Author Note: My apologies for being so long between chapters... almost a month longer than I thought it would be. My leave was great... my new work is not. I work twelve hour days, monday through friday. Soon I'll be doing rotating shift work... which means twelve hour days, but sometimes those days start at midnight or the afternoon or the morning... it just depends. In any case, I'll try to keep writing, but I'm pretty tired most of the time... have to sleep and eat and do other stuff too. I'm continuously glad for the great reviews I continue to recieve... its for those kinds of reviews that I keep posting. The only thing I want is more reviews... I'll try to publish more chapters so you have more to review. Thanks. And enjoy.
Cray and Frost made an odd pair, Ashino thought as he watched them approach. They were upside down for one thing... or maybe that was just his position, since he was lying down on his back, head canted way back on the rough ground... he found it hard to tell because his vision was spinning and gyrating and fuzzing in the most upredictable of manners. Clearly he'd sustainted some fairly serious cranial damage from the headbutts, kicks and punches he'd both inflicted and endured during his fight with Athrun. He was designed to resist damage, especially blows to the head, which were among the most common form of pilot injury, but design could only go so far... even if his skull had been solid armor plate he would have been rattled just from the transmitted force of the blows. Ashino chuckled, tasting the metallic flavor of the blood clots on his lips... not just coppery but spiced with several other metals due to the artificially purified and oxygenated and mixed blood that he and every other BCPU had flowing through their veins. It had been a very long time since he'd last lost a fight... probably since that time he'd been ordered to fight Frost. And that hadn't really been much of a fight... Ashino had known going into that test that his opponent was faster, stronger and wholly nastier than he was... three factors which combined to have the test ending within the first minute and Ashino laid up for a half month in the infirmary afterwards. Ashino was still smiling when Frost and Cray stomped over and stood staring balefully down at him. Cray especially had a twisted look of hatred on his features... he apparently didn't appreciate Ashino sending him on a wild goose chase very much at all. Frost for once looked calm... almost blissful. And he wasn't even soaked in blood... this sent a small alarm bell ringing in the depths of Ashino's mind. Frost was never calm and quiet... not unless he'd just inflicted a lot of pain and suffering... and he currently wasn't messy enough for that to have happened.
"Hey, brothers... how goes it?" Ashino asked with a half smile, his eyes blinking open and shut slowly. He could make out their faces easily enough... Cray's snarl... Frost's bemused smirk... but the rest of them was just a blur, mixed in with the ground and the sky in a swirling pattern which hurt his head when he tried to comprehend it... he plainly had a concussion... a serious one that would need attending to before he could even consider any sort of physical activity, much less flying into battle. That might queer good old Asmodeus's battle plans a bit... Ashino grinned slightly wider... the icy eyed son of a bitch would likely shit a brick when he found out. Ashino hoped he'd be coherent enough to hear and enjoy it. Hell... he hoped he'd be alive... from the look on Cray's face that was not an assured thing by any means.
"You... you midget bastard prick slimeball!" Cray hissed, reaching down with one lanky arm to grab Ashino around the neck. With little apparent effort Cray lifted the much shorter but broader Ashino off the ground and held him at shoulder height... Ashino's feet swung more than eight inches off the ground. Ashino grimaced crookedly at his peer.
"I take it you figured out they weren't going to the armory, eh?" Ashino asked snidely.
"You tricked me!" Cray accused, as if that wasn't already obvious. "I was convinced they'd sneaked past the armory guards... they nearly shot me full of lead before Frost showed up and took them down."
"In my defense... you allowed yourself to be tricked, Cray. You let your pride and hubris blind you to good tactics and common sense... how could they head for the armory if they didn't even know where it was?" Ashino retorted contemptuously.
"Oh, yeah... you think you're a real barrel of laughs, don't ya, ya red haired dwarf?" Cray squeezed Ashino's neck hard enough to cut off the airflow through his strengthened windpipe. "When the Doc hears about how you let the prisoners go...oh man, I can't even imagine what he'll do to you. Sorry won't even begin to cover it, I'm sure." Frost laughed... a short and bitter explosion of mirth. Cray frowned and looked down at the green haired monster. "What's so funny, man? I tell you, I'm in a real bad mood here, Frost... real bad. I might just snap the dwarf's neck right here and now... no reason the Doc should have all the fun."
"Your mood is of no interest to me, stickman." Frost replied. "If you're going to snap his neck, get it over with already. Every moment we delay is one more moment they have to get farther away." Frost looked around and studied the ground... noting the small spalshes of blood and stirred up ground and broken branches that marked the areas where Ashino and Athrun had fought. Frost leaned down and wiped some blood off of a leaf, rubbing it between his fingers and licking his hand speculatively. Frost looked over casually at Ashino, hanging limply in Cray's grasp... there was little point in fighting when he was already worn out and concussed... especially since Cray was both stronger and faster than him anyway. "You have a fight with one of them?" Frost asked. Ashino rolled his eyes at him and grunted... all he could manage past the slowly increasing pressure Cray was exerting on his larynx. "Hold off a minute, Cray... I have some questions for our rebellious little brother." Frost ordered... smiling slightly at the irony... considering Frost himself was the greatest rebel present, having killed Doc... and was also the shortest by several inches, by all rights Ashino could call him the "little" brother. Cray squeezed a slight bit more and then dropped Ashino to the dust.
"You're lucky, red dwarf. You might have some stuff you can tell us... and anyway, I want to watch the Doc take you apart... I've never seen him disassemble someone as advanced as you before... it ought to be pretty instructional, I think." Cray said venemously, adjusting the straps of the weapons he had "borrowed" from the armory after Frost had silenced the guard's protests. It had been like a kid in a candy store with an unlimited shopping spree card... he usually didn't get to choose his own weapons and he might have gone a little overboard... but it was better to give than to receive... and he had a whole lotta giving to give out now. Frost ambled over and stamped his foot down on Ashino's lower left arm, pinning it to the ground by the side of the road.
"Hurting me is not necessary... I will of course provide you with whatever information it is in my power to give you, Frost... you know we're conditioned that way." Ashino said quietly, looking from his trapped arm to Frost's face. He made no move to jerk away... it would be a pointless wasted effort anyway.
"It may not be necessary... but consider who you're talking to." Frost said with a wry smile. "If you have anything you might be feeling guilty about and want to spill... well, the faster you sate my interest the quicker I'll leave... and the quicker I leave the less damage you'll suffer. You can begin talking any time." he started to grind his foot down, slowly crushing Ashino's arm into the ground.
"Specific questions would help... unlike you my conscience is quite troubled by many things... few of them relevant to the here and now... if you were to listen to me unburden all my worries and sins, we'd be here days from now at the least." Ashino retorted, forcing himself to ignore the stabbing pain in his arm. He stared stonily up at Frost's face, forcing himself to ignore the blurry world around him.
"Disturbed with working conditions... you should call the union." Frost cackled. "Though I don't think we'll be staging any walk outs any time soon. Nasty things, remote detonating devices." Frost brought his mind back to the topic at hand. "Did you fight one of the escaped subjects?"
"Yes... I fought Athrun in a hand to hand fight. I lost." Ashino replied, not bothering to add how close the fight had been.
"Athrun? Athrun? You're on a first name basis with the enemy now, ya little red dwarf?" Cray growled, prowling back and forth like a hunting dog on a short leash. "You musta meant that Zala guy... right? The monster Zala?" Both other BCPU's ignored Cray's ranting.
"Why did you fight him hand to hand? You were armed... you're proficient enough to have managed to arm yourself, I know. Why did you just not kill or disable them all... they were unarmed... I've seen you shoot too... you could have easily have delayed them for the few minutes it took for Cray and I to arrive." Frost asked. "You hurt him too... he's bleeding... this is his blood here on my fingers. Want to taste? It's sweet... tangy with fear and adrenaline and something I can't quite identify... perhaps this SEED factor thing." Frost proffered his hand to Ashino, who turned his head away, stomach roiling slightly. Frost shurgged. "Your loss..." he took another lick, like a man might do to a juice popsicle. He rolled his foot so his heel was square on Ashino's arm bone, in position for a much harder push.
"Surely you can understand my reasons... shooting them would have been too easy and quick. I'm not as debased as you and Cray... but even I can see that there is more to be done with the captives than just kill them. If nothing else I want to talk to a few of them... preferrably before you two start chopping them up into mince." Ashino paused a moment to brace himself. "It was a fun fight... rousing... I'm certain you know what I mean. He was a worthy foe... someone to test myself against. I may have lost, but I tried my best and I have no regrets. Can you understand how that feels?"
"I have no idea what you are speaking of... it smacks of romantic honor and other bullshit of that nature. The Doc was right... you are becoming humanlike. You're starting to think like them... soon you'll be acting like them... feeling like them... smelling like them... you are aware that you will never become one though? Once your feet are placed upon this path by the Doc there is no going back. We are forever apart... no one will ever love us again." Frost replied, his tone somewhat bitter towards the end, in Ashino's opinion. "But I don't really care... you can start writing love poetry and eating sorbet out of crystal glasses and it won't matter to me one bit." Frost twisted his foot experimentally, his heel cracking Ashino's arm audibly. "So you fought one of them and lost... but he is reasonably hurt... perhaps seriously hurt. Certainly not moving as fast as he could be... you've slowed their pace if nothing else... they're all too stuck on comradeship and goodwill and friendship and love to abandon the wounded guy. You were conscious when we got here... and you were never unconscious... you haven't suffered that kind of damage. Where did they go, Ashino? They can't be more than five or ten minutes away. Where did they go and why did they leave you alive?"
"They left me alive because Lacus Clyne and Kira Yamato were there... you've read their files and the psyche evaluations on them... they have almost unfeasibly large reservoirs of mercy and compassion in them... especially Lacus. I doubt the songstress could crush a fly if it bit her." Ashino answered the second question first, aware that every second that Frost and Cray spent talking to him was one second more for the fugitives to use to get farther away.
"I think she could kill me if she had the chance." Frost replied thoughtfully.
"At least flies are cute... compared to you." Ashino sniped. "They may be blood sucking, disease carrying, disgusting and abhorrent... but they aren't malevolent. They do what they do because that is their niche in life... not because it gives them pleasure. I have little doubt that Lacus or Kira could and would quite gladly give you a bullet trepanning if given the opportunity... sacred oaths not to kill and moral philosophies not withstanding." Frost nodded happily in agreement.
"It's so nice to have an adoring public. It just goes to show... I'm already doing my job right... if I can get them to want to kill me, I can get anyone to want to." Frost said, momentarily letting up on his arm grinding. The pressure resumed with little warning... worse than before. "But where did they go, Ashino? Cray and I had the luxury of kitting ourself out in the armory... I was surprised at how well equipped it was... we probably took more than our fair share of fun toys and gizmos. Cray's starting to look pretty restless... I'd prefer not to have to burn down the entire forest in order to corner the enemy, but I will if you force me to. After I crucify you to the tree at the center of the blaze first."
Ashino sighed inwardly... he'd bought the fleeing foe as much time as was possible... he wasn't willing to risk further harm to himself for their likely ungrateful sakes. "They went towards the old storage huts... they had a phone which gave them the layouts of the base... it may have revealed to them the location of the secret escape aircraft hidden there." For all Ashino knew that was the geniune case... the phone could open all the doors in the facility... why shouldn't it have also had a map to the aircraft? There was no need to mention his little map... Frost hadn't asked him if he'd helped the fugitives... just where they'd gone. Passive resistance was turning out to be the key to resisting his programming... loopholes were wonderful things.
"You seem to have been paying a surprising amount of attention... for someone who purportedly lost an unarmed battle you had a lot of time to look around, methinks. There's more to this than you are telling us, Ashino." Frost said speculatively. He rubbed his chin in thought. "Don't look at me like that... I know better than any one of us what signs to look for when a BCPU is hiding something. You think I haven't figured ways around the conditioning we've been given either? Please, Ashino... I may be insane but you must remember not to equate insanity with stupidity... if you remember nothing else about me, you should remember that." Frost advised.
"You're awfully magnaminous today, Frost. Having Cray spare my life... not tearing me limb from limb while asking me questions even though I'm helpless... offering advice... I've never seen you in such a good mood." Ashino observed. Frost chuckled for a long few seconds, finally bringing himself back under control with an obvious effort, though he was still grinning widely.
"It's my birthday." Frost replied, strangling another chuckle, almost hysterical this time. "And I just got a really nice present from the Doc." Emotion proved too much this time... Frost started laughing so hard he actually lifted his foot from Ashino's arm and almost bent double with mirth. Ashino and Cray looked at each other uneasily... anything Frost found so funny... well, they knew what his sense of humor ran to.
"Happy birthday, man." Cray said, slightly haltingly. He realized as he said it that he had no idea when his own birthday was... it was slightly troubling how untroubled he was by that fact.
"Another year older... hard to believe. You haven't matured at all." Ashino muttered, cradling his arms to his chest as he sat up. He too realized that he had no idea upon what day he was born... no doubt one more casualty of the Doc's brainwashing. "So what did the Doc give you? A lump of coal, I hope."
"It was carbon based." Frost admitted... the human body was carbon based, technically. "And if you burn people they turn into ashes, which are like coal."
"Not really." Ashino replied. "You need to brush up on your chemistry a little."
"That's your problem, Markov... you don't have enough imagination." Frost snarled, grabbing Ashino by the collar and dragging him up face to face.
"I think I've got enough... enough to imagine what you may have been up to with the Doc... Zacharis." Ashino spat back. The Doc never gave out presents... he didn't even let the BCPU's have birthdays in the first place... and given how amused Frost was... Ashino had the sickening feeling the Doc wouldn't be around to talk to anymore.
"What the hell are you trying to say, dwarf?" Cray asked, puzzled. Frost grimaced and threw Ashino away from him. It would best serve him to not have Cray find out that Frost had put an end to their so called "father" so soon... of the three of them, Cray was the only one who was actually loyal to the Doc. Like the Doc had said... all he had to do was pat Cray on the head, call him a good boy, and send him a girl every few weeks and the spidery bastard loved him like a real father. If Cray learned that Frost had slain the old Coordinator, he'd try and get revenge, likely by murder... Frost could appreciate the sentiment of course, but it would be inconvienient to have to kill Cray just yet... he needed to wait for a more opportune time... he was too off balance right now... too fresh into his destiny... too decentralized from the movers and shakers of the world.
"He's just spouting gibberish, Cray. He's been knocked a little loopy from too many blows to the head... you know what the BCPU 4's are like... bash them around a bit and they start getting dizzy and weak kneed and all that crap. I'm sure he has no idea what he's saying... poor guy needs to go to the infirmary. And we need to get after those fugitives... the longer we stand here jawing, the farther we'll have to run before we catch them... I don't know about you but I don't want a long walk back. Besides... aren't you just itching to lighten your load a little bit? You've got an arsenal and a half with you." Frost said quickly, moving to distract his somewhat slower thinking peer. Cray wasn't stupid by any means... but his intellect was more the contemplative type... he took a while to think things thru... as long as Frost kept him distracted with thoughts of the fugitives he wouldn't have time to process what Ashino had insinuated.
Cray self consciously adjusted the weapons he'd taken... patting the bulky stock of the 30mm anti-tank cannon... adjusting the carrying strap of the 5mm seven barreled chain gun... checking the placement of the two .45 caliber desert eagle pistols in waist holsters... hefted the 15mm flechette rifle he carried in his left hand... toyed with the dual trigger of the double barreled elephant gun in his right hand... and inspected the bandoleer of incendiary grenades he wore across his chest. He was carrying more weapons than a squad of infantry, certainly far more than someone as spindly as he was should have been able to life, much less carry. However, his muscles weren't strictly flesh and his bones were a lot sturdier than any human equivalent, so not only could he carry the weapons, he could move with them at only slightly less than his normal capability. "Got a point there, man. I never thought I'd get to use any of this shit off the practice range... it's not the Merciless by any means, but it'll serve. It'll serve, all right. And hey... it's not like you're all that lightly armed yourself, either." Cray commented in return.
Frost didn't need to check his weapons... he knew what he'd taken. Unlike Cray, who, true to form, had outfitted himself entirely with weapons that did good at range, Frost had looted mostly melee weapons from the armory. Of course, that was true to his preferences as well... he liked to be close enough to feel the deaths. His favorite part of wetwork like this was the "wet" part... it wasn't a kill unless at least half of it went on him. To facilitate this he'd taken not only his usual set of a serrated carving knife and two combat knives, but also his scythe, eight throwing daggers, a replacement pair of chainblade machete's and two archaic steel longswords... part of some collection of one of the scientists on base, but razor sharp and deadly nonetheless. He'd also taken a pair of .357 magnum revolvers... the twelve heavy shots they contained would almost certainly satisfy any need to shoot at range he would encounter. "That's true. But I've had enough talk... you can stay here with your thumb up your ass if you want, jawing with the dwarf... me, I'm going to go have some fun." Frost retorted, putting action to words and heading off through the jungle. He didn't have to wait long before he heard Cray stumbling through the brush after him, swearing up a storm as his large and bulky weapons got caught on the thick undergrowth almost constantly. Still, despite that, and despite the lack of a path, Frost knew that he and Cray would quickly catch up to the fugitives. He could hardly wait. Pink filled his mind... slowly darkening to crimson. Behind them, Ashino painfully picked himself up off the ground and limped back into the base without a single look back... the fate of Lacus and her friends was now beyond his hands... he hoped they could get away.
Athrun stumbled and would have fallen if Cagalli hadn't been half holding him up. The mountain path they had found that led towards the concealed hanger on Ashino's map was little more than a goat track, meandering up and down the side of the mountain, crossing small streams of snowmelt runoff and periodically dipping back into the thick jungle. They were moving as fast as they could, but Athrun knew it wasn't likely to turn out to be fast enough. Maybe if they had been sprinting from the moment they found the trail... assuming they even could on the uneven and treacherous ground... maybe then they would have had enough of a lead to make him feel comfortable. But everyone was already tired... not just him. Ysak was really starting to show the effects of staying too long in SEED mode... his breath was coming in heaving gasps and he was sweating even more freely than everyone else, though he was still maintaining his pace. Of course that wasn't the point... he would of course keep going until he collapsed unconscious, because while you were in SEED you rarely felt pain or exhaustion, Athrun knew from repeated experience. Ysak probably didn't even realize just how tired he was. And everyone else was nearing their endurance limit as well... Miriallia and Lacus had never been the most physical of people... certainly not long distance mountain runners. Katie was holding up well, as was Cagalli, though having to help him along too wasn't doing her any extra good. Kira and Dearka were breathing heavily, though not gasping. It was the air... they were in the mountains and it was much thinner than the air in Hawaii. Also, having been locked up in tiny disgusting cells with little in the way of nutrition, not to mention actual torture, hadn't done anyone any good.
Cagalli helped him up and over another large rock that was lying right in the middle of the so called path. Athrun chanced a look behind him and nearly fell, almost pulling Cagalli down after him in a tumble that probably wouldn't have stopped until they reached the trees about forty feet below. Athrun managed to avert the disasterous fall at the last moment by catching himself with his left hand... the broken hand. His mind went white with the sensation... SEED mode or not, some things just plain hurt like hell. He clenched his jaw tight to keep from yelling... it wasn't entirely from pride either... the BCPU's didn't need any additional help in tracking them down. Athrun sorted through the images he'd sntached in his glimpse once he could think straight again... bare rock... waving trees... small streams... heavy brush... Katie and Ysak behind him... but no enemies. Thankfully. Yet. Kira and Lacus were ahead in the lead with the map, both being amongst the healthiest in the group and thus currently the best at trailblazing. Neither were armed... Kira and Lacus being Kira and Lacus no matter the extremes... and so it also made sense to have them be as far away from the enemy as possible. Just behind them trudged Dearka and Miriallia, with Mir helping Dearka as necessary, since he was still in rough shape from the beating he'd received during interrogation. Despite that, Dearka carried one of the two sub machine guns, along with half the ammo, all forty rounds of it. Miriallia carried two explosive grenades taken from the pile Ashino had dropped. They were the forward reaction force, in case Blue Cosmos had guards at the hanger, even though it was supposed to be secret and hidden.
After them came Athrun himself, his right arm around Cagalli's shoulders and both her arms around him as they sort of staggered forward as fast as they could go. Cagalli wore one of the stolen comabt knives at her waist, Athrun had no weapon. He didn't think he could even shoot straight in his current condition, much less muster the energy to fight hand to hand again... that fight had been very, very close. Ashino had been a superior fighter... created and refined to be stronger, faster and tougher than any normal Coordinator, not to mention trained to fight and kill with his bare hands. If Athrun hadn't been... himself... then he probably would have lost. Especially if Cagalli hadn't been there. But she had been and that was all in the past, no need to remincise about it again. He tightened his arm around her shoulders once more, both to help her lift him from his half kneeling stance and to convey again his appreciation, as always, for her constant presence. He felt Ysak pushing on his back, reminding him again of the urgency of their situation... they could not afford to stop for anything. Ysak and Katie brought up the rear of the party. Both were in tatters... emotionally anyway. Chanel had not left the enemy base with them and Athrun didn't think she'd ever be coming out either, from how Ysak and Katie looked. Yet another casualty in this senseless war. It was enough to get his anger boiling red hot just below the surface. Ysak had the other combat knife and four more explosive grenades, while Katie carred the remaining sub machine gun and the last forty bullets. Katie was an excellent shot but more importantly Ysak was more dangerous in close quarters, so he had taken the knife and grenades while she had taken the gun. They were the rearguard, watching behind themselves and to the sides as much as they looked forward, if not more so.
"How much farther do you think it is?" Cagalli asked as she panted for breath. They were descending back into the jungle, having just crested one more ridge of the mountain. Athrun creased his brow in thought.
"Not much further, I would think. From how Ashino talked of it, the hidden hanger wasn't very far away. We've traveled almost a mile and half... we should get there soon." he replied. Cagalli hide her half smile.
"Good... because you're getting really heavy. It's like competing in a three legged race with a sack of bowling balls strapped to my back." Cagalli told him. She waited a beat. "That's a joke... don't you go shifting more weight onto your injuries now, or anything stupid like that. Ashino hurt you badly enough on his own... you don't need to help him out any."
"Yes, ma'am." Athrun replied, grinning in spite of himself. "How about I just lift up my legs and let you carry me the rest of the way? That way I won't have to put any weight on my injuries... which I mostly suffered to my chest and face anyway, but hey, I don't have any problems with being carried."
"You keep talking like that and you're going to find out what it's like to roll." Cagalli muttered, her eyes shining with a familiar fierce light.
"For christssakes... you two get turned on at the oddest of times." Ysak interrupted, pushing them both ahead. "We're being pursued by foes who fit the very definition of villianous superhumans and you two are panting down each other's throats like you want to start tearing off each others clothes at any minute."
"God... I hate him when he's right." Cagalli whispered into Athrun's ear. "We'll pick this back up later... assuming we aren't introduced to a different sort of bliss by the enemy beforehand."
"What?" Athrun asked, slightly out of it.
"By meeting up in heaven after they kill us." Cagalli supplied.
"Nobody's going to die except for them!" Katie refuted, turning to look at Cagalli. Ysak looked back at the back trail and noted an out of place glint of sunlight on metal about three hundred meters back. He barely had time to react, diving sideways to push Katie down of the line of fire behind a boulder, covering her with his body... he was damned if he was going to lose another half of his heart today.
"Get..." Ysak started to shout. He was interrupted by the concussive roar of the high explosive shell fired from Cray's 30mm cannon as it detonated on the ridgeline about ten feet behind where Ysak and Katie had previously stood. Fire and smoke whipped around while dirt and small chips of rock fell like rain. The force of the explosion had tossed Athrun and Cagalli forward and both were rolling down the path, trying to shield each other from the various rocks they were hitting on the way down. "... down." Ysak finished, spitting out rock dust. "Looks like they found us." He looked down... Katie had her eyes closed... for a brief moment he was afraid he'd knocked her out when he pushed her away but then her eyes opened.
"Don't worry... I was just doing a quick little scan, to see if I could confirm who it was. It's Frost and Cray... they're both in good spirits and they're both closing quickly."
"How quickly?" Ysak asked. Katie pushed him off of her and pulled herself to one knee, sub gun aimed back at the trail behind them. She cracked off three rounds and then ducked back into cover.
"Too quickly... I got Cray to put his head down but Frost dropped out of my line of sight... he's probably going to circle around and attack from another side." She replied tersely. Ysak started to raise his head to take a look but Katie jerked him back down, just before a very large claiber solid slug gouged an inch deep crater in the top of the rock they were hiding behind, right where his head would have been. "Mind the elephant gun." Katie told him.
"He's got an elephant gun too? I didn't even know they still made those... elephants are a very endangered species!" Ysak complained, priming a grenade. Below them, Athrun and Cagalli had regained their feet and were hurrying away with the aide of Kira and Lacus, with Dearka and Miriallia covering them as they disappeared back into the tree line. Ysak started to poke his head back up, but then glanced at Katie. She grinned ever so slightly and closed her eyes.
"He's reloading right now... it's hard for him since he has to juggle his weapons around. And yes, he has an elephant gun. And an anti-tank cannon. And a gatling gun. And several more weapons I can't identify until he gets closer." she informed him. Ysak popped his head up and looked around... it wasn't too hard to spot the enemy... Cray had ducked behind cover of his own, but his weapons were so large they stuck out from behind the boulder and clearly indicated where he was... he'd managed to close to two hundred meters... astonishingly fast given how encumbered he must be... Ysak shook his head... he was thinking for a human or Coordinator... Cray was neither. He started to open his mouth to comment on how useful her Newtype sense was.
"Yes, Chanel and I were goddesses at hide and seek." Katie interrupted before he could put word to thought. "You asked how we managed to avoid you back in Orb, and how we found you too. Now you know. Of course you knew back then, but you didn't believe us." Ysak opened his mouth again. "Don't apologize... I probably wouldn't have believed us either, if I were you." Ysak frowned at her and opened his mouth again. "Yes, I'm reading your mind. No... I won't stop." Katie cocked her head to the side. "Deal with it. Like it or not, you absorbed a portion of Chanel's echo and you're going to have to learn to live with it. And I'm not going to let such an advantage go to waste... finally I have a really good reason to explore my powers, rather than run away from them like I have before." Katie frowned and grabbed Ysak by the arm and pulled him away from the rock in a headlong dive that sent them tumbling thirty feet down the slope. This turned out to be a good thing, because the rock they had been sheltering behind blew into fiery fragments after another 30mm cannon shell struck it.
"It's unnerving." Ysak complained, finally managing to get a few words out before she could cut him off. He twisted around and rolled to his feet, crouching behind another boulder. He checked behind him... only another fifteen or twenty feet to the jungle line and then they'd be out of sight.
"Go for the jungle." Katie ordered. Ysak looked at her. He didn't even need to think anything. Katie sighed. "Fine... don't go. But be ready to throw that grenade the very instant I give you a beepcall." Katie sat down and closed her eyes, frowning in concentration. "That's it, you warped son of a bitch... keep on coming closer." she whispered to her self as she locked on to Cray's mental presence. It really wasn't that hard... he was completely open... if she'd been more practiced with her talents she probably could have messed with his head a bit... of course how useful that would be was another issue, since his head was already pretty messed with. Cray reloaded his cannon and bounded forward towards the ridgeline... he hadn't seen any blood spatter from that last shot, so he didn't think he'd got either one of them. His opponents were the blond girl with the blue eyes... the sister of the girl he'd gotten to execute... and their pathetic boyfriend, Y-sack or something. The girl was armed and a pretty good shot too... she might have winged a slower man with the shot's she'd fired. But Frost and Cray were not slow... nor really men. Frost had jackrabbited down out of sight and sped off at an angle, crawling along the ground like a lizard, weapons striking sparks off the rocks around him. Cray meanwhile had retaliated with one barrel of the elephant gun... he'd almost blown the Coordinator's head off but he ducked back at the very last second. Next he'd closed the distance some and then fired off his second of four anti-tank cannon shells. That was his only problem... he was carrying so many weapons he only had a very limited supply of ammo for each one.
BEEP! Now! Katie's voice ecoed so loud in Ysak's head he almost winced... he just knew he was never going to get used to being beepcalled, or whatever it was. It was just too alien a concept for him to work his mind around... telepathy? That was science fiction stuff! While his higher mind was occupied with this conundrum, the rest of him tossed the grenade right at the crest of the hill... there was no target there as of when he'd tossed the grenade, but Cray and the grenade reached the top of the hill at roughly the same time, at roughly the same location. Cray had just brought the elephant gun to bear when he noticed the sphere of matte metal almost floating through the air at waist height about four feet to his left.
"Ah, damn." Cray lamented. The grenade detonated, spraying a fifteen foot area with fire and shrapnel... there was no time to dodge... Cray was knocked sprawling by the blast and picked up a great deal many more small wounds from the stone chips and shrapnel bits that embedded themselves in his skin. "Now I'm really fucking pissed!" Cray shouted, lurching back to his feet, guns still gripped tightly in either hand. He fired the cannon in the general direction of the enemy and unloaded both barrels of the elephant gun right after it. His shots went long, blowing apart trees and bushes at the edge of the tree line. The blond girl popped up from behind a rock about three quarters of the way down the slope and fired two rounds, one of which passed through Cray's upper right shoulder in a bright arc of blood and a brief flash of pain. He ignored the minor wound... it was barely a scratch compared to the punishment he usually took during training exercises. The girl dropped back into cover before Cray could do more than turn in her direction. He dropped the elephant gun and cannon... they'd take too long to reload for the moment. Cray swung the gatling gun around to his right hand and unslung the flechette rifle with his left hand... he was done with precision fire, it was time to saturate. He aimed both weapons at where he'd seen the girl disappear and let rip... slowly walking the gatling fire to the right and the coughing flechette rounds to the left. Flechette's were bundles of tiny soft steel needles, about twenty to a bundle. Each needle had razor sharp dart like fletching and when they struck an unarmored or lightly armored target, they deformed and bounced around... usually inside the target, shredding the flesh as they went. Their bouncing potential was obscene... a dart that hit in the knee could ricochet up and lodge in the brain pan of an unlucky subject. The problem with the darts was that most types of armor stopped them cold... a man in a flack jacket could take an entire bundle to the chest and come through with only a few pinpricks. Of course his targets did not enjoy the luxury of such protection... worse luck for them.
Katie was belly crawling down the mountainside alongside Ysak. In truth Ysak was mostly on top of her in a shielding gesture that probably would have appeared more than a little inappropriate under most other circumstances... in order for them both to make use of the available cover, he had to press down pretty hard with himelf on top of her as they scooted along in tandem... not that she particularly minded. She knew she was running on an emotional high, staving off the grief and depression by ignoring them like they didn't exist... which was fine for the moment, considering they were in life threatening danger. But once they escaped she knew she was going to have a breakdown, or something near to it. And who could she turn to in order to find comfort? Hopefully her adopted bigger sister Raine and Uncle Alkire and Vladimir. But also Ysak... Katie decided right then and there, while scraping along on her chest down the mountainside, that her room would never be a single occupancy... if Chanel couldn't be there then Ysak would have to fill in. There wasn't going to be an option for him... protestations about rushing things or not. A private dirty part of her mind wondered what it'd be like to be in his mind while he was in her... Katie shook her head and blinked a few times... now wasn't the time for that. She might not even make it that far if she kept getting distracted... the whirring sound of the gatling gun raking its fire across the rocks was coming back as Cray tried to wrinkle them out of their hiding places. The soft "tink" sound of flechette rounds pinging off nearby rocks had her keeping her head so low it was practically pushing up a wave of dirt... a flechette round would dramatically ruin her day if it hit her. Then, almost without warning, they had gained the cover of the jungle. Ysak pushed them both a few more feet before rising to a crouch. Cray was still shooting up the mountainside behind them... he'd yet to consider that they might have made good their escape. Ysak was just looking back with a cocky smile when the sound of gunshots came to them from the jungle ahead... they both whirled around and stared into the impenetrable depths of the forest... Frost was out there. Attacking their friends. They looked at each other and sprinted off, heading towards the sounds of the gunshots.
About five minutes prior, just before Cray had fired his first cannon shot, Kira and Lacus had at last stumbled upon the hidden hanger. It was, in fact, quite well hidden... almost too well hidden... even with Ashino's map they almost walked right by it. As things turned out, if Kira hadn't spun around in surprise at the sound of the cannon explosion, they would have missed it. It was as he spun around backward to locate the source of the noise that he spied a slight red glinting reflection of red road tape that was nailed to the lower part of a branch draped over the forest camouflage net that made the hanger look more like a small hill of dirty, decaying leaves and tree debris. Through careful if worried study and work over the next several minutes, Kira managed to clear a path through the debris and camouflage to reveal the dark green and brown painted metal walls of the hanger, constantly looking off into the jungle, trying in vain to pinpoint the source of the gunfire and explosions he heard. He was paying so much attention to the hanger and the battle between Cray and Ysak and Katie that he neglected to watch his immediate surroundings. Lacus had of course stayed close to him... not least because being close to Kira was about as close to safe as she could be. She too was worried by the sounds of battle... to not worry would be impossible for her. However, she wasn't so distracted that she heard the not so stealthy sound of a person scrambling through the jungle about fifty feet away, just out of sight. A sudden bad premonition stole over her and she narrowed her eyes as she studied the area closely. It didn't sound like a noise one of her friends would have made... Dearka and Miriallia were coming up the path about thirty feet away, while Athrun and Cagalli were limping at speed down the path about two hundred feet further back, just coming around the final bend in the trail. A lull in the battle noise allowed her to hear a distinct rasping metallic double click and finally her keen eyes picked out two too regular shapes projecting from the shadows of a tree about forty feet off further into the jungle to her right. Thought met action in a sequence of events that remained a blur to her no matter how much she tried to recall it afterwards... she threw herself forward towards Kira, arms outstretched and mouth open in a cry she could not hear. Kira jumped, startled almost out of his wits as Lacus cried out and tackled him, shoving him forward and to the side.
He wasn't startled long... the reason for her impulsive action became almost immediately clear to him... with twin small thunderclaps, Frost fired both magnum revolvers at the place where Kira had formerly been standing. It was a long shot for the short barreled and notoriously heavy kicking pistol, but Frost was strong enough to handle the recoil like it was a water pistol and he held both barrels on target. One bullet would have crashed through Kira's skull, right at the back of the head, while the other would have blown his spine out through his kidneys. Unfortunately, despite his good aim, his revenge upon the brown haired Coordinator was delayed once again, unexpectedly. Showing gumption and courage of a sort that Frost had yet to see in her, Pink threw herself at her pathetic boyfriend and knocked him out of the way, just a few fractions of a second before he fired... she must have spotted him or heard him click the hammers back on the pistols... his cover noise had faded most inconvieniently at that moment... such a thing was not unheard of for a Coordinator to be able to do, especially one with as fine an ear for sound as Lacus Clyne. Frost swore loudly... killing Pink would utterly ruin his good day... well, killing her with gunshots at long range would anyway. But some luck remained with him... she was shorter than Yamato and so that bullet went high, flicking through a few strands of her hair as it passed. The second round just barely grazed her leg, but still dug a bloody trench through the muscle of her calf and sent her spinning from her feet... they did't call the .357 a beast of a gun for no reason... a single shot could throw a full grown man six feet back through the air with a chest shot. Both man stopping bullets struck trees, blowing huge craters full of pulped sap and wood in the trunks. Frost snarled and aimed again, firing off another round from each gun, mostly in rage rather than in any sort of actual plan or desire to kill.
Both of his second rounds missed as well, though they did send Dearka and Miriallia diving for cover of their own as one bullet glanced off a rock in the middle of the path, shattering it into a hundred shards. The last round fired passed completely through the moist and soft trunk of the tree Kira was crouched behind, passing within a few inches of his head before whining off into the jungle, spraying him with slimy wet detrius from the rotten tree as it did. Frost regained control of himself and holstered the pistols, drawing out his replacement chainblade machetes and thumbing the activation buttons. Both blades kicked to life with meaty whines of hellish mechanical hunger... a keen echo to the emotion that filled him as he stood poised, soaking in the moment. Dearka popped his head and torso out of cover, swiveling rapidly about as he looked for a target... it took him no longer than three seconds to pinpoint the source of the chainsaw sounds. Frost was still standing there, shivering in what must have been delight, considering the full grin and wild eyed expression that were plastered on his face. Dearka took an instant more to aim and fired off four bullets... one to the right, two directly at Frost and one to the left... Dearka knew what this particular foe could do and also knew that unless he fought smart he would have no chance... he'd have to anticipate in order to win. Frost noted the four bullets whizzing towards him... they moved like tiny fastballs in the murk of the jungle. He saw one was going right and so he ignored it... two more were on target and so he started to step to the left... right into the path of the fourth bullet, which creased the skin along his temple with a feeling like someone flicked him hard with a finger and a sound like a zipper being zipped. A thin line of blood drifted down the side of his head... barely a trickle, which quickly gummed up and stopped. Frost wasted no more time... he charged, flitting through the forest like a phantom, never moving in a straight line, never moving in the same way one moment as the moment before. He loped along hunched low only to spring up into a forward rolling jump and then dive left in a flat out sprint before spinning behind a clump of trees and running up a trunk to prance through the lower branches for a moment, before dropped down and skittering along on his knees... all the while shrieking and gibbering in the most maniacal way he could manage, slashing the air and the plants around him with his blades... a calculated strategy of terror.
Kira had belly crawled over to where Lacus lay, his eyes wide with fear... he hadn't seen it, but he'd heard the distinctive sound of someone getting hit with a fast moving object just after he'd gotten pushed away from the gunfire. Lacus had fallen to the ground heavily right after she pushed him and while he did not think she'd been killed... he would have felt it in some way, he was positive... that didn't prevent him from having his heart jump into his mouth. When he saw the blood on her leg and hands his heart nearly stopped, but he rapidly noticed that she wasn't really bleeding as bad as all that. Blood was not puddling all over the ground or jetting around wildly and she wasn't screaming or anything, though that was likely due to the fact that she was somewhat in shock. He gently eased her hands away from her leg and felt for the wound... he breathed a big sigh of relief... it wasn't a direct hit, which probably would have taken off her leg below the knee. No, it was just a graze... painful and bloody but not life threatening. She wouldn't be able to move far and when she did move she wouldn't move fast, but she didn't have to be carried. Right now Kira didn't think they could spare the person power to carry anyone else. "I can't believe you did that." Kira hissed, his worry overcoming him and making his voice harsher than he intended. Lacus stared him in the eyes and half smiled.
"Come now, Kira... how could I not? You would have done the same for me without pausing to consider you might get hurt... how can it be unbelievable that I would reciprocate?" she winced and let out a small gasp. "It hurts... but it'll get better. If you got shot and killed when I was able to save you but didn't, I wouldn't get better afterwards."
"Lacus..." Kira started to say. She placed a finger on his lips to quiet him.
"Now is not the time. Now is the time to fight for our survival. You go help Dearka, Miriallia and the others. I'm going to go help Cagalli and Athrun get to the jet, so we can have it warmed up and ready to take off. Hopefully it will have a long range communication set of some sort, so I can call the Archangel for help. Now go. And be careful... come back to me, Kira. Promise you will." Lacus commanded. Kira nodded his head.
"You know I will. You be careful too." Kira clasped hands with her for a brief second and then was up and sprinting towards the sounds of combat coming from not very far off into the jungle. Lacus gritted her teeth and tore a strip of cloth from the evening dress she was still wearing from the wedding, she used the dirty and soiled cloth to bind her leg wound... asking for infection but right now she needed to stop the bleeding... she could worry about getting sick later. Within thirty seconds her bandage was complete and she used a tree to pull herself to her feet. Her leg burned like fire when she placed weight on it, but she could move. She started off towards the hanger, limping as fast as she could manage. She noted with relief that Athrun and Cagalli were making a beeline towards her, rather than towards the fighting. Lacus waved and pointed towards the hanger, pointing it out to them as they clearly hadn't seen it. Cagalli and Athrun quickly altered course and they reached the camouflaged hanger just about the same time Lacus did.
This was also roughly the same time that Kira burst unto the running battle between Frost, Dearka and Miriallia like an eagle stooping onto a falcon. Dearka had been doing a lot more running than battling... he couldn't draw a steady bead on the raving Frost as he gambooled through the jungle and he didn't want to waste ammo... he had forty shots and that was it. Dearka had managed to maintain a good ten meters between him and the dark haired freak, but he was getting pushed farther and farther away from Miriallia and the others. He was starting to suspect that he was being herded away. His suspicions were confirmed when Frost let out a bloodcurdling shriek of triumph and spun away from him, orienting on Miriallia, who had been cautiously trying to get into position to drop a grenade into Frost's flank area. Miriallia froze... she couldn't help herself... that keening cry awoke all sorts of terrible nightmares from her last encounter with Frost and she couldn't stop herself from being paralyzed with fright. She stood, trembling slightly, still as a deer in headlights, grenade clenched tight in one white knuckled fist, about twenty meters from Frost. Dearka swore and opened fire, trying to pull Frost's attention back towards himself. Though one shot bored a blood rimmed hole through Frost's left hip, the little madman just laughed it off and charged at the helpless Miriallia. Dearka swore louder and ran after him... but he knew there was no way he could possibly move fast enough to stop Frost. This was when Kira appeared, stepping almost magically around a tree at full sprint and cold clocking Frost from the side, catching him completely by surprise with a nasty full body check. Kira was by far the slighter of the two and so he rebounded almost at once, falling back and landing roughly on his ass a few feet away. Frost wasn't actually knocked off his feet by the impact... his center of gravity was a hair too low for that, but his balance was so incredibly ruined that he could not avoid tripping over a very solid root and taking a running faceplant into a treetrunk... one of the few non-rotten trunks in the area. The was a wet "snap" as Frost's nose broke and a louder "th-crack" as his face gouged a divot in the hard wood of the tree trunk. The impact jarred his grip on his chainblade machete's loose and both weapons dropped to the ground, one dragging itself for nearly ten feet on its whirring teeth before the safety override killed the motor.
It was all the time Dearka needed... he caught up to where Frost was while the BCPU was still re-orienting himself from his tumble. Kira was just pulling himself to his feet off to the side and Miriallia had unfrozen long enough to start inching away, headed for cover. Dearka wasted no time on words or even sounds... he stopped, aimed and fired for all he was worth from less than ten feet away. Frost spun and leaped and gyrated and managed to avoid the worst of it, but could not avoid taking several bullets to the arms and legs and even two to the upper chest, just below his right collarbone. No vital spots were struck, but the wounds were painful and the energy it would take to heal them would detract from his combat effectiveness. Frost snarled and let the wounds bleed... he had more important uses for his energy than just stopping a little pain. Dearka's gun clacked open empty. He reloaded as quickly as he could but he knew he was going to be too slow... he'd done his best and it just hadn't been enough. Frost snatched up the chainblade that hadn't run away and slowly advanced on the reloading Coordinator. He'd intended to take the girl first, cause he knew it would tear this guy to pieces... but flexibility was a virtue... he'd do the guy first for a change. Frost was just about to start the disemboweling swing when a familiar noise ratched up from behind him... the other chainblade motor. Frost spun and brought his machete up in a reflexive block that intercepted Kira's downward chop only inches from Frost's face. Both blades howled and shuddered violently as their rapidly spinning teeth clattered and sparked off each other. Kira tried to bear down with his newfound weapon but didn't have the strength or mass to accomplish his goal. Frost gave way momentarily before tiliting his weapon to the side and letting Kira's momentum slide him down and away... perfectly in position to be batted away like a large doll by Frost's sucker punch. Kira slammed backwards into a rotten tree, the impact jarring his grip loose on his stolen sword, which dropped into the mulchy ground at his feet and growled to a stop.
Frost smirked... this was like a gift... here he was, armed with a small chainsaw, and Kira Yamato was barely four feet away, dazed and helpess and unarmed... it was almost too good to be true. He raised his own sword for a decapitating slice. Fate denied him again... it was almost like Kira had some destiny that was more important than Frost's own, impossible though Frost found that concept to be. But what else could explain such phenominal luck? Dearka had finished reloading and opened fire again, shooting a bit high this time, but five bullets struck Frost's upraised sword hand almost as one. They didn't quite blow his hand off, but they did tear his palm open something good, and broke four fingers in several places each. The chainblade sword dropped almost straight down and chewed through the top of his right foot, pinning him to the ground for a moment. It was almost comical, in some ways... something you might expect to see of a cartoon villian in some unexpectedly bloody kid's show. Frost screamed... that had actually hurt pretty bad. But pretty bad was just enough to get him really mad. His hands... even the wounded one... flashed into his uniform shirt pockets, emerging with three triangular bladed throwing daggers each. One dagger ruined the gun by lodging in the barrel. Two more... the ones tossed by the wounded hand... missed wide. One more Dearka managed to dodge on his own power. But two struck home... one in the right shoulder and the other in the left arm... it had been aimed at the throat but the arm had lifted in the way, partially by design and partially by accident. Both blades sunk deep and started to twist and saw with their serrated edges as Dearka moved the muscles around them... the weapons were designed like the broad headed war arrows of times past... once they were in a wound they stuck there until cut out, cutting away every time the person moved. Very painful and very debilitating in terms of long term blood loss. Derak fell back and away with a double cry of shock and agony. Kira noticed what effect this cry had upon Miriallia and he dived for cover. Frost was just drawing his paired combat knives when Miriallia's first grenade struck him squarely in the back of his head. Frost thought it was a stone at first, until he noticed the black metal sphere lying on the ground almost between his legs. He tried to jump away... but his foot was still pinned to the ground by the chainblade machete sticking through it. "BITCH!" Frost cried just before the grenade detonated. Miriallia's second grenade landed in the middle of the first explosion and detonated a second later, further obscuring the area with fire and bits of smoking wood debris. For a second she thought the nightmare was over... but then a short, ragged figure started to take shape in the midst of the blast areas... a laughing, crying figure.