The Golden Age: Chaotic Cosmos

by Maderfole

Book 1 of The Golden Age trilogy. Peace is attained, but even worse chaos lurks just below the surface, waiting to consume the entire Seed cosmos in a war to dwarf all previous wars. The beginning of the epic story. FINISHED. Continued in Eden Disaster.

101. An End to the Dreams

"Oh my god, I believe I have just glimsped hell." Ysak muttered to Katie as their car passed through the automated gates that barred road access to the Clyne family estate on Aprilius One. She looked at him quizzically, so he nodded his head at the flocks, literal FLOCKS of bouncing, squealing multicolored plastic balls that were Haro's. "I'd forgotten just how fucking MANY of the things he made for her. He used to bring them over to her house two or three times a week for a while there." He caught the look Katie was giving him. "Not that I was paying THAT much attention to what Athrun was bringing Lacus for gifts or anything like that."

"Uh huh. Sure. You just happened to notice in passing, I'm sure. For several weeks at a time. You didn't stalk him at all. Ever. Of course not." Katie replied, smirking at the mental image of Ysak in a dark coat and hat "tailing" Athrun like some sort of spy through the streets. "So what color flowers did he usually bring her?"

"I much prefer the term "Hunt", rather than "Stalk". Stalking is illegal and just plain creepy. Hunting implies a certain amount of respect for whatever it is you are after. It also implies a certain predatory-prey relationship that stalking implies the reverse of." Ysak replied, as the car slowed to a stop, next to five other similar cars. "They were white and, of course, pink. Rarely yellow as well. And I'm trained to remember things like that. You're the one always trying to play the "commando training" card on me, while now I'm playing it too." Ysak looked around, not seeing anyone coming out to greet them. There was just the impressively huge house, a mansion by any standard, even on Earth, the park like grounds, the driveway and the hordes of irritating robot-pets, who were thankfully keeping their distance for the moment. He wasn't sure if he was disappointed slightly, or relieved. "Do we REALLY..."

"... Have to do this, yes, we do." Katie finished for him, getting out of her side of the car and stretching langorously, her back and thighs stiff from almost a half day of packing, car travel, shuttle travel and then more car travel. She felt Ysak's eyes and flicker of keen interest focus on her for a moment as she held the pose for his benefit. "You should be careful, Ysak-y... it would be kind of embarassing to have Lacus pick up on your line of thought just now, eh?"

"From what I hear..." Ysak drawled slowly, getting out of the car himself and likewise stretching. "She's pretty occupied on those fronts right now herself. And my source is the DEFINITIVE expert on that sort of thing, or so I'm told."

"You sure you're going to be okay here for a full week?" Katie asked, cocking her head slightly in a more serious tone. "This is the first time you've been together with all of them in a non-combat scenario since we were in school in Switzerland. Pardon me for observing this NOW, of all times, but you don't get on much with anyone but Dearka, and even then in small doses. If I remember right, you were ALWAYS in some sort of trouble or other at school, and Dearka was always egging you on from somewhere, or getting into some sort of trouble that he'd bring back to everyone. And now I know much better how you feel about Athrun, and we both have our issues with Kira. I could understand if you didn't feel comfortable here."

Ysak crossed in the front of the car and stood beside her, taking her hand in his as they both stared at the multi-story, several dozen room mansion in front of them. "I'm more uncomfortable because I feel like some sort of super-dignitary living in a palace like this place for any length of time. I don't shirk or shy from publicity mind, but... this is the CLYNE HOUSE, and the Princess is in residence. Along with "Athrun ZALA"! It's going to be a media madhouse." Ysak shook his head in anticipated pain. "But I've learned strategies for dealing with Athrun, and especially Dearka. The former is easy to avoid, as long as you aren't causing noisy problems. The latter is easily distracted by all sorts of stupid, transitory things. As for Kira... well, he's in everyone's doghouse right now. Again. I figure I'll let him make the first move, and take things from there. If he wants to play things nice, I'm sure not going to pick a fight with him."

"Oh, you could take him, I'm sure." Katie bumped up against him for a moment. "You've got all sorts of killer instincts. He's got "I don't kill" instincts. Really, no contest, don't you think?"

"Mmm." Ysak made a noncommittal noise. "I was actually going to ask you if YOU were comfortable being around everyone like this? Well, obviously, Alkire and Raine will be here sometimes, but despite their claims, they ARE still hurt and I'll imagine they won't want to be around eight "noisy teenagers" any more than they have to, right? You sure you won't go up the walls dealing with Lacus twenty four seven?"

"Oh? And what makes you think us girls have any troubles getting along at all?" Katie retorted with a smile. "Yeah, Lacus and I are pretty different in lifestyle and philosophic outlooks... but UNLIKE you silly guys, girls like us are GOOD at finding things we have in common to enjoy. Things like speculating about our guys, shopping, and probabaly loads of other things. I can talk guns and martial arts and sports with Cagalli, Miri and I can shop and gossip and do fashion stuff together, and Lacus and I still have reams of Newtype stuff to discuss, if nothing else. No, I'm certainly not going to be bored at all, no siree. And that's not even getting in to tormenting you, Ysak-y."

"Gee, and to think I was worried. Silly me." Ysak muttered, rolling his eyes. "No reception committee? What, has everyone killed themselves off ALREADY? I know we got here late, but I still thought it would take at least a day or two before we all stopped talking to each other out of frustration." They walked up the steps to the front door, which opened just as they reached the landing. A harried looking Lacus poked her head out, still fixing her hair with one hand. Ysak and Katie stared for a moment. Not that they'd never seen Lacus with her hair down, or even messy... just not at this time of day, and certainly not when she was almost certainly expecting plenty of guests and maybe even media attention, since that many cars arriving at the usually empty Clyne Mansion was sure to have been noticed by somebody. She looked almost... disheveled, as if she'd just been doing some heavy, sweaty work and hadn't had time to freshen up. Ysak and Katie eyed each other and smirked slightly, both having heard the rumors of the relationship "reformatting" Lacus and Kira had been "suffering" of late in juicy phone conversations with Dearka and Miriallia during the weeks prior.

"Oh, welcome to my house you two." Lacus caught the slight look Ysak and Katie were giving each other, and stopped messing with her hair. She felt a slight flush creep onto her cheeks. She didn't need to be an Active Newtype to figure out what they were thinking. "I'm sorry I didn't come out to welcome you earlier but..."

"But you were busy, right?" Katie replied, fighting for a straight face.

"Very busy, from the looks of it." Ysak commented, shaking his head and staring up at the sky.

"Well yes, but not like you're thinking!" Lacus was quick to insist. "We were having brunch while we waited for everyone to show up, but we had a bit of an... um... accident... about ten minutes ago. And we've all been cleaning it up since."

"I sense a pretty good story here." Katie said slyly. "What sort of accident are we talking about?"

"Why don't you come inside and get some drinks. Now that everyone is here, I wanted to hold a little sit down, to explain the house rules before I show everyone around to their rooms and give a tour of the grounds." Lacus half turned and ushered them inside, patting the wrinkles out of her summer dress as she herded them through the main foyer towards the main sitting room.

"Don't wanna talk about it huh? I can speculate then." Ysak smirked.

"You can, but you might want to be careful." Kira said, stepping around a corner as they passed, hooking his arm around Lacus's waist as he did so. "Everything is all fixed, Lacus. And I promise to try really, REALLY hard not to do that again. Now Dearka knows better too."

"Aha! Dearka was involved. Why am I not surprised?" Ysak muttered in an aside to Katie. "I wonder if Athrun..."

"And Athrun is fully conscious again. He ALSO knows better now." Kira added, almost malicous in his timing. "Though nobody will sit anywhere close to me for some reason."

"This I HAVE TO HEAR!" Katie stopped and turned around. She jabbed her hand out to poke Kira in the chest, in order to drive home her point. Well, that was the idea anyway. Somewhere between her jabbing out and her hand connecting, Kira's free hand snatched out in a blur, caught her by the wrist, twisted, turned and then pulled hard, disengaging her from Ysak and pulling her up short with her back to Kira and her arm bent painfully and tightly behind her back. It had happened so fast she couldn't even begin to fight back, at least physically. She was so startled by the unexpected physical contact that she drove a harder than usual mental thrust at Kira, kind of like a Beepcall where she would scream in his ear painfully. Lacus frowned a bit as she felt the effort, but Kira didn't even blink at her as her effort slid right off the mental barriers of his willpower, something which should NOT have occured.

Kira jerked his hand away from her like she had suddenly turned red hot. He half turned away and sidled away a step, registering the shocked look on her face and the surprised and slowly turning angry look on Ysak's. "Sorry about that. My reflexes have been getting away from me all morning today."

"What the HELL!?" Ysak blurted, as a physical confrontation started and ended before he could even figure out what was going on, much less actually do anything to intervene. And he'd felt the mental assault as well, though he sure as hell hadn't seen any reaction from Kira, not even a wince. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!?"

"He's not. That's the problem." Lacus cut in, her frown deepening. "And don't swear in the house. There are schoolchildren that come here sometimes, and media as well."

"Uh, what?" Ysak found his flash of anger derailed by Lacus's indignant rebuttal of his swearing.

"I'm... I'm not always in full control of my reflexes these days, is what she means, Ysak." Kira spoke up. "One of several side effects from... well, you know what happened to me. Sometimes I see threats in the most everyday things, and react without thinking about it. My instincts have been messed up pretty good, especially when it comes to people trying to touch me. It didn't help that Dearka was flicking pennies at my head as a joke. I know he didn't mean it to be hurtful, and I never should have told him I was having problems like this, but I didn't want it to catch anyone by surprise either. But I ended up judo tossing him onto the brunch table before I knew what was happening. Right into all the food and drinks. Athrun put a hand on my shoulder, to calm me down, I think... I think I really caught him by surprise when I put him into the arm bar and clocked him on the temple with my elbow along the way. I'm starting to regret James teaching me those defensive martial arts now... though maybe not, since if I didn't know what I was doing I'd probably have been lashing out a lot harder."

"You flipped Dearka head over ass onto a brunch table and then sucker punched Athrun and knocked him silly!?" Ysak exhaled suddenly, all at once. "I'd offer to shake your hand, but given what I've seen and heard, you might tear it off at the wrist. Good job!" Ysak grinned hugely. "I just wish I could have seen it!"

"Well, they weren't really EXPECTING me to attack them like that. I'm sure it won't happen again." Kira flushed, obviously wrong footed and embarassed by Ysak's cheery congratulations.

"FORGET THAT!" Katie blurted out. "How the HE... heck... did you you just shrug off my power? That should have put you on your knees, and NOT in a good way!"

"That is one of many, many things I just don't know the answer to, I'm afraid." Kira responded, at his most serious. "My body and mind have undergone a... well, a whole lot of changes recently. It's all everyone asks me about, but I just don't have any answers, beyond a few generalities."

"And despite what you may think, it's not all fun and games either. For both of us." Lacus added, more than a hint of weariness in her voice. "Believe me, you haven't seen anything strange yet... wait till we have dinner tonight." Clearly not wanting to have to explain themselves multiple times, Lacus and Kira didn't say any more, instead nearly pushing Katie and Ysak in front of them into the sitting room, where Athrun, Cagalli, Dearka and Miriallia were already waiting for them, sitting on a couch along one side of the room. Athrun was holding a cold towel to one side of his head, while Cagalli briefly glared daggers at Kira. Miriallia had scooted several inches away from Dearka, who was covered in tea stains, frosting smears and other detrius of brunch. Perhaps predictably, Miriallia didn't seem very perturbed at the recent manhandling of her lover... he had, after all, provoked it upon himself. Both Athrun and Dearka kept a wary eye on Kira as he walked by their couch, as if they half expected him to drag them onto the carpet for a second round of "involuntary reflexes".

Ysak and Katie took seats to the right of the couch, while Kira and Lacus sat across from everyone else. Ysak could not keep the amusement off his face at the condition of his two erstwhile teammates, and especially of the grim stare Cagalli kept focused on her brother. "Oh come on..." He couldn't resist needling. "... It's not like YOU haven't clobbered Athrun on the head by surprise before either, remember? It doesn't even look like your big, mean brother even drew blood, unlike some I could name."

"You're asking to get shown some of my own involuntary reflexes again, if you think you're being funny." Cagalli retorted. "As I recall, I took YOU out pretty squarely too."

"You say that like it's some sort of accomplishment." Katie cut in with a light grin. Much as she enjoyed Ysak being able to enjoy himself by poking fun at his friends, something which he didn't get to do very often, neither was she particularly looking for him to start a feud within the first hour of their shared vacation time. "Ysak-y is even more used to getting picked on by mean girls than Athrun is, remember? He folds like a paper doll, even when you DON'T smash a vase over his head."

"I feel like I had a vase smashed over my head." Dearka volunteered, rubbing the back of his head and neck gingerly.

"I said I was sorry. And I did warn you that sometimes I react differently to things than I used to." Kira replied defensively.

"Some people would have taken the hint when he flicked the pennies back at you without turning to look to see where they were coming from." Miriallia added, with zero pity in her voice. "Moving into close range was a stupid idea, even for you."

"I had to be sure it wasn't just a freak accident!" Dearka protested. "Besides... it's KIRA!"

"Are you convinced now?" Athrun asked, with a tight smile. "Because I am."

"If we could just let that go for the moment." Lacus not quite asked, anchoring the attention of everyone onto herself with a clearing of her throat. "First off, I'd like to welcome all of you to my house. From what I've heard so far, it sounds like we've all had... good times, by ourselves." Lacus blushed a little, given what "good times" meant these days. "And I hope that we'll all continue to be able to relax now that we're together again. However, before I give you all the run of the grounds, I wanted to go over some basic rules that everyone, even Kira and I, have to follow while we're here. My place is not a hotel or a frat house, for starters. I don't mind you all staying here, but I've no desire to discover myself hosting huge parties of people I don't know, at least without people asking me first."

"Why's everyone looking at me?" Dearka complained. "As if I would do something like that!"

"Lights out is at ten pm every day, unless we're all doing something together. After ten pm, I don't really care if you stay up all night talking or gaming or watching TV... but whatever you do, do it quietly. If I get woken up during the middle of my nights because some people can't be quiet and courteous to each other in my house, I can promise I'll make sure the parties in question regret it. Along with that is the no swearing rule. I don't care how you talk in the privacy of your rooms, or out on the street, but in the common areas of the house you will speak like there is always the possibility of a tour of gradeschoolers coming through the house, because there is. Also, this is an alcohol free house. Again, I don't care what you drink if you're out in town, or even if you come back tipsy, but I won't have any alcohol on the premises. The last thing I need is a media scandal about a bunch of drunken parties at my house."

"Again, everyone is looking at me." Dearka noted sourly. "I'm not the one who went to rave clubs though. Hello... I'm not an irresponsible party animal anymore, okay? I'm way more mature than I was in Switzerland."

"Thus why you flicked pennies at Kira's head in order to "see what he would do"?" Athrun asked, dryly. "What, is that a graduation from poking hibernating bears with sharp sticks or something?" He turned his gaze back to Lacus and Kira. "Jokes aside though, I can appreciate what you are getting at Lacus, but really, you're just asking us to follow common sense and decency, right? Not to be too blunt or anything, but of all of us, given what I've witnessed recently and perhaps more importantly what I've "heard about", its you and Kira who need to be getting a lecture on decent behavior around other people. I'm nowhere close to a Newtype, or even particularly empathetic, most times, and I'm still getting shivers whenever you and Kira look at each other, alright? I think I'm finally getting a handle on how Kira used to feel back in Switzerland, about Cagalli and me and our public displays of affection."

"Lacus isn't your sister though." Kira pointed out, somewhat sulkily.

"Close enough, given the fact that less than two years ago you didn't even know you had a sister, I'd say Lacus and I have at least as much a familial relationship as you and Cagalli do." Athrun replied, shaking his head at some memories of Lacus and him. "I'm not trying to get in your face about anything, understand. Just, try not to get into ours either, unless something happens where it becomes necessary, okay?"

"Yeah!" Dearka spoke up. "I mean, really, how much trouble could we actually get up to anyway? I mean, it's US!?" He gestured at Mir and himself. "And you!" Pointing at Kira and Lacus. "And THEM!" He swept his arms broadly at Katie, Ysak, Cagalli and Athrun. "And the scary and heavily bandaged adults upstairs who will probably cause more problems than the rest of us combined!" Dearka jabbed his hand dramatically but ambiguously at the ceiling, referring to Alkire, Raine, Waltfeld, Murre and Kisaka. "We're the freaking core leadership of the Clyne Faction! We're not going to go out and get hammered and tear up the town like a bunch of college students on spring break!" Dearka finished his self righteous proclaimation and saw that everyone was staring at him. "What!? I was being serious! WHAT!? Don't look at me like that!"

--

"Oh... my... god..." Dearka drawled out, leaning waaay back in the chair, so much so that if it weren't for one foot artfully hooked around the leg of the table in front of him he would have toppled over backwards long ago. "I am soooo bored right now, I can't even express it properly..."

"Sounds like someone needs something productive to fill his time with." Waltfled commented, sitting across the room at the mini-bar that fronted onto the recreation room from the secondary kitchen. It was raining outside, a real cloudburst too, complete with thunder and even a bit of lightning, which were uncommon in the heavily regulated PLANT climate. Still, there were a certain amount of natural processes that crept in over time, and so, rarely, about one time in a thousand, it rained without regard to the rain schedule. This rare occurence had resulted with all the people who were on the household grounds slowly gravitating to the rec room, with its wide picture windows that gave a magnificent view of the storm boiling over the lake outside. "It's only been a day and a half since you got here though. I would have thought making out with your girlfriend would have been enough to keep you entertained for that long by itself, but apparently my recollections of my late teenage years are outdated."

"No, Dearka is just that shallow, like a dry creek. He's the proverbial leaky bucket... no matter how often you fill him up, or what you fill him up with, he never stays full very long." Ysak threw in from a coffee table that had been moved right next to the window, so that the two people half hunched over it could concentrate on what they were doing while still taking in the evocative display of nature outside. Ysak reached forward as he spoke and moved a pawn forward, then sat back a bit, settling into a watchful pose as he waited for Athrun to make a return move. It was their fifth game of chess of the day, and so far they had each won twice, so Ysak felt justified in placing his concerns on winning this tiebreaker match in as efficient a manner as possible. For the sake of his own pride if nothing else. And for that matter, it did help pass the time, keeping him from becoming bored as well.

"Besides... we've all had weeks and weeks to do that sort of stuff without everyone else being around to make things awkward." Kira stared out at the storm, seemingly captivated by the dark grey clouds and whipping wind. "Well, all of us but you, Mr. Waltfeld."

"Stings like a bee, floats like a butterfly." Alkire commented from his seat on the couch, where he was browsing idly through a fashion magazine. "He got you pretty good on that one, Andrew. How's it feel, sleeping alone?" Of all of them, Alkire was the only one who wasn't, in some way, entranced by the storm outside. It was just a thunderstorm. Happened all the time. Just not on the PLANTS. Just like he always gaped and stared when he looked out some of the other windows and saw infinite space stretching away, only a kilometer or so away through the great glassy walls of the PLANT exterior, whereas to the kids and Waltfeld, that sort of thing was ho hum. "I hear you and Kisaka both made a bid for the goods... and got burned by a deceased man. That sucks to be you."

"You know, as funny as you think that is, I never hear you bring it up when Kisaka is around." Athrun commented, still considering Ysak's move. "Or Captain Ramius for that matter. Believe me, I understand the humor behind antagonising your friends over their failings... with friends like mine it would be impossible not to understand it... but this seems more like a dig directly at Mr. Waltfeld. You guy's having a tiff or something?"

"A tiff? A TIFF!?" Alkire retorted incredulously, slowly lowering his magazine to glare at the impudent kid. "A tiff is when your lover slaps you across the jaw because you're an insensitive jerk. You kids, and your respective girlfriends have tiffs. If I had a problem with Andrew, I'd settle it in a grownup fashion. Probably by shooting him in the head by surprise with my paintball gun one morning. No, the only reason I don't bring it up with Kisaka or Murrue around is for reasons of self preservation. Andrew I can poke fun at, because he can take it. Kisaka is less well natured, and far more capable of ruining my life if he actually took offense. And taunting Murrue, while entertaining, would only serve to unite you all against me, and I'm just a wounded Natural after all..."

"Everyone always brings that up in regards to you, Athrun." Kira noted. "About getting slapped by your girlfriend for being a jerk. I don't recall anything like that though."

"Good. At least one person isn't prying into my life then." Athrun muttured, moving a knight in position to endanger Ysak's bishop. "Its not like Cagalli's ever been afraid to let her feelings be known with her fists and feet anyway, you know. I don't see why everyone is so hung up on that one little incident. I've seen Miriallia punch Dearka in the chest many times, but nobody ever gives you any flak about that. And who KNOWS what Katie does to keep Ysak in line... we're probabaly all better off not knowing."

"Huh, you dread thinking about Katie... can you imagine my shivers when I consider how Lacus keeps lover-boy over there, with his new sex fixation, under wraps?" Ysak replied with a mock shiver.

"It's not a fixation! It's not something I can control!"

"Yeah, I told my parents that when I was fourteen and they caught me watching internet porn." Dearka snorted. "For some reason they didn't believe me, just like we don't believe you."

"You have to admit, Kira, it sometimes doesn't seem like you're trying very hard to "control yourself" as you put it." Waltfeld put in. He waited a few moments. "I mean, not that I, or any other sane Coordinator, in this room or out of it, can blame you. Were I seventeen again and in your situation, I'd probably have some control issues too."

"It's NOT LIKE THAT!" Kira insisted vehemently.

"Maybe it isn't, but when you get so embarassed about it, I can't help but think that it is." Dearka commented, smirking. "Believe me, my friend, nobody here, not even those pretend prudes over in the corner with their chessboard, is at all discomfited by the fact of what you and Lacus do in your room at night. We'd all be hypocrites if we were. But, at the risk of sounding like a fairy, your embarassment about the whole situation is adorably cute. Like something you'd find in one of those sappy romance-comedy manga's. Thus, our continued pleasure in harassing you about it."

"That does sound a little gay, you're right Dearka." Ysak agreed. "However, in principle, I have to agree. As I have learned to, both happily and less so, there is nothing as amusing as harassing your so called peers over their irrational sore points."

"Such as your inferiority complex regarding Athrun?"

"NOTHING OF THE SORT EXISTS!"

"Okay, okay... so you guys hammer me because Cagalli beats me up. We hammer Kira because he's turned into a pervy sex fiend. We hammer Waltfeld because he's unlucky in love. We hammer Dearka because... he's Dearka. We hammer Ysak because he's all bark and no bite on most serious issues. But what about Alkire?" Athrun asked, grinning at Ysak's furious denial.

"When constructing a false identity, he named himself Alkire Majesty. Voluntarily. What more do you need?" Waltfeld said witheringly.

"Says the man calling himself "The Desert Tiger". What sort of narcissistic personality disorder does THAT came from?"

"Yeah? And what does TEMPEST mean anyway? It sure as hell isn't an acronym, right? It doesn't mean anything, does it? It's just tempest, like the storm outside, but capitalized to make it look more important and weighty!"

"You put tiger stripes on your SWIMSUIT and your flightsuit!"

"You think you're freaking James Bond, with your cars and planes and trash!"

"Umm, there's no need to get so worked up..." Kira started to say, worried that a real confrontation was starting, since both men were now standing up, gesticulating and glaring at each other.

"Stay outta this, Mr. "I'm-embarassed-because-I-like-screwing-Lacus-Clyne-in-her-own-house"!" Alkire shot back, winking briefly at Waltfeld, turning his head so Kira and the other kids couldn't see. "I'll get to you after I finish taking out Mr. Kittycat here."

"Well, maybe you could just sit down, that might make the rest of us a bit more comfortable..." Athrun prompted, not so casually.

"You can butt out too, Mr. "She-likes-the-lingerie-white-to-show-the-blood."." Waltfeld cut him off.

"WHAT!? ATHRUN!?" Kira shouted.

"Ysak!" Athrun spun on the only possible source of that bit of misinformation.

"I didn't tell him! I tried to blot that memory out! Blame Katie!"

"Throws the girlfriend under the bus in under a second. That's gotta be a new record!" Dearka was gasping for breath, he was laughing so hard.

"Screw you! You have more experience throwing people under buses than ANYONE else here, Dearka!"

"What the hell is he talking about, Athrun!?"

"He's not talking about anything! It was a joke. A bad joke, thats all!"

"Suuurrreee it was. Naturally you'd say that now, especially since Kira cleaned your clock just a couple days ago."

"Shut the hell up, Dearka, are you TRYING to cause problems?"

"Is he ever not trying to cause problems?"

"You haven't helped matters either, Ysak."

"Don't get righteous with me, Zala, I don't have any pity for you. You dug this grave back in Orb. Its time for you to lie in it."

"It's because you support spousal abuse." Alkire commented dryly.

"WHAT!? How could anyone think that!?"

"Well, Cagalli does beat on you quite a bit. And you never complain. Do you want us to call a sheltered for abused husbands for you?"

"So, because Cagalli playfully punches me every now and again, I'm abused? And I support spousal abuse because I don't complain of it? What sort of twisted logic is that? How can I get in trouble for something like THAT!?"

"Well you do make jokes about red and white lingerie hiding or not hiding blood. What are we supposed to think?"

"I was making fun of YSAK and his misconceptions!"

"Well, even if we discard the punching thing, there is the issue of that perverted mouse toy you made. I hear you watched while it molested her." Waltfeld said, casually enough. "And we thought Kira was dirty." He shook his head slowly, as if in wonder.

"THAT'S NOT ANYTHING LIKE THE TRU..."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Zala. Say what you like. We got you pinned down and you know it. Now its just a question of who's going to beat the crap out of you first... Cagalli... or Kira."

"This was about YOU and ALKIRE getting into a fight... how did it turn on me!?"

"You left yourself vulnerable. Shouldn't have tried to hide or deny it, you know? Now you're just bleeding all over the place, and us sharks are circling in." Alkire pointed out. "You only have two options left. One, you can continue to ineffectually fight back, like you have been. Much to our continued amusement. Or, two, you can slash someone else, and hope the sharks are distracted by them enough for you to get away."

"Um..." Athrun's eyes darted around the room.

"No, I'm pretty sure he's sunk, actually." Kira cut in. "Oh, I'm not going to start anything physical. I have nothing to prove to myself by beating any of you into the carpet. I'm just going to add those little comments and incidents to this nice little log book I have. And one of these days, I'm going to sit down with you and Cagalli, Athrun. And we're going to discuss the things in that book, and see just what is real and what is a "joke"."

"What, are you supposed to be evil Kira now? You think that was scary? Come on, Kira... even if you've undergone some weird physical changes, you still have the soul of a pacifist. You're not going to start something with me, your oldest friend, over a spurious little rumor! Yes, Cagalli punches me, kicks me, tackles me, variously wrestles with me... but its all in fun. Thats how she is. She attacked you a couple times when you first met her too, if what she says is true. As for the lingerie comments... okay, I'm sorry. We don't do anything of the sort. I was messing with Ysak's head, you gotta believe me. And as for the mouse... that WAS AN ACCIDENT, that embarassed me, AS MUCH AS, if not MORE THAN, her!"

"It doesn't change the fact that you sat and watched a robotic mouse-vibrator you built with your own hands molest his sister, even for a little while."

"SHUT UP, DEARKA!"

"Wow, I haven't seen him turn that red in... ever. Might this be a bad time for me to mention that Katie has actually asked me to learn how you made that mouse. She wants a disguised vibrator to surrepitously molest Cagalli with too."

"Screw you guys." Athrun stormed away, shaking his head. Silence reigned for several moments after he left.

"Ahh... that felt good. I feel MUCH better now." Ysak commented, with a smug grin. "I actually got to see Athrun forced to flee a room because he was so pissed off and embarassed. My life is one step closer to completion."

"I'm glad you feel that way, Ysak. Because you're next on the chopping block, in my opinion. Its always a good idea to eliminate the weak fish first." Alkire spoke up, casually enough.

"What do you mean..."

"Well, I wasn't going to interrupt the tag team on Athrun, but I happened to hear this interesting little story. Something about an imaginary friend...?"

"No... there's NO WAY you could know that...! Damn it, KATIE!!"

"Imaginary friend eh... tell me more... I could have sworn I was the only friend he'd ever had when I first met him..."

"This is hell..."

--

"You know, looking out at this freak storm, I'm suddenly wondering... what the heck are our poor, lonely, helpless guys doing right now, while we're all out having a great time shopping and all?" Miriallia asked, her attention momentarily caught looking out one of the exterior windows of the mall at the downpour outside. Not that a rainstorm was particularly new or special to her... Orb even had Cyclones sometimes after all... but she reminded herself that, despite most appearances, they were in the middle of a SPACE STATION, where sudden adverse weather conditions were FAR less common. Indeed, the greater majority of the Coordinators around them were usually clustered around exterior windows, or at least within sight of them, oohing and aahing at the lightning display, and flinching in time to the rumbling thunder, like it was a once in a lifetime event or something. People had video recorders out, were calling people on other cities on their cell phones... it was a gala event, this thunderstorm.

"Guy things, most likely." Katie replied, before turning back to her mutual introspection of a series of sport shorts with Cagalli.

"Well, yeah, durh. But what does "guy things" entail? Does any of us actually have any idea what our guys get up to while we're not around?"

"Athrun works on his Mobile Suit a lot."

"So does Ysak."

Miriallia rolled her eyes. "No, not PILOT things... GUY things. Normal guy things. Dearka reads a lot of comic books for instance, and watches many action movies with bad plots and abundances of sexier than strictly believable women in them."

"When it comes to Ysak, pilot things and guy things are pretty closely entwined. He's very monofocused at times."

"Athrun likes making things with his hands. Like Zim." Cagalli pointed one finger absently at the small blob of white synthetic fur perched on top of her head, apparently napping, for the moment.

"Why did you name him Zim again? Not that it's a bad name... its cute, really. But I just don't see where Zim comes from."

"Cartoon show I watched once when I was way younger had a character named Zim. He was an alien, I think, living on Earth in disguise as a pet or something, plotting to take over the Earth."

"So you have a vibrator mouse named Zim, after an alien that's trying to take over the Earth while disguised as a family pet? Okay. Weird, but okay."

"He's just a mouse! He PURRS. Not vibrates. I only thought of a vibrator because of THAT specific incidence! Which won't happen ever again, now that I've named him!"

"Unless you want it to, that is."

"Katie, WHY would I WANT to go through THAT again?"

"I dunno. No offense, but, given how you described it... it sounded kinda hot. Damsel in distress scenario, with a whole new twist."

"Get thoughts like THAT out of your mind! I don't want them leaking over into Ysak's mind! He'd use them to make problems for Athrun."

"It really doesn't work like that..." Katie considered another few articles of clothing. "Besides, he already knows the basic story... how much more embarassed can he make him?"

"You told him!? I told you in confidence!"

"Um... I kinda told... Dearka... too. So its a moot point."

"Mir!"

"What? It was FUNNY. And I made him promise to keep it between us."

"And we all know what promises like THAT are worth coming from Dearka! Regardless of how much a white knight you paint him as, romantically speaking, when it comes to juicy gossip, he's worse than the three of us combined! Oh god, I should go home and make sure Athrun hasn't locked himself in our room or something."

"Why would Athrun be doing that now?" Lacus asked, having returned from "her" section of the apparel store.

"Lacus, you didn't tell Kira about the mouse incident, did you?"

"No. I figured he might not see the humurous side of it. He does have a history of not seeing the lighter side of things when it comes to you and Athrun."

"Well, at least ONE person can be relied on here."

"Oh, be quiet. It isn't like we haven't all given you plenty of juicy tidbits to hand out to your guy so he can make problems for ours too, you know." Katie retorted. She looked at the bundle of clothing in Lacus's arms. "Geez, going to a formal symphony sometime, Lacus? I hadn't heard of any."

"What do you mean? These are just normal clothes."

The other three girls exchanged glances. "And that is why, no offense Lacus, we three shop in this part of the store, and you always go off to a different part of the store."

Lacus flipped through the dresses, kimonos, gowns and other large, mostly one piece garments, most in bright pastel colors, usually made of silk or other lightweight synthetic look alikes. "I don't see what's wrong with them. I wear clothes like this all the time."

"Yes, you do. And given that you're Lacus Clyne, I'm sure it sets all sorts of fashion trends amongst the well to do upper class." Miriallia replied. She pointed to a garment at random, a fanciful sky blue colored kimono with pink and yellow flower patterns embroidered on it. "See... that's a really pretty kimono. It looks something like the one I wore to my junior prom. Probably costs about the same as that one too. However, what is for me, clothing only worn on extremely formal occassions, is for you, everyday clothing. And it's not just expense either... I just wouldn't feel comfortable wearing clothing like that all the time."

"And it can stay the hell away from me." Cagalli jumped in, with a not entirely faked shiver. "The only way you'd ever get me into something like that is because of political necessity."

"Kira said he saw you in a dress once. When you were in the desert that one time. He said you looked really good in it." Lacus pointed out.

"What Kira said is "Oh... you're a girl". Just like that."

"What's wrong with that?"

"He sounded SURPRISED! Like it was something he'd JUST NOTICED, like he couldn't tell if I was a girl or not unless I was in a dress!"

"Well... fortunately Athrun doesn't seem to have that problem." Miriallia commented, fighting an attack of the giggles.

"Yeah... he tried to make up for it when I got in his face by saying "No... I mean, it reminds me AGAIN that you're a girl", which is pretty much the same thing as saying "oops, I forgot you were a girl, cause you don't look like one". God, I almost punched him out right then and there, Andrew Waltfeld watching or not! He's never had ANY trouble recognizing Lacus as female! Why just me!?"

"Well... maybe it's because I wear feminine clothing. Wouldn't kill you to wear a skirt every now and again. Miri and Katie still wear skirts occasionally."

"More in private than in public. Ysak likes the skirts, he does."

"God, could you keep it down to a low roar, perv?"

"Nothing pervy about liking girls in skirts."

"The way you say it, there has to be something illicit going on."

"Ysak likes playing dress up. Both with me, and with him. He's probably got what it takes to be a pretty successful fashion designer, if he wanted to apply himself. You should hear what he has to say about how he would have done the ZAFT uniforms entirely differently. And to me, anyway, his changes make sense."

"Dress up? Pfft. Does he play with dolls too?" Cagalli chuckled.

"Probably not. Dearka does though. Except he calls them "action figures" or "action models". He's got quite a large collection of them in his room at his father's house. A bewilderingly large collection, to be honest. They each have individual names, if you can believe it."

"What about you, Lacus? What can you tell us about a silly hobby of Kira's? My brother is so loosely wired, there's gotta be a plethora of strange stuff he does."

"Umm... he likes reading. Technological and computer related stuff mostly. Lots of math and science. Most of it way over my head."

"Stop the bus. Alright, new note... new reason to beat the crap out of Kira, disregarding ALL other such reasons. Must beat the geek out of him before it's too late. Who knows how long it's going to be before he gets addicted to some widely distributed internet RPG or something like that, and then we'll never see him again."

"Well, if you don't like that, nowadays he likes building stuff with his hands. Not robots or anything, but actual construction and furniture type work. I'll admit, his first few attempts at building a chair were... entertaining... especially given that even I can put together a wooden chair by following the directions, but he learns SO FAST that you can't even tell he hasn't been doing this his whole life now. Even on the first two chairs, I quite literally never saw him make the same mistake twice. You know, now that I think about it, what Kira seems to be spending most of his free time away from me or other people doing is just plain learning how to do stuff. He picks a different subject every couple days and pursues it until he's satisfied with his knowledge of it, then goes on to something else. I can't even keep track of all the subjects he's been going over... its all sorts of stuff, from technological manuals to literary fiction. I mean, I'm glad he's found something to channel all his newfound energy into... but its like the food... where's he PUTTING it all?"

"Yeah, I have to say, that food thing is totally unfair. I really have to watch what I eat, and exercise a lot, to keep my weight and figure where I want them." Miriallia pouted. "I wish I could just pig out on anything and everything, consume a couple thousand calories in a sitting, then do it again a few hours later with no adverse bodily effects. It's a freaking olympic level metabolism... during olympic level competition... and he's just sitting around the house!"

"Its never really been a problem for me. Of course, I am pretty active. It would be nice though, you're right. Think of all the cookie dough ice cream and caramel syrup I could have... wow." Cagalli muttered, somewhat dreamily.

"Same here. Minus the ice cream ravings." Katie added. "I dunno, it might be sorta annoying, having to eat so much all the time. I take it it isn't very pretty if he tries to starve himself, or confine himself to regular portions?"

"That would be right." Lacus hugged herself slightly. "He only tried it once. I thought he'd turned into a Vampire or something. Sunlight certainly did seem to be shriveling him up. It might have just been lack of fuel though. It does give me concerns for the future... I'm going to have quintuple our grocery budget, at least."

"Yeah, well, that much more incentive to tell him to get out of the house, away from all the books, and working a good, productive, very well paying job."

"Well, I can support us just fine, you know. I am an international level pop singer, remember, even if I haven't been able to record an album recently. I don't think my fans blame me for that though."

"Lacus, no offense, but if my brother lets you be the sole source of income for the two of you, I'm going to tear his balls off, tie an apron around him and chain him in your kitchen, because thats ALL he'll be good for!"

"Wow, now THAT'S a PC image right there." Mirialla almost choked on her laughter.

"I'm a girl. I can say things like that without having to worry about PC."

"Are you sure you're not being a little hypocritical though... I mean, technically speaking, you're the major income source in your couple, you know? Athrun may "work", but he "works" for you, so I don't think that should count." Katie pointed out. "Does that mean we should castrate him, garb him as a woman and tell him to get in the kitchen too?"

Cagalli sighed heavily. "Sometimes, I feel like it would just make everything so much easier if I could just mold him into whatever I wanted. Why did I... why did all of us, for that matter, have to get such high maintenance guys anyway? I mean, seriously, these people are HELPLESS when it comes to real life. Without us, they'd be doomed in a matter of months. Like kittens, or puppies, abandoned on the street."

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but, like kittens or puppies abandoned on the street, I have the feeling our helpless little guys might be willingly and even fervently sought out by other girls and perhaps even guys, more than happy to nuture and care for them if we won't." Miriallia replied. "I mean, let's face it... except for Lacus, we're all lovers with some of the most publicly famous Coordinators of our generation. Certainly the most eligible potential bachelors. Sons of Supreme Council members. ZAFT Redcoats. Gundam Pilots. Independently wealthy in some cases. And even Kira has a following these days... maybe only among the Mobile Suit corps of ZAFT, Orb and the Alliance, but you mention the name Kira Yamato on a military base and someone will know who you're talking about, no doubt about it."

"Its almost funny you should say that, Cagalli." Lacus said slowly, as they migrated towards the check out lines. "Well, no, it isn't actually. Because for a while there, I was pretty sure that I could mold Kira into whatever I wanted. I was afraid I might already have been doing it. We all know what I did to Sai and his bodyguards... I could have done a lot worse to Kira with that level of effort. I don't even know how much worse. And if you do know, Katie, please never tell me. Thankfully, despite whatever Frost did to him... or perhaps even because of it... I don't have to worry about that anymore. It's a strain, at times, to even contact him when he doesn't want me to. It makes some things harder... but I'm glad. We've had our differences and arguements... but I don't think I could have lived with myself if I'd really forcibly changed Kira into someone he wasn't trying to be."

"Geez... serious! I thought we were supposed to be going out to RELAX and have FUN!?" Katie protested. "You know, cut the guys loose on each other while we banded together, so that we can be assured of having all sorts of ruffled male ego to soothe when we get back?"

"Um, what? Wait... you're getting something from Ysak, aren't you? What happened?" Cagalli demanded.

"Oh... not much. Lets just say that you aren't the only one who has a partner who locks themselves in their room when they get flustered. From what I gather, its going to take some serious peace negotiations to get anyone but Uncle Alkire, Mr. Kisaka, and Mr. Waltfeld talking civilly together tonight."

"Oh no... already? It's only been a couple hours..."

"Just think of it as practice for when you have kids." Katie paused a moment,and looked guiltily at Miriallia. "Um, sorry. That slipped out."

"Don't worry about it too much. It's not like I was hoping to get pregnant in the next four or five years anyway. And who knows what sort of medical advances there will be in that time? I refuse to be any more depressed about it than absolutely necessary. Have you guys broached the topic with your guys?"

"I think I'll save it until after the war. I don't need any more stress."

"That sounds like a really, really good idea, Lacus."

"I agree."

"Well, then, verbal catastrophe averted, lets check out and go home. White knightesses to the rescue and all that. I don't suppose I could get a transcript of what they said to Dearka, could I?"

"Why? So you know what to soothe?"

"No. So I know what works to rile him up in the future."

--

Kira's eyes snapped open, and he glanced around the room alertly. Still pitch dark. The digital clock on his bedside table told him it was just a few minutes before "dawn", though, because of the continuous, 24 hour a day sunlight in the PLANTS, that was much more an ambiguously assigned time of the day than any meaningful event. Dawn in Aprilius was at 5:30 am, and most government offices required their workers to be in before dawn. Thankfully, he didn't work for the PLANT government, so he usually slept till six or later. Slept was perhaps too strong a term... he was finding that he was sleeping less and less as time went by. It wasn't to say he didn't NEED sleep... he just needed much less of it to be refreshed. So he'd sleep deeply for the three or four hours that he required it, and then just sort of nap, or doze or meditate for another four to six hours while he waited for Lacus to finish sleeping. She got very irritated when he left the bed to go do other things while she was still asleep... if for no other reason that because when he was awake and active, it was hard for her to sleep.

Kira carefully adjusted his end of his connection to Lacus, as much as he could anyway, to help mute the increased levels of mental activity now that he was awake. He wasn't entirely sure HOW he was doing it... it was almost instinctual really, and unsettling for that reason... but at length he was satisfied that he'd damped himself down as much as possible, so that unless he got agitated or upset, he wouldn't suddenly wake her with his thoughts. She'd be waking up in about thirty minutes if he didn't get back to bed... saying she was sensitive to his presence or lack of it was quite possibly the understatement of the year, even while she was asleep, so he hoped that whatever slight disturbance had woken him from his meditative thoughts could be resolved sooner than that. He didn't see why not... all sorts of things set him off these days, ranging from a lost kite string slapping against a window to Dearka accidentally getting pushed out of bed in the downstairs guest bedroom one night. With any luck, he'd be back in a matter of minutes.

Kira cautiously sat up in bad and edged away from the warm, mutual indentation in the center, where he and Lacus tended to congregate during the night... there was no "her side" or "his side" of the bed. There was an edge on either side of the bed, and then there was the warm spot in the middle. He paused a moment, looking down at her, with her gloriously long pink hair spread out all over the pillows and sheets and her face relaxed and totally at peace. It was a good image. A special one. He wished he had a camera for it, really, but moments like this were impossible to capture with a camera. He wanted to reach out and touch her cheek, but he didn't dare... she sometimes woke up just from the INTENT of such actions, much less the actual act. He eased out of the bed and slipped on a bathrobe over his shirt and shorts, then put on a pair of house slippers. With a final look back at the vision lying in their bed, with her signature pink Haro lying like a carelessly discarded ball just to the outside edge of her head, Kira padded out of the door and headed downstairs.

It didn't take him long at all to discover at least one cause for his wakefulness. Someone had opened one of the doors leading into the bark yard and garden area. The possibility of a burglar was so remote it was laughable, and besides, Kira would have almost relished coming upon an intruder, at least these days. Give him something to burn a little of the constantly building energy inside himself off on. It only took him a couple of steps outside to discover that, just like he'd expected, there was no intruder. If anything, it was an extruder. He was looking at Alkire and Waltfeld, both crouched behind a medium sized bush about ten feet from the door, huddled together and seemingly peering out into the rest of the yard. Alkire had a long, odd looking metal and plastic contraption leaning against him, and it took Kira several seconds to realize it was Raine's paintball gun, the one that was supposedly for "sniping". Waltfeld appeared to be carrying a video camera and a scope of some sort. Confused, Kira watched them both for a moment, wondering what the hell they were doing.

Even as he watched, Alkire took up the paintball gun with slow, measured movements. The paintball hopper itself was missing, leaving only a short tube on top of the gun for ammunition to be placed inside. Into that hole, Alkire dextrously placed a largish ball made of what looked like hardened plaster or perhaps clay. He then put the gun to his shoulder in a pose that Kira recognized as a man sighting in on a distant target. Alkire held the pose for several seconds. Kira was just about to ask them what the hell they thought they were doing when Alkire pulled the trigger. The paintball gun made a sort of hollow "cth-thunk!" noise. Alkire swore under his breath.

"Grazed it. Marked him good, but definitely not a kill shot. My turn." Waltfeld muttured.

"Damn thing turned at the last moment. I had him cold otherwise."

"Well, bring it up to the maker next time. Tell him to make them more predictable if you're having trouble, sahib."

"Why the hell are you calling me "sahib" anyway?" Alkire grumbled as he and Waltfeld switched equipment.

"Because it bugs you, sahib. And its funnily appropriate, though I'm not sure why exactly."

"What the HECK are you guys doing?" Kira could not contain himself any longer. The other two men jumped slightly, obviously having had no idea they were being watched. They both spun on their haunches and almost overbalanced.

"Oh damn, it's the kid. We're sussed." Alkire commented.

"Maybe not. Maybe not. He was watching us for a while there, I think. We might have found our third party actually." Waltfeld refuted. "Come here, Kira. And try and keep an open mind, okay? This isn't just a random act, okay? We've BOTH been pushed to this course of action during our short time here."

"Um. What are you guys doing?" Kira shook his head, but he walked over to where the two men were crouched.

"Shh! Not so loud. They'll hear you. And get down, would you! You wanna attract their attention or something?" Waltfeld hissed.

"Attract who's attention?" Kira asked, deciding to humor them.

"Our arch nemesises. Here, take the scope. Look down range... I mean, into the yard. Over by the dock and its balcony. They're not hard to spot... nature, for whatever reason, did not evolve them with natural camouflage abilities or any other defensive mechanism besides the urge to flock." Alkire replied.

"I don't see anything but a bunch of Haro's."

"EXACTLY THEM! Good job, you figured it out!" Alkire took the scope back. "All right, all right... let's see... ah, there we go. Dark Green. I make it at eighty three yards. It's the highest one up of them all. Bonus points if it falls in the water."

"I see it. Yeah. Cocky little bastard, isn't it? I'll teach you to stand out from the herd." Waltfeld took another ball of what Kira could now see was fire hardened clay from a basket containing several dozen more such objects. Kira noticed that there were letters... words and phrases actually... etched into the surface of the clay. While Waltfeld loaded the gun, Kira picked up one of the other balls and studied it.

"Burn in Hell, you damned machine?" Kira read, incredulously. He turned the ball over. "Payback is a Stone Bitch?" He read the other side. "What did the Haro's ever do to you guys that warrents this level of animosity?"

"What did they do? What did they DO? EVERYTHING! They're EVERYWHERE! Under your feet, in your closets, in the bath tub, in the kitched cupboards, hell even in the fucking refrigerator sometimes. I can't open ANYTHING in this house without one of the little buggers jumping out at me and scaring the shit from my body! It's probably just a coincidence, but at times, Haro's look disconcertingly like certain forms of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines... some of which ALSO jump at you without warning with little incomprehensible electronic noises. Needless to say, I have something close to two or three near heart attacks A DAY because of these bastards. Not to mention what it's like when a herd of em latches onto you and won't leave you in peace for hours on end. No, these little bastards have had this coming to them for a while now. Isn't that right, Andrew?"

"Entirely, sahib. They almost dragged away my arm covering one time, you know? Those things aren't cheap! And they invade my bedchamber constantly, at any and all hours of the night! Apparently... someone, whom I won't name... made a programming change to them and so they avoid any bedroom with more than one person asleep in it. I can understand why that someone may have made such a change... believe me, after having more than three score of them congregating in my room and sharing my bed with me, I VERY MUCH understand why a certain someone would want them OUT of his intimate life. You can tell a dog no. You can put a cat outside. Haro's cannot be deterred peacefully. Thus, we are forced to retaliate in kind." Waltfeld sighted in on the target, let half his breath out and then pulled the trigger evenly.

Even at this distance, and without the aid of the scope, Kira could both hear the harsh "CRACK" of impact as the clay ball struck the dark green Haro full on and see the explosion of white powder as the clay ball disintegrated from the impact. The force of the shot blasted the Haro backward with a surprised squeal of static that dopplered away as the Haro dropped out of sight off the balcony into the boat slip directly beneath. Waltfeld pumped his fist in a short gesture of victory. "One down. Sixty four to go."

"Did that break it?" Kira asked, wide eyed.

"Unlikely, I'm sad to say." Alkire replied, searching the mob for the next target to pick off. "The clay ammunition is harder than a paintball, certainly, but it fragments too easily to really damage the plastic shells. Maybe a ding or dent, but thats all. Hell, even if it did penetrate, those things are mostly air inside anyway... unless you crush them or get lucky and hit the central chip, they're actually pretty durable. Good design on Athrun's part. He just never should have mass produced the bastards."

"But Lacus adores them." Kira pointed out.

"Everyone makes mistakes sometimes."

"She's NOT going to be happy if she finds out you're doing this."

"Well, I'm not going to tell her. And neither is Andrew. Guess that leaves the burden of guilt on you, Kira. Just by watching that one shot, you're already an accomplice. Do you want to take a shot too? I bet you got some serious loathing for these things built up somewhere in that pristine chapel you call a soul." Alkire replied. "Three o'clock. Orange. Or is that Sienna? Whatever. Bouncing low along the ground. Looks like it's chasing vermin or something. Range seems to be varying between seventy and ninety yards."

"I should be stopping this. Lacus will be really upset with me... with all of us... if she finds out you're hunting her Haro's!" Kira protested... but all the same, there was an element of truth to what Alkire had said. He didn't HATE the Haro's... but he couldn't find it in himself to just up and rat the two men out either. Especially because it wasn't like they were actually destroying the robots, just harassing them. "Um, I think I'll pass on taking a shot."

"But you're not going to turn us in, are you?"

"Well, you aren't breaking them..."

"Attaboy, Kira. I knew you'd see it our way."

--

Martin Dicosta was exhausted. Despite that, and the physical discomfort of his aching eyes, he took another folder off the top of the pile of similar folders on his kitchen table. This was going to be his last one, he promised himself. It was past midnight after all, and this wasn't even work he was doing for his job. It wasn't easy, serving in the regular military while also being the chief of information collection for the Clyne Faction. Well, technically, Commander Waltfeld was the intelligence director, but Dicosta was the sorry bastard who ended up doing most of the legwork. He didn't mind most of the time... he was good at this sort of stuff after all, and he really hated being in the limelight. To be honest, he loved his job, even with the long hours and aching eyes and lack of real public recognition for his work. He was really, actually making a difference, and that was enough for him. Though he was also looking forward to collecting on this months shipment of coffee, made personally and privately for him by none other than Andrew Waltfeld himself as recompense for the late hours, with more than the usual degree of anticipation. He'd been getting a whole lot of nothing, and by a whole lot he meant thousands and thousands of carefully perused pages of nothing.

Like the greater majority of documents that crossed his improvised desk-kitchen table, this folder was a plain manila color, with a small tag on the top that had the label filled in by whichever agent had copied, stolen or discovered the information before passing it on to him. Sometimes the label was relevant to whatever the material was, oft times it was just a serial number or word or two that the agent in question used to differentiate between which bundles of information they were giving him. This particular folder had the words "Angry Sky" written on the label. Dicosta wondered what the agent had in mind when they wrote the label... it seemed somehow more evocative or meaningful than usual. He flipped the folder open and groaned inwardly. It was a technical document. Technical documets were always dry and mind numbing and boring. It was a good thing this was his last folder of the night, because he was already sure that he'd be reading himself into a near coma with this stuff.

Forty minutes later he was on the phone with Commander Waltfeld, all feelings of exhaustion and aching eyes banished, the technical documents spread out all over his table and the kitchen floor. This was seriously bad news. Quite how they had only gotten wind of something this HUGE now was beyond him. He felt a chill creep up and down his spine as he explained what he'd found to his boss. He never would have thought the PLANTS, that ZAFT would go this far. He hadn't realized that the corner they were in was so tight, that a response like this had been approved. All he knew was that unless something was done about it, Earth was going to find out just how angry the sky could get.

--

"All right, Mr. Waltfeld... WHAT THE HELL is so important that you had to call us all together for a meeting at one thirty in the morning!? I don't know about anyone else, but I DO STUFF with my days and I'm pretty TIRED right now!" Ysak stormed. "This had better not be another one of your cockamamie lectures or practical jokes, because I am HEARTILY sick of your so called "morale raising functions"." There was a general murmur of agreement, even from people like Kisaka, who, cladin his nightclothes, looked something like a bear roused directly from hibernation that was none too happy about it. Waltfeld's reply shut everyone up.

"Oh, sorry to bother you, Mr. Joule. It's nothing more than THE END OF THE FUCKING EARTH AS WE KNOW IT!? IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH?! HUH!? IS IT!?" Waltfeld snapped. He was tired too. Usually Dicosta called him in the midmorning to do the intelligence briefs. However, he definitely understood the breach in protocol for this bombshell. This was total top priority, abandon everything else to deal with it sort of news.

"Uhm... yeah..." Ysak sat back, much subdued, since Waltfeld really didn't yell or get in people's faces very much. "Sorry?"

"It's not your fault. I'm a little stressed out right now. Hell, make that at LEAST as stressed out as I was during the attack on the GENESIS. Yes, that's the STARTING POINT, ladies and gentlemen. That's the level of situation we're in here. Vacation is OFFICIALLY OVER, as of NOW! We are in an emergency scramble now." Waltfeld growled, wondering just where he was going to start. This was such a fucking HUGE mess... talk about a nearly eleventh hour warning... they had less than a week to figure out what to do. Much less than a week to figure out what to do and actually DO something.

"Well, why don't you start from the beginning, if you would, Andrew?" Murrue advised. "Obviously you've discovered something important here."

"Just a little, thanks Murrue." Waltfeld forced himself to remain calm. "In a little more than one hundred and ten hours... thats four and half days and some change... ZAFT will begin a new combat operation. The final combat operation of the war, one way or another. This is really, truly the PLANTS last gasp effort to defeat the Isolationists. Denied its terrestrial holdings, especially coming in the wake of the disaster at the Moon, ZAFT has almost no reserves left. By the same token though, their logistical problems are almost nonexistant... pretty much all the military can be supplied directly from the PLANTS now, and for an extended operating time of at least a month more. Of course, most of PLANT society will have broken down by then because of food riots, but, if their plan is successful, those riots will never come to pass. It's now just Earth in one corner of the ring, and ZAFT in the other, with no forces on either side in the way of a full out, WMD attack."

"ZAFT's ultimate recourse is called Operation Overload. On paper, it's completely suicidal. ZAFT will split its remaining forces into twenty seperate fleets, which will burn for high geo synch orbits over Earth with all haste, eighty six hours and some minutes from now. Naturally, Isolation forces will respond to the presence of these ZAFT fleets, fearing orbital bombardment or perhaps even surgical ground strikes. Indeed, some forces will be descending to Earth, in the largest coordinated orbital drop assault since JOSH-A. However, unlike JOSH-A, where the forces from all over the world were concentrated into one mighty hammer blow, Operation Overload will have twenty different forces descending on twenty different parts of the globe. It is the job of the orbiting fleets and descending Mobile Suit and infantry forces to occupy and delay the Isolationist response for as long as possible... retreat is not listed amongst ANY of the command options for the escort forces."

"It doesn't make any sense... why split the forces and then fight a war of attrition? Why fight a war of attrition at all? The Alliance... the Isolationists have ALL the advantages in that sort of situation!" Ysak protested. "They'll be only too happy to engage ZAFT in that kind of scenario... it's like we're offering them our military, gift wrapped with a nice pink bow!"

"That is where the WMD's come in. The majority of the Isolationist forces will be grouped at those twenty points..." Waltfeld began.

"They're going to nuke them? That doesn't seem feasible. Even if ZAFT could assuredly wipe out all the forces opposing them at each point, it wouldn't change anything in the terms of the situation for the PLANTS. A baiting action, even with nuclear backup, is pointless!" Athrun objected.

"Let me finish please, but yes, you're right about that!" Waltfeld retorted. "At each one of those twenty points, a special warhead will be deployed by the ground forces. These warheads have been given the codename of "Angry Sky". They're very complex, but its really just an upscaling of a previous ZAFT special weapon. The Angry Sky warheads are little more than multiple gigaton category Gugnir EMP bombs." Waltfeld let that sink in for a moment. "By way of comparison, the Gugnir's used to disable Porta Panama during the First Valentine War were rated at roughly four kilotons each. Each Angry Sky warhead is twenty gigatons. In case your math skills are lacking, that means the Angry Sky warheads are five MILLION times more powerful than the original Gugnirs. Also, there are TWENTY of them, although according to ZAFT's calculations, blanket coverage is assured by only twelve of the devices."

"Blanket... coverage?" Dearka asked, slowly.

"World wide blanket EMP coverage, yes. Powerful enough to utterly ignore any form of shielding known to man. In a phrase... "lights out"... permanently. Anything that uses electrical power or computer chips will either be destroyed by feedback or be completely wiped clean of all stored data, irrecoverably. In this day and age, that means basically everything above the level of bicycles will be useless. Not only that, but anything relying on computer chips for production purposes... such as, I don't know... ALL INDUSTRY... will be inert and useless. In a matter of seconds, Earth will go from being in the post information age back into the tool age, at least until people figure out how to smelt metals by hand again and they progress back into the iron age. All records, whether they be medical, financial, political, educational... ANYTHING stored on data disks or in computer files... it's all going to go away at once. There won't be any backups besides paper, and most paper records are hopelessly out of date. Cars won't run. Planes won't fly. Power plants will shut down, regardless of whether they are nuclear powered or not. Food, water, sanitation, heating, medical care... ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that makes the modern world the modern world will cease functioning. Of course this includes all ground based forces of the Isolation and ZAFT... but its a much, MUCH bigger loss for the Isolation."

"The EMP waves are more than powerful enough to reach orbit, but they will be contained by the Earth's magnetosphere, thus limiting the damage to Earth and Earth alone. Once the bombs go off, all ZAFT has to do is wait a day or so for everyone to realize what happened, then descend to Earth and begin gathering food supplies for the PLANTS. Since they'll be the only ones with any sort of operational military capacity, no one will be able to stop them. The lunar forces will be utterly cut off from their main supplier of parts and food, not to mention the higher chain of command. It's anyone's guess really, but I'd say it'd be at least a year or two before someone on Earth puts together a broadcaster capable of reaching the Moon through all the electromagnetic backwash that's going to be bouncing around in the upper atmosphere for decades afterwards. In the time granted to them while Earth basically rebuilds itself and its technologies from the ground up, the PLANTS and ZAFT will be able to establish footholds and a technological edge that will ensure that they will be the dominant superpower in the solar system for the conceivable future."

"What sort of death toll are we looking at here?" Alkire asked.

"The EMP bombs themselves actually have fairly little effect on the human body... it wouldn't be good to be within about a mile of one going off, but they're all going to be set up in remote locations to make attacking them harder, so that shouldn't be an issue. The blanket coverage will probably cause a few hundred thousand casulaties initially, from crashes, planes falling out of the sky, medical services going away, etc. After that, with civilization as we know it basically destroyed, who can tell what the rioting and disorder will be like... I'd imagine we'll be seeing a lot of cities looking like they've just gone through Purgatory Day by the time things calm down in any real fashion. I'll throw out a number and say maybe a hundred million deaths because of the bombs, all told. For a weapon that affects the entire Earth, that's merciful, I guess." Waltfeld almost spat in disgust, but remembered that he was inside Lacus's house at the last moment.

"Well, its obvious we can't let them do it, isn't it?" Kira spoke up. "I understand that ZAFT and the PLANTS are backed into a corner, but this... this is NOT the right answer."

"What are the odds of this being pulled off successfully, do you think, Andrew?" Kisaka asked.

"I'd say pretty damn high. They've included an extra 67 percent redundancy in their ordnance, and even if the full twelve don't go off, that still means anywhere from half to three quarters or more of the world goes tribal again anyway. Hell, ONE, going off and covering the AF would be enough to give ZAFT the breathing room they need. At least enough to hopefully bring the Isolationists to the bargaining table. Taking out a major political-economic bloc with a single bomb should be enough to get ANYONE, even Sai at his most pig headed, to sit up and take notice that ZAFT is done screwing around with standard warfare. Sending twenty of these Angry Sky warheads is OVERKILL. Like using a Gundam to step on a rabid weasel. Somebody... likely somebodies... up at the top of the chain of command must have been having a pretty major panic attack when they approved this abomination of a plan!"

"Not to mention that it's a completely indiscriminate weapon!" Cagalli shouted. "Orb never did a damn thing to the PLANTS... we did all we could to HELP the PLANTS! And those bombs are going to destroy MY nation too! How could they think this is the right answer?"

"Well, speaking from the perspective of an average Coordinator on the street, it's very neat and easy, as long as you don't think too deeply about it." Dearka commented. "Point, click, boom, war over. We win. And we didn't have to destroy the Earth, or even really damage it. Unless you look real close, it won't even change, from our perspective. It's easy to forget that there are billions of people living on that blue and green ball in the sky, when it's the size of a basketball most of the time. Especially when they have no way of communicating with you. It solves all of the PLANTS problems very neatly."

"Yes it does. But the PLANTS aren't the only people who deserve to live their lives in peace and happiness." Lacus said, her voice steely cold. "The way I see these Angry Sky weapons, who target civilians, elderly, children, the disabled, the sick, the helpless and the undeserving just as much as they do the worst Blue Cosmos terrorist or mass murderer... just as much as they target even someone like Frost... these weapons are WRONG. This war should never be allowed to become something where it's a matter of population vs population, of who can completely destroy the capability of the other side to function as a society. I won't stand for it, even if it means I have to stand against my own home country to do it."

"What are you going to do then?" Ysak asked. "We don't have anything besides the Eternal, and no Mobile Suits at all. I don't like the idea of these Angry Sky things... I've NEVER apporoved of indiscriminate killing... but what can we DO about it?"

"I will be going to Earth, as soon as possible. I will meet with Sai Argyle. I will convince him that his Isolation cannot stand as it currently is against the threat it now faces. Compromise and cease fire at the MINIMUM is the only ethical and reasonable way forward now."

"Pardon my saying so, Lacus, but when has Sai ever struck you as ethical and reasonable?" Miriallia pointed out, though it hurt, deep inside, to say that about one of her former best friends, despite everything.

"He isn't... and he is, in a manner of speaking. His own man was the one who brought up the unarguable fact that sometimes you have to compromise your ideals to ensure the betterment of the greater good, no matter the personal cost to you and even those you care about. As of now, the Isolation has LOST, whether they realize it and want to admit it or not. It's up to us to convince them of this fact, and convince Sai that negotiation is the only possible way past this that doesn't result in world wide disaster."

"Can we do that, though? Judging from what I saw on the Moon, he's not so much in to negotiating." Athrun pointed out.

"Whatever his personal faults and arrogances, President Argyle isn't a stupid man. I am completely convinced of the fact that if we can present to him the evidence we have, and show him that Operation Overload and the Angry Sky mechanisms are a real, tangible and immediate threat, he will do the right thing for his people... which in this case is to take things off the battlefield and into the realm of words."

"I... agree." Kira said. "Not just because she's right in what she says. Of anyone here, I know Sai the best. Even warped and changed as he's become, he's not the sort of person to just ignore this sort of thing, just because it comes from Lacus and the rest of us. Sai is doing the right thing as he sees it, and nothing can sway him from that path unless we can show him that his path leads to ruin. Sai wants whats best for the Earth and Naturals. Letting ZAFT rain EMP bombs down on the world and sending it back to the middle ages is NOT what's best for the Earth or for Naturals. Sai will be able to see that clearly."

"Yeah, and what if he's got a secret weapon of his own? Something that he can put into play that will stop Operation Overload in it's tracks once he's forewarned?" Alkire protested.

"He doesn't. He would have revealed it if he did, if for no other reason than to discourage the PLANTS from trying something like this. Sai's much more the sort to lay all his cards on the table as quickly as possible. He hates deceit and deception. Even the Isolation Plan was published for months online before he enacted it. Hard as it may be to accept, we have to realize, Sai, while insanely antagonistic and pushy, isn't Blue Cosmos. He doesn't WANT to kill Coordinators unless he has to to defend what he holds important. Sai is not the real enemy here... he's a victim of the war, just like most everyone else. We just have to SHOW him that. He'll cooperate with us to save what's important to him." Kira replied.

"You're putting a lot of trust in your former friend, given how often he's betrayed you!" Ysak snarled. "The last time this happened, I lost Chanel, you bastard. What makes you think this time is going to be any better!?"

"You don't have to come along, Ysak. Nobody but me and Kira have decided to go, just yet. I wouldn't blame you at all if you wanted to stay." Lacus spoke up softly. "That goes for everyone. I know some people will likely be going because of concerns of their own on Earth... but if you don't feel Kira and I are making the right decision here, please, don't force yourselves to support us. I would understand, completely. I'm not totally sure of things myself. All I know for sure is that if I don't do this, a catastrophe beyond anything we all can imagine will occur. I will have completely failed, as a leader and a human being, if I let the Angry Sky come to Earth and just sit here, safe and comfortable at home. The only way things can get worse than they currently are is if we DO NOTHING! I have thusly decided to do SOMETHING, which I think is right and has a chance of averting this disaster. Whether or not I am right, I do not and can not know. All I can do is trust how I feel and trust in my hopes."

"We'll be going." Katie said firmly.

"But..."

"We'll be going." Katie repeated, even more firmly, not even deigning to look at Ysak. "In this, at least, Lacus and I feel the same way, Ysak. It's worth the risk. Hell, even if he throws us all into prison the moment he sees us, or calls for us to be executed on sight... as long as we can avert the Angry Sky from Earth, I can be satisified. Mind, I would prefer he accept our advice and then lick shit off the bottom of my shoes to start making up for all the terrible things he's done to me and us afterwards, but that's just what I want."

Ysak sighed in frustration. "Well, I can't let you go alone."

"I don't think anyone is backing out at the end here, Lacus." Athrun said, after having looked around the room. "Win or lose, or whatever's in between, we're all going to see it together. Maybe we don't all have the same reasons, but we all have reasons compelling enough for us. And if anyone has the best record of pulling through in situations like this, it's you and Kira. You're one for one so far, I don't see why we shouldn't trust in that record."

"You're selling yourself short, Mr. Blow-myself-up-to-save-the-world." Cagalli pointed out tiredly. "We're not going to make much more progess standing around re-affirming the commitments we all know don't need to be re-affirmed at this point. If we're going, lets go!"

"Yeah. Let's go." Kira stood, and led the way out of the room.