By: Shadow Chaser
Phase Eighteen – Weaving Tangled Webs
Kira flipped on a switch to activate his thermal sensors as he focused on fighting the Liberty in the atmosphere of the innards of Colony Mendel. He spotted the Liberty to his right and fired his beam rifle at it. The green beam tore through the clouds of dust and whatever leftover moisture the Colony still retained, giving him a glimpse of the Liberty dodging before the clouds obscured his vision again.
His sensors traced the heat signature of the Liberty and he fired again. The Liberty had descended below the cloud level and easily avoided his shot. Kira threw away his beam rifle and activated both of his beam sabers. He folded up the veniers on the Freedom and dropped towards the Liberty at a hurling dive. Breaking the cloud level, Kira activated his thrusters at the last minute and slammed into the Liberty, both beam sabers crossed in an 'x' to try to break through the Liberty's defense.
"You think that trick will work again?" Griever asked, laughing slightly as the two of them traded blows.
Kira didn't answer as he tried to ignore the pain pulsating in his head. He had already fallen into his seed-mode, long ago, even before the battle had started, and now was beyond anger. He had said that his clone-brother was one of the most dangerous people alive, and needed to be killed. There was no hope of redemption or reconciliation, considering that Griever was genetically engineered and unnaturally born just to be an assassin. There was no doubt in Kira's mind that Nikolai Mercus was even remotely human…
It wasn't the fury he had against Rau Le Creuset during that battle, but it was more akin to deep seeded anger. Anger at Dr. Hibiki, anger at his own self, and anger at what he was what someone with the right tools could do to him if he had been in Griever's position. It was anger that fueled him to go after Nikolai.
They clashed again and this time Kira lashed out with his leg, kicking Griever in the side and he crashed straight to the ground in a dust heap. He hovered above slightly, his beam saber pointed downwards in case of any sudden attack, but as the dust cleared, there was no movement from the Liberty. Frowning, he brought up a few screens and his eyes narrowed as he saw the small form of Griever, running towards an abandoned building, escaping inside.
Kira knew that his mother and father were inside, trying to sabotage Mendel and destroy all of its records, and he knew that he couldn't let Griever get to them first – to stop the two teams from completing their mission. Landing the Freedom, he undid his restraining belt quickly before grabbing a handgun on the side of his seat and popping open his hatch. He quickly threw his helmet onto his chair before hopping out, landing onto the dust ground.
Coming up from his crouch he switched the gun's safety off, a sense of déjà vu engulfing him as he realized that he had chased after Mu and Rau in almost the same fashion. Except this time it was different – this time he knew who his target was and Rau's words could no longer hurt him.
He ran inside the building that Griever had gone and immediately hugged the wall nearest to the door. It was dimly lit inside, full of narrow halls…
"You can never catch me," Griever's voice suddenly echoed to his right and he pointed his gun down a hall and saw a shadow pass by.
Kira fired once, but the bullet just hit the wall before he ducked behind a pillar as a spray of bullets came his way. He cursed silently as he knew he had given away his position. The firing stopped and Kira peeked back out…nothing…
He quickly made his way down the hall, peeking around the corner and saw that it was all clear. Turning the corner, he walked slowly down it, keeping close to the wall. There were no doors…which meant that if Griever shot at him, he would have to do some fancy ducking or else he would get a bullet in him.
He rounded another corner and suddenly dove across the hall as Griever fired at him. Kira cried out as a bullet lodged itself in his leg, sending him sprawling onto the ground. He grabbed his wound and his gloves came away slick with red blood. Shooting pain filled him and he tried to ignore it as he stared at the wound, before his hands, shaking slightly from both the pain and the shock that he had been shot, pulled out a long strip of gauze that he kept on his flightsuit's small pocket-pouch and he tied it tightly over the wound.
Pulling the knot tight, Kira grunted slightly as he made a makeshift tourniquet. There was no way to take the bullet out, and he stood up on shaky legs, grateful that Griever had not taken the advantage and shoot some more at him. Combined with the pulsating pain that he had whenever he was near Griever and the pain radiating from his wound, he leaned against the cool metallic wall for a second before picking up his gun again.
He limped over to the side and stuck his head out just in time to see Griever go through a door. Anger filled him and he fired two shots at the closing door, but they clanged off. Pushing off on his good leg, he floated towards the door and keyed the pad, but the door stayed shut.
"Shit," Kira swore as he realized that Griever had locked him out. He looked around before going down another hall way. There had to be another way into whatever room the pilot of the Liberty had slipped through. Setting off, he held his gun ready…
Griever shook his head, trying to get rid of the pain that had been gnawing at him ever since he had battled with Kira Yamato. But he knew that it was a pain that wasn't to end until one of them was dead. He would kill Kira; he would stop the pain that the other boy was giving him.
Anderson had told him off all those that had betrayed him, and he would have his chance to exact his revenge. He would be able to avenge his father and continue on with his life. He didn't really believe Anderson, but for now, he knew that he would play along. After all, Anderson's plan was pretty easy to follow – it was only a matter of time before he would get rid of everyone that had betrayed him and he would be able to live his own free life.
He would be able to control the world and all those that knew of what he was would have to be forced to obey him – lest start another war. He knew the people of both the Earth and PLANT didn't want another war, but there were still those that wanted one. He would deal with them when the time came, but right now, getting rid of the factions that was likely to start a war was his priority – getting rid of those that knew who and what he was.
It wasn't madness, it was his wish…
His powers would be able to make that wish come true. He was mildly surprised that Kira hadn't accessed his own powers and was also annoyed, but knew that it wasn't a matter of consequence if his "brother" knew how to or not – the simple answer was Kira was going to die and he would be the instrument of his death.
But for now, he had other things to attend to…
Kanoko stared at the information scrolling across her screens. It was worst than what she had thought…all those years ago, she had personally made sure many of the files had been deleted and their back-ups too, but it seemed that she hadn't seen a second layer of encryption that had been keyed to Dr. Hibiki's work…the ones that Katherine had warned her about.
She wished that she had listened to her good friend's words, but she knew that if wishes were fishes, then Katherine would be alive, and nothing like this would have happened. She kept deleting the files, barely noticing that both Sunne and Ivanov were prowling behind her.
"Ledonil?"
"Yes?" he said from a control panel behind her in the far back of the small room.
"From your controls, are there third and fourth encryptions?"
"None that I can tell," Ledonil replied and Kanoko breathed a quick sigh of relief.
"Good," she whispered before continuing on her work.
"Andrea can you-"
She never got to finish her sentence before Ivanov's strangled scream made her blood run cold. She turned just in time to see a spurt of blood erupt from the man's head before a second gunshot tore through Sunne's face, making her stomach lurch. She screamed before another click of a gun stopped her and she saw in the door frame a person that looked exactly like Kira, holding a gun at her.
"Kira…" she breathed, but realized that it wasn't her son, but the twisted experiment that had the face of her son… "No…Griever…Nikolai Mercus."
"Very good, Mrs. Yamato…or should I say formerly Dr. Kamiya, one of Dr. Hibiki's top assistants," Griever said in a cold voice and Kanoko shuddered to hear her son's voice through his – so foreign and alien… "Uh-uh," he suddenly pointed the gun into the shadows, "I wouldn't Ledonil Kisaka. Drop it."
He suddenly fired and there was a grunt from Ledonil before the sound of a gun clattering to the floor was heard.
"Flesh wound, Dr. Kamiya," Griever smiled thinly at her while he kept his gun trained on the shadows, "we wouldn't want Commander Kisaka here to be dead, now would we. I'm sure Sven would like to see him too…along with you, his former colleague."
"You-"
"Didn't have to kill them?" Griever finished her sentence in a simple voice, "but I had to, Doctor. They knew their duty and their duty was to die. Yours will be too, but that's for later, at Sven's expense."
Ledonil suddenly muttered something that Kanoko couldn't quite catch, but Griever laughed, a horrible cold laugh.
"My, my, language Commander. Now, get up, you too Doctor, unless you want me to put a hole in you and your good friend?"
Kanoko got up slowly, finding herself shaking and her knees weak as she tried not to look at the remains of Andrea Sunne's body. Already globs of her blood from her exploded head were forming and drifting around the room, some smacking into her own armor and it made her sick to her stomach. She tried to force the dry heave down, and barely managed to as she stepped towards Griever who indicated to them to go outside.
As she passed by Griever, she couldn't help but notice that he looked to be in some pain, but then she was shoved outside and she felt her gun being pulled out of her holster.
"I don't think you'll be needing this," Griever tossed the weapon back into the room before closing the door. "Move," he ordered, poking her in the back with his gun and she stared to walk forward. Beside her she saw that Ledonil's right hand was stained crimson and that it was hanging limply by his side.
She swallowed past a lump in her throat as she knew that Griever was taking them to Sven Anderson. She could only hope that her husband's team was successful and perhaps could rescue them.
Keiji frowned. It had been too easy…too little guards, too little security…there had to be cameras watching them, he was sure of it. The whole thing reeked of an ambush… Even Wolf was starting to worry over the comm., but a quick word from Kingfisher silenced her.
"Kingfisher," he whispered over the comm., switching to a private channel he and his former teammate had back when they were both in OMNI Special Ops.
"What Akuma?" he whispered back, a few feet in front of him, taking point before he waved Tempest forward, with Desert following quickly behind.
"This smells like a trap," he said it outright. He had never beat around the bush like many of his other colleagues back in the Special Ops. He had always said his mind and though he sometimes got punished for it, most of the time it was him that saved his teammates' lives.
"I know," Kingfisher replied, "but we still have a mission objective."
"Yeah, but…think about it, what if he's not really there? What if he's somewhere else?"
"And there's an explosive of sorts waiting for us?" Kingfisher finished his thought.
"Yeah," Keiji replied.
"We still finish the job," Kingfisher replied with conviction, "Bartfield told me that Desert is a good demolitions expert and like you always said, even if we're duped, we still have a job to do. We have to confirm if he's there or not and if he's not then we know for sure, but if he is there and we back off, then we're in for a whole hell lot of trouble in the future."
"Yeah," Keiji agreed before he moved forward and tapped his friend on the shoulder, "thanks."
"Welcome," his friend replied before moving forward by Desert now on point.
They reached the main door to the control room where Yzak had told them that Anderson usually hung out and Kingfisher nodded for Desert to plant a small explosive.
They all stood back a few feet as the explosive went off in a small poof of a cloud and sparks before the door hinge broke and Tempest yank the door open, before they stormed in.
Keiji pointed his gun in multiple directions, his eyes covering everything and absorbing the layout of the room in split seconds while his senses were alert to any forms of attack, but there was none.
The room was bathed in a blood red light that would have made an ordinary man have shivers, but Keiji was used to different lights and treated it as it was part of his usual life. Circles of control panels were grouped in different areas of the control room and further into the corner, he saw two tanks, glowing green, full of what looked like partially developed fetuses.
Blinking lights from consoles decorated the wall, along with chairs that looked like they were recently occupied, but abandoned at the last second.
"Tempest-"
Suddenly gunshots rang out from behind them and Keiji reacted without thinking. He dove behind a control panel before bringing his assault rifle to bear. He was suddenly slammed to the floor as two people crashed down on him and they rolled over to take cover too in the control panel. Keiji pushed up his helmet that had gotten skewed and saw that it was both Kingfisher and Desert.
However, the young DaCosta, or Desert, didn't look too well and that was when he noticed that the young red-headed man was bleeding seriously from a wound in his hip that the Kevlar armor hadn't protected him from.
"Shit," he swore as he pulled out an emergency medical pack from his own vest and fumbled a bit before taking out gauze and some supplies. Desert was sweating and his face was pale.
"It's a freaking girl!" he barely heard Kingfisher over the loud barrage of the assault rifle followed by gun shots that were aimed almost too precisely at them. Keiji involuntarily ducked as a few bullets pinged off of their makeshift hiding place.
He concentrated on Desert who was staring at him, eyes full of pain as his fists were clenched. "It's all right," he tried to soothe the young man as he stabbed in his thigh an adrenaline stick before sticking another needle in him to numb the pain around the wounded area. He mopped up the blood that was spilling over, cursing at how much blood the young man was losing to a wound that big.
If he had guessed, he would have thought that the girl, or whatever persons, (he still didn't believe that it was just a single girl), had ambushed them had fired twice in the same spot to penetrate the Kevlar armor. It was uncanny…and very, very skilled…
"Wolf!" he heard Kingfisher shout before the loud boom of the sniper rifle was heard but still there was firing from whoever had ambushed them.
"Kingfisher, where's Tempest?" he asked, ducking slightly as a few flecks of the control panel shaved off from a bullet and onto his face.
"Dead," Kingfisher said a gruff voice before slapping another fresh clip into his rifle and rose up from his hiding place. "Jesus," he said as he ducked back down, "just one girl."
"One?!" Keiji put pressure on the wound, wincing as Desert screamed in pain.
"Just one, but she's like a sniper with her handgun or whatever the hell she's holding," Kingfisher said before rising up again and firing a few rounds. He ducked back down and Keiji noticed that blood was dripping from a piece of shrapnel that had cut into his forehead.
"Here let me get that-"
"Oh hell no…" his friend suddenly said just as the gunfire stopped and Keiji looked to where he was pointing too and his body seized up at the sight.
Beyond them, from another entrance stood his wife and Ledonil…and behind them, what looked like an exact replica of Kira.
"Shit," he cursed softly as a clapping sound echoed in the silent room before he saw from their vantage point, a man with graying brown hair that was rakishly cut dressed in a immaculate business suit. He was wearing glasses, but they were perched on the end of his nose.
"Very well done, very well done," the man clapped while an insane grin lit up his face.
Sven Anderson. The man behind all of this…
But Keiji couldn't do anything as Griever held his wife at gunpoint. He had sworn to himself to protect his family, and that was priority to the mission…