For Higher Ideals
By DarkWizard83
Disclaimer: Mobile Suit Gundam and all related characters are copyright of Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise.
The rain was pouring harder now, drumming against shaky rooftops and turning the highways of dirt and gravel that passed for roads in this town into thick pools of mud. Most of the townspeople had quickly moved indoors, gathering in the local pub to smoke and drink their way out of the torrential seasonal storm.
A few moments after the last members of the small community had entered, the doors of The Wily Fox swung open one last time—with a staggering body violently following through.
"And stay out ya filthy drunk!" a loud and angry voice growled amid the general interior ruckus.
"We ain't got the patience for strangers, feddies, or troublemakers!" a second voice chimed in. "And ya cover all three bases laddy!"
"So just piss off!" a final, highly testosterone-laden and obviously intoxicated voice roared in edgewise, before the slowly closing doors muffled all interior noise—Irish cursing or otherwise—with a final shut, leaving only the pitter-patter of the heavy rains and the angry, humiliated moans of the tossed individual to resound through the autumn air.
The figure leaned over the side rail on the pub's porch for a few moments, heaving and moving as if he were going to vomit, but all that came was an exasperated, angry groan of drunken impotence. With barely concealable rage and zero pretension of soberness, the man threw himself up from the railing, kicked the side of the pub several times, and then staggered backwards, crashing flat on his back into one of the many small pools of mud, rainwater and pebbles that now lined the entire street.
With an angry groan, the figure furiously but clumsily sloshed around in the muck for several moments, nearly blackening his loosened beige uniform and streaking his wet jet black hair with mud as he struggled to get up. Once on his feet, he nearly tripped over again as he took off running in a hackneyed and uncoordinated fashion.
"GATO!!!!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, his speech halfway slurred. "Why Gato?! Why?!!" he cried again. "ANSWER ME!!!!!" Though no one responded, the delirious figure rushed down the muddy road as if his cry had been answered.
And for the second time and his life, Kou Uraki was furiously running through a strange place, his post and duties abandoned and his state of mind in a drunken stupor. Only this time, however, he had no hope of his friends coming to his aid.
Kou's glazed eyes darted throughout the wet haze in front of him. "Where are you Gato?!" he hissed. "Speak to me!"
"I have nothing to say to you!"
Kou swung his body to the left, nearly throwing himself face down into the flowing rivers of mud, and focused on a distant light. Unit 02! The warhead! The fleet! He had to get there and stop him, to make him pay!
"GATO!!!" Kou roared and rushed towards it, arms drunkenly swung out holding an invisible beam saber. With a furious war cry he charged at his enemy with all he could muster.
Kou slammed into the lamppost headfirst with a metallic clang. Blood rapidly flowing from his temple and his arms flailing against the black iron beam, Kou lost consciousness before splashing into the ground.
********
Kou stared at Nina with complete and utter disbelief. "You can't be serious," he softly repeated.
Nina always seemed to be insecure when discussing serious issues with Kou, but now the Lunarian was far more visibly nervous and distressed than usual. Kou knew that was a sign she'd put a lot of serious thought and consideration into what she had just told him—which made what she'd just said all the more mad.
Wide-eyed, Kou just shook his head and repeated, "You can't be serious."
After a moment's pause, Nina threw in one of her trademark outbursts. "Kou, I'm very serious, please listen!" she pleaded.
"I know what you're going to say, Nina, and I don't want to hear it!" Kou cut her off.
"Kou, just because you don't want to hear it doesn't make it any less true!" Nina insisted. The blonde Lunarian paused for a moment, glancing around the room, then to the piles of research files, mechanical schematics and data outputs lying on the table at the far end, before returning her pleading eyes to the Lieutenant Commander.
"Kou," she whispered, lowering her crystal blue eyes. "The Titans are going to take over the Gundam Mk. II project, which means they're going to confiscate all the data I have on the RX-85 and put it to their own use." She looked up sternly and resolutely. "I can't let my Gundam fall into the hands of those people, Kou! I've put too much hard work into it!"
Kou couldn't help but give the slightest of smirks. That had to be the most endearing thing about Nina—she really took pride in her Gundams, as if they were her own children. And no mother would ever want to see her child hanging with what she thought was a bad crowd. Still, in Kou's mind that didn't excuse this current lunacy.
"Nina, the RX-85 is nothing but mechanical data and programming code. Hell, you haven't even built a chassis frame yet. So what if the Titans confiscate it? It's just software."
Nina gave a stern look. "Kou, you and I know that software is just as important as hardware in this line of research. Hell, it's probably even more important. That's why we have to destroy all my project work—the coding, the prototype schematics, everything…"
"And hand it over to a bunch of people who want to start a war!" Kou exploded. "A bunch of self-righteous fanatics that want to take the last few years of peace we've had—that I've had—and just throw it down the crapper!"
"Peace?!" Nina burst with disbelief. "Dear God Kou, do you really call what's happening in outer space right now peace?" With uncharacteristic fury, Nina literally shoved her finger in Kou's face.
"In the past two years, Monsha's been paralyzed, Keith's been killed, and as a result Mora's been forced into an asylum for her grief, all because of a few "minor armed incidents" the Titans have taken part in. And now to top it all off, the Titans have just gassed a colony! How can you call any of that peace?!"
He tried to interrupt, but the blonde Lunarian continued on a rampage. "You can't Kou, because it's not peace! Ever since they were formed the Titans have been waging a war. A very dirty, senseless war that's already destroyed a number of innocents and people we hold dear, and if they're allowed to continue unopposed it'll destroy even more! We've tried to save the Earth Sphere before, Kou, and this is our second chance."
Nina quickly changed her tone and looked at Kou ever more pleadingly. "So please, Kou," Nina begged, "please, help me do this. Help me do what's necessary to bring back peace."
Kou was silent for several moments—and then to Nina's horrified astonishment began to laugh like a madman. "Bring back peace!" he chuckled. "Yeah, and who better to trust that task to than a bunch of Zeon throwbacks!"
Nina dropped her jaw in astonishment. "Kou how could you say that! The AEUG is nothing like that at all! They're a group of people that honestly want to do the right thing, they want to make the Earth Sphere a just place for both earthnoids and spacenoids alike!"
Kou continued to laugh—a very frightening laugh, like the mix of a madman and a drunkard. "Yeah, sure!" he spat in mid-guff. "And the Delaz Fleet was just trying to win independence for the colonies from the Earth Federation!"
"Kou, don't be an idiot!" Nina snapped back, seriously trying to hold back her growing anger. "There's no comparison between the two and you know it! The AEUG has a number of Federal Forces members who think what the Titans are doing is wrong."
"Oh, okay!" Kou piped. "So they're not just a bunch of Zeon old-fogies, they've also got a bunch of Zeon lovers and apologists with them too!" With a sinister grin, he moved in. "Which I guess would make you the perfect candidate, huh Nina?"
Rage erupted inside Nina Purpleton like Mount Vesuvius. The Lunarian woman immediately clinched her fists in balls, so tightly that she almost cut through her hands with her fingernails. How dare he go there again.
"Kou…" Nina began with as much control as she could muster. "We've already had this conversation many times before, and as I've told you each time…"
"You told a lie!" Kou hissed, his maddened humor now completely gone from his face. "Each and every time nothing but a filthy lie!"
"It's not a lie!" Nina protested. "I've told you nothing but the truth Kou! I'm over it, I always have been."
"There you go lying again like a filthy little schoolgirl!" Kou growled menacingly, grabbing Nina's arms—apparently without even realizing it.
Nina was quickly turning white with fear. "Kou, please let..."
"I could see it in your face every single day since he drove that colony into the Earth!" Kou continued. "Every time we spoke, every time we laughed, every time we kissed, every time we made love I could tell that you were wishing I were him instead!"
Kou unconsciously gripped her arms even tighter and moved in closer, years of pent up frustration uncontrollably blazing from his soul like a wild fire.
"Admit it Nina! You love Gato, you always have, and I've been nothing but a pale shadow in comparison! Every day, you've been thinking of nothing but what a pathetic waste I am in comparison to the brave and mighty Nightmare of Solomon! Haven't you? Haven't you?!!"
Now it was Nina who made an instinctive and almost totally unconscious move.
"Yes, yes it's true!" Nina shrieked back as she violently forced Kou off of her. "As of late I've been thinking of what a generous and selfless man Gato was! Even if I didn't agree with what he believed in, at least he believed in something! Which is a lot more than I can say for a slimy, apathetic, selfish bastard like you!"
Her brilliant blue eyes were enflamed. "If I knew you'd prove to be such a slug who never thinks about anything beyond what you want, I should've shot you when I had the chance!"
What happened immediately after those words, both Kou and Nina would prove to have difficulty completely recalling. But for those few quick moments of eternity it seemed as if the room was consumed by a massive earthquake, as books were tossed off shelves, tables were overturned and even smashed, glass shattered, and human bodies slammed into each other and against the furniture and floor with bone-snapping impacts and screams of agony.
All of a sudden Kou found himself as if waking from a dream, panting violently with animalistic grunts, and quickly realized that for some reason he was being restrained by a pair of lab technicians. Quickly darting his gaze around the room, he saw a flash of Anaheim Electronics uniform blue that guided him instantly to the floor. There, two AE employees were cradling a limp, panting body that was covered in freshly forming bruises and rapidly bleeding cuts that seeped through a ripped blouse.
"…Nina?" Kou said weakly, and his eyes widened with horror. Nina was staring right back up at him with tearful but terrified eyes, like those of a cornered animal of the Serengeti that had just been ravaged by a pack of wild hyenas.
Shaking, Kou desperately wanted to say something, but no words could come out as his stomach literally turned over on itself. Even if he could speak, he instinctively knew that even the most eloquent of verbiage would sound sickeningly hollow.
Turning his head sharply, Kou immediately threw off the two techs and ran out of the lab as fast as he could.
********
The rain had softened so that it had practically ceased by the time Kou finally came to.
"Gato…" he moaned. "…Why?...Why can't I beat you?"
"You're pathetic Ensign Uraki! As long as you're a man with no higher ideals for why he fights, you'll never hope to defeat me!"
Kou's eyes slowly but painfully squinted open, still glazed by the alcohol but much clearer than earlier.
"…Higher…higher ideals?..." he slurred painfully, slowly beginning to move.
"If you ever want to be more than just a grunt, you have to learn to look at the big picture!"
With a groan, Kou struggled to right himself, finally after enough muddy effort managing to come up on all fours. "Big…picture…"
With a violent heave, Kou jerked forward and spewed foamy yellow bile onto the wet earth. Vomiting for several more seconds, Kou's stomach finally settled—and strangely enough, it was beginning to seem like his mind was as well.
"Big…picture…higher…ideals…higher ideals…" Kou kept slowly and softly repeating to himself.
While appearing to the occasionally passer-byer on the virtually abandoned street as an absolute drunk, in truth Kou was probably never more clear-minded then at that moment.
"I…I understand now…" Kou said.
Nina had loved Gato not because of his passion with her, but for his passion for life and what he believed in. Right or wrong, Gato had seen an injustice, and had committed himself to rectify it, and had been willing to give up his life to see it through.
"Injustice…" Kou whispered, and looked down at his hands. Hands that had nearly destroyed the one thing he cared about more than the entire universe with a fit of rage—rage fuelled by his selfish lack of thinking for anything beyond himself.
"From no higher ideals…" he whimpered, tears starting to drip from his eyes. Not only had his episode in the lab nearly crippled the one woman he'd ever loved, but the incident no doubt sparked an immediate inquiry from the base MPs. They might uncover what she'd been planning to do, the high-treason that could cost Nina her job, her freedom, her life even…and yet, she'd been willing to share it all with him, to confide the details and her reasoning, and to his knowledge a passionate plea for understanding she'd given to no one else.
Only now, in the middle of a half-drunken stupor, was the full weight of the consequences of his rage beginning to dawn on Kou.
"Oh, Nina...," he softly wept. "I'm so sorry. Will you ever forgive me?"
Forgiveness? Was he crazy? Kou knew that the chances of Nina ever truly forgiving him for such vicious words and even more damaging violence was close to nil, every reason dictated it.
And yet he kept telling himself this even as he forced himself onto an unsteady two feet, which were ready to march back to the base and immediately help Nina carry out her act of sabotage.
"Why…why do it Kou…?" he drunkenly asked himself. Yet Kou couldn't answer. He couldn't clearly think of the politics of Earth-Space relations, of ideas of treason; he couldn't even fully contemplate the full implications of the highly dubious possibility of saving his relationship with Nina. All Kou Uraki had in his dazed state was a gut instinct that a grave injustice had been inflicted, and that he had to correct it immediately, no matter the costs to him personally.
It was as if a higher ideal was calling for him to right the wrongs he had incurred, even if he couldn't right the wrongs of the entire universe.
And with that somewhat in mind, the drunken Lieutenant Commander Kou Uraki hurried back to the base with an amazing amount of clarity.
-End.