I don't own anything except Kevin Walker and Invictus
Two days after his meeting with his old mentor-turned-enemy Andrew Waltfeld, Kevin stood in his quarters, assembling his gear.
The door chimed. "Enter," he said without turning.
Cagalli stepped in. "Hi, Kevin. I was just wondering where you'd gotten to, so-" She broke off, taking a good look at her friend.
He was wearing black commando fatigues, with a Colt M4 carbine with grenade launcher and suppressor slung over his shoulder, his Peacemaker in a thigh holster, and a double row of hand grenades across his chest; he was just screwing a suppressor onto the barrel of a Colt .45 automatic.
"I've got some business to attend to," Kevin said, checking the pistol's chamber and holstering it. "Personal business."
Her eyes narrowed speculatively. "Personal business, and you're covered in weapons. You're going to go kill someone, aren't you?"
"That's right." He slipped a Ka-Bar Marine combat knife into a leg sheath. "Remember that disc Andy gave me? That contained CARDINAL's location. It's time I terminated his account... once and for all."
Cagalli stepped aside, letting him pass into the corridor, then fell into step with him. "Do you need any help?"
Kevin shook his head regretfully. "Cagalli, there's no one I'd rather have with me. But, while you're a superb shot with a gun, you're not trained for this kind of infiltration; I am. I've always worked alone in the past, and I'll have to today. But thanks."
She touched his arm. "Good luck."
"Wish me luck after I've cleared a small leave of absence with the Captain," he said, a touch grimly. "I think she'll agree, but she might not; we'll see."
Five minutes later, Kevin stood in Ramius' office; La Flaga was there as well. "Is something up, Ensign?" the Captain asked, taking note of his gear.
He saluted. "Captain, I request an eight-hour leave. Personal business in Banadiya."
La Flaga looked him over, suspicious. "CARDINAL?"
Kevin looked at him calmly. "Commander, it's better for all of us if I don't answer that question. Plausible deniability, among other things."
Ramius examined him carefully; this was the first meeting she'd had with the young commando-pilot since landing on Earth over a week earlier. Like La Flaga, she was surprised by the changes she saw; he was obviously still a vengeful young man, but no longer did it border on psychopathic. "Very well, Ensign," she said gravely. "Are you sure eight hours will be enough, Blade?" she asked in a softer tone.
"If it takes me much longer than eight hours to accomplish that kind of mission, Ma'am," he said dryly, "it means I ran into something I well and truly couldn't handle, and got myself blown into tiny pieces. Besides, I'm not expecting anything that major in terms of defenses."
La Flaga clapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck, kid; sometime when we're both off-duty, let me know how things went."
Kevin smiled maliciously. "I'll remember that, sir, and it will be my pleasure."
For the first time since coming to Heliopolis a year earlier, Kevin used every ounce of strength and stealth that he had, even more than on Artemis, as he moved in on his target.
He reached Banadiya in Skygrasper 3, flying low and fast to defeat radar (once he was in range, of course, since N-jammers also made radar detection difficult), and landed just outside the city. From there, he went in on foot, suppressed .45 in hand in case of sentries; the Desert Tiger hadn't been able to learn much more than Jackson's location, so he was going in blind.
In a way, Kevin relished it; single combat was what he was good at, and so few people could match him that he welcomed the challenge of sneaking into an enemy facility, even if it was just a house, without any intelligence beyond the fact that the target was there.
Careful as always, he ascended to a roof across from his target building first, using binoculars to scout the site. Let's see... Two floors, four windows to a side, two on each level... No visible guards, cameras, or autodefenses. Something's not right here.
Kevin lowered the binoculars and switched his bionic eye's reception to the electromagnetic spectrum. "That's better," he murmured. "Hmm. As paranoid as you'd expect an ex-intell agent to be." There were cameras covering literally every possible infiltration point, and a number of automated weapons as well, including machine guns and claymore mines. "This could be tricky."
He flicked over to infrared and scanned the building once more, searching for guards. CARDINAL, you clever bastard; you've thought of everything, haven't you? As he'd expected, there were numerous guards patrolling the facility, some of whom Kevin recognized from dossiers Jackson had sent, while they still worked together. Or while he was still manipulating me, at least.
He switched his eye back to the visible spectrum. "Okay, CARDINAL. You've made it just about impossible to sneak in. You've thought of everything. Except having an augmented Coordinator launch a blitzkrieg on your house."
Abandoning stealth, Kevin stepped back to the opposite edge of the roof, took a deep breath, and ran for the street side; the moment he ran out of roof, he made a flying leap, augmented legs carrying him clear across to within a meter of the target building.
"Knock, knock," he said, and pulled two blocks of a plastic-like substance out of a belt pouch; these he affixed to the door frame, with wires leading to a control unit he held.
Kevin stepped back. "Fire in the hole." He pushed a button, the C4 detonated, and the door exploded in a most satisfactory fashion, spraying lethal splinters everywhere... including into the chest of a very unlucky guard.
Blade leapt in through the resulting smoke. "Knock on wood," he told the corpse, and fired a spray of 5.56 millimeter bullets across the entranceway.
He was blind-sided by another of Jackson's hired fish-in-barrels, who knocked the assault rifle flying... before going flying himself; Kevin had noted he'd broken into a kitchen, snatched up a large cast-iron pan, and bashed the man's skull in with it. "You really need to watch your iron consumption." He drew his Colt .45 and casually blasted a survivor of his carbine attack. "Oh, and be careful; lead poisoning is a common cause of death among terrorists."
Expecting another assault shortly, Blade worked quickly at the doorways, planting items that said "Front toward enemy". "My old friend, Mr. Claymore Mine." At the sound running footsteps, he squeezed the clackers, then stepped through the suddenly quiet, if messy, door, leading to the stairs.
Kevin's attack had been swift and brutal; the one kind a spy like the CARDINAL would never expect. As he ascended the stairs, he quickly blew another Blue Cosmos man into bloody scraps with a small application of C4 to the spine.
He spun as someone called out, "It's the Crimson Tiger! He's inside!" The warning died in a gurgle as a knife appeared in the man's chest.
"You should cut down your blood pressure," Blade suggested, and stepped into the next room. He fired another precise bullet, cutting down another guard, and yanked open another door.
"You!" CARDINAL said in terrified recognition.
"Yes, me." Others would have paused a moment, to gloat over the target of their vengeance and perhaps torment him; Kevin Walker, however, was once a professional assassin, and knew that such things were far too risky. Nonetheless, he intended this to be spectacular, not only to severely punish the man who had caused him more grief than almost anyone else in the world, but also to give Blue Cosmos one tremendous lesson in why hunting the Blade was the worst mistake they could ever make.
He began by simply knocking Jackson unconscious via pressure to the appropriate nerve, thus cutting off blood flow to the brain, then got to work. He tied CARDINAL to a wall, taped a wire to the ceiling, and attached the other end to an explosive; when placed in Jackson's hand, the wire was taut. As long as he could hold up the bomb, he was fine. If he dropped it, the wire would be pulled and the explosive would detonate.
Kevin slapped him awake. "You know, CARDINAL," he said conversationally, "I've got half a mind to kill you outright. I could make some trite speech about how since the law can't get you, this is justice, but I'll tell you the truth: I hate your guts."
"What do you want?" Jackson's voice was a touch shrill, he noted; understandable, since he was tied to a wall with a bomb in his hand and a very deadly teenager stood holding a gun on him.
"World peace. But I'll settle for your bleeding carcass." Kevin calmly walked out of the room and down the stairs, idly wondering how long it would take his old nemesis to completely panic and drop the bomb.
He ceased wondering two seconds later, and flung himself the rest of the way down the stairs as a tongue of flame reached for him. "That was a touch crispy."
"Not bad," a voice said as Kevin reentered the kitchen. "Not bad at all."
He spun, then relaxed as he recognized the speaker, a young man around his age with similar hair and eyes. "Michael Carnehan! You about gave me a heart attack, Mike. What are you-" Exactly where Kevin remembered him from clicked about the time Cagalli came into view, a gun pressed to her head. "Oh, bloody."
"That's right, Hydra," Carnehan said with an evil smile. He tightened the arm he had around Cagalli's neck. "It's me, Kraken. Sorry about the girl, but she saw me and came to warn you. Couldn't have that, now could we?"
"Sorry, Kevin," she gasped.
"Not your fault; I'll get you out of this." Kevin's hand hovered next to his holstered Peacemaker; his eyes were full of rage. "Let her go, Kraken. She's not part of this."
"Oh, I think she is, Hydra. You like her, so after I kill you, I'm going to kill her. Or maybe she'll die first, just to make you suffer."
His hands tightened into fists, eyes jade ice. "You're insane, Kraken. More than that, you're supposed to be dead, along with the rest of the Destroyers."
Kraken laughed maniacally. "You mean like you, when you set off that fusion bomb? Or how about Rachel? You killed your girlfriend yourself, remember? Ripped out her throat with your own half-breed teeth-"
"Shut up!" Blade snarled; his revolver snapped up and he put a bullet directly into Kraken's skull.
The madman recoiled, releasing Cagalli and his own weapon as the mercury-filled bullet blew the skin off his forehead and nearly put him through a wall.
"Die, you monster!" Tossing the gun aside, Kevin lunged forward, only to get snap-kicked in the gut as his adversary recovered; the impact drove him completely through the wall.
"Nice try, Hydra," Kraken said, straightening. "But I'm like you, remember? I'm augmented. And I've been waiting a long time for this day. I even joined that bastard CARDINAL just for a shot at you. I knew that one day, you'd come for him, and then I'd have my chance for vengeance."
"Revenge for what? Trying to blow you to your constituent atoms? That's war, Mike, people die in war." Kevin dropped into a martial arts stance. "And if you ever mention Rachel Carver's name again, I'll break you in half."
"Try it, Hydra. I dare you." Carnehan flexed his fingers. "And no, it's not just for trying to blow me up; though that's certainly part of it, since we were comrades-in-arms. By killing us, you became a traitor to a cause you were once loyal to." He growled angrily. "And because you killed Scylla."
"Well, excuse me. I was never truly loyal to the 'cause', as you put it. I was brainwashed, remember? And now, I'm gonna fix the mistake I made by missing you with that bomb!"
Kraken crouched. "I'm ready for you, Hydra!"
"Then come and die." Kevin caught Carnehan's leap, twisting aside and grabbing his foot, followed by slamming him into the floor. "I was the best, Kraken! That's why I was chosen to be the leader. The only difference is, I recognized I was being manipulated! I saw what they turned us into!"
Kraken's fist caught him in the jaw, tossing him through a table; Cagalli, watching in morbid fascination, thought it akin to Titans battling in human guise. "Yeah, Hydra, you saw, didn't you? But you didn't recognize that they made us into the ultimate weapons for Coordinator supremacy! It's our destiny to rule over the Naturals left on Earth! But you... you saw us as monsters, you tried to destroy us, you even tried to destroy yourself, heedless of what our deaths would mean for the coming war for domination!"
"It wasn't a war for domination, Kraken, it was a war for freedom," Kevin countered, rising and wiping blood off his chin. "Only the likes of Patrick Zala have gone that far! But it doesn't matter what the war was for. Revolution... is not... the solution!" He spun, landing a roundhouse kick in Kraken's stomach.
"You're wrong, Hydra! Revolution is the only way! But what matters now is killing you!" He lifted the M4 Kevin had lost minutes earlier, lining up for a shot to Blade's neck. Kevin leapt forward, fists clenching...
And Kraken was blown backwards by a mercury-filled round to the stomach; an instant later Kevin landed on him, claws extended and burying themselves deep in the super-soldier's chest, destroying his heart.
Kraken was dying, there was no doubt of that; and in his final moments, he looked up at Kevin, confused. "Commander? Did... did we win?"
Kevin knelt, claws retracting. "Da, tovarisch," he said softly. "We won. Rest now."
"Yes... Commander..." Michael Carnehan closed his eyes for the last time, while Cagalli lowered the smoking revolver she'd picked up.
Kevin slowly stood. "I thought they were all gone," he murmured, lost in the past.
Cagalli came to his side, handing him his gun. "Who was he?" she asked softly. Then she looked at the dead man's face, and gasped in shock. "He looks like you!"
He absently holstered the weapon. "Yes, he does, doesn't he? His name was Michael Carnehan, alias Kraken, one of the best of the Abaddon. I thought him dead a long time ago, the day I escaped from the Project." Kevin nodded at the body. "That was my twin brother."
She stared at him in disbelief. "Your what?"
"I was surprised too, when I learned of it." He closed his eyes. "You'd have to take DNA samples to be absolutely certain, but during my brief time in Orb two years ago, before I was shot, I came across references to him in some of my father's papers. I'm not certain how or why, but it seems we were separated at birth, and Mike was adopted by a family in the PLANTs. I wasn't certain until now that he was even a Coordinator, let alone the Michael Carnehan I'd known, but I suspected it."
Cagalli blinked, confused. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, you weren't sure he was a Coordinator? I thought..."
Kevin shook his head. "No, my parents were Naturals. Even I was unaware of that until returning to Orb, but it certainly makes Blue Cosmos' targeting of them somewhat ironic, doesn't it?" He took a deep, calming breath. "Doesn't really matter anymore; my parents died three years ago, and now my brother is dead, as well. Michael Carnehan should have died two and a half years ago; now it's all in the past at last."
She gripped his shoulder reassuringly. "Kevin..."
"Come on," he said, turning to the door. "There's nothing here but the dead. Let's get back to the camp before somebody gets around to investigating those explosions."
They returned five minutes before Kevin's eight-hour leave expired, and La Flaga greeted him as he climbed out of his fighter. "So, did it go well?"
"Yeah." Kevin dropped to the ground, tucking his helmet under his arm. "It's done."
"You don't sound very pleased about it." La Flaga raised an eyebrow, curious. "Did something happen?"
Blade paused. "Commander, how would you feel if you'd just been forced to kill your own brother?"
"Your what?"
"A long and very ugly story, Commander," Kevin said wearily. "It ended today."
The older pilot put a hand on his shoulder. "Look, Blade, I'm not sure how much of this you should be telling me. What you're doing is illegal, you know; by rights the Captain and I ought to turn you in."
He cracked a smile. "For what, Commander? I haven't said that I killed Garcia, or CARDINAL, and there's no evidence left in either case. As far as you know, sir, I might simply have been on hand when ZAFT blew the window in on Artemis, and Jackson's house could simply have burned down on its own. And sure, I've just admitted to killing Michael Carnehan, but that was a clear-cut case of self-defense. No court would convict me for that, especially since there's an eyewitness who can testify that Carnehan held her hostage before trying to kill me. And there are no witnesses to the other deaths." Kevin shrugged. "Your conscience is clear, Commander; you don't know anything for certain, and there's no evidence anyway."
La Flaga looked thoughtful; inwardly, he thought that he should have known the world's best assassin would have been that careful. CARDINAL's death might have been spectacular, but there was nothing to connect him to it; though he was clearly unaware of the surveillance footage of Garcia's demise. Not it mattered; La Flaga and Ramius had agreed it should simply be deleted.
"Hey, kid!" Murdoch called, coming up behind them. "I need to talk to you for a sec."
Kevin turned. "What's up, Chief?"
The mechanic pointed over his shoulder, to where the Punisher stood in the hanger. "It's about your machine; I'm afraid it ain't gonna last."
The pilot raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" He fell into step with the Chief, walking back into the hanger.
Murdoch shrugged. "Well, you know how jury-rigged that thing is; calling it an X400 frame is just a fancy way of saying it's cobbled together. I should've figured there'd be problems with that; well, now they've turned up." He nodded at the machine, a hybrid of GINN and G-weapon. "Structurally, it ain't entirely sound anymore. That hit you took the other day, not to mention the beating you got in orbit, they weakened the connections. I give it three, maybe four more battles before the whole thing gets so bad that even if you can fly it, you won't want to. Odds are, it'll just quit on you right in the middle of a fight, and you'll be in deep trouble."
Kevin winced. "Somehow, I'm not surprised. So now what?"
Murdoch jerked a thumb at the third Skygrasper. "We got three of those things from the Eighth Fleet; that one you flew to Banadiya, for whatever reason, looks to have been outfitted for somebody with your, ah, strength and durability."
"Has it, now." The super-soldier stroked his chin. "Sounds like the good Admiral had a pretty good idea that I'd be back. Well, it'll do if something happens to the Punisher."
"Frankly, Ensign, you're better off if you don't even try to fly that monster again; my estimates could be way off, especially if you use that hyper-impulse gun too much. The back-blast is pretty fierce. You want my advice, play it safe and stick with your Skygrasper."
Kevin shook his head. "No, Chief, I can't do that. Risky though it may be, we need as much firepower out there as we can get, especially since I hear we're going to be making a break for it soon. And the Punisher just has more power and more guns than a Skygrasper."
Murdoch sighed, resigned. "Yeah, I figured you'd say that. Your funeral." He wandered off, muttering something about fools and mobile suits.
The Desert Dawn base got very busy over the next four days, as final preparations were made for the breakthrough to the Talbadiya factory district. The black-market weapons that had been obtained while Kira, Kevin, and Cagalli had been meeting with Waltfeld were distributed, and the Archangel's pilots prepared their machines for the coming assault.
At last the day arrived; Kevin stood in his flight suit in the hanger, giving his Punisher one last once-over. As Murdoch had warned, the jury-rigged monstrosity wasn't going to last much longer, but it would serve for this battle.
"Hey, Kevin," Cagalli said, walking in. "I see you're about ready, too." She raised an eyebrow, curious. "By the way, what's with the stripes?"
He glanced up. "Oh, these? The crew's little joke on me. I guess they were a little over-impressed with having the Crimson Tiger with them, and I sense La Flaga's sense of humor in the color scheme."
She blinked. "You're the Crimson Tiger?"
Kevin shrugged. "One alias among many," he said, waving a dismissing hand. "That's why Blue Cosmos hates me so much; I've killed a great many of their people over the last couple years." He sighed, weary. "And now I go to war again."
Cagalli touched his arm, concerned. "This is difficult for you, isn't it?"
"Yeah." He absently stroked his scar. "Blast it, Cagalli, I don't want to fight him. Andrew Waltfeld was my friend and mentor; now I have to try and kill him. War's not supposed to be like that; good versus evil, friend against enemy, not friend against friend." He turned away. "I've killed far more people than I'd care to remember, be they Blue Cosmos, ZAFT, or even rogue Earth Alliance, but never, never, have I been forced to fight a friend. Before, I've always chosen my targets. Only I made the decision about whom I would kill next. Now, this never-to-be-sufficiently-accursed war is making those choices for me, and if I want to live, I've got to do it."
"And here I thought you were the pragmatic one," she said dryly, "the one who didn't flinch from what he had to do."
"I'm not flinching from it," Kevin said, almost angrily. "I'll do what I bloody well have to do, but believe me, I hope I'm not the one who has to do the deed. I don't want the Desert Tiger's death on my conscience. But yeah, if it falls to me I'll blow him into eternity myself." He visibly forced himself to relax. "I know what he's done to this region, Cagalli, and I know one of his pilots killed Ahmed. It's just... Even I have some humanity left."
"I know." Cagalli looked up at the Punisher, sensing a change of subject might be in order. "So what is this thing, anyway? I know it's not one of the weapons Morgenroete was building on Heliopolis, despite the Striker pack, but it doesn't look like anything else, either."
"That, tovarisch, started life as a mass-produced GINN," Kevin said, relaxing. "The pilot, regrettably, suddenly came down with a serious case of dead, so I appropriated things he no longer needed. When we reached the Eighth Fleet, and I was preparing to leave, Murdoch and his merry band of mad mechanics had a field day with this thing, incorporating spare parts meant for the Strike until it became the X401 Punisher. You've seen the rifle and sabers; it's also got a hyper-impulse cannon in the left shoulder. It's a thoroughly nasty machine, but since it's cobbled together, it's not as structurally sound as a purpose-built mobile suit."
Their conversation was interrupted by an alarm sounding through the hanger. "Sounds like we're about to get moving," Cagalli noted. "I'll see you in Talbadiya, Kevin."
"Cagalli," he called after her, causing her to pause a moment. "In case I don't make it back from this one, I... I just wanted you to know how much our friendship meant to me." He hopped into the Punisher, closing the hatch before she could reply.
She stood there a moment longer, confused by her own emotions. "You'll make it, Kevin. Nobody can kill you," she murmured.
In the cafeteria, Kira sat silently, poking at his food. "What's wrong? Hurry up and eat." La Flaga slid another item onto his plate. "Here, take this, too."
Kira blinked. "Uh, Commander? Haven't you had enough to eat?"
"We've got a battle ahead of us, remember? If we don't eat, we won't have any strength." La Flaga held up a bottle. "Here, it tastes great with yogurt sauce." At the younger pilot's unexpected, almost stricken, reaction, he looked concerned. "Something wrong?"
"It's just... The Tiger said the same thing: It tastes great with yogurt sauce."
"You don't say," La Flaga said. "That man knows his food." He turned serious. "It's a lot easier when you don't know your enemy personally; just forget him."
"Huh?"
"When you're fighting for your life against someone you know personally," he explained, "it's a lot harder to do it."
Kira winced, remembering Athrun Zala. But before he could say anything, an explosion was heard. "What the? Are we under attack?" someone said.
"Has the battle started?"
On the Bridge, Jackie Tonomura looked toward Ramius. "Explosions have been detected near the mine field!"
"Enemies detected," Sai reported. "Unable to confirm numbers. I'm also picking up two vessels, probably a carrier and an escort ship."
"Roger," Ramius acknowledged tensely. "Ready intercept. Prepare for anti-air and mobile suit attack."
"Activate Igelstellungs," Badgiruel ordered. "Launch the Skygrasper and mobile suits!"
Kevin received the launch order without visible emotion. "Affirmative. Punisher, ready for launch."
Kira was also preparing his mobile suit. "Activate APU," Mir said. "Connected to catapult. Aile Striker, stand by."
"You sure you're okay with just the Aile?" Murdoch asked.
"Yes," Kira responded firmly. "Against BuCUEs, I need more mobility."
"Roger that."
"Aile Strike, prepared for takeoff. Ready when you are."
He tensed himself. "Kira Yamato, taking off!"
The Strike hurtled into the air, and came face-to-face with its first target before it even had its phase-shift up. Raising his shield to block the helicopter's bullets, Kira immediately lowered it and struck the chopper with his Igelstellungs, blowing it into tiny pieces.
"Kira, take the BuCUEs," Kevin said over the radio. "These choppers are mine."
"Roger that." Kira switched frequencies. "How many BuCUEs are we dealing with?" he asked La Flaga. "Mu? Four or five?"
"Come on, baby, hold together," Kevin prayed, jockeying his bizarre machine toward the doomed helicopters. "I know you're gonna blow up on me soon, but not today, okay? First we gotta blow these bastards into next week." He wasn't even bothering with his beam rifle as he engaged these foes; once he had been a fencer, and he used his old skills to lethal effect against the poorly-armored targets. "Take that." he muttered, cleaving one in half.
The GINN-turned-Punisher may not have been the toughest or most agile mobile suit, but in Blade Walker's hands, it was absolutely lethal; he completely ignored a storm of gunfire as he homed in on his next target, trusting the PSA to protect him, and stabbed through the cockpit, wrenched the blade out, and went hunting for more.
The battle was joined; the resistance fighters in one artillery truck, about to be smashed by a BuCUE, looked extremely relieved when the Strike dropped out of nowhere, landing on the enemy, blasted it, and jumped away from the resulting explosion. "Who's next?"
Meanwhile, Kevin had run out of helicopters; now he turned his attention to the Petrie, the Lesseps' escort ship. "You want to shoot at my friends, huh? Then I'll shoot at you, too." He threw one of his beam sabers into the ship's core, shifted his remaining blade to his left hand, and used his now-free right hand to open up with his beam rifle.
"That you again, Walker? This time I'll kill you for sure!"
The Punisher whirled to face the sudden threat from the Lesseps. "The Buster? Not good." Kevin touched down, ran a few steps, and lifted off again on a new course. "Dearka, I don't have time to play with you. Surrender, or I'll blow you to your constituent atoms."
"Seems to be your favorite threat, Walker," Dearka sneered. "Starting to sound like a broken record."
"Elsman, I'll wager you have no idea what a record is, let alone what a broken one sounds like."
Kira, with his powerful Strike, was engaging the other BuCUEs; whipping his mobile suit through the air, he cleaved an enemy in half, head to tail, and hit the sand, searching for more targets.
The next came straight at him, firing its back-mounted rail gun; Kira swiftly swung the Strike's arm and hurled his beam saber into the BuCUE's eye, then shot it, destroying it.
The final four-legged suit stood even less of a chance: Kira took to the air, boosting directly at it... where his foot connected with the head, knocking it clean off. Pulling away, a shot to the back finished it off.
He landed finally, breathing heavily as memories drifted through his mind. "So how do you determine the winners and the losers? At what point do you put an end to it? When every single one of your enemies has been destroyed?"
"You'll pay!"
Kira shook his head violently, trying to clear it.
Kevin was still engaged in battle with both the Buster and the Duel, both standing atop the Lesseps. He was, unfortunately, hampered in his efforts by the maneuvers required to dodge the carrier's guns; they were large enough to pose a threat even to a phase-shift-equipped mobile suit, particularly one as hodgepodge as his.
"Is that the best you got, Walker?" Dearka taunted him, firing both guns at once.
Kevin took them on his shield. "You know, Elsman, if you weren't such a coward, you'd come out here and face me without the support of those big guns," he replied, attempting psychological warfare.
"Nice one, Walker, but I'm not that stupid."
"Pity. That means doing this the hard way." With that ominous statement, he flipped open the cover of his hyper-impulse cannon. "Are you ready to die?"
"Are you?" Before Kevin could fire the devastating weapon, the Buster landed a hit on his chest plate, knocking him off course; the beam went wide, scorching nothing but sand. "You were always good on the ground, Walker, but in mobile suits, I'll always be better."
"We'll see."
The Buster abruptly had its own problems, as La Flaga swooped past, firing his hyper-impulse cannon. "Hey, Snake! You okay in there?"
"A little toasty, but I'm okay, Commander," the younger pilot answered with a slight grin; he wasn't sure who had first called him "Snake" (though he suspected it was Cagalli, after having heard him called Hydra), but it seemed to have stuck. (It was also possible that it had been La Flaga's doing, recalling his reference to "snake eaters" weeks earlier.)
"Keep it up, Ensign." La Flaga flashed him a thumbs-up, then flew off toward the main battle.
"Through chatting, Walker?" Dearka sneered.
"Shut up." Snake stabilized his mobile suit and headed off, back toward the Petrie. "Sorry, Elsman, but I'm about to be busy killing your escort. You want me, come and get me."
He checked his movement a moment later. "Snake, there's another ship coming up from behind!" Mir called. "Can you assist?"
"On it, Mir." Kevin kicked his verniers up to maximum thrust, idly wishing he hadn't thrown his second beam saber. "Well, you can't have everything, eh, Snake?" he told himself. "Besides, you had a whole lot less than this in Beijing, and you made it okay there." Of course, in Beijing, he hadn't been facing mobile suits and ZAFT land-battleships.
Kira also took note of the incoming ambush, and moved to intercept. But a series of beam hits around him gave him pause. "What the-"
"Hey there, you little hotshot," Andrew Waltfeld murmured. "You gotta fight me, first." His two-seat TMF/A-803 LaGOWE command mobile suit stood at the ready, beam cannon ready and head-mounted beam saber live.
The one called Snake also saw Kira's predicament, but he believed him to be capable of handling it on his own; besides, he'd just taken another hit. "Archangel, this is Snake. I've got to land for repairs. Is my Skygrasper ready?"
"You got it, kid," Murdoch responded. "Hurry it up; we're stuck and we need all the help we can get."
"Roger that. Punisher is inbound."
As usual, Kevin didn't bother with the mechanical systems designed to aid a pilot in descending within a gravity well; he just dropped and raced across the hanger to his fighter.
To his surprise, Cagalli entered a moment later, leaping into Skygrasper 2. "Hey, you there!" Murdoch shouted. "What do you think you're doing?"
"We can't afford to leave aircraft in the hanger," she said sharply, closing the canopy. "I'm taking it!"
"Oh no you're not!" The mechanic stepped back as the jet exhaust blazed at him.
"Move it! You'll get fried!" She took firm hold of the stick. "Open the hatch!"
"What is it with kids these days?" Murdoch complained. "Open the hatch!" As the fighter shot away, he called after her, "Don't blame me if you get shot down!"
"She'll be okay, Chief," Kevin told him, lifting his own plane. "Try and get the Punisher back to something resembling flight status, will ya?"
"Yeah, yeah," he grunted. "Waste of time, but if you're that intent on getting yourself killed..."
"Always the optimist, eh, Chief?" The pilot nursed the throttle forward. "Snake, launching."
On the Bridge, Mir glanced at her displays in surprise. "Skygraspers 2 and 3 have just launched!"
Badgiruel turned. "What?"
"Hey! Who's piloting Skygrasper 2?" La Flaga demanded; he knew who was flying the third.
"Crew reports that Cagalli is the pilot!"
"What did you say?"
"Cagalli, this is Snake," Kevin called. "Need some help?"
Cagalli glanced out her canopy, seeing the third Skygrasper clinging to her starboard wing in a superb display of formation flying. "Kevin? What are you doing up here?"
"Punisher took some bad hits; I'm your wing, okay? You shoot 'em, I keep 'em off both our tails. Sound fair?" The grin was clearly audible in his voice.
"Just try and keep up!" she answered cheerfully, diving in on the Henry Carter.
"If you can out-fly me, tovarisch, it's time I hung up my helmet." Kevin armed his missiles, noting La Flaga approaching from the other side. "Snake, Fox One!"
Cagalli fired her beam turret at the same moment, with La Flaga adding a hyper-impulse shot as the trio of fighters blew past each other. The barrage caused the escort ship a good amount of damage, blowing entire chunks of armor off.
"Yahoo!" La Flaga shouted. "Attagirl!" He yanked the stick, coming around for another pass. "Let's get 'em!"
"No argument from me, Commander," the Snake responded. "I've just about had enough of these guys. Besides," he added, swinging his turret to bear, "I hate deserts!"
Cagalli came around again, activating the Sword Striker's ship-killing blade, and launched the claw; it latched onto the enemy ship, and she used it to shorten her turning arc, allowing the blade to slice cleanly through two turrets, blowing them to pieces. "Take that!"
The Henry Carter, unfortunately, was not helpless; it fired a spread of missiles at her fighter. Most missed, and two were taken out by Snake's precision fire, but one got through, hitting her starboard wing.
"I'm going down!"
Kevin cursed. "Hang on." He couldn't do anything about her crash, but he could do something about the ship that had caused it. "Commander La Flaga, I'm sending targeting information; could you put a hyper-impulse shot right there? Combined fire should break through the armor and hit the ship's power generator. With that kind of energy density..."
"Copy that, Snake. Beginning my run. You ready?" Skygrasper 1 swung around, cannon powering up.
"Affirmative. Right... about... now!"
A pair of missiles, a beam shot, and machine gun fire erupted from Snake's plane, while La Flaga simultaneously fired his hyper-impulse cannon. The entire barrage hit on the same spot, piercing the ship's heavy armor.
La Flaga frowned. "You sure about this, Snake? I don't see anything."
"Trust me, Commander."
An instant later, the Henry Carter exploded spectacularly, vanishing in a giant ball of fire. When the bright light faded, there was nothing left but scraps.
"Nice one, kid," La Flaga said approvingly. "How'd you know about that?"
Kevin pulled around, breathing heavily. "Andy was a teacher of mine, remember? That was before the war, so I had the opportunity to study these ships in great detail. Remember, those things use big energy batteries, too; and you've seen what happens when a mobile suit blows. With that kind of energy density, a direct hit like that will make them die very quickly, very explosively." He tipped his fighter on a wingtip. "If you'll excuse me a minute, sir, I'd better check on our fallen raven, down there."
"Right."
Kevin's Skygrasper came in for a neat landing next to where Cagalli had managed a relatively controlled crash of her own. "You okay, tovarisch?" he said, hopping out.
"I'm fine." She looked ruefully at her plane. "It's not, but I got down in one piece."
"That's good." He stood at her side, looking over the battle. "I guess that's it for us; this battle's all but won, even with the Archangel still stuck and Kira engaged with Waltfeld."
"You're not going to help him?" Cagalli raised an eyebrow, speculating; she knew what he was going through.
Kevin shook his head. "No; this is between Kira and Andy. I don't quite understand it, but it appears that my old mentor is exactly what he called you: he's one of those who would rather perish. Either he wins, or he dies, and I'm not certain he cares which." He gazed sadly at the duel between two Coordinators. "No, this isn't my battle."
In the thick of the battle, Dearka Elsman snarled and raised his weapon. "I'm gonna finish you off!" He fired, sending a shotgun-like blast at the Archangel... and missing completely.
Instead, he destroyed the obstacles that had been holding the ship in place. "We're loose!" Neumann said on the Bridge.
"Turn sixty degrees! Starboard!" Ramius ordered.
"Gottfrieds lock onto target!" Badgiruel barked.
Waltfeld was momentarily distracted as the huge ship lifted. "That legged ship... It's almost indestructible!"
"Gottfrieds, fire!"
The Buster barely lifted off the Lesseps in time, dodging the huge beams that instead struck a turret and a TFA-2 ZuOOT. "Didn't expect that," he muttered, landing in the sand. "Not from the famed Desert Tiger!" He grunted as his mobile suit abruptly slid, losing its footing. "This could be a problem! Oh, man."
Meanwhile, Waltfeld and the Strike were momentarily apart, a lull in the action. "DaCosta," he called.
"Yes, sir?"
"Send out orders to retreat."
"But, sir-"
"We have to cut our losses," Waltfeld said patiently. "Regroup the remaining forces and retreat to Banadiya, then notify Gibraltar."
"Sir-"
"You, too, Aisha," he said to his gunner. "Get out of here."
Aisha shook her head. "I'd sooner lay down my life. Not a chance."
Waltfeld smiled. "So we're both idiots."
"I'm fine with that."
"Okay. Then let's get him!" The LaGOWE leaped back at the Strike.
Kira blocked it. "Don't do it!"
"I ain't done with you yet, kid!"
The Strike flew backwards. "You've already lost the fight! Surrender!" He held his saber ready; his rifle had been destroyed earlier in the fight.
"Like I said, there are no clear rules for ending a war like this!" The following attack sliced off one of the Strike's wings, while Kira's counterstrike sliced off the LaGOWE's beam cannon.
Kira looked down at his display and watched in horror as his energy ran out. "Don't do it, Waltfeld!"
"There's no other way; I'm not giving up... until one of us is destroyed!" Waltfeld leapt for him again...
And Kira's eyes changed, entering the berserker state. He dropped the powerless saber, ejected the Striker pack, and tossed away the shield; his right hand darted to his hip and snatched out an Armor Schneider. He ran forward, jumping to meet the LaGOWE...
And drove the knife deep into the mobile suit's armor, just behind the neck. "Andy!" Aisha called out, releasing her restraints. The pair embraced, and the LaGOWE detonated.
The concussion blew the Strike backwards, landing hard on the sand. "I... I..." Kira stuttered, breathing raggedly, emotions in turmoil. "It didn't have to end like this!"
Author's note: The Blue Cosmos double-agent CARDINAL has been deep-sixed, and Kevin Walker has had a run-in with one of his former comrades… his own "brother". Makes one wonder how much else survives from Project ABADDON.
Now, with the apparent death of Andrew Waltfeld, Archangel is free to leave the desert. How will the calm seas of the Red Sea affect them all?
Bigronnie17, this story does indeed go all the way to Phase 50; and unlike the series, I intend to have a proper epilogue. The end of SEED left me just a little dissatisfied.
Your story concept sounds interesting, by the way; I shall keep an eye out for it.
Shinji Ikari, there is a kind of explanation about his survival; or more precisely speculation, related to Kevin's belief in Fate. A little peculiar, but the series got a little strange in places, too; witness Flay's death, in Phase 50. I still haven't made sense out of that.
I agree that it probably wouldn't have worked out in the end between Flay and Kira anyway; Kira isn't quite bloodthirsty enough, for one thing.
As for Kevin being afraid of her, he obviously isn't physically afraid of her; the danger she represents comes from her Blue Cosmos sympathies. She could make life very difficult for the so-called "Crimson Tiger".
I hadn't really thought to change Kira's emotional state regarding Flay. It ties in with everything else, so to change that could be very awkward. As to her living arrangements, that is the impression I got from the series; Phase 23, for example, and in particular Phase 28, when she walks right into Kira's quarters, even though she doesn't know he's there. And, of course, when Kira returns in Phase 36, he finds lipstick on the deck; that all indicates to me that they were sharing quarters.
The interaction between Kira and Kevin is an important aspect of the story; it just doesn't play much of a role at the moment because of Flay. Starting around the time of Phase 31, it plays a much larger role; you'll see what I mean.
I'm glad that you enjoyed the Blue Cosmos attack sequence; I completely rewrote it just a few days ago, when I had a few ideas about how to make it even better. In the original version, Kevin simply annihilated the whole batch, except for the one at the end; that part I liked and kept.
As for Waltfeld concentrating on Kira rather than Racher, my reasoning was that Racher is a unknown factor; Kira, not having been trained by the Desert Tiger, is a far more unpredictable variable. And, of course, there's still time for interaction between the two, given the events of Phase 42.
The Kevin/ Cagalli interaction was something I'd been looking forward to from the very beginning (though in the original version of events, they barely knew each other; how times change). It plays a very large role throughout the remainder of the story; just wait until you see Chapter 16, when Cagalli meets Athrun for the first time. I'll just say this: never, ever threaten Cagalli when Kevin is nearby.
The Blue Cosmos' Project ABADDON connection will be further delved into later in the story; suffice it to say that Kevin does not yet remember everything about his past.
Rau Le Creuset will, in fact, have two face-to-face encounters with Kevin Walker; I trust you will find them… interesting.
I agree, as it happens, with the idea that Zala went over the deep end because of his wife's death; but, as you may have noticed, Kevin Walker doesn't much care about reasons. He has his own reasons for hating Patrick Zala, and you can see what happens when he wants someone dead.
I have, by the way, noticed the problem of relying too much on the dialogue from the series; it's a habit I've been trying to break myself of ever since I started writing fan fiction. It gets better, believe me… particularly since later changes force me to use my own dialogue. You'll see what I mean.
Arekuruu-inabikari-no-She, I appear not to have myself as clear as I thought (I suppose I tend to assume that because I know what I mean, so do others). Anyway, "Grimaldi Falcon" isn't his name; it's an alias, rather like Mu "Hawk of Endymion" La Flaga. According to the official website, La Flaga got his name from the Battle of Endymion Crater, where a Cyclops System was used for the first time. Endymion was the final battle of the Grimaldi Front, so named because of the fighting at Grimaldi Crater; so "Grimaldi Falcon" comes from the pilot's exploits on the Grimaldi Front. I was merely using his alias, rather than his name, to be cagey, but since it occurs to me that his identity will be obvious within a couple of paragraphs, I might as well use the name: Ken DiFalco. His name is where the "Falcon" part comes in (well, that plus his tactics and battle cry, which will be described in the story itself) and that's what he's usually called.
And yes, his sister is another OC; Sophia DiFalco joined the Earth Forces without mentioning it to her family, and is an Academy classmate and close friend of Murrue Ramius. Obviously, given their very different loyalties, Falcon wouldn't be on the best terms with his sister.
I believe that completes these, the very longest author's notes I have ever written. Read and let me know if it's good, bad, or ugly. -Solid Shark