(Phase 02: The Expert of the Most Wrong Subject)

A/N: This is where the 'FLAY WARNING' takes hold. Be warned.

Kira had written a simulation mode into the OS he modified from the Strike to run the Buster and Duel. As a result, Tolle and Mu were now in the Buster and Duel, training diligently against simulations of ZAFT's GINN units, and were faring about normal for greenhorns; their units would not take damage from normal ZAFT weapons, but by the same token they weren't all that good at aiming yet. Wholly 80 percent of their shots missed right off the bat, but at the end of their first day of training Kira could see an improvement. Not enough to challenge the Aegis, granted, but an improvement.

The Archangel had not moved more than ten meters from its initial impact point, since the Strike was not in any position to fight for now; it was basically down for a full charging and a maintenance inspection, which would take ten more hours. The process could be interrupted and in as little as five minutes the Strike could be battle-ready, but Kira got the feeling that would not be needed. So far, there was no sign of an actual enemy anywhere within the sensor range of the Archangel, and no sign of humans anywhere.

Out of respect for the original users, Kira had made copious copies of the original OS modules for the Buster and Duel. Of particular note to him was the long-range targeting arrays used for the Buster, and how the system handed off telemetry and fire commands to the Buster's weapons. He had to admit that the way the Buster's pilot had written the array communication protocols were better than how he had set up for the Agni, but not fast enough for general use with the Strike Beam Rifle. The Duel OS was gravy, efficient and lean because it needed be no other; the Buster had long-range battles to contend with, and the Strike had variable mission equipment to use, which meant the latter two were more complex than the Duel. Kira could tell the demarc, though, where Yzak had written the original OS and then added system control modifications and module add-ons for the Full Armor systems. The rail gun and missile pods, plus the extra armor, would be a bit of a challenge for Mu but not insurmountable, and when he got used to it would be incredibly useful in a close-in fight.

Kira was resting in the cafeteria and not doing much of anything right now. And regardless of how he looked at it, sometimes he just needed to stare at a glass of water to clear his mind and rest. It was in this reverie that he was found; he was so spaced out at the time that she approached that he didn't notice until she sat down next to him.

"Kira, I—"

"Wah!" Kira looked to Flay like she had just shot at him. "What the—how—why'd you do that?"

"Oh please," Flay grumped, "It's not like I tried sneaking up on you!" If Flay could act more indignant about it, Kira could not figure out how offhand (with the possible exception of a violent reaction). "Are you going to listen to me or not?"

"Yeah, I will, I will—"

"Good!" She grabs his left wrist and fairly hauls him out of the bench seat. "Come on, follow me."

"Flay—hold on!" Kira brings them both to a jerking stop a corridor and change later, which causes Flay to bounce back and into his side. "What is this about?"

"I—well—I—I just wanted to tell you that—well, I'm sorry for what happened at Morgenroete. And, well, I—"

"Flay, it's not a problem. You were feeling confused and lonely, and I was too busy with work to know better."

"Oh." Flay was expecting to get ripped for trying to make up, but again she realized that Kira was a bit of a softy… "Well, I was wondering…"

"Huh?" Kira was flat-out dumbfounded by her request. "You want to learn how to fly a Skygrasper? Why?"

"Because—well, everyone else is doing something, but I'm not! At least not doing anything for the ship."

"Oh. Flay, you don't have to worry about that, there's a lot of things you can do on the ship without having to worry about fighting."

"Kira, but—"

"Flay, you should never have to fight. You should leave that to the rest of us." An idea hit Kira fairly fast: "Look, I have an idea. I overheard some of the crewmen talking about setting up scavenging teams for local resources—food, water, that kind of stuff. You could join one of them."

"But—"

"He's right, Flay." From behind Flay, the voice had startled both of them.

"Captain?" Kira asks.

"I was just about to ask you to join one of the scavenging parties," Captain Ramius notes to the younger lady in the corridor. "Kira, how long before the Strike is back up and ready?"

"Murdoch and crew are going over it with a microscope," Kira says in a very droll tone. "They'll be at it for another ten hours or so."

"Why? We just did full maintenance on it at Morgenroete."

"They want to be sure. If we get into a battle, I can take it out immediately." His tone told his opinion of that very acutely. There would be no battle, this place was peaceful. It was sad, in Kira's opinion, that he just couldn't step out and inspect the place. He was military now, and bound by it.

For her part, Flay could not understand why they would want the Skygraspers unused for now. She could fight as well as any of them.

-x-x-x-

If ever a case of stir-crazy, Yzak was proving to be a case study in it. After the shelters were built and the generator set up, he had completely gone mad with boredom. Dearka and Nicol had been heard debating if they wanted to try confiscating his knives, at least until he had begun whittling with the knives. That tasking at least got him out of the rest of their hair, so they could begin planning how to retake the other two Gundams. It would not be simple, since they were likely inside the Archangel right now, and that ship would not be easy to get into on the best of days…or easier on the worst?

"We should wait until it rains." Nicol says. "The rain would give us immense cover and concealment. I can use a Lancer Dart to blow into the Archangel's hangar, and you guys can get in and get to the Gundams."

"Then we blow our way out of the ship. Literally." Yzak seemed rather amused about that thought, though Athrun could guess that the insides of the hangar deck would be heavily reinforced, just as were those on the Nazca-class ships. The reinforced bulkheads were designed to keep a MS from crashing through into the innards of a ship if it was out of control. It was possible that the bulkheads on the Archangel would be Phase Shift to really prevent a crash incident.

"Part of me doesn't think this is going to work, but…" Dearka was looking over their modeling on the ground. They would attack from two directions at once, to draw the enemy FCS in two different directions. Nicol would approach the ship using the Mirage Colloid, fire one Lancer Dart into the port-side catapult, and literally carry Dearka and Yzak up to the hole he made in their catapult. That done, Nicol (in theory) would provide fire support with what is left of his Igelstellung ammo, then proceed to conduct a main close-in assault against the Archangel. The two pilots would reclaim their Gundams, and cut their way out of the belly of the beast in the most violent of fashion possible, then proceed to finish sinking the Archangel and make sure the Strike is destroyed.

The whole premise of taking down this ship was bothering Athrun more than even Dearka's semi-defeatist bleating. Something was nagging at his sense of the unusual here…

"You feel that?" Yzak asks in a most uncharacteristic fashion: civil and calm.

"You do as well?" Nicol asks. "Feels like something is watching us."

"Great. We're all getting creeped out."

"Screw this, I'm taking a walk." More like his usual self; Athrun decided that Yzak was still feeling stressed out about losing and being nowhere near where they wanted to be (the PLANTs, for starters).

"You can come with me, we'll go get another deer for dinner."

"Fine." Yzak checks to make sure he still had his survival knife and pistol. It would be a fateful check.

-x-x-x-

A rain forest their environs definitely were.

A week had passed, and this was the second heavy squall they had suffered. Raincoats had been issued to the scavenge teams, to keep them from getting too wet in the line of duty (1). That much of one of Mu's crazy ideas had coughed up beautifully; what perishable foodstuffs had been consumed in the first week had been replaced, at the cost of turning part of the hangar area into a chicken coop. Granted, a live chicken was about the last thing you would expect to see on an Earth Alliance warship, but when you had to do something, you had to do something. End of story.

In mirror to Kira's friend's plan, Kira had set up a large industrial-grade water turbine generator using a spare beam guide magnet from one of the Gottfried cannons and some S-4 power cable (what was used to feed the Valiant Linear Guns, very heavy-duty power conductor). With the power he managed to work out of that assembly the ship was using almost no engine to power itself, which means its fuel would last longer. In principle, they had no choice but to conserve everything they have and can't get a hold on readily, since they might be…here…for quite a long time.

Wherever the hell 'here' is, that is. Nobody had a clue in any direction, other than the lands were amazingly beautiful.

"Newman, Natarle, you two have command of the scavenging crews. Six hours. Arnold, team one, Natarle on two." Murrue preferred that they did not operate open-ended, since that left a possibility that they might not realize the crew was missing.

"Understood. Restrictions?"

"None." Murrue had also come to the conclusion that she wanted this one done right the first time. That meant that if they were in danger, they shot first, file the paperwork later. Her personnel were finite; she was not going to chance losing them, period.

"We'll be moving in ten minutes, ma'am."

"Mr. Chandra, you have—" Murrue begins, but is cut off by the officer she was preparing to hand off to:

"Captain, I have some activity to port."

"On screen." It shows up on the main screen. "What…the hell is that thing?"

"Uh, a Cyclops, I guess?" It stood about six meters tall, barely mid-thigh on the Strike, had one big eye and was carrying a small tree. After a few moments, it walks up to the side of the Archangel and begins banging on the side of it just below the third port-side upper Igelstellung. The sound of that tree bouncing off the armor was enough to echo throughout the ship.

The bridge was eerily silent, except for the ringing of the bangs on the hull. "Captain, what should we do?" Natarle asks.

"Aim port-side Valiant. Do not hit the side of the ship."

"Port-side Valiant, lock open." Natarle says rather coldly. "Aim rearward, deploy barrel. Precharge."

"Valiant charged." Chandra replies automatically.

"Fire." The sound of the Valiant firing was typical, but the effect was surreal. The slug transited its torso without hesitation, and in doing so it imparted so much energy (it is a rail gun with a very big slug, a 1.1-meter barrel width and double the velocity of a typical chemical cannon) that the body of their assailant literally blew to a combination of bloody chunks and bloody strips. It took seconds for the dust and blood cloud to settle, and on inspection from the Valiant's cannon camera, they could tell the port side of the ship would need some serious cleaning.

"Well, it was the only weapon we had to use on him…" Mu sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anything else.

"Disgusting," Miriallia notes with a tone that echoed her comment.

"Tolle and I will break out power-washers and clean that off." Mu says as he heads out of the bridge.

"Chandra, you have the…bridge…" Murrue did not move out any faster than normal, but Sai and Miriallia could tell she was severely disgusted with the net effect of having to defend her ship…against that thing.

-x-x-x-

"Not bad, Athrun, one shot." Yzak actually sounded impressed, which was not something Athrun expected.

Athrun did not comment immediately, since his training was mostly for combat purposes, and he really did not want to be here, shooting deer. He wanted to be home, with his fiancée. Preferably kissing his fiancée.

"Well, just doing what we have to do."

A minute later: "It's still breathing? I'll finish—"

"Hold on! Don't shoot twice. It's dead anyways." Athrun pulls his survival knife and gives it a neat butchering job, slicing the neck on the far side of the deer so as to keep most of the blood off his pilot suit. "Never shoot twice, the enemy will know right where you are."

"Huh. I guess that makes sense." Yzak pauses. "Except, who's our enemy today?"

"Is that supposed to be a smartass question or not?" Athrun asks a bit more testily than he intended.

"What? That was on the level, Zala." Back to his usual tone and vehemence, which made Athrun regret his retort.

"Sorry. I'm starting to get stressed out."

It was fifteen silent seconds before either said anything. "We all are."

"Huh?"

"We're all stressed out. We're God-only-knows how far away from Carpentaria, we're out of ammo for our Gundams, two of our machines have been captured by the enemy, we're living off deer meat and lettuce, there's something wrong with this whole damned situation, and I feel like I'm being watched right now. This is creepy."

"Somebody likes us." Athrun says. "Just over my left shoulder. Don't stare, but check."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I can't see anything." Like a pro, however, Yzak was smart enough to speak low, to prevent the person or persons from hearing.

"Check, but use peripheral vision." Athrun makes a few cuts to help drain the deer of its remaining blood.

It only took a few seconds. "Okay, I have them. Three, one with glasses, just watching on the other side of those bushes."

Crunch, Crunch. Athrun and Yzak were both quick to look at the source of the sound. For all that Yzak had hobby (and almost fanatical) interest in mystical superstition and combat, Yzak had only a passing thought about what he was looking at and he did not like what he was looking at instinctively.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"It ain't friendly!" Yzak shouts and draws his pistol rapidly. As he took aim the safety came off and his sights centered on the…whateverthehellitis thing's forehead. After each shot he could distinctly hear the girls behind and to his right (now that he was facing the monster) scream; the pistol he had was a 10mm pistol, not a small piece by most rights. And something gave both the ZAFT pilots the impression they had little exposure to firearms.

The net result of the two shots almost caused Yzak to shit a brick. The monster hesitated; after a few moments it made something resembling a hocking sound, and then spit the slugs out. One of them landed next to Yzak's leg, mushroomed but with part of the rifling marks still visible (2). "Aww, fuck, now what?"

"Over here!" One of the Girls was standing and waving to them. Athrun figured they didn't have time to argue about the mechanics—politics—military protocol (pick your angle) of the matter, and snap-decided to go for it.

"Yzak, move your ass! This way!" Athrun was already partway there when the monster tried stomping on Yzak, though all it accomplished was flattening the dead deer. It took them both twelve seconds to get to the brush where the three were hiding.

"What the hell is that thing?" Yzak fairly shouts, a combination of anger and shock to voice.

"It's a monster made out of mud," from the one with the glasses; she had an arrow nocked and fired it square into the center of its head. Yzak was genuinely surprised that someone that mousy was a good shot with a bow; Athrun figured it took all types on this wild and wooly world…

"It'll drown in water! Is there a pond nearby?" The one with the red gems on her armor asks.

"Huh?" Yzak asks in response to the girl that looked about five, six years younger than he did despite the sword and armor.

"A river, two hundred meters behind us." Athrun hauls out his BHP and braces against the tree nearest him. "Cover your ears, now!" He gives them a second to do so, while the monster spit out the arrow in the distance.

The two shots still elicited short, wimpy screeches from the three; while 10mm is bad, .357 is a lot worse in every category from sound produced all the way to striking power. The pressure wave was even felt by all five as the round exited the barrel, proceeded and preceded by the hot gases of the cartridge. The slugs went straight and true into its forehead, and they could even see the result of the shots as gouts of 'blood' came out of the entry holes and out the back of its head as the slug blew straight through.

And still it did not stop.

"Bullshit! It's still coming!" Yzak shouts as he looks around the side of another tree.

"Yzak, we're going to draw it toward the river. How much ammo you have?"

"Probably not enough," he mutters.

"What?"

"Two mags plus what's in it."

"Keep its attention, and keep it moving straight toward the river over there!" Athrun points as he starts moving in that direction. "Do you have a plan?" Athrun asks the nearest, who appeared to be wearing a blue outfit under the tan-colored armor.

"If we get it in the river, it's gone!" She retorts.

"It'll do," Athrun mutters. Yzak fired a pair of shots at the monster, and indeed it was lumbering toward them.

"Where did you get those guns? Who are you?" The one in green asks abruptly, and then fires an arrow into its chest. Like any other projectile they were firing at it, it simply hocked it back toward them, and it was starting to piss Athrun off. Severely. Athrun thought he heard the question from her right, but decided now was not the time to answer.

After a little while, they came to the realization that they did not have to shoot at it any more, since the monster was following them of its own volition and without any needed cadging. All they had to do was make sure at least one of them was visible to it, and it followed in its pissed-off-but-creeping fashion.

After a distance longer than what Athrun estimated, they finally came to the shoreline of the river. There was maybe ten meters between the edge of the trees and the river, which didn't give them a lot of tactical flexibility. In fact, Athrun suspected if they didn't get it right the first time, someone would mysteriously become a greasy spot on the shore's edge.

The tango was not overlong in coming, and naturally it went for the center of the group, being Athrun and Yzak, who had pissed it off the most. When they split up, the enemy was right on the edge of the water, and all that remained was it reorienting itself to face one side or the other. Yzak and the girl in blue had gone left; Athrun, the lady with glasses and the one in red went right. After a moment's hesitation, the tango looked to the larger group, advancing on them but still precariously close to the river…

"Umi! Do it!" The one in red shouts.

"Right!" Umi darts in, her small rapier-style sword flashing from left to right through its right knee joint. The leg severed, the rest of the monster began toppling into the river and landed with a big soggy splash that drenched them all. What was left of it on the shoreline solidified into a stone bulwark, the last testament that a tango died here; the remainder of the monster's muddy form was washed downriver rather fast.

Yzak walks up to the severed, hardened leg, and kicks it once. It neither budges nor crumbles, and he smirks when done, though it did not last long. "Man, what the hell kind of place is this?"

"I'll settle for anything resembling the PLANTs right now." Athrun then shakes his head no. "No, I take that back. I'll settle for part of an explanation, if any of you know?"

"Well, erm, well…" The five had clustered by what was left of the leg.

"Athrun!" The voice was over a loudspeaker, but there was nothing visible. Yzak looked at the far shore, where he thought he had heard it, and noticed an indent in the ground with no object to cause it.

"Zala, Nicol's over there." Yzak points, and sure enough Athrun could just barely see the faint, spectral outline of the Blitz as it was obscured by the Mirage Colloid.

Athrun pulled his radio out and flipped it on. "Nicol, turn the Colloid off. Save it for ops later."

"Who're those three with you?"

Athrun glances quickly at Umi, who was straining her eyes and her whole being toward the indicated shore, trying to see what was of interest, then centers his vision again. "Three locals that saved our hides."

"You serious Athrun?" From Dearka, who was probably still in the Blitz cockpit as well. "They look smaller than you do."

Athrun barks a short laugh. "Yes, Dearka, quite serious. Now, Nicol, you going to save power or not?"

"Yeah, yeah. Hold on a second."

The gasps from the three were evidence enough that they knew they were looking at one very monstrous machine.

-x-x-x-

And then the first real battle for the Archangel in this new (strange) land started, but not in the fashion they all expected it to.

It was assumed widely by the crew that the first vestige of battle would be the last vestige they saw of the last battle they were in, just outside of Aube territory, over the middle of the bloody Pacific Ocean. There was severe question as to how Kira knew that the enemy would be able to power their depleted Gundams, but Kira was rather forth with that information. He knew the pilot, had gone to Lunar Prep School with him, and knew that the pilot of the Aegis was a very apt mechanical tinkerer. Thus, everyone was expecting the Aegis and Blitz were planning on coming back to get the two missing Gundams and deal the final blow to the Archangel.

Except, the call to combat came from the lady ('wench' is what Chandra called her after getting a good look at her on his screens) that rode the Nightmare.

The sound of the alarm caught Kira unawares, but not completely unprepared. After saying a very hurried goodbye to Flay, he was in the pilot's lockers and getting suited up as fast as possible. Of course, Tolle and Mu were already in the lockers and half dressed in the standard pilot's suits. "What kept you, Kira?" Tolle asks slyly, leading Kira to wonder…

"I was sleeping." Kira yawns as he throws off his shirt and starts pulling out his pilot suit.

"Right," Tolle says in a tone that quite clearly stated he thought the answer was bullshit. "Ready, sir?"

"Yeah, let's go, kid."

Kira was about a minute behind them, though on startup procedures he was done dead even with the two new guys. "Ensign Yamato, deploy in Aile Strike from the starboard catapult. And come back alive." Kira was not expecting the latter response to his request for deploy orders.

"What's going on, Natarle?" Kira asks plainly.

"You remember the lady on the flying horse the first day here, right?"

"Yeah."

"She's back, and she's taken a violent, if pointless interest in the ship. She's trying very hard to sink us, but she's not getting anywhere with it."

"Right, roger that, Kira Yamato deploying in Strike." Kira was beginning to wonder if anything normal was going to happen to him between now and when hell froze over. After his unit was attached to the catapult, he comes to the conclusion that he was fated to live a strange life. Like today. It started off with a six-hour training session with Tolle and Mu, the three of them against ZAFT regulars in a simulated battle, then he was just starting to rest up and have a good lunch when Flay arrived. Strangely, she didn't want to do anything more than just lean against him while he read an old paperback. That ended with the alarm. And now he was getting a cat-shot to fight against a scanty-dressed lady on an evil unicorn. Right. Cold front in hell; film at eleven.

There is something seriously wrong with my life, Kira thought grimly as the catapult signaled 'go'. "Kira Yamato, Aile Strike, LAUNCHING!"

"Mu La Flaga, Duel Assault Shroud, Launching!"

"Tolle on the Starboard Catapult. Time to put all that training to use." Tolle says about as grimly as Kira was thinking.

Outside the ship, Kira's Gundam passes through a hail of ice shards that bounce of the non-phase-shift form of the Strike, even before he powers up the Phase Shift. "She's there!" A quick aim up and to the right, and one beam shot that missed her by a matter of a meter. Close enough to get her attention, though, not close enough to cause damage.

Her staff centered on Kira, and around her appeared dozens of small ice shards, each about as wide as a fist and razor sharp. She miscalculated, though, as the shards were not guided and Kira almost never slowed down when fighting in the Aile Strike. Kira was over a kilometer away when the shards arrived at where he was. And she knew it, gauging by her expression.

The transit of a rail gun slug from the Shiva railgun on top of the shoulder of Duel caused some buffet at her flight level; a second slug tore her off the horse, for all that it missed by a meter itself. The horse, realizing its master was missing, dove down and caught her with only a few seconds to spare before she cratered in the forest below; Mu had to admit that the view he got of her on the ascent was rather impressive, despite the fact that she was trying to kill the Archangel with some form of…magic, he guessed. He tried landing in the forest in such a fashion that he didn't spike himself with a tree, and succeeded.

"Tolle Koenig, Buster, Launching! EEEGGGHHH!!!" The buster came out of the launch bay, landed, and stumbled forward three steps before he came to a stop still standing (somehow). "Kira, what's the word?"

"Tolle, turn your Phase Shift on. Don't take chances."

"Roger!" The Buster changes color, and looks around to the area where the nightmare was last seen. "Well now, that should be simple enough." He combines the two weapons of the Buster, the high-power beam rifle and the Gun Launcher, with the launcher in front in a configuration that turned the weapon into a high-power anti-armor shotgun. She pointed her staff directly at him at the same time he put pressure on the trigger. The result was strange, to say the least, as she took no damage; the rounds were turned aside by the shield she had put up, though the sheer impact knocked her clear of the horse. The horse, however, was struck three times by the 40mm charged projectiles and disappeared in a puff of blue smoke. She was sixty meters up in the air at the time, and after falling twenty she disappeared from sight completely.

There were some confused looks among the bridge personnel, as well as the Gundams looking around. "Well, if she comes back, Tolle is volunteered to deal with her."

"Hey! Why me?" Tolle asks indignantly.

"You did her this time pretty easily. She'll probably be back."

"Am I the only one that thinks that sounded slightly perverted?" Tolle asks rather meekly.

-x-x-x-

"Are you sure it'll be safe if we leave those two together?"

"Well, you can't fit seven people into the cockpits of two Gundams. Period. And the worst they can do, torch the camp to the ground, would only mean they don't get their Gundams back." And some latent chivalrous chunk of Athrun's soul refused to let him carry the three ladies to this Spring of Eterna by Gundam's hand. Though, he had to admit that having Fuu and Umi in his cockpit made it severely cramped already; Nicol did not sound like he was faring any better with Hikaru and that puff-ball-whateverthehellitis-thing called Mokona.

Lacus is going to have my ass in a sling for this, Athrun laments in the confines of his own mind. It was not strictly the issue at hand, no, Lacus would have no problems with the nobility of his justification. The propriety of the matter would get him roasted alive, however. When you are engaged to someone, the mere illusion of such action could get you cooked off by your significant other. And Umi's rear was only about two inches from his main throttle control; if he had to slew it to port more than just gently, there would be a physical contact there, likely followed by another one as her hand conflicted with his face.

"So, what's your homeland like?" The abruptness of the question caused Athrun to glance at Fuu warily.

"The PLANTs? They are massive colonies in orbit around earth, shaped sort of like hourglasses. They are a peaceful, quiet place. At least, until the war broke out."

Explaining the war was the task for last night, as the four ZAFT pilots came to know of where they stood. Cephiro. A land of the will; a planet that embodies the mystic arts that Yzak could only begin to imagine, and he alone was the only one who could hold a decent level of conversation with the three on that subject, that is when he was not having a shouting match with Umi. It was some time that night that Nicol had opined to Athrun that the two of them (Yzak and Umi) were incredibly alike. Blue-haired, hot-tempered elitists that were both ass-deep in a world they didn't want to be in.

Athrun was unsure if they were convinced, even through all that had been said was on the level. He thought he had Fuu convinced, since she seemed to be able to sense the truth, Umi didn't believe anything unless it ran up and kicked her, and Hikaru was still undecided. That left some open territory for Athrun to play with, especially if after they were finished with this quest of theirs they could help sink the Archangel.

Except, for not the first time since this whole nightmare had started in Heliopolis, Athrun had to question what he was doing. Not necessarily what he was doing pertaining to helping these three to the Spring of Eterna, but in pertaining to still trying to sink the Archangel, when it was obvious they really weren't the enemy now. Shit to shove, really, this Zagato fellow was the worse of the two evils at present, and some of the shit he was purported to be pulling made any offense the Archangel may derive from still being alive seem like a fart in the wind. And his minions seemed to be rough customers as well. Then there was the whole issue with the whole planet was having problems like monsters, bandits, plagues, and famine, oh my. There were a lot of more important things to do than sink one lamed ship, but of course Yzak and Dearka would not see it that way.

Nicol's phrasing came back to haunt them. "There are soldiers, and then there are soldiers." Athrun mutters barely loud enough to be heard, or at least he thought.

"You and I are probably thinking the same thing then." Nicol notes. "No sense trying to sink the Legged Ship if the world is about to fall apart."

"Don't say that to the others or I'll have to scrape what remains of you off the foot of your own Gundam." Athrun says by way of a wan joke.

"That's…pretty bad…" Umi says with an air of shock in demeanor.

"That's Yzak for you." Athrun shrugs stoically, as if she had questioned one of the laws of Existence.

"Hey, uh, I think Mokona thinks this is the area where the Spring is."

"All right, visual inspection." Athrun begins looking around for— "There it is."

"That appears to be it," Fuu notes. Athrun noticed that Nicol had a little bit of a rough landing, but if anything he was too veteran to have any significant problems. Given, though, Athrun could not strictly correlate any such 'issues' Nicol might have to the Magic Knight to his right, but the thought was both striking…and tempting to rail him about.

"Well, the rest we leave to you. We'll wait here for you to return."

"Good luck," Nicol says in an unusual fashion for himself.

The three had exited the cockpits and were on the stone outcropping parallel and above the spring. They agreed on something, then jumped into the spring all at once. Athrun had his reservations about this, but he figured they knew better than he did on these matters, since they were the summoned. What had happened, as best as he could guess, was that the Archangel and the four ZAFT pilots had been summoned accidentally from their world by some unknown cosmic accident. A classic case of 'shit happens' combined with 'two for one deal' and they were party to it. Unless the Princess' spell had deliberately targeted them as well, which would make them part of the 'Magic Knights' as well.

"Which do you think it is, Nicol?"

"Huh? What about?"

"Did we get cosmically screwed by this, or are we as they are, Magic Knights?"

"If we're supposed to be Magic Knights, I am not feeling it right now."

"No, but you are feeling something right now."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" The shock was well past apparent in his voice.

"Don't think for a moment I didn't see your slightly roughened landing after Fuu said she thought this was it."

Nicol had a good laugh at that. "You're seeing things, Athrun."

Bullshit, Nicol, Athrun doesn't say out loud but thinks nonetheless. "You say so," Athrun replies in kind. "I wonder what it'd be worth, you know? We're technology, they're magic. What would the combination be worth?"

"For sure, it'd be a capability very hard to counter at home. Wherever home is." Nicol sighs, a feeling echoed by Athrun. "Are we ever going to be able to return to the PLANTs?"

"I don't know, Nicol. I don't know."

The sound that came to Athrun's mind that he heard through the body of his Gundam reminded him more of rain than else…sort of. Given that time he and Cagalli Athha had spent on that deserted tiny island, he remembered rain sounded different against his Gundam. But something was definitely hitting it.

"Athrun, we're under attack. By that psycho-looking hot wench we saw that day with the Archangel."

"You sure?" Athrun looks around for her, and sure enough at 500 meters and above them, she was attacking. "Let's do it, Nicol."

"Right!" Nicol turns to face her and jets forward and up at the floating lady.

Athrun fires a double-tap of beam rifle at her, one shot missing, the other hit a shield she had cast around herself. Nicol fired out the Gleipnir rocket anchor at her, and it locked on the shield as a hand would grip a ball. The lady was now faced with a quandary: leave the shield up and be at Nicol's mercy, or drop it and get crushed by the anchor's claws. She chose the option that gave her time to work with, and left it up as Nicol reeled Gleipnir in and dropped back to the ground.

"Now, what do we do with her?" Nicol asks, making sure it was on the external loudspeaker as well as on the radio.

Athrun gets an idea. "You know, I've always heard that gravity kills, so let's test it. Drop her."

"Sure." He releases the claws of Gleipnir as he swings his arm down, essentially tossing her to the ground. When the shield disappears, she had half a second to see her fate coming in the form of Athrun's yellow beam saber.

Author's Notes:

…Whoa.

Honestly, I thought I'd be blamed from hell to breakfast for this, but so far nobody's done so. More's the better.

Writing is addictive. Entertaining. Just about as amusing as flash movies, really, without the intensive sucking sound that becomes of your internet connection. Whatever happened to the days where you could write a webpage in notepad.exe? Everything has flash ads and CSS and XML and…internet connection…dying…overload…

In all seriousness, I don't really have anything to explain on this chapter, except for why the two Gundams transported the three girls to the Spring, call it a debt owed them for saving Yzak and Athrun from that monster. An act of honor in repayment for an act of honor; they didn't have to stick their necks out for two guys with guns, after all.

On a separate op note to this story, I already have ten destinations for the Archangel to hit, and each will entail several chapters. No one destination is going to be a quick-and-dirty op, and even in this first chapter there is a risk of a MC getting killed. Not sure which yet, haven't decided who I want to kill off first…

And then there was a question as to whether or not I was going to replace the original Magic Knights with GS characters. Answer: as you will soon find out, I prefer doing far more strange things than just replacements. I prefer the 'linear add' concept; aff, it may get real crowded, but real life does real weird things to otherwise normal people. Trust me.

Any questions welcome.

Next up: The last harangue of someone else's war

Footnotes:

(1): Yes, I understand if you read this line in the right (or wrong) frame of mind it definitely has nothing to do with weather, but…

(2): Almost all modern firearms are rifled. What that means is the inside of the barrel is grooved with a set of spiraling grooves that cause the bullet to fly farther and a helluva lot straighter. This has the opposite effect of imparting the pattern of the rifling to the bullet after it leaves the barrel, which is what Yzak is looking at. If you want a very detailed explanation, check Wikipedia for Rifling.