It was odd, Andrew Waltfeld reflected, what sorts of things would pass before your eyes during those timeless instants between when you realized something was wrong, and when the consequences actually arrived. It was kind of like a near death experience... tunnel of white light and all that... though his current predicament, approaching very rapidly though it might be, was very unlikely to be fatal. Embarassing, yes. Painful, probably. An overall drag, definitely. But not fatal, not unless the stars were aligned against him. And given how things currently were going for him, he was of the strong impression that the stars were, in fact, aligned FOR him. Disregarding the occasional minor reversal... like having one's surfboard slide out from under one's feet like greased ice, just as the rather impressively large wave you were riding started to waterfall down... his life was pretty damned good.
Andrew watched the cobalt blue water rush up at him, and heard it start to crash down on him from above and behind too, as the wave's crest tumbled over and down in a foamy explosion that would be smashing him into the sandy bottom in the very near future. But all he could think of was what a wonderful feeling it was to wake up in the morning, and find someone else there in the bed with you, and know that it was no accident, that there had been no drunken escapade he'd regret for years. That quite the opposite, that he, Andrew Waltfeld, might finally have found someone to settle down with, in this day and age, despite the trials and travails he'd suffered. Of course, he'd never forget Aisha, his first love, but the sad fact was that Aisha was dead, and had been for almost six years now. It was no bad thing to mourn, but to allow ones grief to rule your life for years and years, that was indeed pitiable. And he refused to be pitiable. A strong man looked forward to the future, with only glances behind to make sure he didn't repeat the mistakes of the past.
The world dissolved into a chaotic, twirling, roaring confusion of cold blue water, foaming bubbles and most unpleasantly, a rather solid patch of beach gravel that would be leaving some definitely visible marks, judging from the way his chest and back and legs and ass continued to sting with the now long accustomed feel of minor cuts exposed to sea water. Andrew forced himself to remain limp and passive though he was a Coordinator, and a very fit and strong Coordinator at that... indeed, his one arm was so powerful as to be frightening... because no one man could even begin to hope to have the strength to defeat a few dozen tons of water, pushed halfway across the globe by gravitational interactions with the Moon. Try and fight a wave during a wipeout, and you'd only get yourself hurt worse. Just take the licks, keep track of where the surface was, and let natural buyancy do the work... early lessons of surfing. A few seconds after impacting the bottom, the main energy of the wave passed over him, and he bobbed quickly back to the surface, spitting gritty water that he'd caught a mouthful of on the way down.
His surfboard floated nearby, and he wasted no time in paddling over to it, also pulling it towards him by the line tied around his ankle and attached to a tie on point at the back of the board. His natural buoyancy wasn't really all that buoyant, especially because of his prosthetic arm, and though he was a strong swimmer, if the board was there, he might as well use it. He eyed the beach, which was still about forty meters away, since the best surfing waves in this area occured around a second sandbar that rose sharply from the sea floor a good bit out from the main shoreline, and decided that it was time to head back. He'd had his early morning fun, and the cold water of the Pacific Ocean had done a tremendous job of waking him up, as it always did. He'd caught a few good waves, gotten some exercise, and only suffered a single bad wipeout... more than par for the course. Waltfeld lay down flat on his surfboard and let the curling waves hurl him towards the beach like a floating dart... bodysurfing was much easier than stand up surfing, he could practically do it on autopilot now. He'd never have thought he'd become such an aquanaut, especially since he'd only really come to be around large bodies of water, like oceans, that actually had real waves, only recently, later in his life, but he could not deny the attraction the ocean held for him.
The waves could only carry him so far before their energy was no longer sufficent to propel his mass efficiently, but by that time he was in waist deep water anyway, and from there it was a short hike to mostly dry land. Andrew tucked his board under his prosthetic right arm and stretched the rest of his body as he sloshed through the surf, heading off any lingering stiffness or soreness, save the temporary effects from the bruising impact with the gravel patch. The morning air was chilly, but that was to be expected at only an hour or so past dawn. From the look of the sky... another thing that he'd never thought he'd grow used to... it was going to be another clear, hot day... typical of Orb in the spring and summer. The semi-private beach was deserted except for him, though he knew that in a few hours, given that it was a weekend, the hundred meter long stretch of sand and worn lava rock would be well crowded with families and other groups taking the day off for fun in the sun. He marched to where he'd left his sandals and towel and dried himself off, wiping away as much sand from his feet and legs as he could. Sand was a great and wonderful thing... but it belonged on the beach or in the desert, not in a guy's house or bed. Especially not in the bed... he had bad memories of that.
It was a five minute walk to their house, mostly because of the ascent up the stairway carved into the side of the basaltic extrusion that formed the small hill and penninsula that their house was built upon, on the south end of the beach. He was still getting used to referring to the place in the plural possesive... up until about a year back, it had just been him there, renting the place. But then she'd come to move in with him, even though they'd been going out pretty steadily for most of two years prior, after she'd at long last come to terms with her own deep grief, and with their combined incomes, they had changed from merely renting the small villa to actually paying a mortage on it. It was still in his name, as the original tenant, a small detail amongst many others that constantly had their friends inquiring as to when they were going to take things to a more formal level in their relationship. As far as Andrew was concerned, that time would come when it came, if it ever did. If it never did, that wouldn't exactly displease him... on the PLANTS, life-pairs without formal marriage weren't exactly uncommon, and he saw nothing strange in living with a woman in a permanent fashion even though they weren't actually married.
He rinsed the salt and minerals and remaining sand from his body using the outdoor showerhead in one corner of the sea-side garden area, and took the opportunity to swap out his trusty tiger striped swim trunks for a more understated and dry land comfortable pair of khaki shorts. He also swapped out the beach sandals for a cleaner, more long term comfortable pair of house sandals. He leaned his surfboard against the side of the gardening/outdoor supplies shed tucked away beneath some trees on the beachward side of the garden, by the low wall that served to demark the boundary between the garden itself and the wild growth that covered the remaining distance to the cliffsides. He'd come back to wax and polish it later in the day, perhaps during a conference call if one happened to pop up, as they often did. He was never really off work... but on the flip side he was never really on work either, except during big crisises. He worked when he felt he needed to, or when people needed him, and the rest of the time he had to himself. Her hours were a little more concrete, but neither of them were exactly overworked, unless they chose to be.
Waltfeld brushed his biological hand against the lock-scanner built cunningly into the side of the garden door, allowing it to confirm his identity genetically from traces of sweat and moisture on his hand. The technology was fairly new, and sometimes buggy, and always slow, compared to a key or numeric lock, but infinitely more secure. Only people who's gene trace was specifically programmed into the lock by Waltfeld could open any of the outer doors of the house, or the secure office doors. He might be only quasi-military these days, but that didn't mean he was going to be lax about personal and information security. Perhaps especially now that he had more than just himself to worry about on a long term basis. The door clicked open a few seconds later, and the first sensation to strike him as he passed into the cool, air conditioned middle floor of their house was the absolutely heavenly smell of freshly brewed coffee. One of his personal mixes, if the aroma was any hint. Since he'd not put any on when he left, not knowing how long he'd be gone, there was only one explanation.
"Have fun playing in the water, Tiger?" Murrue asked, stepping around the corner from the kitchen into the casual day room, with its magnificent floor to ceiling picture windows that gave a one hundred eighty degree view of the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the horizon and beyond. She eyed the faint bruises and small cuts that liberally spotted Andrew's chest and arms. "Or was it the water having fun playing with you?" She took a sip of her coffee and smiled, both at the rich, flavorful taste and because of the sight before her eyes. Truly, Andrew rarely looked so good, even with bruises and cuts, as he did when he was fresh from the ocean, vigorous and full of life, dashing and handsome like an adventurer from a romance novel. She'd come to the realization that she was just a sucker for the gallant, devil-may-care free spirit sort of guy, and Andrew definitely fit that bill very nicely. That he was also intelligent, caring, very handsome and of relatively similar background to her were just bonuses.
"We have a give and take relationship... its just the take's leave more physical evidence." Andrew shrugged, not even slightly self conscious. He shared everything with Murrue, from pain to grief to transcendant pleasure, he'd long since gotten over the initial nervousness and trepidation he'd felt around her in an intimate setting. The fact that she'd at last come to terms with Mu la Flaga's unfortunate death had really helped matters... before that point, he'd always stood there between them, an invisible specter that made any sort of intimacy all but impossible. The only good side to it had been that la Flaga's ghost had also stood between Murrue and Ledonir, which had kept Andrew's rival, at least in terms of winning Murrue, on even footing. That had been one hell of a pitched battle, to match anything either man had experienced during the Valentine Wars, if not near as overt and simple. Andrew still wasn't sure how or why he'd ended up the victor, given all that Ledonir seemed to have going for him at times, but he sure as hell wasn't going to argue! He walked over and gave her a brief kiss. "Is that coffee I smell?"
Murrue swatted him lightly on the back. "I swear, you're never so amorous as when there's coffee on. Half the time I'm not sure whether you're kissing me because its me you want, or the extra coffee from my lips." She smiled wider, as always though, keeping her arm around his back.
"Well, if both of a man's true loves see fit to combine themselves so handily, I'd be a fool NOT to pursue them like that, given the chance, right?" Waltfeld kissed her again. He drew back and studied her for a moment before disengaging lightly. The mood was good... but not THAT good. He shrugged mentally. No big deal... he wasn't like SOME people of his acquiantence, who couldn't seem to get enough of the intimate pleasures they afforded each other. He knew when moderation was the byword of the day, and when it was better to slow down rather than rush ahead. Besides, it would just make it all the better in the future. He went to go pour himself a cup of coffee as well. "Sleep well? I hope I didn't wake you when I got up."
"You always wake me when you get up." Murrue retorted with amusement. "For a man who takes a predatory cat as his personal totem, you're far from stealthy, and to be honest, your night vision is terrible. I've never heard a man trip into so many things while getting dressed as you do. Even if its only into swim trunks. I swear, if I didn't see you do it with my own eyes, I'd never believe you had the agility to surf, given the racket you make trying to be stealthy most mornings. But yes, I did sleep well, and I even managed to fall back asleep after you left, until the dawn's light started shining into my eyes anyway. How about you?"
"Oh, like a log, as usual. Gardening really takes it out of a guy... I haven't been that tired since basic training." Andrew took a sip of his coffee and smiled broadly. Just right. "Who would have thought strenuous physical labor would be so tiring, right?"
"I know. Its shocking. You Coordinators aren't supposed to have physical failings like getting tired." Murrue replied, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Despite all evidence to the contrary of course, some people just don't seem to realize the difference between potential and actuality."
"If you can't deceive the world, you may as well deceive yourself." Andrew agreed, winking at her. Some people had difficulty telling when he winked, since he only had the one eye, but Murrue knew him more than well enough by now to read his facial expressions, even through the scar, as if it wasn't there at all. "After all, that's much easier than actually accepting that you might have faults. Not that I do, of course. Tiredness is just an act, for me. I wouldn't want people thinking I was an arrogant son of a bitch after all."
"Oh, who would think that?" Murrue grinned, taking a seat and looking out at the ocean. "I mean, just because you were "the driving force behind all major Clyne Faction victories in both Valentine Wars" as I might quote, or "able to fight Kira Yamato to a standstill back when I was in ZAFT" is no reason for thinking you have a greater than normal opinion of yourself."
"What I say in the junior officer's club around the newbies and what is in fact part of reality is only loosely connected, you know that. Its impossible to get any respect out of those newcomers unless you blow yourself completely out of proportion. Did I fight Kira... sure. And he was standing still, for a while... cause he didn't want to fight me. Course, when he DID fight me, I rapidly lost and almost died, but the greenhorns don't need that part of the story giving them nightmares. Some of the poor bastards actually think they're going to be the NEXT Kira Yamato, you know? I'd rather they shoot for being the next Andrew Waltfeld, rather than try and walk down Kira's road. There's some places where regular people just can't go, even if he doesn't like admitting it. I'm all for people attaining their dreams... but some dreams are fantasy, and people need to learn the difference."
"Being like Kira isn't so bad." Murrue replied. "Though I wonder how many of them would still want it, if they knew what it really meant to be him... what sort of road, to use your vernacular, that you'd have to walk. Kira is definitely a product of his past, and that past isn't particularly pleasant, though it has had its bright shining moments, I can never forget." She sighed and looked into the distance for a moment or two before returning to the here and now. "So, what's on the agenda for today, beyond abstract philosophic discussion of our friends and subordinates?"
Andrew sat down as well, careful to keep his back off the seat cushion while his cuts finished scabbing over. "Well, besides the possibility of various pleasantly amorous episodes at random intervals..." He trailed off as Murrue dug her elbow into his side playfully. "Besides that, I'll probably work on the front yard some more. Those palms aren't going to plant themselves after all. I did most of the heavy lifting and carrying yesterday, its just a matter of putting them into the holes and filling in the turf and mulch. That should take up most of the morning. If I'm lucky, and don't have any Armory calls, I'll probably spend the afternoon on the sea-side garden... the wall needs some work, and there's always weeds and stuff to pull." Andrew continued, visualizing the labors ahead with actual anticipation. Tending to relatively domestic chores was actually a lot of fun, and it was maintainance the house needed anyway. "You?"
"Unfortunately, I have to go in to work today, though it should only be for a few hours. I should be back by midafternoon." Murrue frowned and shrugged. New ships always took so much time, even on non-work days. It had been the same thing with the Archangel construction... she'd always been coming in on weekends to attend to odd tasks. The Archangel was in semi-retirement at the moment, in the underwater hangar underneath the main Morganroete Armories production center, about ten miles away as the crow flew, though it was more like twenty because they were on the mainland and MA had its headquarters and primary facilities on an island about ten miles off the southwestern coast. There was a network of bridges and subsurface vehicular tunnels connecting the satellite island to the mainland, though traffic was usually very heavy on them. Her daily commute to and from work was sometimes as long as an hour and a half because of that. "I might stop in Morganville on the way home, pick us up something for dinner."
"Great idea! I can cook steaks again!" Andrew perked up.
"No, you can't. I'm leery about even microwaved meals done by you... open flames are completely out of the question until you learn how to grill. Honestly, what sort of man doesn't know how to grill?" Murrue cut him down before he could get attached to the idea. He gave her a wounded look, which she returned with an even stare.
"Its not my fault that backyard grills don't exist on the PLANTS... or open fires of almost any sort. The smoke is bad for the atmospheric filtration systems. I'm getting better." Andrew retorted defenisvely.
"Yes, you are. Who knows, in another few months of charred ashes or bloody raw carcasses, we might be able to sit down to a civilized steak dinner together. But that time is not today. I'm glad to see that you've progressed past looking for the "on" button on the charcoal grill, but you're no master barbecuer yet, Andrew."
"You won't let that go, will you? How was I supposed to know it was so primitive that you have to light it by hand?"
"You spent almost an HOUR searching, that's the funny part!" Murrue chuckled at the memory. "I hadn't seen you that confounded by a simple procedure in a long time... not since the car fiasco."
"Don't even bring that up please!" Andrew shivered. "Changing fluids in a car is entirely automated on the PLANTS, along with driving in general. And I can see why... simple procedure or not, that was a disaster!" He straightened up. "If we're done making fun of me adapting to being an Earthling, I suppose I could beg for something besides chicken or turkey roasts for dinner, right? Taste concerns aside, I think I might be able to handle a few extra calories here and there. I realize you have a diet to consider, but I am, fortunately, not so constrained. Why must we both suffer under the yoke of popular poultry?"
Murrue was about to retort when she caught sight of something out in the distance, way out about halfway to the horizon. She blinked and looked again, shading her eyes with one hand. Still, she couldn't make out much more than a glinting splotch. A moving, glinting splotch at that. It was too low to the ocean to be a boat or ship, she'd never have caught sight of it if it weren't for the sunlight angle. Orb had a few submarines, but she hadn't been aware of any operating in the coastal area in recent times, especially given the relatively shallowness of the water in these parts, barely over a hundred meters depth even a few miles from the shore. It was the gentle topography in the area that made the subsurface tunnels to Morganville from the mainland at all possible, but which at the same time would make operating a submarine of any size awkward unless it was on the surface.
Andrew had noticed her catching her eye on something, and had moved to retrieve a set of binoculars they kept in a cabinet nearby. Usually they used them for bird or whale watching, but they'd do for pretty much any sort of long distance viewing. "Little late in the day for a whale pod." Andrew commented with a relaxed smile. "Someone should tell that poor sap that he's running a bit behind schedule." He handed the binoculars to Murrue, shading his own eye as he looked in the direction she was. Not that his eye was THAT much better than hers, sometimes the opposite in fact, but she had spotted whatever it was first, so house rules said she got the first close up look.
"Someone should also tell him he'd keep better time if he wasn't covered in armor." Murrue's voice had ceased being playful, and had adopted the concerned, intense tones of Murrue Ramius, the Captain of the Archangel, vs Murrue Ramius, MA Shipyard contractor. "And that if he maintains his current course and speed he's going to run out of ocean rather quickly."
It took Andrew a moment to realize that Murrue was saying that it wasn't actually a whale... he was still relatively new to the massive diversity of lifeforms in the Earth's oceans... who was to say that there wasn't an armored whale? There was a winged whale up in the PLANTS, or a fossil of one anyway... why not a living armored one? Her tone change though brought home the fact that things were not right in the neighborhood. "A submarine? I wasn't aware of any coastal operations in the area."
"Its too small for a conning tower, and too big for a periscope. And no submarine captain would direct their craft at that speed and heading, unless they were deliberately trying to run aground." Murrue replied, peering closer through the binoculars. "Unless I'm much mistaken, that's a Mobile Suit. Or at least the head and shoulders of one."
Waltfeld was already moving towards the secure offices, to retrieve a direct connecting phone. "It's awful close in for us to be the first to catch it. What happened to the subsurface sonar detection array? Nobody should be able to get within territorial waters undetected... especially not in a Mobile Suit. Can you get me a model? Ghoon? Zno? Something Allianceish?" He called over his shoulder.
"None of the above. It's ZAFT-like in construction... the head and... damn it, it submerged!" Murrue called back. She could still trace the disturbance in the water's surface the Mobile Suit made as it continued towards shore. Murrue chewed her lip for a moment, running what she had seen through her mind to make sure there was no mistake. There was none. "Andrew, tell them that we've got a Mobile Suit of unknown design and provenance inbound. They'll be reaching the shore in a matter of minutes... no, make that less than a minute. He just speeded up dramatically!" Murrue traced the path the Mobile Suit was likely to take, and realized that it would probably be making landfall on the far side of the semi-private beach, by the houses clustered on the hill opposite theirs.
"The Coastal Defence Force reports no sonar contacts for anything resembling a Mobile Suit in this area!" Waltfeld shouted, taking the wireless handset with him as he headed back towards Murrue. "They have a really noisy pod of dolphins just off the coast, but nothing mechanical!"
"Well their system has been fooled then, because I know what I saw! I'd lay money down that the noisy pod of dolphins is a sonic camouflaging system of some sort... the subsurface sonar detection array isn't exactly the world's best kept secret after all... really, it would be more surprising if an island nation did not have something like it! Clearly whoever this is has found a way around it!" Murrue retorted. She chewed her lip again before continuing on. "Use the override code. Get a scramble here ASAP! There's no telling what kind of terror and devastation a Mobile Suit could wreak in these residential neighborhoods! MA is practically right next door, and ONDFHQ (Orb National Defence Force Headquarters) as well... they should be able to get something here before whatever it is gets too far off the be... OMIGOD!"
"WHAT!? What... HOLY FUCK!" Andrew yelled, darting back into the common room and staring out the windows, stopping dead in his tracks, phone set forgotten in his hand for a moment, as both he and Murrue looked on in stupified amazement as a sight neither of them had ever expected to see rose out of the shallow water near the beach, like a primeveal monstor making landfall in a horror movie. But this monster was no ten story lizard or flying space insect... it had the form of a young woman, a girl with flowing black hair and bare tanned skin, though she was still a giant, more than twenty meters tall. She was strikingly beautiful actually... except for the horrendous multitude of gushing wounds, lacerations and torn skin that criss-crossed her form. Blood and worse flowed constantly down her body and dripped from her fingers and chin like drool. Her eyes were empty, bloody sockets in her skull, and a terrible gory crater in the middle of her belly slowly leaked a pulsing mass of internal organs down her front. Still, despite bearing wounds that should have killed her a hundred times over, she took a steady stride forward through the surf, the sound of her footfall audible even inside the house.
It took both Waltfeld and Murrue a few moments to remind themselves that this was no gigantic zombie aberration, but was in fact a cunningly disguised Mobile Suit, likely equipped with the same sort of disguising projection technology that Athrun had encountered in Switzerland and Ysak and Katie encountered on the Moon. They'd read the reports of course, but neither of them had expected the projections to be quite THAT lifelike... Waltfeld could almost swear he could see blood staining the water around her... its... ankles, and he felt the bile rising in his threat as he continued to look at the defiled and disfigured form. The way she... he shook his head again, forcing himself not to think of it as a person, but a thing... the way it walked was entirely human, they way it moved exactly like a human splashing through ankle deep water would move. It even staggered every now and again, as if unsteady from loss of blood and pain of wounds. Waltfeld remembered the phone set in his hand as the Mobile Suit reached dry land, striding up the beach with careless abandon, but no real sense of haste.
He had just lifted it back up to his mouth, and was searching his stunned mind for the command authority override code that Cagalli and Athrun had supplied him and Murrue with, to be used if ever they deemed an emergency dire enough, allowing them to be temporarily recognized as of equal authority to the Chief Representative herself, in effect granting them command over Orb's armed forces until countermanded by Cagalli or Athrun themselves, when the Mobile Suit stopped, still on the beach. It looked from side to side, as if searching for something, and for a moment Waltfeld could have sworn that he matched gazes with it, even across almost a half mile of space. He heard Murrue gulp as well, likely having a similar experience, before the Mobile Suit turned it's head away. "Th-this is Commander Andrew Waltfeld, evoking Command Authority Override Code Blazing Dawn. Repeat code Blazing Dawn, acknowledge. Acknowledge and scramble me some goddamn Guardians, we have a level one emergency here... enemy Mobile Sui... what the hell!?"
Murrue jerked with shock, dropping the binoculars with a clatter and the harsh crack of breaking glass from the low coffee table in front of her. The Mobile Suit had reached up with both hands and taken hold of its own face, fingers digging into the welling gore of the empty eye sockets and gripping tight. With a convulsive heave that arched the back of the machine, it threw its arms wide, ripping its face in half, gobbets of flesh falling away all down its front, gore fountaining from the self inflicted wound... though Murrue had noticed, somewhat abstractedly, that the sand remained unbloodied, confirming for her that it was all a very realistic graphical illusion, nothing more. Bloody facial bones bared to the sky, the skull's mouth distended downward, wider and wider, until the jaw was open wide enough to swallow a small boat, and then wider still, past the point of believeability... and then the Mobile Suit screamed.
Calling it a scream was inadequate, Murrue reflected in the brief instants between when the sound first reached them, and when she was forced to cover her face and eyes with her arms as the glass windows exploded inwards on the tide of sonic energy, even from a half mile away. It was a heart rending, mind piercing, blood freezing howl, that chilled her to the very soul, evoking images of primal fear and eternal loss, of love sundered bloodily and death stalking streets with impunity. It was the death cry of hope, the victory ululation of something truly wretched. And it was all delievered at a volume sufficient to explode the sand and water away from the feet of the Mobile Suit in all directions like a bomb had gone off. The solid stone of the cliff nearby shattered and vibrated into dust and gravel under the sonic onslaught, tumbling down with a roar that went entirely unheard admist the keening wail. Anything and everything within fifty meters of the Mobile Suit that had an even slightly crystalline or solid molecular structure shivered, cracked and quickly exploded in shards and shrapnel. Beyond the radius of absolute destruction was a much wider one of devastation, with trees with branches ripped away, windows shattered, cracks running through the ground, and a massive blastwave of concussive air and debris travelling away from the Mobile Suit at the speed of sound.
The quiet after the banshee shriek ended was profound. Nobody within a quarter mile of the focus could hear, most had been permantly deafened or impaired by the sonic assault. People staggered from homes, businesses and cars, bleeding from eyes, ears and noses, screaming and sometimes tearing at themselves in mindless agony, as the reverberations thrummed through their bones and shook their organs. Those lucky enough to be farther away shouted and cried out in panic, barely able to hear even screaming right in their ears, wincing in pain like standing next to a rock concert speaker for several minutes during a crescendo... the sound had been so loud that it dazed and confused you, like a blow to the head. The officer who'd been on the phone with Waltfeld, in the process of acknowledging the Command Authority Override reeled backwards in his cahir, falling over to the side in shock and pain, his head ringing from the feedback screech that had conducted itself through the phone before it went dead. He'd never heard something so horrible before in his life! But he had acknowledged the code, and even as he was scrambling back to his feet, shaking his head, he slammed a hand down on the priority alert button. He could barely hear the sirens.
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The first flight of three Orb M-4 Guardian Mobile Suits arrived less than four minutes later, shifting from Jet to Mobile Suit form as they dived down out of the sky. The pulled up sharply, swearing and crying out in shock at the sight that greeted them. None of them had been prepared for the sight of the shrouded Tormented, now complete with a face again. Their shock and hesitation lasted only a second or so, before training and common sense took over... Orb's Military had been briefed on the holographic technology of the enemy to a certain extent, and though visually there was a giant, striking young woman with grotesque gory wounds all over her in front of them their other sensors quickly stripped away the veil, revealing the thermal and magnetic signatures of a nuclear powered Mobile Suit beneath the guise. Unfortunately, as was often the case in a battle, a mere second of hesitation was quite a bit too long, especially when the foe was as aware of them as they were of her.
Mary O'Brien jumped the Tormented forward a hundred meters, clearing the beach and landing in the middle of the residential zone bordering it, where the civilians remaining would serve to restrict the sort of attacks her foes could utilize against her. The Tormented was not optimized for ranged combat, if at all possible she wanted to lure her enemies close, to where she could use her advantages in agility and speed to the maximum, and also so she could use her primary weapon, the Banshee's Wail Compounded Ultra-Sonic Amplifier, to best effect. The CUSA, in essence, as Noah had explained to her, was like the world's most powerful microphone and PA system... she generated the basic noise to be sent out, and the CUSA amplified and re-amplified the effect to the level that it could rip armor to shreds, liquefy flesh and even hurl objects that were not immediately destroyed around like leaves in a gale. Though Mary could not speak, because of her throat wound, she could still scream... and she had a lot to scream about. Even unassisted, she could break glass and make men stagger with pain, bringing tears of heartfelt sadness and despair to most anyone who heard her distilled agony.
Mary drew the Tormented's primary ranged weapon, a 500mm Recoiless Bazooka, from its sheath on her back. Her holoshroud flickered as the weapon broke through its outline from beneath, before once more resolving into a portrait of the banshee that it was programmed to maintain. Meanwhile, she extended the weapons contained in her left hand and forearm, which were actually disguised with an extension of the holoshroud, so that the monomolecular finger claws looked like long nails, and the electrified chain links of the whip looked like a bloodied spine growing from the back of her hand. She blew the first Guardian to little pieces with a single shot from her bazooka, though subsequent attacks on the other two were guarded away by their shields, the impacts nonetheless knocking them around in the sky. Mary gritted her teeth in annoyance, but forced herself at the last to stay calm.
Noah had given her strict orders and sound advice to follow, that she was not to indulge her natural desires for revenge upon the nation that had allowed her tragedy to come to place, that she must be patient and calm, letting her foes come to her on ground of her choosing, where they would be most limited and she totally free. She was alone after all, and for all the great, sublime power of her Tormented alter ego, it was just one Gundam, versus an entire technologically advanced nation. Randolf and Dylan had already suffered humbling and humiliating defeats at the hands of the Orb Gundams, and Mary knew she would be hard pressed to avoid such a fate herself, especially if she didn't follow Noah's plan. Just the mere thought of Noah, her lovely hero and savior, made her calmer. She would make him proud today! She would start paying him back for the life he had returned to her!
She could never forget the events that had ruined her life, had taken everything from her... her voice and good looks least amongst them! She had lost her life that day, no matter that she had lived on through the injuries! She had lost people she cared deeply about, had been left for dead by the cruel world, and if it weren't for the cosmic twist of fate represented by Dylan and Randolf being in the area on a seperate mission, the details of which were still hazy to her, she would have died truly... just one more name on a list of tragedy somewhere, her pain forgotten, the crime committed upon her unresolved, the monsters responsible escaping scot free, lauded as heroes by a decieved populace! What sort of heroes opened fire on a hospital just to destroy a foe? Wasn't that the last resort, especially in a Mobile Suit? Why was a Mobile Suit battle even going on in the middle of a city anyway? Did they just not care about all the people they killed in their stupid, pointless struggle? How could people be so selfish and cruel!? There were hundreds of elderly and badly sick people in the hospital... and they'd just blown it away without even thinking about it... there wasn't much more than seared rubble left when they were done!
There was one death in particular that hit her harder than most, almost as hard as her own personal tragedy. That was the death of a young boy named Jason Lebora. He was the younger brother of one Lain Debora, one of Orb's top Mobile Suit aces. Mary had never met Lain, but she had been impressed with his devotion to his terminally ill younger brother, constantly sending messages, gifts and other tokens of appreciation to the hospital, even in the middle of a war! Jason had been afflicted with a genetic condition that slowly shut down his nervous system over the course of years... he would never have lived to see eighteen anyway, and he was fourteen when he died... but that wasn't the point! He may have been crippled... confined to a bed, unable to even use the restroom by himself... but he still had a life! He still had dignity! He was aware of his condition, and he was making the best of life! He wasn't sad or angry or withdrawn... he was a loving, beautiful boy, and he was her friend! And he'd been MURDERED by those so called heroes, casually... like a BUG! He'd done nothing to deserve his lot in life, but it was crueller still to deny him the little time he'd had left!
She would never forget their names... those murderers! Those villians! She would have their bloody heads on a plate before she was even slightly satisfied that Jason's tragedy had been expunged! Dearka Elsman! Miriallia Haw! She would not let things stand as they were, with their leering faces haunting her dreams, Jason's death screams echoing in her ears whenever she awoke, the blood and soot stained figure of their Mobile Suit striding through the flaming wreckage of the Hospital, stepping upon the helpless wounded as it went whenever she closed her eyes! She had a list of demands from Noah that she was to issue to Orb... but she had a personal demand of her own to make as well, and she would not leave before it was granted! She forced her hatred and anger back down once again with a mighty effort that still left her seeing red in spots, and focused her attention on the two remaining Guardians, circling overhead cautiously.
One of them spotted an opening, or so he thought, and he opened fire with well aimed bursts from his arm mounted 55mm machine cannons and hand held 57mm beam cannon. Tracers and bright green energy blasts blited through the air, on an unerring path for the Tormented's chest... he'd aimed well indeed. Not that it mattered, as the electro-chain retracted into her left arm and a portal spiralled open in her left palm, emitting a faintly reddish field of magnetically contained antimatter, which caught both plasma beams and explosive bullets and annihilated them in brief flashes of light. The Positron Reflector Shield, identical in function, though much reduced in power from those the infamous Pulsar had been equipped with, was the Tormented's primary defensive mechanism, backed up by Phase Shift armor. Since the Tormented only had a nuclear reactor, not a fusion pulse reactor like the Pulsar, its Positron Reflector was only about a fifth as strong... but it was still more than strong enough to handle pretty much anything even a squadron of normal Mobile Suits could throw against her!
Seeing their ranged fire disintegrating in midair also threw the Guardian pilots onto their back feet in surprise... neither of them had ever seen the like before... it was like shooting into a bottomless hole! They opened up in unison the next time, but no matter how much firepower they poured into the attacks, nothing got through the wide oval of the reddish energy field. Nothing even deflected off it, which was something of a blessing in disguise, even though it was disconcerting... there was seemingly no chance of friendly fire damage from deflected beams or shells with this type of defensive system. Seeing that they seemed to have the terrorist pinned by their firepower, even if she was unharmed, the Orb pilots started moving in closer. If they could just get in close past the shield... it turned out to be quite the unwise decision. As soon as they touched down on a nearby road, the Tormented pounced at them, moving so fast and with such agility that their brief bursts of reaction fire went well wide.
Bursting through a row of houses like a woman staggering through a tangle of hip high bushes, Mary blasted the closer Guardian back on its haunches with another bazooka round, before she stowed the weapon and drew out the Tormented's primary melee weapon in that same hand... a long hafted, triple bladed monomolecular trident, able to slice through anything but Phase Shift armor or Citadel Shields like butter! She kept her enemies reeling by engulfing them in a river of fire from the four plasma flamethrowers mounted on the left wrist, while the electro-chain once more slid out to ready position, the Positron Shield deactivating for the moment, as the fight entered her terms. The chain lashed out, followed by the flamethrower stream like a burning shadow, and wrapped around the shield arm of the closest Guardian. Immediately almost a gigavolt of electrical power raced down the chain and into the Guardian, exploding the main computer and frying the pilot in his chair like a fly in a bug zapper. Smoke burst out of the joints of the Guardian and its limbs locked up before it slowly toppled over, crushing a house beneath its weight.
The chain would require some minutes to rebuild its electrical charge, so Mary withdrew it even as she continued her charge, dodging another spray of bullets and beams from the sole remaining Guardian. She kept the pressure on him with her flamethrowers, but he was savvy or skilled enough to still deflect her inital thrust with her trident with his Citadel Shield, and even managed to leap backwards to evade her kick, and the swipe with her left hand claws aimed at his head. Snatching out his beam sword, he made ready to come back at her, but she refused to give him the chance to gain any sort of momentum. Letting the cannon shells from his arm mounted guns rebound harmlessly from her Phase Shift armor, the Tormented bodily tackled the Guardian, knocking it over with a tremendous crashing impact. Able to much more freely than any regularly controlled Mobile Suit, the Tormented was easily able to wriggle around on top of the Guardian, closing her left hand around its head, talons slicing into the armor like it wasn't even there, and Mary ripped its head off with a single jerk of her arm. She pinned the disabled machine to the ground with her trident through its chest as she rose, skewering the pilot, cutting him in half as he tried to climb out and surrender. There was no mercy alloted in Noah's plans.
Mary looked around, seeing that the skies were clear for the moment, though she knew it would only be a matter of time before more Orb forces showed up, in greater numbers. Perhaps even Gundams would be sent. It didn't really matter... really, she'd already accomplished her mission, which was to show even Orb that it was not safe on its home territory from the predations of the Brotherhood. Nowhere was safe from the Brotherhood! Even Orb would have to acknowledge the wisdom of increasing the strength of the USN now! From now on, all that really mattered was her making a show of causing as much damage as possible, in as public a manner as possible, and escaping at the end. She'd been given a plan of retreat, as well as expendable lackey's to facilitate it if need be, but she knew she wouldn't be leaving until her own primary goal had been completed. The Tormented stood straight and then arched its back again, throwing its arms wide as Mary activated the CUSA, once more letting her Banshee Wail loose to blast everything in a fifty meter sphere, including the two downed Guardians, into so much dust and debris! Orb would know her torment!
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"All right... so what do we know?" Ledonir Kisaka asked, his eyes on the situation table that graced the main compartment of the Mobile Command Vehicle that had deployed from MA pretty much as soon as the crisis had started. It was safely situated several miles away from where the terrorist machine was currently being contained by Orb forces, and it could move if the situation changed for the worse, which was unfortunately a real possibility at the moment. Unlike the other two Brotherhood Gundams that had been encountered in recent days, this one seemed to need no special advantagous terrain or strategy... the pilot was skilled, the Gundam itself was powerful, especially in melee, and it was equipped with a Positron Reflector Shield that seemed more than capable of protecting it against any sort of long range takedown, at least from anything that was appropriate to use in a residential area! Evacuations were of course in progress... but there were still thousands of Orb civilians of all ages within the operating area, at direct risk from both the terrorist and any stray friendly fire.
"Well, we thought that she... it... was going to go for Morganville or perhaps MA itself, but it didn't. Really, I can't understand why it hasn't done more than it has... sure, it causes chaos by choosing to hide amongst the residential districts... but really, it could be doing so much worse." Waltfeld mused, scratching his chin in frustration. He'd changed into something a little more presentable than house shorts and sandals, but hadn't had time to find his uniform or anything before he and Murrue had evacuated their damaged house and gone to find whoever was in charge of the Orb response. He winced as he thought about the cost of replacing all those broken windows, not to mention the other interior damage caused by the sonic shockwave, and flying glass.
"It's not the first time these Brotherhood wacko's have had an opportunity to cause truly tremendous damage and have instead opted for something more visible and perhaps frightening to the public. I think we need to stop thinking about these people as military soldiers, and more as true terrorists, who choose targets based on ideaology or public view, not necessarily military or economic utility." Murrue added with a frown. "They may have the capabilities of a military force, but they aren't soldiers. Soldiers have rules... these Brotherhood fanatics don't seem to be so hindered." She hugged herself, thinking of the damage to their house as well, and shivered slightly. If the enemy Gundam had chosen to come aground on their side of the beach, instead of all the way across it, she and Andrew would be dead now, crushed or liquified by whatever that sonic weapon was, instead of merely suffering cuts from flying glass. They'd passed some remains of people who had been unfortunate enough to be within the immediately deadly radius of the weapon, and they were barely recognizable as human... more like smears of flesh and gore.
Waltfeld noticed Murrue's shiver and placed an arm comfortingly about her waist, and she leaned into him appreciatively. On the other side of the table, Kisaka's lips took a slight downturn and he forced himself to concentrate only on the situation table. He wasn't exactly bitter about the fact that his romantic pursuit of Murrue had ended in failure... in the end, their personalities had just been too different, despite mutual physical attraction, for anything long term to develop. As Murrue had pointed out, gently enough, Kisaka already had a woman in his life more important to him than life itself... and that woman was Cagalli. Unless he could give up his orbit around Orb's leader, Murrue just didn't think she could believe he was truly as sincere in his love as a man and his wife should be. And he just couldn't give up Cagalli... she was like a daughter to him, and he was ever aware of the charge that the man he had respected most in the world, Lord Uzumi, had given him. Watch over Cagalli. Protect her with your life. It gave him problems sometimes... but if he was anything, he was true to his loyalties. Still, despite all that, he would never be truly pleased to see Murrue with another man, even Andrew Waltfeld. He could be polite, but he would not pretend to be happy. He put it out of his mind as much as possible... they had much bigger concerns at the moment.
"So far we've gotten a written record of demands from the Terrorist, who identifies herself as the "Tormented Apostle", which matches up with what the Gundam in Switzerland called itself, the "Haunted Apostle". The man Jean Dylan on the Moon would likely be the "Traitor Apostle", given that naming scheme. Makes me wonder just how many Apostles this Brotherhood has." Kisaka grunted, and called up the list of demands again. "Most of these demands are utter garbage. Nonsensical even... nobody would ever expect Orb to renounce its participation in the USN... we helped FOUND it... we can't just leave. Especially not for a terrorist, even one in a Gundam. And the list of repretrations to be paid to people... most of those people are dead! And we don't HAVE any hostage members of the Brotherhood to release... its more like the demands are just an excuse to let them rampage because they aren't being met!"
"I'm still trying to figure out the last one on the list myself. Why the hell is the Brotherhood of Man, a Coordinator supremacy group, wanting Dearka Elsman, of all people, put on trial for war crimes perpetuated during Purgatory Day?" Murrue stared intently at the situation table herself, trying to peer through it, into the mind of the terrorist. It wasn't working very well. "For that matter, who could also want Miriallia put on trial as well? I could understand one, kinda... but both? Maybe the terrorist has a personal grudge against them... but I'm stumped as to what that could be, or who would have it. They're probably the least likely amongst the Clyne Faction to have personal enemies... they stay out of politics as much as possible, and out of the military too."
"Besides which, from all accounts I've heard, Dearka and Miriallia were integral in minimizing casualties and defeating the Merciless during Purgatory Day." Waltfeld added in a puzzled tone. "I mean, they were the heroes of that dark day, along with Ysak of course. Of course it was a terrible thing to fight with Gundams in the middle of a city, but it wasn't like the Merciless gave them a lot of choice! If anyone needs to be tried for war crimes, it would have been the Merciless's pilot, but he's dead!"
"I think Murrue is right about it being a personal grudge." Kisaka said, turning away from the situation table, there being nothing on it he could see that was helpful. "If this was about Purgatory Day, and the damage done by the Gundams during it, they should be asking for Ysak as well. That they aren't says to me that this is something against Dearka and Miriallia only. I'm as stumped as anyone as to what it would be though... like Murrue said, Dearka and Miriallia keep themselves well out of the line of sight of most people who hate the Clyne Faction, unlike the other Gundam pilots."
"So what are we going to do then?" Waltfeld asked, likewise stepping away from the table. "We can't accept these demands, so that pretty much leaves us with a fighting solution to the problem. But that Gundam has already taken out six Guardians, and hasn't seemed to take any damage in the process. I suppose we could rush it, overwhelm it... but the collateral damage on that would be..."
"Unacceptable." Murrue finished for him. "As is a long range bombardment or other conventional solution to a terrorist action. To be honest, the three of us can't really make the final call on this one, given the nature of the problem. When are Cagalli and Athrun due?"
"Anytime now. They were delayed by the need to provide their own transportation." Kisaka grinned for a moment, before the sombre mood reclaimed him. "I think their choice of transport tells us exactly what their direction is going to be though."
"You don't mean..." Murrue trailed off, as the sound of powerful thrusters from outside reached through the thick armor plate of the MCV.
"How did you THINK she would respond to something like this?" Kisaka's grin lasted a bit longer this time. "She's been on edge ever since Switzerland... this damn terrorist picked a rather poor time to mess with Orb, I daresay. Besides... its long been proven that when confronted by a Gundam, the best way to deal with it is to send out your own, preferrably more skilled and powerful Gundam. Or Gundams, in this case." Kisaka opened the door leading outside and revealed the Phoenix King, in Mobile Armor form, circling overhead, the Dawn Goddess perched firmly upon its back. "Yes... a very poor time to be the terrorist." Kisaka commented, inaudible over the din.
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"Yick! What the hell is up with that hologram!? Talk about gross!" Cagalli complained, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the visual smear on her screens that was the Tormented's appearance. "I can understand the utility of the way the Haunted used it's version to create ghost images of itself, or the way the Traitor used it to look like other Mobile Suits... but to make yourself look like a torn up corpse, especially a naked girl? What kinda of sick, warped mind does that? Its more like something I'd expect of Frost!"
"Please don't say that... I really don't want to think about him right now... remember that these Brotherhood Gundams employ the same control system as the Pulsar... if that person is ANYTHING like Frost, then both of us are in a lot of trouble." Athrun replied with a shiver. "I think it's safe enough to surmise though, that given the fact that they haven't already destroyed all of our forces keeping them contained that we aren't facing a Frost level pilot here, thank God. They're good... better than either the Haunted or Traitor... but they aren't something truly terrifying." He paused for a moment, considering what to say next. He opted to be direct. "So what now? I mean, I don't think we brought our Gundams all the way out here as a show of force, did we?"
"Damn right we didn't!" Cagalli retorted fiercely. "These fucking terrorists think they can bring their filth here, to Orb's very own shores... well they're fucking wrong about that! I will NOT stand for terrorism! I sent you halfway across the world to stop them in Switzerland, and I'm not going to do any less her in my own damn yard! They picked the wrong nation to fuck with!"
"They do have hostages though." Athrun reminded her, as gently as he could, though the thought made him burn with anger too. Cowards who hide behind civilians... it was detestable!
"Which was why I declined Dearka and Miri's offer to let them confront this ugly bitch, despite the fact that the pilot seems to want their skulls on a stick! If they were out at sea, where I didn't have to worry about massive scale devastation, sure... I'd let this bitch meet the Warmaster, and I'd bring the popcorn to the ass-whomping show too. But they want to play their games on land, amongst my own people, and I won't let anyone else have the responsibility of potential civilian casualties! All the same though, we can't just let them hide forever, or run away... to do so would be a show of weakness Orb cannot afford right now! Orb does NOT negotiate with terrorists... and when it comes down to it, allowing our concern for my citizens to keep us at bay is a form of negotiation. The situation will not be better if we let them hide behind the hostages. All the same though..."
"We'll have to be careful, yes. That means you probably won't be able to use the arbalest or the missiles. We'll be deciding this fight up close and personal." Athrun was glad for the Phoenix King's emphasis on melee combat... it would be a great help in limiting collateral damage. He didn't delude himself into thinking there would be no collateral damage... Gundams simply weren't precise enough in this setting to avoid it entirely. "The Tormented seems to have Phase Shift armor, so anything physical is going to be useless, regardless of whether or not you get it past the Positron Shield."
"Thanks honey, but I do remember how to fight people with Phase Shift armor." Cagalli retorted with a hint of ice in her voice. "I'm not exactly the newest graduate of the National Defence Academy you know."
"Never hurts to be reminded..." Athrun muttered.
"It might when I'm as pissed off as I am! Just because you're not nearby now doesn't mean you won't be later!"
"I wonder how many people would believe the sort of threats of physical violence I live under as part of daily life? Truly, my closest friends scare me more than any enemy could..."
"Stop procrastinating! I won't stand for that bastard to defile my nation for a second longer than absolutely necessary! Mush! Fly! Go! Whatever it is you do that gets me over there quickly!"
"Roger that, my endlessly frightening and magnificent Queen..." Athrun rolled his eyes in exasperated patience, but he was smiling as he did it. It was time to get to grips, he agreed with her on that. "The Vulcan's Forge is active... BGCS fields are calibrated and connected to your controls. Just don't fall off the Phoenix King, and I'll be sure to line him up for you as neat as you please."
"More doing, less talking!" Cagalli demanded, a frequent imprecation to Athrun from her, though usually in much different, more pleasant situations. She pushed such thoughts away, as she took up her anti-ship lance, arcs of electricity swarming up and down the twelve meter length, even as white hot plasma flames began spouting from the "shoulders" of the Phoenix King's Mobile Armor form, wriggling and writhing upwards in complete defiance of gravity to coil and curl around her lance and arms as she took direct control of the BGCS fields. She shuddered and winced a little as Athrun rolled the Phoenix King up and around into an immelman turn, a half loop and twist that brought them around one hundred and eighty degrees, facing towards the quarantine one that her military forces had established earlier around the terrorist. She rocked back into her chair, gritting her teeth even more as Athrun boosted the Phoenix King to it's cruising speed of almost eighteen hundred miles per hour.
"You'll have a one point two second window to strike. It's coming up in nine... eight..." Athrun continued to count down the seconds as they streaked towards the Tormented, at an altitude of only slightly above head height for the enemy Gundam. He angled slightly off to the side, and rotated the Phoenix King to tilt the Dawn Goddess slightly towards the Tormented, so that Cagalli would be striking downwards at her foe. For her part, Cagalli opened fire with her shoulder mounted hyper-impulse plasma cannons, shooting a pair of blue-red beams at the Tormented as they closed within range, though both blasts were easily absorbed and nullified by the Positron Shield. The Tormented seemed to have been caught off guard by the sudden charge, without even a vocal parley, of the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess, which brought a smile to Cagalli's lips. Did they think that just because Cagalli was a member of the Clyne Faction that she was going to play nice if she didn't have to? More fools they. She stabbed out with her lance as they flashed past the Tormented, directing an explosive pulse of BGCS energy into the ground as the Tormented flung itself prone in a desperate evasion. Earth and concrete gouted into the air, but the Tormented seemed to have escaped serious harm.
"Damn that speed and maneuverability!" Cagalli fumed, as Athrun began a long banking turn, not daring to do anything more tricky while at such speeds, especially with the Dawn Goddess along for the ride. "That control system is completely unfair!"
"You still managed to put the fear of God into him though, I think." Athrun commented. "They weren't expecting a head on charge like that. I'm going to come at it again, but I'm going to stop just short... be ready for the decceleration. Mind the bazooka... it could really ruin our day if it gets past a shield."
"You worry too much." Cagalli took care to make sure that her Citadel Shield projectors were ready to be activated at a moments notice though, just to be sure. "I swear, you're going to turn into an old woman long before I ever will, if you keep up at this rate."
"One of us has to, anyway." Athrun replied with a snort. He completed his turn and hit the main thruster power again, grinning from the feeling of power and speed. His friends all thought that it was Cagalli that always was urging him to more than strictly safe speeds when it came to vehicles... which was partly true... she did love to go fast... but so did Athrun himself. It was carthartic and exhilirating, the feeling of being in minimal but still complete control of something moving faster than humans had ever been biologically designed to move. Once more the two Gundams closed with their foe at almost Mach 3, leaving a trail of sonic booms behind them, like the footprints of a charging wargod. The Tormented was better prepared this time, with its bazooka out and primed, but it made the mistake of firing at the Dawn Goddess, which was easily able to block the frontal attack with its forearm shields. Athrun would have had to veer off if targeted, since his own arm shields were unusable in Mobile Armor form except against attacks from below, but then again there was no way the enemy could know that.
With less than a kilometer to go, Athrun began a sharp decceleration, with the end result of the Phoenix King coming to a dead halt about fifty meters short of the Tormented, a perfectly stable firing platform for Cagalli to try once more with her shoulder mounted hyper-impulse cannons, but once more the Positron Shield proved more than capable of negating them. Athrun pushed power to his ventral thrusters, pushing the Phoenix King straight up, but Cagalli had had enough of the circle and charge game. She jumped the Dawn Goddess off the back of the Phoenix King, dragging along with her a great stream of BGCS plasma, which she directed from the tip of her lance at the Tormented from less than thirty meters away. Again the Positron Shield was interposed, but the less focused, more wide angle nature of the free form plasma blast caused some energy to leak around the sides of the antimatter shield, scorching into the flesh simacrulum of the Tormented's holoshroud. Athrun was intruiged to see the burn marks actually showing up on the "flesh", rather than merely causing the holoshroud to fail in those spots. A versatile technology indeed.
Athrun was less happy with Cagalli's improvisational and impudent discarding of the rather safe and likely effective strategy of repeated charges from the back of the Phoenix King, but he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Cagalli was truly angry, like he'd seen her only a few times before. Patience wasn't likely to be her strong suit, even at the best of times. There was nothing for it but to follow her lead, and try and keep her from doing anything too reckless in her pursuit of justice. All part of the promise they had made to each other, all those years ago... each had to be a brake on the sometimes reckless nature of the other. He shifted the Phoenix King into Mobile Suit form and pulled a slow flip as he returned to the ground, a pair of beam swords forming in his hands as he landed.
Cagalli had closed range with the Tormented, at last slipping inside the range of the Positron Shield, striking with her electrically charged lance, only to be parried by the Tormented's trident, the blades of which gouged a deep scratch in the lance in a shower of sparks. Hissing in surprised displeasure, Cagalli made a note not to let that trident get through her shield either... HAC armor was vulnerable to physical edges, and would slice even more easily than her lance had. Wasting no time, and moving with a fluidity that was frankly disgusting, the Tormented thrust back at her, but Cagalli was easily able to deflect the monomolecular blades with her Citadel Shields. The impact was strong, but it was nothing like what she'd suffered time and again when fighting against Frost. There was also none of the frenetic thrashing movement or flailing attacks that characterized someone truly putting the speed and power of a Pulsar-like machine to the utmost use, and for that she was grateful. Her opponent was a regular Gundam, just like hers... more powerful in some ways, less so in others, with a regular Gundam pilot... highly skilled, but not inhumanely overwhelming.
Athrun charged in from the side, swinging his swords in sweeping arcs that forced the Tormented to leap awkwardly away from the Dawn Goddess. He gave no regard for whether or not his swords got close to Cagalli... since both the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess were HAC armored that meant they could both safely use beam weapons around each other without fear of hurting each other. Unless he used the Phoenix Feathers, there wasn't a thing he could do that would adversely affect the Dawn Goddess, save punching or kicking it. Less so in return, but then again, he WAS a better pilot. There was little need for Athrun and Cagalli to communicate at this point... they'd trained together in simulators so often by now that they knew each other's strategies by heart. Some things had changed, because of the new Gundams, but they could extrapolate a great deal of what they were each likely to do, just based on personality.
Cagalli stepped backwards, lance darting and poking to draw the Tormented's attention, while Athrun took to the air, sideslipping around to come at the Tormented from the back right side, the side opposite the Positron Shield. The Tormented sprayed plasma flame from the flamethrowers in its own left arm at the Dawn Goddess, but Cagalli just stepped right through the fire like it was water from a waterpistol, her HAC armor far more than proof against such a comparatively minimal amount of heat. This obviosuly caught the Tormented off guard as well, since it had half turned to thrust the left arm with it's Positron Shield at Athrun, and was now caught out of position to block Cagalli's lance. Athrun thrust in as well, forming his two swords into a single large blade, forcing the Tormented to keep it's shield facing him lest he cut it in half when it tried to block Cagalli. Cagalli's lancetip bounced off the Tormented's Phase Shift armor, but the electric shock it transmitted at the moment of contact made the Brotherhood Gundam convulse and stagger, exactly like a person hit with a taser. A downside to the NIC system was the vulnerability its pilots suffered to electrical attacks. Still, Noah had included dampening and shielding circuits as safety measures, not wanting his pilots to turn out like his Uncle Jeremiah, and so Mary was merely shocked, not knocked out or electrocuted to death.
The pain angered her though, and she was definitely already more than tired of being on the defensive. She'd not thought Orb would send TWO Gundams against her, one of which was the one that had given Randolf such problems. Athrun Zala was supposed to be the pilot of that one, and she could already see for herself that the legends about his piloting skills she'd heard about weren't legends... they were facts. Whoever was in the other machine... likely Cagalli Zala-Attha herself, someone Mary had used to admire and respect so much... wasn't bad either. Between the two of them, they would likely overwhelm Mary soon, given how well they worked together. Unless she played her trump card that is... the flip side to forcing her on the defensive with melee attacks was that foes left themselves open and vulnerable, right within the optimum range of the Banshee's Wail. Using her trident to sweep away Cagalli's lance for the moment, Mary pushed at Athrun's two handed sword with her Positron Shield, likewise keeping him at bay for a few more precious seconds, while she activated her amplifiers and her internal audio pickups. She drew in her breath and brought to the front of her mind the very worst images from her most terrible nightmares.
Athrun realized the danger at the last moment, as he saw the illusion of the Tormented's head start to warp and distend, the flesh tearing away in gobbets as sonic waves built up beneath them, concentrating in the focusing dish that was the Tormented's mouth, disrupting the holoshroud effect. Athrun had reviewed the observations, those they had anyway, of the enemy Gundam's special weapon system on the flight over from Nara-Attha City, and he had to say he was impressed and frightened. He hadn't thought sonics would ever become a realistic battlefield weapon, but he was now sorry to see he was wrong. It wasn't a subtle weapon, or one that was useful in all situations, especially at range... but it was powerful as all hell, and effective against almost any target, regardless of defenses. He was pretty sure he could dodge in and out of the worst of the effect, given the visual cues that its pre-activation provided, but he knew Cagalli would have much more trouble with such split second timing, and there was no time to warn her... by the time he finished speaking, the attack would have already happened.
Instead of words, Athrun used actions, just as Cagalli was always exhorting him to do. He charged forward, tackling the Dawn Goddess with one arm, throwing them both backwards and to the ground, half twsting around in midair as much as possible, activating the Citadel Shield on his free arm and putting it between him and the Tormented as much as possible, while also drawing his wings down tightly around him as extra shielding. The sound level grew in decibels rapidly, penetrating the Phoenix King's cockpit in a rising screech that soon progressed well past the ability to hear, becoming a phenomenon of touch and feel instead. His flesh quivered, his bones vibrated and he could feel even his blood fizz and agitate under the sonic assault. Then the actual sonic blast went off, and it blasted his senses to smithereens, at least for a little while. He felt like he'd just stuck his head into a churchbell and someone had punched it using a Mobile Suit. Glass shattered into dust throught his cockpit, and sparks flew from many pieces of gear. The concussive blastwave of air that was pushed out by the sonic attack actually picked the Phoenix King up off the Dawn Goddess and hurled it through the air for a couple dozen meters before crashing to the ground with a jerk Athrun could barely feel because of all the other pain.
He was aware, faintly, of blood trickling from his ears and nose and the corners of his eyes, which wouldn't focus properly, but he could still hear. Sort of. Ringing was everywhere, and other sounds were garbled to the point where he couldn't recognize them. He couldn't understand himself when he tried to talk, but he could hear something, which was a small relief. He'd probably not suffered any permanent damage... but it had been very close. Any more exposure, especially at such close range, and he might be kissing his hearing goodbye for good at this rate. Which would be a really major drag, to say the least. He tried to haul the Phoenix King back to its feet, but his inner ear balance was ALL messed up, and he could barely even coordinate his own body at the moment, much less work his controls. He watched the Dawn Goddess clamber slowly to its feet on his main screen, which was some small comfort... he'd managed to protect Cagalli at least. Now though, it looked like it was Cagalli who'd have to be the one to protect him for a while, at least until he recovered more.
For her part, Cagalli could barely hear anything either, but the Phoenix King had provided enough of a physical barrier-sponge of the sonic waves that her own problems were confined to extreme discomfort and a few small cracks in her screens. Still, that was one HELL of a point blank weapon system the Tormented had... if Athrun hadn't knocked her over and covered her, the Dawn Goddess might have been blown to pieces by the vibrations... she'd seen something similar happen to some of the Guardians that had tried to deal with the Tormented before her and Athrun's arrival. She gulped, not liking the mental images that conjured up, and dragged herself to her feet. Her heart leapt into her chest, because the Phoenix King was down, and not moving in any sort of controlled fashion... but she calmed somewhat when she realized that it WAS moving, which it wouldn't do if Athrun was unconscious or... she didn't want to think of it. He'd obviously taken a much worse hit from the sonics than she had, and it would take even him time to recover from such a devastating attack. She was on her own for the moment.
Barely had she regained her feet though, than she came under renewed attack from the Tormented, who seemed eager to press her advantage as much as possible while her two foes were still reeling from the Banshee's Wail. Mary was disappointed that they had survived at all, but then again Gundams NEVER went down easy, so she supposed she should be glad to have merely hurt and perhaps even disabled one. That the one that might be disabled was the Phoenix King was all the better, because he was by far the more dangerous of the two in her mind. Now it was a fight between two Naturals in Gundams, and though Cagalli was probably a better and more experienced pilot than Mary, Mary had the NIC system, and Cagalli was hurt. Mary smiled... it was partly Cagalli's fault, Purgatory Day was... she'd used to love and admire her Representative, but these days she felt that Cagalli was just getting in the way. She was PROTECTING, for God's sake, those murdering bastards Elsman and Haw... she was condoning their crimes! Such a thing Mary could NOT forgive, no matter who it was!
Mary pushed forward with her Positron Shield, slamming the field into the Dawn Goddess, making the Gundam rocked backwards heavily, off balance and staggering. Mary withdrew the shield and spun around, releasing her electro-chain and bringing it around in a wide backhand swing. Let Cagalli Zala-Attha have a little taste of electricity, see how SHE liked being shocked! Mary's triumph was short lived though, as the Dawn Goddess wasn't quite as helplessly off balance as she'd thought, and Cagalli managed to first interpose her lance, about which the chain wrapped, and then she let go of the weapon, just as Mary was releasing the electrical charge, which lashed through the chain, but had nowhere to go. The lance melted from the heat transfer, but that was it.
Cagalli regained her footing and hit the triggers for her torso mounted gatling cannons, popping off the concealing hatches and blasting over four thousand 80mm cannon shells per minute at the Tormented from almost point blank range. The shells wouldn't penetrate the Phase Shift armor of course, but maybe it would distracte or surprise the enemy pilot long enough for Cagalli to get some distance between them. Now that her lance was gone, there was little point in staying in melee range, where the Tormented would have all the advantages. Indeed, the Tormented did sway under the barrage, but Cagalli was unable to pull away enough to get a good shot with any of her other weapon systems, as the Tormented began pushing forward after her, jabbing with the trident and lashing with the chain. Cagalli knew that there was probably a recharge time on how often the chain could shock things, but she didn't know what it was, and didn't want to chance it being longer than a couple of seconds. She was glad though, that despite the danger she was in, at least the Tormented was ignoring Athrun, giving him more time to recover.
The Tormented scored a hit with its trident, slicing off one of Cagalli' shoulder mounted hyper-impulse cannons, before carving a notch into the left shoulder beneath it as well, but Cagalli managed to duck and slide away before the Tormented could dig its weapon in any further. Cagalli opened up with her gatling cannons again, but the Tormented just bulled through them in a cloud of sparks and shell explosions, its Phase Shift armor shrugging them off like a volley of water balloons. Closing to extreme close range, the Tormented flailed with its clawed left hand, but Cagalli deflected the claws wide with one Citadel Shield, before riposting with a slam from her other forearm shield, snapping the Tormented's head backwards and giving Cagalli the second she needed to jet backwards to medium range. Panting and sweating, she drew the Hameya's Arbalest and aimed at the Tormented, firing first one of the 120mm EARP missiles before following it up with a meter thick green plasma beam from the Gottfried cannon. Both missile and beam blast disappeared without a trace into the Tormented's Positron Shield, drawing a snarl of anger and frustration from Cagalli.
Cagalli's eyes widened with surprise as the Tormented drew its bazooka with its left hand, withdrawing the claws on the fingers in order to properly grasp the weapon. Cagalli blocked several bazooka rounds with her forearm shields, as the Tormeneted advanced at a somewhat slower pace, but she wasn't planning on wasting this opportunity, even if it meant taking a shot! With a weapon in hand, the Tormented couldn't use the Positron Shield, so her opponent had in effect traded in defense for more offense. Cagalli would do the same, and they'd let superior firepower tell the difference! They both opened up at the same, time, Cagalli firing another paired missile and Gottfried blast, while the Tormented replied with a pair of bazooka shots, one of which encountered the Gottfried blast and was blown apart in midair, not even slowing the beam at all, to Cagalli's delight. Her delight faded though, as the Tormented's head distended and warped, even as it had been firing, and Cagalli's own weapon's fire encountered the shockwave from the Banshee's Wail going outward, pushing all the air and matter in the way before it.
Her missile exploded as soon as it penetrated the deadly radius of the CUSA, and the Gottfried blast wavered and refracted, before at last deflecting up and over the Tormented, unable to penetrate the blastwave. The Tormented's bazooka shot in turn took the Dawn Goddess in the right leg, blasting apart the knee and immobilizing the Gundam. The Tormented stowed its bazooka again and advanced under the cover of it's Positron Shield, trident poised for the coup de grace. Her firepower unable to penetrate the Positron Shield, her Gundam unable to move or fly, Cagalli suddenly found herself contronted with damned few options. That is, until movement caught her attention, off to the side. She gasped, and then smiled fiercely. She had an inkling of what Athrun was up to, she sure did. She blasted away at the Tormented with her shoulder cannon, gatling cannons and head mounted beam CIWS, not really having to feign desperation. They were only going to get one shot at this.
The Tormented closed to almost within trident range, and Cagalli played her card, firing a beam blast with the Gottfried. Not at the Tormented, which interposed it's Positron Shield uselessly between them as the powerful beam blast sailed cleanly off to its right, a wide miss. But she still hit her target, right on the money! Cagalli could barely imagine the look on the Tormented pilot's face when the beam blast Cagalli had just fired wide came back around and slammed into the Tormented's back upper right torso from behind, but she laughed all the same. Counting the Phoenix King out of the battle had been the biggest mistake the Tormented could have ever made! Athrun was barely standing, it was true, and probably wouldn't be able to do much directly, like moving or shooting weapons... but he could definitely stand there and use his BGCS to catch and redirect her beam blasts for her! The Tormented's right arm, and the trident it was holding, wavered for a few moments in the hellish green plasma energies, before it disintegrated in an explosion that tossed the Brotherhood Gundam heavily to one side, down onto its knees.
Athrun surprised Cagalli by flying with alacrity, if not particular grace, over to stand by the immobilized Dawn Goddess. He had his radio on, but she couldn't make sense of what he was saying... he was speaking too thickly and quietly, and he obviously couldn't hear her telling him to speak up or slow down. She prayed that the hearing damage was temporary... deafness would be a major handicap for him in the future, at least with regards to piloting a Gundam, which would be a major blow to Orb... not to mention herself and himself of course. The Tormented fled from them, not wanting to try and fight both of them together again, obviously not realizing that Athrun could barely even stand the Phoenix King upright, much less fight with it.
Athrun resorted to actions once more, dropping the Phoenix King down to one knee in an effort to stabilie himself, while charging up a huge amount of energy into his BGCS fields. He saw that Cagalli got the idea almost immediately and he found a predatory smile on his lips. Positron Shields were tremendously powerful defensive measures... but the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess had yet to use their own most powerful weapon either... this should be interesting indeed! Cagalli fired again with the arbalest, this time leading with a Gottfried blast, which had barely left the muzle of the weapon before getting sucked into the massive ball of plasma energy the Phoenix King was moulding with its hands and BGCS fields. The second shot was a missile, which punched right through the middle of the roiling plasma super-ball, zipping out the other side covered in scorch marks but otherwise unharmed. Behind it, it trailed an invisible magnetic field tether of incredible strength, scooping up the energy inside the BGCS and dragging it along behind it in a tide of red and green fire.
When the missile encountered the Positron Shield, it disintegrated, just like the other times. However, the tide of plasma energy twisting in the wake of the missile was an altogether different matter. If, perhaps, the Tormented had been equipped with a fusion pulse reactor, it might have weathered the storm with as much ease as it had every other attack. But the Tormented was powered by a regular nuclear reactor, which while powerful, did not hold a candle to the harnessed solar energies of the fusion pulse reactor. The Positron Reflector Shields could only absorb as long as the field powering them did not collapse, reforming constantly whenever penetrated, and thus maintaining the field required a lot of power... and more power for absorbing stronger attacks. When the Gottfried and BGCS energy streamer connected, the Positron Shield did not quite collapse totally, but the immense detonation still threw the Tormented backwards like a rag doll, left arm smoking and charred black from the inside out, inoperable from the elbow down.
Finding herself suddenly devoid of weapons or defenses, except for the Banshee's Wail, which she could not use consecutively without blasting herself apart with the vibrations, Mary felt herself start to give in to despair. She was surrounded, heavily out numbered and now she couldn't even really defend herself anymore. The next attacks from the Orb Gundams, especially if they used another combination attack, which she had NEVER seen coming, would definitely prove more than she could handle. And she was too far away from them to charge and hit them with a Wail before they blew her apart. She'd failed. She'd failed Jason. She'd failed herself. She'd failed Noah! All was lost! All was pointless! She sagged, the Tormented sagging with her, bowing to the inevitable.
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Michael Genesis had seen enough. True to Noah's predictions, Mary had been unable to properly follow the plan, conducting hit and run assaults, moving on whenever confronted with superior numbers or force. She had failed to use the terrain properly to her advantage, choosing to come ashore in a lightly populated residential neighborhood versus a city, where her opponents would never have dared to intervene with Mobile Suits, at least not for a lot longer time, which would have given the event the media play time it needed. As things were, the two Orb Gundams had shown up, and in a relatively short period of time put an end to the menace, or they were about to anyway. He curled his lip with disgust... the only positive thing he could see was the fact that Mary had managed to damage the Orb Gundams, thus showing that they were far from invincible. But if they lost the Tormented because of it, or worse, Mary was captured... everything could come crashing down. Maybe Noah could "fix" things before it came to that, but Micahel didn't want to chance it if he didn't have to. Intervening himself because of someone else's stupidity was distasteful, but it was the job... and he was good at his job.
He sent the activation signal Mary should have sent to her backup forces, waiting submerged off the coast of Nara-Attha city, where she SHOULD have been attacking, and then moved in himself. He'd been observing from extreme long range, idling in barely powered mode, mostly submerged in the sea except for his head to aid in heat dispersion for the FPR, his Liquid Crystal Regenrative armor tuned to near crystal clarity for visual stealth. Kicking the power up to normal combat levels would of course make him show up on the sensors of his enemies, even at this range, but they were going to know about him anyway soon enough. He tuned his LCR armor as he rose from the water, turning the armor a sort of translucent purple color that he felt an affinity for, for some reason. And then he accelerated towards the fight, deccelerating almost right afterwards, as the Vengeance crossed the kilometers between its observation post and the battle scene in less than a second, arriving with a sonic boom that leveled what few houses were still standing in the area, knocking the sagging Tormented down to her knees.
Michael dropped lightly onto his feet, standing squarely between the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess, and the Tormented. He raised his left hand, palm facing outward, towards the Orb Gundams, while his right hand reached up and snagged the hilt of the gargantuan two handed sword stowed on his back. He drew it with a whiplash of his arm and held its twenty five meter length casually off to the side, the quantum crystalline blade glowing with prismaticly refracted light in the morning sun. The Vengeance stood there, crystal edges sparkling with a natural halo, dominating the scene completely out of the blue. The Orb Gundams had been charging up another of their combination missile-beam blasts in preparation for wiping out the Tormented, but this new variable obviously gave them pause. And well that it should... the Vengeance was in an entirely different class from anything the Gundam pilots had encountered since the end of the Isolation. Michael stretched his cooling wings widely before folding them across his back, their knifelike edges gleaming almost red with the sun behind them, ridges and spikes briefly flowing across their surface before the LCR interface completed its readjustment.
"This is your chance, Mary." Michael said, his tone harsh. "You have failed, but Master Noah has chosen not to abandon you for it, praise you his mercy. Flee now, while you can, and seek forgiveness at a later date. I shall cover your immediate withdrawal. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Y-yes... Michael. I-I'm s-so sorry! I-I didn't think..."
"FLEE NOW!" Michael shouted, before she could break into tears and lose sight of what she was supposed to be doing. Really a delicate girl, Mary O'Brien... like a glass shard. Very sharp when controlled very precisely, but when allowed to swing randomly, she cracked and chipped easily, and would break under even slight pressure if applied at the wrong place, at the wrong time. "I'll tell you what you did and did not think later, Mary! But if you don't get moving, I will slice you in half myself!"
"Y-yes... yes, Michael!" Mary sounded genuinely terrified, which made him grunt with mixed feelings. On one hand, it definitely helped that she was so scared of him in the current situation. On the other, it nagged at him for him to be picking on someone who was mentally ill, and delicate of temperment like Mary. She was a very vulnerable person... he definitely did not enjoy terrifying her. It made him feel like a schoolyard bully, one of those persona types he'd always hated. He watched, with a part of his mind, as the Tormented wobbled into the air behind him, before heading off towards the rising sun, towards the extraction point well out to sea. Well, at least she'd be on his way out... the Vengeance didn't need outside assistance to reach orbit, and he could certainly spare the power to drag her along with him if need be. It was why Noah had sent him after all, and not just a larger number of lackeys. Four Zealots and two Martyrs were more than enough backup resources, they would cause all sorts of havoc in Nara-Attha City, more than enough to keep Orb off their backs as they retreated.
The thought of the destruction soon to be caused in the city pained him... he was a terrorist, maybe, but he didn't like killing people, especially civilians, unless there was no other choice. Take them hostage, sure. Blow up buildings, sure. But wanton killing and destruction... it made him queasy inside, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was just too messy for his precise nature... but that didn't really ring true either. He shrugged, the Vengeance mirroring his gesture, rustling his wings, scraping them together with the keening of unyielding diamond against diamond. It was a thought for another time. He directed his attention once more to the Orb Gundams, still charging up their attack. They fired it at the Tormented, aiming above and past the Vengeance, but it was but the work of a thought to interpose himself, and unlike the weak Tormented, the Vengeance, the final production model of the infamous Pulsar, was easily able to handle the energy requirments of absorbing the combo-attack with its palm Positron Reflectors.
Undeterred, with an obstinance he definitely found admirable, the two Orb Gundams charged up again, this time a smaller version of the same attack, which they aimed at him. At the same time, the beautiful, faux feather wings of the Phoenix King detached from its back and flew towards the Tormented, like a horizontal hail of red hot razors. Michael gave in to his arrogance a bit, and decided to show them that they were now the ones guilty of taking an enemy too lightly. Maybe he was just a Natural. Maybe he wasn't ever going to be as good at any number of things as the boss was, just because of inferior genetics. But in a Mobile Suit, he was pretty damned good... and in the Vengeance, he was sublime! He snatched out with his left hand, catching the speeding dart of the armor penetrating missile as it entered his reach, stopping it cold a meter short of his chest. He extended the Quantum Crystal finger claws and sliced the missile into shreds by closing his fist, the QC edges carving through the armored missile like it wasn't even there. The energy streamer trailing behind it washed into the Vengeance like a firehose stream striking a man.
Unlike a man though or the Tormented, the Vengeance was barely even rocked by the energy, which could find no purchase on the faceted planes of the LCR armor, refracting and eddying back on itself a thousand times before dissipating into a faintly charged mist that rapidly blew away in the morning breeze, leaving not even a scorch mark upon the Vengeance. He could almost feel their stares of shock, at the total ineffectiveness of their attack. Of course, if the missile had hit it would have been an entirely different story... while immune to beams or energy weapons of all sorts, LCR armor was not too much better at stopping physical attacks than HAC armor, though it did have the advantage of being able to regenerate itself in a matter of seconds, so that even hitting the same spot twice in a row wouldn't expose any more weakness than a hit anywhere else. He turned on his heel and then ignited his thrusters, catching up to the Phoenix Feathers in an eyeblink, sweeping his sword left and right in a whirwlind of slices that exterminated the red hot weapons in a matter of moments, slicing them to pieces in midflight. Twirling the sword around himself once in a flourish, Michael sardonically saluted the Orb Gundams as worthy adversaries.
He knew that he could kill them now, if he so chose. He could slice them apart with his QC zweihander before either of them could mount any sort of defence... he could be behind them in a moment, out of reach of their protective Citadel Shields. But that wasn't the idea here at all. He wasn't even supposed to be fighting them yet. So instead he tipped them a wave and sheathed the sword, pausing in his retreat only to strike down a pair of Guardians trying to follow the Tormented, tearing their heads off with his clawed hands as he brushed by them as if they were standing still. Compared to the speeds the Vengeance was capable of, they might as well have been. He didn't expect much pursuit... Orb had bigger things to worry about. And so did Mary. Unhappy times all around. Victory could be so bittersweet sometimes, couldn't it?
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Author Note: So, a lot of people have been encouraging me not to keep things as static with my Mobile Suits in Eden Disaster as I did in Chaotic Cosmos. I have to say, I'm not adverse to the idea of upgrading my Good guy Gundams... its just the hows and whys that make it tough. I mean, I can have them steal some tech from the Brotherhood or USN or other sources maybe... but on the other foot, that would take away from, a bit, the unique power of those factions. If need be, that's how I'll do it... there are after all, as this chapter definitely illustrates, various strata of technology within the Brotherhood, with the first three Brotherhood Gundams being the least advanced (Level 1), and the Vengeance and eventually Revenant being higher (Level 2), while the Brotherhood itself tops the pinnacle (Level 3). But what I'm asking you for, my dear readers, is some ideas on how YOU want the Gundams to be advanced. Can you think of any areas you want improved? Changed? Added? Removed? I want to know what YOU think.
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