Cagalli: Looks like we're finally here.

Kira: Yeah the final chapter of the Orb Missions Arc.

Optimus: It is hard to believe that it is finally coming to an end before returning to the main story.

Elita: Well all good things must come to an end.

Cagalli: Yeah especially since we still have much to tell in this story, like how later on during the battle for Orb-

AN: DAH! SPOILER! [hits a button and a safe drops down from the ceiling that almost hits Cagalli who jumped out of the way]

Cagalli: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!

AN: Well I started getting bored with stopping you guys from giving stuff away by just saying "Hey with the spoilers" or something like that, so I just decided to go with something else instead.

Kira: You do realize you could've killed her right?!

AN: Dude relax, this is the Authors Note section of the chapter. You can't get hurt here anymore than a Looney Toon cartoon character can. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before

Everyone but AN: Well...that's a real comfort to know.

AN: Anyways, on with the show, and the final chapter in the Orb Missions Arc. I do not own anything from the Gundam or Transformers franchises.

Chapter 18: Unexpected Finds

Something had been going on with Kira lately, and no one really knew what it was. The young Coordinator had been working harder than ever on the support OS that he was developing for Morgenroete and was not even talking to the others all that much including Bumblebee and Optimus, so it was needless to say that everyone was more than concerned about Kira.

Everyone tried their best to ask him, but Kira just brushed them all off saying he was fine. Even Cagalli and Bumblebee could not get Kira to reveal what was going on with him lately, and Cagalli was the first one to have noticed seeing as his mood change seemed to start around the time that she and Arcee had been on the mission that led them to deal with Airachnid. Jazz had gone so far as to suggest that they ask Flay of all people to ask him what was wrong, yes they were that desperate, but Miriallia shot that idea down when she revealed that for some reason Kira and Flay could not be in the same room together long enough without one of them leaving the second the other had spotted them. In Kira's case he did so quite angrily while Flay seemed like she was just cross and trying to hold back tears as she did. Seeing that they had exhausted all options they had, no one wanted to try and approach Kira directly unless they said something that got him angry at them. No one except for one person that is.

Miriallia was probably the most concerned about Kira than anyone, because she knew one reason why Kira seemed to be upset as well as a possible second reason as well. When the others asked her to tell them though, the brown haired girl kept quiet saying that she did not know for certain on the reasons she suspected and that even if she was right it was not her place to say. Even so, whatever reasons she suspected was clearly more than enough to prompt Miriallia to try and talk to Kira about what was bugging him whenever she got the chance.

Her most recent chance had actually just come up that day. Ratchet had detected a strange reading from an abandoned Decepticon energon mine, and once he had received news of this, Optimus decided that the Autobots should investigate. He then asked for Ratchet to send Bumblebee and Elita One to the coordinates of the reading and decided to allow the two Autobots to bring along a pair of their human friends since it seemed to be a simple surveillance mission. Miriallia immediately jumped at the chance to go on a mission with Elita and then pretty much forced Kira to come along with them, seeing this as a chance for her to get to the bottom of the mystery once and for all.

That was a few hours ago, and now the two friends were waiting outside the entrance to the abandoned mine for Bumblebee and Elita to finish their scans of the caves in a very tense silence, both in civilian attire since they felt that it would be best to wear that instead of an Earth Forces uniform. Kira had elected to wear his old outfit from his time on Heliopolis while Miriallia had decided to wear grey pants, a dark pink shirt, and a white jacket for this mission. Kira could not help but feel that Miriallia's new look suited her much more than the yellow dress she normally wore on Heliopolis, and when he told her as such, Miriallia thanked him with a bright smile, glad that she was able to get him to at least talk to her about something like normal, but it was just about all that either of them had said to each other since the mission had started.

Neither one of them had said much since they had been left at the entrance, mostly because Kira seemed to be more interested in starring off into space or playing with his little robotic friend Birdie than anything else. At that point, Miriallia had decided enough was enough and immediately asked, "Kira what is really going on with you?"

"What do you mean," Kira asked as he lifted his gaze from Birdie to the brown haired girl, confusion evident on his face.

"You know exactly what I mean Kira," Miriallia chided. "You've been working like your life depends on it, you don't even seem like you want to take the time to so much as talk with either us or the Autobots, including Bumblebee who you're closest to, and I know for a fact you didn't go to meet with your parents like the rest of us did the other day. So I'll ask again, what's going on with you lately?"

"Look there's nothing going on," Kira tried to reason. "I'm just really close to finishing the work for Morgenroete and I've been doing some final calculations along with some work for the Strike."

Miriallia shot him with a look as she stated, "Kira please don't try to lie to me. I know you too well for that."

Kira realized that she was right, and then just looked down sadly, as he answered, "I actually don't want to talk about it Mir."

Miriallia then decided to take a gamble and voiced what she thought was going on with him. "Does any of this have to do with your break up with Flay?"

Kira tensed a bit and then looked at Miriallia in surprise. "Don't give me that look Kira. Did you really think none of us would've noticed that you two had ended things? Besides, I was walking to my room that night when I heard Flay crying and she told me that you two had ended things," Miriallia revealed.

Kira's expression then hardened a bit at that. "And did she tell you how it happened," he then asked.

Miriallia shook her head no before saying, "But I'm sure you can still patch things up with each other. I mean it seems like she still cares about you."

"Mir, I'm not sure she ever really cared about me in that way, and besides I'm the one who broke up with her. It wasn't exactly a unanimous decision or a pleasant conversation," Kira revealed.

Now Miriallia was surprised. For as long as she had known Kira, she knew that Kira had a crush on Flay, and to hear that he was the one that had ended things between him and the red haired girl was not what she had expected. "What happened exactly," she finally asked after the realization had sunk in.

Kira sighed as he let Birdie come to perch on his shoulder before telling Miriallia, "Well it all started while you and the others were visiting your parents. Since Flay didn't have anyone to go and see she had remained on the Archangel to do whatever work on the ship that she could do. I had actually gone back to the ship to run some calculations for the support OS and she found me there. When Flay asked why I hadn't gone to see my parents with the others I told her pretty much the same thing I had just told you. Flay didn't believe me, but instead of reasoning with me like you did she just flat out accused me of being a liar, and that's when the conversation really started to go downhill…"

"Liar," Flay shouted as she slammed her hand on the table, shocking Kira and getting him to look up from his work to Flay's angered face.

"What is it? You feel bad for me, is that it? You pity me," Flay demanded.

"No I…," Kira tried to reason, but Flay cut him off.

"Because no one's come to see me, you're feeling sorry for me. Is that it?!"

"No Flay, that's not it," Kira reasoned again as he stood up to face her.

"Oh give me a break," Flay interrupted again. "I just wish you'd stop it. You're putting on this big sympathy act for me but I really couldn't care less."

"Come on Flay," Kira tried again as he reached out to her, but Flay just knocked his hand away as she continued.

"You're the one who's actually suffering aren't you," Flay stated, her tone shifting to that of a mocking one. "You're the one people should be feeling sorry for. Poor little Kira's all alone. You feel bad because you're fighting, and when you can't protect people you feel even worse and then you start crying, either to yourself or your big tough alien freak friends."

"Hey Flay that's," Kira tried to cut in, but the red head just slammed herself against Kira's chest as she started to cry herself.

"So how…how can you feel any sympathy for someone like me," Flay then demanded as she continued to cry into his chest. "How can you even feel sympathy at all when you've got your big tough alien freaks looking out for you. They had no business here to begin with but now they're just trying to act all friendly to cover up the fact they're destroying our world by getting their war mixed into ours. I'm surprised that you can even consider that voiceless loser one your friend seeing as he probably didn't really try to help the people on my dad's ship when one of his own kind tried to threaten-"

Anything more that Flay would have said in her teary rant was cut off when Kira shoved her away and then, to her shock, slapped her across the face. Hard.

"That's enough," Kira shouted, clearly mad. "You and I both know that Bumblebee didn't know your father was on that ship and even if he did, there wasn't anything any of us could've done to stop it even though we were trying our best! So far the Autobots have done nothing to warrant anything you've just said to be said about them, and yet for some reason you just think that they deserve to be treated like the monsters that the Decepticons are."

"Well why shouldn't they be," Flay demanded. "Autobots, Decepticons, they're all the same! They're all just a bunch of alien freaks! They're just as bad as…"

"As what? As the Coordinators," Kira interrupted. That seemed to shut Flay up as she realized that she was about to say exactly what Kira had accused of her of nearly saying. Flay did not know what else to say at that point, but Kira did as he realized that Optimus and Bumblebee were right in their feelings about Flay. "Flay just stop it. Let's put an end to it. To us. This was a mistake."

Flay could not believe what she just heard, and she immediately went from shocked to angry as she demanded, "What did you say? What…what does that mean?!"

"You know fragging well what that means," Kira shouted, the fact he had been spending so much time with the Autobots showing from his use of Cybertronian terms. Flay then just pushed Kira as hard as she could and then ran out, tears streaming down her face.

Kira just stared at the door for a minute with multiple emotions going through him. Anger, guilt, hurt, he was not sure which was strongest at the moment, but right then he did not really care. As Birdie flew up to perch on his shoulder, the only thought going through Kira's mind right then was, Bumblebee and Optimus were right. Flay never was what she had seemed to be, and maybe I should've ended things between us a long time ago.

"…and a moment later Ratchet called to tell me about the mission that Cagalli and Arcee had gone on, and how he had lost contact with them a few hours earlier. I immediately asked to come in so I could help try and figure out what the problem was, but it was also so I could get out of there for a bit," Kira finally finished.

Miriallia would like to say that she was shocked, but then she would have to admit that she was lying. It was no secret to any of them that Flay hated Coordinators so much that one would assume she was a member of Blue Cosmos, especially since she stated that she thought the stance the terrorist group took was not wrong, so it was not that surprising that the red head was not all too fond of the Autobots either, to put it mildly. To be honest, Miriallia was actually surprised that Kira had ended things himself on his own terms, and that Kira actually lost his temper enough to slap Flay, but then again if Flay had said something about one of Miriallia's friends that was anything like what the red haired girl had said about the Autobots, Miriallia would have wanted to slap her too.

"Well I guess that explains a few things," Miriallia softly commented. Kira let out a small sigh, thinking that was the end of it, but he was proven wrong when Miriallia continued by asking, "But there's one thing it doesn't explain. Why didn't you come with us to see your parents?"

Kira looked down again, having hoped that Miriallia would not ask him about that, but he had to answer since she had. To be honest, Kira was not all that sure why he did not go to see his parents, but he did know a part of the reason. He voiced that reason by saying, "If I did meet them, all they would see is a soldier."

"That's ridiculous Kira! You may be a soldier but you're still the same Kira, and I'm sure your parents wanted a chance to see you," Miriallia argued.

"Miriallia, day in and day out I fight battles in mobile suits, and then help out with their development and maintenance. Why? Because I can," Kira continued, like he had not been interrupted. "And as soon as we leave Orb, I'll be going into battle against Z.A.F.T. again. I'm afraid that if I met my parents now, I'd end up asking them why."

"Why what," Miriallia asked, suddenly feeling both sad for the situation Kira seemed to think he found himself in, even though it was technically true, and also worried what the question Kira would want to ask his parents would be.

Kira then paused for a moment before finally saying, "Why the hell did they make me a Coordinator?"

Miriallia let out a soft gasp of shock at this, because as far as she knew, even if she did not know it the whole time she knew Kira, she never once knew Kira to wonder anything like that about himself. To the best of her knowledge, even despite what had recently happened to them all, Kira was more than proud of who he was, but clearly that judgment was wrong. Before Miriallia could say anything, the sounds of large metal feet reached their ears as Bumblebee and Elita emerged from the cave. "The scans aren't picking up the readings that Ratchet detected back at the base, but then again we couldn't go much further in due to the safety limit we had set for ourselves," Elita reported.

Bumblebee buzzed something to Elita about that, to which the dark pink Bot replied, "I know it was so that we wouldn't be too far from the kids, but it's not like that was a bad idea."

"If you're so concerned about us, then maybe we should go in with you so you can get a more conclusive scan," Miriallia called out, getting their attention.

"No way, the caves are…really unstable so it would be a…very, very bad idea for you to come with us," Elita tried to reason. Her reasoning was shot down when Bumblebee started to beep something in a rather indignant tone which led Kira to shoot a small glare at a now sheepish Elita.

"What did Bumblebee say Kira," Miriallia asked.

"He said that Elita was now just trying too hard to come up with a valid excuse not to let us come with them," Kira translated. Now Miriallia was shooting Elita a glare that just said "Really?"

Elita raised her hands in surrender as she stated, "Alright, alright. You guys win, all four of us will go in to get a better scan, but you two stay close to us at all times."

Kira and Miriallia nodded in consent at that and then followed the two into the caves. What none of them knew, was that another four pairs of eyes were watching them as they went in.

"Well isn't that interesting," Dearka commented as he watched the two Autobots enter with their human companions along with Athrun, Dreadwing, and Knockout. "So what do you suppose they're doing snooping around one of your old abandoned energon mines? And just who are those two kids with them," Dearka asked, his first question directed to Knockout and Dreadwing, and his second just to everyone else in general.

"It's hard to say who those two are," Athrun replied, having not gotten all that good a look at the two humans with the Autobots himself. "But we should probably assume that they're with the Legged Ship seeing as any other explanation wouldn't make much sense."

Dearka nodded in consent at that before saying, "Still doesn't answer the question of what they're doing here. I mean this mine was shut down so why are they here? You think they have something to do with the energy signature we detected?"

"Well there's really only one way to find out," Knockout stated as he moved to sit down on a nearby rock. "So you three have fun while I just sit here and enjoy the sun as I keep watch for anyone else who comes around snooping."

Dreadwing then immediately hauled the red medical 'Con to his feet. "You will be coming into the mines to investigate with us, seeing as you were the one who detected the energy signature and your scanning equipment is better for furthering that investigation."

"Oh come on Dreadwing, do you have any idea what all that rock and dirt will do to my finish," Knockout moaned.

"Yeah but that's not much of an excuse for you not to go in Knockout. I mean what's the point of being a soldier in any army if you're not willing to get even a little dirty," Dearka reasoned. Immediately after, Knockout was sputtering reasons why he did not sign up for this kind of thing and doing whatever he could to free himself from Dreadwing's grasp, but all his efforts and reasons only succeed in getting Athrun and Dearka to both laugh at the poor vain 'Con's expense as they all made their way into the caves after the Autobots.

Kira and the others had gone deeper and deeper into the caves of the abandoned energon mine, and the whole time, they could not find a thing down there, nor were they aware that they were being followed. Just when they were ready to call it quits and head home though, the scanner in Bumblebee's hand started to go off and show signs of the same readings that they had detected back at the Autobot base. They then followed the signal further down into the cave until finally they found what the scanners had detected.

The signal was coming from a set of five, large metal pods that Elita and Bumblebee instantly recognized as Cybertronian. There were not any significant markings on any of the pods as far as any of them could tell, but there was something that the two Autobots felt that was strange about these five pods. Kira and Miriallia could not help but wonder what the big deal with these strange pods were, and this led Miriallia to finally ask, "Just what are these pods for anyways?"

"From the looks of things, they seem to be stasis pods, normally used for severe medical conditions, or for preserving life of passengers that had to abandon ship while it was traveling the stars. Megatron sometimes would use these as a way of punishing his disobedient, or insubordinate soldiers as a kind of prison sentence for whatever number of cycles that he deemed worthy," Elita explained.

"So are these guys Autobots or Decepticons then," Kira asked.

Neither Autobot answered, as Bumblebee moved up for a closer look, wiping some of the fog off the glass to get a better look inside. The moment he did see though, he let a trill of shock and backed away. "What is it? What's gotten into Bumblebee, Kira," Miriallia asked, now worried for the scout.

"I'm not sure," Kira admitted. "I heard him say something about combatants or something like that."

"Not combatants, Combaticons," Elita corrected in an ominous tone. "The most brutal of all Decepticon fighting units, and one of their fiercest combiners."

"Combiners," Miriallia asked, not knowing what Elita meant by that since she had never heard the term before.

"Combiners are transformers who can link up with others to form larger and more powerful warriors that take the individual strengths of the separate transformers and combine it all together as one powerful force," Elita explained.

"And these Combaticons are one of those teams for the Decepticons," Kira asked. Bumblebee nodded his head as he gave an affirmative beep. "So then, what are they doing down here in these stasis pods if they're so tough?"

"The Combaticons have a bit of a history with being incredibly insubordinate, and have been confined to the Decepticons' brig on more than one occasion. The only reason they were never imprisoned indefinitely was because unlike most Decepticons, they maintain a loose military discipline and function really well together in battle, almost to the point of possessing an almost friendly working relationship."

"So should we set them free and try to convince them to join the Autobots?"

"Too risky. They'd sooner scrap us all from within than really join us, but it's also too risky to leave them here. We should get them back to base before anyone else finds them." Elita then moved to grab one of the pods, but was stopped when Bumblebee spoke up, trilling something out to Elita.

"What? Are you saying there's others down here besides them," Elita gasped. Before Bumblebee could elaborate, the whole cave began to quake, throwing everyone off their feet, and bringing all Cybertronians, Autobot and Decepticon, and humans, Z.A.F.T. and Earth Forces, face to face with each other.

Before anyone could react to the sudden revelation of being revealed to each other, something burst up from the ground and made its way to the Combaticons' stasis pods. They all whipped their attention around to see a horde of Insecticons were moving to take the pods with them, with Sharpshot guiding the horde. When the oversized bug saw that he and his swarm were not alone, he let out a bug like equivalent of a snarl and started firing at the cave walls and ceiling as he hissed, "Starscream say no witnessezzz."

The four Cybertronians tried to move as quickly as possible to save their human companions, but somehow, they ended up getting separated from the four humans in the confusion, and all ended up being trapped in separate tunnels from each other. Seeing that his efforts to stop his enemies from getting word to their allies seemed to be successful, Sharpshot spoke to his swarm in their unique Insecticon tongue to move quickly, and in no time at all, the five Combaticon stasis pods were brought out of the cave by the massive, robotic bugs. His mission now accomplished, Sharpshot stated with a prideful buzz, "Starscream and Azrael will be most pleazzzed."

Kira groaned a bit as he slowly stood up and looked around to take in his surroundings. The entire section of the cave he was in had been sealed off by the rocks that had fallen after Sharpshot had caused that cave-in, and it did not look like he was going to be able to move those rocks easily anytime soon or even get out of here without doing so. He then turned around at the sound of a groan and saw Miriallia on the ground and struggling to sit up. "Miriallia," Kira cried out as best he could, realizing his voice sounded a bit horse as he did. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I think so," Miriallia groaned again as she managed to get into a sitting position. She then reached up to her head and winced a bit.

"Are you sure? It seems like you might have hit your head," Kira double checked. As he tried to examine the girl's head though, it did not seem like her head had received any injury.

"Don't worry Kira it's not that," Miriallia clarified. She then pulled something out of her ear which was revealed to be a damaged comm. link device that the Autobots had given her. "My comm. link is just broken."

Kira nodded in consent at that and then tried to stand up, using the cave wall as a support. He then tapped his own comm. link to test it out, and upon seeing that it was working began to call out, "Kira to Bumblebee, are you guys okay?" Instead of the scout's usual beeps and whirrs though, all he received was static. "Elita, this is Kira. Do you read me," Kira tried again, only to get the same results. He then sighed and stated, "Looks like there's something in the cave walls that's blocking the signal or something."

Miriallia was getting really worried for both them and their Autobot friends now, and was about to ask if they were going to be okay when the sound of falling rocks reached their ears. Kira quickly moved to try and shield Miriallia with his own body, fearing that more rocks were about to start coming down, but then they heard a small set of the rocks in the wall get pushed lose followed by a voice saying, "You see what'd I tell you? We're home free now and we can…oh no."

Kira and Miriallia then spun around to the source of the voice and saw a young blonde man about their age in a green shirt, dark pants, and a white jacket had emerged from a hole in the rock wall. He was then immediately followed by another young man with blue hair in a yellow shirt, light grey pants, and a red coat that Kira instantly recognized as Athrun. As soon as he and Miriallia saw them both, only one word came to both their minds as they started hoping the two didn't recognize them. "Scrap."

Unfortunately for Kira, the blonde recognized him and Miriallia as well as he whipped out his gun shouting out, "You!"

Miriallia recognized the two men on the opposite side of the cave to herself and Kira and moved to pull out her own energon hand gun, which Elita had insisted that she bring with her just in case, when to her shock both Kira and the blue haired man moved in front of her and the blonde with their arms out as they shouted to both of them to wait. "Give me one good reason, and make it fast," the blonde growled to his companion.

"For starters there's no telling how stable this part of the cave is and this is also an energon mine. Even if it is abandoned there's a chance that if we start shooting at each other in here then we might bring the ceiling down on us again, and this time we won't be so lucky to survive," the blue haired youth told his friend.

"Fine then at least let me take them prisoner," the blonde demanded.

"No you're not going to do that either," the bluenette told him.

"And why not?!"

Kira knew that Miriallia had heard the two talking since she seemed to relax her guard a bit, but not completely, and so he lowered his arms and turned around to meet the blue haired boy's gaze. They simply stood there starring at each other for a moment before Kira finally said, "Hi Athrun."

Athrun could not help the small smile that came to his face as he returned the greeting saying, "Kira. Despite the circumstances, and how we left things the last time we met, it is good to see you again."

Kira nodded in agreement at that, and both the blonde and Miriallia were thrown into confusion, until Athrun turned back to his blonde haired friend and said, "Dearka, this is Kira. Kira Yamato, the pilot of the X105-Strike, and an old friend of mine from before I came to the PLANTs."

Dearka gasped in shock at that, and then threw a glare at Athrun as he hissed, "You knew. All this time you knew who the Strike's pilot was! Why didn't you say anything about knowing that the Natural scum piloting that thing, who also gave Yzak that scar of his, was your old damn buddy?!"

"Because I knew you would react like this for one thing," Athrun half-shouted, cutting Dearka's rant short. "And because he's not a Natural! He's one of us, he's a Coordinator same as you and me!"

Now Dearka was shocked beyond belief at this revelation. So shocked that all he could stutter out was, "But the…the reports…they said that it…"

"The official report was changed by my father in order to avoid an unnecessary uproar," Athrun revealed. "And now you know why I had first tried so hard to try and capture the Strike and its pilot instead of shooting it down. You should know though, I had promised Commander Le Creuset that if I couldn't convince Kira to come back with us, I would shoot him myself."

Now Dearka was really thrown for a loop. To hear Athrun say that not only was the Strike pilot they had fought so hard against actually a Coordinator like them, but also that he was an old friend of Athrun's from a long time ago and that he had made a promise to the commander like that was enough to render anyone speechless, and he was sure that the same could be said even for Yzak if he were here right now. He was so shocked that it was not until Kira was right in front of him with his hand out that he registered that Kira had moved towards him. He just starred at the hand for a moment until Kira said, "Like Athrun said, my name's Kira, and your name's Dearka right?"

Dearka just starred at Kira for another moment before finally accepting the handshake and replying, "Yeah, it's Dearka. Dearka Elsman."

Kira smiled and stated, "It's nice to meet you."

Dearka could not help but return the smile as he told Kira the feeling was mutual. At the sound of a cough though, the three boys turned to see that Miriallia was glaring at all of them and Dearka had to smile as he asked Kira, "So you gonna introduce us to little Miss Cutie over there?"

"Excuse me," Miriallia shouted, clearly annoyed with being addressed by that name.

"Uh sorry ma'am," Dearka quickly apologized.

"My name's Miriallia. Don't call me ma'am either," Miriallia then stated softly.

Dearka was shocked at this and then asked, "So…I can call you by your name?"

Miriallia just scoffed and turned around with her arms crossed as she snapped, "No!"

Athrun looked at Kira in confusion, only to receive a sheepish shrug in return before Kira called out to get Miriallia's attention saying, "Mir, this is Athrun. Athrun Zala, pilot of the Aegis, and an old friend of mine from when my family and I lived on the moon, before we came to Orb."

Now it was Miriallia who was shocked at a revelation. She knew that one of the pilots of the stolen G-Weapons, or Gundams as Kira liked to call them, was an old friend of Kira's, having heard it from Kuzzey when he overheard Kira talking to Lacus back when she was aboard the Archangel, but she did not expect to actually meet that person, let alone to do so in a place like this. She then saw Athrun reach out in a much more shy manner than Kira had to shake hands with her as he said, "It's uh…nice to meet you Miriallia."

Miriallia hesitated for a moment before finally returning the handshake with a small smile and stated, "Likewise."

With all of that out of the way, the four soon started discussing their current situation and working on a way for all of them to get out of the cave they were trapped in.

While Kira and Athrun were having their reunion and introducing one and other to Miriallia and Dearka, Bumblebee and Elita were also having a little reunion, but it was not a friendly one. The two Autobots had run into Dreadwing and Knockout as soon as they had come around, and Bumblebee had quickly engaged the two in a battle of fisticuffs, one that Dreadwing was more than happy to answer. The two had gone at it rather harshly and would have continued had Elita and Knockout not grabbed hold of their respective comrades to hold them back.

"Dreadwing think for a minute," Knockout shouted. "If you keep this up you might accidentally bring the rest of the mine down on us. Unless you're trying to get my finish completely ruined beyond repair."

"Despite the selfish needs of Mister Vain over there," Elita stated, to which Knockout simply grunted. "He is right Bumblebee. Besides, we've got more important things to worry about than a couple of 'Cons. We need to find Kira and Miriallia." She then turned to the two previously mentioned 'Cons. "I assume that goes for you and your own human allies as well?"

Knockout just huffed again as he stated, "I really couldn't care less what happens to those two. If you ask me it's already too late to do anything for them."

Dreadwing grabbed Knockout again as he snarled, "We don't know that yet Knockout."

"What're you talking about?! We both saw them get buried back there!"

"I saw them get separated from us in the cave-in, so until we get more conclusive proof that they are dead, we look for them. Unless you want to report to Megatron that Chairman Zala's son was left behind in a cave without us checking to be certain whether or not he was dead."

Knockout cringed at that and then shook his head saying, "No thank you."

The four then agreed to a temporary truce and moved to look for their human friends after discovering that they were having trouble contacting Kira and the others with their comm. links. The whole time though, Bumblebee kept an optic trained on his active scanner without the two Decepticons knowing that it was pointing to something other than the recently stolen Combaticon pods.

None of the four humans knew how much time had passed since they were trapped in the cavern they were in, but they were quickly running out of ideas on how to escape as all their previous ideas were either unsuccessful or proved to be ideas that they just simply could not carry out. At this point, they were all just sitting quietly thinking of ideas, and the silence was beginning to wear on all of them, even as Athrun and Kira both tried their respective comm. links with still no success.

Deciding to finally try and break the silence himself, Kira turned to Dearka and asked, "So Dearka, do you…pilot one of the stolen Gundams?"

"The what," Dearka asked, his look of confusion matched by Athrun.

"He's referring to the mobile suits you guys stole when you attacked Heliopolis," Miriallia explained, getting the attention of all three boys. "Kira has been calling his own mobile suit that ever since he first started piloting it. I overheard one of the engineers on the Archangel say that he got the idea from the main OS's startup screen."

Athrun looked at Kira for clarification, to which Kira nodded in confirmation of what Miriallia had said and then stated, "The point where the OS's full name appears. You know, General Unilateral Nero-link Dispersive Autonomic Maneuver system. Take the first letter of each of word and you get Gundam."

"Huh, you know I never noticed that until now," Dearka chuckled.

"I did notice in passing, but didn't really think much of it so I just ignored it normally," Athrun said with a chuckle of his own. "You know we should probably tell Nicol and Yzak about how we've all been piloting Gundams when we get back."

"Yeah no kidding." Dearka then gained a serious face as he stated, "Yeah I'm the pilot of one of those Gundams. To be more specific, I normally pilot the Buster."

Kira smiled at that as he stated, "Well you're actually a pretty good shot when you're in that thing. Trust me I should know since I've had some really close calls avoiding those shots."

"Thanks, I think," Dearka replied, not entirely sure it whether or not that was a compliment, but still laughing a bit along with Kira, Athrun, and even Miriallia eventually.

They were all brought out of there laughter when a robotic voice called out, "Birdie. Birdie?" They all turned to see that the call had come from Birdie who had been flying around the cave without anyone noticing and just landed on Kira's shoulder.

"Well how about that," Athrun smiled. "You really do still have it."

Kira looked at Athrun in confusion, as Athrun clarified, "Lacus told me you still had Birdie and I couldn't really believe it at first. Glad to see that you do still have it and you seem to be taking good care of him."

Kira smiled and would have told Athrun something at that point, when Miriallia suddenly gasped in shock gaining everyone's attention. "That's it! Maybe we can use Birdie to help get us out of here," Miriallia exclaimed.

The boys were all still confused until Kira caught on to what his friend was saying. "She's right," Kira exclaimed in excitement. "Birdie can fly up through some of those openings and then lead Bumblebee and Elita One to us."

"Right, and Birdie already has a memory chip that records everything it sees and hears so that it can learn and adapt to his surroundings and familiarize itself with safe and friendly places and people," Athrun suddenly remembered as he walked over to Kira and reached out for the robotic bird to jump into his hand for a moment, which Birdie happily did. "All we have to do is add a little video projection system in so that we can send them a message that they will understand."

"And then we're out of here," Dearka finished. Athrun quickly went to work making the necessary modifications to Birdie and as soon as he was done, he handed the little robotic bird back to Kira, who then let his little friend record a message to Bumblebee and Elita.

Once he had finished, he held his hand up high and said, "Okay Birdie, go and find Bumblebee and Elita."

With that said, Birdie immediately took off and flew out of an opening in the rock wall that had imprisoned the four, and began his mission to find the two Autobots. After watching Birdie fly out of the cavern, the four humans all sat down and decided to wait, and once again began making whatever small talk that they could in order to pass the time until their rescuers came. The whole time Kira smiled at Athrun as he stated to his old friend a short while later, "You really haven't changed a bit Athrun."

Athrun smiled at Kira for that comment, and the four immediately fell into a comfortable conversation as they waited.

The four Cybertronians were really beginning to feel their patience wearing thin in their search for the four humans, and it did not help matters that they had to do so with their archenemies' help, for lack of a better word. Every few minutes or so came with a smart remark or insult from one or the other and resulted in the one it was directed at feeling the need to rise up a bit and respond in kind to said remark. This was mostly between Knockout and Bumblebee, as Elita and Dreadwing were able to contain themselves enough to not let themselves get too far into doing so before becoming focused on their task once again.

Eventually though, the little game of banter was starting to come to a head. "While I do admire your courage and admit that I find you a worthy rival in the depart of vehicular speed, I would never allow myself to let my enemies rob me of my voice box like you, Scout. I can hardly imagine what the universe would be like without the sound of my majestic voice."

"I'm sure they would be as grateful for the silence that loss would give as it would be for the end of that fragger Starscream. Besides, I may be unable to use my own voice, but at least I don't worry over my appearance as much as a school girl," Bumblebee retorted.

"Why you little gold bug!"

"Half-baked medic!"

"Prime fan-boy!"

"Kiss up!"

"Both of you shut it," Elita shouted, getting everyone's attention as she indicated a wall. "You all might want to take a look at this."

The three looked to the section of the wall that Elita had pointed out to them, and saw that instead of a rock wall, there was actually an ancient Cybertronian data slab. Upon closer examination, Knockout gasped in shock, "By the AllSpark! This is some of the formula for…"

"Synthetic energon," Elita finished, having understood the formula just as well herself.

"You mean with this we wouldn't need to rely on normal energon and be able to keep going for Primus knows how long," Bumblebee asked.

"Theoretically yes, but there is one small problem," Elita stated. "This is only a piece of the formula, and there's no telling what the rest of it is without months, if not years worth of research, assuming the rest of it isn't buried down here with it."

Knockout was about to say something else on the matter when all their attention was diverted by a strange sound. The all trained their audio receptors for it and then heard something calling out, "Birdie!"

Bumblebee instantly recognized that sound and turned to see the familiar yellow and green robotic bird flying towards them, and then land on his arm as he raised it up for Birdie.

"What is that? A robotic replication of one of this planet's life forms," Knockout asked.

"And it's also a sign that Kira and the others are all right," Bumblebee exclaimed. Birdie started jumping around on Bumblebee's arm as he seemed to indicate he wanted the Autobots and Decepticons to know something.

"What is it? What's he trying to tell us," Elita asked. Birdie then jumped and spun around as one of his eyes started to glow and then it projected a holographic image of Kira, Miriallia, Athrun, and Dearka standing together in a cavern.

"Bumblebee, Elita, it's Kira! This is our location, and we're here with Athrun and Dearka, a couple of Z.A.F.T. pilots. Don't worry we're all fine, but we could only get in touch with you by sending Birdie with this message. He can lead you guys back here just hurry," the message said before ending.

"Well that explains why they haven't tried to call us," Elita stated.

Dreadwing nodded in agreement before turning to Birdie and saying, "Alright uh…Birdie. Lead the way to Athrun, Kira, and the others."

"Birdie," Birdie replied as he leapt off Bumblebee's arm and flew back in the direction he came, the two pairs of Autobots and Decepticons quickly following after him, with Bumblebee and Knockout in vehicle mode, and Elita and Dreadwing just running through the caves on foot. Neither one of the two Decepticons had noticed Elita had stayed back for a moment to plant a small explosive on the information slab.

Another long silence had fallen over the cave, as any conversation between the two Z.A.F.T. pilots and Kira and Miriallia had come to a halt. They all had a pretty good laugh at Dearka's expense when he got Miriallia mad enough to actually threaten him which caused the blonde to back off in fear, but things had quickly fallen into a comfortable silence afterwards. Miriallia then decided that now was as good a time as any to tell Kira something important that she wanted to say earlier.

"You know Kira," Miriallia stated softly. "If you did get a chance to see your parents, I'm sure they wouldn't care if you were a soldier or if you were just a crewman, so long as you were still alive. I know that the fact you feel like you'd want to ask them why they made you Coordinator is a scary thought, but I don't think it really matters all that much, because I think that, maybe they thought it was for your own good. I know a lot of good parents want their kids to do well in life and maybe one day surpass them, so maybe that's why they made you Coordinator, so you could do that. I'm not saying that is the reason, but you shouldn't let that keep you from seeing your parents again if you have the chance."

Kira looked at Miriallia in shock for a moment, before his expression became thoughtful, and before he or the brown haired girl could say anything Athrun spoke up saying, "Let me guess, Kira's getting himself absorbed in a lot of work so that he will be able to have a reasonable excuse to avoid something he doesn't want to face right?"

Kira and Miriallia spun to look in Athrun's direction, and saw Athrun had a knowing smile on his face as he finished saying, "I guess I'm not the only one who hasn't changed a bit huh Kira? Looks like you're still the same as ever."

Kira smiled in thanks for that, and felt that he and his friend may actually be able to resolve things soon enough, just like Optimus had said they might be able to. The moment between the two was interrupted when Dearka stated to Miriallia, "Well pretty, smart, and insightful. You're really something else you know that?"

Miriallia was about to tell Dearka off again when Kira cut in stating with a smile, "Yeah and her boyfriend knows that really well too."

The resulting reactions were what he had expected, as Dearka gained a shocked expression and Miriallia blushed bright red. The two were instantly stuttering, Dearka in an attempt to apologize for his obvious flirting, and Miriallia as she tried to insist that she did not have a boyfriend, but she knew that Kira was right. Kira knew that she knew he was right and continued saying, "You know I heard he's actually volunteered to pilot one of the Sky Graspers, so I guess that just makes him seem all the more tough huh Mir?"

Miriallia was about to say that it just made her want to scold him for doing something that he knew would get her worried, but stopped herself for two reasons. One being that she knew that she would be playing right into Kira's hands if she did, and the other being because there was a sound of rocks being moved. A moment later, a large amount of the rock wall was moved away, and revealed the kind, concerned face of Bumblebee, who buzzed out a question to the four.

"We're all okay Bumblebee," Kira replied. "And thanks for coming."

Athrun and Dearka both raised an eyebrow at Kira wondering how he was able to understand what Bumblebee had said as Bumblebee buzzed what everyone who could not understand him assumed to be a your welcome. A short while later, Kira and the others were helped out of the cavern by both the Autobots and the Decepticons and now the two sides were squaring off with each other, trying to figure out what they should do.

Finally, Athrun coughed to get everyone's attention. "We came here to investigate a strange reading and found what had caused it. We never encountered either the Autobots or the crew of the Legged Ship."

Kira nodded in acceptance of that, an action that was copied by everyone else as well, and the two sides turned to part ways. Just a moment later as Kira, Miriallia, and the Autobots were parting ways, Dearka called out to Miriallia and said, "It was…uh…it really was nice to meet you."

Miriallia stared at Dearka for a moment before smiling and saying, "Likewise…Dearka."

With that, the Autobots and the Archangel crewmembers parted from the Z.A.F.T. pilots and Decepticons, never once showing that they were actually heading to another part of the cave, which was where Bumblebee had picked up the strange readings he had detected earlier when they first encountered the Combaticons.

After parting ways with the Autobots, the Decepticons returned with Athrun and Dearka to retrieve the portion of the synthetic energon formula, only to discover it had been destroyed. "The Autobots must have planted an explosive on the slab when we weren't paying attention," Knockout snarled.

"A well played move Elita One and Bumblebee," Dreadwing muttered softly.

Then Dearka spoke up saying, "Well it's their loss, because they didn't see that." The other three turned to see that Dearka had found the other half of the synthetic energon formula, causing Knockout to smirk in excitement since they were now even with the Autobots in the sense that they each now had one piece of the formula that may lead to a major change in the war for Cybertron.

"What about the fact that an Insecticon made off with the Combaticon pods," Athrun then asked.

"It can only mean that a certain fly has started to build up on his plans for usurping power from Lord Megatron," Dreadwing stated. "And that means we should be ready for anything that may come from both the Autobots and Starscream."

Athrun nodded in agreement at that, and moved to help Dearka and Knockout move the slab so they could get it back to the Nemesis.

Later that same day, Azrael watched as Starscream opened up one of the pods that the Insecticons had brought back. As soon as he did, a large Decepticon with broad shoulders, large hands, arms, and legs, and a face that had a visor instead of eyes stepped out with a groan. As soon as this 'Con laid eyes on Starscream, he snarled, "You!"

"Yes it is good to see you as well after so long Onslaught," Starscream began, but was then cut off as Onslaught slammed the Seeker into a wall.

"Yeah, because last time I saw you, you were about to imprison me and my team just because we were able to salvage an operation that you screwed up from the get-go in one of your bids to steal power from Megatron!"

"Well, I won't deny that I may have let my anger get the better of me at the time, but look what standing with Megatron got you. Thrown into stasis pods that were then flung across the galaxy to this planet here, only for me to free you from said prison," Starscream reasoned.

That seemed to calm Onslaught down a bit as he let Starscream go and asked, "Your point?"

Starscream brushed himself off a bit as he replied, "I'm more than willing to release both you and the rest of your team from stasis if you agree to follow me and my new business partner in a special operation."

The two then continued their conversation in hushed voices that prevented Azrael from hearing what they were saying, but soon enough, it seemed Starscream was able to get Onslaught to agree to the Seeker's proposal. Shortly after, the remaining four Combaticons were freed from stasis, which allowed Azrael to note that while two seemed to be ground based, one of which being clearly meant for heavy artillery, the other two seemed to be aerial based.

"Director Azrael," Starscream then announced, getting the blonde man's attention and indicating each Combaticon. "Allow me to introduce the Decepticons' fiercest strike force and combiner team, the Combaticons. Blast Off, Vortex, Swindle, Brawl, and their leader Onslaught."

"Hey Azrael," Swindle then called out before Azrael could say anything. "Starscream may believe you can be of some kind of benefit to us, but as a business man myself, I want to know just what kind of benefits those would be."

Azrael then smirked as he snapped his fingers, and a set of lights snapped on drawing the Combaticons' attention to what said lights were illuminating. What they saw caused them all to gasp in shock and then smirk in excitement at what this could mean for both them and Starscream's plans.

"I trust this is enough to convince you," Azrael asked with a smile.

"Oh yeah," Swindle replied with an excited, twisted grin.

Around that same time, Elita and the others had returned to Autobot base with four stasis pods in tow, which Ratchet confirmed to be the type used for emergency escapes and as Autobots. Later on he confirmed that they were the escape pods for an Autobot ship that was carrying one of the Autobots' toughest combiner teams, but as to why only four were there, no one knew. What really raised their spirits though, was that Birdie had been able to record an image of the synthetic energon formula piece that Bumblebee and Elita had found and Ratchet immediately set to work on figuring out the rest of the formula as he memorized the piece they had.

Optimus approached the team that had brought back such great finds and stated, "I am truly grateful that you were able to retrieve both this piece of the synthetic energon formula and our four long lost friends while also keeping them out of Decepticon hands. I am certain that Silverbolt and his team will forever be grateful to you as well."

"Silverbolt? Is that the name of one of those Autobots," Kira asked, indicating the pods as he did.

"Yes indeed young Kira," Optimus replied with a smile. "And he is by far one of the bravest Autobots I have ever known, for simply having to have conquered his fear of heights in order to ensure that he and his team were able to be the most effective in battle."

Kira smiled in excitement at the thought of being able to meet Silverbolt and his team one day, and hoped that somehow they could find the missing member of Silverbolt's team as soon as possible both for the sake of said Autobot team, and for the sake of ensuring they were ready for whatever the Insecticons, or whoever they were working for, were planning to do with the Combaticons. He then turned to Miriallia and the others and said, "Sorry guys. I'd love to stick around, but right now I've got somewhere I need to be, and some people that I need to see."

Miriallia and the others, save for Bumblebee who transformed and drove Kira out of the base a moment later, all looked after Kira in confusion, before Miriallia realized what Kira meant by that and smiled happily after him.

A few hours later, Kira arrived at Lord Uzumi's office, having been escorted there by Cagalli after Bumblebee dropped him off at the door, and knocked on the door. When he was told it was okay to come in, Kira did so and as soon as he saw two very familiar people in the room with Lord Uzumi, he smiled happily and said, "Hi Mom. Hi Dad."

As soon as Kira had said that, his parents immediately ran over to him, and gave him a huge hug, his mother crying happily at finally seeing her boy again as she did, which Kira happily returned. While that was going on, Cagalli and her father immediately left the room to give the Yamato family a moment alone to enjoy their reunion. Once both parents and son had finally released one and other from their hug, Kira's parents immediately began asking him about how he had been and what had happened to him, and Kira was more than happy to tell them everything, including about how he had met with Athrun again after so long, and how he met his newest best friend, Bumblebee.

It was around sunset when Kira had finally presented the finished support OS to Miss Erica and they had tested it out with great results, and Kira was more than ready to finish up some maintenance on the Strike before returning to the Archangel to get some much needed sleep. After the day he had, Kira felt that he really deserved to just collapse on his bed before the Archangel headed out the following morning, but Birdie seemed to have other plans as he flew off to who knew where. Kira immediately chased after his little robotic friend not knowing where he had gone too.

What he did not know was that Birdie had sensed an old friend just outside the factory and had flown off to see him again. As soon as Birdie was in sight, Athrun raised his hand and Birdie immediately landed on said hand, drawing the attention of the entire Zala team and Knockout and Breakdown, though the only other ones who recognized the little robot bird were Dearka and Knockout, and they both knew what that meant.

Athrun then looked up see Kira running out of one of the buildings on the other side of the fence that surrounded the Morgenroete facility calling out for Birdie, and immediately started walking over to meet Kira at the fence. When Kira saw this, he immediately did the same, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Cagalli as she was passing by and saw the exchange that was about to happen.

After a moment of simply starring at one and other, Athrun extended the arm with Birdie perched on it towards the fence, holding Birdie up to Kira and asking, "Is this yours?"

Kira looked down at Birdie for a moment, seeing that Athrun was trying to hide the fact he knew him with a small act and then played along with said act saying, "Yes. Thank you."

Birdie then jumped from Athrun's hand and into Kira's waiting hands, and Kira then looked up from the little robot to his friend with a gaze that was similar to the look he gave Athrun when he first gave Birdie to Kira. Athrun then turned to move back to his friends and tell them that it was time to leave when Kira remembered what he wanted to tell Athrun earlier in the cavern and called out, "An old friend gave it to me."

That immediately grabbed Athrun's attention and he turned back to Kira as he continued on by saying, "It's a very valuable gift from a valuable friend."

Athrun gave Kira a small nod in understanding as he replied with a simple I see and then continued to walk towards Knockout and Breakdown, who already had nearly the entire Zala team aboard, sparing just one last glance towards Cagalli as she called out to Kira. The entire time neither of them noticed that Jaylen was watching the exchange the entire time and had let out a small smile by the end as she figured out exactly what had just happened and who Kira really was. The only other person to know this was Dearka, who let out a hidden smile of his own at the exchange between the two friends and at the fact he felt like he just saw a piece of Athrun and Kira's history being played out before him.

As soon as Athrun climbed into Knockout with Nicol and Jaylen, he could not help but feel sad at what would happen as soon as the Legged Ship revealed itself from the Orb waters tomorrow, and feel fearful of what would happen in the battle that was sure to come.

AN: Well this has been just great, getting to write the chapters here in the Orb Missions Arc. I almost wish I could've done more, but then I would've just been doing a bunch of filler stories that wouldn't have had much impact on the plot, and as you could probably tell each chapter in this arc had a major overall plot point to it. If you can't figure out what those plot points are then you need to go back and read the entire Orb Missions Arc again.

Kira: Hey lyokoMARVELanime? I was actually looking over some of the earlier drafts for this chapter, and it looks like there was a pretty interesting scene between me and my parents that even included the Autobots. Why wasn't that put in here for the final draft of the chapter?

AN: Well I honestly wanted to put that scene in, but then I felt that if I did that the chapter would've been too long, and I also liked how I had ended the reunion between you and your parents so I decided to leave it at that.

Optimus: Still it is a shame that the readers will not be able to read such an interesting and entertaining scene from this chapter, or the one from a previous chapter that would have brought a small amount of humor.

AN: Well I am actually thinking of doing a small collection of one-shots that are actually deleted scenes from this story, but that may come after I finish with this story at the latest so that's something to look forward to.

Elita: How'd you come up with the idea of having Kira and the others use Birdie to find me and Bumblebee anyways?

AN: Well that's partially because I wanted Birdie to have a more active role at least once in this story beyond just being a symbolic gift of Athrun and Kira's friendship, and this was what I came up with. The idea itself was actually based on the Transformers Armada version of Laserbeak.

Cagalli: Yeah I guess that makes sense. Still I gotta say, that flashback scene where you show Kira and Flay's breakup and redo it so that Kira actually slaps Flay is pretty impressive.

AN: Yeah well I'll be honest, every time I watch that scene in the anime, I always find myself nearly screaming at Kira to slap the girl, and show of hands who hasn't wanted him to do that? And for those of you that actually like Flay and Kira together don't count.

Kira: I can understand that. So I guess we should expect the next chapter soon?

AN: Actually, no probably not. I may or may not take a small break for a bit for the holidays so if I don't post something before the new year rolls around, that would be why. You know spending holidays with your family and loved ones instead of with your computer and all that.

Optimus: That is most certainly an idea and a tradition of your human holidays that I can agree with and enjoy along with you. [Holds Elita One's hand in his as they both smile at one and other.]

Kira: And now I feel lonely.

Cagalli: Uh Kira, you do know you still have Lacus right?

Kira: [smile before looking around for a safe] What isn't that a spoiler?

AN: Uh no. Everyone knows that even in a number of Fanfictions, to the best of my knowledge, you're gonna end up with Lacus anyways so...

Kira: Fair enough.

AN: Anyhow, onto the preview for the next chapter!

The Omega II and the Archangel head out once again, leading Athrun and Kira into battle against one and other once more. What is going through the minds of the two as they find themselves forced to fight with each other once more, and how will Athrun be able to deal with things when another person other than Dearka reveals that they know at least some of the secret about himself and Kira? As Optimus and the Autobots engage Dreadwing and the Decepticons in a new battle stronger than ever alongside Kira and the Earth Forces ship the question remains, will the two sides be able to survive the next battle, or will they all come to find themselves facing yet another tragedy on the battlefield? Next time on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Prime…Chapter 19: The Next Turning Point. Carefully ensure that the Gundam knows when to swing that sword Autobots!

Please read and review and I'll see you next time!

Everyone from the entire cast so far: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!