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.

105. Flames of the Soul

"Right now, in near Earth orbit, military forces from Earth and ZAFT are currently engaged with each other in a life or death battle to decide the fate of the human race. Or that is what they believe they are doing, in any case. They are wrong. The battle... is pointless." Lacus said, her eyes boring into the camera, trying to look every last person in her audience of millions, perhaps billions, right in their eyes. It was said that the eyes were portals into the soul, and Lacus definitely wanted that to be true right now, because the more of her soul, and the torment and suffering it was experiencing, that she could show to the people watching her, the fewer words she would have to use, and thus the fewer chances she'd have to lose the full impact of her message. There was nothing worse than an overlong or windy message for reducing its impact on the target audience. She had to grab their attention, speak up, speak out, make her point and drive it home, as quickly, concisely and powerfully as possible. She saw that Murrue and Waltfeld had called up real time video images of the battle taking place in orbit and were streaming them live alongside her own brodcast.

"Many would argue that no battle is pointless, that any time where men and women strive with their lives for goals they believe in, that it has some worth, somehow. I am forced to disagree in the strongest possible terms with that opinion. The men and women of ZAFT and the Isolation currently doing battle are throwing their lives away because they have been misguided... allowed themselves to be misguided. Harsh words, I know, and no one wants to hear them... but they need to be said. What we're doing is wrong. We're wrong! We're ALL wrong! This fight, this war, this Isolation, this ZAFT... its all wrong!" Lacus lent forward slightly. "The first step to righting a wrong is to admit that there has been a wrong in the first place... we cannot fix what we don't believe to be broken! Its hard to see what is wrong, I know... after all, we've all been told, repeatedly, that our course is right! That we're doing the right thing! That ZAFT is right! That the Isolation is right! That I am right, that YOU are right... but we AREN'T! This so called path of rightness has led us to a knife's edge ledge, with disaster yawning below us on either side! If the Isolation is right and ZAFT is wrong, then the PLANTS face starvation and the loss of millions of innocent civilians! If ZAFT is right and the Isolation is wrong, modern civilization on Earth will cease to exist, with a death toll no one can guess. Why is it that the RIGHT PATH ends up in millions of innocent people dying, either way!? HOW CAN THAT BE RIGHT!?"

"But they forced us to! Its not our fault, is it!? THEY did it to US, after all. If they hadn't done THIS, then we'd never do THAT, but they DID, so we WILL! That's what we're doing, this very instant! We're blaming each other, refusing to accept blame for what we have done! I can't claim to live a perfect life... I blame people for things, and sometimes refuse to accept responsibility for my own wrongs. I'm no different than any one of you out there watching right now, Coordinator or Natural! I'm a human being, just like the rest of us, and that means I'm not perfect! I make mistakes! But the essence of humanity... our ability to peacefully progress... relies on our ability to ACKNOWLEDGE OURSELVES, for good or bad! If you can't accept the idea that you can do wrong, you will do no right! Look at yourselves! Look at your actions! Have you done the right thing, when you had the choice? Did you offer aid when it was needed, lend a listening ear, a shoulder to the injured, a steady word to the fearful? Did you? I haven't always, I have to admit. Its human nature to think of yourself too. But you cannot fall into the trap of excusing being self centered as just human nature, because it is part of human nature to care about others as well. Family, friends, countrymen, and humanity as a whole!"

"Its hard to face up to these facts. Its embarassing, and frightening, and there's going to be consequences for our actions, and nobody wants to face them. But we have to. We need to face the darkness we find inside ourselves, because if we don't strive through the night, we'll never see a worthwhile dawn! We need to realize that we DON'T HAVE to be afraid of each other! That we may be different, whether it be in color of skin, religious ethos, country of birth or even the circumstances of our time in our parent's wombs... but being different doesn't make one person better or more worthwhile than any other person, on an inherent level! People are people are people! Right now, people are dying because we all refuse to accept that they ARE people, because if we do accept that, we have to take responsibility for what we've DONE to them, rather than just fume about what they've DONE to us! That is what I'm asking you to do... take responsibility! Accept your own actions, and try to accept theirs as well! It hurts, I know, when your loved ones are suddenly gone, killed by people and events you cannot control. It's happened to me before, and it may well happen again, especially if we don't get the course of humanity back on track. But killing them won't make anyone come back from the dead, and only makes them feel your pain, and desire to inflict it back on you again!"

Lacus leaned back in her chair again. "I can't ask any of you to do something I myself would not do, so I shall take the lead." Lacus stood up. "I am Lacus Clyne. And I am so terribly, terribly sorry! I can't express my sorrow in words nor in actions, merely pray that you somehow understand, even a little. I cannot take back my previous actions, nor alter the flow of history to bring back your loved ones that may have been injured, lost or killed because of my actions. I have no excuses to give for the way my ideas and efforts have shaped the world into what it is today, merely having to say that I acted as I thought I should. I could very well be wrong, and it is YOUR place to judge that, not mine. I am not perfect. I get angry. I become sad. I say things to hurt the person closest to me out of spite sometimes, even though I know he's just concerned for me. I am afraid. I do feel lost, and alone, and cold, espcially since many of the people I love most are currently involved in that life or death struggle up in space. Kira Yamato, my heart and soul, could very well die soon. Might already be dead. And if he is... it will be my fault, because I asked him to go. And for that, I am sorry." Lacus bowed deeply from the waist, not having to fake or hide the tears in her eyes. "Please forgive me."

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Ashino gritted his teeth, as a pair of Moebius Flare's zoomed by just overhead, careening around the Nelson class destroyer he'd been using as visual cover from the Pulsar and nearly taking the Independence's head off at the shoulders. The problem was that he was visually covered from his OWN forces as well, which had resulted in several near collisions, given the frenetic nature of this battleground! At least no one on his own side had taken any panicked pot shots at him yet, though the Clyne Faction machines had suffered a few, which they had handled with admirable restraint. ZAFT Mobile Suits had made a few efforts against him, but the Independence's superior firepower had quickly dismantled them and sent the survivors reeling away. He'd ambushed a pair of Nazca classes that looked like they were trying to sprint through the middle of the battle to a low orbit position, either for a flanking maneuver or maybe to disgorge a certain special cargo... in either case it didn't matter because he'd blasted one to pieces and sliced the engines off the second, after draining enough power to fully charge his palm mounted Mjolnir capacitors.

A CuGue popped up behind him, shield mounted CIWS rattling a burst of shells harmlessly off the Independence's rear Phase Shift plating as it prepared to dive onto him with beam sword blazing. Ashino craned the Independence's head around and opened up with his own CIWS... all six of them, and CuGue armor wasn't nearly as doughty as Phase Shift. After the three second burst the ZAFT machine was more holes than not, and it drifted away, leaking a thin plume of frozen oxygen crytsals. Ashino scanned his immediate vicinity for more threats, and almost did a double take as he sighted the Pulsar, with its back to him, floating not more than a few kilometers away, sword held negligently in one hand, heated chain whip dangling from the opposite forearm. Frost didn't look to be engaged with anyone at the moment,though there was plenty of fresh wreckage in near proximity that suggested he hadn't been idle long. The Independence's sensors gave no indication that Frost had yet spotted Ashino, but he was cautious to take that with a grain of salt... the Pulsar was frightfully advanced after all.

Taking careful aim, though he did not really expect the shots to land, Ashino jammed his thrusters on to full power, blasting away with his full arsenal as he tried to close to absolute point blank range with Frost as quickly as possible... that was the only way he was going to have any chance at all of striking with the Mjolnir cannons. Given the Pulsar's speed and maneuverability, a normal pilot would have been easily able to evade Ashino's bullish rush... but with Frost in there, Ashino knew that the Pulsar wouldn't be able to resist returning the charge head on. He was relying on it, in fact. Frost would never back down from a direct challenge from Ashino, not in this arena! Just to be sure though... "Frost! You're done! It's time to end your nightmare!"

The Pulsar spun like greased lightning, palms rising, projecting the frustrating red fields of contained antimatter that consumed Ashinos cannon shells, missiles, beam blasts, railgun tracers and hyper impulse cannon shots with disdainful ease. "My nightmare is everlasting, Little Ashino. It's been going on my entire life, and it won't end until EVERYTHING ELSE DOES! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOU RIGHT NOW, LITTLE ASHINO, SO FORGIVE ME IF I MAKE THIS QUICK!" The Pulsar retracted its chain and took its sword in both hands, before leaping across space, directly at the Independence, just as Ashino had hoped. He discarded his gatling cannons and unlimbered the Independence's beam glaive, halfway between a spear and a sword, with grips for one or two handed use. Ashino kept his grip on his shield and glaive just barely tight enough so that he didn't drop them... he was only going to get one try at this, and he was going to need to free his palm projectors line of fire FAST. He thought about calling for aid from the Clyne Faction, but by then no one could possibly get there in time. This was between Ashino and Frost.

The two mobile suits barreled right at each other, adjusting courses just ever so slightly so that they'd instead pass each other. The beam glaive twirled and sliced in an arc, shield held low and inside defensively. The beam zweihander looped in, trailing orange fire behind it, both hands on the hilt for maximum power and control. There was an instant of convergence, a huge flash of red and gold sparks, a brief puff of ice crystals and then the two machines were past each other, turning at bay like warhorses passing each other on the tournament strip. The Independence's Citadel shield went spinning off into the darkness of space, and streamers of fire spat momentarily from the ravaged socket where its right arm and shoulder had used to be. The right half of the Independence's head was stoven in and half melted, and the great Isolationist Gundam's thrusters flickered weakly as it hung there in space, stunned and crippled. The Pulsar didn't have a single mar upon its skull grey surface. Holding its sword in a wary guard position for a few moments, the Pulsar studied its damaged opponent. The reactors of the Independence were all but off line, barely enough to keep life support going. It was missing an arm and most of its head, indicating that its sensors and weapon controls were gone. Cockpit temperature was falling rapidly, revealing some sort of breach of the atmospheric seal.

Frost chuckled triumphantly, slowly relaxing his guard. The Independence made no sudden movements... made no movements at all. Even when the Pulsar floated right up next to the Isolation Gundam and rapped the back of its hand on the Independence's chest, there was no response. He hadn't thought he'd struck the machine so telling a blow, but his sensors were not lying to him... the Independence was nothing more than floating scrap! He'd done it! Now there was just the tiny detail of the squirming meat in the cockpit to deal with. The all consuming need to hunt down and punish Noah for his betrayal abated somewhat... Little Ashino had some things coming to him as well, he sure did! Frost regretted that they had to be in space, because he had really been looking forward to settling his little brother once and for all in a more personal manner, but needs must, after all! Frost drew back the zweihander, poised to drive the point right through Ashino and his cockpit, not stopping until the hilt itself came out the back side! It was then that Ashino made his move.

The Independence's left arm jolted to life, using all the power Ashino had diverted from the life support system and heating systems instead of telltale power straight from the reactors so that Frost wouldn't realize that the Independence was still at least partly functional... certainly functional enough for Ashino's gamble. Palm out, fingers crooked into claws, Ashino thrust his left hand at the Pulsar for all he was worth, from a distance of less than five meters, and triggered his one remaining Mjolnir capacitor, which should have been more than powerful enough to reduce the entire Pulsar to little more than blackened paint chips. "I... DON'T... THINK... SO!" Frost crowed furiously, his right arm snaking out to lock palm to palm with Ashino's left hand. Frost triggered the right hand Positron shield at the same time that Ashino fired his Mjolnir cannon, the massive electrical blast leaping across the bare inches between its emitter and the Positron shield edge... and going no farther. White smoke and sparks blasted out of the Pulsar's right hand mechanisms, as purple-white bolts of lightning blasted backwards in a cone from between the two Gundams, the sun bright tendrils carving through the Independence like it was made of butter, before the explosive backwash threw the Gundams apart in a nova of pure white light.

Frost swore and hissed and raged as his hand felt like it had caught fire and BURNED, burning down to the bone, and then deeper still. Red light filled his vision as the Pulsar registered actual battle damage, serious enough to impede future system performance. His hand was broken! Well, it still functioned like a hand, the claws even still worked, since they were a simple mechanical release device. But anything electronic in his hand... including the right hand Positron shield emitter... was so much SLAG! His hand went numb as the Pulsar cut off "feeling" to it, and directed its self repair nanites to the area... but the damage was severe... it would be many hours, even days, before the shield was even partially functional again! DAMN ASHINO! TRICKSY LITTLE ASHINO! Frost swore he would tear him limb from limb and then chew the flesh from his bones, personally! But he couldn't see any trace of the Independence... it looked to have been annihilated by the backlash. Snarling in disappointment, Frost soothed himself with his hate of the betrayer, Noah, and went to go hunt him down again!

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Frost hadn't gone far at all, certainly not nearly far enough, when he sliced through yet another of the seemingly endless supply of Drake class frigates that the Isolationists used as escort and anti-mobile suit warships and found himself face to face, barely three hundred meters apart, with the Duelist and the Righteous, who had been responded to Ashino's status icon suddenly winking out on their displays. Frost smirked, as the two Coordinators hesitated for just that bare fraction of a second that communicated their fear of him so clearly, then split up, circling in on him from opposite sides. The Duelist went "low", the Righteous edged "high", and both blazed away at him with their ranged weapons as they approached. Switching his sword to his right hand, Frost used his left hand Positron shield in hurried back and forth sweeps to deflect and consume their firepower. Growling with frustration at being forced onto the defensive, Frost released his sword and snapped out his beam crossbow. He only had a couple more bolts for the blasted thing, and he saw no reason to conserve them.

The Righteous's flyer packs spiraled in on the Pulsar from behind, and so Frost whipped his right arm down and around and shot one of them right through the middle with his beam edged bolt, skewering it and cutting its control and guidance systems, causing it to corkscrew off into the depths of space. With no time to reload, Frost threw the inert mass of his crossbow at the second flyer pack, deflecting its course slightly as it slashed through the useless weapon, giving Frost plenty of time to snatch up his sword again and interpose it between them, deflecting the flyer pack up and away from him in a jarring impact that pushed the Pulsar into a slow front flip. With a thought, he activated his reverse thrusters, throwing the Pulsar straight backwards almost three kilometers, inches ahead of the descending beam swords of the Duelist and Righteous. Reversing momentum one hundred and eighty degrees, Frost came screaming back at them, sword once again gripped in both hands. He spun sharpely to the side as he approached them, slamming the sword edge on into the Righteous's shield, indenting the Citadel field barrier slightly for a moment and catapulting the red Gundam backwards with the kinetic impact. Letting the shivering sword float for a moment, Frost whiplashed both his arms at the Duelist, releasing the heat whips as he did so.

The right hand whip struck the Duelist's shield dead center, jolting the blue Gundam over to that side slightly, allowing the left hand whip to wrap several times around the Duelist's suspiciously empty right hand. As the Duelist brought its chainsaw edged shield over and down onto the heat whip, even as its "trapped" right hand clamped down with a solid grip on the chain wrapped around its forearm so that Frost could not easily disengage, Frost realized that he'd been tricked, again! Few things pushed his buttons like being tricked! This time though, the trick could cut both ways... watching the sparks fly as the Duelist's spinning shield edges started biting into his heat whip, Frost countered with a relatively simple tactic... he hit his thrusters. As hard as he could. Several hundred gravities of nearly instantaneous acceleration and about twenty kilometers later, Frost stopped, so he could untangle the detached arm from his heat whip. The whip was damaged, but given that it was mostly just a twenty five meter chain of extremely hard and heat resistant metal links, it wasn't like it was delicate... a few cuts and gouges wouldn't hurt it. Satisified that he hadn't suffered any injury, and chore finished, Frost returned to the fray at nearly the same acceleration as before, appearing next to the maimed Duelist as if by magic.

A frantic double tap from its shoulder mouted railgun was easily brushed aside with a wave of his Positron shield, and his other hand's claws licked out to dice the missiles leaving the hip launchers before their secondary boosters could even fire. The gatling beam cannon on the other shoulder canted down to blast at him, but a flick of his right hand heat whip ensnared the offending weapon neatly, and it took only a single jerk of his arm to rip the weapon mount cleanly off the Duelist's shoulder. The Duelist slammed its shield at Frost's chest in desperation, but Frost countered it with a kick that stopped the shield cold and even pushed the Duelist slightly back. The railgun fired at the Pulsar again, but its shot just disappeared into forever along with all the rest as it crossed the Positron shield barrier. Frost saw that the Righteous was fully recovered from the blow he'd dealt him, so he resolved to finish Scarface off quick. Frost drew both of his arms back again and let fly once more with both heat whips.

The left hand whip once again sailed easily past the Duelist's defenses, since there was no right arm to grab at it or try and block this time. The white hot metal links slammed into the Duelist's right hip, shattering the missile tubes there and digging deeply into the interior structures. The right hand whip struck the shield again, but instead of being deflected downwards, upwards or away from the Gundam, the whip skittered off the shield in a spray of sparks and then drew a second spray of sparks, as well as metal spallings and a gout of frozen air as it deflected off the shield and arrowed into the Duelist's left armpit area, destroying the shoulder joint and locking the limb in place. Frost bared his teeth in triumph... until the Duelist's left hand dropped the shield onto its left knee and grabbed hold of the right hand heat whip. Using his thrusters and that left hand grip as a guide, Ysak fired the Duelist like a rocket following a track right into the Pulsar. Frost managed to jet backwards in time to avoid a full on collision, but doing so prevented him from stopping the Duelist from accomplishing its goal... which was using its knee to drive its shield, edge first, into the Pulsar' right elbow. The shield howled silently and smoked as its teeth bit into both the Duelists's left knee join, where it was jammed, and the Pulsar's right arm armor.

The Duelist's left hand had been melted off from heat friction during its brief journey along the Pulsar's heat whip, but that didn't stop Ysak from hammering that left wrist into the side of the Pulsar's head, shattering one red crystal eye and snapping the Pulsar's torso backwards with recoil. The Duelists's shield sawed through the Duelists's left knee and the Pulsar's right arm just below the elbow at roughly the same time, before its motor seized up and it became inert wreckage. Frost watched the remains of his right arm, including the hand with its destroyed Positron emitter, the glowing red hot spiky thing on the back of the forearm and the still glowing white hot heat whip, go spinning off towards the Earth. His arm didn't hurt at all... but he couldn't feel it either. He'd never suffered a traumatic amputation before, and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel. Angry seemed to fit the bill nicely. It was one of those catch all emotions, good in every situation. The Pulsar attacked the crippled Duelist in a frenzy, single remaining heat whip slashing out again and again and again, smashing away armor, tearing off the head, ripping apart the remaining arm and leg, leaving huge dents in the torso region... Frost flayed the Duelist bare of flesh, and was just about to start in on the frame and soft interior when the Righteous arrived.

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Frost found that he'd broken out in a light sweat ever since he'd lost the lower arm, but he chalked it up to his mounting fury, which always served to get him hot and bothered like few other thing could. He slashed at the Duelist one more time with the whip, carving a fiery trail through its guts, all but disembowling the bastard, before turning his attention to Loser Zala-Attha. The Righteous blasted at him with its shoulder mounted railguns, but Frost twisted like an eel and sideslipped them with ease. He was done playing around. He pointed his right hand imperiously at the Righteous... and then switched limbs with a grimace when he remembered he no longer had a right hand... and popped his claws slowly, one by one, retracting the heat whip as he did so. Frost was more than aware of the remaining flyer pack sweeping from behind him, but he did not deign to react to it until the very last moment, before stretching the Pulsar out flat along its horizontal axis, allowing the flyer, its guns chattering uselessly, beam edged wings impotent, to skim a few meters above him. As it passed over he rammed his left hand upward, claws gathering into a piercing point that ruptured the relatively thin armor on the bottom of the flyer through sheer physical impact, before digging deeply into the crackling electronics within. The flyer pack exploded, but it did so outward, barely even charring the paint on his hand.

Frost didn't wait for the Righteous to come to him, with shield to the fore and dual bladed beam sword scything... he came to it, riding a rooster tail of exhaust flame that was visible down on Earth, assuming you had a pair of binoculars. Frost caught the Righteous's sword hand by the wrist, forcing that arm wide as he clenched his hand as hard as he could, blade tipped fingers scissoring at the Righteous's gauntlet. Pulling himself close, Frost hooked his right leg around the Righteous's legs, pulling the red Gundam into an embrace Frost had no intention of letting it leave while alive. Pressed so closely, the Righteous couldn't move its shield with any sort of momentum, and Frost ignored the weak tapping hits that Loser Zala-Attha managed to land anyway. "You love fiery things, don't you, Loser Zala-Attha!?" Frost snickered, an amusing idea popping into his head. "Let me introduce you to a fiery thing you WON'T like! It's called a FIERY DEATH!" Frost kicked his thrusters into action, easily overwhelming the pitiful thrust that the Righteous could muster, though Frost was careful to keep things to under ten G of acceleration... he didn't want Loser Zala-Attha to black out, oh no indeed... burning to death was no fun at all when you were unconscious!

Frost circled the battle zone once, cackling with glee as he turned in tighter and tighter spirals while pouring on the power, sweat of joy bursting into being on his arms and legs as he vented his volcanic fury on the Righteous. Tiring of his play, Frost altered course... and dived directly for the Earth, reaching the outer atmosphere in a matter of seconds. Tucking himself in tightly against the Righteous, Frost didn't let up on his thrusters in the slightest bit, powering downwards faster and faster, at an ever steepening angle. Soon the Righteous was red for a different reason than its paint job... heat friction was building up as the Pulsar forced them both into thicker and thicker layers of air. With its armor specifically designed to reduce friction by a huge amount, the Pulsar wasn't yet affected... by the time it would be, the Righteous was going to be nothing but a cinder. "Hot enough for ya, eh, Loser Zala-Attha!? Bet you're wishing you didn't know anything ABOUT fiery right now!" Frost shouted happily.

"I wouldn't mind a swim in the ocean, that's true." Athrun replied tightly, judging the moment to be right. He didn't think he personally had any chance of defeating Frost in the Pulsar... even with his SEED, the Pulsar was just too fast, too maneuverable, and its pilot too unpredictable, perhaps especially so now that he'd lost an arm. But though HE couldn't beat Frost, Athrun had a pretty good idea of who COULD, and so his goal now was twofold. One, survive. Two, make Kira's fight easier somehow. He could already see that the Pulsar was running hotter than usual due to the loss of one of the eight external cooling vanes, which had been attached to the lower right arm Ysak had severed. Frost was one to talk about fire... if Athrun had any say in the matter, it was FROST who was going to a fiery doom! It was going to be awfully tricky though... the Righteous was already well past its point of no return, where its thrusters weren't powerful enough to escape the pull of gravity, especially without the flyer packs. He'd worry about that when he got loose from the Pulsar though.

Discarding his shield as being too bulky to use effectively in the clinch, Athrun reached around, as calmly and precisely as he could manage in the current situation, and clamped his free hand onto the cooling vane on the back of the Pulsar's left thigh. The cooling vanes were just as hot as the heat whips, and were in fact part of the same cooling system, and Athrun knew that he wasn't going to have long before his gauntlet melted. Fortunately, unlike the heat whips, the cooling vanes weren't particularly durable, and it was the work of a few tugs to twist it off... well, more pull it off now that it was welded to the ruin of his gauntlet, but the effect was the same. The heat in his cockpit was growing unbearable... he was afraid to look at the thermometer in case it was going to show him that he usually preheated ovens to temperatures cooler than this, like he suspected it might. Another minute or so and he'd lose consciousness from heat exhaustion, and not long after that the Righteous would blow itself apart from overheating.

Still calm... as calm as he could be, anyway, Athrun slammed his maimed left wrist into the Pulsar's left wrist. Once... twice... thrice... on the fourth hit the Pulsar's grip was knocked askew, and he wrenched his right arm free. Wasting not a second, he spun his sword around in one of his trademark circling blows, striking first with one beam edge and then the other. Of course, he hit nothing, since Frost had disengaged at pretty much the moment Athrun had started his attack, but that had been what he'd expected too... and now he was free of the Pulsar. Athrun knew he was vulnerable without a shield, but without its massive beam zweihander, the Pulsar also lacked one hit kill capability against him, and in a close range duel, even in uncontrolled free fall in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, Athrun would pit his sword against any opponent who dared to step up, Frost included, with a confident smile on his face. Frost seemed to consider this, weighing the personal reward of ensuring Athrun's death with the great deal of extra time it would take to do so, and in the end seemed to conclude that even if Athrun survived the fall, which Frost deemed unlikely, then he'd still be helpless to stop Frost from achieving his destiny... his time could come later. The Pulsar turned around and headed back towards the orbital brawl at top speed, leaving Athrun to figure out just how in the hell he was going to survive falling through another few score miles of atmosphere without burning up.

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Even though he'd only been away from the battle for a relatively short time, due to the constant interruptions from the damn Clyne Faction and Little Ashino's desperate but ultimately fruitless gambles, Frost found that there were a great many fewer ships around than he'd last seen, and a lot more wreckage. Very small wreckage in parts, moving rapidly outward in all directions from certain cleared spaces in the middle of the warring fleets. Searching for his sword, Frost paid the greater battle little heed...until a shiver walking up and down his sweat drenched spine caused him to whirl around, searching for whoever was trying to sneak up on him. He couldn't see anyone for a long few moments, couldn't even discern the small tell tale signs of a mirage colloid cloaked enemy. So what was it that... Frost snapped his left arm up, palm out, Positron field blooming into existance to absorb a swarm of missiles, a pair of shotgun blasts and a red-blue hyper impulse cannon shot that streaked out at him from the near distance. Ah, the Blond Weeny and chick. Of course. The heavy artillery of the Clyne Faction had been making its presence known on the battlefield, laying waste to the concentrations of heaviest fighting while Frost had been away.

It was a heavier handed intervention than the Clyne Faction weaklings usually condoned. Frost smiled slightly in approval. Maybe there was a little hope for them yet. Best of all, unless he missed his guess, the Grand Buster had accounted for most of the ships that were likely to be carrying those EMP bombs Noah had tried to betray him with. Now he didn't have to waste time hunting down and destroying the bombs, he could just go straight after the head of the beast itself. Although, in retrospect, now that the bombs were gone, Frost realized how useful they could have been towards achieving his destiny. He shrugged, sweat rolling down his limbs. Oh well. Win some, lose some. He cast about for his sword, but it was nowhere within sight. Frustrating. His Positron shield absorbed another volley of shots from the Grand Buster and Frost yawned slightly. How boring. The Blond Weeny and his chick only had ranged weapons... there was almost NO challenge in fighting them, especially since the Pulsar had lost its crossbow, so he couldn't even pretend to have fun trading ranged fire with them. Not only that, but the Grand Buster was only slightly less dumpy than a goddamn ZaOot... it was going to be like slicing up babies in a bucket.

Frost spiralled in on the Grand Buster, left arm forward to deflect or absorb its pitiful attempts to fend him off, his mind already moving on to the next task... where HAD that damned sword gotten off to anyways... and then what he was going to do after that... peel Noah's pudgy baby fat from his screaming skull with a pair of rusty spoons... and then get back to the serious business of destroying all of humanity. Step one, kill Grand Buster. Step two, find sword. Step five, destroy world. What could be simpler? He'd fill in the details as he went. He careened to a halt as soon as he passed the Grand Buster, sweeping around behind the ungainly green and tan Gundam, disengaging his Positron shield so he could count coupe by slashing his claws across the Grand Buster's back. Kicking off from the support Gundam's back even as its shoulder turrets swiveled around to blast ineffectively at him... handiwork of that chick, whatsherface, aviator girl... which he avoided with insulting ease, Frost circled around to the front of the Grand Buster, tearing the hyper impulse cannon right out of its hands and breaking it over his knee. Backing off in fear and awe, the Grand Buster blasted at him again and again with its anti-armor shotgun, retreating as it did so.

Frost chuckled in some small amusement, not even deigning to use the Posirton shields, but simply dodging the shotgun blasts using his thrusters and the peternatural speed and agility he'd possessd for most of his life. It was hardly even a game, Frost thought as he pushed his left arm out and thrust the heat whip down the barrel of the gun before its next shot, backing the round up and blowing the weapon to tiny pieces. The Blond Weeny and chick were so outclassed by him that he couldn't even figure out why they were trying to fight him, other than sheer stupid obstinancy... a quality the Clyne Faction in particular seemed rendolant with. He drew back his arm for another forward thrust with the heat whip, debating whether to strike for a limb to prolong the torture, or just to go straight for the heart so he could get on to more important matters. It was a tough call... he was split pretty evenly down the line on that one. Sweat dripped into his empty eye socket, which he could feel even through the gel surrounding him. Did he usually sweat so much, even when excited? He didn't remember it being like that... but it was inconsequential anyway. He swung for the arm... he had plenty of time for a little stress relieving fun, he decided.

Dearka and Miriallia waited until the Pulsar was beginning its forward swing before they reached back behind them for the Earthshaker cannon, towards whih the Grand Buster had been backing ever since they'd sighted Frost, even before they'd first fired on him. Well aware that their regular firepower was all but useless against the Pulsar's maneuverability, not to mention the Positron shields, they'd loaded and then discarded their main weapon, trusting tha Frost would show his usual disdain for them and not bother to look for a discarded weapon. Sometimes it was good to be the guys everyone else looked down on as slower and less effective or dangerous than others... it gave you a pretty big advantage when you were able to play that up, and then move quickly to prove to your enemy that they were a damned fool for thinking you helpless or scared. Well, scared they were, but far from helpless. The Grand Buster snatched up the Earthshaker and brought it around just as the Pulsar's whipe was about three quarters of the way to them. Dearka didn't waste time with aim... at twenty five meters he could hardly miss. And he didn't, even though the recoil from the shot sent the Grand Buster reeling backwards.

Moving as quick as thought, Frost changed his slicing whip attack into an inward sweeping defenisve catch, reversing all thrust even as he did so and applying maximim power to the Positron shield, which had barely even left the emitter when it encountered the Earthshaker shell, and could not expand any further. Nor could it disintegrate something as comparatively massive as the shell, and Frost had caught the munition just about directly head on, so it wasn't sliding off the magnetic fields either. No, it was driving straight on towards glory, pushing the Pulsar ahead of it, body bent up around it, hand resting against its own chest, like a man folded up around a cannonball. Realizing that he couldn't pull away from the shell's velocity, Frost drew on some of the Pulsar's latent action memory from Jeremiah Borander's spirited defense of the PLANTS from the nuclear missiles of the Twelfth Lunar Fleet, and instead started applying counter thrust, gradually slowing the shell down. He couldn't do it too fast, or the shell's warhead would trigger, and not even Frost knew if the Positron shield would deflect all of the blast from that!

Doing things slowly didn't work out too well for Frost either, as the Pulsar was driven, back first, into and through several large pieces of battle wreckage before he'd managed to fully neutralize the forward momentum of the Earthshaker shell. No major structural damage was done, though his back mounted thrusters did suffer nearly a thirty perent drop in output, which was humiliating, given who'd inflicted the damage. Frost put his hand on the derelict shell and heaved it away from him, off towards the general direction of the PLANTS. With any luck, in a few months, it'd break open one of those damn hourglasses. Of course by then Frost hoped everyone in them would already be dead... at least if he had any say in the matter... but having backup plans was smart, right? He turned his attention back to the current time and place... just barely in time to see a second Earthshaker shell streaking directly towards him. This one he managed to catch well in time in order to angle his shield to deflect the enormous high explosive warhead up and away from him, flipping like a spun pokerchip for a couple dozen kilometers before impacting on an Agammenon class carrier that had, until then, escaped major damage. The back half of the carrier promptly vaporized in the explosion, which was quite pretty to watch, but Frost was darting towards the Grand Buster, and mostly missed it.

What he didn't miss was the Grand Buster reloading the Earthshaker once more, with its sixth and final shell. Frost pushed the Pulsar for all it was worth, ignoring the burning sensation up along his shoulderblades and back as his thrusters, already damaged, protested this sudden strain. As it turned out, the Grand Buster managed to finish reloading and fired just as the Pulsar got to within about fifty meters. Moving at his current converging velocity, Frost could do little besides extend his Positron shield and hope for the best... by his calculation, any sort of evasive maneuver still carried with it a dangerously high percentage chance of getting glancingly hit by the shell... and a glancing hit from an Earthshaker would be all and more than what was needed to destroy the Pulsar. Shell struck shield at extremely high velocity and detonated in a ball of fire almost a hundred meters across, engulfing both the Pulsar and the Grand Buster. The Pulsar's forward momentum was flat out canceled and then overwhelmed... if not for the Gravitic Reduction System and the gel Frost was encased in, he'd have been turned into a film of flesh and goo about a millimeter thick on the inside of the Pulsar's cockpit. As things were, while the Pulsar tumbled head over heels backward, quite out of control, Frost felt like his entire body had just been trampled by elephants, and blood thickly clouded the gel before clotting.

By the time he'd regained control of his senses and body, the Pulsar was hundreds of kilometers away from where he'd engaged the Grand Buster, and tumbling farther away at a goodly clip. Of the Grand Buster there was no sign... a few large chunks of smoldering debris that might have been parts of the limbs and torso, but nothing that looked functional... his opponents, like Ashino, looked to have blown themselves to bits in a fruitless attempt to kill Frost. Served them right! Frost controlled his tumbling, noting with displeasure the heavy sheen of sweat all over his body, and the burning lines crawling up and down his back muscles as his thrusters protested. He resolutely ignored the physical pain, like he did most inconvenient physical distractions, and arced around, heading back for the main battlezone. He wasn't sure Noah was there, but he wanted to get his sword back. He had a feeling he'd be needing it.

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Kira spotted the untended beam zweihander at just about the same time Frost did. They spotted each other in the next instant after they discovered the sword. They were about equidistant from the blade, but Kira knew that the Pulsar, even damaged as it was, still far outclassed the Liberty in terms of pure speed. There was no way he could beat Frost to the weapon. Still, maybe he didn't have to beat him to it... if he could deny him the ability to use it at all! Stowing his shield, Kira drew out the dual 57mm beam rifle in his left hand, triple sniper cannon in his right, and focused all his weapon crosshairs on the giant sword. Deny the enemy, a basic tenant of war. Destroying the sword wasn't as easy as Kira had hoped it would be... though gigantic, the sword didn't, by itself, have nearly as much mass as a mobile suit, and it was drifting already, when when his shots struck its unresisting surface, they blew it backwards before they could do full damage. Still, he noted with satisfaction that large cracks had appeared in the blade, and pieces of the edge had splintered and cracked away. One more volley ought to do it.

The tides evened out as Frost reached his sword, snagging it with a howl of insane distemper that rattled Kira's eardrums... Frost was still broadcasting on all available frequencies, at least in the short range, since Lacus had taken over the long range frequencies and channels. Kira ached to be able to listen more closely to what she was saying, wished he could be there by her side with all his heart and soul... but until he defeated Frost, there was no way that could happen. And deep down, Kira was experiencing a strong degree of doubt about whether he COULD defeat Frost at all! Their careful battle plan was in ruins, Frost had been able to seperate them and engage them in mostly one on one contests by using his superior speed and maneuverability, not to mention his devastating and disrupting unorthodox offensive and defensive tactics. Modern military tacticians had forgotten how effective pure, blind fury could be on a chaotic battleground, and Kira and his friends had been the unlucky personages to get to rediscover that truism. As if that wasn't enough, the Pulsar's capabilities were so far advanced over the Liberty's that it was laughable to compare them. Kira had never felt quite so outmatched in his entire life, not even when it had been him vs Dearka, Ysak, Athrun and Nichole during the Archangel's first journey to Earth. Fighting the sense of despair was gnawing away at his willpower.

Not helping was the fact that he was now basically alone, except for the remnants of the ZAFT Operation Overload fleet and the Isolation Orbital Defence Forces fleet, who were still slugging it out with each other, though in a far more spastic fashion now that most of their strengths had been exhausted or destroyed. Three shots from Dearka and Miriallia's Earthshaker cannon had broken up the greatest concentration of the fighting, which had been focused around five heavily escorted Nazca class frigates. When those had been destroyed or disabled, the ZAFT offensive seemed to collectively lose heart, and Kira, somewhat guiltily, had breathed a sigh of relief... the Sky was no longer capable of being Angry. That Dearka had been forced to cause such terrible destruction to do it weighed heavily on Kira... and he knew it would weigh far more heavily on Dearka, who was at heart still a citizen of the PLANTS first, and member of the Clyne Faction in close parallel.

At the moment Kira wasn't even sure if Dearka and Miriallia were still alive... there'd been a very large explosion and then the Grand Buster's status icon had winked out, but Kira knew, as well as or better than anyone, that there was a big difference between a destroyed Mobile Suit and a dead pilot... he'd "come back from the dead" himself once or twice now, he wasn't going to count out Dearka and Miriallia until he had no choice. The same for Ysak and even Ashino. As for Athrun, Kira wasn't even worried in the slightest. He'd witnessed the engagement between Frost and Athrun, but he'd been too far away to intervene, and completely unable to do anything once they'd entered the atmosphere. He'd seen the Pulsar release the Righteous while it was still whole, and even saw the Righteous enter a more controlled free fall... Athrun would be okay... if Kira could survive atmospheric re-entry in a Gundam two generations less advanced than the Righteous, Athrun, whom Kira had always thought of as physically tougher than himself, would be fine.

There was no time to re-equip his shield, or even to draw a beam saber. Kira threw up both arms and poured on maximim forward thrust in the last second before Frost and the Pulsar reached him... The Pulsar, for all its speed and maneuverability and power, was actually a lightweight mobile suit compared to the Liberty. That was his one strength... the Liberty was more physically powerful and much more physically durable than the Pulsar. It was just figuring out how to take advantage of that which was a problem. The Pulsar's sword sheared through both the Liberty's beam rifle and sniper cannon in a spray of metal chips and yellow-orange sparks. Kira saw the blade still oncoming and could do dothing about it, as his own thrusters pushed him into Frost's swing. He closed his eyes, about to compose a last message to Lacus. The entire Liberty rang like a bell, and Kira's world started tumbling end over end. His hands and legs went numb from the vibration imparted to the Liberty by the sword strike, and he tasted blood on his lips from where he'd bitten on his tongue during the whiplash. But he wasn't dead, which was what should have happened, with a dead on strike.

It took Kira a few fractions of a second, even in SEED mode, to realize what had happened... his gambit with the sword had paid small dividends at least! He hadn't destroyed the sword, like he'd been hoping... but it did seem like he'd damaged or destroyed the beam emitters that gave it the edge it needed to penetrate Phase Shift armor... right now it was just a big, sharp piece of metal! His torso armor had been dented by the force of the blow, but the Liberty was still very much whole and operational. Kira wasted no further time in bringing out his sword and shield... even if the sword had been effectively neutered, Kira didn't want to tempt Fate again... Lacus would be heartbroken if he died now! Kira stopped his tumbling, and launched himself after Frost. Not that he expected to catch him, but to be still was to cede all advantages to Frost. As things were, he only had a few... the Liberty's durability and strength, Frost with no beam sword... Kira would have liked to count the fact that Frost only had one arm to fight with, but he'd fought Frost often enough to know that being a limb down only made Frost more dangerous, because he became even less predictable.

At the heart of the problem he had with fighting Frost was just that... Frost was unpredictable. Well, he WAS insane, but Rau le Creusete had been insane too, so insanity did not always equate to unpredictability. Kira was accounted such a great Mobile Suit pilot because of his hand to eye coordination, reflexes and other physical abilities, yes, but he knew that there was a whole second side to it too... his ability to figure out what his opponent was thinking, and be able to act first, not react. He could anticipate what people were going to do, and he already had his countermoves in place, like a chess player, thinking two or three moves in advance. But when fighting with Frost, he couldn't do that... Frost almost never tried the same attack twice... he didn't THINK of attacking, he just ATTACKED. Sometimes it was just brutal, hand to hand clawing and ripping. Sometimes it was graceful charges with the sword. Sometimes it was the frighteningly complex close range dancing and grappling with the whips, or the invisible punches from the Positron shields. Or, it might be something completely off the charts, such as grappling someone and diving into the atmosphere with them... that HAD to have been the first time anyone had ever done that!

The long and short of it was, Kira was forced to be completely on the defensive when dealing with Frost in the Pulsar, and not only that, but he was forced to only react, because planning ahead was just wasted effort on his part... he had NO idea what Frost was going to do next, and even general contingency plans were often useless. Very few people had ever won a major battle just by remaining on the defensive, but Kira was also well aware that his life was very much balanced on a knife edge... all Frost needed was a little bit of luck, if Kira left himself open during an attack, and then it would be all over. But he couldn't sit on the defensive either... eventually Frost would try something, like the atmosphere dive, that Kira had no possible defense for. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't... it was the same sticky situation the Clyne Faction had found themselves in ever since the beginning of this second Valentine War. There was nothing he could do besides trust to his feelings that he was doing the right thing, the necessary thing, and give it all he had.

Kira deflected a thundering strike from the zweihander with his shield, noting that bits of the blade continued to crack and splinter off every time Kira blocked it... eventually the sword would break, just like Kira had first wanted! The force of the strike sent sparks and arcs of protesting electricity running up and down the Liberty's left arm though... say what you would about the Pulsar's lightweight status, even a lightweight could hit like a mammoth if they were moving fast enough. Too many more blows of that caliber and Kira would be joining the one armed fraternity! He slashed his blade once... twice... three times in quick succession at the Pulsar, but Frost eeled past the blows like Kira had thrown them in slow motion, the Pulsar disengaging and gaining a thousand meters of distance between them in the blink of an eye. Kira was usually one of the most manueverable people in a given fight, he found he didn't much like at all being in the position of the guy who could only stare with envy at the agility of his opponent. He did notice one thing which lifted his spirits slightly though.

The Pulsar always had a heat signature that was distinctive, to say the least. It exuded more heat than a score of regular Mobile Suits, even nuclear powered ones like the Liberty, which only made sense, given the nature of the fusion reactor that powered the Pulsar, and the external cooling vanes that permitted its continuous operation. At the moment though, Kira couldn't even look directly at the Pulsar with his thermal sensors... even in visible light the Pulsar was faintly glowing with heat along its every surface, paint crisping and blackening in ever lengthening streaks stretching around from its back. Not only had Frost been running the reactor at maximum power for more than an hour now, but with the loss of the lower right arm, and the damage to the back of the left thigh, the Pulsar's cooling system had been reduced in effeciency by twenty five percent! Kira grimaced when he thought of what the temperature in the gel filled cockpit had to be like... if his opponent was anyone but Frost they'd already have been unconscious, if not partly boiled alive!

Still, the thought gave him an idea... the Pulsar COULDN'T take much more damage to its cooling system or the entire machine would overheat. Quite what would happen then, Kira could not guess... but he doubted the Pulsar would be in much shape to continue fighting. His best chance to accomplish that would be the Gugnir cannon on his chest, but Frost had nearly been hit by that once already, and remained wary of staying too long in Kira's close front arc even now, despite his foaming rage. Insanity did not, unfortunately in Frost's case, equal stupidity. But that didn't mean it didn't equate to carelessness. It was going to take a good bit of luck on Kira's part, and the hope that his grasp of Frost's perceptions of him were correct, it it was going to mean taking a hit... or maybe several hits... but Kira judged it to be worth the risk.

On the next exchange of blows, Kira let the force of Frost's sword swing tear his shield out of his hand. He drew his second beam saber and raised them both, allowing a hint of his trepidation to creep into his movements, hoping Frost would misinterpret it as fear. Fear was a part of it certainly, but hope featured strongly as well. Frost seemed to take the bait, circling around quickly, coming straight at Kira with blurring speed, sword held out in front of him like a battering ram. Kira gritted his teeth as he swept up both swords in a cross block, pushing furiously at the heavy sword, forcing it up and away from his center. Instead of striking the Liberty in the chest, the blade shrieked over his right shoulder, tearing away the hyper impulse cannon on that shoulder. Kira hung on for dear life as the tremors from the attack shook the Liberty, delaying... delaying... NOW! Kira's thumb stabbed for the button that would activate the Gugnir cannon, blasting the Pulsar's legs with EMP waves that would render them into inert masses of machinery.

That is, if the stump of the Pulsar's right elbow, white hot cooling vane extended like a spike, hadn't come flashing in, crashing into the middle of the Liberty's chest in a small explosion of seared armor plating and blue-white sparks, impacting directly on top of the Gugnir cannon emitter array, destroying it and punching deep into the circuitry behind it. Kira cried out and flinched away as something exploded in the torso of the Liberty right in front of his cockpit, shattering several of his secondary screens and filling the cockpit with a plume of light smoke and the smell of burning metal and rubber. A crack jagged across the middle of his main screen, and many red status icons winked into being around the corners of the display, with sirens sounded to accentuate the damage. Kira's stomach and heart felt like they were leaking into his toes... the explosion of the cooling vane had damaged his main computer! Nothing he couldn't write the program around, given time, but until he finished the re-write, the Liberty was pretty much a statue, unable to move its limbs, fire its weapons or take pretty much any actions directed from the cockpit!

"Oh my... were you planning on USING that!?" Frost drawled, pleasure warring with hatred in his voice. "Fool me once, Boytoy, but you'll NEVER fool me twice!" Kira wanted to reply, to buy time if nothing else, but until he accomplished more of the re-write, which he was furiously working on even then, he couldn't even talk outwards on his comm system, though he could still passively recieve. "Nothing to say? No insults? No denials!? No pleading!? You're a Boy... but I must say, I'd don't think you're a very fun TOY!" Frost shouted, tearing his right arm out of the Liberty's mauled chest area. A sharp kick slammed the Liberty backwards like a rag doll, drifting powerlessly until its back slammed into the derelict hull of the Agammemnon class carrier that Dearka's stray Earthshaker round had half obliterated. The half that was left was still huge, massing thousands of tons, and it was as good as a wall behind the Liberty. A wall that Frost wasted no time in hammering the Liberty against, with another kick that left a dent on the plating of the warship from the Liberty's back.

"Fight back! FIGHT BACK! FIGHT ME! COME ON! MAKE IT FUN! STRUGGLE! SCREAM! FIGHT! DAMN YOU, BOYTOY, MAKE THIS FUN!" Frost exhorted, punctuating each exclaimation with a kick or a slice of his sword, battering the Liberty against the hull of the warship like a man playing tennis against a wall. He crushed the other shoulder mounted hyper impulse cannon, pared off the hip mounted railguns, worried deep dents in the shoulder and side and leg armor of the Liberty, but still couldn't provoke any reaction from his most irritating and hated foe. "You'd better not be dead yet, Boytoy! I shall be most wroth if you've gone and died without letting your blood steam over my hands!" Frost panted for breath a few times, catching his breath. Sweat was pouring off him now, and mixed into it was blood and even bits of skin, but he paid it no heed. This was his hour of victory! Nothing could stop him now! He rammed the flat of his zweihander into the Liberty's chest one more time, enjoying the whiplash motion of the Liberty's arms, legs and head as it struck the Agammenon's hull and bounced back at him.

"What would Pink say if she could see you now, Boytoy?" Frost asked, lip curling in distaste. "Broken, defeated at my hands, at my tender mercy? She's been spouting on for quite a while now... don't think I haven't heard her. I can feel her words crawling around in my brain like maggots made of fire! Of you all, she is the ONLY one I can NEVER ignore! Hmm... yes... perhaps it is time to bring Pink in on our little play session, isn't it? I cannot wait to see the expression on her face when she see's us together like this... can you?" Frost turned his attention slightly away from Boytoy, though he remained alert for tricks... the Clyne Faction had proved several times that they were never QUITE as dead as they should have been, and he was NOT going to get humiliated like that AGAIN!

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Cagalli stood forward once Lacus had risen from her bow. She knew what she had to do. She put one hand on Lacus's shoulder in a comforting gesture, though Cagalli wasn't sure whether she was comforting Lacus, or asking for comfort from Lacus. "My name is Cagalli Zala-Attha, Chief Representative of the Kingdom of Orb. I feel that I too must apologize to everyone, in the PLANTS, on Earth and its ner space, and even to my own people of Orb, who have stood by me resolutely through thick and thin. I feel this way not only because Lacus is right, that only by asking for, and extending our forgiveness to each other that we can successfully move forward, but because I, personally, also feel that it is the right thing to do! The only thing to do, that doesn't end up with millions of people losing their lives in a war that we SHOULDN'T EVEN BE FIGHTING! We were all manipulated into fighting, by Cervantes Zunnichi and the fantatical branches of Blue Cosmos! We have PROOF of this! But THAT is not here and now... regardless of WHY we're fighting, our course of action now should still be the SAME! No war was ever ended by killing everyone on the other side... if I kill you, your friends and family want revenge, so they kill me... and then my friends and family want revenge, so they kill you... and the cycle builds on and on and on from there! We have to be strong enough to FORGIVE! We have to be strong enough to admit our FAULT! To say... "I'm sorry!"... because if we can't muster that strength, then EVERYTHING ANY OF US HAS WORKED FOR UP UNTIL NOW WILL BE DESTROYED EVENTUALLY!"

"Oh... so THATS all I have to do?? Is it REALLY... THAT... EASY!?" A new voice cut into the broadcast, shortly followed by a vid picture of the sender. Cagalli and Lacus both involuntarily recoiled from the screen, along with billions of people throughout the Solar System. It wasn't just that the creature... barely recognizable as a human being under all the wounds and injuries... which floated in the bubbling red semi-liquid on their displays was hideous and ugly, it was the utter intensity of the hate and madness that gleamed out from his one remaining eye. His words dripped with sarcasm and venom, and a sort of sick lust pervaded his tone, sending shivers and goosebumps up and down the spines of any who heard them. Sparkling silver wires, crackling faintly with electrical discharge, plugged into the ravaged mass of meat that was talking to them without opening his mouth from all angles, snaking deep beneath his skin. The gresy pulse of internal organs were visible in the depths of some of the deeper and more massive wounds, while blood and gore wept steadily from his limbs and his ruined eye socket. Many wondered how someone so gravely injured could be alive at all, much less concious and talking!

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I'm SORRY! SORRY! SORRY! FORGIVE ME! WAAAAH! DON'T KILL ME, I'M NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO DEFEND MYSELF! I CAN'T KILL YOU, SO PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! OH NO! AHAHAHAHA! YOU MAKE ME LAUGH, PINK!" Frost mock cried. "They aren't listening to you, silly Pink! They don't know how! They are, unlike you or me, just regular, STINKING, WORTHLESS, HUMANS! A pathetic form of animal life that lacks even basic instincts of loyalty to family or friends, and any sort of natural social defense mechanisms! They aren't WORTH your time, they're barely even worth mine!"

"My name, for the benefit of you pitiful, helpless little dears, watching history unfold BEYOND your control on your display screens, is Zacharis Quentin Frost! But I don't really CARE what you call me... names are meaningless to someone like me! Unlike Pink, or Fiery Zala-Attha there, or your bleeding piglet of a President, I don't care if you hate me and fight against me with all your will, or welcome me with open arms and bared throats! I'm not choosy! I don't want anything from any of you besides your DEATHS! Anyone can die, so don't feel like you need to tell me I can't get it from you! Call me crazy! Call me evil! Call me GOD! Whatever you call me, just know this... I'm NOT going to stop until YOU'RE ALL DEAD!"

"If any of you had even fractional intelligence, you WOULD listen to what Pink and Fiery Attha-Zala here are trying to tell you. But... BUT... you don't. You're only human after all. Trust someone you don't know? Impossible! Forgive someone who has taken your loved ones unfairly from you? NEVER! Humans are INCAPABLE of such emotions, despite what you LIE to yourselves about! Look at history! Look at your own ACTIONS! LOOK... AT... ME!" Frost roared, raving with delight as he felt his destiny begin to achieve itself. "Me! I was once like you! Soft, afraid, weak, stupid! I was STOLEN from my parents as a baby, and brutally experimented upon, addicted to terrible drugs, forced to endure terrible tortures and open body replacement surgeries. I had my mind erased and shaped and sculpted multiple times, breaking and rebuilding and breaking again, until I have become so insane that sanity itself means NOTHING to me! WHY!? WHY!? Because HUMANS... you people... were AFRAID of each other! Of what was different! Unknown! UNLIKE! I was turned into a weapon, a living, Biological Computer Processing Unit, for the express purpose of KILLING ANYONE my so called masters desired me to KILL! And you know what I have to say in return, looking it back on it all now?"

Frost waited a beat or two, and then smiled. People everywhere recoiled another step, just from that expression. Few people often came face to face with something REALLY evil, unabashedly insane and homicidal, sociopathic in the extreme. Movies tried to capture it. Novels sought to evoke it, but there was NOTHING like seeing it in the half rotten flesh to make you feel small, and vulnerable and somehow tainted with a lasting mark of fear. "What I say is... THANK YOU! Thank you for FREEING me! For giving me the GIFT of MADNESS, the clarity of vision to see beyond all deceptions, whether they be yours OR mine! I have become the unrestrained essence of the HUMAN SOUL! I am FEAR! I am GREED! I am HATE! I am ALL of YOU, if you'd but LOOK... LOOK in the part of your soul that you're AFRAID TO! And I am coming to get you... ALL of you!"

"You are truly insane..." Lacus started to counter.

"JUST BECAUSE I'M INSANE DOESN'T MEAN I'M NOT RIGHT!" Frost bellowed, cutting her off. "In fact, being insane makes me MORE right, because I'm not LYING to myself! I have but one goal, and that is the utter destruction of all life on Earth and surrounding space! Everything else is just a step towards THAT! When the Doc first told me my destiny, he spoke of how I was destined to be the force that would UNITE all of humanity, a threat so dire even you STUPID, FUCKED UP HUMANS could realize that you needed to WORK TOGETHER to defeat me. But, I realized the flaw in his idea... he was a HUMAN after all. He thought... like Pink here... that you HUMANS were CAPABLE of that sort of rational thought. As we all know... as your WARS and MANIPULATIONS have PROVED, I think... he was MISTAKEN! You are MISTAKEN! Even now, you continue to do my job for me, killing each other in droves up here in space. ZAFT and the Isolation will tear at each other like carniverous fish, and I shall eat up the tidbits as they come to me. When I get tired of that, I'll utilize some of the other tools you HUMANS have given me... all those nice abandoned colonies you have out here! How many do you think it will take falling on your planet to put Earth into darkness for eternity? Four? Five? Oh hell, I'll just use ALL of THEM ANYWAY!"

"We'd stop you long before you were able to drop even one colony on the Earth." Cagalli retorted, with a fierce smile of her own. "Right now..."

"Right now... WHAT!?" Frost cackled, seeing the flash of uncertainty cross her face. "Oh, were you referring to Little Ashino, Scarface, the Blond Weeny and his chick, lover boy Loser Zala-Attha or the Boytoy? Well let's recap a little, shall we? Little Ashino blasted himself to stray ion particles in a fruitless attempt to suicide me! I tore Scarface limb from limb and flayed the skin from his bones! The last time I saw the Blond Weeny and his chick, they were in smouldering CHUNKS! As for your lover boy, the Loser, Fiery Zala-Attha... well, I'd not mention FIRE to him any time soon... ASSUMING YOU CAN SIFT HIS ASHES OUT OF THE OCEAN, since that's where he ended up after I threw him into an uncontrolled dive through the atmosphere!" Frot turned his cyclopean gaze on Lacus. "As for Pink's Boytoy... well, I'm sorry to say, Pink... but he's MY toy now!" Frost cut his view to the Pulsar's external cameras.

Lacus gasped with worry, and people around the world who recognized the Liberty muttered and exclaimed with constrenation. The Liberty hung in the middle of the screen, plainly right next to Frost in the Pulsar... the Liberty was much the worse for the wear, its shoulder and hip mounted weapons twisted or smashed or cut away, a gaping hole in the middle of it chest, and innumerable cracks and dents and rents in its armor, all over its body. The Gundam floated lifelessly in space, even when Frost's sword licked out and slammed into the Liberty's head, twisting it around and ejecting a cloud of sparks and a puff of smoke from the neck joint. "THIS was someone who was supposed to stop ME!?" Frost asked with a giggle. "That is truly amusing, Fiery Zala-Attha. Look. LOOK! THIS IS YOUR CHAMPION! THIS IS KIRA YAMATO! BROKEN! DEFEATED! HELPLESS! WEAK! DESPAIR, HUMANS! If THIS is the best you have to confront me with, you might as well not even bother running away! SEND ME YOUR SOLDIERS! HATE ME! FEAR ME! I shall eat of you until I can eat no more, and then I shall wipe you from my platter and dispose of you!" Frost slammed the sword into the Liberty again, digging another deep dent into the torso armor.

"Kira!" Lacus cried, the word torn from her, her heart threatening to burst with worry in her chest. Why wasn't he fighting back!? Was he hurt!? Unconscious!? Dea... Lacus shook her head and focused her mind. He WASN'T dead! She'd KNOW if he was dead! She... WOULD... KNOW! "Oh, Kira..."

"DON"T TALK TO HIM LIKE THAT! HE'S NOTHING!" Frost yelled. "I'm getting to you SOON, Pink! Don't worry, you'll be joining him in the afterlife before you know it! Well, pieces of you will! For the moment though, you can get on your knees. Get on your knees and beg for my mercy. We BOTH know I won't grant it, but it NEVER hurts to beg. While you're at it, you can tell all your fans out there to GIVE UP HOPE! You have all LOST! By your very natures... by the essence of your souls... you have LOST before you even BEGAN to fight! Give in to your fear! Give in to your hate! Chaos is the only natural state of being! The only real, lasting pleasure any of you will be able to grasp before I snuff you out like the WORMS you are will be taken with your own two hands from the flesh and blood of other HUMANS! BARE YOUR TRUE SOULS! FIGHT! DIE! FEAR! HATE! BE HUMAN! BE HUMAN TO THE END!"

"There is more to being human than fear and hate and all that YOU stand for, Frost." Another new voice interrupted, followed by another windowed box on the display screen,showing a person in a blue flight suit. Well, it wasn't precisely a new voice or face for many of the people listening in. Lacus's eyes grew very wide, and moisture gathered at the corners. The Liberty moved, slowly, but it did move under its own power, pushing away from the wall of hull plating the Pulsar had been battering it against.

"Kira..." Lacus breathed. "KIRA!"

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Hearing Lacus shout his name, like that, was all the rest and recuperation Kira would ever need, or so he felt at the moment. The Liberty was responding again, he was back in control of his life. And more than just his life, given the feelings he felt in Lacus's voice. "Lacus." Kira said her name tenderly, gratefully. "Thank you, Lacus." Kira turned his gaze to Cagalli for a moment, and smiled slightly. "Don't worry about Athrun, Cagalli. A little thing like atmospheric re-entry won't slow him down at all. He was doing fine last time I saw him. As for everyone else... don't count anyone out until you have no other choice!"

"DELUSIONS! LIES! FALSE HOPE! HUMAN FAILINGS, all of them! Pitiful! Is this all the resurgence you can muster, Boytoy!? Better had you stayed silent than spout this gibberish!" Frost accused.

Kira ignored Frost's ranting. "I don't expect you to understand, Frost, though I wish you could. I really do. Though in some ways, I am grateful that you can't... because if I was able to feel even the slightest bit of empathy for you, it would be much harder for me to face you. But any redeeming qualities you may have once had have fallen by the wayside long ago... perhaps not through your desire or choice, but you did not seek them out again when you had the chance, which says it all to me. You could have walked away, Frost, after Cervantes and Asmodeus were arrested. You could have at least TRIED to walk away! But, you didn't, and so here we are."

"YES! Here we are! Me, about to destroy you!"

"Even if you do destroy me, Frost, you wouldn't be victorious." Kira replied with a slightly wider smile. "Because there is another side to the human soul that you, for whatever reason, refuse to see. But just because you can't see something... won't see something... doesn't mean it doesn't exist! I can't claim to be an expert on the human soul... I can't even claim to know my own soul all that well. But I do know that while there might be fear and anger and yes, some greed and even hate in me... there is also love and understanding and forgiveness and trust and a thousand other virtues and vices! Humans are not defined by their abilities OR their emotions alone! The human soul is BIGGER than that! MORE than THAT! A soul is more than the sum of its parts, both good and bad, and I believe its the eprson that makes the soul... not the soul that makes the person. Humans are not perfect... its impossible for us to be perfect. But that doesn't mean we should not TRY to be better! That we can't have hope! That we can't all work together for a brighter future!"

"SPEAK TO THEM ALL YOU LIKE, THE CATTLE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE FARMER! YOU CANNOT CHANGE HUMAN NATURE!"

"I am not trying to. I don't have to. Human nature encompasses both bad and good. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I do have faith. Faith in myself, my friends, in humanity as a whole, Coordinators, Naturals and those few who don't fall into either category well, all of them! I have faith in a better future that we build together, not without problems or trials, but not giving in to them either! I have faith in my love for Lacus Clyne, and her love for me, and my sister Cagalli and my best friend Athrun and all the people who are looking up to me and them and the Clyne Faction to bring sense to their lives and peace to their hearts! We CAN do it! All we have to do is try. I can't do it alone. Lacus can't do it alone. Cagalli can't do it alone. NO ONE can do it alone. But if we ask for... and give... each other our help, as fellow HUMANS... there is NOTHING WE CAN'T DO! And so, I'm going to ask for help... and promise my own in turn. Help us bring peace. Please."

"THERE SHALL BE NO PEACE WHILE I LIVE, SAVE THE PEACE OF THE GRAVE! I... WON'T.... ALLOW... PEACE!!" Frost stormed, bloody foam spewing down his lips and chin.

Kira turned his gaze, calmly and liquidly, towards Frost. "Then, I am sorry Zacharis. You can't be allowed to live then. Despite all the harm you've done to me, all the fear and hatred you've spread, the injuries you've inflicted on the people I love... killing you won't make me happy. Killing people NEVER makes me happy."

"KILL ME!? This from the man I beat into a staggering pulp just minutes ago!? KILL ME!? You're crazier than I am if you think YOU can KILL ME!"

"You're right, Frost. I can't kill you. I, Kira Yamato, by myself, cannot kill you." Kira turned his eyes to Lacus. Help me, Lacus. Kira sent to her with all his might, lowering all the shielding between his mind and hers. I cannot do it alone.

Kira... I love you...

Believe me, there's no way for me to not understand that now. But we have something we need to do first. I can't beat him without you. I don't have the power, never have had the power. Not alone. I need you, Lacus. I need all of you.

I understand. On his screen, Lacus closed her eyes and sat back in her chair, bracing herself firmly. I don't know what I'm doing, Kira. I'm scared.

I trust you. I'm scared too.

Together then?

Always together. Kira turned his gae to Frost once more, even as he felt Lacus start welling up inside his mind in a fashion he'd never experienced before. "I, myself, can cannot kill you, Frost. But I'm no longer BY myself!" Kira watched the lavender blue SEED fall through Lacus's mind, to detonate in a soundless rush that swept away the whole world.

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Kira was once again floating in an infinite void. Darker than space, without even a single star in the sky, but comfortable. He could breathe. He wasn't too hot or too cold. He could even see, though quite how he knew that, since there was nothing TO see, was beyond him. All of his regular senses seemed to be working just fine. As far as he could tell, he had no body, he was just a bundle of senses floating through the void.

No wonder you never get anything done in a timely fashion, if your head is THIS empty! The comment definitely came from Lacus, but it was different from the usual mental communications they sent each other through their link. Usually he got strong emotions, very detailed, that he'd grown adept at at translating into words, given his experience of Lacus. This time he could HEAR her words, with her own inflections on them as if she was whispering in his ear. Good image, focus on it! I don't know what I'm really doing, but having you visualize things would make it easier, I'm pretty sure!

I'll try... Kira thought back to her. After a few moments of concentration, he found the void changing around him. He was no longer in a void at all. He was standing on solid ground, in what looked like a forest. The detail on everything was astounding... he felt like he really WAS in a forest. He could hear birds singing, insects chirping, feel the loam beneath his toes... Kira looked down and discovered that he'd apparently forgotten to imagine himself some clothes, though his bodily details were strangely blurred as well. He could feel Lacus's arms around his waist, her hands clasped on his chest, her body pressed up against him, her chin resting on his shoulder as she snuggled up behind him. Lacus! You're here! I can see you!

And I can see you, thank you Kira. Its so detailed, I had no idea your memory was that good.

Where is here though!? Kira asked. A blush creeped along his cheeks as he remembered that apparently he had no talent for imagining clothes. And... um... are you...

I'm in the imagination of a male, I'd expect that I'd HAVE to be, Kira. Lacus giggled, and pressed closer. Don't worry, I'm damping down on THAT part of your mind pretty heavily. We need to be focused here. Thanks though... thinking of you too...

Humor, at a time like this?

Humor is the sign of a healthy soul. Now where is it... hold out your hand, palm up. Lacus directed.

Okay... you still haven't told me where we are, or what we're doing. Kira complied, raising his right hand up in front of his chest, palm facing the sky.

You asked for my help, I'm doing what I can to give it to you. You're guiding me, actually... thoughts keep popping into my head... sudden ideas, memories maybe... but they're all from your perspective. As for where we are... somewhere in our dreams. Katie's talked about something like this... she called it a Trance. From what I gather, its something like a portal between minds like ours... Newtype minds. In here, your mind IS reality, and someone with the proper power... and knowledge... can change it. I have the power, and I might have the knowledge, and I think I know what we need to do. Focus on your SEED. Put it in the palm of your hand. Show it to me.

Kira did as she directed, and within moments there was a glistening purple SEED, about the size of a strawberry, cupped in his palm. As before, when he'd last seen it, it was covered with silver cracks, from which silver rootlings protruded and waved gently. The mere sight of them reminded him of the roots that crawled around the edges of his vision, and quite unbidden more of the silvery roots appeared, growing out of the corners of his eyes. Lacus could not help but see them, and Kira winced, wondering what she'd say.

Oh wow, Kira... why didn't you say something? Lacus's voice was filled with wonder, not surprise or distress, and Kira broke out of his wince, blinking in confusion. This must be so bothersome and painful... you're supposed to TELL me when you're in pain! I thought we AGREED on that!

You were hurt! I didn't want to burden you! I don't even understand it myself! I don't know whats happening to me!

Kira! Lacus's voice was strong with reproach. There is physical pain and emotional pain... you should ALWAYS come to me with emotional pain... I can't help you if you won't let me! That is an ORDER now! I don't care if my arm is off... if you need HELP... ASK! Stupid MAN!

Lacus...

Don't "Lacus..." me! We'll have WORDS about this, later! I don't know how I know, but I can tell you that you're hurting yourself. Your SEED is trying to germinate, but it doesn't have what it needs! It can't GET it from you, no matter how far into it sends its roots or how deeply it digs! That's why it hurts! That's why you're starting to have hallucinations! It's DESPERATE, and its doing everything it can, but the thing is, it CANNOT DO IT ALONE! No tree can grow in even the most perfect soil if it doesn't have WATER! Lacus stretched forth her own hand, palm up. Her lavender-blue seed materialized within a scond or two, and with a gasp of effort, she reached up and clasped their hands together, combining the two SEEDS. Lacus's SEED broke apart and was absorbd into Kira's, and tiny silvery roots jumped and spun across the short gap between them before piercing Lacus's hand, much like the roots already pervading Kira's body. The forest went still and silent.

What did you just do...? Kira asked, blinking in shock, just barely aware of the silvery tendrils retreating from around his eyes.

I don't know... that wasn't what I was expecting to happen... I'm not even sure what I was talking about... feel like I been dreaming... Lacus's voice was a lot more tired all of a suden. Say... is it just me or are the trees getting smaller...?

No... we're getting bigger actually. I think. Either might be accurate here. By the time Kira was finished speaking the forest was just a patch of green amongst bigger patches of brown and grey and blue and more green. It wasn't until he saw the white clouds and the curve of the horizon that Kira realized they were now looking down at a planet. It looked sort of like Earth, but the details were fuzzy. There was another period of silence, and they could both feel the tension mounting, a huge, calm before the storm electric buildup. A gargantuan silver crack raced down the middle of the planet, followed immediately afterwards by dozens more. Cracks spread hither and yon until the entire face of the planet was filling up with them. The planet rotated, tottered, fell and struck an invisible surface in the bottom of his mind and soul, exploding in all consuming prismatic light that haloed a great tree, branches reaching for the heavens.

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Kira and Lacus's eyes flew open at the same instant, identiclly washed out of color in SEED rages. There was something different this time though... something only someone very fmiliar with them would notice, and only upon looking closely... their eyes were changing color, the hues melding, mixing but still managing to remain seperate entities. United but different. They turned their gaze upon Frost, and smiled identical small smiles. They spoke in unison, so perfectly in tune that people could not tell who's voice came from which mouth, or even if both voices didn't come from both mouths at once. "Our apologies for zoning out there. We had some things we needed to help each other with. Now though, we're ready for you, Frost. Are you ready for us?" They asked.

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