(06: Who Defines Right And Wrong)
(Author's Foreword: The last chapter was kinda 'meh' even in my opinion. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we now return you to your regularly-scheduled cluster----.)
(A/n: I just switched over to using OpenOffice instead of M$word for preparing docs. If you see some funky formatting or misspellings, please point them out to me, thx.)
PERSONAL LOGFILE ENTRY
BADGEIRUEL, NATARLE
The events of the past week, or in essence the events since this whole tour started in Heliopolis, have been so far outside the bounds of anything I even remotely expected as to constitute a visit from little, green, squeaking aliens. Granted, the attack on Heliopolis was expected, but the aftermath was not. The collapse of Artemis, the descent to Earth, the battle against the Desert Tiger, the battles in the Pacific, all these could be considered a logical procession of events in the course of the war between the Alliance and ZAFT, if one would venture the arrogant belief that ZAFT wants our head on a pike. Given the attitudes of the four personnel from ZAFT that are presently on the ship, at least one unit of the ZAFT forces does want our heads on a pike, though what is left of that resentment is more or less personal, and individually varying from one to the next.
The incident that has brought us to the planet Cephiro, and the ensuing chain of events have really warped any sense of proper military discipline or regulation, above and beyond being completely cut off from the Atlantic Federation. The necessities of our present situation now require us to solve the ills of this world before we can begin to even contemplate returning home to the ills of our own. Not that I really worry about the concerns of this world on a professional level, but one must be solved before the other can be done. I do find, however, on a human level this world is pretty much in the same boat as that from which we hail, facing an imminent annihilation of all persons, if not at least some. The difference is this one can be easily defined as being one person causing the trouble at hand; at home, the conflict is more nebulous, though no less real than here on Cephiro.
I have little doubt that there is no room for the conflict of home in the issues of here. That being said, I cannot completely countenance the actions that Captain Ramius has taken with regards to local persons and the four ZAFT pilots that seem to be victim to this scenario as well. The list is categorical, touching on just about every point of military conduct and procedure vis-a-vis a declared enemy force, from access to weapons to quarters while on the ship to liaison with Earth Alliance personnel. What is more, most of the crew has not objected to the actions that Captain Ramius has taken, instead some have welcomed the ZAFT as if they were personnel that were supposed to be attached to the ship. The cost of this action, when we return to the ZAFT against Alliance conflict, will be horrendous to morale and discipline.
The flip side of this equation has already played itself out definitively. In a concerted effort that was aimed at deposing the present command structure of the Archangel and instilling me as ship's captain, those few Blue Cosmos sympathizers left on the ship attempted to eliminate personnel related to both ZAFT and the conflict on this world. As some of the targeted personnel were (are) civilians, I could not countenance their elimination, nor despite my present animus with the Captain's actions could I countenance a mutiny on an Earth Alliance ship. Thus, my actions as stated in reports numbers 602 and 603, pertaining to what is now being called the Night of Bloodletting by some of the more crass crew members, were in the defense of personnel and ship known to be loyal to the Captain. Despite my personal feelings, and despite the fact that I can point to various regs and show where she is straying from the ethos of the Earth Alliance, I believe it best that a court of inquiry handle such matters. Until such a time as due authority can resolve this matter, I will continue to support the Captain and the crew regardless of other factors at hand.
End of Record.
Natarle issued a command to the system to lock her files down like usual, though she suspected that if he wanted to Kira could easily break in and check her records. No matter, really, as a ship held few secrets, especially from itself. Everyone knew that Natarle did not completely agree with what was going on, and likely never would. She was beginning to think that everyone was settling into understanding that, including herself. She would go as far as she thought necessary to solve the problems of Cephiro, but at the end of the day she still saluted the Earth Alliance flag, and she would make damn sure the ship at least got back to Alaska before hell froze over.
Once outside her quarters, it was a matter of only a few steps to the bridge and she was inside. "Captain, I'm on duty now."
"Thank you, Natarle."
"So, uh, where to?" Natarle asks as Murrue stands up from the Captain's seat.
"At the minimum, the mountain dead ahead. I'm beginning to believe the next destination is that floating island just off the port side of the mountain."
"Oh." Natarle had not considered that as a possibility of where they had to go. It would mean an air-mobile assault from the Archangel, which in the face of it was not all that hard a task to accomplish. After all, said warship had enough firepower to reshape a mountain permanently and reduce any static fortification to rubble, not counting the Mobile Suits, so an air-mobile assault would also probably be the safest course of action. "Understood. Should I wake you once we get there?"
"Yes, please do, it should only be about four hours off at present speed."
"Will do. Anything else, Captain?"
"No, it's been quiet. Thankfully."
"Understood. Thank you, Captain."
"You have the bridge, Natarle."
"Aye aye, I have the bridge." Natarle takes her seat in the Captain's chair. She had actually said nothing afterwards, and was simply diddling with the control panels at her station. Four hours would be a helluva long wait, they all figured.
-x-x-x-
One of the things Natarle was watching happened to be going on in the main taxiway in the hangar.
It was no secret that Umi and Yzak had sort-of matching weapons. Natarle's link had been revealed by fiat, when she used her saber to save the Magic Knights from the ghosts of wars elsewhere. How it had been leaked that Flay also had such a weapon was beyond Natarle's purview, but she figured that Kira had some hand in surreptitiously leaking it, thereby giving her an excuse to do something other than chase him all day. Try as she might, though, Natarle could not imagine Flay Allster taking anything on with even the short sword she was using right now, albeit rather poorly against Umi.
The three girls had come more of a rude shock to Natarle than else. Civilians though they were, they each had a hell of a fighting spirit and grasp of abilities and weapons that Natarle figured were impossible. Fuu fit the classic description of 'mousy' in just about every match of the term. Had Natarle passed her on the streets of New York, she would have almost inevitably overlooked her as background noise, one face in a sea of them that stands out about as much as one blade of grass in someone's front yard. Yet, when dropped arse-deep into someone else's problems she was doing magnificently, though she seemed stylized as the support person of the three, and not always willing to take the lead in a battle.
Hikaru could almost be described as reckless, in Natarle's opinion. She always led the charge, straight into the enemy with about as much grace as a bull in a china shop, maybe a little less. That she walked away every time, injured but in a cheery mood, told Natarle that she was either one of those terminally optimistic persons in Existence, or she was crazy in at least one way, and in either case was incredibly lucky. She was a student of Kendo at her father's school, which meant that she was well versed in the use of a sword, and she also had a very strong belief in what the three of them were attempting to accomplish. That much Natarle had heard from Umi's musings prior, that when dropped butt-deep into the situation, she was the first to actually want to do it, and not for the sake of getting home. Even her teammates thought she was a bit strange. On the other hand, she also got along real well with the Gundam pilots, including Kira, though she could tell that Flay was getting a bit defensive about her speaking to Kira with any frequency. In all reality, Natarle knew Flay had absolutely nothing to worry about in that sense, Kira wouldn't 'put the moves on' anything moving in his direction, even if it ran him over several times.
And then there was Umi, the one that Natarle was linked to. In what fashion that link was, beyond having a weapon similar to hers, was still a bit of a mystery to everyone, including Clef. Natarle had seen the likes of Umi before, especially among the 'upper crust' of the Earth Alliance. Those 'of station' that thought themselves above the fray, above the requirements of the rest of society simply because of their station in life. Natarle had little trouble imagining Umi's reaction to finding out where she was and what she had to do. On the other hand, her grace and skill with a sword bespoke quite a bit of training on the use of blades, particularly in a rare style called fencing. When she really got down to the battle she had little trouble taking foes down with her razor-sharp sword instinct and skill, but such was favored very rarely any more, though there was going to be a resurgence of varied sword fighting styles when the Earth Alliance mass-produced a mobile suit with a beam saber. Natarle could only hope that she lived long enough to see that, and that Umi lived long enough to get out of this hell-hole to wherever she came from. (1)
Yzak and Umi were presently sparring, and Umi was winning more than losing. Yzak had a temper, she knew, and when he flew off the handle he had almost no self-control, which made him an easy mark for someone who could observe and take advantage of it. Umi definitely qualified; word was she was planning on doing fencing tournaments, and for that Natarle knew you had to know your crap forward and back, as well as be able to read the enemy moves before the attack began. In this case, the only reason why Yzak wasn't losing outright each time was because he was a Coordinator, and technically had the reaction speed to match her swordsmanship. Take, for example--
"Commander, I have something." Sai says from his location at the sensor and EWO station.
"Talk to me."
"Massive energy anomaly coming from the area of the mountain dead ahead. Does not match the readings we got from the first Rune God."
The nature of the anomaly became rather clear rather fast. It had to be an illusion or projection of some type, for they just didn't make evil assholes that big, not even in the worst of fiction Natarle had read years past.
You will go no farther, Magic Knights and your little friends from another world. You will perish here; I will not allow you near Princess Emeraude.
"Man, talk about an evil asshole. Who is that guy?" Miriallia asks.
Nobody had a chance to answer, for the enemy had begun his attack, being one that the ship was not really prepared for. The lightning storm he had called up was impressive, to say the least, and directly targeted on the ship. One strike, two, four, ten, a dozen hits in less than ten seconds.
"I'm losin' it!" Arnold shouts from the helm station. "Levitator overloaded, it's offline! We're goin' in!"
"Shit! Sai, signal collision, quickly!" They were only about 500 meters over the forest canopy, which did not give them a lot of time before they hit.
Ten seconds after the warning sounded, the Archangel went 'legs' first into the ground, in the forests south of the mountains. "Tac/ops, damage report, please."
"Natarle, what happened?" Murrue asks just as soon as the door to the bridge opened. Mu was not far behind her, either.
"The evil one we're after just hit us pretty hard with some kind of lightning attack."
"Damage?"
"At the least, the Levitator is down. Tac/ops, anything else?"
"Gottfried two, system malfunction. Starboard sensor alley is offline, starboard infrared is damaged, Valiant two is not responding., engineering reports that the starboard tail binder took several hits, they think a Sledgehammer may have cooked off inside a launcher. Everything else is armor-level damage, ma'am."
"Great. We go in within sight of the next objective," Murrue says grimly.
"Beats the hell out of walking the whole way," Mu offers as a sort of wan joke. Very few people had the ability to walk over, on or under an ocean, and everyone knew it.
"Fairly rough drive from there to here, as well," Natarle retorts. Mu and Murrue had to suppress a giggle at the thought.
"Well, since he doesn't appear to be interested in attacking us again, we'll just park it here and try to get the Levitator and critical systems working again." By critical systems, Murrue was referring to the main guns Valiant and Gottfried. Having even one of them down was a significant loss of firepower.
"Think he thinks he got us?" Mu asks rather quickly; only Natarle could really tell what he was saying.
"Yeah, looks that way, unless he has some sort of secondary asset in play."
"Okay, well, we will split the effort for now. We'll hold Strike, Aegis, and the Skygraspers here. Buster, Blitz, and Duel, along with the Lady Knights will go to the mountain. We can't get bogged down for any reason." She reconsiders. "Actually, they'll probably be expecting us to use the Gundams. You should probably go in jeeps instead."
"Concur." Natarle says, since if they did get bogged down or ambushed it was game over for everyone, regardless of who was on whose side.
"Think you can handle it, Natarle?" Murrue asks.
"As long as he doesn't have any nasty surprises waiting for us up on the mountain, yes, I can handle it."
"Okay, leave when ready. We'll see what we can get working between now and when you return."
"Clear, Captain." Natarle was out the door in a matter of moments; no sense waiting around when the enemy knew of you and wanted your ass in a sling.
Her first stop was the ship's armory, to pick up the almost-assuredly-necessary tools of a soldier's job: small arms, namely assault rifles for the ops team. She'd need four sets of rifle and magazines, one for herself, Yzak, Dearka, and Nicol. The magazine belts also came with a holster and pouches for pistols, so she also grabbed four of those as well and accompanying magazines.
She sets the four belts and rifles just outside the door to the armory, and also picks up a field medical kit, a handful of grenades (very useful devices, grenades, good for opening stubborn doors, clearing rooms out, stopping a number of enemies, and they saved her ass the last time she had to go to a Rune God), and since she saw a hint of logic in Yzak's claim in the Water Shrine, she also picked up a pair of LAWS rockets. LAWS has very limited effectiveness against armor any more, since advanced composites and laminates absorbed more energy than standard steel, and was totally useless against Phase Shift, but she figured they would be incredibly effective against the local collection of monsters.
With the gear assembled, she ordered the Armory sealed again, which the guard officer did without hesitation. She took the one step to the intercom panel and keyed in the whole ship code. "Pilots of the Buster, Blitz, and Duel report to the armory in the next five minutes, please." Aegis was the unit out on the foredeck, though it had been spared any damage from the lightning storm. The bulk of the lightning strikes had been on the starboard side, missing most of the really critical systems. Add another point to the Archangel's tally: yet another tango failed to kill off the ship, Natarle thought wryly.
The three pilots were fairly fast to get to the arsenal, less than three minutes. "What gives, Commander?" Nicol asks when he gets there.
"Captain wants us to drive down to the mountain and up to the Sky Shrine. Might as well do it right." She gestures to the four gear sets; "C'mon, the faster we get this done, the less risk to us all."
"And why aren't we taking the Gundams with us?" Yzak asks in a rather hot-tempered fashion.
"They know all about us, and how hard do you think it's going to be to hide the fact that you're climbing a mountain with a Gundam?"
"Oh," Yzak replies. He had not considered that the enemy may be able to predict that, and he severely doubted his Gundam was defended against magic attacks. "I guess that makes sense."
"Sorry, Commander, his mind still hasn't got past how badly Umi beat him in sparring," Dearka says by way of apology as he picks up both his and Yzak's gear harnesses.
"Oh, one other thing, Yzak," Natarle prompts.
"Wha—eeep!" He chokes when he just barely manages to catch the incoming object; it took him a second to-- "A LAWS Rocket?"
"Try not to blow your own foot off with it," Natarle says as she walks past while adjusting the sling on her rifle. Dearka and Nicol had a riotous laugh about that, as well as the guard at the armory.
The motor pool, such as it was, was one deck below the hangar for the Gundams. It contained a half dozen jeeps and about double that in larger cargo transports, and two thus-far-unused 'Dragon Wagons', a Mobile Suit carrier tractor-trailer combination; it was basically a semi-tractor with a specialized trailer for transporting the Gundams over the road long distances. The three Lady Knights were still hanging about the Mobile Suit deck, which made finding them and readying them for the trip fairly easy. All that remained was the vehicle doors...
-x-x-x-
They had made it to the mountain without issue. Thankfully. But that was about as far as some wanted them to go...
"Huh? What the hell's the ground doing?" Dearka asks first.
"Huh? Whoa, everything doing weird shit..." Yzak says
"This is strange, did we run over a patch of bad mushrooms or something?" Natarle asks as she brings her vehicle to a stop and puts it in neutral. She looked back, fighting down the motion-sickness feeling she was getting, to see that the second vehicle had stopped as well and they were looking around in a level of disorientation as well.
"Man, I can't stand right!" Yzak shouts as he collapses to the ground next to the jeep. "This sucks ass! When I find who did this, I'm gonna shit-stomp them so hard their children'll be feelin' it!"
"Why is the whole world feelin' like it's moving?" Umi asks from her position behind and to the left of Natarle.
"I'm...gonna...chuck...bad..." Dearka moans weakly from the passenger side of the vehicle.
"Not...in my general direction, please..." Yzak says just about as weakly.
Natarle had decided that hands and knees were untenable, so she sprawled herself out on her back, still fighting the motion-sick feeling and wondering what the hell was going wrong. That lasted about four seconds, as she was a bit distracted and had to interpret what she was seeing coming from above. "OH SHIT! Everyone, crawl under the vehicle! AVALANCE! GET UNDER THE VEHICLES!" She shouts, looking toward the second vehicle. It was a special operations survival tactic, and something the jeeps were designed for, having high suspensions and very heavy leaf springs, they could protect passengers from minor rock slides and avalanches if they were under the vehicle. This looked like it would be close, but...
Everyone was under the vehicles just before the rocks started...not hitting? She looked toward the rear vehicle and saw the rocks traveling downward, but they weren't doing anything... "No...way...are you guys seeing this?"
"Unhhh, my stomach..." Dearka groans by way of reply.
"No, dumbass, not under--" Yzak's attempt to mitigate Dearka's weaker stomach failed; at the least, however, Dearka had some shred of decency and did the deed facing away from the other three. Of course, the smell of the spew drifted back their way, which set off a chain reaction thereof under the first jeep. The sound, and rather quickly the smell of the first jeep's retching, set off the persons under the second jeep, starting with Nicol, then Fuu and Hikaru.
"Ohhh...this sucks serious portions of ass..." Yzak gasps out between labored breaths.
"Whoever did this shit to us is a walking dead man. I swear it," Dearka says with a little more gusto than his teammate.
"Man, I am not taking you two out drinking. Ever. Three shots and you'd shoot your guts out all over the bartender," Natarle says fairly weakly from the driver's side of the car.
"No...fair, Commander, I've never had this problem with Kahlua, or Jagermeister, or vodka, or..." (2)
"What about that time you, Athrun and Rusty got a hold of that Jack Daniels?" Dearka asks.
"That was...a rather complicated incident..." Yzak says incredibly weakly, especially since it was in defense and he wasn't in a very defensible position right now...
"Yeah, sure..." Dearka retorts.
"Eeeggghh, that is soooo gross!" The accent and mannerism of the saying was totally wrong to be a crewmember of the Archangel, or one of the ZAFT soldiers or Lady Knights. In truth, she (it had to be a lady in Natarle's estimate) sounded like someone kicked straight out of the southern part of the American territory of the Atlantic Federation. "I didn' think my little illusion'd do this to you poor fellers. Oh, well..."
Natarle had managed to hoist herself up to where she was on her knees, looking over the side of the jeep at the speaker, who was on the passenger side of the vehicle. "Who're you?" She asks rather weakly. Yzak was just beginning to crawl out from under the vehicle, same with Dearka and Umi.
"Oh, I'm nobody you'd be concerned about, unless you're one of those little Magic Knights, but I don't think you are, you're way too big to be one." She gasps, looking at Umi, who was now standing, though quite a bit shakily. "Oh, looks like you must be one of the Magic Knights..."
"Your...ass is mulch, lady..." Dearka says from hands and knees; whoever-she-was kicked him in the side hard enough to knock him back down.
"Now, that's no way to talk to a proper lady, y'hear?"
Yzak had bothered with no preamble, just crawled himself to standing, reached into the jeep, and hauled out his assault rifle. He had it leveled and off safe in a matter of a second. "Go to hell, wench," he says with a little more gusto, and pulls the trigger. He missed only on expedient that whoever-she-was had disappeared about a quarter-second before his finger finished pressing the trigger down.
"That was real good, Yzak, she's four meters away and you missed her."
"At least I got to take a shot at her before she kicked me. You just got the boot."
"Who the hell was that?" Natarle asks, still visibly weakened from her session with the High Priest of Ralf.
"Someone who wanted the Magic Knights dead, I guess." Nicol says as he approaches. He was still visibly shaking from his exertions, but he did have his rifle at the ready. And, in Yzak's opinion, he had just earned himself the 'Captain Obvious' award for the day, for answering a rhetorical question that had an answer that any person there could have given.
"God, we're a sorry lot." Natarle says, looking over the whole group. "One bad illusion and we're all puking like we just won a drinking contest." Dearka deflates visibly, as if that was some form of affront that he could not dodge. "Think you can drive, Nicol?"
"I'm trying not to think right now. My head's still spinning..."
"Great. A pair of sixth-graders could come by and kill us with Popsicle sticks, and not one of us in a position to do anything about it. Everyone pile in, we'll come back for this jeep later. Pull the battery, Nicol."
"Right..."
-x-x-x-
They only made it about two kilometers toward the area where they wanted to try to climb up the mountain before the tangos tried again. This time, Natarle and the rest could see it coming. It was some form of strange pink powder, glittering, drifting in the air; she tried to shield her mouth and nose, but in the end that only delayed the inevitable by a matter of seconds. She hit the ground last of them all; Natarle could only wonder why they wanted them dead so badly...
It was Yzak who recovered first, though he now felt like he had been beat down pretty badly. The vehicle had rolled to a stop at a boulder (a real one—he had seen the fake ones earlier) and the engine had slipped into neutral, so they weren't going anywhere fast. He keyed the ignition off so to preserve power and fuel, and then checked his rifle. All was right in Existence, well, insofar as Yzak was concerned, since he had his rifle...
Looking over the jeep, he had to succumb to a moment of whimsy: they had just pulled a college-style stunt of packing as many people into one vehicle, comprised of one Earth Alliance officer, three ZAFT pilots, three Japanese schoolgirls, and one local creme-puff. When he stopped to think about it, the three Japanese schoolgirls were about the most out-of-place in the said; military personnel do what they are told, when they are told, and the creme-puff Mokona was a local, so the presence of him-her-whateverthehellitis wasn't all that impossible. The three girls were the ones that didn't add up, and yet they were here, and in the end he had to admit they were likely the real solution to Cephiro's problems. Not that the Gundams lacked ability in the ass kicking department, but some things just required the touch of a lady. And, Yzak had to admit, that Rune God probably would be able to go toe-to-toe with the Duel Assault Shroud, or worse...
His reverie was snapped when he thought he heard something up on the cliff edges above him. Movement; a voice from above, one that matched the assailant from before. He figured she was too high to toss her a 'nade, so he had to think fast. His eyes darted around the jeep's interior before they settled on--
"Hell yeah, that'll do nicely." Yzak grabs the tube and starts walking away from the Jeep, since these things had a dangerous back blast that could kill if used incorrectly. After about five paces he stopped, shouldered the tube, and aimed up at where she appeared to be.
The shot was more of an explosion than the typical movie-bullshit whistling-screeching sound. The rocket left the tube, most of its propellant already burned, and traveled straight and true into the ledge he thought she was standing on, about a hundred meters downrange from the jeep. The rocket hit about a half-meter short of the edge of the cliff and detonated, throwing spall in two different directions. A goodly chunk of the rock fragments sent sailing from the penetrator shape charge went down, away from where she would be standing; the rocket had punched a discreet, two-inch hole through the rock face and blew fragments up as well.
The tortured screech he heard from the target told that he'd accomplished what he aimed to do. As he watched, she rolled down the face of the mountain and came to rest about sixty meters from the jeep's front bumper. Yzak, out of duty to his comrades, wanted to make sure it was done so he started walking toward.
Without the motion sickness effect to cause problems, he could tell that she was rather stunning in appearance and determination. Despite rolling down a mountain the wrong way and having your legs fragged with rock shrapnel, she was still trying to move, at least until Yzak's shadow crossed her body.
"Wha...how'd you..."
Yzak's answer was simple; the LAWS tube, fired and now unusable, landed next to her and rattled to a stop. The barrel was still slightly smoking and reeked of the cordite-based propellant of a rocket. A rocket designed to kill armor by shredding the crew in the same fashion her legs had been shredded by the rocket's penetration blast. That she survived was something on this side of a miracle, but...
"This game is over," Yzak says simply, unslings his rifle, draws the bolt back roughly to ensure a round was chambered, and takes stance and aim in one swift motion; the peep sights centered just over the bridge of her nose.
"Beast I Summon Thee!" Yzak centers his rifle on the shouter, the little prick that was in the gem of the massive monster in the Water Shrine, though the summoner's hexagram had his full attention as some sort of crazy-ass Kaiju-reject-looking-mother spawned out of it and damn near right on top of him. If he had to put words to it, it kinda reminded him of a cockroach crossed with a body-building giant, about half as tall as the Strike.
"Oh fuck this!" Yzak shouts as he bolts backwards toward the jeep, headed not necessarily for the ride but the second LAWS rocket. He fires about half a magazine behind him wildly, hoping his aimpoint was high enough to score head shots, and got a roar from the monster for his efforts. He had the attention of the tango, rest assured.
The rifle hit the seat of the Jeep as he grabbed for an jerked out the last of the LAWS rockets, though he thought he heard Dearka make a rather strange sound when he pulled it; he made the motions of unsealing and arming the launcher, though he did not bother with the front sight, he just dead-aimed at it, since it was such a large target to begin with.
Yzak fired just as the monster began to rear back his fist to punch where Yzak was standing. The rocket went straight into the left cheek of the monster and brute-force punched its way into the monster; the fuse had not armed yet, for the safety of the firing soldier, of course. It did finish arming about halfway through the target's head, and when it hit the back of its skull it blew, literally blowing its head into chunks since the rocket detonated inside the monster's head. No roar; the monster simply collapsed forward, the upper chest slamming into the jeep and throwing the personnel out of it wildly, as well as scattering the assault rifles.
"You hurt another one of my friends! I'll make you pay for this! And all my other friends you and the Magic Knights hurt!"
Yzak had a rather mirthless laugh for the brat on the hovering rock. "The technical term is 'killed' you little prick. And guess who is next?" Where he had landed was a matter of a mater from one of the rifles, and given the sling position he figured it was Natarle's rifle. She wasn't as big as the Captain (Yzak doubted he'd seen more than four ladies to rival or best the Captain's...appearance), but he figured it still factored into how Natarle had to sling her rifle.
"I think I'll just have to hurt a few of your friends as payback for all that you've done!" The movement had drawn Yzak's vision to the monster, which looked like a bad cross between a bodybuilder and an eagle.
"Oh, man, Dearka, Umi, no way!" The monster had the two, one in each hand, and he could tell the monster was just beginning to apply pressure. "You rat bastard! Your ass is grass, fucking prick!"
The enemy had made the mistake of hovering to within about ten meters, an easy enough run for Yzak. He lunged, knocking the brat off the rock, as the stock of the rifle contacted his upper chest and drove him into the ground rather mercilessly. With the rifle still jammed into his chest, Yzak drew his pistol, drove the barrel into the kid's left cheek roughly, and drew back the hammer. "How do you want it, brat?"
"Yeee-eeeggg—ggghhh, I give up! Don't hurt me!" The brat may not have known what kind of weapon it was, but he had no doubt the sinister device pushed into his face would kill him if the user activated it.
"Tell the monster to put them down. Now. And no bullshit or I will kill you, the monster, and your lady friend over there."
"Okay, Okay, I'll do it, I'll do it! Creature, put them down, carefully!"
Yzak watched, though he did not flinch the weapons away from him. After a few moments, the monster set the two of them down rather calmly. He gets a whiff of something... "You pissed yourself, didn't you?"
"Well what do you think? I just got jumped by some crazy foreigner and threatened with death from a device I don't recognize! What would you do?"
"Kick the shit out of the foreigner." Yzak stood up, and so did the brat, though he did so with the pistol centered on his head the whole time. "Get lost, kid. And if you ever threaten my friends or teammates again, I'll blow you to pieces and feed what's left to that asshole Zagato."
Saying that much definitely elicited a shocked reaction from the kid. "Why? I mean, well--"
"You're a complete dumbass, kid? Or do you just have no friends?"
"I have many friends! But, well, nobody likes them..."
The intent of the kid's expression was fairly obvious to Yzak, especially after all the bitching he'd done during the prior fights. "Oh, those monsters. I guess it takes all types." The pilot's shrug was more-or-less neutral, and could have meant or extended many things.
"What's that supposed to mean, ya jerk?"
"And what the hell kind of friend would force his friends to fight? Huh? What the fuck is wrong with you?" Again with the pistol in the face, though this time it centered on the forehead of the summoner.
"I have to! Lord Zagato promised I could stay in the castle if I killed the Magic Knights!"
"Oh. Living space issues." Yzak holsters his pistol and kicks up the assault rifle. "Well, kid, you want a piece of very friendly advice, if you want to actually live you need to avoid pissing off professional soldiers. Period. 'Cause if I have to, I will put a three-round burst in your sorry ass to save my comrades." He was looking at the jeep, or more specifically Natarle, who was still unconscious. "Even the strange ones."
"Look who's talking."
"Hey, kiss my ass, brat."
"Ascot, we—we have to—we must get those Magic Knights!"
"Man, you're persistent." Yzak had the assault rifle pointed at the lady once again. "Don't you ever give up? I've already rendered your legs useless, don't make me do more than that."
"I—Lord Zagato's payin' me a lotta gold to wipe them out, I don't have a choice here." For what it was worth, Yzak had to remind himself that she was still an enemy, regardless of from what direction he was staring at her (she was arm-crawling toward him).
"Oh, that is so stupid." Umi was now awake and had her sword up and ready. "Is it worth your life for a pile of gold?" The tip of Umi's blade was about two centimeters from the bridge of the lady's nose.
"Of course not!" If the wounded lady could have sounded more Southern Belle Indignant, how was lost on Yzak. "But—oh, this is so embarassin', havin' to crawl 'round on the ground! What kind of evil weapon is that?"
"Consider yourself lucky, lady. Under normal use, that weapon is supposed to kill people, not wound them." He steps down his assault rifle. "Mercenaries are no match for ZAFT elite soldiers, doesn't matter what world you're from. And I'll tell you the same thing I told the brat, threaten my friends or comrades again, it will be your last major mistake."
"Well, these two again," Natarle says from behind Yzak. "You do all this?"
"Yeah," Yzak replies, not taking his cold, unyielding eyes off the lady.
"It's a wonder she ain't bled out," Natarle says stoically. "We could take them prisoner. Information is always useful."
"And secure and transport them how?" Yzak counters.
"Good point. We have a mountain to climb, we don't have personnel to spare guarding them." Natarle sighs, wearied and still a shred exhausted from the first attempt to subvert them. "Well, regardless, the regs are clear on this issue. A wounded enemy gets medical care just the same as an ally. Fuu, are you willing?"
"Yes, I will." Fuu kneels down next to the lady; "Winds of Healing!"
The effect only took a matter of seconds, but this time the amount of damage that she had taken, despite being crippling, was not as much as Natarle had taken a week ago. The healing effect was complete or close enough that she could stand, which she did while staring down three assault rifles. The brat had one assault rifle and two swords on him, now that the whole crew was awake now.
"I'm only going to say this once. Start walking, don't bother looking back, and if you value your lives find a new employer. You lived this time, next time you may not be so lucky."
"I can't compete, I guess." She shrugs. "By the by, who are you people? I mean, well, y'know?"
"Huh?" Natarle asks, completely baffled by what she had asked.
"We were enemies," Dearka notes, still staring at her over the sights of an Earth Alliance assault rifle. "We were in the middle of trying to kill each other when Princess Emeraude called."
"Took us a while to figure out we got one chance to do this right, or we're all dead," Yzak notes as he looks away, ostensibly toward the jeep, and lowers his rifle.
"Oh. You're serious."
"Man, pathetic." Yzak mentally gives up on her, and turns to walk toward the jeep. "Screw the airhead, we have a hill to hump. We don't have time to screw around with her."
"That was the most tactless way he could have said that," Natarle notes sardonically. "Anyways, you're not going to be held prisoner. I suggest you find a new line of work."
"That's so easy for you to say." Again with the indignant attitude. "C'mon, Ascot, we're outta here." She gave a fair impression of storming off, but all three of the ZAFT pilots could tell she wanted to be nowhere near them any more, for fear of worse pains than having her legs shredded...
-x-x-x-
"When I find out what flavor of crack Athrun and Kira have been feeding Hikaru, I will kill them several times," Yzak gasps out between ragged breaths.
" 'Join ZAFT', they said. 'See the world', they said. 'Meet Interesting people', they said. I am SO going to frag my recruiting officer when we get back to the PLANTs."
"Shut up, Dearka. You volunteered," Nicol reminds him; they had volunteered at the same time.
"I'm still going to frag his sorry ass for this."
"Shut up, Dearka." This time, it was Nicol, Yzak, and Natarle that had done the honors.
"It must be nice to have that kind of energy all the time," Fuu notes as she lay face-down on a ledge.
About the only persons that weren't close to disabled right now were Natarle and Hikaru, and the latter was still acting cheery and bubbly, which was starting to really grate on Natarle's soul. She was special operations; even she was feeling sore in unusual places right now and was starting to feel real exhausted. Hikaru showed little sign of tiring right now, which wasn't making Natarle feel any better about herself.
"Either she's doing something incredibly right, or we're doing something incredibly wrong, " Dearka says with more semblance of normalcy, now that his breathing was starting to normalize.
"You guys ready to go?" The question from the bubbly one elicited a wave of tired groans from the rest of the crew.
"Five minutes, Hikaru." Natarle says as she sits down on a rock and takes a slug of her canteen. "You know, we're already two-thirds the way up. We only have a couple hundred more meters 'till we get to the Shrine."
"It had better be in there, or tomorrow night's Turkey Surprise will include a side of Mokona-flavored rice balls," Yzak notes rather coldly.
"Oh, it is," Nicol notes; Yzak gives him a rather blank stare. "What? You can't feel that?"
"Feel what? Have you been munching on Hikaru's 'special' rations as well?" Yzak asks rather indignantly.
"You are hopeless, Yzak. 'When in Rome, Do as the Romans.' I think I may be slowly picking up on some of this Magic stuff."
Dearka had sat up and was drinking from his canteen when Nicol had made note of what he did. At that time, he had nearly choked on the water he was drinking, while at the same time he let loose one real raunchy fart that was amplified by the stone he was sitting on.
"Holy shit, Dearka, check your shorts, that even sounded soggy." Dearka had quite clearly given his teammate the almighty finger even while sputtering from inhaling water.
"I'm either going to strangle Yzak for his foul mouth, or I'll end up picking that bad habit up from him," Umi notes quietly to Natarle.
"If you decide to strangle him, call me, I'll help." The one thing Natarle definitely did not like was Yzak's almost continual use of foul language. She had been known to let fly a four-letter word every now and again, but usually nowhere near as bad as the ZAFT elite trooper across the ledge from her.
"Can I ask you something, ma'am?" Hikaru prompts, quite clearly indicating Natarle.
"Huh? Sure, what is it?"
"What is with that one girl? Red hair, wears the pink Alliance uniform, constantly hanging onto the Strike pilot, uh, what's his name?" She was trying real hard to remember his name, and though they had been properly introduced, Hikaru hadn't really dealt with him all that much. If anyone, Hikaru got along real well with Athrun, when he wasn't sulking or brooding over something.
"Kira Yamato is the Strike pilot, the girl is Flay Allster. And I don't quite understand what you're trying to ask."
"Are they, well, like an item or something?"
Natarle's answer was automatic, almost clipped: "I'm trying not to think about that." Technically, she was supposed to keep such from happening, but in this case stopping it would be about as easy for her as if she tried sprouting wings and flying to a frozen-over hell. Natarle knew Flay had lost everything in her life: her family, her friends, her normal life, and her innocence; all she had left was Kira, and that much was tenuous at best. Flay wasn't going to give him up without two or three good fights to the contrary, and the last thing Natarle wanted to deal with was the headache of trying to split them up by the regs. Not to mention, she didn't want to chance pissing Kira off; she had only witnessed him really pissed off once, when he and Athrun went at it the last time, and it was not pretty by anyone's definition. Starting a fight with Gundams and ending it with a fist-fight...not pretty. "Well..." She sighs. "Ah, forget the regs on this one. Yes, they are, though I'm not sure how to really define who's where in that one."
"Eh...huh?"
"Forget what I just said. Yes, they are 'an item' as you put it. As to what's with Flay, she lost everything in the war, including watching her father's ship get blown up right in front of her. She's clinging to the last thing she thinks she has left."
"Oh. I—I didn't know..." Natarle nods for her to stop, which she does.
"That's insane. Is it always like that?"
"Unfortunately," Strangely, it was Dearka that had replied.
"Then why have the war?" Fuu retorts.
"If only," Nicol replies in a disheartened tone.
"Huh?" Yzak asks.
"If only we were all as sensible as her, this wouldn't be an issue." Nicol had pointed his thumb toward Fuu, who was sitting next to him.
"Wow, this conversation just went real gloomy real fast," Umi says.
"Nothing cheery or happy about real wars or battles, unless you are psychotic," Natarle notes as she stands up. "We ready to continue?" The rest of the group took that as a cue to get ready to finish the climb.
-x-x-x-
"Well, if nothing else the architecture around this planet is first-rate," Yzak notes as they observed the entrance to the wind Shrine.
"Uh, guys, What's Fuu doing?" Nicol asks as she marched straight toward the door down the way.
"Well, I guess the Captain called this one right, she's the next of the Knights." Yzak says with a small hint of humor. "I got fifty credits says Hikaru's next."
"No take," Dearka replies rather quickly. "And besides, what says this ain't just random chance and the next one is one of us?"
"Man, where's your sense of adventure?" Yzak asks with obviously brightening spirits. Apparently he was pleased about something, but what so far nobody could figure out.
"I left it back on the Vesalius." Yzak deflates visibly when Dearka says that.
"You'd better grow a new one before Yzak spazzes out," Nicol says. "So, then, I guess we just wait until Fuu and the Rune God get friendly."
"That sounded a bit wrong, especially coming from you," Yzak says to Nicol in a closer-to-normal tone and inflection.
Nicol does not respond, instead just looking around the structure. It really was impressive, reminding him of the pictures of the now-long-gone ancient temples and ruins of religions past. Maybe that was what went wrong with the world: the most stable, respectful of countries and societies were the ones where various religions still held credence. The Earth Alliance had no national religion, nor did they have very much respect for the rights of those practitioners, unless your religion was Blue Cosmos.
"Not going to admit it?" Yzak asks, though nobody could really trace where he was going with the question...
"Admit what?" Nicol asks from somewhere in the shadows on the eastern side of the structure.
"That you got a crush on Fuu." Yzak could not see it, since he was facing the wrong direction, but Hikaru and Umi had both gone quite red at that statement.
The answer was a few moments in the coming: "I figured since you and Umi get along so well, it'd be fairly obvious to you."
Yzak joined their ranks, having blushed bright red himself. "You just got burned by Nicol. Pretty badly. I'd almost feel sorry for you, but..." Dearka notes rather calmly; Yzak knew he had no retort for the nihilist, since Dearka was keeping it on the level, apparently (for what it was worth. As far as Yzak was concerned, anything that happened between the time they sortied in the Pacific until the time they get back to the Pacific never happened. Period.)
"Yeah, yeah, I walked face-first into that one."
"Uh, guys, we're not alone," Natarle notes quietly, staring into the darkness toward the entrance. When silenced, they could tell the footsteps approaching them.
After the person had come visible, illuminated by the glowing columns of the Shrine, Yzak had the thought verbalized that they were all thinking: "An elf? Is this going to get any more screwed up?"
"What are you speaking of?" The guy says, looking straight to Yzak, then shakes his head negative. "It does not matter. You will not leave here alive."
"Twice in one day? You punks must be getting desperate," Yzak retorts, then shrugs stoically. "Oh well. Just another person to educate on why you don't piss off ZAFT elites." More than just Yzak's assault rifle centered on the tango.
"Useless tactics." The hand came up, but a pair of pistol shots from the left forced him to guard rather than attack.
Directly behind them, the ceiling lit as the second Rune God became manifest: a massive bird of a type that none of them could recognize; it had the request of proving the strength of one's heart for Fuu, then disappeared. This had the effect of stunning the foe just as much as it had the attention of the soldiers; needless to say, you don't often see a bird bigger than the Gundams. Period.
"This is pathetic. None of you can withstand my attack." This time, several dark spirits emerged from the enemy's raised hand, and when they hit they hit with tremendous force. Nicol managed to dodge one but not a second; the impact put him on his back and not moving as the first one he did dodge got Dearka in the legs. Yzak took the hit head on, but thankfully he had his sword up and guarding, so it didn't outright kill him. One struck directly under Natarle, throwing her clear of the field of battle and knocked her out cold. Three converged on Hikaru and Umi, leaving Fuu to witness as they went down, hard, and didn't get back up readily.
"Why...why have you done this to them?" Fuu asks as she draws her blade.
"I stand here with orders from High Priest Zagato to stop the Magic Knights."
"I won't allow you to hurt my friends!" She had set her blade to rush in, but instead ended up running perpendicular to him, dodging the dark spirits that had knocked down her friends.
"You...bastard..." Nicol tried raising his pistol to aim, but the tango stomped on it, inadvertently crushing his hand under foot.
"Ah, spirited but pathetic. You are useless outside those machines of yours."
"Leave him alone!" This time, Fuu got close enough to actually take a swing at the enemy, but a power shell stopped her cold with several meters still to go.
"Ah, so there is one in their ranks you have feelings for." The gasp and the look in her eyes confirmed it to the tango. "I propose a deal. Swear to me that you shall cease becoming a Magic Knight, and I will spare him."
There was hesitation in her demeanor, which told both the tango and Nicol that she was considering it. "I...can't. I'm here to save Cephiro, and I can't turn my back on that, regardless of how I feel!"
"Really?" He uses the same form of energy as his attack to pick Nicol up by his neck. "The only way to save him is to renounce becoming a Knight. Or you can go back to the Rune God, and he will die for your callousness."
Fuu sets her sword. "I cannot accept that."
"You can have the Rune God or this one you love." He shakes Nicol to emphasize the point.
"Then I will have to defeat you first!"
A moment before Fuu would have begun her lunge, a flash of green-tinted light catches their attention. Windam had returned. "Magic Knight, thou hast proven unto me the strength of thine heart. I will now awaken and reveal unto thee my true self." The full form of the Rune God was just as large and menacing as Umi's had been, but this one appeared more bulky, as if it had more armor and physical stature, and its form was avian influenced instead of draconic like Selesce. As it braced, the four lighted columns nearby fell to pieces, the energy surge forcing the enemy to retreat, lest the Rune God's power destroy him. Nicol remained, and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes after the enemy disappeared.
"Magic Knight, thine heart is still unprepared to encompass all that I am. Until that promised day comes, I shall change my form, become a part of thee; I shall wait patiently." In much the same fashion that Selesce had absorbed himself into Umi, Windam did so with Fuu. On so doing, the three Lady Knight's armor changed into something that looked a lot lighter and strangely more protective. Their weapons had also received an 'upgrade' to swords more matching what Yzak thought their end-points would be: bastard sword (Hikaru), long claymore or two-handed sword (Fuu), and rapier or light longsword (Umi).
"That...asshole...when I get my hands on him, I'll..."
"Nicol!" Fuu was quick to check him, though she did not get a response when she did. "Is...he?"
"No. He's alive, barely," Dearka says, then notices something. "His hand was broken when that shit stomped on him, wasn't it?"
"Sounded like it, I guess," Yzak says. "And what's with the two gloves—oh. Well, there's the first person you're linked with. Wonder who else?"
-x-x-x-
(Note: time variance -5 minutes from the end of the previous section.)
Miriallia had to silently admit that there were about only two times she felt really like a normal human any more: one, when hanging out with Tolle, two, during and after taking a good, hot shower. There was some talk between some of the mechanics about setting up a combination sauna and hot spring somewhere in the ship, likely heated by the engines, so it would have to be toward the rear of the ship. Miriallia was so looking forward to that, if they ever did it, since she could feel real for a length of time instead of just part of a non-duty rotation. Now, just to get the Captain to sign off on it...
When she entered the lady's shower room, the first thing she noticed was that the third stall was occupied, and gauging by the uniform that was in the cubby for the third stall it had to be the Captain. Seeing that much, Miriallia's thoughts drifted to something that Sai had said a few days ago, about how he thought that Murrue and Mu were getting rather fond of each other. It didn't really take a genius to figure out why, since they were stuck on a foreign world and everyone needed a level of reassurance in such a problem; not to mention Mu was the kind of guy that everyone could get along with, so long as he wasn't trying to shoot said person. Given Mir's status vis-a-vis Tolle, she was not going to begrudge her the relationship, since by the time they got back to their Earth, there would be a chance that someone might not make it back alive.
Miriallia sets her stuff in the first cubby and fires up the matching shower. "Who's there?" Murrue asks suspiciously.
"Just me," Mir replies.
"Oh, sorry."
That mad Mir confused: "What for?"
"I shouldn't be that suspicious every time I hear a strange sound in the room."
"Not a problem, ma'am." Mir, now stripped, wormed her way into the shower rather quickly, since there was always a possibility, with Kira and his friend Athrun on board, that any lock on the ship could be defeated... She really didn't have anything to fear from Kira, in all estimation, since Flay was still hanging all over him, and probably sleeping with him as well. There had to be something in the regulations against that, but she didn't really care about the rules as much as some others on the ship did. Athrun, though, she really wasn't sure about, though Mir thought she had heard mention of something about a fiancée...
"One thing I've been meaning to ask you, Miriallia, what's your opinion of the four ZAFT pilots?"
"Is this on the record, Captain, or off?"
"Is anything said in the showers on the record?" It was even on a placard over the mirror: anything said in this room is off the record. That, of course, did not apply to anything seditious, treasonous, or illegal.
"Well, erm, hard to say. I guess I don't really know them well enough to say for certain. But I do want to slap Yzak several times a day for that foul mouth of his."
"Yeah, and me, and Natarle, and probably at least one of the Lady Knights."
"Probably Umi, then. Hikaru's too nice, and Fuu's too nonviolent to do anything like that."
"Which brings me to my next question..."
"The Lady Knights? Well, I guess..." Miriallia was looking up at the ceiling when said, and missed something. When she looked back to her left leg that she was scrubbing down, she saw something on her hand-- "Eaaahhh!" She loses her balance in her shock at seeing something there that was not prior, and falls backwards out of her shower stall onto the floor.
"What? What's wrong?" Murrue had busted out of her shower stall, though she was holding--
"You take a shower with a pistol?" Miriallia asks, now more shocked at seeing that than what was on her left hand.
"I sleep with it. Now what happened?"
"This." After holding her hand up, Murrue simply nods thoughtfully.
"I guess we now have two Magic Knights on board. I wonder who it was that woke the Rune God..." Murrue shakes her head. "Need a hand up?"
"No, thanks." After standing, Miriallia strips the glove off and throws it into her cubby; another problem for another time.
-x-x-x-
On the face of it, Murrue was now regretting that she had taken that shower a few hours past, since being in the same room as the seven travelers was making her feel like she needed a good hour-long shower. Their physical appearance was only part of it, the smell was the rest. The...aroma...that the seven of them had about them was definitely reminiscent of those few times she had gone out drinking at the naval academy with her friends, most of whom were now dead. They were good times, until it came time to 'pray to the Porcelain God with the High Priest Ralf' as the expression went. Then there was that one time, colloquially known as "The Dueling Ralfers," where four people on the same drain pipe had been Ralfing into their toilets at the same time (Murrue was one of them), and the sound had translated through the drain pipes between them, causing them to puke out even more. The sheer sound of it had managed to disgust Murrue's roommate to the point that she had to Ralf as well...
"You look like hell," Murrue notes somewhere between shocked and disgusted. "Start talking."
"Contrary to our appearance, ma'am, we did not have a drinking contest," Yzak declares both hastily and very defensively.
"I never figured the ZAFT Elite for having problems with motion sickness or stomach flu, so what was it?"
"Actually, Captain, it was a variant of motion sickness. Caused by an illusion by one of Zagato's sub-contractors," Natarle says to enhance Yzak's defense.
"Wait, wait a second, you're saying that Zagato has persons in his employ that can create illusions? And they managed to create an illusion that made you motion sick?"
"Exactly, ma'am," Yzak replies.
"And what happened to the illusionist?"
"I used a LAWS rocket on her."
I can't stomach this, Murrue notes within the confines of her own mind. She needed not imagine the effect of such a rocket on a person... "All right, all right, just...get yourselves cleaned up and write up the reports by 0200 hours. Dismissed." As they filed past, Murrue noticed that Mu La Flaga was looking close to a shade of green that matched the gem on his new partial glove. On the face of it, the color wasn't all that discordant with his Earth Alliance officer's uniform, but the color he was showing now definitely was.
Twenty seconds later: "It's safe to breathe now, Commander."
He releases his breath rather explosively. "Agh, I thought I was going to have to puke out and join them."
"You do that here and Murdoch's gang would strong-arm you into cleaning it up."
"True, wouldn't want that." Mu sighs heartily. "Well, two down, one to go, then we wipe Zagato out and ride off into the sunset. Sound good?"
"Sounds very good."
Mu closes one eye, looking at her with a bit of a smile. "Y'know, I get this feeling you're pretty well acquainted with drinking contests, Captain."
"Oh, I have a few tales to tell. Join me for dinner and coffee and I might have to tell them."
"Sounds like a threat to me." Mu makes a slight show of considering it. "I'm in." They take four paces toward the entry to the main corridors of the ship. "Y'know, last time I was in California I heard this strange rumor about 'Dueling Ralfers,' you wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would you?"
Author's Chapter Afterword:
In the face of it, I disliked the way CLAMP handled Caldena's illusion with the shaking ground, to me that seems so much like classic visual overload that would make someone motion sick. Thus, what I did to them. Am I crazy? Yes, this is well documented. Then add to the fact that they were under forced confinement, which is why they ended up with it on them. Not that anyone notably puked on anyone else, but the quarters were too close to avoid it all, so...
And then there is Yzak, who managed to win against Ascot and Caldena, but lose miserably to Inouva. Note that since Ferio is markedly absent from the story right now, but will show up in the season 2 section (after a small break for another zone, hint hint), I had to pick someone else to take Inouva's wrath. Nicol got volunteered by the dice, though Natarle, Umi, Hikaru, and Dearka were also possibles, and even after a fashion Yzak would have counted as well. My take on Fuu's mental here is that she would definitely react badly to anyone being held hostage when wagered against her, but she knows her mission and is not going to give up on that. And, given Inouva's apparent ruthlessness in operations, I figured even with the change of circumstances that would still be how he did the battle, use someone as a hostage to attempt to force her to rescind her attempt to become a knight.
Note that I deliberately made no mention of the status of the Levitator at present; you'll find out soon enough.
Offhand, I am unaware if there are any standing questions, so if you have any, drop 'em in a review and I'll answer them in the afterword of the next story section, if they are unanswered by the next story section.
Next: Lafarga's and Inouva take on the Archangel, and the warriors get a good look at their ultimate foe, Zagato, and Newman finds something out about the ship nobody expected...
Footnotes:
(1): Inasfar as anything can be interpreted here, this is Natarle's musings when wagered against her family, which to me seems as if she has a chunk of the so-called high society in her bloodheritage that is either complimentary to or coincides with the military heritage of her family. Being that Natarle is career military, it goes without saying that she'd likely disdain such arrogant civilians in at least one level, likely more.
(2): Kahlua Mudslides actually happen to be one of my favorite mixed drinks. Normally, Mudslide mix already has vodka in it, just add ice and mix in a blender, but I do mine with ice cream (like a milkshake with horsepower, hehehe) and add kahlua to it for some extra kick. If you want it to have a peppered, kinda chocolaty taste, use cookies 'n ' cream ice cream. This is one milkshake not for people under 21, rest assured.