, Preventers
- Voice Actor: Brian Drummond (US) / Takehito Koyasu (Japan)
Method
Zechs is very much like Char Aznable from the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Both joined the organizations that killed their families for revenge, and both quickly moved up in rank within them. When the Alliance was overthrown by OZ, Zechs became OZ's undisputed top ace. However, OZ (a corporate subsidiary of the Romefeller Foundation) betrayed Zechs, at which point Zechs became something of a freelancer and fought for his own merit. He occasionally sided with various mercenaries until being offered a head seat of the White Fang Movement, the space colony's own army. Also, like Char, he wore a white mask.Zechs participated in the Eve Wars (After Colony 195), and upon the conclusion of hostilities, went missing and was presumed dead.
History
In this
The surviving terrorists retreated towards the Darlian estate. Zechs, leaving the defense of the base in the hands of Treize, pursued them. One of the fleeing terrorists encountered Relena, who had wandered away from her house. The terrorist then took Relena hostage, an act that was presumably one of the goals of the terrorist attack (The man told Relena, "I KNOW you're the Darlian's brat! Never thought...I'd find you so easily!"). While wondering whether she was going to die right there, Relena saw a "shooting star", which was Zechs approaching in his Aries. After the terrorist identified that his hostage was the Darlian girl, Zechs, recognizing Relena as his sister, dismounted his mobile suit. While the terrorist was gloating about his victory and his capture of the latest model Ares, Zechs shot his gun-wielding hand. He then allowed the man to flee, not wishing to kill in front of Relena. Zechs then began reminiscing about Relena's first steps, not realizing that he was still brandishing his gun. While holstering his weapon, Zechs reminded himself that he no longer had any right to even touch Relena because he had abandoned his Peacecraft name and his father's pacifistic ideals. He then addressed Relena as "princess" and asked her if she was alright. Relena, bewildered as to why she was being called a princess, asked Zechs if he was then a knight on a terrible dragon. Zechs replied that he was a "prince of the stars", and left.
Gundam Wing
After his first encounter with Wing Gundam, Zechs began searching for a mobile suit that can defeat a Gundam, and he has found one in the OZ-00MS Tallgeese (AKA "Prototype Leo"). Before he received the suit, he was involved with Operation Daybreak, in which OZ crushes the United Earth Sphere Alliance, and Zechs finally gets his revenge after he executed the commanding officer who was part of the destruction of the Sanc Kingdom. Zechs tried to pilot his newly-acquired Tallgeese during his attempt to liberate the Sanc Kingdom, but the Tallgeese's dangerously high thrust rate proved to be nearly fatal for the Lightning Baron, and he was forced to retreat. Eventually, Otto, Zechs' right-hand man, takes the Tallgeese against orders and crashes it into the Alliance base, destroying the base and killing himself in the process.
Zechs, now piloting the Tallgeese, finally dueled with the Wing Gundam in Siberia, but it was cut short after Lady Une threatened to shoot down the colonies unless the Gundam pilots surrender. Doctor J appears on the monitors, offering his and the Scientists' surrender instead. Zechs was shocked to discover that the pilot of the Wing Gundam was just a teenage boy, and that he self-destructed his Gundam in front of his eyes in response to the surrender. After that, Zechs quietly took away parts of the destroyed Wing Gundam and began to secretly rebuild it under OZ's nose. A couple of months later, Zechs learned that the Heero Yuy, the Wing Gundam pilot, was still alive, and he offered him a rematch at Antarctica, in which Heero accepts, piloting Trowa's Gundam Heavyarms instead. The rematch was again interrupted again, this time by Relena, who learns that Zechs was actually her older brother, Milliardo. Eventually, they were forced to flee, and despite his best efforts, Zechs was captured.
Zechs was forced to destroy numerous Alliance mobile suits during his execution, and at the end of the fight, Zechs' mask shatters, signaling the end of friendship with Treize and his relationship with OZ. Zechs was eventually taken in by Sweeper member Howard, and after he repaired and upgraded the Tallgeese, Howard suggested that he should go to space. Zechs heads off to space, and he encountered two new mobile suits, the Mercurius and the Vayete, piloted by Heero and Trowa, respectively. It was then where he introduced himself to the pilots as Milliardo Peacecraft, goodwill ambassador from the Sanc Kingdom.
After saving Lady Une when the Barge cannon was about to be fired at a colony she was staying at, and overhearing the colonial leaders' conversation that they believe that the only way to avoid war is to arm themselves and embrace OZ, Zechs dons the mask once again and begins destroying OZ mobile doll carriers in space, until he discovered that OZ was planning to destroy the Wing Gundam Zero, which they had confiscated. He engaged in battle with numerous mobile dolls, and he self-detonated his critically damaged Tallgeese upon arrival to the Wing Zero, where he managed to easily destroy any remaining mobile dolls with the Wing Zero.
After his brief encounter with an out-of-control Wufei, Zechs received disturbing news, when Relena announces that she is dissolving the Sanc Kingdom and surrendering herself to the Romefeller Foundation. Zechs immediately rushes back to the Sanc Kingdom, only to engage in battle with the new mobile suit, the Gundam Epyon, piloted by Heero Yuy. After the battle where the two were defeated simultaneously by their own advanced cockpit systems, Zechs and Heero agreed to trade their Gundams; therefore, Zechs becomes the new pilot of the Epyon.
Despite the new mobile suit, Zechs soon fell into a state of depression after seeing the Sanc Kingdom collapse once again, and felt that he had no use for it. A mysterious man named Quinze introduces himself, and offers Zechs to be the new leader of the colonial rebel faction, the White Fang. He accepts the offer. During his stint as the White Fang leader, Zechs single-handedly destroys the space station, Barge, with his Epyon; and uses White Fang's space battleship Libra to fire on a remote place on Earth (despite Relena's best efforts to try to talk him out of it), as a declaration of war to the recently-installed World Nation leader and former friend, Treize. The two former friends, now bitter enemies, would engage in the final battle of what is now known as the "Eve Wars". Zechs was now hell-bent on destroying Earth, when he decided to drop the heavily-damaged Libra onto Earth to cause an endless winter on Earth.
Zechs would engage in a final duel with Heero, this time to determine Earth's fate. Heero emerged victorious when he slices off the Epyon's left arm, proverbally drawing 'first blood' in duelling terms, but he decides to spare Zechs' life. Heero was about to self-destruct his Gundam in the main generator room, until Zechs intervenes, and destroys the generator himself, with the blast enveloping the Epyon. Zechs was presumed to be killed at this point, but Noin, at his grave, says that she didn't being flowers to his grave simply because she believes that Zechs is still out there somewhere.
Endless Waltz
In (AC 196) Zechs returned to what is now the Earth Sphere Unified Nation and volunteered to be a Mobile Suit (MS) pilot for 'Preventer' (an elite intelligence bureau designed to stop aggressive conflicts before they are executed) during the attempt to overthrow the government by ramming a Space Colony into Earth by Mariemaia Khushrenada, Treize's pre-adolescent daughter. He piloted the mobile suit OZ-00MS2B Tallgeese III, and began using the callsign 'Preventer Wind'. Zechs was one of the very few people who actively fought against Mariemaia's army, and it is worth noting that he was only seen to have been hit once in the entire fight, on the Talgeese III's shield. This was in order to protect his wingman and devotee, Lucrezia Noin. Had he fought alone, he may have escaped untouched. At the end of the conflict, Zechs disappeared once again with her, theorized by some to be his estranged lover, and (presumably) headed for Mars.
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