A/N: Ok, before I start this next chapter here I'm going to have a little poll…on the pairings, I got a nice review from Haru Hotaru and many others (I've got reviewers!SQUEEE:D). The pairings won't be a critical part of the story unfortunately but I would like all my lovely reviewers opinions on pairings, I'm not opposed to a Kira/Athrun pairing although I may not be able to write it as well because I've never written that kind of paring before in the short time I've been writing. And now before we start I would like to reply to all my lovely reviewers:

TheBetanWerecat: I'm glad you're enjoying my story so far, I have to say your story is quite good as well and I can't wait until its next chapter and that I'll hopefully eventually reach that level of writing.

Haru Hotaru: I'm glad you liked that little scene, I always thought Gundam seed was a little…cold, Athrun and Kira became friends after being on opposite sides and they don't so much as give each other a hug or handshake, seriously there should have been a little more character development there!

Darkmoon Fluer: wow! Two reviews in a row about people liking how I'm adding in more emotion and the like, I must be doing something right:D

Merffles: yea, ten is a few too many, I've toned it down a little by reducing it to seven. Also this fic is going to be more of an insight into ZAFT then the earth alliance side though there will be some sequences of stuff from the archangel such as the one at the end of this chapter(no skipping ahead now!)

Besjer: glad you like my fic, hope you keep reading and reviewing!

X-19A Infinite Justice: glad you like hope you keep reading!

Chapter 2: Thunder Rising

It had been two years since that day in Aprilius One, two long years of nonstop hardship learning the ins and outs of modern warfare. The Academy's training method was different than what you would expect of a military school. The recruits were split up into seven man teams that roomed together, worked together, played together, ate together and practically lived together. ZAFT unlike the Earth Alliance focused on small cohesive units that were familiar with each in a way that almost allowed to read each others mind in a combat situation.

There had been no breaks at all, every day, all day they went through mobile suit simulators, strategic battle simulators to find those with the potential to command and other classes outside of the simulators such as strategy, physical fitness as fighting in a mobile suit required great endurance and stamina. But those two years were finally over and the team that consisted of Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala, Yzac Joule, Dearka Elsman, Nicol Amalfi, Rusty Mackenzie and Miguel Aiman nervously awaited their assignments. Most teams were kept whole and given a commander save for the one extra pilot who would be transferred elsewhere while other teams would be broken up completely to complete teams that had lost members while there would be one lucky team that kept all its members one of which became a commander, this was usually one of the older graduates as the ZAFT military academy was not limited to youth but anyone who wanted to join ZAFT was welcomed with open arms. Miguel was actually by far the oldest on the team but was not the unofficial leader, that would have been Kira Yamato.

Kira Yamato was an enigma to most other than his team and even then only one knew very much about him. His scores were higher than even the best coordinators. His quick thinking in stressful situations had been proven on more than one occasion and he showed a natural talent for leading that astounded most of the instructors at the academy. The rest of his team did not follow because he was the strongest or could physically force them but because whenever somebody else tried to lead, and he didn't stop them from trying either, the results were always less than what Kira would have achieved in that situation.

The time for past remembrances was past though as today was graduation day. Thousands of green uniformed soldiers were assembled in the massive auditorium of the academy. Rumors had spread like wildfire that Rau Le Creuset would be picking a new team to flourish under his tutelage and that only the best would be a part of it. The whispered conversations were brought to and abrupt end as the doors at the front of the auditorium that faced the large drill field opened revealing Rau Le Creuset in his starch white uniform flanked by two officers in gray. He marched crisply along the rows of recruits as they stood stiffly at attention. He turned to face them and halted his arms behind him in a parade rest position as he spoke.

"No doubt you've all heard rumors that I will be taking a new team to take the position of the one I lost against the Hawk of Endymion on the Grimaldi Front(A/N: I'm not sure if that's historically accurate or not with the GSverse but I have no way of checking)." He turned and began pacing again.

"This is true, my team was obliterated there leaving me the sole survivor, but!" he said stopping again and raising a hand.

"It will not be the best team here today that is lead by me, the best team here today will be boarding a newly commission class of battleship and taking on perilous duties most of us would pale at and I would like to wish them luck in their endeavors. I would like at this time to present the new members of the Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty with their ranks and uniforms." It was a long standing tradition in ZAFT for each new soldier to be given his first uniform at graduation by an officer even though it took hours on end most times.

The process did take hours, Most of the class were given the red elite uniforms while some stayed as greens such as Miguel Aiman and Rusty. Kira was also still yet to receive a uniform and thought in panic he would be the third in their group not to get a elite uniform as Athrun, Nicol, Yzac and Dearka all now held the red elite uniform in their hands neatly folded. Kira's panicked thoughts were interrupted by Le Creuset again.

"I realize there is one here today who has not received this uniform that deserves it more than most." Here Kira's head perked up from it's depressed down trodden position as Rau brandished a white uniform.

"This young man not even out of his teens has shown unbreakable courage under fire even if it was just that of a simulator, astounding understanding of military tactics and a natural talent to fight and lead a mobile suit team I have not seen in since this school was founded. For these skills and many others I would like to present to this astonishing and amazing individual the white uniform of a ZAFT commander, the youngest in history, Kira Yamato!" Kira, stunned walked up to where Le Creuset stood next to a now empty cart that had held the thousands of uniforms now being held by those in the room.

Kira took the white uniform in one hand and the commanders' hand in the other grasping it firmly. "Congratulations, Commander Yamato." I will be watching you closely, Kira Yamato, very closely.

Mayhem ensued, Kira had somehow earned the friendship of the entire academy and thus his being made the commander was greeted with applause, wolf whistles and general pandemonium in the form of Yzac actually SMILING, Dearka and Athrun tackling him to the floor and Nicol helping them back up only to be set upon by Miguel who proceeded to ruffle his hair affectionately while Rusty laughed at the look on Kira's face.


Kira stared up, and up some more at the massive warship that he would be in overall command of in the massive grey hanger on Aprilius One. The ship bore a startling resemblance to a Nazca class except for the fact that it was pitch black with jagged yellow lines like lightning running down the sides. The color was not the only difference the two outer parts of the superstructure continued past the point where they would normally on a regular Nazca giving it more storage space and more powerful engines as well as it being extended forward to incorporate a new linear catapult. The entire design appeared stretched if compared to a standard Nazca because of its streamlined look and reentry capabilities which were a first for a ZAFT ship.

The 120cm high-energy beam cannon had been replaced with a double barreled version and the dual linear cannons had been increased in size to 100mm giving it an extra punch that the original Nazca lacked. The multipurpose launchers were also replaced on each side of the outer superstructure in favor of a row of ten missile launchers on each one further increasing its firepower. Rau Le Creuset came up silently behind the astounded young man.

"It is quite impressive isn't it? The Vigilance was designed specifically to be able to operate without any support for extreme lengths of time and also be able to hold its own against three Agamemnon class ships. I can see that ship the ship is in good hands, good luck commander Yamato." Rau Le Creuset brought his arm up in a salute and Kira emulated him before pushing off and heading towards one of the open airlocks on the side of the vessel.


The Vigilance floated smoothly out of the hanger bay before igniting its engines and quickly disappearing into the distance. Kira Yamato stood on the bridge of the mighty warship waiting for the ships commander to arrive, he was curious as to who would be in command of the ship during combat while he was in a mobile suit. The lift to the bridge opened and had he not been in a weightless environment he would have fallen over. Floating towards him Aroxerus Benaro wore an insolent grin at the look on Kira's face and flashed his new captains' insignia that glistened peacefully on his collar.

"You know you could have told me you were going to be the captain for my ship." Kira mock pouted at the easy going officer who chuckled merrily in return at the disgruntled look on his commanders' face.

"I wanted it to be a surprise. Did you get the picture I sent you?" He enquired.

"Huh? Oh yea, I brought it along, it's in my quarters and I modified it to include the Vigilance in it, it's a real masterpiece now."

"You'll have to show it to me sometime, but right now we've got a battle to find."


Kira looked out the forward view port of the Vigilance; it had been a year since he had graduated from the ZAFT military academy and become the youngest commander in history at just past seventeen years old. His team was essentially a psuedo special ops team attached to ZAFT more firmly than a true special ops team as then they would have been solely at the command of the supreme council.

Kira sighed; the mission they were undertaking was bound to be very hazardous. The Earth Alliance in cooperation with the Orb corporation Morganroete were developing their own mobile suits, ones which were more powerful than ZAFTs' own along with a new class of battleship that outclassed ZAFTs' own Nazca which was why they had been sent on this mission. Kira checked his watch then turned to Aroxerus.

"The operation commences at 1000(ten-hundred) hours, you know what to do." Aro nodded in response and Kira pushed off from his chair towards the lift.

Arriving in the hanger he boarded the drop ship along with the rest of his team. Closing the airlock he sealed his white airtight suit and took a seat with the rest. The drop ship silently flew away from the Vigilance and headed towards a small bay on the side of the massive colony. The bay quickly loomed into view and the drop ship deployed small airbags to slow its descent to the surface of the colony and protect it from the impact as well. Kira, Athrun, Nicol, Yzac and Dearka exited the ship as Kira tapped on a wrist-mounted computer hacking into and disabling the security system on the small bay. Making several hand signs Kira quietly ordered his team to split up and head for their target destinations.

The supreme council had demanded that another team participate in the mission as well, half of which were waiting outside the colony onboard the Vigilance. Kira was insulted slightly by the councils orders as it made them appear as if they thought the their team wasn't good enough. Rousing himself from his thoughts he ordered Yzac, Dearka, Athrun and Nicol to follow him to where Intel. had indicated the new mobile suits to be.

They quickly entered the colony's gravity forcing them to the ground as they approached the entrance to Morganroete. He remembered the brief year he stayed at Heliopolis and all the friends he had left behind. He hoped that the upcoming conflict would leave them unharmed. Quickly shaking himself from his thoughts he brought his hand up and waved it forward in an order to advance.

The team dashed forward taking out the guards in small bursts of automatic fire before entering the complex and rushing through its corridors eliminating any opposition they ran into. Checking his wrist-mounted computer that held the hacked schematics of the facility he quickly waved towards a wide corridor going deeper into the complex. Running ahead of his team he approached the large double doors guarding the next area. He nodded to his team indicating that this was most likely their target and they all reloaded their weapons and primed grenades for use. Approaching the keypad beside the door he quickly hacked into the system, retrieved the code and entered it using his wrist-mounted computer.

The doors slid open soundlessly to reveal an awe inspiring sight. Seven slate gray machines lay in their cradles waiting to be loaded onto the unknown battleship that the other two in their team were supposed to be disabling at the time. They dashed forwards catching the Earth forces off guard and decimating them leaving very few survivors. Gunning down he noticed a group of civilians on the balcony surrounding the enclosure the mobile suits were in. Ignoring them he went for one of the small cargo carrier trucks with a door open on its side tossing a grenade in gutting it, Seeing the rest of his team quickly finishing the rest of the resistance off he headed towards the nearest mobile suit. Triggering its hatch he leaped in quickly closing it behind him as an explosion from another cargo truck washed across the enclosure.

Pulling down the keyboard he quickly started typing in the new OS snorting at the primitive one the Earth forces had installed. Quickly recalibrating all the systems he restarted the OS displaying the startup screen:

General

Unilateral

Neuro-link

Dispersive

Autonomic

Maneuver

System

"Gundam?" he asked himself clearly enunciating both syllables. Shrugging his shoulders he turned his attention to the suit itself.

Looking over the suit he found out the name to be the GAT-X109 Kumori-Sutoraiku (A/N: translates roughly to Shadow-Strike). Raising an eyebrow at the odd name he dismissed it as something one of the techs came up for it. The suit had a midnight black sub-flight lifter with small rectangular thrusters (A/N: like the X-19A's in destiny only smaller with no beam weapons on top with the linear cannons stored like the railguns were in strike freedom when the rifles were on the hips and two beam sabers) on the bottom allowing it to fly on earth as well as holding extra armaments such as two beam sabers as well as two narrow rectangular linear cannons that would pivot down to fire from the waist of the suit from either side as well as six black wedges, three to a side, that each held two small beam cannons on pivots allowing them to fire in any direction, he didn't see why they weren't just part of the suit instead of adding all the extra weight of making protrusions like that for them but he didn't complain about the extra firepower. It also had a 57mm beam rifle as well as a shield which was like two triangles with a smaller shorter on making up the top of it and a longer narrower one forming the bottom with the primary color being black like the sub-flight lifter with luminescent yellow lines in a zigzag pattern going through it in lines.

He turned his attention outwards seeing that the rest of those with him had also successfully boarded their Gundams. Pushing the controls forward on his he broke the restraints keeping form falling off the carrier and forced it upright and finally standing. He opened a channel to the rest of the team.

"What about the rest of the team that was supposed to take out the battleship?" Kira enquired of the team. Dearka answered distractedly as he finished up rewriting the OS for his suit.

"Negative, they failed to complete their mission; they managed to take out most of the command crew as they were all in the control booth but they were discovered and killed before they could plant the rest of their charges." Kira sighed, casualties were expected but he had hoped that they wouldn't have had any. Rusty, Miguel…No! I've got to concentrate, I can mourn them later.

"What about the diversionary force?" he asked getting an answer from a stoic Athrun.

"Their mission was a success seeing as we have no security forces swarming us but just about all of them are gone, apparently they ran into some Earth forces as well." Yzac snorted in disgust.

"Earth Forces? Like a couple of puny mobile armors could take out a team of GINNs?" Yzac contemptuously half questioned half stated.

"I overheard some comm. chatter about wired gun barrels or something" Nicol stated causing Kira to freeze. The only one capable of using wired gun barrels is…this isn't good, if the hawk of Endymion is here we have to hurry, we aren't equipped for a fight right now.

"Everyone return to the Vigilance" He ordered breaking them out of the argument of whether Nicol was actually stating facts or hearsay. They all nodded affirmative before taking off leaving Kira there to his thoughts as he made his way out of the Morganroete factory. He glanced up at the screens when they started to zoom in one different objects its motion sensors had detected. One showed a car moving along the highway full of panicking people, the other showed a group of civilians running for their lives; he took a second glance as his breath caught in his throat. Tha-that's Tolle, and there's Miriallia and Sai and Kuzzey too! What are they doing in Morganroete!

His attention was diverted once again by the chirping of a missile lock indicating that the security forces had finally arrived. Turning the suit around he faced the source of the disturbance to find a missile truck pouring missiles out of both its launchers. Forgetting for the moment about his old friends he had seen running he pressed down on one of the triggers firing the CIWS system mounted in the head in controlled bursts that shredded the missiles causing them to explode. The explosions were close to one of the small skyscrapers that dotted the area demolishing most of the lower floors on one side causing it to lean precariously as it started to collapse. Drawing his bean rifle he quickly destroyed the missile truck with a single shot through it before turning his attention back to his friends.

They had paused and were looking at something in growing horror. Following their gaze he almost screamed out loud. The building that had been hit earlier was collapsing with them directly in its path of descent. Thinking quickly he pressed down on the button labeled PS armor before pushing the suit into a run and stopping in front of the build and putting his shield in front of him stopping the building from collapsing further. He took that moment of respite to inspect his suits' color change as it was now the same deep black as the lifter and shield with the same zigzag lines of that luminescent yellow that made them look like lightning.

His friends were staring at his suit dumbfounded before Miriallia smacked Tolle upside the head who had started drooling before grabbing him and yanking him with her towards the nearest shelter and in the process bringing the rest of them down to earth. Kira smirked inside his white commanders helmet at Miriallias' antics.

Another alarm went off alerting him to the presence of two approaching mobile suits. He cursed himself for his carelessness in forgetting about the other two suits that were still back in the enclosure. Two different images appeared on his screens one showed a white with areas of blue red and black mobile suit that was remarkably similar to his suit except for the missing sub-flight lifter and larger shoulders that looked like they had slots for equipment (A/n: if you don't know what suit I just described and are a Gundam seed fan I suggest you go and kill yourself). The other suit had a faded orange torso and trim on its feet and shoulders much like where the other suits black trim was as well as white trim to separate the orange of the torso from the orange trim and the like. The suit had six triangular orange wings on its back that were wide enough to allow it to fly on earth as well as apparently being equipped with two beam carbines and a small orange and white shield on its forearm. The suit was very avian looking with a head shaped much like a bird of preys would be and it also being all sharp corners and geometric shapes that made up the suit.

He brought up his rifle preparing to obliterate the two suits in front of him when a trio of linear cannon rounds impacted on the back of his sub-flight lifter which also had phase shift armor as he looked at the screen displaying the information about the mysterious armor. Hmmm, little resistance to beam weapons but impervious to kinetic weapons such as missiles and linear cannons and can theoretically survive reentry. Turning the suit he looked at the source of the attack to see an orange mobile armor blitzing towards him. That would be Mu La Flaga, the Hawk of Endymion. Kira smiled predatorily and ignited the thrusters on the sub-flight unit lifting the suit off the ground before pushing the control bar forward catapulting the suit towards the mobile armor.

Stowing his beam rifle at the small of the mobile suits back below the sub-flight lifter he drew a beam saber from it in the same motion before boosting towards the opposing mobile armor. The orange mobile armor detached its wired gun barrels confirming Kira's suspicions about who the pilot was before they passed by each other with the Hawk of Endymion losing a gun barrel and Kira losing nothing. Turning the suit again he pressed down on the pedal for the thrusters increasing his speed. He deployed the linear cannons and opened up with a barrage of four shots from each one littering the area with craters as his opponent went through a dizzying set of evasive maneuvers. Scowling Kira stowed the beam saber and redrew his beam rifle before opening up with it and the emitters on his flight pack catching his coral colored opponent off guard and obliterating the three other gun barrels as well as destroying the belly mounted linear cannon and most of the engine assembly.

He returned his attention to the suits who hadn't moved since the brief conflict started and prepared to obliterate them when an explosion shook the colony as a section of it exploded revealing a imposing white battleship with red blue and spots on gold trim. The two double barreled high energy beam cannons on the top of it convinced him it was time to leave as they fired on him. Evading he headed towards the central shaft to make his escape preventing the enemy battleship from firing again lest they hit the colony although not before he left a little
calling card behind.


Mu La Flaga had just popped the hatch on his totaledTS-MA2mod.00 Moebius Zero mobile armor when he witnessed the explosion and consequent entry of the Archangel. He watched as the enemy pilot nimbly danced out of the way of the Gottfried salvo before increasing his speed and heading towards the central shaft. As it approached the shaft its thrusters on the flight pack flared even brighter before a sound like thunder rolled throughout the colony causing Mu to freeze in the process of extricating himself form the wreckage of his mobile armor. So it's him, I should have known they wouldn't send just any team on a mission like this…It looks like I'm taking on the Thunder Guard themselves this time around.
A/N: and there you have it, Heliopolis has been attacked and the Yamato team has lost two of its members as well as another whole entire team being destroyed and the hawk of Endymion is without something to fight in or is he? wiggles eyebrows

Til next time…