Hi guys. I've been busy lately and have had a ton of PC trouble which is why I haven't been posting. I still have trouble but I was able to get this one chapter in the queue. I'll work on making updates more frequent at the very least.
And maybe I can actually respond to everyone next time too. XD
Well, on another note, if you guys want to read something original by me, you can go here (I broke up the link so it can get through Fanfiction's anti-spam stuff, just piece the link back together): amazon dp/B007N61X4Q. It's my self-published novel and you can read it either with the Kindle or the free Kindle PC App. If you choose to do so please leave a review whether positive or negative please. ^^
Anyway, tally ho! New chapter time.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Fractured (Everything I Said Was True)
It took a while to sink in. Tassil was gone. The enemy pilot, this Asta Joule, had called in an orbital bombardment to destroy the place, to kill all of those civilians and resistance fighters. Nothing had been left, nothing was left standing other than her Duel GUNDAM, waiting for me to come so she can kill me.
All of those lives just for an attempt at vengeance?
How far would she go to kill me?
How many more people would have to die?
This wasn't just war anymore. This was a vendetta. Against me. I was the only target and everyone else were just obstacles or pawns.
When I returned to the Archangel, I didn't really speak to anyone about what had happened, other than what I had to. Ramius and Badgiruel, of course, were highly interested in the upgraded Duel, and I had to say my piece on that. But other than that, I didn't want to talk to anyone or get involved in anything. Even Flay, clearly exhausted but with this manic energy in her eyes, wasn't a concern to me.
I just wanted to be by myself and think.
That's what killing Yzak Joule had gotten me. A town full of dead people, the Orb civilians and hodgepodge Earth Alliance soldiers winding up in the middle of the desert, a night of hell, and an angry older sister out to murder me. What a penalty, what a price. It was not worth it.
Then again, what do I know? Yzak was trying to ram the Archangel's bridge. If I hadn't done that, would there even be an Archangel? I'd be a ZAFT prisoner right now, most likely. Or even still inside Tassil, running for my life or perhaps fighting with Ashman's group all by myself, the Strike nothing more than a memory for me. Compared to that, this was an improvement, right?
But even that rationale wasn't good enough for me. All I could think about was that someone was living just to kill me. That was frightening. Every time I was out there, someone was gunning for me and exclusively me.
The only way to end this was to kill her too.
Also not something I was looking forward to. Another bad memory that would never leave my mind, and I was going to rob a mother of another child.
Then again, even if I killed this Joule, who said that yet another Joule kid wouldn't come crawling out of the woodwork? Or maybe one or both of the parents? What if I had to obliterate an entire family in this war? Or after it, long after I let my guard down?
I wasn't looking forward to the rest of my life, that was for sure.
I spent the night in a closet in the kitchen, well away from people, even away from Melanie. I didn't want to talk to anyone, or discuss the danger I had put everyone in. I knew they were looking for me and I didn't care. I couldn't face them. Or maybe not. Maybe what I couldn't face was myself in the mirror.
All those civilians . . . all those resistance fighters . . . they were all dead because of this vendetta against me.
Kira was right in that I was changing. But maybe not into a monster. I was withdrawing from the world, little by little. Maybe what I was becoming was a ghost. Maybe soon I would be invisible, except for when I was needed to go kill something.
I couldn't even bring myself to cry over the civilians and the fighters that were all dead. I felt isolated and cut off from everyone and everything that night. Like I wasn't even here. I was just a phantom everyone else was trying to find.
With that lovely thought haunting me throughout the night, I managed to get a little bit of sleep. But after waking up multiple times, I gave up at six a.m. and rested for a little while.
And got thoroughly pissed at myself.
Why? Why was I feeling sorry for myself and hiding away like a coward? I was running from my responsibility and running from the people I was protecting! How could did it look for the one person capable of flying the machine everyone depended on to run and hide after a battle just because she was rattled? Some hero I was! I wasn't any better than Flay! Maybe even worse. Cowardice is pathetic.
If I was going to survive this desert and survive this new Joule who somehow had a better Duel than her brother, I couldn't be a coward. I couldn't hide away. And I couldn't waste my time crying, even though I couldn't help a few tears sliding down my cheeks as I realized my mistakes.
I'm not built to hide away. I'm built to walk up to whoever's wronging me and kicking his or her ass.
I've killed people. Nothing will let me forget that. Killed pilots with the Strike, killed soldiers with a gun. But I wasn't going to let those deaths and the nightmares they were giving me defeat me. Even with the battles burned into my memory like scars, I couldn't just give up.
I rubbed my eyes and got up and marched right out of the closet, and walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. My neck was killing me and so was my back from my highly uncomfortable sleeping position, and I had a headache from a cold hard floor without a pillow, but none of that mattered.
I wasn't going to run anymore.
Unfortunately, the last person I wanted to see wound up showing up right in the hallway, speaking behind me.
"Aren't you showing a little purpose in your step, Ensign?"
Hilda Harken's voice. Once again, she had snuck up behind me without me ever realizing it. I froze for a second, as a eerie chill was sent down my spine. Why? Why did I always tense up when she was near me? Whenever she would do this?
I turned around, slowly, carefully. I didn't know why I was nervous and scared and suspicious all at once, but I knew better than to doubt those feelings. "I'm sick of hiding from everybody. I've been through hell but that doesn't mean everyone here doesn't need me. They need me to keep functioning and keep living."
"Oh, I agree," Hilda said, a small smirk on her face. "They do need you."
Damn it, there was something in her voice, something about that thin little smirk, the knowing look in her eyes, that was really making me feel uneasy. I wasn't even sure if she was trying to do that on purpose. Maybe this woman was just oddly creepy, or perhaps she was terrible at acting natural or decent.
That was the thought that triggered the realization. Acting.
This woman had been doing nothing but acting funny ever since she had joined us . . .
"Is something wrong?" Hilda asked, her head cocking to the side just slightly.
"Nothing. I think I need to speak to the captain immediately. I never debriefed her," I said, feeling possessed more and more by this need to get away.
"Why? It's six in the morning. I highly doubt she needs to be bothered by you," Hilda said.
"Well, I am the Strike's pilot. She'll make an exception for me," I said.
"Oh, I bet she would. But maybe it's not the best idea," Hilda said.
The realization spread throughout my brain. Hilda was acting because she's a fake. She was not who she said she was. She was a liar, an infiltrator.
An . . .
"I'm pretty sure it's a good idea," I said, trying to walk away without taking my full attention off of her. I was trying to walk backwards and forwards at the same time, and it came off as this weird sidestep movement. "If I wait any longer Badgiruel will kill me."
"Would she?" That damn smile widened across Hilda's face. "Maybe Badgiruel isn't the one you should be worried about. Maybe the one you should be worrying about is me."
And out came the gun in her right hand.
"Don't run, Cagalli Yamato," Hilda said firmly. "You run I will kill you right here and now."
I thought about running anyway. Was there any door I could try to make a break to? Run and hide or perhaps try to surprise her if she tried busting through the door?
While there were a few, there was no guarantee I could make any of them before she'd shoot me. Plus, Hilda was definitely a Coordinator if she was a ZAFT agent. She had quicker reflexes, and steadier control over that pistol than a Natural could. Hilda would hit her mark.
Hilda's voice suggested supreme confidence. "I need you alive for the Strike's passcode. Try as I could I couldn't get access to this "Kira" who keeps maintaining your Strike. A rather handsome young man, if I should say so. Bears an alarming similarity to the Prince of Orb."
She knew that too. This woman was not ordinary, though I shouldn't have expected her to. No spy would ever be ordinary.
I didn't run, but I realized something else was off. Well, something other than this whole situation to begin with. Killing me was not her primary objective. Her objective was the Strike. She was here to steal the Strike and the only way she could do that was to use me or Kira and our knowledge of the password.
"You're here to make sure the Strike isn't used against ZAFT," I said.
"One way or another," Hilda said.
I had to keep her talking. Buy time. Pray someone else passes by and sees this. "You put up a good facade, you know. You passed the captain's clearance."
"That's because everything I said was true," Hilda replied. "I actually was doing time in the Earth Forces. I've killed Coordinators to maintain my cover. I actually was shot down recently. And I just waited. Waited until it was time."
She began to approach me, slowly, carefully. "I'm not going to waste any more time telling you my orders or my strategy. I know you just want to keep me talking. It's not going to work."
It was pretty clear what my choices were. Either I give up and hand Hilda the Strike, or I sacrifice myself and keep the Strike on the Archangel. Neither choice was particularly appealing and both would leave the Archangel in dire circumstances, as the defenses were crippled either way.
But there was an intangible that made one choice more logical than the others.
Kira. And his programming skills.
He could probably redesign the Strike's operating system for a Natural, probably La Flaga. Any revision would be far less than perfect, but it would give the Archangel a fighting chance, far more if I lived but there was no Strike.
A shock went down my spine and my stomach felt like it was contracting into my lungs. The best way to protect the Archangel was to die.
No. I couldn't just do that. I hadn't come all this way just to die. I couldn't sacrifice myself, could I? There had to be another option. A third way.
Hilda was almost on top of me. I had to make up my mind right then or Hilda was going to decide for me.
And then, as she was about on top of me, I realized my third option.
Resistance.
I pivoted my right foot and charged forward right into Hilda's chest, leading with my shoulder. Hilda grunted in surprise and in pain, and, my legs churning as fast as I could, I ran over her.
I couldn't stop running. I had to get back into the kitchen. Before-
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The bullets smacked metal right by me as I frantically ran through the doors. Something seemed to pull at my side as I ran behind the nearest corner, and I opened up all of the drawers until I found the knives, and yanked out the first one that looked sharp.
I heard a distant, male voice. "What the hell was-oh my God-"
Bang.
A grunt, and then a flop. Definitely a kill shot.
I could hear Hilda. "You had to do this the hard way, Yamato? I'm not playing this game! You can die with the rest of-"
Before she could finish, a charging cry interrupted her. It was high-pitched, shrill, and desperate. The voice was cracking so much I could barely make out who it was, but, at the tail end, I realized it could only be . . .
No way.
I turned around the corner just as Hilda, standing in-between the doors, was attacked by Flay Allster.
Hilda had spun around just in time to see Flay coming, but Flay was working on pure adrenaline. As her left hand swung upwards, I realized Flay had a knife of her own. It was coming to slash upwards, right at Hilda's face.
At Hilda's right eye.
It wasn't like a movie or a cartoon with a dramatic "slash" sound followed by blood gushing out of Hilda like a geyser. I didn't even hear the noise from where I was standing. But Flay connected. The clue was Hilda's anguished scream.
Flay repositioned herself, clearly aiming to stab Hilda in the stomach, but Hilda, despite her obvious agony, kneed Flay in the gut, and then kicked Flay in the face, sending the girl to the ground.
I heard another male voice. "We got a man down-UGH!"
Hilda shot that man dead too. I peeked around, just in time to see Hilda vanish down the nearest hallway.
I waited. Was Hilda going to come back? Or was her only concern getting away? Could she do that? All by herself? With an obviously horrific wound?
But she didn't emerge, and I slowly walked towards the door, where Flay was still laying on the ground, clutching her face with her right hand. Her hair was a total mangled mess, and her clothes looked like they had been worn way too long without a wash.
"Flay," I dared to say.
Flay's eyes looked up to me, and they were so piercing I backed away a step. They were possessed by something feral, something hateful, something determined. The combination made her seem like some repressed beast was lurking beneath her human veneer, and was trying to get out.
But then her eyes calmed, just enough to seem human again. But when she spoke, it was with an edge, a slight undertone of a needfor something I didn't want to know. "Cagalli. You're bleeding."
"Huh?" I remembered the pulling sensation on my right side. I looked down and pressed my hand against it, and realized there was blood.
Oh my God. I couldn't be . . .
No, I was fine. As I checked I realized it was just a scratch, nothing life-threatening. But now it hurt.
"It's just a scratch," I said. I stared at Flay for a second, and she never looked away from me, not even to adjust her disheveled hair.
"Thank you," I said finally, after a long pause. "We need to tell Captain Ramius about this. Before she gets away."
"I'm sure the entire ship is going to go on alert any second," Flay said. A slight grin spread across her face. "I'm just glad I finally got to hurt one of them."
"Flay?"
"You're right, I ought to be fighting, Cagalli. That's what I should be doing. Before all of this happened, I'd tell you that war is terrible. That it should hurry up and end. But now I don't want it to. Not until I get in the fight. This wasn't enough. Far from it."
"Flay, uh . . ." I tried to search for a way to tell her she was sounding insane and creepy without telling her she was sounding insane and creepy.
She finally stood up. "I couldn't let her kill you. You're the only reason why we're still here. Why I have a chance to get revenge for what they did to me. When I get out there in that Skygrasper, Cagalli, you can bet that I'll protect you. As long as you kill them I'll protect you no matter what they send against us."
"Look, Flay . . ." Number one, I was wounded, and needed to get my wound treated. Number two, the last thing I needed was to hear crazy. Number three, Flay was doing some serious jumping to conclusions. Number four, the terrifying and likely realthought that I had put Flay on a road to insanity was entering my mind and it was not good, to be concise.
But I couldn't get any of that out. Not before she spoke again. "I owe you everything, Cagalli. Don't you get it?"
"I think you need a nice long rest and think about your life," I said, before I finally got the courage to walk past her.
"Life," Flay said softly as I walked down the hallway, following the path that Hilda had taken. It was a dangerous route, but the medical bay was in this direction. At long last, a general alarm went off and a loudspeaker began proclaiming the presence of an infiltrator. Finally everyone was going to look for Hilda, and hopefully stop her.
"That's right, your life," I said. I didn't like the cryptic way she had spoken that word at all, and I was dreading her response.
Flay just chuckled bitterly. "What life? I don't have a life that's worth living. The only satisfaction I'm going to be able to get is to end other lives. That's all I can live for anymore."
I braced myself for an insane smile, but Flay didn't give me that. Instead, when she looked at me, I saw something else, an abyss of despair that was swallowing her up from the inside. Her eyes were filled with so much hurt and agony, and her voice was so hollow and broken, that I couldn't imagine how such a person could still be alive.
"I have nothing, Cagalli. I don't have anybody or anything. No one who loves me, no one who understands me. I don't mean anything meaningful to anybody. I could die tomorrow, and that's that."
"Sai," I said, almost without hesitation.
"Him?" She paused. "No. Not even him. I'm just a pretty face to him, a pretty face that's falling apart. He'll abandon me soon, I know it. No, he's already abandoned me, he's just not ready to go through the motions yet."
I really didn't want to hear this right now, but a small part of me told me that I had to stay. Flay was actuallyconfidingto me. Walking away from her when she was practically begging me for help would be an evil thing. Not even Flay deserved that. She was just a girl. A girl on the cusp of going psychotic, but still a girl.
"That's not true," I said, as I checked my side to make sure the bleeding wasn't getting worse.
"It's true. He doesn't understand at all. Why I have to keep doing the simulator. There's nothing else I can do."
"Flay-"
"I hate this. I wish that woman had killed me. I can't take it anymore."
There was a solemn, resigned sound in her voice, something that resonated far more than an anguished cry of despair would have. Well, that and Flay had sort of revealed she had a death wish, which, on top of her other problems, was just another thread waiting to unravel.
I couldn't take it anymore. I marched over and grabbed Flay by the hand and dragged her down the hallway.
"Cagalli!" Finally, Flay's voice had some strength in it, and she sounded a bit throatier than she usually did too. She halfheartedly tried to struggle but she was no athlete, she couldn't break free. "Let me go! What are you-"
"I need medical attention, and frankly so do you," I said. "We're marching right into the medical bay and we're staying there until the doctor says we can leave. Got it?"
Flay was silent. Then she grabbed me, and I nearly elbowed her, stopping just short as I realized she was hugging me, not trying to hurt or fight me.
"Please don't hate me anymore," Flay whispered. "If you don't want to be my friend I don't care but don't hate me anymore. Just help me get my revenge."
Just like Yzak's older sister, here was another person who desired vengeance above all else. I briefly visualized the gory results of Asta and Flay encountering each other, and then I refocused back on Flay.
"Flay, right now, you need to be locked at. Hilda hit you pretty hard. I wouldn't be surprised if she knocked out a few teeth."
"She did knock out a tooth," Flay said softly. "My mouth is bleeding and I have to keep swallowing it."
That explained the throaty sound in her voice a minute ago. "Do you still have it? They can get it back on like nothing happened."
"I think I swallowed it too."
Why did that not surprise me? "Okay, then I'm sure they have a false one that'll fit you. Now come on."
Flay didn't respond immediately again as I walked her down the hall. I didn't look back at her, so I didn't know what kind of expression she had on her face. Was she trying to manipulate me? Or was she genuinely expressing the emotions I thought she was. She seemed too honest to be lying or acting, at least to me. Flay, if this was all an act, had put on an Oscar-worthy performance.
But, finally, she said "Thank you for not hating me anymore."
"Huh?" was my intelligent response.
"If you hated me, you wouldn't have asked if I was okay," Flay said softly. "Thank you."
"Don't worry about it," I replied, not knowing what else to say. I pitied Flay more than hated her, ever since this whole incident started on Heliopolis.
But did Flay hate me? Why would she warm up to a Coordinator, someone she had shown explicit prejudice to?
I was going to need to find this out before I let Flay get too close, not just to me, but to my friends, and Melanie as well.
But first, medical bay. And catching Hilda, one way or another.
I had a feeling that Hilda wouldn't let herself be found until she wanted to be. She has already killed two people and had tried to kill Flay and me, and she wasn't going to stop until she either escaped or got what she wanted. And the moment she would reveal herself would probably be when I last expected it . . .
