Armored Seed
Chapter 26
Justice or Vengeance
A/N: just a little warning, this chapter will get somewhat graphic at one point. But for the sake of the squeamish I'm going to mark it.
-Orb Aircraft Carrier, Captain's Office-
Captain Benjamin Hauser was looking over the latest scout reports before he let out a frustrated sigh, the search wasn't going well. He and his men had been searching the surrounding area from the Archangel's previous location for the past several hours and they hadn't been able to come up with much. If this was any other circumstance they would simply use thermal detection units to locate the MIA pilots but seeing as how there were a large number of N-Jammers in the area this was made nearly impossible. Because of the N-Jammers the S&R teams were forced to rely mainly on line of sight methods of detection which limited their aircraft's scouting capabilities.
Cagalli and Kisaka had volunteered their services to aid in the search. Despite captain Hauser's own misgivings about allowing a very high ranking politician's daughter, even one who had proven herself to be a very capable young woman come aboard a military vessel that was in the middle of an operation.
However since Cagalli's father had given her reluctant permission to join the search, the two of them were reluctantly welcomed aboard his ship and both been out helping the search and rescue teams ever since the search had first started. The two of them returned only to refuel the search and rescue aircraft that they had been using.
Hauser looked over at the reports again and estimated that it would probably at take them at least another seven hours to search the ten mile zone that the battle between ZAFT and the Archangel had taken place only a day before. Hauser continued to look over the reports for a few more minutes before one of Houser's subordinates, an ensign if the markings on his uniform were anything to go by, came into the office and gave the captain a sharp salute.
"Sir we've just received a transmission from an Atlantic Federation fighter, they're, uh…" the ensign trailed off apparently having become tongue-tied. Hauser, not having had much sleep since the search and rescue operation began, quickly became impatient with the ensign's lack of response "Well spit it out soldier! What do they want?" he demanded.
"They say that they're here to help with the search and rescue and the one that's piloting the Skygrasper has informed us that he's the Red Eyed Devil and he's requesting permission to land" the ensign said quickly as he didn't want to earn the captain's anger. Hauser's look changed from that of frustration to that of confusion. The Archangel had stated that they were going to continue on towards Alaska. What in the hell was an Atlantic Federation fighter doing back here? Had the Archangel's captain given the Red Eyed Devil an order to go back and help search for the other missing pilots?
Captain Hauser sighed before he made his decision regarding the aircraft "Give them permission to land, right now we could use all the help that we can get with the search" Hauser ordered before he got up off of his seat, intent on heading for the deck to greet the new arrivals in person. After all it wasn't every day that someone met the infamous Nathan Fletcher in person and Houser believed that it would most likely prove to be an interesting experience to finally meet the man who had earned the moniker, Red Eyed Devil.
It had taken the two AWOL pilots a few hours to make it from the Archangel to the Orb naval vessel that was heading the search for Kira and Tolle. The Skygrasper was starting to run low on fuel as it had only been designed for short range dogfights, not long range recon missions. In fact they were both extremely lucky that the Skygrasper made it to the Orb aircraft carrier when it did. However Nathan knew that they would more than likely reach the Orb carrier before they ran out of fuel after he found out the distance to and from the Archangel and Orb carrier plus the Skygrasper's fuel capacity and mileage.
In the back seat of the Skygrasper, Flay had started to become a little antsy. They had been flying for several hours and she was more than eager to begin looking for Kira and now they had found the Orb aircraft carrier but so far they hadn't received permission to land from the ship. After three long minutes of waiting for an answer to their request the ship finally haled them again "Attention Skygrasper you have permission to land on pad four" said the carrier's communications officer.
'Finally' thought Flay as Nathan responded "Roger that, Orb carrier we'll be landing shortly" he said as he maneuvered the Skygrasper towards the landing pad. Once they were directly over the landing pad Nathan flipped a couple of switches so that he could enter the Skygrasper's VTOL mode. The fighter then began to slowly lower onto the pad where a deck crew was waiting for them.
Once the aerospace fighter had finally finished landing on the pad Nathan switched off the engines and within a few moments the once humming engines of the machine fell deathly silent. With the engine fully off, the deck crews moved a ladder over to the fighter's cockpit so that it would allow the occupants a much easier time getting out of the machine. Nathan quickly made his way out of the machine and onto the ground and spotted a man wearing an Orb Naval uniform and judging by the design of the shoulder pads he was the captain of the vessel.
The red eyed Raven pilot moved out of the way so that Flay would have an easier time getting out of the fighter before he pulled his helmet off and gave the captain a quick, yet firm salute "Lieutenant Nathan Fletcher, formerly of the Black Skulls, now a freelance Raven pilot" he said before Flay who had finally made her way down the ladder took off her helmet as well and joined Nathan and gave the captain a salute, albeit a much more clumsy one. "Ensign Flay Allster formerly of the Atlantic Federation Navy" she said.
'Formerly?' wondered captain Hauser. It sounded like the two of them had a bit of a story to share but he'd have that sorted out later maybe. Not wanting the two of them to stand their at attention all day long, Hauser gave a response "At ease" he said before the two pilots in front of him immediately stopped saluting "My name is captain Benjamin Hauser. Now would you two kindly explain what exactly you two doing are out here?" he asked, although he had some suspicions about that, and these suspicions were almost immediately confirmed only a few moments later "We're here to help with the search for ensign Yamato and ensign Koenig of the Archangel" Nathan explained.
Hauser looked at them, "Ah, that's why they're here they must've gone AWOL so that they could help out in the search' he realized. "Really? Alright, seeing as how I'm not generally someone who looks a gift horse in the mouth, I'll allow you to aid in the search the instant that your fighter has finished refueling operations and then we'll have you search some of the areas we haven't checked as of yet" said Hauser.
Neither Flay nor Nathan wanted to wait that long to get out there and look for their friends. Without missing a beat, Nathan spoke up again, only this time he had a hint of urgency to his voice
"Sir with all do respect this is a short range fighter and we barely had enough fuel to make it here, if we were to take the Skygrasper out again we would be severely limited in range when we go out looking for our missing comrades. I'm asking for your permission to borrow one of your search and rescue aircraft so that we can go out and search the area immediately" he stated.
Hauser let out a sigh, that request was going to be a bit of a problem "I'm sorry Mr. Fletcher but all of our Echo units are out searching at this time" he explained. For a moment Flay looked a little down. They had made it all the way out there and now they had to wait even longer before they could go and look for Kira and Tolle. Flay was about to ask if there was any other craft available to them that they could use to search for Kira and Tolle, when as luck would have it, an Orb search and rescue aircraft (An Echo) started flying towards one of the nearby landing pads. The search and rescue aircraft strongly resembled an old Osprey helicopter from the twenty-first century. However this machine was much more birdlike and had a much smaller cockpit that resembled that of a Hind-D.
As the Echo entered VTOL mode on one of the carrier's landing pads Nathan looked back over at captain "I don't suppose that we could borrow that after it's done refueling?" he asked gesturing to the search and rescue unit behind him with his thumb. The plane eventually set down on the landing pad and a pair of familiar individuals came out of the ship, Cagalli and Kisaka to be precise.
The instant that Cagalli caught sight of Nathan and Flay, her expression turned to surprise and then shock. "Flay, Nathan what the hell are you two doing here?!" Cagalli all but exclaimed, she hadn't been expecting them to get here. Kisaka however was a bit more calm and composed when compared to his charge, in fact it looked as though he had been expecting the two of them to arrive at the carrier for a while now. During his time on the Archangel, Kisaka believed that the so called "Red Eyed Devil" was actually a young man that had fairly decent morals and always followed them despite the punishment he may end up receiving from following them.
"Nice to see you too" Nathan replied dryly. Before Cagalli could respond to that little remark, Flay spoke up "Isn't it obvious? We're here to help look for Kira and Tolle" she declared. Upon hearing that little declaration Cagalli looked confused for a moment, didn't the captain of he Archangel say that they were headed straight for Alaska? Cagalli then realized that given how much of a protest Nathan had put up over leaving Kira and Tolle behind and how enamored Flay was with Kira that it wasn't too difficult to ascertain that they had probably jumped ship the moment that an opportunity arose so that they could go and search for the missing pilots.
Deciding that they had been playing twenty questions long enough, Nathan gestured towards the Orb aircraft that was parked on one of the nearby landing pads and was currently having a couple of engineers attaching a refueling line to it "Now, on to more important matters, how long before that search and rescue aircraft has finished refueling?" Nathan asked as both he and Flay hoped that it would be very soon.
Cagalli and Kisaka looked back over at the aircraft that they had been using for the past several hours "Well we used up about half of it's fuel supply so I'd guess a good fifteen to twenty minutes max" Kisaka guessed with a shrug. Nathan sighed, two minutes was too long for both him and Flay at the moment but it seemed that neither had much choice in the matter. The two of them walked towards the Echo and waited for the refueling operation to finish.
-Archangel, Crew Quarters-
Mir, Sai, Kuzzey and the ship's chief medical officer Carmen Leone were walking down one of the corridors that lead to the ship's brig with a plate of food from the cafeteria in Mir's hands. On the girl's face was a very depressed look. It was obvious to both Sai and Carmen that the girl was going through a very difficult time, they all were. Tolle was a very good friend and comrade to all of them and they were all taking his apparent death very hard. After all Tolle had gone up against a Gundam with a Skygrasper and it didn't take a genius to figure out who would come out on top in that kind of a fight.
The four of them were making their way towards the Archangel's brig as Mir had been ordered by Natarle to take over Flay's old duties. And one of her newly assigned jobs was to deliver food to the ship's newest prisoner. The only thing that was between her and the brig was the sound of her footsteps echoing throughout the nearly deserted hallway. Mir really wished that she hadn't been given this job, the last thing she wanted to do at the moment was help someone who may very well have had something to do with her boyfriend getting killed.
Mir was almost at the door when Carmen put her hand on the girl's shoulder, causing her to turn around to look at the older woman. Carmen had on a very concerned yet serious expression "Are you sure you want to do this? I could take it from here if you want" she stated. Mir would've liked nothing more than to have someone else do that kind of a job but no matter how much she didn't want to do it she still had a job to do.
"I-I'll do it" Mir said weakly and thankfully Carmen decided not to pursue the matter any further and neither did Sai and Kuzzey.
Mir opened the door walked into the brig before she proceeded to close the door behind her. The brig itself wasn't much to look at, there was a single bunk bed and a small toilet in the corner of the room which was adjacent to a sink. On the lower bunk was the prisoner. The prisoner was a man that was about her age with blond hair and tanned skin. The name tag on the young man's uniform read "Dearka Elsman".
Dearka looked over at the new visitor and saw the almost tearful expression on her face "What the hell are you crying about? If anything I'm the one that should be crying" he stated rudely. Mir barely managed to ignore that with some effort but the prisoner's next comment threw the grieving girl far past her breaking point "So What? Did your pathetic Natural boyfriend die or something?"
Over the past day and a half Mir had been tormented on whether or not Tolle was alive or dead. Then this bastard comes along and calls the man who quite possibly gave his life to save her and everyone else on this ship pathetic. This one little comment was what managed to push, no, throw Mir passed her breaking point. The young brown haired girl let out an almost feral scream before she took the knife that was on the tray that she had been carrying and started to run towards the prisoner in a blind rage and was more than willing to stab the young man to death.
Before Mir could even make two steps forward, she felt two people grab her from behind. "Mir what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Sai demanded as he kept her from rushing forwards and murdering the prisoner of war that was restrained just a few feet in front of them while Kuzzey kept quiet but had a surprisingly firm grip on the grief-stricken young woman. Mir said nothing but still struggled against their grip while another person came into view, the ship's temporary medical officer, Carmen Leone. The young woman walked right over to Mir and quickly managed to remove the knife from her hands before placing the small blade in her pocket.
Carmen then marched straight up to the prisoner and raised her arm back and kept her hand open before it flew downwards and smacked Dearka on the right side of his face.
"You little piece of shit!" Carmen roared before she looked over at Mir and her two friends who had finally managed to restrain the poor girl and gave the girl a sympathetic look before giving the two that had been restraining her a serious look "The two of you go and take her out of here, I'm going to have a little conversation with this bastard" she stated as Kuzzey and Sai slowly managed to drag Mir out of the brig who was now sobbing uncontrollably.
Once Mir had been taken out of the room Carmen glared sternly at the Archangel's prisoner. Although he was momentarily cowed, Dearka managed to start to speak up after a few seconds. However he was completely cut off before he could even utter so much as a single syllable.
"How dare you" Carmen stated with a cold and cutting edge to her tone "Tolle gave his life to protect everyone else on this ship and you dare to insult his memory by calling him pathetic, under any other circumstances I would have let Mir kill you for that, but since she'd probably be charged with war crimes if she did, I allowed her two friends to intervene, but if you insult anyone on this ship like that again, I won't stop anyone from hurting you" she warned before turning around to walk outside the room, not even giving the captured ZAFT pilot so much as a second glance.
-Orb Territory, Near the Marshall Islands, Echo Search and Rescue Aircraft-
Flay was sitting down in one of the passenger seats near the rear of the Orb navy's search and rescue vehicle. The refueling operation had taken less time than they had originally thought and now Flay was finally doing what she had come out all this way for, to find Kira. Nathan and Kisaka were up front piloting the vehicle while Flay and Cagalli were sitting near the back of the vehicle. The red haired girl was looking out the window that was next to her seat, hoping that she'd be able to catch a glimpse of something anything that would indicate that Kira was still amongst the living.
Cagalli, getting a little bothered by the lack of any kind of social activity since they left the Orb carrier took a glance over at Flay and silently wondered to herself how the red haired girl had been holding up ever since her boyfriend had been declared MIA. Despite the mostly calm look on the girl's face it was easy for anyone to see that Flay was incredibly distraught and anxious in regards to Kira and Tolle.
More than once throughout the trip Cagalli wanted to speak up, to interact with the red haired girl, to tell her that their missing friends were going to be okay. But Cagalli didn't, she couldn't, after all it would be foolish to try and get someone's hopes up, especially when your own was next to nil.
The next few minutes proceeded in almost complete silence, the sound of the engines and the occasional noise from the cockpit were the only things that really kept everyone company. However that silence didn't last as Kisaka noticed something on the audio receivers, it was an automated distress that was giving off an Atlantic Federation code but thanks to all the N-Jammer interference in the area it would impossible to detect unless a rescue team got within short range.
"Nathan I'm picking up an Atlantic Federation distress beacon" he stated. That one small sentence managed to grab everyone's attention. Flay practically jumped right out of her seat and ran to the cockpit a hopeful expression on her face "Are you sure? Is it Kira and Tolle? Are they alright?" the redhead asked rapidly and with renewed hope in her voice.
Kisaka gave the universal signal for Flay to stop and be quiet "Look all I know is that it's an automated distress signal, which was probably sent after whoever it was crashed, and based on the signal strength I'd say that it's emanating from the island directly to the north west of our current location" he explained while he pointed towards one of the nearby islands.
Nathan tilted the Echo's joystick directly towards the area that Kisaka was pointing at. The Echo tilted for a moment before the search and rescue bird started to make its way for the point where their comrade was hopefully still alive and waiting for them. The moment that the Echo was directly over the beach where the distress beacon was coming, Nathan activated the aircraft's VTOL mode and began to slowly make its descent. As they got closer to the ground the occupants of the Echo saw that it wasn't the Gundam that was giving off the distress beacon but the Skygrasper that Tolle had been piloting
It was a long twenty seconds before they finally touched down on the LZ, throughout the entire time, almost everyone's heart was pounding like a drum in anxiety. Each of the occupants of the Echo were praying to whatever deity that would listen that they would find Tolle alive and relatively unscathed but at the same time they were all dreading the horror of what they would find if he wasn't.
Seconds before the Echo fully touched down Nathan turned to Kisaka and said almost uneasily "Kisaka after we land, could you prep a body bag? Just in case what I hope doesn't happen, happens" Kisaka immediately understood Nathan's request and nodded solemnly.
The instant that the Echo finally managed to fully land on the island, Nathan killed the aircraft's engines and walked towards the rear hatch, but not before grabbing an emergency medical kit that was kept underneath the pilot seat on his way out of the cockpit. Upon exiting the cockpit Nathan activated the ramp for the Echo so that they could all get out of the aircraft and investigate the crash site. Flay and Cagalli ran down the ramp even though it hadn't been fully lowered as of yet. Nathan shook his head silently as he went after the two of them while he kept a hand on the medical kit. Once he was outside Nathan looked over to where the two were running and started to sprint as quickly as he could to catch up with them.
As he got closer and closer to the wreckage of the downed Skygrasper Nathan saw that the damage to the fighter was much worse than he had first speculated. He found it odd how he had missed the fact that the Aegis's shield had impacted the ground near the wreck. And as he got closer to the fighter he saw what looked like a person through the glass canopy. This wasn't a good sign.
Nathan increased his speed and eventually ran past the two of them and quickly closed the distance between him and the Skygrasper. The machine had been completely totaled. Several small bits and pieces of the Skygrasper's hull that had fallen off after the aerospace fighter had crashed littered the sands beneath it, one of the wings had been completely torn off along with the engine and had impacted the ground just a few feet away from where the main body of the wreckage had crashed. The main gun was bent at an impossible angle and lying on the ground behind the machine. However this didn't really concern him as he looked over at the cockpit of the machine and sighed. This wasn't going to be easy.
(Graphic material begins, read at your own discretion, you have been warned)
The Raven operator climbed up onto the top of the Skygrasper and carefully made his way towards the cockpit of the machine where a horrific stench greeted him along with what was perhaps the most horrific part of the crash. Tolle's body was stuck inside the cockpit, his left arm was bent into a very disturbing angle and it looked like there was bone sticking up against the tight suit that all AF pilots wore.
Tolle's blue flight suit was torn up and had turned brown from the dried blood. The helmet's visor had shattered once he had impacted the ground, this managed to send shards of glass either cutting into his face, or into the console in front of him. However the most disturbing part of this was the boy's eyes. They were partially glazed over and were staring upwards. After barely managing to fight off the urge to vomit up his breakfast, Nathan slowly reached his left hand into the shattered canopy and closed the poor boy's eyes.
Nathan uttered a small "Rest in piece" before proceeded to pull his hand away from the corpse and out of the Skygrasper's shattered canopy. Without a second to lose Nathan hopped off of the roof of the Skygrasper. Once he hit the ground he looked up and saw that Flay and Cagalli had made their way there and both had horrified looks on their faces. Nathan looked at the two of them and gave them a simple "I'm sorry"
(Graphic material ends)
A few minutes later Kisaka and Nathan managed to get Tolle's body out of the cockpit and into the body bag that Kisaka had brought with them. Flay had turned away from the sight of Tolle's corpse for a few moments but for some reason she turned back and looked and saw what was left of Tolle. Flay felt a lump forming in her throat making her run a short distance before she emptied the contents of her stomach. Even after Flay had finished emptying her stomach, she continued to dry heave for a little while longer before finally her body realized that it had nothing more to cough up.
Flay used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe off some stray bits of vomit that clung to the sides of her moth and felt mildly dazed. Flay then felt a hand on her shoulder, "Are you okay?" Cagalli asked. Flay shook her head, no "I'll feel much better when we find Kira" she explained.
Nathan looked over to where the wreck of the Skygrasper was and spoke up "Well it looks like we won't have to look very far for him. This Skygrasper was more than likely either in front or behind the Strike when it went down so my guess is that Kira more than likely somewhere in the surrounding area" he explained before he walked over to the body bag and began to help Kisaka carry it back to the Echo.
A few minutes later they managed to find the Strike's location. The Strike was near the center of a small crater where bits and pieces of the Aegis littered the ground nearby. The remains of the Gundam that Kira had been piloting since the events at Heliopolis was in slightly better condition than Toll's Skygrasper had been, but that wasn't saying much. Both of the Strike's legs were completely destroyed and the left arm had been blown off at the elbow joint and half of the Gundam's head was completely blown away. However the Gundam's torso was in relatively decent condition, there were a few holes here and there but there didn't seem to be much damage done to where the cockpit was located.
This gave everyone there a small sense of hope that their friend was still among the living, despite the disturbing surprise that awaited them when they had found Tolle's Skygrasper. The moment they landed Flay all but rushed out the door, intent on finding her missing boyfriend and didn't even pay attention to the requests that were made for her to slow down and wait for the rest of them.
Upon reaching the Strike she quickly made her way up to the Gundam's cockpit while Cagalli and Nathan followed close behind. Once she reached right outside cockpit Flay saw that the exterior armor that protected the cockpit had been breached. The breach consisted of what looked like a slash mark near the cockpit's main computer. Flay clambered over to where the hull had been breached and looked inside to see…nothing. There was no blood, no body, nothing except for some damaged but still intact controls. The strange thing though was that the pilot seat was missing.
Soon everyone had gotten a decent look at the inside of the Strike's cockpit and seeing as how there wasn't a body like when they found Tolle's Skygrasper this improved Flay's mood a little bit. Kira was still alive. However there were those who had other theories about what had happened to Kira "It is possible that Kira could have been vaporized by the explosion" said Kisaka which caused Flay's facial features to look horrified at least until Nathan shook his head.
"That's unlikely, if Kira had been vaporized then most of the machinery inside the cockpit would have been destroyed as well, instead it's merely damaged and seeing as how the pilot's chair can also function as a kind of escape pod, it's more than probable that Kira is still alive somewhere"
Cagalli was a little confused. If the eject seat had been activated why hadn't the cockpit remained open? Cagalli quickly brought this to Nathan's attention and he explained that almost all mobile suits and armored core's emergency escape transported the pilots from the cockpit to a an area just below the neck of the machine, then the seat was encased in a pod that was launched from the neck of the machine and broke apart after it landed if it was on earth.
However if the ejection mechanism had activated while in the vacuum of space, the pod would remain sealed until a rescue team arrived to pick it up. And sure enough a quick check of the neck of the unit revealed that it was possible that the escape pod could have been jettisoned from the mobile suit but it was impossible to tell due to all of the damage that the Strike had sustained during the battle.
With the probability that Kira was still alive the four of them continued to search with renewed vigor in their hearts. They all began calling out Kira's name as they walked around looking for him. They spread out in different directions, each of them had a radio that they could use to contact the others in the event that they found something that may give them a clue as to where Kira had gone.
Nathan was making his way through part of the dense foliage and saw a small clearing in front of him. In that clearing there was a single small tree and up against it was a male teenager in a red ZAFT uniform. The boy had short dark hair and green eyes. Nathan pulled his pistol out of his holster, it seemed that the enemy pilot hadn't spotted him yet and given how exhausted the enemy pilot looked it could stay that way for a while. Nathan pushed the talk button on his radio and spoke into it quietly.
"I've found a ZAFT pilot, he hasn't spotted me yet, come to my position three dozen meters north of the Strike's crash site immediately" he ordered before he pulled back on the pistol's slide, and sent a round in the chamber before he flipped the safety off the weapon before he started to make his way out of the dense foliage and into the clearing as quietly as he possibly could.
Once Nathan was out of the jungle canopy he aimed his pistol directly at the pilot and shouted "Don't move!" the ZAFT pilot looked up at the person who had just yelled at him. The ZAFT pilot's eyes widened a fraction before narrowing. He looked like he was starting to reach for something that was behind his back but two gunshots rang out and impacted the ground mere inches from where he was sitting making him stop and seemingly reconsider that course of action.
"The next time you make a move I'll just put a bullet in your brain. Now keep your hands where I can see them and stand up, slowly!" Nathan ordered his aim not wavering for a moment.
As the enemy pilot slowly stood up his hands reaching for the sky, a voice came over the Red Eyed Devil's radio "Nathan, we heard gunshots, are you alright?!" Kisaka asked worriedly. Nathan took the communicator out of one of his suit's pockets and spoke into it "I'm fine, I have the pilot of the Aegis in custody" he explained before he put his radio back where it belonged.
Nathan continued to keep his gun trained on the enemy soldier and was really starting to wish that he had brought something to restrain the prisoner with. As Nathan stood there he saw that the new POW was assessing the situation and was probably trying to find a way to get out of the situation that he now found himself in but he didn't dare to try anything, after all even Coordinators couldn't hope to dodge a speeding bullet.
The rest of the search team quickly found Nathan and his captive and the instant that Cagalli laid eyes on the guy she immediately recognized him to be Athrun, that same boy she had met back on that island that the two of them had been stranded on. "Athrun!" she exclaimed clearly shocked at this recent development "What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded. Athrun looked at Cagalli with an equally surprised expression, clearly even he didn't think that she would end up being on the same island as him again.
The moment that Flay had heard Cagalli say 'Athrun' she remembered Kira mentioning that Kira had a childhood friend named Athrun and that he was one of the ZAFT pilots that had been pursuing the Archangel. And since he was on the island too he had to have been the one that Kira was fighting and Flay seriously doubted that Athrun would try to hurt Kira given their past, so it was somewhat feasible that he knew where Kira was.
Flay looked at Athrun almost desperately "Where is he? Please you have to tell me" she begged "Please tell me where Kira is" upon hearing that sentence Athrun's face took on an almost gloomy expression "Kira's dead, I killed him" he declared stoically. Everyone there seemed stunned at this new revelation. Flay's shock turned to horror and then finally, hatred.
Acting on impulse Flay ran over to Cagalli and took her pistol out of its holster and aimed it directly at Athrun shouting "You monster!" as tears fell down her face as she pulled the gun's trigger. Although Flay had intended for the bullet to directly hit Athrun's heart she was unprepared for the weapon's recoil and instead the bullet soared straight into Athrun's left shoulder sending the ZAFT pilot falling onto the ground his right had clutching at his wound. Before Flay could fire again, this time resolving not to miss her intended target, she was tackled to the ground by Kisaka and Cagalli.
While Flay was on the ground she attempted to aim the weapon she had 'borrowed' at Athrun's body, hoping that she'd be able to kill him before Cagalli and Kisaka could stop her. However Kisaka managed to pry the weapon from Flay's hands before she could even attempt such a thing. Flay attempted to get the gun back from the Orb soldier but was unable to as Cagalli kept a firm grip on her arms as she secured them behind her back even as Flay kept screaming her lungs out, demanding that Cagalli and Kisaka let her kill Athrun.
"I'll, kill him! I'LL KILL HIM!" Flay screamed "He has to DIE!" after a long eight or nine seconds Flay's screams of hatred and demands for blood turned into quiet sobs as she continued to let out her grief and sadness. As Flay continued to cry she eventually stopped struggling.
Nathan meanwhile walked right over to Athrun who was still clutching at his shoulder and groaning in pain. The Raven pilot aimed his pistol right at the bastard's head and began to pull the trigger that would send a bullet straight through it. However before he could finish pulling the trigger Nathan felt, conflicted. A part of him, most likely his conscience made him hesitate while another, his anger and hatred wanted nothing more than to have Athrun die a slow, agonizing death.
Eventually Nathan's conscience won out and the Raven pilot put his weapon back in its holster. Nathan felt…strange. Most of the time whenever Nathan found himself in a situation like this he would simply allow his rage and hatred to run wild and kill whoever was responsible for causing him or others pain.
What was going on?
To be continued.