Disclaimer: Sebastian Connor, Angela Ramius, and the Storm Wolves are Mine, Kumiko and Kazuma Sasaki are SPARTAN-251's.
Song of the Storm Wolf
By Storm Wolf77415
Reunion
The falling water was the greatest feeling in the world for Kazuma, the fresh ozone smell of the falling drops washed away the sweat and grime he had been sitting in for so long. After a full physical by Dr. Reynolds, whom had joined the Dominion crew after the events of Alaska, Kazuma was cleared to get a haircut and a nice long shower. And now he and Sebastian were kicking back in the officer's mess.
"Ahhh, much better," Kazuma said, as he ran his hand through his newly cut hair. "I've said it once already, but I'll say it again. It feels really good to be out of that tin coffin, cleaned up, and wearing clothes again."
"You're really not suited to the nudist lifestyle," Sebastian added, "You think you're ready to meet with your mom and Cagalli again?"
"My Mom, yeah I'm ready, but…I'm not so certain about Cagalli. I mean, you mentioned she and this Athrun guy were seeing each other at one time. How do I know they're still not together? That she still doesn't like him?" Sebastian felt Kazuma had a right to know about Athrun and Cagalli's brief relationship, and it had worried the Wolf's fellow noble just a bit.
"Athrun and Cagalli were seeing each other before Alaska, but it really wasn't anything serious. Ever since we came back from Orb, I haven't seen the two of them doing anything remotely resembling them being a couple. When she mentioned you, I could see the hurt in her eyes. She missed you. I can only imagine the looks on Cagalli and Kumiko's faces when they see you alive and well."
"Yeah, I should expect them to welcome me with open arms," Kazuma said, "After that, they'll choke me almost to death before they finish me off with two really good right hooks, and maybe Cagalli will kick me in the balls for good measure."
"Nice way of showing someone they've been missed for eleven years." Sebastian winced, Kazuma rested his hand on his closed fist, emulating the famous "Thinker" statue, before he sprung up, pounding one hand into another.
"You know what? Cagalli would punch my lights out, but a right hook from my mom is little more than a slap on the wrist. That's too little and too nice for her. She'd wrap a frying pan around my skull if she had one, and she probably does." The Storm Wolf put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"Let's get this over with. We can't delay the inevitable." Kazuma nodded.
Kumiko sat in her desk in her quarters, facing down the enemy of all politicians, an enemy more dangerous than even Rau Le Creuset himself…paperwork. Huge piles loomed overhead for her, "Uzumi, I'm glad you were willing to stick to your guns even to your death, but you've left me in a real tight bind here," She muttered.
Sebastian's entire body tensed up as he knocked on the door, Kazuma stood against the wall, so Kumiko wouldn't see him. "Evening Kumiko, I hope I'm not interrupting you."
"Just the opposite. I needed the distraction. How did your mission to your old headquarters?"
"Well, we found more than we bargained for…in fact I found something which belongs to you."
"What of mine did I leave at your old base? I never even knew it existed," Kumiko asked. Sebastian made a gesture, and Kumiko's hands came up to her mouth in disbelief as Kazuma came in the doorway.
"Hi Mom, been awhile hasn't it?" He said. Kumiko had only one reply…her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fainted. "Wow, she took that better than I thought. I was sure I'd get a fist in my mouth and then she'd pass out." Kazuma finished. Both boys picked the unconscious woman up and carried her over to the couch. She moaned and opened her eyes.
"Sebastian? I just had the craziest dream…I thought I saw my son, OH DEAR GOD!" Kumiko yelped at the sight of Kazuma. She sat there for a few more seconds, just looking into the eyes of the young man in front of her, "It wasn't a dream. Kazuma…is it really you, my boy?"
"Yeah, it's me Mom. The story is a long one, but the abridged version goes like this. I was kidnapped by Blue Cosmos, and they tried to brainwash me for eleven years, but it failed abysmally. They stuck me in a scaled down mobile suit, I escaped to Ptoleamaeus, hooked up with Admiral Halberton, and I met Sebastian at the Wolf's Den, did you get all that?" He said in one breath. Kumiko just nodded, and cleared her throat.
"Well…that is a very interesting story, Kazuma. I'm VERY glad you're alive. But still…" Kumiko said, pulling out a massive cast-iron skillet from seemingly out of nowhere as a massive flaming battle aura surrounded her, a murderous gleam in her eyes, "For making me AND Cagalli worry about you for the last ELEVEN YEARS, you must be punished!"
Sebastian and Kazuma's eyes were large enough to be used for targets by the Archangel's Lohegrins as Kazuma's prophecy came true, Kumiko DID have a frying pan with his name on it! "Oh god, Mom, not that! Please god anything but that!" Kazuma stuttered, his hands out in front of him in a feeble attempt to defend himself from the onslaught about to be brought upon him, as Sebastian leapt behind the couch, not wanting to be in the line of fire.
"I see you remembered the Skillet of Discipline. I've kept it oiled and clean for just this day! TIME TO PAY UP!" Kumiko hollered. GADUNG! GONG! The sound of cast-iron connecting with bone reverberated through the entire space station, causing more than a few people to sit up and stare. Kazuma got hit full out on the forehead. He stood there a few seconds still as a statue with a dazed look on his face.
"And the lights went out…all over the world!" Kazuma said in a dreamy, dazed tone, making a wide circling gesture with his hands before his eyes rolled into the back of his skull and fell flat on his back.
The Storm Wolf of Jachin Due winced, covering his eyes with his hand, "I wasn't hit, and I can feel it! Kumiko, remind me never to make you mad." The head of the Sasaki family gave an innocent smile to Sebastian, as she hefted the heavy frying pan on her shoulder.
"Hopefully this is an incentive for you to remember playing nice is a good thing, Sebastian. If you're smart, you'll never put your dear wife through what my nimrod of a son just did," Kumiko said in all too sweet tone, she turned to her fallen son, "All is forgiven, I am truly glad to have you home alive and well, Kazuma. When you wake up, I'll have a helping of my famous Teriyaki Chicken waiting for you."
"Ooh, look at all the pretty, shiny stars," Kazuma said, as his mother walked off. Sebastian propped him and slapped him back to lucidity.
"Oh, Ow…What happened? I remember seeing the Skillet of Discipline before everything went black."
"Your mom wrapped it around your skull, just as you said she would." Sebastian replied.
Kazuma groaned as he rubbed the top of his tender head, "I all but forgot about the fucking Skillet! It's Mom's favorite form of punishment! It's a really good thing I have a hard head!" Sebastian didn't mean to laugh, but it was really hard not to.
"One down, one to go?" Sebastian ventured, "Hey, you said so yourself, Cagalli wouldn't be half as bad on you as your mom just was."
"That's really depending on what kind of mood she's in when we first meet…now did I hear my mom right? She's making her Teriyaki Chicken? Come on! I'm not about to miss it, even if she does beat my head in all the time. Her cooking is top notch! And I haven't had it in eleven years."
"Go and have fun, I need to see the wife. She's pregnant you know." Sebastian replied.
"Well, congrats, Dad. Good luck, I'm going to go feed my face!" Putting the splitting pain in his skull aside, Kazuma bounced down the hall with a wide grin on his face, and a warm feeling in his heart. He had finally come home.
Connor Family Quarters
"Now, now, everyone wait your turn. There's plenty for everyone and I'll get around to all of you." Lacus chided gently as she served dinner to the antsy children sitting around the table, impatiently waiting for their mother to serve dinner. Their attention was drawn to Sebastian entering the room.
"DADDY!" All the children clamored to their adopted father. Lacus smiled at her husband, patting her ever growing belly. Lacus was entering her second trimester, and their child grew quickly, as such, The Pink Princess' stomach expanded like a balloon, looking very out of place on her otherwise petite form. She pranced up to Sebastian and hugged him, burying her face in his chest.
"Hello, my husband, welcome home," Lacus' tinkling voice was a welcome sound to the weary warrior's ears. "And you made it just in time for dinner. A woman couldn't ask more from her lover." She kissed him lightly.
"Mommy's kissing Daddy!" One of the children teased. And the adults separated, Lacus blushing slightly.
"That's right, and don't you forget this. One day you'll have a wife, and you'll kiss her in front of your kids and they get to embarrass you!" Sebastian shot back, "Now, how about we sit down and enjoy dinner?"
Ame-No-Mihashara Cafeteria.
Kazuma bit into the tender chicken breast, the grilled scent of the teriyaki marinade making a full assault his senses weren't about to stop. "Ahhh, Mom, you never fail." He sighed in contentment. Kazuma was back in his homeland, and free of the Earth Forces. Topping it off, his mother's famous Teriyaki Chicken. Now Orb's prodigal son had one last task before him. He had to tell the girl who had been his oldest friend he was back…and not get killed.
"I wonder what attack she'll open up with?" Kazuma mused, "She always liked to open up with a hook to the jaw. It'll probably be that. She's going to be pissed. Then again, our relationship was anything but normal." He took another bite, losing himself in his mother's cooking.
Cagalli was on her way to the hanger to speak with Erica about a new equipment pack for the Akatsuki to use in space, a remote weapons system based off of the Moebius Zero's wired gunbarrels. She passed the cafeteria when the most delectable odor came to her nose. A familiar odor in fact. "Why would Kumiko make her Teriyaki Chicken? The only people who ever ate were me and…" She took off into a run, and slammed open the doors.
Kazuma, with a mouthful of chicken, turned to see the blonde standing in the doorway like she had been slapped in the face with a fish, he nearly choked. "Cagalli!" He said swallowing his food.
"Kazuma?" Cagalli said, "N-no. No, it's not possible! You're not supposed to be here!"
"Cagalli, is it really you?" Kazuma said, standing up, taking in how much the Lioness of Orb had grown in the last decade, "Whoa…you look great. Far better than the time your dad forced you to wear that puffy green dress for our class pictures when we were in first grade! Not to mention the pigtails and poorly done makeup!" Kazuma paled, "Oh shit…I shouldn't have said that."
Cagalli's disbelief vaporized in an instant. "Only one person would know about that! KAZUMA!" POW! Cagalli grabbed Kazuma's shirt collar, wound up, and executed a picture perfect right hook, just as he predicted. "YOU JERK! ELEVEN YEARS! ELEVEN YEARS I WORRIED ABOUT YOU!" She thrust her knee into his stomach, and dropped her elbow into his back. "YOU SHOULD REGRET NOT DYING SO I WOULDN"T HAVE TO KILL YOU! EVEN IF YOU DID, I WOULD HAVE FOUND A WAY TO RESSURECT YOU SO I COULD KILL YOU AGAIN!" She wrapped her arm around his neck and drove him facefirst into the deck, a loud CLANG resonating through the cafeteria. Kazuma's reaction was laughter.
"WHAT'S SO FUNNY!" She screeched, her entire face red, hands clenched.
"This is EXACTLY how I pictured our reunion to go! Especially the right hook!" Kazuma said, alternating between laughing and groaning in pain. "I missed your thrashings so much! It's great to see you again, Cagalli! Now…could you help me to the infirmary?"
Cagalli sighed, and helped her oldest friend to his feet, before she tackled him to the ground, her eyes watery, "What am I going to do with you?"
Kazuma's return had brought a huge change in Cagalli. Everywhere she walked, people saw a bounce in her step which hadn't been there before. She walked through the crew lounge where Tolle, Mirialla, Yzak, Dearka, and Nicol, were hanging out."Hi Cagalli," Tolle called out to her.
"Hi Tolle," she gave a quick wave as she set down the hall. Once she was out of hearing range. Mirialla spoke.
"Is it just me, or has Cagalli been acting different lately? Ever since this Kazuma guy showed up she's been acting like a completely different person."
"What do you mean?" Dearka asked.
"I thought I was the only one that noticed that. She's been much…perkier as of late, for Cagalli anyway. I'll admit it's nice to see her not brooding so much over her father's death," Nicol admitted.
"I don't get it." Tolle said.
"Come on." Mirialla moved to the doorway and poked her head out into the hallway, quickly followed by the others, as they all caught Cagalli still walking down the hallway. "The clothes she's been wearing for the past few days are a bit... I don't know... form fitting."
Tolle nodded in agreement, and silently enjoying the sight of Cagalli in the same red t-shirt and fatigue pants she had worn in the desert, but for some reason they looked much tighter on her body than he remembered, "Now that you mentioned it, Miri. Her clothes do seem to hug her more than usual."
Yzak spoke, "I remember when she and Athrun were seeing each other for a little while, but I've never seen her wear clothes like that."
"Any ideas on what it means?" Mirialla asked.
"Don't look at me, It's not any of my business," Yzak snorted.
Kira and Flay, still in their flightsuits, came in, both were puzzled to find their friends flocked around the doorway. "What's going on? Why are all of you standing in the doorway like that?" The redhead asked, putting a hand on her hip.
"Uh, we were just talking about the difference in Cagalli's attitude lately." Mirialla replied.
"Oh that? She's happy because Kazuma returned." Flay said brightly, "Sebby told me about it the other day."
"Did you go for another joyride in Freedom?" Dearka asked slyly, his mind recording every inch of Flay in the pink flightsuit she had on.
"We sure did, and then we went for a joyride of a different sort when we got back. Right sweetie?" Flay cooed, as she traced a hand on Kira's chest, before she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her breasts mashing against his stomach, since the redhead was so much shorter than her brunette lover.
"Hey, Yamato, take the little vixen and get a room why don't ya!" Dearka called out to Kira and Flay, causing Kira to roll his eyes as the redhead buried her face deeper in the pilot of Freedom's shoulder to hide her deepening blush.
"You have no shame, Dearka! Do you get a kick out of embarrassing people about their lovelife?" Athrun snapped.
"I don't know, Athrun. The pilot of that one machine you and Kira fought at Orb seemed to have the hots for ya!" Dearka teased. Many had heard Loretta's playful teasing of Athrun as Justice battled the Banshee over Onogoro. Even Kira snickered. "See, everyone here agrees with me, even your buddy. She has a sexy enough voice. I bet she'd love to get you in the sack!"
"ACHOO!" In her quarters at Ptoleamaeus, a sleepy Loretta in just her panties sneezed and started blushing, "Someone's talking about me. I hope they're hot."
Ame-No-Mihashara hanger
"Is there a reason why we're in a pitch black room, Mom?" Kazuma asked his mother. The lights came on and the heir to the Sasaki clan's eyes bugged out wide. They were standing in front of a mobile suit…a Gundam.
"What do you think, son?" She asked.
"What…is this?" He replied.
"MBF-X03A Namikaze, one of Orb's earliest mobile suit designs. It's been sitting in this hanger, gathering dust for the last few years. I had it pulled out, and fixed up for you. I know you want payback for what the Earth Forces did to you. Here's the power to do it with."
"COOL! A new toy to kick royal ass and take some names! Thanks Mom, I'll put it good use." Kumiko hugged her son.
"Just promise me you'll come home alive, Kazuma. For my sake and Cagalli's as well."
"I will, Mom. I WILL come back for both of you. I got my life back, and I have no intention of losing it anytime soon."
Earth Alliance Lunar Base, Ptoleamaeus Crater, July 9th, C.E. 71
Raviel Sierra stood in a lounge overlooking the harbor. Several vessels sat in their berths, Nelsons, Agamemnons, and in the center of the massive room, in a brilliant green and dark blue paint job, the third ship of the Archangel-class, was the EAS Apollyon. The flagship designated to the anti-Archangel task force which the Dominion was meant to lead. But now it's objective had been changed slightly.
"I don't care what happens to the ship itself, but I want those white and red mobile suits taken intact," Azrael said. The Director of Blue Cosmos personally came up to the moon. At Orb, he had nearly wet himself in joy when he came to the conclusion that the lead mobile suits were nuclear powered. "If we could capture just one of the machines, our nuclear option would be open to us again. Plus the other benefits, imagine fitting the entire Dagger force with nuclear engines! The space monsters wouldn't have a chance."
"I don't doubt we'll succeed, Direct. I must bring up the point, that as long as those two machines work together, it will be…difficult to entrap them. They both held off Loretta back at Orb, their teamwork was quite remarkable. And that's not including the Storm Wolf either," Raviel commented. "Although I will deal with him myself. If we surround them from all directions, I believe we can win."
"Well done, Raviel. All we need is one of those mobile suits, we can study its technology. And the tide of the war will finally turn in our favor, and the Coordinator will be a dead and forgotten species, For the preservation our Blue and Pure World." Azrael's smirk was evil.
ZAFT Task Force enroute to L4, July 13th, C.E. 71
Angela Ramius, wearing a plain version of the ZAFT greencoat with no insignia on it, wearily followed after Rau down the halls of the Vesalius.
"Why do you need me? You could have left me to rot in prison for the rest of my life. Why return me to my people now after all this time?" She asked.
"You were one of the first prisoners of war we took. I'd think you'd be glad to return home after almost two years in captivity. You'll be a hero for bringing back the vital information needed to end the war," Rau replied in his smooth, silky tone.
"Uh…huh." Murrue's younger sister replied, not fully buying it. "So, how exactly are you going to return me to the Earth Forces?"
"ZAFT High Command recently discovered an Alliance fleet poking around L4. We'll meet with them, drop you off in an escape pod, and let them take you from there. It's that simple."
"Right…" She replied, still not buying it.
"You don't trust me." It wasn't a question.
"Why should I? You're Rau Le Creuset, High Commander of ZAFT, Patrick Zala's right hand man. All other ZAFT Team commanders report to you. How do I know this isn't some kind of insipid trick?"
"Easy, if it was a trick, would I be handing you…this?" And he slid a DVD case into the brunette girl's hand. "This is the information I promised you. With this, you can end the war, and no one else will have to suffer." They stopped in the hallway. "These quarters are yours until we reach our destination. Relax for right now. I'll let you know once we've made contact with the Alliance fleet."
Angela stepped inside the guest quarters. She gazed down at the innocuous case in her hand. It almost seemed too good to be true. "Could this really end the war?" she muttered to herself. Deciding she had to know, she sat down at the desk, sliding the disc into the computer. As the screen flared to life, the images reflecting in Angela Ramius' eyes nearly made her faint out of her chair. "Oh my god," was all she said.
Author's Notes: Done with the filler chapters, and back on course with the main storyline! Next time we're on course for Mendel! Since Angela is a trained Earth Forces officer, unlike Flay, she's not going to be so naïve as to what Rau gave her.