Gundam SEED: Arbiter Forces

By: Shadow Chaser

An Alternate Universe to Entropy Rising

Story:

Phase Eighteen – Lessons

Kira awoke once more to find that Lacus wasn't in the room, and instead a familiar figure sat by his bed, hard at work in front of a computer. He blinked the sleep from his eyes before opening his mouth to speak. "Mom?"

Kanoko Yamato looked up from her typing and a smile broke over her face. "Kira! You're awake! How are you feeling?" She reached out and brushed his forehead, feeling for any signs of a fever.

"A lot better," he replied as he sat up, tensing his muscles as he stretched, "did Lacus leave?"

"The poor girl was exhausted. She's been in meetings and staying by your side for the last six days since you had arrived. The doctors gave her something to help her sleep for now," his mother replied as she discreetly pushed her laptop away and folded her hands on the table, staring at him, a gentle smile on her face. "Do you feel any ill effects?"

Kira was confused for a moment as to what his mother was talking about until he realized that she probably knew what happened. But since she was acting so casually about it, it comforted him to some degree. He knew it meant that his mother didn't really care that he had his new powers but only was a mother to him in the end…a mother worried about her son.

"No," he replied honestly, shaking his head, "I feel fine…" Truth was, he felt a lot better than he did yesterday when he had cried into Lacus' arms. He had felt hollow and alone, but she had reminded him that he had others including her to support him. Her singing had lulled him into a peaceful state and he realized that somehow, he would get through all of this…

"That's good," she reached over the table and gave him a slightly awkward hug from her position before kissing him on the cheek, "I missed you Kira." She sat back and wiped a few tears from her eyes, "your father and I missed you a lot."

Kira ducked his head slightly in embarrassment. While his parents were affectionate, the last time he had been hugged and kissed by his mother was days before the destruction of Heliopolis. "Mom…"

Kanoko laughed lightly as the door to his room hissed open and in stepped his father, dressed in civilian clothing once more.

"Hey, laughing at a joke without me?" Keiji grinned as the door closed behind him and he pulled up the second spare chair in the room and sat next to his wife.

"Dad," Kira greeted, slightly hesitant as he knew his father had witnessed his destructive and erratic behavior when he was in Zala's clutches.

"What's wrong Kira? Afraid I'll tickle you to death?"

Kira made a slightly horrified and exasperated face at his father for a second before he shook his head, "No…just…that…"

"You had no control over your actions, Kira. That was someone else pulling the strings to force you to do that," Keiji's demeanor suddenly got serious, "don't let anyone else tell you that."

"But I…knew what I was doing," Kira started and trailed off, "I could have stopped myself…but I didn't…"

"Those were the drugs that were injected into you that are at fault! Not you, Kira," his mother's tone was also serious and Kira glanced at her noticing that she was glaring at her laptop's screen. "Nothing like this should have ever happened…"

There was silence for a few minutes, punctuated by the furious tapping of the laptop's keyboard by his mother before Kira decided to break the silence. "What are you doing?" he asked his mother.

"When your father rescued you, he was kind enough to remember to get all of the files that were related to the Mendel Incident and then purge the files," she replied.

"Are they of me also?" Kira asked.

His mother glanced at him for a few seconds before nodding, "Yes. And there are also detailed files of Dr. Madison Francis' report on what was done to you…"

"And?" he prodded her, noticing that she was extremely hesitant.

"Do you really want to know?" his father asked him, staring at him with calculating eyes.

Kira's gaze never wavered from his father's and he nodded. "Yes. I'm not afraid anymore. I'll deal with the consequences of my own actions…"

His father smiled as he realized that he had taken his words spoken only a few minutes ago to heart.

"The drug injected into you was given to you in an extended period of time. They were regular doses, but each time you had an IV line in your arm for nutrition, it was also to inject the drug into you," the tone of his mother had changed to something that was somewhat like a scientist rattling off facts. "That drug was never meant to be injected into Coordinator blood and DNA. It had been meant for Naturals to augment their abilities in battle. You might remember encountering a similar form two years ago when you fought the OMNI Gundam pilots of Calamity, Raider, and Forbidden?"

Kira blinked, taking all of the information in. He was a bit shocked at the information but motioned for his mother to continue. If he was going to take responsibility, or at least let those drugs inside of him take the full responsibility, he had to know why and how.

"Apparently, Dr. Francis had altered the drug a bit to try to composite with the altered DNA of Coordinators. The first test was actually Griever…and with mixed results…"

"I was the next one…" Kira replied before a sudden thought occurred to him, "was it the effects of the drug that made Griever who he is or is it because he is a clone of me?"

His mother stared at him in surprise before she shook her head, "I don't know honestly. There are too many variables to determine that…but you do bring up a good point. I had forgotten how intuitive you are, Kira…" She smiled gently at him, "But a good guess is that since clones aren't perfected yet, I'm more inclined to say that it's probably because he's a clone and clones are unstable."

"If the drugs are in my system, won't I feel any withdrawal effects since I'm not being fed them anymore?" he asked.

"That's the sticking part. We don't know," his father continued, "Athrun told me that when you guys battled the pilots of the OMNI Gundams in Orb and in space, they had retreated after a certain point and went completely insane from the drugs in their system after a while."

"Oh," Kira knew that he should have been worried, but somehow, he didn't feel that worried. "Um…so what now?"

His father pursed his lips for a second before started haltingly, "Griever…wants to teach you to control your powers…"

Kira raised an eyebrow at the statement. He could feel the anger and the annoyance at the gall of Griever to be teaching him build up, but tried to clamp down on it. There were benefits he reasoned to himself…after all, if he could control his newfound powers, he would be able to help his friends and overthrow Patrick Zala… But the angry part of him didn't want to listen to reason. It wanted to punish the clone for all of this madness!

"Kira?" his mother asked and he realized he had grown silent for a few minutes.

Kira shrugged, not really knowing how to answer. He didn't trust himself to speak at the moment. They were interrupted again with the door opening once more and Cagalli stepped in before hesitating.

"Am…I interrupting something?" she asked and looked to leave before Kira shook his head.

"No, its okay," he nodded for her to come in and she walked in hesitantly.

"You're family, Cagalli," Kanoko gestured for her to sit on the end of the bed and Kira scooted over in his sheets to allow room for her to sit down. He noticed to a bit of dismay that she sat on the edge of the bed, not really wanting to sit closer and realized that with his uncontrollable display of power on Griever, he probably scared her to the core.

"I'm sorry," he apologized to her, "if I scared you…back then…"

"Its…okay," Cagalli replied quietly before suddenly on impulse, she reached over and pulled him into a tight hug, startling him completely. "Don't you ever leave me like that again. You're my brother, my twin…my other half," she whispered in his ear before releasing him, a silly but tearful grin on her face. "Bakamono," she said as she scrubbed the tears from her face.

"Hey," his father interrupted them, "who told you to swear like that?"

"Kira," Cagalli's smile grew wider as she stared at him.

"Kira!" his father looked appalled, "don't teach your sister to swear! She's a princess!"

Kira couldn't help but laugh, and soon the rest of them joined in. He knew that they were trying to help him by making feel better and in ways, he was already feeling better. But there was still the nagging part…the darker side of him that knew now existed. He made a mental decision to finally accept Griever's offer. He wanted to control that darker side instead of letting it control him. He didn't want his darker side to take away the sweet laughter of his family or his friends…nevermore.

It was at least a day later and Kira found himself out of bed and in a fairly large empty conference room, with chairs and a few plants scattered about. The table had been removed from the room, leaving a giant gap between him and Griever who was standing on the opposite side, arms crossed over his chest, a slightly disinterested look on his face. He still was wary of the assassin as he watched him slowly stand erect. No one else was in the room and no one else allowed in, this "training" was to be in secret and only a handful of people knew about it.

Still, there were two guards posted outside of the room, with strict orders from Lacus not to go into the room or to let anyone except a few, in, even if there were odd sounds coming from the room. Since he was still stationed aboard the Archangel, they had to tell Murrue so she wouldn't get worried, but she had promised not to tell the rest of the crew. No need to start panic where it didn't need to start, especially since they were still hiding from ZAFT and OMNI patrols.

"I'm sure you were told the details of your…powers," Griever said in a nonchalant voice, his expression still one of disinterest.

"I…guess," it was still surprising to Kira that he was actually having a civil conversation with the assassin and rubbed his forehead slightly to try to alleviate the headache that had been gnawing at him ever since he walked into the room. He knew that it wouldn't do any good, but the motion still provided some figment of relief. The only way to get rid of the headache was to get as far away from Griever as possible…or to kill him a part of him suggested.

"All right then," Griever suddenly started to pace around his side of the room, disinterested expression completely wiped from his face, "a few ground rules. I hate you, you hate me. There's nothing more than that, but I promised Miss Lacus I try to help you so I will try.

"I am you; you are me," Griever stared at him with hard eyes and Kira's narrowed slightly, "so I know how you think. I will push you and your objective this lesson is not to get angry, got that?"

"I thought my anger is what triggers the tendrils-"

"Tendrils?" Griever cut him off with a wave of his hand, "those aren't your 'tendrils'. They're the fabric of space and time, bending to the psychosis of what we can see and access. They're the powers of telekinesis. To call them tendrils is hardly a fitting name."

Kira frowned as he felt a bit disturbed by his clone-brother's words. He spoke of the tendrils as if they were something to love…and it made him feel a bit sick. His wounds twinge in pain as they were still healing from his imprisonment in Martius Eight.

"But enough, of that," Griever's eyes sudden changed and Kira was surprised at the sudden change. Suddenly one of the chairs in the room rose up on its own and started to rotate around. "I am able to access my own powers without any help from my emotions, as yours seemed to be triggered by your anger, because there is a key of sorts that was unlocked when they created me."

"And I have that lock, is that correct?" Kira asked, feeling his anger subside, but not completely dissipate. The headache from the close proximity of his clone-brother was irritating him and making it very hard for him not to be annoyed or pissed.

"Got it in one," the infuriatingly superior tone Griever was taking didn't help matters at all, "of course, we have to unlock it."

"Why? I don't want these powers," he shot back, a frown on his face as the chair started to do lazy rotations back and forth in the conference room.

"Why not? Think of the asset it will be in battles. You'll be able to teleport-"

Griever suddenly vanished from his spot and appeared near the door, upping the headache further and Kira winced, rubbing his temples in a futile attempt to alleviate it.

"-Like this. How the hell do you think I was able to get the Firestorm and the other mobile suits to Colony Mendel in such a short time after you had departed Panama all those months ago?" Griever smiled one full of teeth.

"I don't want to learn to teleport. I don't even want to learn how to move objects. Why did you agree to teach me?"

"Better the question is…why did you agree to learn from me?" Griever had teleported himself back to his original spot, the chair never losing its rotation around the room even when he had teleported.

"I agreed so you can help me! I want to be rid of this power! I want to get this drug out of my system!"

"Then you should have asked your mother to help you with that. After all, she seems to know a lot about what was injected into you during your stay with Patrick," Griever replied, eyes narrowed and Kira could feel the anger growing in him. The clone actually had the gall to look like he was enjoying this…enjoying taunting and telling him information that he would have done without.

"You said you saved Lacus…I think you just saved her because you're a damn spy," Kira ignored the rational part of him that was screaming for him not to get angry, not to fall for any of Griever's tricks, but he was tired. Tired of being so weak to everyone. He wanted to be strong for his friends, like what his sister had told him all those months ago when she left for Panama, leaving him behind.

"You think I'm a spy?" Griever's eyes also narrowed and the chair that had been rotating at a lazy pace was now starting to spin a bit faster by the moment. "You don't even know the reason why I saved her!"

"You just want an opportunity where everyone's guard is down so you'll kill her," Kira hissed at him, starting to see red. He rubbed his temples again, "And you're here to ensure that Zala wins no matter the cost!"

"You think it's that simple! You think that I am here by the will of that insane clone!"

"Why not!" Kira shot back, "you're a clone too! So why not two insane clones working together to overthrow the whole world!"

"You don't understand what I am!"

"Ha!" Kira yelled as he started to see the tendrils, not from the blink of his eyes, but see them subtly appear, as if they were growing out of the woodwork, "I understand all right. You're a clone! Like you said before, you are me, I am you!"

"Oh really," Griever's voice dropped into a dangerous whisper, "if you truly understand me…then what is it you're seeing now? Hmm? Do you see your precious tendrils? Do you see the beckoning of power?"

"Shut up!" Kira lashed out with the tendrils, pushing the chair that had been spinning violently around at Griever, breaking his hold over the tendrils.

The clone ducked and the chair crashed into the wall, breaking into pieces, but Kira wasn't finished yet. Red hot anger had gripped him and wanted his revenge. A rational side of him cried out for him to stop, but he ruthlessly squashed that part down. All that mattered now was to hurt Griever. To hurt the man that was so uncaring of the world like Rau Le Creuset.

He picked up another chair and spun it around like a dizzying tornado before sending it flying at Griever who ducked, but Kira tracked him and pushed at the tendrils surrounding him, sending him crashing into the wall. Through the tendrils, he could feel some kind of otherworldly anger fueling his own and he saw the tendrils bend around the clone.

He pushed at them and lifted Griever up on the wall, and started to constrict the tendrils around his throat. More tendrils appeared and he saw that those around Griever's mind were the tightest and a morbid and wicked curiosity poked at him to go explore that part of the tendrils. They urged him on, telling him that it was all right and he could have his anger unleashed upon the assassin who was helpless right now.

As soon as he touched that mass of tendrils around the clone's brain, he was flooded with random images. Too much! So fast! Too fast! Information overload! His mind screamed at him and he released the touch, retreating deep into his own head. Just as suddenly the tendrils receded from his vision and Kira felt his breath coming in ragged gasps as he slumped to the ground, sweating and panting.

After a few minutes of silence save for the gasping of his own breath that sounded harsh in his ears, Griever spoke up, startling him. "It's so easy, isn't it Kira Yamato?"

He looked blearily up at the clone who was sitting against the wall he had been held up against, knees drawn up to his chest, his hands resting on them. "It's easy to see the tables reverse in such a short amount of time."

Kira stiffened as he realized what his clone-brother was talking about. In his blind anger, so easily raised to the surface, he had become the thing he hated the most. He had become Griever in those few seconds of anger and had accessed his powers without any remorse, only fueled by his dark anger.

"I am you, you are me," one of Griever's eyebrows rose mockingly as he stared at him, "you see the easy equation? You are me after all of this time. Destroyer."

"No," Kira breathed out the word before he shook his head, "no. No! I'm not you…I will never become something like you!"

"I told you, I will goad you into anger and your objective is not to get angry," Griever replied, staring at him, "you got angry. Simple as that."

"I…I…" Kira cut the air viciously with his right hand, "I didn't mean to get angry! It's you! You're the one who's doing this!"

"No," his clone shook his head as if he was speaking to a child, "you did it to yourself, Destroyer."

"Stop calling me that!" Kira half-shouted, trying not to get himself riled up again. But the anger that he had unleashed was hovering so close to the surface and it begged to be set free, to consume him once more.

"Do you truly know what you are, Kira Yamato!" Griever stood up, raking his shoulder length brown hair back as he walked towards him and he involuntarily tensed up as his headache grew stronger with each step of the clone towards him. "You are the Ultimate Coordinator. The tool that has been created to become the perfect specimen. You were supposed to be the perfect soldier, the one who was able to surpass George Glenn in everything he did."

"You're wrong! I'm not a soldier! I never wanted to be one!" Kira replied, hands curling into fists. He remembered his life on Heliopolis and in Copernicus City. He had fun learning about different stuff, and technology fascinated him. His friends back on Heliopolis defended him when he piloted the Strike to battle, saving their lives.

"You were born to be one, Kira," Griever stopped just a few steps in front of him, "Seed Mode, that was what happened when you realized your innate powers. It gave you the ability to become a Bezerker, but it wasn't permanent.

"Do you really want to know what those drugs Zala injected into you are going to do to you?"

Kira suddenly felt a flash of fear run through him at Griever's words. They sounded so ominous… "What…" he replied warily.

"They are designed so that each time you get angry, each time you see the tendrils, they will put you into a new state of Bezerker. One in which you will find your rage to be unstoppable. This rage," Griever had grabbed another chair and was spinning it around in the air, "is forced upon you by unnatural means. Your genes have been altered by the drug. Every time you get angry, your life will get shorter."

Kira nearly collapsed to the ground in shock and stared at the clone with horror filled eyes, "Every time I get angry?" He blinked, trying to comprehend the information, "Do you mean, I'll eventually die each time I use the tendrils?"

His clone shrugged, "In ways, yes."

"I…I don't believe you," Kira stuttered, suddenly unsure about himself and his mortality. Was his clone-brother even telling the truth? He didn't trust him at all and it could have been information to scare him to submission or worst yet, to whatever Griever was planning, but still… He saved Lacus' life…when he had time to kill her. Unless he's waiting for a ripe opportunity. He's waiting for your self-doubt to become real once more and then he will strike, a part of him whispered in his mind.

"I don't believe you," he repeated, feeling his conviction grow. He would not be taken in by Griever's lies. He would not fall to the game that the man was playing. He would be strong for his friends and for his family. He would not give…

"Oh…" Griever's mouth curled up into a crooked smile, "so you do have a spine and I'm just not imagining it. Where's your anger, Kira? You're still angry I see…"

"I'm not angry," Kira felt unusually calm he was quite surprised that his anger that had been at the surface ever since he entered the horrid room to 'learn' from his clone-brother, was quite buried. He was even more surprised at how calm his voice sounded also for the fact that he was beginning to see the tendrils appear on their own. Their touch and beckoning call felt different…almost as if it was when he had been trapped with his father by Dr. Madison Francis. The tendrils back then told him that it was all right; he just had to move the gun, that's all.

He noticed that the tendrils weren't waving as violently as all the times he was angry, and instead, they seemed inviting, welcoming him to their world. There also weren't as many as before, but each one seemed to tell him that they were at his command would do whatever he wanted them to do.

"Then maybe this would help!" Griever's shout broke into his thoughts and he saw his clone-brother backing up before sending the spinning chair towards him.

Kira instinctively put his arms in a protective 'x' in front of his face and suddenly heard the splintering of wood, but didn't feel anything. He looked between his crossed arms and was surprised to see that the fragments of the chair falling at least an inch away from his hands and that the tendrils, had wrapped themselves into a spiky-shield of sorts that protected him from his head to his waist and it was seemingly held in place by two bands on his arms.

Looking beyond the shield he saw that Griever had a completely pole-axed look on his face.

"What the hell…" Athrun's voice from the door snapped Kira out of his daze and he looked to see his best friend with a slightly shocked expression on his face that suddenly turned dark and he glared at Griever.

"I thought you were going to help Kira! Not batter him with a chair!" Athrun said in an angry voice, walking into the room and coming over to him. He placed a hand on his shoulder, "You all right Kira?"

Kira nodded a bit dumbly, still reeling from what had happened. What was that? We wanted to protect you, he thought he heard from the tendrils but shook his head to clear his thoughts and rubbed his temples as he suddenly felt the headache come back in full force. He realized that while he had been seeing the tendrils, nothing in his body hurt…unlike when he was angry, but the after effects…

"Kira?" Athrun's worry tone made him open his eyes and he stared at his best friend.

"I'm…fine," he replied, feeling a bit dizzy. It was as if all of the pain he felt had been shunted aside during his brief moment of calm, "I guess I kind of over did it."

Suddenly a general alarm rang throughout the ship, making all of them look up at the speakers wired throughout the Archangel. "All hands to battle stations, all hands to battle stations. We've got OMNI forces headed our way. Repeat, all hands to battle stations, DEFCON 3. ETA to contact, 15 minutes."

The lights on the ship suddenly dimmed as power was transferred to the ship's weapons and engines.

"We should head to the Eternal and get our Gundams," Kira said moving towards the door, but Athrun stopped him.

"No, we'll go. You're still injured. You need to rest and save your strength. OMNI we can handle and we've got four ships and plenty of mobile suits," his best friend said and Kira narrowed his eyes, angry for being left out.

"I'm not injured. I can pilot the Freedom," he replied.

"Kira. Please, let us handle this one. You need to rest. It won't do any of us any good if you're piloting the Freedom in your condition."

"What, I'm disabled now?" Kira snapped in annoyance, feeling the anger that had been buried resurface with a vengeance. He knew he was being a pain in the ass to Athrun, but he wanted to help defend the ships and his friends. He didn't want to stay on the Archangel and be in the Medical Bay until the doctors deemed him healthy – which was probably not going to be for a long time.

"Kira," Athrun growled, "stop making this difficult. Do you really want us to be worried? Do you really want us to be completely distracted if you're out there to the point where we might be shot?"

Kira knew that his best friend was too much of a professional soldier to become distracted in the middle of a fight, but still, they both did completely lose it during their last encounter with the Aegis and Strike all those years ago. However, Athrun played dirty at times…

He shook his head, "Fine. I'll stay…"

Athrun didn't say anything except to nod and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze of reassurance before he walked out, followed by Griever who pointedly did not look at him. A sigh escaped his lips as he glanced once more down at the remnants of the chairs that had been thrown around the room. What was that he had accessed and why was it so different from all of the times before?

Moreover…why did it scare him so much?

Author's Notes:

Apologies to everyone who have been waiting for this chapter to come out. In the span between the last one and this one, 2 months, I've been working on school work, clubs, and my job. It was nearing the time of the Finals and so I couldn't really work on my fanfics for a while. Plus I kind of fell into a Yoroiden Samurai Troopers mood during that time. Got out of it during Christmas when I was watching Gundam SEED DESTINY's OAV, a revised version of the series ending which was a lot better than the original. Hehehehe… I also ended up finally watching Final Fantasy VII: Last Order. (Drools over Cloud and Zack.) Oh yeah, the GSD OAV had a new intro and in it for I think two seconds was a completely naked Kira holding an equally naked Lacus with ribbons artfully covering both of them. (Drools all over the sight of a nekkid Kira.) Heheh, fan girl alert.

Also, I'm currently building a 1/100 Strike Freedom which was given to me as a nice 21st Birthday present from my twin who is currently studying abroad in Japan (me birthday was back in mid-November). I like to build Gundams contrary to popular belief (and commercials) that it's only guys who build them, and I must say, I've built a lot of them, either 1/100s or 1/144s (Wing Zero, Sandrock Kai, Freedom (twice), Special Edition Impulse, Wing, and chibi-ized Sandrock).

Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing! I will definitely answer any questions you have using the new review system (which I'm getting used to). So if you had submitted a question to me, please include it in the review again so I can give you a proper reply! Next chapter should be out within a month!

Btw, characters in this chapter might be a bit OOC (in my opinion) because I wrote this in two different times, with 2 months span in between…so it's a bit hard for me to pick up characters in the midst of doing something after a while.