Sorry this took so long. I was caught up with writing an original novel, and actually trying to finish the final battle in Bloodlines. Which I finally did. Bloodlines still isn't done, there's wrap-up stuff to do, but the chapters I was writing were so intense that I couldn't really focus on actually posting this fic until I knew the battle was done.
Also, it's my birthday, again, so I should be giving the chapter away like tradition calls for.
Chapter Seventy-Six: Torn
"We need to get out of here as soon as possible," Mu said to us as he began walking away from Rau Le Creuset's body. "Yank the drive he plugged into the terminal. It might be useful."
"I got it," I said and I walked over to the terminal where Rau had his audio horrors blasting out at us while he ranted. I wondered how much of my birth mother was on here, and if she was, whether anything else she said would support Rau's assertion she had co-founded Blue Cosmos.
I had a sinking pit of my stomach that told me Rau had spoken the truth. I couldn't disprove any of what he said, and considering he had some of the same audio files my parents had, it was looking likely at least the majority of the things he had said, and had played, were true.
As I moved to yank it out, however, I heard a voice from the speakers. I recognized it as one of the voices who played right before Flay had rushed Rau, it was the teenaged Ezalia Joule.
"I feel like I made a mistake . . . doing this. Maybe Asta would've been born if I kept her. Maybe she would've miscarried like they predicted. It's hard to think that I'm holding her, and in less than a decade she'll be too weak to stand upright."
A man's voice. "What do you plan to do with her?"
"I'm going to give her the best life she can. I'll make sure she never wants for anything, and give her the best care I can. She's already been punished enough for my mistakes. She'll be loved and cherished until the day she dies."
I heard a soft squeal in the background, and I heard Ezalia's voice again, softer. "That's right, you heard me, didn't you? I love you, Asta. I always will."
Hearing that voice put Ezalia's comments in an even sharper contrast than before. Rau had selectively edited Ezalia to make it seem like she despised her daughter, but then this was in here, proving that Ezaliadid indeed love Asta. Rau had just force-fed a lie into Asta's head to make her do what Rau wanted.
"What was that?" Flay asked.
"That was Asta's mother. I have to get this to Asta before she does what Rau Le Creuset wants," I replied as I ejected the drive from the terminal.
"Let's worry about getting back to our machines first," Mu said, and then he groaned in pain. I looked at his side, and he was bleeding worse than before. It was looking extremely serious, actually.
"How about we worry about your wound first? You're bleeding, badly!" I replied.
"Don't worry about it. What matters is catching up to the girl before she . . ."
I marched over to Mu and put his arm over my shoulder. "Flay, help me out here!"
"Y-Yes, Cagalli!"
With Flay helping me, we were strong enough to help Mu begin walking up the stairs.
Mu chuckled softly. "Stupid kids."
"Maybe we are stupid, but we're your stupid kids, and we're not going to let you bleed to death down here. The moment we get you to a first aid kit we're patching you up, sir."
Mu sighed. "I guess I'm not arguing about that."
"I wouldn't recommend it." I just hoped we remembered how we got in here. The place was an absolute maze.
And it was only a matter of time before Asta would be able to get away.
When we got outside, it was pretty clear what was going on. There was a lot more wreckage than before, I could see, above us, Buster doing battle with multiple ZAFT Mobile Suits, and generally getting the better of them. However, Flay's Astray had indeed gone missing as Rau predicted. Asta had been able to bust through Flay's password and take off in it, presumably towards ZAFT lines.
Flay just sighed as she saw that. "Captain Badgiruel will kill me for this!"
"I'll make sure she won't kill ya," Mu said. "I'm not going to get in Kisaka's way, though."
"Ugh," Flay grunted in response.
We placed Mu in the cockpit of the damaged Strike. "Flay, you're coming with me," I said as we patched Mu up the best we could.
"All right," Flay replied.
"Check to make sure the cockpit still has an operational pressure seal. We're not going to have Mu die on us for something stupid."
"It looks like it still is."
"What do you mean 'looks like'?"
"Um . . . I mean it is! It literally is!"
"You girls aren't making me feel any better right now," Mu said.
"Shut up and take your medicine like a man," I said, and I slammed a painkiller into his arm.
Mu, of course, cried out in pain over that. In hindsight, that was kind of mean of me, but looking back on it, it's actually kind of hilarious. Almost like we scripted it that way.
"All right. We're going to drag the Strike back to the Archangel," I said. "I'm keeping Flay with me because there's more room in the Freedom's cockpit. I was scrunched in the Strike's cockpit with not just one, buttwo other people once, and I don't want anyone else to have to relive that experience."
"Just don't let us get shot," Mu said.
"I won't. See you soon."
I slammed the cockpit shut and ran off towards the Freedom. Flay had patched herself up at the same time, but as she ran off after me, she said "You think we can make it out of here, through that battle?"
"It looks like Buster's finished cleaning up! We should be able to," I replied.
We both got in and I turned the Freedom on. "Dearka! Dearka, can you hear me?"
"Oh, you guys are still alive? What the hell happened in there?"
"We killed Rau Le Creuset. However, he pushed Asta to run off and do something stupid. You know what happened to her? Flay's Astray is missing."
"Yeah, she got the Astray," Dearka sighed. "I couldn't stop her. Been too busy with these guys."
I saw another one of the ZAFT GINNs crash down in front of us and explode. Dearka was defeating them one by one. I admit, after defeating him so many times when I was on the Archangel, it made it easy to underestimate him. He clearly wasn't one for be trifled with.
"I'm running out of power. Care to lend a hand?" Dearka asked.
"I'm taking off now. Hang on."
I shut the cockpit, making sure Flay was firmly nestled next to me, and launched the Freedom into the air. Flay cried out, even with her trying to be somewhat snug, she nearly went flying across the cockpit.
There were two of the GINNs left. I immediately locked onto one as I made it into the air, and I blasted him out of the air, and the two surviving pieces fell towards the ground.
"Got the last one? I have to pick up La Flaga," I said.
"Yeah, I got him."
As I flew towards the Strike, Dearka defeated the last foe in the battleground. I examined the radar, and there was no sign of Flay's Astray. Asta was long gone.
I gritted my teeth. I had to know what Asta was thinking, but I had heard things just as bad, if not worse, from Rau. I wasn't going off all insane and wanting to take revenge on humanity! I wasn't going to take out my pain on everyone! I wasn't going to do what Rau wanted!
Why, then? Why would Asta do this? What made her thought process different than mine?
My birth mother's words echoed throughout my brain as I picked the Strike up. I couldn't believe it. My birth mother would not support this type of hatred. If she did, that meant she'd signed off on things like what happened to Murrue. I just couldn't believe that my birth mother would do these things. Support this kind of evil.
I grabbed the Strike and blasted off then, heading back towards the way we came in. "Dearka, we're leaving."
"I'm coming." A pause. "What happened in there?"
"Rau Le Creuset is dead." I wasn't sure of what else to say. "And the war is about to get much worse."
"Joy."
If Dearka had been in there with us, I doubted he would be so sarcastic.
He would have his chance to hear Rau told us soon enough.
Our coms were able to reach the Archangel as we approached the dock. "This is Cagalli Yamato on GUNDAM Freedom. Rau Le Creuset is dead. Flay's Astray is gone. Mu La Flaga is wounded and the Strike is damaged. Where's your location?"
I saw Natarle Badgiruel's face then in the next moment. "What?!" she yelled.
Mu chuckled. "I thought she'd react that way."
"We're in the middle of a battle situation! We're trying to fend off the Dominion. The Eternal and Kusanagiare dealing with a ZAFT force that's emerged on our flank! Hurry up and get over here!"
Somehow, this didn't surprise me. I felt a pit in my stomach. Just what I needed, more fighting.
"Drop the Strike in our general direction, Cagalli!" Badgiruel yelled. "We need you to try to hold off the Alliance's Mobile Suits. This is a defensive battle, don't get any stupid ideas about attacking the Dominionlike last time!"
"Understood," I said. I wasn't going to attack the Dominion anyway. This battle was going to be hard enough with a passenger onboard, attacking the Dominion with a passenger was borderline suicide.
I accelerated towards the hangar bay and dropped the Strike so it would float inside the bay. Without stopping, I blasted past the Archangel and towards the ensuing battle. It looked like Athrun was fighting the three remaining GUNDAMs of Joan Memphis' little squad by himself.
And he said I was reckless.
"Flay, hang on. This could get bad." I was already feeling fatigued and exhausted. Fighting three GUNDAMs after everything that happened was less than ideal to me. But I didn't have much of a choice.
I engaged my auto-lock and fired at the three GUNDAMs, making them scatter away from the battle. "Athrun!"
"Cagalli? You're finally back!"
"Fill me in on what's going on later. First we have to-"
My thought was interrupted by the Forbidden charging at me like a berserker, its cannon firing at me haphazardly.
"Hold onto something, Flay!"
I dove away from the Forbidden, just as it came slashing at me with its Scythe. Flay was screaming in my ear as I kept trying to dodge it. It seemed the Forbidden had a fixation on me, but when he tried to cut into my channel, I blocked him, as it just sounded like random screaming to me.
My alarms beeped. The Raider was after me too!
I raised my shield and blocked the first salvo from the Raider, and then spun in time to slash the Forbidden's scythe into pieces as he tried to cut me in half. I switched back to the rifle to shoot at the Forbidden as it tried to loop around the edge of the battle zone, but it was moving too fast for me to get a lock.
"I think I should've stayed with La Flaga," Flay said next to me.
"Starting to think that would've been a better idea," I said.
And now here came the Calamity, trying to shoot at me too. They were all targeting me.
This time the Raider tried to cut into my channel, and I could not stop him in time. "There you are! We've been waiting for you! You killed the only hot girl allowed near us!"
Flay, the culprit of the act Clotho was accusing me of, chuckled nervously next to me. I had no idea how to respond to that in words, but I knew how to respond to that in action.
"I think you have better things to worry about!" I fired right at the Raider, scraping him, and forced the GUNDAM to back off.
The Forbidden was shooting at me again. My shield blocked the first shot, but became badly dented and unusable, so I had to ditch it and fly off.
"Athrun! A little help here!"
"I'm engaging both the Calamity and the Raider!" Athrun replied.
That left the Forbidden to me. Lovely.
I fired at the Forbidden's cannon. With both the scythe and the cannon unusable, the Forbidden would lose both of its primary weapons. That wouldn't leave it very much to work with.
He came diving in again, and I fired the machine-guns in the Freedom's head to force him to retreat, flying below me. I fired at the top section of the Forbidden and I saw an explosion erupt, but the Forbidden was clearly still moving. It was not a killing blow, I'd need to land more hits or find something stronger.
"I hit the Raider! That should make it back off!" Athrun yelled.
"I've done the same to the Forbidden." I was sweating buckets in this helmet, I raised my visor and tried to shake the sweat off of me. "Athrun, where's the Dominion's position?"
A pause. "It's trying to flank the Archangel by flying through the debris around the station! It's in close proximity to us!"
Another pause. "Cagalli, don't do something stupid."
"I'm not," I replied as I went through my comm channels. "I'm going to cause a distraction."
That was kind of a lie, but I knew I could not live with myself if I did not at least make the effort to try.
All of a sudden, I was staring into Murrue's scarred face. Flay actually gasped next to me, apparently she hadn't seen Murrue's face with that scar slashing across it.
"Who is this?" Murrue snarled. It actually hurt to hear such a tone from her. That wasn't the Murrue I knew at all.
"You should recognize me, Murrue. My name is Cagalli Yamato. You saved my life."
Her eyes widened. "What?"
"We shared the same ship, the one you've been shooting at, for two months. You were my captain, Murrue. And you saved me on an island in the Indian Ocean, where they were going to drug and brainwash me, just like they did to you."
There was something different in Murrue's eyes this time. It wasn't just anger. It was panic. Was there a hint of recognition there, that she did remember me from somewhere? "I don't know what you're talking about. Someone out there do something about that machine!"
She tried changing the channel, but I knew all of the Earth Alliance channels due to actually being an Earth Alliance pilot, and I found her again within a few seconds. "I know you recognize me, Murrue. I see it in your eyes. You know you've seen me somewhere before. You just don't know where."
"Everyone on that ship tried that trick with me! You think you can do any better?"
She was panicking. She knew. All of a sudden, I had a brief, flighty feeling that I might actually get through to her.
"Why are you so scared, Murrue? Is it because you recognize my face, my voice? Or is it something else?"
"Damn it! What do you think you're doing?"
"You are not Sariel Leighton or whatever name they gave you. You're Murrue Ramius, and I know she's in there somewhere, and I'm giving her a reason to wake up."
"I don't think-"
"Damn it, Murrue! Wake up! You recognize me and you know it! Wake up!"
That's when the channel changed, but it wasn't by Murrue's doing. I was suddenly staring at a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man, who was clearly sitting in some sort of isolated room. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Who are you?" I asked. He was young, with a charismatic, confident tone, like a young entrepreneur. But the sinister way he was conducting himself was putting me off.
"My name is Muruta Azrael. And I know who you are, there's no need for introductions, Cagalli Yamato."
All of a sudden, I was different.
I had found him. My target. The person I had been searching for ever since the first attempt to kill me in Orb months ago.
I saw the seed, and it shattered, and I was ready to kill him, damn the consequences. "Let Murrue go. I'm only warning you once."
"Now why would I do that, and give up the captain of this ship? She's much better off with me than she is with your pathetic little band that can't even fight off a few ships properly."
"Damn you!" I felt the most ferocious anger I had felt in months, and I was ready to kill him. I was going to make a beeline right to that ship and blow it to hell.
"You have no leverage. I know you don't want to kill her, Yamato. She's your precious captain, after all. You destroy the ship, she dies too."
He was right. If I went through with my threat, I would kill Murrue. But compared to the situation she was in now . . .
I wanted to cry, but I focused on channeling my anger. Right at the man I was talking to.
"Who says I won't do that, bastard? Then she won't be your slave anymore!"
I accelerated right for the Dominion, and aimed my rifle at it. Much to my satisfaction, Muruta Azrael's face became nervous. "Aw, crap."
"You'll pay for what you've done to Murrue! I swear it on my life!"
I had only gotten one shot off when I suddenly felt an explosion rock the entire cockpit. Flay screamed next to me, and I nearly lost control of the Freedom.
Alarms were going off. It hit me that I was under attack by the Raider. It was damaged as well, but it was coming for me.
"Stay out of this!" I fired at the Raider, blowing off its right leg and sending it out of control.
"Cagalli, we have to pull back!" Flay shouted.
"No, we're not! Not when I have this bastard right where I want him!"
My engines weren't working right. It seemed I had lost one from the Raider's shot. It didn't matter to me at that moment. I could still maneuver well enough with the ones I had.
Azrael chuckled nervously as I began shooting at the Dominion. I wasn't causing much more than structural damage, but when I got around it and went after its engines. "Well, in hindsight, I'm glad you escaped. You're too angry to be of much use to me. Your captain works a lot better for my purposes."
"You won't have any purposes when I'm done with you!"
I maneuvered around the defensive flak that the Dominion was sending my way. It was getting close, closer than it would have been if I had all of my engines, but I didn't care. I was so close.
"Cagalli, stop!" Flay shouted.
"Shut up, Flay! I'm taking him out!"
That's when another explosion erupted and I lost control of the Freedom. I was sent spiraling away, and I barely got control in time to fly the Freedom away from the new salvos the Dominion was sending my way.
My left leg had suffered intense structural damage, it was barely attached. The alarms were going off with more intensity, and the incessant beeping was driving me insane.
Azrael laughing at me wasn't helping. "You should listen to your friend there, Cagalli Yamato! Did you seriously think your Mobile Suit would be enough to destroy my ship?"
"Shut up! I'm not through with you yet!"
Azrael dared to laugh again. "You just don't get it! I've made your captain into the captain I need! And she's quite pretty at that. Shame about the scar, though. I'll have to convince her to have it surgically removed once the war's over."
What was he saying? That wasn't just 'needs' there, he was talking like . . .
"Oh my God. What have you done to her?" I asked.
"I told you she was mine, Yamato. In every sense of the word."
My heart stopped beating, and the tears finally fell from my eyes and floated away from me.
Every bone, every muscle, every fiber in my body, started to uncontrollably shake.
I lost it.
"You're dead! You're fucking dead, you goddamn bastard! I'll tear you apart until there's nothing left!" I shot at the Dominion uselessly as I tried to force my crippled machine to move. The smug look on Azrael's face was just enraging me more and more.
"How dare you do this! How dare you do this to Murrue! You monster! You murderous piece of shit! How dare you!"
Flay reached across and killed the channel, and then grabbed my arm. "Let go of me!"
"We have to pull back!" Flay shouted.
"I'm not done with him yet!"
"He's going to be done with us! Stop it!"
"I'm not done until he's dead!"
That's when Flay reached across and physically forced me back into my seat. "My suit is compromised, the moment we have a vacuum leak in here I'm dead. The Freedom can barely fly much less fight. Get ahold of yourself, Cagalli! I'm not dying here because of you!"
"I don't care!" I shouted as I tried to struggle.
"Well I do! And so does Kira!"
"Kira?" I asked, as it suddenly hit me. That's right, my brother.
"I'm not letting you get us killed out here and leave Kira all alone! I won't let you do it. I don't care what happens to me, Kira can find another girlfriend, but he only has one member of his family left and that is you! Now turn this thing around!"
I knew. I knew she was right, and I didn't care. I saw the Dominion continuing to move, farther and farther away from me. All I wanted was to keep chasing after the Dominion, but it was pointless and I knew it in my heart. The Freedom just wasn't going to be able to keep going.
"All right," I finally said, weakly as I lost sight of the seed in my mind's eye. "All right. You win."
"Thank you." Flay finally let go of me. "I'm sorry."
"No," I managed. Now the tears were flowing freely, as I finally turned the Freedom around to head back to the Archangel, or the Eternal, I didn't know or cared where at this point.
"I'm the one who should be sorry, Flay."
I set the autopilot to the closest ship, the Archangel, and then I buried my face in my hands and cried.
My memories of the kind-hearted, motherly captain who I had relied on for those months in space and in the desert flashed in front of me. And she was still there, being taken advantage of, being programmed by that snake Azrael. If any remnants of Murrue were left inside that woman, it was a living hell.
And I hadn't gotten Murrue to break free or simply set her free.
Flay's arms wrapped around me. The thought of being hugged by Flay nearly repulsed me, but I couldn't push her away. I had to accept that, just like everyone else, Flay had changed too, and she, for the lack of a better word, had really become my friend. "I know, Cagalli. It's okay."
"It's not okay," I sobbed. "It's not."
I looked at the Dominion one last time before it vanished due to the change in angle.
"It won't be okay until he's dead and she's free. One way or another."
I'm probably going to go back to chapter 61 and edit out the F-bomb dropped in that chapter. I promised myself only one F-bomb in this story, and I wound up dropping it again, heh.
