H.O.: Howdie! I've got a quizzie for yeah. Guess which country I'm from. Clue; it's the same isle iv'e been mentioning on the previous chappie, just that its not that run down. Check your Atlas, if you've got one. Anyway, along with the Fic!
Disclaimer: I don't own the company that made this show.
Notes:
.. : Trailing off of words
… : Interference in communications
Italics: Private thoughts/ pronunciation.
WORDS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS: Very loud speech or sound.
12321: Scene change or Time frame change.
Bold words: Interruption!
Censored words: well.. who cares!
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Chapter 9: Grave of the Lost cityAngels of Freedom HQ, Archangel's Hangar, 11th March C.E.74
Kira stood with his usual good cheer in front of his group of officers that would form one of the two smartest, bravest, most reckless, squadrons ever assembled in history. The wind blew hard against his pilots' faces for the umpteenth as they saw a trio of Zaku Phantoms come in to the platform for descent.
I envy Mwu-san. My team comes from all over the place whereas his come from America, England or Japan. The Dom Troopers are from Janarius5, Mayu's from here, Stellar has no idea where she comes from, Athrun's from Aprilius1, Majors Yzak and Dearka ran away from Zaft and now two captains and the Princess of Germany is coming as a pilot to a group of ragtag aces.
Turning around to his pilots Kira smiled, "Alright, guys! Lets' welcome this guys warmly."
All three suits powered down simultaneously, showing the amount of coordination these pilots had. Kira guessed the middle one to be the Princess's; it was conspicuously laden with nasty looking laser Gattling cannon and the back had four Hell-Dart missile pods when the other two both only had double beam rifles and two missile pods.
I don't doubt that those two beam rifles can be joined to form an even nastier gun, like mine. Kira wondered at the speed of the suits. These things are so heavily customized I'd say they were as slow as tanks!
"You might think of these suits as slow Major Yamato, but they can reach speeds of mach 3.75 in atmosphere, faster than your normal Zaku Phantoms." A voice that carried an imperious tone didn't just derail Kira's train of thought; it sent the whole thing flying into space.
"Let me guess.. those monstrosities have the new German-made Hyper compact nuke fission engines that carry N-Jammer Cancellers?", Fllay sneered. Kira could slap himself senseless.
Oh no! Why did Fllay have to blab out that Germany had such a thing! I should never have let her in on that info Lacus's men hacked from the German Military sites.
Katherine, on the other hand, smiled, "I should have known that your men were capable of such a thing Major Yamato. Correct, umm.. Captain Alster. By the way, call me Katherine, or Captain Stryker if you insist on formalities."
The taller of the two men joined the conversation, "By the way kiddo, the name's Andreas La Fllaga, no relation to the Hawk of Endimion by the way. This dodo next to me is Ferdinand Van Weirdo, Seriously, he is." Andreas ducked as Ferdinand threw a nasty right hook his way.
The fighting didn't get worse on the other hand, as Miri's cell phone chirped, "Hey Mir! We're bringin' the ships and the suits up, so don't move those little tankies of mobile suits cause we're gonna go fer our first mission!"
Kira looked surprised at Miri, who just stared at her cell as if it were a bomb. "Impossible! Just 10 months of peace and the world has to go back to fighting already?"
Kira's cell rang this time. "Kira! Cagalli-san is asking us to go to this mystery island to explore it! Isn't it exciting?"
Kira sweatdropped. Lacus seems to be very excited, either its something romantic or something that is so full of info that its gonna burst.
"Okay! If your men are ready Katherine, we're moving off." Kira looked at the German who jumped off for her suit with her two men.
"We're always ready if you are! Major Yamato. Tell your Archangel that we need to know where to land when we have to you know?"
Kira nodded as he shouted to his first command of troops ever, "Let's get to our suits then guys! We're going to someplace that's unexplored. Who knows, we might even find something interesting?"
"YEAH!"
The team was off for its first mission. Though it was not to fight, they knew not that things would heat up on the little island of mystery, because they weren't the only ones who had an interest there.
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Mystery Island, 12th March C.E.74.
Lieutenant Razul was not the strongest of men one could ever meet. In fact he never was able to sprint 50metres before he got too tired. No, the lieutenant got his rank because he was a master hacker, one capable of putting a Coordinator to shame and say that he was a Natural.
Currently, he and his group of three other Hackers from the International Union of Earth were streaming through information of a fair sized ship's bridge they had found when their shuttle had landed in one of the Island's many pits.
"Hurry up will ya? My men are dyin' from old age!"
Lieutenant Razul sighed. Captain Redwood was one really tight 'ahemed' commander who was in charge of nine men of E1, Espionage One, the best stalking, assassinating, stealing, killing and hijacking group of Naturals in the business.
Legend had it that Redwood had shot ten Coordinators dead in less than five seconds without giving any of the 'Monsters from space' any time to even say "Oh Shit."
Another legend was that Redwood could never stay put in the same place for more than a day before he went berserk and shot anyone in sight, not something Razul wanted.
"I know that your getting frustrated Redwood, but this piece of old hardware is very hard to translate. We can translate a new piece of info easy, but going backwards is much harder!"
Suddenly, Redwood's right hand man, Wesley was with them. "Sir, Outpost 3 reports sighting of five Heavy Assault Class Carriers, Trindade, Protector, Peacekeeper, the Eternal and the Archangel!"
"What the 'bleep' do you 'bleep' mean that 'bleep' Orb 'bleep' units are 'bleep' here!"
Razul winced as he mentally 'bleeped' all the magnificently foul language the English man was saying. Then to his absolute horror, Redwood accidentally slammed his hand down on the precious ancient computer terminal.
Instantaneously, the whole ship sprang to life. Razul could only gawk as Redwood cried out triumphantly, "Hah! The good ol' way of fixin' stuff still works!"
"Right.. If we can get this thing up and runnin' with all the guns, we'll be able te' bring a nice gift back te' General Paige." Redwood sneered, "Heck, we might just blow some of these little visitors out of the sky as well!"
Razul sighed. Never in all his years of being a Hacker, had a mere simpleton never pissed him off.
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Orb Exploration party, Angels of Freedom Landing zone..
I've never seen anything like this before. I wonder how this place actually evaded detection until recently, when a ship literally rammed this place. Kira stared at the forest, which was marred by the presence of weird looking beacons that stuck out of the ground.
Behind Kira, Chief Murdoch and his men hauled a heavy piece of equipment out on a jeep to set up on the beach.
The Archangel had encountered minor problems when it entered the Island's seemingly natural bay, only to ram an ancient sort of underwater barrier that apparently made the current in the bay itself very calm when it should have been choppy.
"Kira, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but because we are on a mission for Orb to this place, I'm going to have to send teams out to explore for two days before returning to here which we'll call Base and you apparently are in the first batch, as are your men." A familiar voice said from behind him.
Kira spun to see Admiral Murrue Ramius. "Murrue-san, long time no see!" he exclaimed, saluting to the senior officer as she did the same.
"I trust you did hear what I said didn't you Kira?"
Kira smiled, "Yes Admiral. You don't need to worry about a thing."
However, Admiral Ramius could not shake of the feeling of dread she felt in her chest, and her instinct told her that no one was meant to come here to discover what had most likely been buried in this Lost Island for a long time.
The other Naturals felt the same way as her, but the Coordinators seemed totally unaffected by the gloom that had fallen over the landing site.
"Very well, your men will move out at 1630, which is about half an hours time away, so get your stuff packed quickly and make sure you bring all your men back safe and sound." Admiral Ramius saluted before leaving.
Kira kept his smile up until the Admiral left. The Naturals aren't the only ones who feel something is amiss Murrue-san. We feel the same; just that we're doing our best not to look scared. Turning towards the Archangel, Kira packed his items, bade farewell to his wife, Lacus with a deep kiss and half an hour later, led his men into the abyss of the forests.
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Mystery Island, 13th March C.E.74, 1330 hours, 27hours till Team one's return to base.
Kira had seen many things when he in the short amount of time he had been in the small Island-city, and he didn't like it. They had first found a pit that looked like the ancient ancestor of the linear catapults. Then they stumbled upon a ship- in a different place from the IUE's location, but close enough- which they called Ghosts as they had not seen the fair-sized ship till Captain Fllay Alster had literally walked into it in the middle of the night.
The ship was painted in a black colour scheme so dark it seemed to make its surroundings look lively even though it was dreary.
They had reported that hours ago, but nothing could prepare the team for what they found in an underground facility that was connected to the ship's hangar.
In the underground base of sorts, they had found unrecognizable wrecks of what looked like mobile suits, but there was a whole cavern next to that that had an entire town built into it. It was there in what the Team thought to be the hospital of the city, where they found.. Artificial Wombs that still had the dead fetuses in them.
Kira had jumped back in shock, knocking Katherine off her feet as Athrun gasped and Fllay fainted.
Kira immediately was about to report the gruesome find, if the IUE's Outpost 4 group of two ran into the elite Orb troops.
Both parties stared at each other for a few long moments, taking in the different uniforms, one from Orb and the other of the Earth Alliance.
"OH SHIT!" Both sides snarled as they tried to reach their holstered firearms first.
Kira got his pistol out first. Two precise shots from the young Coordinator put the two men's guns out of commission before they could even raise it up.
"Who are you and what are you two doing in Earth Alliance uniform? It was supposed to be put out of production and the rest burned after the Earth Alliance collapsed." Kira questioned.
"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS COORDINATOR SCUM!" The taller stranger roared, taking something out of his belt.
Kira fired.
Smoke burst from the object Kira hit, causing Team one to lose sight of the men. When the smoke had cleared, the men were gone, save for a ball shaped object which was beeping continuously.
"TIME BOMB!" Athrun yelled.
Everyone dashed for the closest shelter, the room that held the Artificial Wombs and slammed the door shut.
The resulting explosion was heard all over the island. Murrue Ramius ordered Mwu to scramble his suits and launched the Archangel towards the source of the disturbance. Redwood screamed for the Hackers to 'Get the 'bleeping' ship off the ground this 'bleeping' instant' as Razul would have put it and for the 8 phoenixes to launch as the two strangers Team one had met ran onto the captured Ghost ship
The Ghost was about to make another flight in history after an unknown number of years in slumber!
"RRRrrr……." The engines died out. (A/N Oopsie )
Then again, maybe not yet as Redwood swore his guts out in Razul's face, "What the 'bleep' is 'bleeping' wrong with this 'bleeping' ship. 'BLEEP BLEEP'. TELL ME WHAT IS 'BLEEPING' WRONG NOW RAZUL!"
Razul looked to his ancient diagnostic screen, "That's weird. It looks like some safety feature of this ship isn't active yet and is preventing the ship from launching."
"Damn the ship makers for making so many 'bleeping' safety precautions. Activate whatever is not on right now and get us out of here ASAP!"
Redwood is going to shave twenty years off my lifespan. Razul sighed as he and his men worked as fast as they could with the computers. Meanwhile, the Phoenixes launched into the afternoon sky, looking for its first battle.
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Team one..
Majors, Kira, Athrun and Captains Yzak and Dearka hauled the last pieces of debris of their injured men. Apparently, Andreas had taken a piece of rubble for his princess and dislocated his right arm for all his trouble. Fllay got whacked in the head while she was still unconscious making sure that she would not get up till the next morning.
Other than that, the others were absolutely fine. Kira reached for his comm., only to find it in sparking ruins. "All right. Does anyone have a working comm. with him, we need to warn the others."
Ferdinand spoke up, "I've checked the others sir. Theirs are goners but mine still works. However, the explosion seems to have some sort of comm. interference waves in them. I'll never be able to get a message through. Besides, the explosion was big, so with any luck, the others will notice and come to help."
"Alright, but we should move to one of those open air pits to fire a rescue flare, just to be sure." Kira said.
"I don't know, but the closest one we know of is like ten Klicks away Kira." Dearka butted in.
"Don't worry about that Mr Elsman. Along the way to this place, I noticed an entrance just twenty-five metres from the hospital opening that resembles the same type of door we came out from when we entered the city. With any luck, it will be a shorter route." Katherine suggested.
Kira thanked god for getting such a resourceful girl in the group, albeit the fact that she was a princess.
"Okay. Tolle could you carry Fllay? Andreas, could you pass me your gun. I know you've injured your arm and mine got buried, so thanks."
Andreas passed his gun to Kira reluctantly, and then Team one was moving again. However, in all the action, they had forgotten the Artificial Wombs, which had been buried when the bomb exploded.
Team one got through the first doors easily, but when the got to the Main Hall, they found it blocked with debris. Finally losing her patience, Mayu Asuka told her mates to get to shelter and planted the new Orb D7 Angled Explosive Charges, ran to her wingmate, Stellar, ducked under cover and pushed the little red button on the detonator.
BANG!
"Oops. I think I put too much D7 into that blast." Mayu said, looking at the now non-existent Main Hall.
Athrun patted her on the shoulder, "It doesn't matter, after all, were good to go again aren't we?"
Team one moved on. Kira told Katherine to take the lead and she led them up to the door where she said it was, to find it locked. Mayu used shaped charges so quickly and blew the damn door off its hinges, putting her training instructor to shame.
They rushed through the door, cheering as they saw the open-air hangar with another Ghost in the place.
However, Captain Stellar Louisser noticed several things amiss, as did the Coordinators. Firstly there were extremely recent scorch marks on the Hangar floor, secondly the Ghost was operational and third, the Bridge of the ship had a man clad in an Earth Alliance uniform and he was shouting frantically at some unseen person. He had seen them.
"We should move guys." Kira said.
"But where, can we go?" Mayu asked.
Stellar pointed towards the closest landing leg of the ship. She was pointing at the landing leg's single hatchway. "Into that ship." She said.
"Took those words right out of my mouth Stellar-san!" Kira smiled.
The team ran up to the door as Mayu prepared another charge. In less than a minute, they were in, putting the Espionage One's best-forced entry timing of two minutes to utter shame.
Elsewhere on the ship, Razul said, "I've got it. It's a stealth cloaking system which makes the ship invisible!."
"Enough of that lock this ship up, each and every one of the bulkhead doors. I don't want those intruders to interfere." Redwood roared.
"Patience. I've just locked every door on this ship. Even if these men have explosives, they can't possibly blow all the doors that stand between them and us."
"You'd better be right my dear friend, or there'll be hell to pay. Now launch the blasted ship now!" Redwood screamed.
Razul reached for the throttle controls in excitement and sent the Ghost up into the sky, eager for blood.
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Skies over the Island
Mwu La Fllaga sat in the cockpit of his Akatsuki Gundam, wondering what kind of trouble Kira and his gang were in and wishing that he was there in the problem as well.
Mwu started thinking otherwise when 8 streams of laser beams headed his way. "Scramble! All units, engage the- err.. mobile armours?" Mwu stared with his jaw wide open as 8 mobile armours with only two wings and one tail stabilizer came screaming in for a fight.
Alright, if it's a fight they want, it's a fight they'll get. Mwu fired his hip plasma cannons at the front most fighter, only to find the beam reflect straight off the mobile armour and right back at him. "WHAT?" Mwu dodged his own beams and went for close range combat with his double-edged beam sabre.
The unknown unit countered with lasers blades sticking out in front of its wings. One laser wing hit the beam sabre and spun the plane 90 degrees, right behind the Akatsuki, where it fired a side missile port which blew out one of the Akatsuki's Atmospheric Pack's wings, sending it spiraling down to Earth in an uncontrolled spin.
Mwu wrestled with his controls and leveled out, narrowly grazing the treetops as he radioed his capital ship, the Trindade, which had just launched into the air to assit the Archangel, which had begun to fight the troublesome Mobile armours.
"Captain Li! Could you prep that new Atmospheric DRAGOON (A/N:Or at least that's what I think it was called.) Pack for me? I need to change out of this busted pack." Mwu said.
The Atmosphere DRAGOON Pack was the latest in multi-attack unit upgrades. The pack of course was like the DRAGOONs on the Strike Freedom, just that these units could fly as well in space as they could on Earth. The downside to these things were that they could not stay up for long as their engines required more power than the DRAGOONs in space, putting a power strain on the unit that carried the pack as well as the unit's power was siphoned off in order to recharge the DRAGOON units.
"I read you Colonel, In fact, we've got the new pack prepped already! So come on down and change your pack." Came the reply.
Mwu smiled. Captain Li was a master strategist who had begun playing strategic battle simulations at the age of three against the hardest Artificial Intelligence settings and still beat them! It would make things even more shocking if one knew that Captain Li was a Natural and he was already a Captain at 20, not to mention the ship that he had to manage was in the Elite units of the Angels of Freedom.
It seems like the Captain has anticipated this problem again, like the only battle simulation I did with him and the squadron. He had prepped five arm replacements for the five units in my squadron who had lost their arms in a fight against the Freedom before I even asked for it. Somehow I think he's psychic or something. Mwu told his men to stand their ground and left the dogfight arena.
Ejecting his ruined pack, he blew it up with a well-placed beam shot and raced back to the Trindade.
Back on the Ghost, Kira and his gang met bulkhead door after door. "We are in trouble." Kira said.
To be continued…
A/N: The Island somehow no longer seems to look peaceful as a fight breaks out of control. Kira and Team one are trapped in an ancient ship of unknown power, Mwu and hismen struggle with their new foe, the Archangel is in big trouble and what does Kaira Hibiki find so amusing when seeing the battle footage? Find out in the next chapter Events In The Island
Yah! The fighting has started! (About time too)