"Serenaaaa! Come on already, we told Kira we would meet him 15 minutes ago!" yelled a orange-haired girl from the door to their joint dormitory.

"Just one more minute!" called a voice from the washroom. "There's no way I can leave without this," she said to herself as she clamped her angel-wing locket necklace around her neck. She stared into the mirror to see her large baby-blue eyes reflecting back at her, and double-checked her outfit; a black turtleneck sleeveless top with green skinny pants, paired with a brown belt and brown ankle boots with a 4-inch skinny heel. She had pointy front bangs all along her forehead, with two longer pieces framing the two sides of her face. She wore her long, pink hair open today, smiled at herself in the mirror and then walked out to meet her impatient friend in the doorway.

"I never understand how it takes you so long to get ready!" Miriallia sighed. "Now let's go."

The pink haired beauty smiled at her friend apologetically. "You couldn't give me an extra 10 minutes even on my birthday?"

"I think I've spoiled you more than enough for your birthday already. Besides, do you really want to keep Kira waiting after everything he's done for you today?"

Serena lightly giggled. The two friends walked towards the outdoor quad on the campus of the technical college where Kira was waiting for them. He had gotten impatient of waiting for the two to get ready and had said he was going to start on some work instead. It was a beautiful, sunny day in the colony of Heliopolis, a day where seemingly nothing could go wrong. Especially for Serena.

It was her 16th birthday and her friends and boyfriend had been showering her with surprises ever since the clock had struck midnight. She had gotten everything she wished for and it was days such as this that showed her how truly blessed and grateful she was for the people in her life. Even though her mother had been killed in the Junius 7 incident and her father was too busy with his work to spend time with her, she had never felt lonely because of the people in her life. Today was almost a perfect day; the only person missing was him. Athrun Zala.

The three friends met in their favourite park, under the cherry blossom trees for what would be the last time. Kira and Serena stood side by side with their arms linked, while Athrun stood across from them, holding a parting gift- a green robotic bird. Kira raised his arm that was linked with Serena's, and Athrun placed the bird in his hand. Serena smiled at the bird and then at Athrun.

"The Plants and Earth will see eye to eye, but there will be no war. The evacuation doesn't mean a thing," Athrun said with assurance.

The three friends did their signature, secret handshake and then all hugged. Serena looked up at Athrun with watery eyes.

"You'll be joining me later at the Plants, right?"

Serena remembered that day like it was yesterday. She longed to see her childhood best friend more than anything. That would have indeed made this the most perfect birthday by far.

As the two girls approached the quad, they saw a young, brown haired boy sitting in the gazebo, working away on his laptop. Alongside him was Miriallia's boyfriend Tolle, who were staring at his laptop eagerly. The green robotic bird that had been perched on Kira's head flew towards Serena, causing Kira to look up. Serena raised her hand in order to let the bird sit on it.

"Torii!"

"There you guys are, finally!" said Kira.

"Sorry, but your girlfriend here just wouldn't budge." Milly said accusingly.

"Oh, well if it was 'cause of Serena then that's fine, I understand. It is your birth-"

Milly cut him off. "Oh Kira not again! Can't you ever blame Serena? Your much too soft when it comes to her."

Kira blushed slightly. "Ah, well no it's not like that!" he said as he looked at his girlfriend. While they had been together for almost 11 months now, Kira still treated Serena as if he had first started dating her. He had been in love with her for as long as he could remember, and that was apparent to everyone.

"I'm surprised your not used to it yet Milly. I mean come on this happens like every day…" sighed Tolle jokingly.

"Hey what, not you too Tolle!" Kira was getting more flustered.

All the friends besides Kira laughed, and Serena just winked at him, causing him to blush more. She began to walk over to look at what Kira was working on, and saw that he had the news open in a separate window on his laptop. She narrowed her eyes when she saw the report of the ZAFT attacks on Kaohsiung.

"Kaohsiung huh?" Serena said. That wasn't very far from Orb, the country whom the satellite colony belonged too.

"Don't worry about it too much Serena, Orb's a neutral nation, I can't see it turning into a war zone. We should hurry up and go meet the professor and then we can go celebrate your birthday properly!" Tolle said.

Serena half-smiled at her friend and nodded.

"Hopefully he'll take her birthday into consideration before he dumps more work on us," sighed Kira. "I barely finished this stuff from yesterday. Serena how far did you get?"

"Oh, I finished it sometime yesterday afternoon," Serena replied casually.

"What?! All of it?! Serena you're just something else," Kira replied, shaking his head.

Serena just giggled and the friends left together to meet with their professor.

Outside of Heliopolis, an Earth Forces ship had just docked. The captain sighed with relief, as this was the ships final mission. It had all been possible thanks to the blonde haired lieutenant that had escorted them.

"It was my pleasure. But is it really okay to feel this relaxed? What about the ZAFT ships that were in this area?" Mu La Flaga asked with concern.

The captain snickered. "We've been tracking two of them, but there's really nothing to worry about now. They know they can't attack us since we've docked inside the colony."

"Because its neutral territory? What a joke that is." La Flaga replied.

"But it's thanks to them that our plans have progressed this far. Its fortunate that Earth has acknowledge Orb as a nation," said the captain.

Five soldiers wishing to be excused interrupted the conversation. Mu stared at them worriedly with his blue eyes as the captain dismissed them. To think such youngsters would be piloting the Earth Forces most valuable weapons… It made him a little uneasy.

Two Nazca-Class ships were hiding behind an asteroid just a few kilometers from the colony. The captain, Fredrick Ades, was feeling a little uneasy about their forthcoming plans. He was a stickler for procedure, and at this point in time they had not received the go-ahead from the Supreme Council. He could not understand why the Commander was being so impatient.

Commander Rau Le Cruset was floating in the Vesalius staring towards Heliopolis. He had received very important intelligence about the colony creating and harbouring weapons for the Earth Forces, even though they had declared themselves neutral. Not one for the rules, he was ready to implement the plan to hijack the weapons. His sixth sense told him that if they waited too long, they would not get another chance. He wore a sinister smile underneath his mask that covered just his eyes.

Two sub vehicles had left the Nazca-class ships and were beginning their infiltration of Heliopolis.

As Serena and her friends approached the free rental car service on campus, they saw a group of three girls also waiting. Serena recognized the red-pink hair immediately and tensed; however Kira was the only one who noticed. She slowed her walking and allowed Miriallia and Tolle to walk ahead. Milly was the first one to approach the girls and start a conversation.

"So Sai Argyle wrote Fllay a letter, but she refuses to admit that there's something going on!" the black haired girl, Jessica said.

"No way, Sai did?!" asked Milly surprised.

Fllay looked at all her friends annoyed and then snapped. "Nothing is going on okay! You guys need to give it a rest." She looked past Meer and noticed the others, also tensing a little when she saw Serena. She shot her a dirty look that went unnoticed by everyone but Serena, who only looked away when she noticed. Fllay suddenly pretended like she hadn't seen the others, and got into the next self-driving car, forcing her friends to follow. "Let's just go to the mall already."

Kira looked at Serena with worry, but she appeared to be completely fine and unbothered. Meer and Tolle hadn't seemed to notice anything peculiar during the encounter.

"Well, would you look at that, that nerd Sai is actually making some serious moves! And the daughter of the Vice Minister nonetheless… one of the richest families in Orb!" said Tolle. "He's got some explaining to do."

"I'm sure we-" Milly was suddenly interrupted by a woman behind them.

"If your not going to get in, do you mind if we do?" asked the woman with short black hair. Two men in suits accompanied her, and she was pointing at the next car that had pulled up.

"Oh, we're sorry. Go ahead," Tolle said as the teenagers all moved aside.

"Thanks."

The friends arrived at the Morgenroete factory where they were meeting the professor. Serena noticed that all her friends had been fairly quiet the whole ride to the factory, and had been more attentive to their phones. She was hoping that they would discuss their plans for tonight, but didn't want to start the conversation out of fear of seeming self-centered. She knew they couldn't have noticed the awkwardness between her and Flay; no, Tolle was much too big of a loudmouth and too nosy to not bring it up. Something else was going on…

As they were walking towards the professor's lab, her friends were once again on their phones. She simply gave up and started walking ahead of them. The door to the laboratory opened and…

"SURPRISE!"

Noisemakers were being blown and confetti was being thrown around, and a delicious looking cake with candles lit was sitting on the table. Her other friends, Sai and Kuzzey smiled at her warmly. Serena had gasped instantly at the surprised and covered her mouth in awe. Her friends had gone through all this effort to surprise her and she was feeling foolish for even letting herself think that they were ignoring her birthday.

"This is amazing guys, thank you so much!" she exclaimed.

Kira came from behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist. "You didn't seriously think the surprises were over yet did you?" he said, kissing her on the cheek.

"The prof said he wanted to be here too, but he just ran out like ten minutes ago," said Kuzzey. "Thought you guys would be more late than you already were."

Everyone just giggled, and Serena went around her friend group giving everyone hugs as they wished her a happy birthday. Serena had a great appreciation for the people that were in this room. There was no doubting that someone like Serena would be one of the most popular girls at school due to her undeniable beauty. Many, many people had tried to befriend her, but it was always for all the wrong reasons so Serena had learned to remain kind and friendly, but had put up a wall to mostly everyone. She was friendly and still had many acquaintances and no enemies and always had a smile on her face. Kira was her childhood friend but all the others had proved that they cared about Serena for who she was and no other reason.

Milly was cutting up the cake and serving it, and that was when Serena noticed a blonde-haired stranger standing by the door. She had her arms crossed and didn't seem to be particularly intrigued by the friends. She looked a little lost in thought.

Sai noticed Serena staring at the girl and filled her in. "Professor's guest. She was told to wait here when he just ran off a little while ago. Don't really know much else."

Serena nodded. She grabbed one of the pieces of cake that Milly had cut and walked over to offer it to her. "Would you like some?" she asked with a smile.

The girl looked away, not bothering to uncross her arms. "No thanks."

Serena was a little taken back by the rudeness, but didn't lose her composure. She ignored it and walked over to Kira to enjoy the cake herself.

"That was kind of weird," he said.

"It's fine. Thank you for doing all of this for me, I won't ever forget this birthday," she said, smiling at her boyfriend.

On the far side of the colony, an infiltration mission was a full go. A group of soldiers wearing green and red suits had easily entered Heliopolis through a tunnel. After travelling a sure distance, a red and white ship could be seen through a grid. After a few hand signals were given, the group split up to fixate bombs in the surrounding area, being sure to be discreet.

"It's time," said Le Creuset.

"Weigh anchor! Vesalius launch!" Ades ordered.

This order and the sudden movement of ships caused the alarms to begin going off at the Heliopolois control center. Warnings were being issued to the approaching ZAFT vessels, but were not being heeded to any avail. In fact, the ships, indicating that this was clearly a hostile act, were emitting electrical interference.

GINN's began launching from the ZAFT ships, heading directly towards Heliopolis. Meanwhile on the colony, the earth forces were getting tense. However the captain ordered everyone not to panic and to let Heliopolis handle this situation. He then ordered one of his underlings to find Lieutenant Ramius and to commence the transfer of the "G-weapons". While everyone was focused on the threat outside of the colony, the group of ZAFT soldiers were moving deeper and deeper into the colony, seeking out their prey.

Then, right on schedule, the bombs exploded, causing a tremor throughout the entire colony.

As the alarms went off, the group of young soldiers was standing upon a cliff, using binoculars to search the surrounding areas. Then one of them finally landed on what they were looking for.

"That's it." Said a silver haired teenager. "It's exactly like Commander Le Creuset said."

"What, that with the right amount of prodding they were sure to come out of their hole? After all, the Naturals are stupid and pathetic," said his orange haired companion.

The blue haired young man in the red suit stared onwards, wondering what this mission would lead too. He couldn't quite describe what he was feeling, but his sixth sense was tingling. The rest of the team relayed their coordinates to the GINN's that had infiltrated, and soon they were all headed towards the Factory district. While all this commotion was going on inside the colony, a fierce battle was being fought out in space too. Things were not looking well for Heliopolis.

Serena's birthday celebration had ended briefly with the friends now trying to evacuate and get to a shelter. The group, along with the blonde stranger were still clueless as to what that tremor was and what was going on in their colony. Kira clutched Serena's hand closely, determined not to be split up. After finally heading into a stairwell, the group saw many others evacuating as well.

"Whats this all about?" Sai asked one of them.

"We don't know, we heard that we're under attack by ZAFT and that some of their mobile suits have entered the colony!" exclaimed a worried evacuee.

The blonde stranger gasped, grabbing Serena's attention immediately. She suddenly began heading in the opposite direction of the exit. Serena tugged Kira's hand indicating to follow her, and went after the stranger. A confused Kira obliged and followed his girlfriend through hallway.

"Serena! Kira!" called Tolle from the exit.

"We'll be right back!" Kira said to his friends.

There was now a full-scale assault on Morgenroate by the ZAFT forces. The GINNS were overpowering the tanks and land units meant to intercept them with ease. Bodies were lying all over roads and missiles were flying everywhere. Amongst the chaos, the group of young ZAFT soldiers went onwards.

"Destroy any parts we can't carry and the factories. Intel indicates 6 of them," commanded the silver-haired teenager from earlier. As he looked down, he could only see 4 of them. "Are the other 2 still inside?"

"Rusty and I will continue. Yzak, you guys take these 4," suggested the blue hair teen.

Yzak nodded. "Okay, go for it. Remember to disable the self-destruct if you're piloting one."

The group landed their jet packs and began their assault, shooting at any soldiers that came their way and launching grenades into the armoury trucks. Their only focus was completing the mission at hand.

Meanwhile Lieutenant Ramius was trying to remain calm and give out orders to her underlings. That was when she saw a black haired soldier she didn't recognize wearing the Morgeonrate worker uniform.

"You there! Who are you and what's your rank?" she asked sternly.

"Oh I beg your pardon maam, my name is Commander Zayn DeLuca with the Special Forces. I was supposed to check in back at the base but got caught up in all this commotion," replied the tall, brown-eyed man while quickly flashing a badge.

"Special Forces?! What in the world are you doing here?"

"I'm afraid that's top secret ma'am, but while I'm here I will assist in any way I can," he replied as he began to run off and help the other soldiers.

Ramius was still confused but now was definitely not the time. They had to secure the G-weapons at all costs.

Serena had finally caught up to the blonde haired stranger and was able to get a hand on her shoulder. "Do you even know where you're going? It's a dead end over there."

"Stop tailing me! You better go back and link up with the others," said the blonde. Just as the stranger had finished their sentence, a blast of wind blew through the hallway, causing the strangers hat to fly into the air. The strangers blonde locks fell straight and revealed a pair of golden eyes.

"You're a… girl?" said Kira, obviously surprised.

Serena turned to giggle at her boyfriend's obliviousness, while the girl was clearly offended.

"Yeah, what'd you think I was? Come on, let's hear it!" she said, clearly irritated.

Serena giggled at Kira's loss of words to the reveal of the stranger's identity. The girl gave her a softer look after seeing her giggle, but then remembered the situation at hand.

"Go back now, there's something that I have to check," she stated.

"We can't exactly retrace our steps now can we!" said Kira.

This caused the girl to glare at him, taking Kira aback. Serena began looking around and realized where they currently were, and where they should head. She grabbed the girl's hand and told Kira to follow.

"What? Where are we going, let go of me!" she exclaimed at the sudden reaction from Serena.

"Come on now, I know where to go," Serena said to the girl with a smile.

This caused the girl to let her guard down a little, and a look of worry suddenly crossed her face. "I just- I never thought that we would get involved."

"Everything will be okay. There's still some shelters in the factory district," replied Serena.

When the trio finally reached the end of the hallway, the unfolding scene was not what they were expecting to see. Scattered bodies across the ground, gunfire and explosions going off everywhere around them, but there was one site that was most troubling of all; 2 unarmed mobile suits that clearly belonged to the factory.

Serena and Kira gasped at the site, clearly surprised.

"I knew it, the Earth Forces new prototype mobile weapons… Father I knew you betrayed us all!" exclaimed the girl as she collapsed to the ground in tears.

Father? Thought Serena. Who was this girl and what was she talking about? Then, from the corner of her eye, Serena saw movement; a soldier had pointed a gun towards them. "Get down!" she exclaimed as she pulled the girl down. After avoiding the gunfire, Kira grabbed Serena's hand while Serena grabbed the girl, and they began to run.

"This isn't the time to be crying! Right now we have to run," Kira exclaimed.

Serena made a mental note to remind Kira to be a little more kind in situations like this. The shelter's entrance finally came into sight and Kira dinged the intercom.

"Hello? Are there still people out there?" spoke a voice from the speaker.

"Yes, there's me and my 2 friends here!" Kira replied.

"3 of you?! Look, our shelter's already full, is there any way you could make it to the other one?"

Kira and Serena looked around, and then at each other. Kira was about to give her a signal, but Serena shook her head. "We stay together no matter what," she said. She then spoke into the intercom, "Please, will you take our one friend at least?"

The blonde girl suddenly snapped back into reality and realized what was going on. "Wait what?"

"Yeah, okay, we can do that."

Serena lightly grabbed her and pushed her into the entrance of the shelter, and quickly began strapping her in.

"Wait, what about you guys?! " she exclaimed.

"We'll be okay, trust us!" Serena said as she shut the door and let the familiar stranger go.

"No don't do it!" she exclaimed. However it was too late as the shelter pod had already dropped down.

Kira and Serena looked at each other, determined to make it out of this situation. They both nodded and started to run back in the direction that they had come from. The fighting continued; soldiers shooting at each other and explosives going off. A soldier was ordering two others to get the remaining machines up and running. Kira noticed this, and then saw a ZAFT soldier aiming to shoot her from behind.

"Behind you, watch out!" he called.

The female soldier immediately turned around and shot at the ZAFT soldier until he was down.

"You two come here!" she called at them. It was Ramius.

"Thank you, but we're headed to the other shelters," Kira replied.

"There's nothing left behind that door!" she yelled back. Suddenly, an explosion coming from outside the factory caused Serena and Kira to fall back. Heading in that direction definitely did seem like a risky move. Serena grabbed Kira's hand and nodded, affirming that they should go with the soldier. The two teens did a quick run and jumped from the railing of the factory on to one of the disarmed mobile suits. The impact caused them to lose their footing, but they quickly got up.

DeLuca ran towards the teens to try and help them, but as he was doing so, Ramius, that had called out to them had been shot in the arm. Kira and Serena gasped and quickly ran to her side to try and help her, and DeLuca followed.

The ZAFT soldier who had shot her was determined to finish the job, but he had run out of bullets. He pulled out his knife and charged at the soldier, but right before he attacked….

"Ath-run?" asked Kira and Serena together, completely dumbfounded.

"Kira? Serena?" he questioned back as he lowered his weapon.

The three teens stared at each other, which had given the wounded soldier just enough time to gather her strength and shoot at Athrun. He quickly retreated and headed to the other mobile suit.

"Both of you get inside quickly!" the soldier exclaimed.

"It's okay, I'll take the girl to the other machine!" the DeLuca said.

"What? How do you know about that?" She questioned.

"There's no time to worry about that!" he said as he grabbed Serena's arm and jerked her alongside him. She had been so lost in thought as to what just happened that she didn't even realize she was being dragged along.

"Wait! I'm not leaving Kira!" she cried.

"It's okay I promise you will be with your friend soon," the soldier said while staring at her. There was something sincere in his eyes that told Serena she could trust him, and at this point she really had no choice.

Serena nodded but turned around to look for Kira, but the soldier and him had already boarded the mobile suit. Now that she thought about it, she had only seen two mobile suits, so where was this third one that the soldier was talking about?

She followed the soldier as he ran into a separate port of the factory. He pulled out a card and swiped it and then entered a password… followed by another password, followed by a facial recognition scan. Only then did the two large automatic doors begin to open. When Serena stepped inside, the room lit up and lying on the ground was another mobile suit.

Just what the hell was going on?

So here is my first chapter for this story! I have wanted to write this story for a very long time and now I've finally gotten to it. While my story will follow the Gundam SEED story quite closely, there will also be lots of original content. I hope you enjoyed and would appreciate if you reviewed!