Phase 49: The Final Battle
Shani, Crot and Orga took a last glance at Ai as she dashed away. They quickly downed the drug and took off towards their Gundams. The Forbidden, Raider and Calamity were quickly launched and joined up with the others. The Freedom and the Justice had just equipped the METEOR systems and had positioned themselves in front of the PLANTS. The Earth Alliance mobile suits took this as the chance to strike two Gundams and the colonies down amd began to launch as much of their nuclear missiles as possible, hoping to hit either the Gundams or the PLANTS.
"Come on Kira, we gotta stop those things before they hurt innocent people!" Athrun remarked, shooting off rounds from the METEOR system, trying to deflect the nukes before they destroyed the PLANTS. At the same time, ZAFT took this as an opportunity and began to destroy any Strike Daggar in their sight.
"We can't just let them kill each other off can we?" Orga sarcastically remarked.
"We can't afford to have either side win this..." Miguel replied.
"Then we're just gonna have to put a stop to this!" Shani commented as he struck down a GINN that seemed to be getting too close to the ships.
"Let's go! Before too much damage can be caused..." Stella stated.
"I'm with you!" Sting added.
"Alright, then I'm coming too." Auel remarked.
"We're gonna go make sure that the Earth Alliance doesn't get too close to the PLANTS... that may be more than the Freedom and the Justice can handle alone." Stella explained, moving the Gaia forward and leading the Abyss and Chaos.
"We'll do the same with ZAFT." Yzak stated, heading off towards the other side of the battlefield followed by the Blitz, Buster and GINN.
"We'll go and see if we can find a way to destroy GENESIS." Shani explained, leading Calamity and Raider towards the giant weapon.
"Hurry, they're already getting that reflector into place!" Crot stated as they shot even faster towards GENESIS.
"I don't think you're going to get near that..." came a voice as a laser struck Raider.
"What the fuck!" Crot growled, turning to see the Providence blocking their way to GENESIS.
"I'm afraid I can't let you ruin this...I'll just have to be rid of you!" Creuset sneered as he brought out the beam sword and tried to strike down the Raider. Crot managed to narrowly dodge the attack by flying out of the way just in time.
"Damn...this guy's serious..." Crot grumbled, returning to the others.
"We're not afraid to take you down!" Shani remarked, starting to charge Forbidden's plasma cannon.
"I'd like to see you try!" hissed Creuset as he flew straight towards the Forbidden.
Meanwhile as Yzak approached the ZAFT troops, a Gundam knocked him away.
"Hey...who the hell are you!" Yzak demanded, unhappy about the sudden attack.
"I'm Shinn Asuka, pilot of the Impulse Gundam and I'm here to stop you..." Shinn murmured.
"Get out of our way!" Yzak growled.
"Can't do that...I have my orders to defend these troops even from the likes of you." Shinn explained. "Now come at me!" The Archangel seemed to be having problems of their own as a barrage of helldarts came raining down upon them.
"Azrael..." Murrue muttered, seeing what had been the cause of the earlier attacks.
"Why yes it is...and I'm going to deal with you for the last time..." Azrael sneered.
Meanwhile, the Minerva and the Versalius shot round after round at the Kusanagi, Eternal and Epsilon.
"Argh...we have to keep those away!" Cagalli shouted as she maneuvered the Strike Rouge around trying to defend as much of the three ships as possible.
"You might want some assistance with that..." Mwu commented as the Strike intercepted several other rounds headed towards the ships. Things were only beginning as the battle had only reached it's starting stages...
"Get away from him!" sneered Meamie as she came to Crot's defence, knocking away the Providence.
"Meamie fall back now!" Lyai cautioned as the Pegasus was getting in close range of enemy attacks.
"Don't worry, I'll take it from here Meamie." came Raithe as he took her place between the four units, staring down the Providence. "You..." he muttered coldly. "How dare you touch my friends!" The Fenrir came in and rammed the unit to the side as he tried his best to keep up an attack on the Gundam. If he would stop even for a split second it would allow Creuset to retaliate, which he could not afford.
"Raithe..." Meamie said softly as Pegasus fell back to the ships' protection.
"Meamie, look over there!" Lyai shouted. Meamie closed in near the PLANTs as she saw a barrage of nuclear missals. "Quickly!"
"Right, I'm on it!" Meamie responded as Pegasus launched a counter strike eliminating the barrage just in time. "That was too close... I don't have enough energy to keep fighting those and these mobiles off!" she stated as she resumed her fighting stance and knocked away from Strike Daggers and enemy ships getting too close for comfort.
"Oh no we're too late!" came Lyai's voice as the reflector was set in place.
"No, I can't let this happen..." whispered Ai as her Cerberus was positioned dead center of it's firing range. "Everyone please get out now! GENESIS is about to fire!" she shouted out to all of the units whether friend or foe. It seemed as if none took her seriously, until the weapon was activated...
"Ai get out of there now!" shouted Raithe who was more concerned with her than Providence.
"Please get out of it's fire range quick!" called Lyai as she attempted talk sense into the child. The units in range had taken her heed and were now fleeing, but just before she was about to join them a shot was taken at her. When she was blind sided Providence had set it's DRAGOON system on the girl and she was thus trapped in the area.
"No Ai!" shouted Meamie as she was about to rush in to help her. However, Lyai stood in her way, a look of pain on her face.
"We can't do anything now..." she said softly as she beam was now fully charged and the ray shot out through the cold space...
"Ai!" came a shout from a vessel. It was the Epsilon that was now mere inches away from the Cerberus.
"C-Commander!" Raithe stated in pure shock. As the ray cleared it was found that the Epsilon had gotten in the way of the Cerberus as it knocked the unit away just enough to push Ai into safety...
"Erasu... No..." Lyai muttered as tears began to roll down her face. Meamie joined her in her greif as what remained of the ship floated on aimlessly.
"You bastard!" came a disgusted sneer from the Fenrir. "You... I'LL KILL YOU!" With that the Fenrir began to ruthlessly attack the units surrounding him as he made his way after the Providence which was now stationed behind a long line of other ZAFT soldiers. Ai had just come back to her senses after the sight she held before her, nearly experiencing death. It was then she noticed that Raithe was closing in on a familiar mobile suit, and it wasn't the Providence.
"Raithe stop it!" Ai called out to him but he didn't dare answer. Before Ai knew what she was doing she shot in his path thus causing his attention to shift to her.
"WHY!" he demanded furiously.
"Please stop it, Raithe... What kind of person do you hope to become that way..? How could I ever look at you the same, brother!" she shouted as tears began to flow.
Meanwhile Lyai had closed in on the units trying to repair GENESIS as she shot them down.
"We can't keep protecting against this thing." she said as Meamie soon joined her. The two units continued their barrage until all the ZAFT pilots could do to keep them at bay was to fire back and not fix the machine.
"We have to find some way to destroy it..." Kira murmured.
"How could we have let this happen!" Shani growled as the Forbidden floated around the pieces of debris from the Epsilon.
"Damn...all we can do right now is try to stall them from putting in another reflector..." Crot mumbled.
"We'll hold off the Providence while you guys slow down the process of setting up that reflector!" Yzak remarked, breaking off from the group followed by Dearka.
"Fine, Nicol and I will continue to hold off the ZAFT forces..." Miguel stated.
"The Duel and the Buster...what a fine match this will be..." Cruset chuckled as he sped towards the two Gundams.
"Come on, he can't hit us both at once!" Dearka commented. The Duel and the Buster managed to evade the oncoming attack as the Providence zoomed back for another attack.
"You can't win just by running away..." Cruset murmured, closing in on the Buster.
"Which is why I'm doing this!" Yzak remarked as the Duel hit the Providence out of the way with it's beam sword.
"We'll see who is the true victor!" Cruset exclaimed, firing off it's DRAGOON system as it homed in on the Duel.
"Yzak! Look out!" Dearka called, but a bit too late as the Gundam was caged in by the lasers causing serious damage to the Duel.
"Damned Bastard!" Dearka shouted, shooting several rounds from Buster's cannon and watching as they struck the other Gundam. "Gotcha." Dearka remarked.
"Not quite..." Cruset stated as the providence shot from the smoke and knocked the Buster away causing it to drop it's cannon.
"Don't you dare touch him you sick freak!" Yzak yelled as the Duel grabbed onto the Providence trying to restrict it's movements towards the Buster. "I won't let him die!"
"Fool! Do you think you could really stop me!" Cruset hissed. "For that, you will pay with your life!" The Providence threw the Duel off itself and retaliated with another blow from it's DRAGOON system.
"Argh...that bastard...he got me good..." Yzak muttered as a shower of sparks was emitted from the controls. The Duel was heavily damaged and could no longer move as the Providence closed in for the finish.
"I won't let you..." Dearka murmured, shooting the Providence with it's cannon that it had managed to retrieve. 'We can't keep this up much longer...' Dearka thought, seeing as how he had caught Cruset's attention.
"Hey Auel, can I ask you a favor?" Shani questioned through the com. system. "Yeah, what is it?" Auel replied, wondering what the other pilot had planned.
"I want you, Stella and Sting to go stall the instalation of the second reflector. We'll handle the Earth Alliance. After all, we have some...unfinished business with Azrael..." Shani explained.
"Sure, but we gotta make this fast." Auel stated. The Forbidden, Calamity and Raider swapped positions with the Abyss, Gaia and Chaos.
"Strike the Dominion...make sure it goes down in flames!" Shani growled as the Forbidden, Raider and Calamity flew in between the ongoing battle between the Archangel and the Dominion.
"What are they doing?" Murrue questioned as she watched the three Gundams attack the black legged ship.
"Hold it." Azrael instructed. "Focus all of you're fire on those three units! Don't let them destroy this ship!" 'If they think they're gonna win this then they thought wrong...' Azrael thought. The heavy rain of fire that had previously been focused on the Archangel was now being aimed at the Forbidden, Raider and Calamity.
"Dodge everything they throw at us, just keep hitting!" Orga remarked.
"Sir, the damage on this ship...it's reached 75 percentand climbing!" remarked an operator. "We can't win at this rate!"
"I don't care! Just keep shooting! Kill them! Kill them all!" Azrael hollered.
"But sir, we're all in danger! This ship could explode if the damage gets any higher!" reasoned another operator.
"Do you think we win wars by running away! Stay at your posts!" Azrael hissed.
"Knowing Azrael, he's just gonna stick this one out till the end..." Orga commented.
"Which is fine by me." Crot added. As they continued their assault on the black legged ship, the Archangel began lending assistance, being careful not to hit the three units.
"You think the two of you can stand a chance? Why don't you just give up now?" Shinn remarked, seeing the GINN and the Blitz struggle in trying to hold off the fleet of ZAFT mobile suits and the Impulse all at once.
"Because...why would we fight if we know that we're just gonna give up in the first place!" Nicol remarked, dealing a blow to the Impulse.
"Come on, is that all you got!" Miguel remarked as he took out more units out of the troop of GINNs.
"What do you people expect to accomplish by going against your own side? It's hopeless!" Shinn commented.
"That's where you're wrong...it's never hopeless!" Nicol replied, managing to get close to the Impulse using the Mirage Colloid and struck the Impulse with Blitz's blade.
"Doing alright Nicol?" Miguel questioned.
"Yeah, I'm doing just fine, no need to worry about me!" Nicol cheerfully exclaimed while still battling with the Impulse.
"We have to do something about the Versalius and the Minerva...we can't just keep on defending the ships forever...the energy's starting to run low on the Rouge." Cagalli commented.
"Yeah, same here." Mwu stated, trying to hold off the fire from the other two ships as the Kusanagi and the Eternal retaliated with their own barrage of rounds.
Meanwhile, the Gaia, Abyss and the Chaos were striking down the GINNs that were trying to put up the second reflector.
"Shit...they're coming in numbers now...I guess they don't want us messing up their plans..." Sting commented as he knocked several others away.
"We won't let them finish their plans anyways..." Auel remarked. The Freedom and the Justice were currently still trying to find a way to destroy GENESIS.
"It's like there's no way to destroy it..." Kira murmured.
"Nonsense Kira, if you can build ii, then there must be a way to tear it down!" Athrun commented. "Just keep trying!" GINNs started to barrage the two Gundams in gunfire, trying to impede their actions in anyway possible.
"It seems like some of the forces are dwindling..." came a slight pant from Lyai who was becoming a bit exhausted after fending off so many units. "But I doubt our energy levels can keep up for much longer... OMEGA's units were built more advanced but even they have limits, the only ones with enough power are the Freedom and the Justice... and maybe that strange one with the DRAGOON system as well."
"No matter what it is we have to put a stop to them, you agree? If the others are fighting hard then so can we!" Meamie stated as she sent more shots at the GINNs trying to replace the reflector. "Right now what concerns me is that thing! If they place it back into place who knows what will happen next!"
"But how can we possibly destroy something like that from here!" stated Lyai at a loss for what to do while the Leviathan took out nearby units trying to hinder them from keeping the GINNs at bay. "I mean the only logical way is from the inside but what could be powerful enough to wipe that out..?"
"Another nuclear explosion, that's what." came a soft voice over the com.
"Ai..?" questioned Lyai. "Yes.. I suppose you're right but what could cause one of those, if you haven't noticed our arsenal lacks that sort of firepower."
"Unless... Wait a minute!" Meamie blurted as she finally got the message only to become completely shocked at her realization. "Oh no Ai, you can't possibly be thinking that-"
"Yes... I'm going to do it..." she said softly as the Cerberus made it's way closer to GENESIS.
"Wait Ai! What are you thinking!" came Raithe as the Fenrir stood in her way.
"I'm going to destroy that thing before more innocent lives are lost!" she snapped back at him with more tension in her voice than ever before. "I won't let anyone else die..."
"No... I can't let you do this Ai!" he stated as Fenrir stood it's ground. the two were completely oblivious to the events going on around them...
"I'm sorry Raithe, but this is the last chance for me to put an end to this. It may not be the end of the fighting or even this war but it will give you all a fighting chance..." she responded as tears began to roll down her face.
"But Ai... You can't... I don't want to lose you again! You're my sister Ai I don't want to see you go!" he said as he could no longer fight off his tears. In his heart he knew he couldn't stand in her way and he didn't want to fight her. As the Fenrir backed down the Cerberus sped on to GENESIS leaving behind all of the other pilots as she readied herself for what she was about to do...
Meanwhile Lyai and Meamie had gone off to help Nicol and Miguel fight off the ZAFT units.
"Lay off!" shouted Lyai as she knocked a few units out of her way. She was now by Miguel's side helping to bring down the ever persistent forces.
"Are you blind! We're trying to put an end to this war whereas your forces are trying to step this war up to the next level! Do you honestly think that by letting war involve this sort of nuclear warfare you're actually saving lives?" Meamie reasoned to the Impulse as she backed Nicol up.
After the Fenrir had finally coped with letting Ai go it was then a familiar sight caught his eye. 'It's him... That unit... He'll pay!' he thought as Fenrir rushed down and struck the Providence as he was blind sided.
"You, you bastard! Trying to use nuclear warfare to solve this war, you sick son of a bitch!" Raithe sneered as his unit struck the Providence with a direct hit and knocked away it's right arm. He was a ways away from the unit after he had charged but turned back to face it again, having caught the pilot's full attention now. "Next time I won't miss, I promise that..." he stated as he sent Creuset a cold glare and a determined look. The Fenrir was charging at Providence and about to finally take down the unit when all of a sudden a blinding flash engulfed the entire area.
"Wh-what's that!" Meamie questioned in shock as she turned her attention to the source.
"I don't know... Where's it coming from?" asked Lyai who was just as clueless as her friend.
"Oh no... AI!" Raithe shouted out as the Fenrir immediately went after the source. That blinding flash that had been seen throughout the raging battlefield seemed to send a silent hush to all of the soldiers as the message was clear... GENESIS was now gone, but it had seemed to had taken with it two units...
Author's Notes: Well it's been a long time coming and finally we are reaching the conclusion to this story. War Torn has become my role playing pride and joy and I hope you all have enjoyed the story as much as we have writing. We've lost some good characters and gained a few along with cheating death and twisting the story at the last minute and I'm happy to say the end product was much better than expected. Yes, I know I'm saying this stuff as if this is the end but it's not. After all there's still a final conclusion in which I bet you all are dying to read. However, we've finally caught up to where we left off in the actual role play. This of course meaning that the exciting finale is still in the works. Be seeing you all next time.
