Well... if you all wanted to know where I disappeared to for over six months, now you know. This is my special project that I suspended all other work fo
Why, you may ask, did I rewrite this story? I had a few reasons, honestly, foremost among them being simple writing experience. Another was that I'd come to dislike the whole "11th Fleet" angle of the original. Then I had issues with the Murakumo in retrospect. Reine was a Mary Sue, which shouldn't come as a surprise; I was still inexperienced enough at the time to be writing Mary Sues left and right.
But I like to think that things have changed. What needed to be reworked on the original version was just too much to simply modify it, so I decided to rewrite the story instead. The premise is the same, but I feel I've improved it quite a bit. I was originally gonna post this on Friday, but between school, my plans for the weekend, and the disastrous state-wide flood that has cut off my home (cars can't get to my house, and the only route in and out is a 40 minute hike) and forced my family to evac (seriously, can't we have one year without a disaster?!), I decided to go ahead and post this a little early. The second chapter will be posted Friday of next week, and I plan to update this every Friday at least until I'm caught up to where the original left off.
There are a lot of changes to the story. Regardless of anything else, I hope you all come to enjoy the final vision as much as you enjoyed the original one.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED or any of the related characters or mecha. I claim ownership over all original mecha and the majority of OCs in the story. Some OCs belong to another fanfiction author, used with permission.
"Kira!" came a soft call. The boy spun around to see a young girl with pink hair running towards him. She launched herself at him, and he caught her, wrapping her in a hug. "I missed you."
"You act like its been years, not weeks," the boy joked somewhat weakly.
"With how things are right now, every week feels like a year," said the girl with a slight frown. The boy sighed and nodded in agreement.
Year 70 of the Cosmic Era; tensions were mounting between Earth and the ZAFT organization. Due to the Bloody Valentine tragedy, these tensions suddenly escalated into a full-scale war. It seemed a foregone conclusion that the Earth Forces, with its superior numbers, would be victorious. But these initial assessments proved to be false. Almost eleven months have passed since the conflict began… with no end in sight.
Phase One: The Beginning
January 25th, Cosmic Era 71
Heliopolis Colony, Lagrange Point 3, Colony of the Orb Union
Heliopolis was an aging, island three-type colony, constructed by the neutral Orb Union at Lagrange Point 3, directly opposite the orbit of Luna, the Earth's moon. Construction of the colony began in Cosmic Era 30, and was completed a few years later. Although it couldn't reproduce the sort of lush natural environments that the newer PLANT colonies of L5 could, it still possessed a beautiful environment.
And it was perhaps the most peaceful location in all of space.
The PLANTs of L5 were the homeland of the ZAFT organization, which was born for the purpose of establishing independence for the PLANTs from their sponsor nations. The colonies of L1, L2, and L4 had all belonged to various Earth nations involved in the conflict, and had almost all collapsed during the eleven months of conflict. A few were still intact, but abandoned, and the neutral lunar city of Copernicus was too close to the Earth Alliance Force's Ptolomaeus lunar base to be able to truly relax, as the people of Heliopolis could. Despite the presence of the nearby Eurasian military satellite Artemis, the base held no strategic significance—even civilians knew that—and had been entirely ignored by ZAFT up to this point.
The present conflict was beyond the scope of the previous World Wars, involving not only almost all of Earth, but space as well. This made neutral nations, especially the small but surprisingly powerful Orb Union, a virtual paradise.
The Orb Union was also well known for their acceptance of Naturals and Coordinators alike, a fact which drew the Yamatos, with their First Generation Coordinator son Kira, to the Heliopolis colony from Copernicus city.
And it was for the purpose of visiting Kira that Lacus Clyne, daughter of the Chairman of the PLANT Supreme Council, was now at Heliopolis.
"Couldn't you have asked the professor to take some time off?" asked Lacus, pouting slightly as Kira typed away on his laptop. "I visit as often as I can, but it isn't easy getting here, and I don't have long."
"I know," said Kira, smiling apologetically, "and I did ask him, but he wouldn't budge. Said this stuff was top priority." Lacus sighed.
"Fine," she said. "But could you hurry it up a little?"
"I'll try."
With that Kira turned his attention back to his work, holding the documents in one hand and typing away rapid-fire on his laptop keyboard with the other as a news report played in the laptop background. While Kira focused on his work, Lacus focused on what she was hearing, as the report was on the war, though possibly a little out of date.
Fighting near Kaohsiung? She wondered if Lily was there.
A moment later, a mechanical green bird glided into the gazebo and landed on the monitor of Kira's laptop. The bird chirped slightly, tilting its head as it did so. A ball-shaped pink robot started rolling a little wildly on the table.
"Haro! Haro!" said the robot; it hardly ever said anything besides its name like that. The robotic bird, Tori, turned to Haro and chirped, tilting its head a bit more. Suddenly, Haro's eyes began to flash. "Haro! Lacus! Run!"
Kira groaned when he heard that; Haro only did that when…
"Kira!" came the voice of Tolle Koenig, one of Kira's friends. Kira looked up and smiled slightly, but internally, he was weeping, for this was almost a certain sign that Professor Kato had more work to dump on Kira. Still, he would hope for the best…
"So, this is where you've been hanging out with your girlfriend," said Tolle. Kira and Lacus both blushed slightly, but Tolle just barreled on. "Professor Kato's been trying to get a hold of you."
"What, again?" moaned Kira.
"He asked us to bring you to him right away," said Miriallia Haw, Tolle's girlfriend. "Well, are you assisting him on something else?"
"Too much!" complained Kira. "I still haven't even finished going through the stuff he dumped on me yesterday." Kira slouched back, sighing.
"That's pretty rude of you, doing all this work when Lacus is visiting," said Mir.
"I asked for a break, but the professor refused," retorted Kira.
"Well, you are the best student at the college," said Tolle, smiling slightly. "At any rate, let's get going."
"You come along too, Lacus," said Mir, grabbing the pink-haired girl's hand.
ZAFT Nazca-class Destroyer Vesalius, Flagship of the Le Creuset Team
Athrun Zala sighed as he pulled on the gloves of his pilot suit; he had some serious reservations about the upcoming mission. There were so many things that could go wrong with this mission, including the very real possibility that the information was false, that the mobile suits in the images were Orb machines and unrelated to the Alliance. They were juggling with grenades, several of them high-yield, and hoping to snatch the gem among them and run for it before they went off.
It didn't help that the very idea of Orb helping the Alliance seemed off to him to begin with. Why would they do it? Even if doing so could accelerate Orb's own mobile suit development, it made more sense to remain strictly neutral and just quietly develop the weapons while everyone else ignored them.
"What's wrong Athrun?" asked Yzak Joule. Athrun turned slightly to glance at his teammate.
"Yzak…"
"You look nervous," said Yzak. "That's not like you."
"Sneaking into Heliopolis is going to be too easy," said Dearka Elsman as he finished closing the collar of his pilot suit. "The possibility that we would launch an attack hasn't occurred to them in their wildest dreams." He gave Athrun a slightly mocking smile. "You're not chicken, are you Athrun?"
"That's enough, Dearka!" said Nicol Amalfi, coming up behind Dearka with Rusty Mackenzie right behind him. "This is a dangerous and important mission! We can't let our guard down simply because Orb is a neutral nation!"
"Nicol is right," cut in a new voice suddenly, drawing the attention of the five pilots to a tall, masked blond wearing a white ZAFT commander's uniform.
"Commander Le Creuset…" muttered Yzak, surprised to see their enigmatic commander here.
"This mission is of great significance," said Rau. "The Earth Forces have developed new prototype mobile weapons at a colony of the neutral Orb Union, and under no circumstances should this be treated lightly. The success or failure of this mission could have a tremendous impact on the rest of the war." Rau paused, studying his subordinates, and gave a slight nod as he concluded that any joking attitude had vanished.
"The fate of ZAFT rests on your shoulders," he said. "We're counting on you."
The five ZAFT Reds snapped to attention, saluting their commander without any hesitation.
"Yes sir! For the glory of ZAFT!"
Heliopolis
"So, what's Professor Kato researching at Morgenroete?" asked Tolle as the group headed to an elecar station.
"Hmm… I think he's developing some new operating system," said Kira off-handedly. Lacus perked up slightly at that, wondering if maybe it was a Natural-use mobile suit OS; no doubt, Orb wouldn't want to rely entirely on the handful of Coordinators in their military to pilot mobile suits if the nation were attacked.
"Maybe?" questioned Tolle, glancing at Kira. "You mean you don't know what you're helping with?"
"That's so typical of you," muttered Mir in exasperation.
"Hey, Kira's just an assistant student," said Lacus, coming to her childhood friend's defense. "It's not like he'd be told everything."
"Exactly," said Kira, nodding slightly. "Besides, making inquiries would probably just get me saddled with more work, and Lacus can't stick around much longer."
"So there's an excuse," said Mir. "It doesn't change the fact that this is typical behavior for you. Most people would want to know more."
Except that if this is related to Morgenroete's weapons development, I probably don't want to be more involved than I am, thought Kira.
"I'm telling you it's not what you think!" came a voice ahead of them, drawing the group's attention to a trio of girls walking their way, a blue-eyed redhead in a pink dress leading the way.
"Then what is it?" asked a brunette with pigtails.
"It's none of your business!" said the redhead.
"Flay…" muttered Kira, slightly surprised. Lacus frowned slightly, falling a little behind Kira, but Tolle and Miriallia didn't notice.
"Oh, Miriallia!" said the brunette suddenly—Misha, if Kira recalled correctly. Her words alerted the redhead, Flay Allster, and the third member of the group, a black-haired girl named Jessica, to the presence of Kira and his friends. Flay's eyes immediately settled on Lacus, and the redhead seemed to recoil ever so slightly away, but only Kira and Lacus herself noticed.
"Did you hear?" asked Misha, rushing over to Miriallia. "Flay got a love letter from Sai Argyle!"
"Huh? From Sai?!" gasped Mir in surprise. The words jarred Flay out of her apparent stupor as she stepped forward, a partial glare on her face.
"Come on, this has nothing to do with Miriallia!" she said as firmly as she could manage.
"Why don't you just say yes?" asked Misha. "He's not all that bad or anything, right?"
"It's not that…"
"Isn't Sai her fiancé?" whispered Lacus to Kira. The brunet nodded slightly.
"Yeah, it was a parental arrangement, a lot like you and Athrun," he whispered back. Lacus nodded slightly as a car drove past the group on the otherwise deserted road.
"I wonder why he'd write a love letter…"
ZAFT Transport Pod
"We have now arrived at the Block Six Maintenance Hatch," said the comm. officer, alerting the pilots that they'd reached their mission point. Athrun looked to Nicol, who was nearest the hatch, and nodded.
Nicol nodded back before unsealing the hatch and opening it, giving the Le Creuset Team pilots an unobstructed view… of a decrepit colony block that definitely had seen better days. Athrun raised a hand and waved the team out the hatch while five other soldiers in green pilot suits emerged from the other transport pod.
The main mission plan called for the Reds to capture the enemy weapons, but with a presumed five weapons and only five Reds available, there was just too much chance of them getting killed. The regular soldiers were there to safeguard the Reds and pick up the slack if something was off with their Intel. They all knew that anyone who didn't capture a machine probably wouldn't make it out alive, and if they did it would probably only be through capture, but they'd all volunteered anyways.
Athrun glanced at his watch, waiting for the scheduled time. These hatches were used almost daily, and at an appropriate time, they would automatically open, shutting down their sensor lasers. It was a relic of the time when Heliopolis had been built and more automation had been needed to maintain the colony. If they encountered any maintenance workers, they'd have to kill them, so Athrun hoped they were running a little late today.
Athrun's watch lit up, just as he'd set it to do, and the maintenance hatch opened. The atmosphere had already been vented, and the ZAFT soldiers briefly caught sight of the sensor lasers as they deactivated.
Immediately, all ten soldiers headed inside.
Heliopolis Technical College
The door of Professor Kato's lab opened, admitting Kira and his friends.
"Ah… I see you finally gave in," said Sai Argyle, Kira's bespectacled best friend, and about the only one in their circle who was a match for Kira intellectually.
"Hey, I thought it was just supposed to be Kira," said Kuzzey Buskirk, another member of their circle.
"You got a problem with us being here Kuzzey?" demanded Tolle irritably. Lacus and Mir noticed someone standing off to the side wearing a brown jacket and hat.
"The professor added this to the workload," said Sai, handing Kira a computer disk.
"Thanks," muttered Kira. Sai pushed his glasses up slightly.
"I tried convincing him to wait or let me handle it, since Lacus was here visiting, but the professor wouldn't budge. It seems this stuff is even higher priority than we realized."
"Thanks for that," said Kira, much more genuinely this time. Sai was Kira's best friend, the most gifted Natural Kira had ever met, and the only person outside of Kira's family to know Lacus's real identity, though there was no hiding her Coordinator heritage.
"Who's that?" asked Mir softly, motioning towards the person standing off to the side.
"Oh… she's a guest of the professor's," said Sai. "She was told to wait here until he had time to properly discuss something with her."
"Hmmm…"
Morgenroete Interior Dock #1
The ZAFT forces had finished laying explosives throughout the dock, taking advantage of the zero-g environment to move about in almost complete silence. They were now heading to an access hatch that would let them enter the main colony.
"Heh… I can only imagine the looks of shock on their pacifist faces," said Yzak lowly. Athrun frowned, glancing at his teammate before looking forward.
I wasn't hoping for war, but I'm here fighting one anyways, Athrun thought to himself. Kira… where are you now? What is it that you think of this war of ours?
The thought left a bitter taste in Athrun's mouth.
Professor Kato's Lab
Kira had just been preparing to leave the lab after determining he didn't need to stay to work on the additional stuff when the colony shook from tremors, knocking almost everyone off their feet, though Kira and Lacus managed to keep their balance without much trouble.
"W-what's going on?" asked Mir fearfully as the tremors subsided.
"A meteoroid?" suggested Sai, rushing over to the door. "Come on, if the colony's shaking this bad, we should probably get to a shelter."
"Damn, why at this time?" muttered Kira as everyone followed after Sai. The lights in the hallway were out, but there was enough light filtering in for them to see by. Sai walked over to the door to the staircase and opened it, seeing people walking up the stairs, though it was obvious that they were scared as well.
"What's this all about?" asked Sai.
"I don't know!" said one of the men as he continued up the stairs, but another paused.
"We're under attack by ZAFT," he said as the students gasped in shock, "some of their mobile suits have entered the colony!"
The blonde girl who'd been waiting for Kato gasped slightly before suddenly running off.
"Hey you!" called Kira, running off after her.
"Kira!" called Lacus.
"I'll be right back!" shouted Kira, even as Lacus took off after him. After running along the corridor for a minute or two, Kira finally caught to the girl and grabbed her arm.
"What are you doing?" asked Kira. "It's a dead-end there." Lacus caught up to the two.
"Stop tailing me!" she growled back. "Better get out of here and hook back up with the others."
At that instant, another explosion occurred, as the corridor behind the three collapsed, sending a blast of air their way and knocking the hat off the girl, fully revealing her shoulder-length blonde hair and feminine features. Once the dust settled, Kira looked back behind them.
"Go back already," said the blonde. "I have to check up on something on my own."
"Easy for you to say," said Kira, turning back to her. "In case you didn't notice, the corridor behind us has collapsed." The blonde glared at him.
"Let's see…" muttered Kira. He grabbed the blonde's hand, knowing it would be the only way to get her to follow, and started running. "Here, this way."
"Let go of me you jerk!" said the blonde.
"Jerk?" muttered Kira questioningly.
"I just never thought we'd get… involved," she said, looking away. Lacus looked at her sadly as the three ran down the corridor.
"Don't worry, we'll be okay," said Kira. "There are still shelters left in the factory district."
After another minute of running, the three emerged onto an upper walkway, and saw something that made them all stop.
Two mobile suits, of a design like none they'd ever seen or heard of before, lay on the ground in trailers, waiting to be moved. A gunfight between what seemed to be factory workers defending the trailers and attacking ZAFT soldiers was raging around the two machines.
"What… hey those are…?" murmured Kira. The blonde suddenly dropped to her knees, shaking her head and gripping the rail.
"I knew it," she said. "The Earth Forces prototype mobile weapons." Tears formed in her eyes. "Father, I knew you betrayed us all!" she cried, drawing the attention of one of the soldiers. Kira saw it and grabbed the blonde, dragging her away as Lacus followed.
"Crying won't help you!" said Kira. "Come on now, run!"
"Very impressive," muttered Yzak as he got the first prototype to stand up. "Dearka, how about yours?"
"Great," said Dearka from the cockpit of the second machine. "Update activated. Nerve links reconstructed. Calibrations set. It'll move." As he said that, he moved it into a standing position as well.
"And Nicol?" asked Yzak.
"Not yet," said Nicol as he typed away, adjusting the OS settings on the third mobile suit. "Almost there." No sooner had he said that then he finished and his machine stood as well.
"Where are Athrun and Rusty?" asked Dearka. "Taking their time…"
"Heh, I don't think they'll have any trouble," said Yzak, smiling. "Let's stick with the plan. We'll leave with these three. Let's get them to Commander Le Creuset before they get damaged." With that said, Yzak activated the thrusters on his captured machine and lifted off, Dearka doing the same seconds later. Nicol frowned, wondering if maybe they should go support Athrun and Rusty, but decided they probably didn't need it, and lifted off as well, following the other two as they headed for the harbor exit.
Meanwhile, Kira had finally led the two girls to a shelter. He activated the intercom.
"See, some people have evacuated here," said Kira as a response came to the signal sent.
"Is there still someone out there?" asked someone inside the shelter.
"Yes, my friends and I need to get inside," said Kira. "Please, open the door."
"Friends? You mean there's more than one of you?" said the voice.
"That's right," said Kira. The voice was silent for a minute. Then…
"We're filled to capacity already," the guy said. "There's shelter thirty-seven in the left block, can you make it there?"
Kira stood straight, looking over at the damage.
"Please, take one of my friends at least," said Kira. "They're just girls. You have capacity for at least one more, right?"
There was a moment of silence, during which Lacus turned her gaze on Kira.
"Yeah, okay," came the voice. "Sorry we couldn't get all of you." The door opened and Kira looked at the blonde.
"Get in," he said. She looked at him, confused. Not having the time to waste, he grabbed the blonde, throwing her into the shelter elevator.
"What are you… I can't…" she said.
"Get in, will you?" said Kira, securing her inside. "We'll go to the other side. Don't worry, okay? Hurry!" With that, he shoved her fully inside.
"Wait, don't do it!" said the blonde, but it was too late as the elevator carried her away.
With the blonde gone, Lacus turned her gaze on Kira.
"I hope you're not implying that girls need to be coddled, much as we may love it," she said. Kira glanced at her and smiled slightly.
"Not at all, but it got them to open up and got her in there," he said. "Now come on, let's get going." With that, Kira grabbed her hand and the two ran off, searching for another shelter to escape on.
As they ran along the catwalks of a factory, though, they spotted something that gave them pause.
"Another mobile suit…" Kira whispered. Suddenly, they heard an explosion both in front of and behind them.
"Kira…" whispered Lacus, gripping his shirt. Kira looked back at the standing, gray mobile suit.
"We have no choice," he said softly, as much to himself as to her. "Come on Lacus… we'll need to get out of here on that machine."
The two ran along the catwalk until they reached the open hatch of the machine. Clambering in, Kira took the pilot's seat, while Lacus climbed behind it. Kira closed the hatch, booting up the CPU on the mobile suit.
"What's that?" asked Lacus. Kira looked at the screen in front of him to see some sort of OS display.
MOBILE SUIT OPERATION SYSTEM
/Version NV8 – N099/
General
Unilateral
Neuro – Link
Dispersive
Autonomic
Maneuver
G.U.N.D.A.M. Synthesis System
Astray Unit Zero-One "Sakura"
Orb Self-Defense Force
"Gun… dam?" whispered Kira. He shook his head and began looking over the OS, eyes widening.
"Wha…? They want to fly this thing with an OS like this?!" he cried. He shook his head, made some minor modifications, and then grabbed the controls. "Hang tight Lacus. I'm getting us out of this place before it blows. Depending on what happens, I might need to recalibrate the OS afterwards."
"Okay Kira," said Lacus, trusting him with every fiber of her being.
"Rusty failed," said Athrun over the radio to Miguel Aiman, a ZAFT ace and mentor to Athrun. "The last machine has been boarded by an Earth Forces officer." Who Athrun had tried to kill, but he'd run out of ammo and tried to do it with a combat knife; to his misfortune, she still had ammo, and had put a bullet in his leg.
"What?" gasped Miguel before turning his attention to the stumbling gray machine that woman had boarded. Miguel fired a few rounds from his machine gun at it, watching it stumble. Then, he put his rifle away and pulled out his GINN's sword. "Alright then, I'll capture this machine. Athrun, go ahead and make sure you get yours out of here."
With that, as Athrun began making some OS modifications, Miguel charged the grey machine ahead of him, easily evading the bullets spat from its CIWS guns, and swung the sword. The machine brought its arms up to block, and suddenly shifted color, turning a brilliant white, blue, and red.
"What in the world?"
"They're all equipped with a system known as Phase Shift armor," said Athrun as he continued to type away, recalibrating the OS to something that was at least sufficient for proper movement. "Once activated, it renders virtually all physical attacks useless." Athrun activated his own Phase Shift, turning the Aegis a brilliant red. He then used the CIWS guns to destroy a few incoming missiles, as well as an artillery truck.
"You've gotta get out of here now," said Miguel, "you can't stick around this place forever." Athrun nodded, and was just about to leave when there was another explosion from elsewhere in the factory district… and another mobile suit emerged, this one with a huge backpack attached.
"Huh? Another one?" questioned Miguel as Athrun stared at it in shock. "Damn it… okay, change of plans: Athrun, see if you can subdue that one real quick."
Within the new arrival, Kira and Lacus quickly took stock of the situation.
"Those two mobile suits from the factory," muttered Lacus.
"And a GINN as well," said Kira. "The colors of those machines are different from before though; I wonder why." Kira scanned the three mobile suits in front of him. The white machine seemed to be stumbling about and was under attack from the GINN, while the red one turned to face Kira, its posture indicating that the pilot wasn't struggling at all. Kira gulped slightly as the implications of that hit him.
"ZAFT has that red machine," muttered Lacus. Kira nodded slightly, and the red mobile suit suddenly charged at them. Kira ran on his instincts, and sent his stolen machine into the air, putting half his attention back on breaking down and rebuilding the OS as he did so. It didn't take long before Kira was finished, his evasion obviously annoying the pilot of the red machine.
"Let's see… weapons…" whispered Kira as he brought up the equipment listing. He saw one piece of equipment listed as Phase Shift Armor with a few small notes about what it did, and pressed the button to activate it before returning his attention to the other equipment. "Vulcans… beam sabers?"
As Kira reviewed the equipment, the PS armor took effect on his machine, the gray mobile suit taking on new colors as its body and backpack turned white and the central torso turned black.
The red mobile suit charged forward again, reaching out to grab the head of Kira's borrowed unit, but the young engineer leapt back, drawing one of the beam sabers stored on the backpack and rushed forward again, swinging the saber down on his opponent.
"What the hell?!" demanded Athrun of no one in particular as he leapt back, amazed by the unit's evasiveness and caught off-guard by the weapon it had drawn.
Taking advantage of this, Kira finished his quick-build of the OS and reexamined the equipment of his "borrowed" machine, the Astray White Frame "Sakura". The Phase Shift armor system apparently rendered the machine virtually immune to physical blows of any kind, but didn't work well on beam weapons. It was supposed to carry a shield with an anti-beam coating to compensate, but Kira hadn't grabbed it—or some of the other weapons it apparently equipped.
Well, he'd just have to make do and drive off his opponent before the guy pulled out a beam weapon of his own.
"Hold on Lacus… sorry about this," said Kira as he shifted the Sakura's footing.
"It's okay," said Lacus softly.
Moving swiftly, Kira rushed forward and thrust the saber at the head of the red mobile suit, and the pilot stumbled back—apparently, his OS was still closer to the funky one Kira had started with then it was to the operational one Kira had now.
A brief tussle was all it took before the red machine ran for it.
"Miguel, something's wrong," said Athrun. "This new machine is moving perfectly and has Phase Shift as well; we should probably withdraw for now."
"I think you're right," answered Miguel, leaping into the air and shooting off after Athrun.
In the Strike, the white and blue mobile suit Miguel had been attacking, Murrue Ramius let out a sigh of relief. She turned her attention to the newcomer, wondering where it had come from. However, she was grateful for its assistance—she wouldn't have survived this otherwise.
Her adrenaline wearing off, Murrue hissed slightly as the pain in her arm returned to her. That last ZAFT Red, the one who captured the Aegis, had managed to land a bullet in her left bicep, though she was satisfied with having given him a leg wound in return.
Keying the radio to an open channel, Murrue sent a message to the unknown machine.
"I don't know who you are," she said, "but thank you for the assistance." Murrue glanced around. "If you don't mind, I'd like to speak to you face-to-face." With that, she began moving the Strike rather clumsily over to a nearby park. She stumbled, nearly toppling over, but the white machine suddenly rushed next to her and caught the Strike, carrying it the rest of the way and helping move it into a kneeling position. Even though she knew it was mostly due to the incomplete OS, Murrue couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed by that.
Shaking her head slightly to clear away those thoughts, Murrue deactivated the PS armor before shutting the Strike the rest of the way down and opening the hatch. The unknown knelt down in front of her and opened its own hatch as she stepped out.
The two people to emerge from the new machine had Murrue blinking in surprise.
They were two of the teenagers she'd spotted earlier while defending the Strike: a brown-haired boy and a pink-haired girl, both about sixteen years old, by Murrue's estimate. What were they doing in a mobile suit? Although, maybe they could explain that machine to her; sighing, Murrue waved them over to her.
"You two!" she called. "Thanks for your assistance." The boy nodded while the girl gave a slight smile, before frowning as she looked over the damage.
"Kira!" came a boy's voice suddenly. The three spun around and saw a group of teenagers running over to them frantically. The lead one, a boy with brown hair, panted slightly.
"What… what's going on? What were you doing in that mobile suit anyway?" he asked.
"Lacus and I got stuck in the factory," said Kira. "We came across this mobile suit, and decided to use it to escape." Murrue blinked.
"Wait, so you don't know anything about it either?" she questioned incredulous. The teenagers all turned to her.
"We thought you would," said Lacus. "You're with this mobile suit after all."
"I know about this machine and the ones captured by ZAFT…" said Murrue slowly, "but I don't know anything about the machine you were in."
Kira and Lacus looked at each other. They remembered what that blonde girl had said when they came across the first mobile suits, as well as what the Sakura OS had said.
"You're with the Alliance," said Kira, looking back to Murrue.
"Yes," said Murrue, seeing no point in denying it. She looked them all over; they were civilians, and they'd seen the G-weapons, but… well, it wasn't like there was any real secret anymore. "We never wanted Heliopolis to get involved… at least, not like this. We just wanted Morgenroete to help us build the machines and then leave quietly, but…" She looked around, letting out a sigh. "Well, we can all see the results of that."
Everyone else sighed as well. Murrue looked them all over. "Listen, you should all get to the shelters quickly, so…"
"We haven't been able too," said the brown-haired girl. "Everywhere we've managed to reach so far has been full…"
"I see," said Murrue uncertainly. "Well… I guess we'll just have to stick together until we can find a shelter for you." She glanced between the two mobile suits. "We'll probably need to rely on these things for the time being. I'm guessing we can't recharge the battery on the one you had, but the one I have, the Strike, can be recharged with external power, so we should try to retrieve one of those. Meanwhile, we can try to call for assistance."
"From who?" asked Kira, shifting just slightly between Murrue and Lacus, but only Sai and Lacus herself took notice.
"Under the circumstances, the Earth Forces may be our best bet," said Murrue.
"I see…" said Kira softly.
"Excuse me ma'am, but who are you?" asked Lacus suddenly. Murrue blinked, realizing she hadn't introduced herself.
"Murrue Ramius, a lieutenant in the Earth Forces," she said. "And yourselves?"
"I'm Kuzzey Buskirk," said the blue-haired teen.
"Sai Argyle," said the one with orange glasses.
"Tolle Koenig," said the brown-haired boy who'd reached them first.
"Miriallia Haw," supplied the girl. Murrue's eyes went to the two that had emerged from the unknown machine.
"Kira Yamato," said Kira, supplying his last name to Murrue.
"Lacus Hirano," said the rosette. Murrue nodded slightly, and then set them to work.
The Vesalius
"Sir, Rusty failed," came Athrun's voice over the radio. "An Earth Force's officer boarded the last prototype. Miguel was attempting to capture it when a sixth machine appeared."
"A sixth machine, you say?" questioned Rau. They hadn't heard of this.
"Yes sir," said Miguel. "I ordered Athrun to deal with it, but it was moving very differently. I think it has a completed OS, and the prototypes have some kind of armor that rendered my weapons useless, so we felt it was prudent that we both withdraw."
"Understood," said Rau. "That was a wise decision under the circumstances. Athrun, bring the captured unit aboard the Vesalius. I want everyone to withdraw for the time being and begin resupply; I'll head out myself to deal with the last mobile armor, and then investigate this… interesting scenario."
Heliopolis
Kira had attempted—and failed—to contact any Earth Forces still remaining, but with the low power in both the Strike and Sakura, he couldn't cut through the interference. So, instead, while Sai and the others went to retrieve the trailers holding what Murrue called "Striker packs", which apparently contained extra equipment for the Strike, Kira had begun to dissect the Sakura's mainframe for information.
It didn't take him long to decide not to bring up most of it with Murrue for the time being—this machine was apparently the first in a series of five mobile suits developed with the same technology as the Earth Forces machines. It had two batteries, one in the machine proper and the other contained within its backpack, called the Astray Flight System, hardwired directly to the Sakura itself, which apparently allowed the Phase Shift to extend to the backpack as well.
During this time, he'd done some fine-tuning, but after informing Murrue of a few details he'd learned and explaining that the Sakura was low on power, she'd given him permission to replace the Strike's OS with the one from the Sakura so that he could use it if another attack came before they found friendly forces; Kira hadn't informed her of the details on why the Sakura's OS was complete.
Needless to say, Kira wasn't very happy about the chance of fighting again, but he wanted to be ready for it. He made short work of the Strike's OS as well, so it was now combat ready, but he was still fine-tuning it, just to be sure… and also hacking the mainframe for additional information while he was at it, such as the data on the Striker Packs.
"Kira?" came a soft voice. Kira looked up to see Lacus sitting outside the cockpit. "Do you think we'll be attacked again?" Kira sighed and nodded.
"Those two mobile suits got away," he said. "After all the trouble they've gone through… well, do you honestly expect them to just leave these last two machines alone?" Lacus frowned, but nodded as well.
"It's the Le Creuset Team," she said quietly, so no one but Kira could hear her. "He's the only one who would've done something like this. My father wouldn't have allowed this level of attack to befall a neutral colony." Kira sighed.
"Yeah…" he said in agreement with her comment about Siegel Clyne, "not sure if we can say the same for Athrun's father, though. Mrs. Zala did die at Junius Seven." Kira paused in his work as his hands clenched slightly. "Damn this… I hate war." Lacus smiled slightly.
"That's because you are you," she said, "and don't you ever forget it." Kira smiled back in response. Sai and the others pulled up in the trailers, Sai parking his next to the Strike. The students set to work attaching the Striker pack to the docking hardpoint on the machine's back.
"This would be faster on the Archangel," commented Murrue as they were finishing attaching the Striker pack.
"Archangel?" questioned Lacus, but Murrue didn't answer.
Just then, a hole was blown out of the central shaft of the colony, drawing everyone's eyes up in shock as a silver-gray CGUE mobile suit flew out, pursued by a red Moebius Zero mobile armor. The two tussled briefly, until the CGUE severed the Zero's gun. It then shot down towards the inactive mobile suits.
Oh crap! thought Kira; fortunately, the Striker Pack locked fully into place, and Kira stood the Strike up, locking a glare on the CGUE above while activating the PS armor and doing a quick weapons check.
The entire colony shook suddenly, as it did when the attack began, and Kira looked up as a section near the harbor blew out… and from the smoke, a massive, white warship flew into the colony.
Author's Notes: So, what did you all think? There isn't a lot of change from the original version; some changes to Sai and Flay, but the big change is to the nature and backstory of Kira's mobile suit, replacing the GAT-X110 Murakumo with the MBF-P00 Astray White Frame "Sakura". I have some pretty hefty plans for what happens later, but for now, those are secondary concerns. Like after the latest disaster is over.
As an aside, I realized only while posting that I forgot to add in my usual descriptions. I'll add those later, but right now, I don't have access to my desktop and I'm operating off a laptop that hasn't been finished software-wise. It might be a little while before I can actually get that done, I'm not sure. For now, I hope you've all enjoyed this, and look forward to the coming chapters.
Please read and review! I know everyone's been eager to see this story live again, and frankly, I've been right there with them. Let me know what you all think, I have high hopes for this working out.