Oooh, love this!! I always love a good revenge plot and Seven does deserve to get beat down.
The only thing is that Melos and Seven shared very interesting interactions, so there are few points to consider:-
1. Melos was the one who told/ordered Seven to duel Fightas, knowing Seven would/could kill Fightas. Fightas did work with the enemy and get Marie and her squad kidnapped, even if it was just to get Seven to fight him. It’s very much criminal. Seven says earlier that he refuses to fight Fightas as if they do fight, one of them is going to die. Both Melos and Zoffy seem to know this, yet Melos requests Seven to fight him anyways — as after the fight, Melos simply waves and hauls his brother’s corpse away.
2. Seven was extremely reluctant to fight Fightas, even when he found out Marie was kidnapped (and Seven seemed quite protective over her in the manga). The person who got Seven to duel Fightas was in fact Melos, who comes to Seven’s shoulder “If you honour me, you’ll accept my brother’s challenge.” Do note that, like many iterations of Seven, this manga Seven is also characterised by questioning/resisting authority (mostly Zoffy lol). Until this day, I am not sure why that was the thing that made Seven fight Fightas.
3. Melos has only praised one person in the whole manga… and it’s Seven. Not gonna spoil too much of the untranslated part of the OG manga (as I plan to translate it, it’s my favourite part of the manga), but they do end up fighting together in a last stand in an enemy ship. Melos saves Seven before he gets pummelled by the enemy, but figures that they’ve lost and he just wants to save what’s left of their forces. It is Seven that, despite being a wreck (no joke he was crying), comes up with a solution to still destroy the enemy. And Melos actually praises Seven for this, rightfully so, but still surprising to read!
Bonus: it’s not shown, and avoiding spoilers, but there was a possibility that both Seven and Melos were in charge of running most of IGDF for some time… because everyone else was kinda not available lol. And I do mean everyone. Only for a short while though.
Basically, there’s some evidence that Melos likes what he sees in Seven… and all that defiance and brother-executing. If his mind got rewritten and was told Seven killed Fightas in cold blood, Melos would probably go “He lost to him in armour? Yeah, he deserves it. Not even gonna let Hikari revive him.” (That’s who revived Fightas in the sequel lol)
This could 100% happen though, as I think Melos would gladly fight Seven without the need to be brainwashed. Something about Melos’ team being small, even though Andromeda is a hotbed of alien activity. Something about Seven negotiating with the elders so Zero wouldn’t be exiled like Belial after touching the Spark. Something about Seven being subject to the elder’s whims because of it, killing who they want, guarding who they want — essentially losing that sense of agency and defiance that characterised Seven for much of his life.
Something about Melos looking at Seven’s situation, looking at his meagre resources and Zoffy’s luxury of a team, and blaming Zoffy for letting a competent ‘younger brother’ be devalued to this. Something about Zoffy going “he is simply paying back what he owes. Just like how you made your brother do.”
Something about Zoffy being turned into a tool as well — Melos had always hated it. Something about Melos always being a bit extreme — you have to be, if you’re going to watch over a galaxy and fight an age-old Jackal army with a handful of people at most. So extreme, he’d find Zero fighting some remains of the Jackal, and he’d stomp him out. Zero’s strong, but he’d be shocked at why a IGDF commander is attacking him. And that’s enough to knock him out, Melos always works best with surprise attacks. And when Seven rushes to get to Zero, Melos is there.
Melos would say, the Garrison wastes you. You’re just one of their million, and they turn you into a tool. They don’t value you, not like I do. And there is so much to do in Andromeda. There is so much purpose in Andromeda. Away from your eldest brother who’s let leadership eat his soul, away from your team who don’t care about you, away from the kid who did fine growing up without you. It’ll be like last time, when everyone abandoned their duties, when it was just us against the universe.
And Seven would simply punch him, due to his love for his brothers, and his son.
And well, Melos does not take rejection well lol
(I don’t think Melos would commit treason like his brother, but he is a man of extremes nevertheless — and internal restructuring is always part of politics)
(And also, I would love to see Zoffy and Zero beat the stuffing out of Melos on screen)
Always eager to hear about opinions because I will ALWAYS rant about these Showa idiots
Source: the Ultraman manga and the WIP of my Seven/Fightas fic
