Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Gundam.
It had to be past midnight, all of the servants had long since retired for the night, as per the orders of the Mistress. Clad in bathrobe and mumbling obscene things about people showing up so late, the owner of the small mansion got up to answer the front door. Being self-reliant was something the war had taught her, and since most visitors came to see her, answering the door at this late hour was the least she could do.
Unlocking all of the dead bolts, she finally opened the heavy oak door. "Yes, hello, what do you want?" she said tiredly, her eyes half open and her mind still mostly asleep.
Shadows burst through the door, grabbing hold of her in an iron grip. "Secure Miss Alster and then gather up the other servants. Try to keep it quiet people, noise is a bad thing right now." One man said, directing men to different parts of her house.
Well it wasn't really her house, at least not yet. It was her father's, one of his possessions that had been given to her upon his death in early CE 71. Along with the house came all of the servants and maids she had grown up with as a child and all of the items inside the house. The original number of staff had dwindled quite a bit, many of the male staff leaving to join in the war, and more than likely dying.
Flay Alster, age 17, was dragged over to a chair in the kitchen and roughly pushed down. "Make any moves and we blow your head off little girl." One of the men threatened. Another man bound her wrists behind the chair and her legs to the chair itself. In groups of twos and threes the rest of the staff were dragged into the kitchen and similarly bound.
The few men remaining in service to the Alster household had been knocked unconscious and bound tightly, thrown onto the floor. "Household secure sir." A third man reported. The apparent leader of the group nodded in satisfaction. "Four minutes. Two hundred and forty seconds to subdue the Alster Mansion. Impressive I must say."
"What do you want?" Flay finally asked.
The leader turned to her. "Peace, security and justice my dear." He answered.
"And just how will you be able to accomplish that by holding us hostage?" she retorted.
"Have patience young one. Wait and see what such undeveloped minds cannot comprehend." He told her, turning his back.
Another man handed over a report on a data pad, whispering something that Flay couldn't hear. "People will notice that I'm missing you know, they'll come looking for me." She said suddenly.
The leader turned back. "I'm counting on it Miss Alster."
Far above them, on the rooftops of the Alster mansion, a man clad in black much like the hostage takers crept around. Security was rather sloppy in his opinion, no guards posted on the balconies, no spotters, cameras or sniffers on the roofs or near the doors. Total lack of preparation, what was up with people these days?
Still, he was outnumbered and outgunned greatly, so it was in his best interest to maintain a stealthy cover. Silent weapons would be key here, if he died, then they would probably consider the lives of the hostages forfeit, and he was unwilling to let it go that far. He wouldn't let her be sacrificed, not her, not anyone. There were already too many sacrifices.
"I have appointments in the morning, people call by eight in the morning!" Flay continued to speak, hoping to scare the man enough to let them go.
"In eight hours this mansion will be a veritable fortress, capable of withstanding a pounding short of a tactical nuclear strike, and I doubt they'd kill the surrounding residents as well." He countered.
"What do you want?" she asked again.
"I told you my dear, peace, justice and-"
Flay cut him off. "What do you really want?"
He smiled. "You might live long enough to see our plans brought into fruition."
On the opposite side of the mansion, men were setting up a small command post, arranging electronic devices that would alert them to any incoming traffic either on the road or in the air. Many more pieces of equipment were being taken out of crates, including military grade weapons.
Two men walked back from the balcony when one stopped and turned around. "Fisher, where are you? Dammit Sam, you're not supposed to wander off alone!" one of them said angrily.
"Sorry, I felt like I would have exploded if I didn't take a leak." Sam said, running up to join his comrades. The first man shook his head in disbelief. "Come on; let's go finish setting up the crap." All three men failed to notice a slight reflection of light above them.
The two men walked through the French-style doors, but Sam stopped suddenly and was yanked upwards, barely letting out an inaudible strangled gasp. "Sam, what the hell are you doing!" he nearly yelled, turning around just after a pair of booted feet touched the floor silently.
"Bug." He answered back, rubbing his throat. The first man looked ready to choke him senseless, but instead turned back inside and didn't look back. The operative took this opportunity to dart off to the side, leaving the two men behind. He had to locate where they were holding the hostages.
"So you tie up a bunch of helpless women and beat the few men into comas, now what?" Flay asked, taking note of the sun starting to creep over the eastern horizon. The leader slowly removed his black balaclava, letting his neck length blonde hair free and spoke. "Now we wait and see how well the Alliance responds to this."
He snapped his fingers and two men dragged the chair Flay was on into the main seating area. It was decorated with all manners of swords, knives, shields and masks from bygone eras. "Quite the collection you have. I assume these are from your father?"
Flay refused to answer, not seeing any point in engaging in banter with the man. Sensing the reluctance from his captive, the man carefully took a katana off of the wall. "Pristine condition, clean and free of marks." He noted, looking over the blade carefully. "Quite the man your father was. It's a shame you don't take more after him, but then if he were still alive we wouldn't be talking like this."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Flay whispered. The man ran his finger along the length of the blade, pulling back as soon as he put pressure on it. "Still sharp, that's very impeccable of your father. I'm not surprised you don't remember me Miss Alster, the last time I visited George you were no older than six, but I admit you look every bit as beautiful now as you did then."
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"An old friend of the Alster family, just as your father and I were friends, so were my father and his father. It goes on back for generations, but I suppose a formal introduction is the best course. Miss Flay Alster, I am Myujo Abers." The tall man with dark blue eyes finally introduced himself.
"So this is how you treat old family friends?" Flay asked.
"I regret having to meet like this, but it is required."
By that time, the infiltrating enemy agent had sequestered several tools necessary for a distraction. Several men were setting up a large looking generator, and it was obviously too well guarded to attack. Fortunately the generator was not online, and they were relying upon the mansion for their lights and power. A problem easily rectified.
He was standing near the main entrance to the house, where the attacking men had first entered, holding a detonation switch in his hand. The sun was starting to rise, but it wasn't high enough to provide enough light. "Overdue on your power bill payments gentlemen." He muttered and detonated the small charges on the breaker box.
There was an audible explosion as the entire house lost power and then the curses that quickly followed the unexplained explosion. Standing near the great room that Flay had been moved to, the agent could hear everything that was going on in that room.
"Sir! We've lost power!" one man said frantically.
"No shit and here I thought I had closed my eyes! Get your flashlights and find the problem! Get the generator online now!" the leader ordered, and went with the first man to try and remedy the situation. Seeing an opportunity, the agent burst into the room and knelt by Flay, starting to untie her bindings.
"Who are you?" that question was beginning to grow tiresome to Flay.
"I'm a friend." Flay wasn't too satisfied with his answer. "I knew Kira Yamato." Those words were like magic on her, but instead of calming her, they instead only served to agitate her.
"Is he here? How is he doing?" she started to ask, but he shushed her.
"I can answer your questions later, right now we need to get you out of here, that's my priority." He answered, finishing with the bonds that held her hands behind the back of the chair.
"I'm not leaving without everyone else in this house, I won't let them die because they were left behind." She stated.
He grunted as he finished untying her feet. "That will complicate things greatly and it will kill our chance at a stealthy escape."
"I don't care, either all of us go, or none of us go." She crossed her arms stubbornly.
"She was never like this." He muttered.
"I beg your pardon?" she asked.
"Nothing. Look, we don't have time to argue, so either you walk out of here on your own two feet or I carry you out." He countered.
The lights came back on with a whirring hum, killing her reply. "Shit, the generator was closer to being operational than I thought it was." He cursed.
Footsteps could be heard coming back to the great room. "Listen, they have a small scale Cyclops system they're setting up, that generator will power it and wipe out a good chunk of the city. I can operate more freely if they don't have you as a hostage, but now I don't have that luxury. Sit back down and pretend to still be bound."
Flay nearly went into shock. There was a Cyclops system mounted beneath JOSH-A, the Alliance headquarters in Alaska during the war. The Alliance had wiped out more than 80 percent of ZAFT's ground forces with it, but had sacrificed some friendly forces to get the job done.
The agent disappeared out of her sight, and she could only hope that Myujo wouldn't know that he had been in here. "Well that was a little annoying, but nothing more than a mere inconvenience." Myujo said. "Now where were we?"
"You were explaining to me why you would take the daughter of an old friend hostage." Flay spat out.
"Ah yes. As I've said before, we aim for peace and justice for the world." He replied.
"And you think you can achieve peace through blowing up part of this city with a Cyclops system?" she nearly yelled, and then realized her mistake.
"Who told you that?" he asked dangerously, advancing on her after grabbing a claymore sword off of the wall. "No one," she whimpered, "it was a guess."
He raised the sword threateningly. "I don't believe that. Now tell me, how did you learn about that?"
Myujo barely took another step forward when a shadow exploded from the wall, tackling the blond man away from Flay. The claymore clattered to the ground, it having been wrenched from his grip. Snarling at the sudden and very rude interruption, Myujo grabbed and hurled a large and heavy vase at his attacker, who was garbed in black.
The man responded instinctively, lashing out at the vase with a roundhouse kick, shattering the large projectile. It exploded in a cloud of white powder which settled over his mask and blinded him. He ripped off his mask, letting his dark brown hair free. Sweat pasted his sideburns and bangs down. His violet eyes scanned the room for Myujo and Flay, the latter still in her chair despite not being bound. The former was nowhere in his line of sight.
He turned to look over his shoulder and immediately ducked as another sword blade whizzed over him and then rolled forward to get out of melee range for a moment. He came back up on his feet, facing Myujo who held a saber in his hands. "Intel told us you were dead." He said, staring at his opponent.
"I get that a lot, comes with the name." the man raised his fists.
"This time the reports of your death will not be exaggerated Kira Yamato!" Myujo charged, sword raised and ready.
Kira lunged forward as well, lashing out with an offensive styled front kick and knocked the saber out of Myujo's hands skywards. The older man kept coming so Kira planted his feet firmly on the ground and body checked Myujo hard, the momentum keeping the blond man going forward for a few more meters before crashing to the ground.
The saber completed its arc and started to fall back down, allowing Kira to snatch it out of the air and put it through a few test moves before pointing the tip of the blade at Myujo's face. "Yield." He warned.
"Never." Myujo growled and grabbed the fallen claymore. He parried Kira's saber and snapped the weaker blade in two before standing up. Pressing his advantage, he slashed at Kira, forcing the Coordinator to jump backwards to avoid death. He was closer to a wall than he had thought, and therefore collided with it. Kira looked up to see what had stopped him and forgot all about the wall and instead fixated his gaze on what was perhaps the biggest weapon in the room.
Despite its size, Kira had little trouble lifting it off of the decorative holders and into a ready position. He estimated the length of the sword, from the tip of the blade to the pommel of the handle to be just less than six feet in length. The damn sword was nearly as long as he was tall.
Once again evenly matched, Kira advanced forward, slowly step by step. Both men paused in the center of the room, ignoring the fact that Flay was still present, but no longer sitting in her chair. "Your move." Myujo said.
Kira feinted and then made a short jab at Myujo, who parried it but didn't counter attack. They circled, never breaking eye contact, pausing for small feints, jabs and thrusts. Finally Kira brought the sword around over his head, aiming a powerful strike. Myujo put all of his weight behind the block, the strength of the claymore holding out to the power being put behind the blade of Kira's No Dachi.
Myujo batted the blade away from his face and leapt forward, preparing to strike. Kira used the bit of momentum Myujo had given him and twirled in one spot, keeping the blade in one hand and bringing it back around to a defensive position, locking swords and then bringing the tip of the No Dachi around in a full 360 degree turn, pushing the claymore into the wooden floor.
He brought the long blade up and around, pointing the tip away from his enemy and roughly shoulder checked Myujo away from the fallen claymore. Flay pushed her chair into his path, making him stumble right into the wall, barely able to keep his balance. This was the chance Kira had been waiting for; he flipped his blade forward and plunged it into Myujo, putting all of his strength and weight behind the thrust, running the blade all the way up to the guard through Myujo and the wall behind him.
Myujo slumped forward and didn't move again. Kira turned to see Flay standing beside him. "Thanks Miss Alster." He said genuinely.
In response she kissed him. Just as Kira leaned into the kiss, a long buzz of an alarm went off, and the room, Myujo and Flay disappeared, revealing a bare and large room. Kira sighed as he took off the optical sensor eyepieces and handed them over to a technician. Two instructors walked over.
"A good performance, Agent Yamato. Top marks in intrusion and a decent score in melee combat. But I wasn't aware that 'getting the girl' was one of your objectives." The first instructor noted.
"It wasn't, but she started it." Kira replied.
"Very well then, you're dismissed." The second instructor said and then raised his voice. "Bring in the next agent please."
The door opened both to allow Kira to exit and the next agent to enter. It was Dearka. "So how'd it go?" the blond Coordinator asked.
"I get the feeling they know more about us than we want them to know Dearka, keep an eye out, they're tricky." Kira warned.
Dearka walked to the center of the room where the technician placed the optical sensors over Dearka's eyes and activated them. Immediately the room was transformed, there was a data pad in his hands and a senior officer in front of him.
"This is a tricky situation we're in Agent Elsman. Our target is believed to possess compromising photos of some of our top secret projects. We need you to eliminate her and destroy the evidence before she can take it to the authorities." He was saying.
"What's her profile?" Dearka asked.
"18 years of age, Natural female, and a professional photographer for a news company." He said, bringing up a picture of her behind him. "She's believed to have contacts everywhere, so be careful."
Kira's warning about their past being well known was not far off the mark. His target was Miriallia Haw.
"Shit." He muttered.
A/N: Well, it's been far too long for an update, but I found myself unable to write mobile suit combat, so progress on V90 and New-found Love slowed from a halt to non-existant due to writing the first part of the Paradise War during November.
Finally an idea hit me, which I managed to adapt for V90, hence this little one-shot.
Half-way through this one-shot, another idea hit me, and I believe with a bit of work it can be incorporated into New-found Love.
Perhaps my next update will be to one of those stories.
Prayer