Fandom: Gundam Seed Destiny
Genre: Action/Adventure/Romance
Rating: T
Type: Multi-part, Chapter 3
Pairings: Melody(OC)/Nicol, Yzak/Michelle (OC), Kira/Lacus, Dearka/Mirialla ...
Disclaimer: No, I do not own Gundam Seed nor Gundam Seed Destiny
Author's notes: Revised Edition, I shall begin from Shinn's decision to join the ZAFT when he first arrived at the PLANTs. Namely, slightly before the start of the final battle in Seed. From then on, I'll go on and expand until I reached the start of the series 'Destiny' where it begins.
---
Chapter 3
---
C.E 72, January
---
"Aa!!! Finally, the boring theory test is over!" Lunamaria cheered, as the group of five exited from the classroom which they had been using for the test.
"...Trust you to get so excited over the finishing of our theory test, I'll have you know - we will be starting our Practical lessons in about a week's time!" Vino interrupted Lunamaria, in her mid-cheer.
Lunamaria shot a look of annoyance over at Vino, before turning to Shinn Asuka - asking the latter, where he would like to have lunch for the day.
Shinn said nothing, but shrugged his respond. He was not one to pick on food, so wherever the group chosen - he would simply followed and tag-a-long.
Rey was once again, absence from the group - as he was never one to hang around the rest of the group - unless it was necessary. Lunamaria had complained more than once about Rey being a prat - whom had a stick shoved up in the arse.
Humming a silent tune under her breath, Lunamaria skipped ahead leading the group over to the place which she intended to have lunch with the others. The place which Lunamaria had wanted to go for lunch, happens to be a medium-size cafe.
The cafe was newly opened up for business, the cafe was well-known for its pasta and set lunch. Not to forget the pastry and cakes, which goes along with the sweet aroma of coffee available for choosing.
The group of five entered the cafe, only to come face-to-face with Shiho and Dearka Elthman. The duo exchanged a salute with the group of five, before heading off to their own destinations. Vino and Youlan, whom recognized Shiho and Dearka Elthman as survivors of the previous war, let out a shrill whistle.
"Woah! This cafe must be really good, then... since it actually attracted customers like /them/..." Youlan commented, in awe.
"Yeah, did you see /them/? Dearka Elthman, especially! Rumors has it that he used to fight together with the third party during the last war... and that female elite, Shiho - was it? I heard that, she was the first female elite ever to be allow to wear male uniforms. Also, do you know that she graduated with a top scores, ranking herself just slightly beneath the top five male elite pilots during the last war?" Lunamaria gushes out, as her eyes glaze over in a trance-like state.
Sometime during the conversation, Shinn started to zone out - for he had no intentions to suffer through the fangirling squeals from the Hawke siblings.
---
C.E. 72, February
---
Time passes by real quick, when one was busy enough to neglect their surroundings. Soon, Valentine Day arrived and the whole ZAFT Headquarters were full of female officers whom appeared shy, and easily flushed when the man of their dreams passes them by along the corridors.
Yzak Jule escaped into the privacy of his office, heaving a sigh of relief to be away from the various females hanging about the corridor near his office. Heading over to his desk, he noted the three boxes of chocolates standing out among his files and documents, with a barely noticable smile.
As usual, he had one from his mother and another from his childhood friend, Shiho. Only this time around, he received another from his fiancee - also the mother of his twins; Michelle. As per normal, his mother had send him a box of chocolate from one of the five-star hotels outlets. Shiho, opted for home-made chocolate cookies this year and from Michelle, he received a box of exquisite looking chocolate - specially imported from Switzerland.
A knock sounded on his office door, and he glances up just in time to see Michelle entering with her patrol partner in tow. Heine Westernfluss, the orange-head Coordinator; entered the office of Yzak Jule with his hands full of chocolates.
"Aa... finally safe from those giggling girls /outside/!" Heine Westernfluss let out a dramatic sigh, as he dropped the boxes of chocolates which he received on the office couch - happy to be rid of them.
Yzak ignored the said Coordinator, and glances at his fiancee instead. As if sensing his gaze, Michelle arched an eyebrow gracefully as she asked the former what was going on in his mind.
"...Why?"
"Huh?" Michelle blinked, not understanding Yzak's query.
"...The chocolates from Switzerland... You know as much as I do, PLANTs do not have business dealings with Switzerland. So why go through the trouble of ordering them through ORB's relations, and to have it send up here - with the ORB's import?" Yzak asked, still wondering why Michelle had went to such lengths - for a box of chocolates.
"Oh... nothing, except for the fact that Switzerland produced the best Chocolates on Earth! That, and the fact that I wanted you to try it for yourself. By the way, do you know Aunt Agnes just set up a branch of her cafe up here on the PLANTs? The food over there was simply delicious, you absolutely had to try it when you have the time! I heard that Dearka and Shiho, had been spotted hanging around there - recently. "
Michelle told Yzak, as she casually opened up one of Heine's Valentine's Chocolates - and pop a few of them into her mouth.
Yzak was about to comment, when Shiho entered the office - calling for his attention to head over to the council for his latest assignment. Yzak shuddered at the sheer notion of passing through those females lingering around the corner, and pulled on his infamous expression of 'poker' face - before heading over to his destination.
Forty-five minutes later, he arrived back at his office - and called Shiho and Dearka into his office. Turning to Michelle and Heine, Yzak told the two that their partnership was over and that Michelle was now officially assigned to his team. In the meantime, he told Heine to head over to the administrative office and check on the latest assignment being assigned to the said Coordinator.
After Dearka and Shiho arrived at his office, he named Dearka as his Second-in-Command and proceed on to tell them about the latest information which he had received from the Chairman. It was revealed that they had been assigned a Nazca Class fleet and a whole team at his disposal for the defence of PLANT. Furthermore, they had been assigned several new units of the latest 'ZAKUs' and 'Dinns' manufactured for usage.
---
On the morning of 27 of February, Yzak suddenly grabbed Dearka by the collar from the corridor and into his office. Calling in Shiho, and leaving the team in her command for the time-being. He let Michelle in on the fact that he had been asked to do an inspection around the grounds of the ZAFT Academy and was scheduled to give a speech - yet, he had no idea what to say in that speech. Thus, would be needing Michelle's help - for Michelle could always come up with the script for a suitable speech in the shortest time ever.
"...How long do you want the speech to be ?" Michelle asked, as she started brain-storming for ideas to place in the script of the speech.
"About ten minutes long will do - anything longer was going to bore the kids, down there..." Yzak responded.
At his use of the term 'kids', Michelle looked up at him and said. "You do know that they were hardly considered kids, since they were in the ZAFT Academy and not Elementary School - right?"
"..." Yzak throw Michelle an annoyed look, before getting back to his task on hand. Dearka stifled his urge to laugh aloud, by looking elsewhere but at the bickering couple in front of him.
Meanwhile, over at the ZAFT Academy - Shinn was in the cafeteria having breakfast with Youlan and Rey, when Lunamaria arrived looking strangely excited.
"...What is it, now ?" Youlan looked up at the girl in question, with an arch of his eyebrow skeptically.
"Oh hush! I just heard from the instructor that Commander Jule of the Jule's team would be coming over for an inspection - and would probably give a speech on the expectations of the Military lifestyles... " Lunamaria told the three present, before she started her day-dream again.
Shinn shakes his head in defeat as he drained away the rest of his coffee from his mug, before making a move to stand and move away from the hyped-up girl. He had had enough of Lunamaria's fangirling state for the day.
On the other hand, Michelle was done with the speech script and was now conversing with Dearka Elthman, while Yzak spent time memorizing the script that Michelle had written for him. They were currently in the Military car, heading their way over to the Academy - a lower class soldier had offered to drive them over while Yzak have the time to concentrate on his task of memorizing the script.
---
They had been on their way over to the podium where Yzak would be giving his so-called speech, when Michelle caught a glimpse of Shinn Asuka using the stimulation machine for his lesson.
"Michelle... Michelle!" Dearka's voice interrupted Michelle in her task of staring, as she snapped her attention to the blond - she was met up by the sight of two concern looking males.
"Aa... my apologies, I was thinking about something..." Michelle commented, while she gestured for them to head on ahead of her while she would followed them, at a slower pace.
For the rest of the inspection trip, Michelle remained silent as she followed behind Dearka and Yzak, dutifully. Her silence were noted by the two male figures strolling in front of her, but wisely chose not to comment on her lack of words - just yet. Michelle, on the other hand, had her mind occupied with thoughts of Shinn Asuka and the former's presence within the ZAFT Academy.
Thankfully, Shinn Asuka had not been too interested in the speech given by Yzak Jule and was not present when the speech took place. Otherwise, he might find himself questioning the presence of Michelle Haw, constantly. Michelle, though, was silently thanking the fact that Shinn had been too pre-occupied by his task on hand than to notice her presence around the area.
It was not until the trio were on their way back to the Headquarters, did Yzak finally asked Michelle about her sudden decision to remain silent during the inspection trip.
"... You want the basic idea or the whole truth ?" Michelle stared into Yzak's eyes, as she asked the question in return.
Dearka glances between his best friend, and Michelle - wondering what was going on behind the silent staring contest. He could never understand how the two communicate with one another, it was as if they knew telepathy.
/Okay, now this is real freaky.../ Dearka thought, as those two drop their silent staring contest suddenly and turned towards the scenery outside the car - instead.
"... Excuse me, but can anyone clue me in on what happened during the silent conversation ? I am lost... I'm afraid." Dearka commented, only to shudder at the similarities between his two companions when they both glances at him, only for a moment before answer a single 'Later' - together, at the same time as well.
"Right..." Dearka sighed, as he tried to enjoy the atmosphere in the car; despite the high tension in the air.
---
Once they arrived at Yzak's office, Michelle found herself being dragged unwillingly into the office and forced to sit down on the sofa. She sighed as Yzak and Dearka settled down around her, and felt the questioning gaze on her.
"... I saw someone whom I think I knew back at the Academy..." Michelle started, with some hesitancy.
"So what ? Is that why you had a sudden change in attitude?" Yzak interrupted, but fell silent when Michelle shot him an impatient look.
"Please kindly stop interrupting me, or you go and figure out the reason yourself!" Michelle warned, as she glared at the silver-haired Commander in annoyance.
Satisfied with the reaction she received from Dearka and Yzak, Michelle continued her previous statement.
"That someone was a citizen of ORB, like you two - he's a 3rd generation Coordinator. Shinn Asuka was his name, and he was one whom doted on his younger sister - very much. He was taken up here to the PLANT, after the war in ORB erupted. There should be no reason for him to enlist himself in the Military, unless - something tragical had occured prior to his coming here..." Michelle left her sentence hanging, waiting for the two pilots to catch on.
"...You mean, he lost his family members or something?" Dearka stated, as he leaned back in his seat trying to gauge Michelle's mood.
"Apparently, that would be the most obvious reason for his joining the Military. For the losing of someone close to them, was usually what driven them into seeking out powers for their revenge. That was not what I'm worried about, the thing was that - no one could have possibly knew whom was responsible for the tragedy under that situation. It could very well be from the enemy or one of the ally's attack..." Michelle responded, dryly.
"And what exactly is your point ?" Dearka interjected.
Michelle merely took a deep breath, and eyed the blond - impatiently as she spoke.
"My point being - despite the war being over, we still cannot let our guards down! Right now, Shinn was still fragile in his emotional state, for emotional scars left over from the war - cannot be cured that easily! Otherwise, Kira would not be suffering from mild depression as we are conversing now...
Anyway, back to the topic on hand. You /do/ realize that Shinn actually lost his parents and sister back in ORB - during the battle to keep ORB's ideals to the very end - right?! You were there, unlike Yzak - you actually saw its' impact on the ORB civilians' first handed. You could very well be the one whom accidentally took down his family members, you know ... because he was actually found near to the area where you had been battling the 'Raider' before 'Freedom' took over and you moved to defend the Archangel...
Moreover, Cagalli is heading over here for a talk with the Chairman with whatever issues which she would like to discuss about... and that bloody /talk/ is going to take place at the conference centre - which was just situated right next to the bloody academy for ZAFT soldiers in training! So what do you think is going to happen, if Shinn happened to cross path with Cagalli while she's here? " Michelle ended her speech in a huff.
She waited for the impact of the situation to hit home, and knew that they had caught onto her point when Dearka slumped against the seat with a gloomy expression on his face, and Yzak started to mouth off several colourful vocabuary terms at once.
"... It would be hell... because that Shinn guy would start to bad-mouth ORB's ideals which resulted in the war that took his family members away from him, and that would literally meant trouble since that blonde princess would never back down without a fight." Yzak finally concluded, after he had calmed down significantly.
"Exactly! I'll say we had about 4 days or so, to prepare ourselves mentally for the chaotic situation; if they ever did managed to cross each other's path... Right, and speaking of which - I had better go off and warn Athrun about Shinn's presence. Just in case, he need to intervened before the situation get blown out of proportion. " Michelle said as she made a move to leave the office.
to be continued
Date started: 06/06/07
Date completed: 06/06/07