And now . . . we're in fanfic-only territory from this point onward. Enjoy.
Lord Edric: You don't say . . . XD
Light-Sakura: Things are going to be different from now on. There's going to be many more surprises from this point forward. This is when Bloodlines gets to be its own fic and doesn't follow what happened in canon. I'm glad you enjoy Stellar's debut, thought. I hope that she comes off well.
372259: Glad you're excited. I hope you stay excited. We've got a long way to go here but the familiarity is finally gone. It's time the fic became its own story.
mrs. zala: There's going to be some Gundam SEED Destiny characters either making cameos or playing supporting roles in this one. It's to provide a good bridge of sorts into a sequel if I ever write one. :)
tinylittlerobots: We will meet the druggies eventually, but not here. But we will, I promise. ;) As for Kira/Flay . . . well, if it does happen, it'll be different than canon, I think. Just because of circumstances. XD
DHWGDragonblade: Thank you for marathoning through this mega-fic. :) As for Kira showcasing his pilot skills . . . he'll probably do better than Cagalli did in Gundam SEED, though he would be at a disadvantage because of being a Natural here. As for Lacus and the Eternal and whether she becomes a pilot . . . SPOILER REQUEST. NO COMMENT, lol. ^^;
Here we go!
Chapter Forty-One: Someone, Somewhere
Just as my finger had started pushing the trigger, giving the young blonde girl a half-second to live, I heard a teenaged, feminine voice scream "Stellar! Stop, stop right now! That's an order!"
The girl's knife froze midway through the stabbing motion. "Joan. She's a Coordinator. Doctor Malcolm says we'll all die if she lives. I have to kill her first."
The cold, hollow tone seemed more horrifying than the knife she held in her right hand. I couldn't keep my eyes off it, and I couldn't relax my grip on my pistol, not even for a second. I had no clue if this "Joan" girl would accidentally say something that would set off the blonde girl who was apparently called "Stellar".
Another girl appeared behind Stellar. She was tall, and seemed as old as I was, with straight, red-gold hair and green eyes. Her voice was a little on the deep side, but was smooth, with none of the husky cracks that my voice had. "Stellar. Look at her uniform. Remember your training. What are you, a child or an Extended?"
Stellar's eyes widened just a little. "It's an Earth Alliance uniform. Atlantic Federation. Her rank is that of a 2nd Lieutenant."
"She is not here to kill you, Stellar. She is an ally."
"But she is flying a GUNDAM. Only Coordinators are flying GUNDAMs. We'll die because of the Coordinators, Joan."
This kid was obsessed with death. It would be the most uncomfortable thing about her, if it wasn't for that creepy voice she had put on, the knife in her hand, her resemblance to me, and her willingness to murder me.
"You won't die. You're safe, Stellar." Joan grabbed Stellar from behind and locked Stellar in a bear hug. "You're safe. Calm down. You know I'll keep you safe."
"I'm safe?" Stellar's voice softened, and all of a sudden her eyes turned into something resembling normalcy, with none of the cold intensity they had had when she was about to kill me. "I'm safe. I'm safe. We're all safe."
"That's right," Joan whispered. "You're safe."
Stellar's knees buckled then, and Joan maintained her grip on her. The knife fell out of Stellar's right hand. Stellar muttered "I'm safe," one more time, and, after a moment, she looked right at me.
And then she smiled, her eyes wide with awe.
"You're on our side. What's your name? My name is Stellar. Stellar Louissier. We don't get many visitors here."
"I can only wonder why," I snapped back.
Stellar cocked her head to the left, like a confused puppy. "I don't understand."
"What I don't understand is what you just tried to do," I replied.
Another voice. This one male, but judging from his pitch he sounded like he was Stellar's age. "Sarcasm is one of the things lost on Stellar."
I looked to my left, peering out of my cockpit just a little, and here came a boy with narrow eyes and sea-green hair. He was taller than Stellar, but not as tall as Joan, and he had a lanky body. "There's a lot of things that escapes Stellar's notice. She's not like Joan or myself."
"I don't understand," Stellar repeated, basically confirming the boy's comments right then and there.
"Sting, please don't insult Stellar," Joan said. "She can't help it. Her mind's been messed with, like Auel's."
"If she and Auel would obey orders naturally, their minds wouldn't need to be messed with, would they?" the boy named "Sting" snapped.
Before anyone could say anymore, I heard a jovical, medium-pitched male voice. "Well hello there, Earth Alliance pilot! Your name is Cagalli Yamato, correct?"
Joan had backed Stellar up a little bit, giving me room to step out. I did, but I kept my pistol at the ready. I wasn't ready to let my guard down. This place was too eerie, too messed-up, and seemed a lot like a place Blue Cosmos would have its fingers in. I wasn't going to let myself walk into a trap or allow myself to be disarmed.
"I apologize for Stellar's behavior," said the man. He seemed to be in his early forties, with a brunette hairline that was beginning to recede and a salt-and-pepper mustache. "She's a little too enthusiastic. She's also growing into an expert hacker. A true savant at her craft."
"And who are you?" I asked.
The man chuckled as he walked past Sting. "My name is Jarvis Malcolm. I run this facility. Unfortunately, 2nd Lieutenant, you have happened upon something highly classified."
"Well, jolly gee, I couldn't guess that. This place just looks absolutely welcoming. Makes me all warm and fuzzy and non-secretive," I snapped back. I couldn't keep the sarcasm from pouring out of my voice. I wished my friends who thought I was turning humorless could've heard me. They would've thought I was a riot.
Malcolm let out a soft, humorless chuckle. He clearly did not find me funny. "You are the pilot of the Strike GUNDAM. I was told you might pass by, but I never dreamed you would wash up inside my base. When I saw you drifting through the sea, I had to pull you in. My superiors will be pleased."
"Lovely," I said. "Now call the Archangel so I can get the hell out of here. I don't give a damn what this place is, I just want out of here. Either that or I'm going to hop right back into the cockpit and blast out of here myself. I'll swim to the Archangel if I have to."
"Unfortunately for you, my superiors, as well as myself, give a damn what youare. I can't let that happen," Malcolm said.
All of a sudden, he yanked out a gun and he aimed it right at me.
Joan. "Doctor Malcolm, what are you doing?"
"Something that needs to be done," he said.
I should've figured he was going to shoot me. I raised my pistol right at him. "Like hell!"
But he pulled the trigger first.
Instantly, it felt like my body was falling limp. I looked down towards my chest, where he had shot me, and I saw a needle.
A dart.
That was all I could register before the gun fell out of my hand, before my legs buckled and all I could feel was the cold steel floor.
And then I felt nothing at all.
When I woke up, I was still in my pilot's uniform, and I was inside a small cell. "Wha?" I managed, and I sat up on a plain cot.
Then I remembered everything.
"Okay, what the hell!"
I marched up to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. I started pounding on it. "What's going on here? Why are you locking me inside here? I'm a soldier for the Atlantic Federation, you morons!"
Through the door's thin window, I saw Malcolm's face. "Well, I figured I would know you were awake, but I wasn't expecting it to be so dramatic."
"What's going on, you bastard? Why are you doing this to me?"
"Why do you think?" Malcolm asked, his eyebrow raised. "You're a Coordinator who's stumbled onto a facility that is grooming people to kill your kind. You can't expect us to just let you go."
"What?" I asked. Wonderful, just wonderful. No wonder the kids here weren't all right. They were trained killers, all of them. Or at least killers-in-training. "If you had just let me go, I wouldn't have known what this place was!"
"I couldn't take the chance that Stellar, Joan, or Sting had said something revealing," Malcolm said. "And I can't have your friends over here either. Which is what would inevitably happen if you had escaped. You would lead the Archangel right to here because of your conscience or whatnot. Which might happen anyway, but they'll be off balance if they arrive here. They'll be concerned about you, not about children being trained to kill your kind."
"How do you know I'm a Coordinator?" I asked. "I'm fighting for the Earth Alliance."
"You really don't think that Blue Cosmos wouldn't know?" Malcolm replied. "You were identified by some of our field operatives in the Sahara, after all. And the moment you became a commissioned officer, a file on you was created. Anyone in the right position in the Earth forces can open your file at any time."
Well, that explained a lot. And that explained the rude welcome, too. "Then why haven't you killed me? Your goal is to kill the Coordinators, isn't it?"
"My superior seems to want you alive," Malcolm replied. "He's beyond Blue Cosmos. Until he gives me clearance, I'm not allowed to kill you."
Well, that was a mild relief. At least I wasn't going to die yet. But now . . . the fact that Blue Cosmos, or some aspect of it, wanted me alive suggested something truly insidious. They likely wanted to use me.
I didn't want to say any of that, though, and tempt him into killing me anyway. All I said was a tentative, neutral "I see."
I wanted to change the subject. "Who were those kids? Why were they the first to 'greet' me when I woke up?"
Malcolm chuckled. "You really expect me to tell you that? Though I will explain why Stellar Louissier greeted you first. I and the other personnel were discussing what to do with you, and Stellar overheard that you were a Coordinator. She ran to the hangar and hacked her way through the hangar doors and through your GUNDAM machine. She is showing great skill with her hacking abilities, I could see her hijacking a GUNDAM or any other kind of Mobile Suit someday."
That didn't really help, it just added to the mystery of who those kids were.
"So what are you going to do about me?" I asked.
"I'm going to go find out right now. Sit tight in the meantime. Don't force us to kill you," Malcolm said, and he vanished from my sight in the next instant.
"You really expect me to just sit tight in a Blue Cosmos place?" I shouted, but he did not reply.
I leaned against the door for a moment, trying to figure out my options. I looked up at the vent. It looked just big enough for me to squeeze through, surprisingly enough. Why did they manufacture a vent large enough for a human to crawl through? Especially a human intended to be a prisoner?
Wait. This place was a training facility, wasn't it? Perhaps this cell was also a training room, training how to move around in vents or escaping stealthily from behind enemy lines or some junk.
This meant that this entire place was basically a battle school. And if I wasn't careful, I could become part of "classroom activities". The extracurricular kind.
I didn't have any other choice. The vent, however, was just a bit too high for me to reach, and the cot turned out to be bolted in place.
Of course it wouldn't be that easy.
I heard footsteps, and I immediately scrambled back to sitting on the cot. I saw a pair of green eyes appear from behind the door, and I recognized them.
"You're Joan," I said.
"Joan Memphis," the girl replied.
"Why are you standing outside my door?"
"I want to talk to you."
All of a sudden, the door opened, and Joan entered the room, but only partially, keeping her right foot in a spot to keep the door from closing.
"Why?" I asked.
"I've never seen a Coordinator before. I may never see one again until I'm put on a battlefield," Joan said softly.
"Well, I want to talk to somebody too. Who are you? What's with that schizo girl who wanted to stab me? What is this place?"
"This is the Extended Production Facility, Indian Ocean Branch," Joan replied. "I am what's called an Extended. We're being trained to kill your kind. I have been in nonstop training since I was five years old."
All of a sudden, Joan pulled out a knife. "I want to see if I'm ready. If I'm ready to finally go out into battle. Doctor Malcolm says we're the most ambitious and laborious anti-Coordinator project ever attempted. I must prove I'm worth it. I'm eighteen years old and haven't graduated to the main facility yet. If I don't prove myself, I'll be eliminated."
I didn't fully understand what she was talking about. What I did understand was that she was going to kill me.
In addition to the knife in her left hand was a Taser in a holster on her left hip. In an instant, I saw the only way I was going to get out of this alive.
Joan rushed me, the blade of the knife aimed right for my neck. I grabbed her left forearm and we crashed to the floor, her on top of me, the knife just inches away from my face.
"I . . . I must win . . . I must prove I'm a worthy Extended!" Joan managed through clenched teeth.
With my left hand barely keeping the knife from touching my face, I kneed Joan in the gut and she gagged. With her off balance, I reached with my right hand and yanked the Taser from the holster.
"Good luck proving it now," I said.
I Tased her in the chest and Joan let out a short scream, and then I kicked her so she would fall backwards instead of on top of me. She twitched all over the floor, a manic, soft "I-I-I-I-I-I" escaping her mouth as she thrashed about.
She had dropped her knife, which I pocketed, and I walked past her and tried the door. It seemed Joan's unlocking job had been permanent, I swung the door open with ease.
Joan was only going to be down for a few minutes. Just to buy myself a little bit of extra time, I zapped Joan again, and left her to twitch in my cell as I ran.
My only goal now was to get out.
The Taser was a repeater, about five shots, and I had wasted two of them on Joan. There was no sign of any alarm as I raced through the halls, and ducked inside the first vent I could find, but perhaps a silent alarm had been triggered instead. They would want me off balance, or assuming that they weren't on to me yet. Those were mistakes I could not afford to make.
The vent was not a good fit, but I was able to make it work. Eventually, I wound up above a room, and I heard a very familiar voice.
"Lord Djibril." It was Doctor Malcolm's voice.
A deep, smooth, cultured voice answered. I assumed that was "Lord Djibril". "Doctor Malcolm, I assume that Cagalli Yamato's condition is still stable?"
"Well . . . yes, Lord Djibril. However, one of my Extended candidates apparently decided to try and kill her, and Yamato instead defeated and disarmed her and is on the run. We haven't had the opportunity to chip Yamato yet, we don't know her whereabouts in the facility."
So, they knew I had escaped. I had already expected that, but it made my options much easier.
I stayed silent, scarcely dared to breathe as I remained in the vent.
"Have you checked the ventilation systems?" Djibril asked. "That is a classic manuever."
"I was going to begin that once we were finished with this conversation," Malcolm replied.
Djibril sighed. "Good enough, I suppose."
A pause. "Doctor Malcolm, by all means, take Yamato alive. I'm going to need her for the 'For All' Project."
"The 'For All' Project?" Doctor Malcolm asked. "A Coordinator like Yamato?"
"The 'For All' Project is based off of Project 612, which, I shouldn't have to mention, was taken by the Coordinators twenty years ago," Djibril replied. "You have no idea how important Yamato is, and for right now, I'd prefer if you didn't know.
Once again, it's brought up that I'm really important. Hilda Harken had told me I was important. And now this "Djibril" was saying I was important as well. I was getting sick of people vastly more powerful than me knowing more about me than I did. It didn't help that I didn't know any of these people either.
"Well, what do you want me to do?" Malcolm asked.
"Tell the guards and all the Extended that Yamato must be kept alive unless there is absolutely no choice," Djibril said. "In the meantime, Doctor, I need you to fashion out a life's worth of memories for Cagalli Yamato. I want her completely remade from the ground up. I need her remade. I wouldn't even have invested in this additional facility if I didn't know people like her existed."
Okay. Now they had crossed the line from mysterious to disturbing. It made me want to bust through the vent and kill Malcolm.
"We've never done brainwashing that extensive before!" Malcolm whined.
"Well, you're going to have to. Muruta Azrael won't understand if there's failure, he's too simple of a man to understand something as layered as failure," Djibril replied, his voice still even. "I want Cagalli Yamato believing she is an Extended, and transferred to the main Extended facility at Lodonia in the Mediterranean once she settles down. She is going to be the pilot of the 'For All' Project and obliterate her own kind with it, and never be the wiser."
"And then you'll just have her killed when it's convenient," Malcolm replied.
"It goes without saying, Doctor. After the Coordinators are cleansed off this Earth, we won't have any need for the 'For All' Project, and certainly no need for the last remaining Coordinator. We can simply have controllable, profitable, brushfire wars from that point onward, as it should be . . . and as it always should've been. No innovative society, and no PLANTs."
"Understood, Lord Djibril," Malcolm said.
"Excellent. Now, keep Yamato confined until you have her new life ready for her. Sedate her if you must. Just keep her in the dark as long as possible, and keep the Extended from slitting her throat. Djibril out."
I heard Malcolm sigh, and then he walked away. I knew what was going to happen next. He was going to have people searching the vents for me. I needed to get out of the vents and into the halls. Perhaps I would have to knock out a guard and steal a uniform in order to have any real chance of making it to the Strike and blasting out of here.
Whatever the case, I wasn't going to stay.
I was not going to be drugged up and then transformed into whatever monster this 'Djibril' wanted me to be.
I would die first.
But not without taking as many of these bastards with me as possible.
I crawled out of a vent, and began running down the hall. I knew there had to be security cameras everywhere, and they would immediately spot me, but as long as I kept moving, there was a chance I could stay ahead of the security patrols until I could either get a disguise or otherwise make it to the Strike.
The problem was that I didn't know where I was going.
I made a random right into lockers, and I realized I was in a female locker room, where there was white Extended clothing everywhere.
Well, if they planned on having me believe I was Extended anyway, I might as well pretend to be one. Irony.
I was going to need hair dye or something. Plus give my hair some kind of rushed restyling. Anything to sell the idea that I was not myself, and that I was just a random Extended.
But as I grabbed a bunch of random clothes that lookedlike they could fit me, as I began moving I saw a familiar girl appear in front of me. Like she had simply emanated into existence.
Stellar Louissier.
"You hurt Joan. You could have made Joan die," Stellar said.
She was back to being eerie and murderous. Wonderful. Something told me that orders to take me alive didn't matter much to Stellar right then and there. Something about the word "die" seemed to set her off.
"You could make Joan, Auel and Sting die. My friends. My unit. I have to protect my unit," Stellar said, and I saw that instead of a knife or a Taser, she had procured herself an actual pistol.
I had not come this far to be murdered by a psychotic girl only two or three years younger than I was!
"Damn it, don't you see that this is some kind of stupid battle school? They're making you people kill each other to find out who's the best! You stay here, you'll die!"
The moment I said that last word, I literally gasped. There I went, making the situation worse again. But instead of her eyes narrowing, Stellar's eyes, stunningly, began to soften. "I will die if I stay here?"
Suddenly, I saw an opening. Stellar was simpleminded in some odd ways, and she could be easily manipulated. I wondered if she had been manipulated from team to team her whole life based on people telling her about her chances of survival.
"Yes. Yes, you will die if you stay here. And so will Joan, and so will Sting, and so will Auel," I said. I had dropped the Extended clothes I intended to put on, but I didn't reach for my Taser or my knife. Doing either one would likely result in Stellar attacking me, and then there would be no reasoning with her even if I won.
"I'm scared of dying. I don't want to die. No. I don't," Stellar said. Tears were forming in her eyes. "I don't want to die, and I don't want my unit to die. I want to protect them."
Suddenly, Stellar didn't appear to be a vicious killer or a soldier, but just a scared girl. It didn't help that by sharing the same eye and hair colors as me, she looked almost like a theoretical little sister. Considering all that I heard, the idea popped into my head that Stellar could be a clone of some kind, but Stellar's facial structure was too different for that to be true.
Just like with Hilda, I was going to beat her with words. But maybe more. Maybe I could turn her towards myside, not just break her.
Maybe she would be my ticket out of there.
Maybe . . . all she needed was a hug. I doubted she had too many hugs in this place. Joan was able to calm Stellar down with a hug before, so . . .
So that's what I did. I hugged her. All the while thinking Please don't shoot me please don't stab me please don't shoot me.
"I can bring you and your friends to a place where you'll all be safe. It's called Orb. You won't have to fight anymore. You'll be safe, and you'll live in peace."
Please don't shoot me.
"S-Safe?" Stellar whispered.
"I can promise that you'll be safe," I said. "It's a beautiful, peaceful country. You will be safe."
It was the truth and nothing but the truth. Orb was a peaceful country. They were neutral. It would be the safest place for re-cooperating child soldiers.
"I . . . I want to be safe," Stellar said softly.
Boots. I looked up, and I saw a pair of security guards appear. One of them quickly marched up to Stellar and I. "What the hell are you doing, Extended Louissier? Out of the way! We need to-"
"I want to be safe!" Stellar shrieked, and she turned right around and opened fire.
The lead guard's head had blood briefly erupt from his skull, and before he fell to the ground Stellar had taken off towards the other guard. She aimed and popped the other guard in the head too, and he fell backwards, completely limp.
Two bullets, two headshots, two deaths, and my ears were ringing.
Stellar Louissier was terrifying.
Stellar waited a couple of seconds for anyone else to appear around the corner, then she relaxed. "Please. Bring me to where it is safe, Cagalli Yamato."
I nearly asked how she knew my name, but then again, she had probably heard it either in her orders or offhand or some other way. It would be difficult for her notto know.
I got up, and avoided looking at the dead guards so I wouldn't blanch. "Yes, I will. Show me the way to the hangar."
"Why?" Stellar asked.
"Because in there is how I got into this place," I replied. "And that is how we'll get out of here, and how you'll get to where it's safe."
A small smile came to Stellar's face. "I understand. Please follow me, Cagalli."
She began walking away, stopping only briefly to grab an ammunition belt and submachine-gun from one of the dead guards. She was ready for war to get to this place called "safety".
I just had to hope that she would be focused enough on that task that she couldn't be manipulated away from me.
Because if she was . . .
My fate would be the exact same as the guards she had just shot.
Just a random someone from somewhere, laying with my head split open on the floor.
