Well, here it is! This is my next story, though it's my first in the Gundam metaseries. I hope you all enjoy Gundam SEED: Evolution.

Just a quick note: If you haven't watched all of Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny, you probably shouldn't read this story, as there are plenty of spoilers, especially in the beginning. Anyway, from now on, I will attempt to have no author notes (except disclaimers) at the top of the page, and just put it all on the bottom.

Speaking of disclaimers: I don't own Gundam SEED or anything related to it, and most likely never will. I own this story's plot, and any OCs I should decide to make. However, rest assured that I won't be making any major OC protagonists.

On with the story!

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Chapter 1 – Pulling the Trigger

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The Athha family residence is located atop a hill overlooking the capital city of the Orb Union and the Atlantic Ocean not far beyond it. It was an extremely old house, dating back to the early years of space exploration, long before the Cosmic Era began. Its beautiful Victorian architectural style was even older. Within, the place was a maze, impossible to navigate effectively without a good sense of the layout of the mansion.

One person navigated the various halls and rooms with ease, admiring the artwork, old and new, that decorated its walls. He knew exactly where his destination was, and exactly how to reach it. He was a young man with long midnight-blue hair. His emerald eyes roamed around, stopping for a moment to focus on every door he passed. His attire was somewhat professional, as he had opted for a collared shirt tucked into black dress pants, rather than the t-shirt and jeans he would have preferred.

Athrun Zala smiled as he walked down the hallway towards his destination. It had been nearly two years since the Second Bloody Valentine War had ended with his final battle in front of the Messiah. He was grateful for the end of the war, and the two relatively peaceful years he had lived since. He had started smiling again, doing his best to put the horrors of the war behind him. Still, it was just shy of one year since his happiness had been shattered…

Don't think about that! he berated himself as he walked, his smile gone. Luckily, his thoughts were diverted when he heard the racket from just a few doors further down the long hallway.

"KIRA YAMATO!!!"

His frown became a smile again when he heard the deafening shout. There was a thick oak door between him and the one who had shouted, and the door itself was over twenty feet away, but he could still hear the female voice as if she had shouted in his ear. He immediately recognized the voice.

"I'm sorry, Cagalli!" another voice exclaimed.

Athrun finally reached the door that was the only barrier between himself and the chaotic shouting match. With a small grin, he decided to wait for a moment and see how the argument played out. Arguments between the two twins occurred on an hourly basis, though they were usually resolved quickly. Athrun suspected that Kira and Cagalli just liked to fight and goad each other.

Kira and Lacus had both returned from PLANT a little over a year before, though neither had ever explained why. At the moment, Lacus was busy with some TERMINAL business, and wouldn't be back for several days. Cagalli had gotten very incensed when it was suggested by several members of the Council and the director of her security that she should have at least one bodyguard, if not a full contingent. She hated being protected, because she automatically assumed that they believed she wasn't capable of defending herself. As a compromise, Kira had offered to become her bodyguard. Because she was much more comfortable with her twin brother than she was with the unknown people who would be protecting her, she had reluctantly agreed.

Athrun himself had also become a bodyguard, after…

"Damn it," he muttered out loud. "Don't think about it!"

"Don't EVER do that again!" Cagalli shouted, interrupting his thoughts.

"Don't ever do what again?" Kira asked. Athrun chuckled as he imagined the absolutely innocent expression that was undoubtedly on his friend's face.

"DON'T EVER POUR COLD WATER ON ME!!!" Cagalli exclaimed. Athrun could imagine her face as well, bright red with anger, probably darkening to a dark bloody color. He took a moment to fear for Kira's life. Nobody who saw her face get past the angry bright red stage lived to tell the tale.

"I'm sorry!" Kira shouted, trying to console her. "You wouldn't wake up, so I…wait! What are you…NO! That's glass! It'll—"

Athrun winced when Kira was interrupted by a loud crash in the room, and decided that he should enter and try to diffuse the situation before they killed each other. He opened the door just in time to see Cagalli tackle Kira and land on top of him on the ground, surrounded by the shards of what might have been a perfectly good glass vase only moments before.

If anybody but Athrun, Lacus, or some other close friends had seen this, they might have commented on the rather compromising situation the two of them found themselves in, with Cagalli's face only inches from Kira's own. As Athrun was one of the two who knew they were siblings, he could easily tell that they were feeling anger, rather than awkwardness, and this was confirmed when he saw that Cagalli's face was indeed darkening from its bright red color, and Kira's face was taking on a crimson hue as they both glared at each other.

Now that the twin siblings, separated at birth, had been reunited on a more permanent basis, they had finally gotten over the awkwardness between them that had been caused by the revelation that they were related. They had been acting more and more like the twin siblings they were, having many arguments sprouting from sibling rivalry, and yet remaining fiercely loyal to each other when one of them was threatened.

Athrun chuckled quietly, alerting the two of his presence. Cagalli quickly stood up, her face retaining its red coloring. This was the red of embarrassment though, rather than the red of anger. She and her sibling had once again been caught fighting, an occurrence that always embarrassed them, even though it happened on a daily basis.

"Um…ah…good morning, Athrun," Kira greeted with a sheepish grin as Cagalli went into the bathroom to dry her hair, which was still wet from Kira's method of waking her up.

"Morning," Athrun replied jovially. "Having fun?"

"Ah, well," Kira muttered, suddenly grinning, "yeah, I guess. I've just been annoying my baby sister."

"I heard that, baby brother!" Cagalli shouted from the bathroom. "I'm the older one!"

Athrun sighed. Unlike most arguments between the two of them, which eventually ended with one of them proving that he or she was right, neither could ever agree on this simple fact.

"You're both babies, if you ask me," he said to them.

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"So, what's your first meeting about today?" Athrun asked as he drove the convertible, glancing at Cagalli in the rear-view mirror.

"First I have to meet the rest of the Council to discuss a few issues that have come up lately," Cagalli explained with a sigh, "including the fact that war seems to once again be looming on the horizon."

Her statement about the potential for another war was quite true. Though the Earth Alliance and PLANT had officially been at peace with each other over the past two years, there were still isolated incidences between Naturals and Coordinators, causing tensions to rise on both sides. Though they were severely weakened by the downfall of LOGOS, the Blue Cosmos seemed to still be functioning without the financial support they had received before the second war. There had been various protests that occasionally escalated to violence and even murder of both Naturals and Coordinators. The whole situation made Cagalli very uneasy.

Actually, she realized, I wasn't this anxious until I got in the car…

She spent another moment wondering what, besides the tensions between PLANT and Earth, could be unnerving her so much, then sighed, knowing that it was probably just the stress of the job. She glanced off to the side and watched the people and cars stream past their own vehicle, going about their daily lives. If only my life was that simple, she thought, but I can't just give up my—

Her train of thought was derailed as her apprehension suddenly spiked. Her fearful gaze was inexplicably drawn to one of the windows on a several-storey building not far ahead. For a moment, it looked like any other window. Then she saw a silver rifle barrel poke out of the shadowed opening and aim towards her. Just as the shooter pulled the trigger, some instinct or reaction caused her to jerk to the left, causing the bullet aimed at her heart to miss the vital organ. Still, her luck wasn't exactly great, she realized, as she felt a horrible pain in the right side of her chest and found it very difficult to breathe. She slumped over to the side in agony, her breath coming in short gasps.

"CAGALLI!!!" an unrecognizable voice shouted right before everything went black and the pain went away.

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Athrun gasped as he heard the gunshot from the nearby building that looked like an apartment complex. He glanced to the right and his own fearful eyes met Kira's. They both nearly gave themselves whiplash as they turned back to glance into the back seat.

"CAGALLI!!!" Athrun shouted as he saw her slump over and fall unconscious. His wide eyes saw the blood that was already spreading on the right side of her shirt and dripping down onto the car seat. There was a lot of it, and it was still pumping out.

"Keep driving!" Kira shouted as he undid his seatbelt and leapt out of the still-moving car. He rolled when he landed and ran for the sniper's building immediately after coming back to his feet. Athrun closed his mouth, which had dropped open in shock, and drove off towards the nearest TERMINAL facility. Their hideouts had the best doctors, and as a good friend of the leader of TERMINAL, Lacus Clyne, Cagalli would be treated in their hospital. Their doctors and surgeons were among the best in the world in their fields, so if anybody could save her, they could.

Kira entered the building that the shooter was in and immediately headed for the stairs. He ran up to the second floor landing and stopped to listen. He was rewarded by the sound of running footsteps on the carpeted stairs, so he stopped just around the corner to wait for the right moment.

A man ran around the corner and Kira quickly grabbed his shirt collar and picked him up, slamming his back into the wall and holding him up by his shirt.

"Who do you work for?" he asked in a low voice full of malice. "Why?"

The man remained silent, so Kira pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the shooter's heart. His hand shook slightly at the thought of possibly killing someone again, but he thought about his sister's peril and his aim steadied.

"Who do you work for?" Kira repeated, emphasizing each word.

"I don't feel the need to tell you," the man choked out, "as my life doesn't matter much anyway. Kill me if you want to. I've already pulled the trigger, and the bullet is already in flight."

"We'll see about that," Kira said, though he inwardly wondered why the shooter was using metaphors while in such a situation. "Now, if you don't answer my question, I will put you through many times more pain than what Cagalli just went through."

"I work…" the man started to say, suddenly smiling widely as if telling a rather funny joke that only he understood.

"For a blue and pure world."

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Well, that's the end of the first chapter. How do you like it? Anyway, I have a couple things to address down here. First, the thing that Athrun's trying not to think about will be explained within the next few chapters, along with why he ended up as Cagalli's bodyguard. I may explain why Kira and Lacus left PLANT, though I'm not sure if I'll fit it in just yet.

Second, this story is going to be mainly focused on Cagalli, and the huge changes she goes through, which aren't just limited to changes resulting from growing up. If you like Cagalli the way she was in GSD (i.e. practically useless), then DON'T READ THIS STORY! The one thing I didn't like in GSD was the way Cagalli was portrayed, as being largely useless for most of the series, and not showing up at all during the end. So, I decided to write a story where she is the main character.

So, now that the long(ish) author's note is done…please review!

Oh, by the way, the next chapter will be called "Thoughts." I figured you'd like to know.