Gundam SEED: Arbiter Forces
By: Shadow Chaser
An Alternate Universe to Entropy Rising
Story:
Phase Twenty – Spies
Athrun and those in Orion's squadron approached the three Heracles-class ships and got within two-hundred meters when suddenly the three ships came to life. No, coming to life wasn't actually the correct phrase, he realized as he stopped mid-flight, using the reverse thrusters to prevent himself from going any further towards the ships.
They were…
"They're breaking apart!" Orion's confused voice came over the comm.
"No…" Athrun replied slowly as he watched as something was detached from the ship…and was about the size of the ship too. "It's…" his eyes widened in horror as he realized what he was seeing in front of him, "scatter! All suits break now!" He gunned the verniers on Justice and flew upwards as a giant red beam of energy was fired at them from one of the three "detachments" from the ships. It looked a lot like the Archangel's Lohengrin, but there was something about it that was different and he watched as the beam suddenly moved across the area in half circle before dissipating.
Specs for the mobile armor immediately appeared on his HUD and he saw that the armor was called the Destroy Gundam. Athrun twisted to the side once more as another red beam shot through where he was. There were a few muffled but cut off screams from the Astrays as they were caught in the blast and instantly vaporized. He cursed silently as he drew out his beam rifle and fired a few shots at one of the Destroys.
They bounced off of the armor and he threw his rifle away, gritting his teeth in frustration. Activating his double beam saber, he watched as one of the Destroys suddenly open fire with its weapons and brought up his shield to cover himself. The bullets peppered his shield before he weaved around the hail and flew closer towards the Destroy. The mobile armor was huge compared to the Justice, and it's multitude of heavy weaponry made up for its lack of grace. But he suspected that if at close range he would be able to destroy the machine a lot easier than from afar.
"Get as close as you can!" he called over the comm. as he charged in with his beam saber. He weaved around the firing beam weaponry, gritting his teeth as more than a few brushed his armor, some setting off warning alarms. "Orion!" he called over the comm., "can you give me a flying wedge!"
"No good sir," the Astray pilot's voice came back, a bit strained, "we're having problems dealing with the other two!"
"This is the Kusanagi, we're on our way, hold on a little more," the captain of the ship suddenly cut through the comm.
"Shit," he cursed mostly to himself as he continued to dodge the beam weaponry from the Destroys and also the missiles being launched from the mobile armor.
"This is the Whitney…we're surrendering, repeat, do not fire, we surrender," the muffled and crackled comm. of one of the Agamemnon-class ships abruptly burst through all channels and the background noise accompanying the transmissions sounded like screams and probably a fire going through the ship.
"Captain Terov what the hell are you doing!" a new voice called through the channels.
"I'm not letting my crew die out here! The Clyne Faction has always told the truth! Could they be lying now with that clone's words!"
"You're crazy! You believe that revolutionary girl's words! For crying out loud, she's a Coordinator!"
"So is Zala! You believe that asshole!"
"They're in this together! They're-"
"Captain Terov," the icy cold voice of the Ares' captain abruptly broke through, "we do not deal with traitors."
Athrun watched in horror as all three Destroys suddenly stopped their attack on the Astrays and him and fire their beam arsenal at the Whitney. The ship had no chance and was completely vaporized by the assault.
"Holy mother of…" Ami Dena's voice whispered through the comm. and Athrun assumed she had been fighting off the Whitney and the other Agamemnon-class ship. He gritted his teeth and charged at the Destroy that he had been trying to get close to, trusting nothing but his instincts. They had fired on one of their own ships! The OMNI forces were insane!
Suddenly a hail of bright yellow beam weaponry pounded the shield of the Destroy he was charging at before the Buster flew next to him, unloading its entire payload into the mobile armor. A pepper of missiles and green beam weapons poured from the distance adding to the destruction of the shield that the Destroy had put up. The Kusanagi had arrived to help out.
Athrun pushed the throttle all the way up on Justice and flew straight into the mass of beam weaponry and missiles, hoping that his instincts and his friends wouldn't accidentally shoot him down. He could see the shield weakening in the Destroy and grimly flew towards on the weakest points.
Activating his beam saber once more, he yelled a war cry as he broke through the shield of the Destroy and plunged his double-beam saber into the bulk of the Destroy where the core would have been located. One of the pink ends of his saber cut through the torso of the mobile armor and he peppered the cockpit area of the Destroy with a hail of bullets coming from the CIWS gun turrets on his suit's head.
Pulling out his beam saber he flipped it over end and cut a long vertical slash through the main weaponry bulk before flying back a bit as explosions rocked the Destroy before a huge final burst of light engulfed the mobile armor.
Partially shielding his eyes, he backed off from the explosion and when it finally died down the Destroy was a wreck floating in space. That's one down…two more to go, he thought as he stared at the debris.
"Sir!" Orion Barton's panicky voice came over the comm., "the other Destroys…they're…"
Athrun's head shot up and he stared at the other two Destroys that had stopped firing and were now changing…from mobile armor to mobile suit! An icy pit started to form in his stomach as he realized things were going from bad to worst. A quick calculation in his head told him that his pilots were probably low on their bullets…and they had barely made a dent in the Destroys. The Duel, Buster, and Murasame weren't nuclear operated so they were probably near the full drain of their batteries…
"Status?" he asked the three pilots of the Gundams in question.
"I'm good to go for another few rounds, sir," Ami replied.
"In the red," Dearka replied.
"Good to go," Yzak replied.
"All right," Athrun steeled himself, "Dearka, head back to the Archangel. You'll have to sit out the rest of the battle. Ami, you and Yzak hit them with all you got then I want you to head back."
"And let you martyr yourself out here? Not a chance," Yzak sniffed at him, "besides, I only take orders from Lacus herself."
"Yzak!" he growled underneath his breath, frustrated that the white haired man was still being stubborn in a time like this.
"Commander! The Destroys!" Orion's voice cut through the comm. chatter and Athrun turned to see that the Destroys had finished transforming and were now bringing their weapons online.
"You have your orders!" he called to the three before their pictures winked out from his side view and he re-activated his double beam saber and started forward to the nearest Destroy. He dodged the Sturm Faust hands of the Destroy that had launched themselves with wires attached, firing at the mobile suits and ships that had come to destroy them.
Twisting and turning, he tried to penetrate the defenses and glanced over to see the Strike Rouge trying to take on one of the Sturm Fausts. "Cagalli!" he called out to her, rushing to her aide.
The Strike Rouge kept firing at the hands, billowing it in a cloud of smoke and dust before its five beams penetrated the smoke and blasted the beam rifle out of her hands.
Athrun willed the Justice to move faster but suddenly stopped short as one of the red beams raked close by him before he ducked and dodge another one of the Sturm Fausts that had its sights set on him. "Shit," he cursed as he glanced up in desperation at the Strike Rouge, trying to defend itself from the five simultaneously firing beams with its half-broken shield and beam saber.
"Commander! Behind you!" the frantic call of Matthew Tanim burst through the channels and Athrun's eyes widened as he turned and saw at least five missiles flying towards him…too late for him to fire upon with his beam weapons.
Suddenly they exploded in a fiery mess before another set of explosions destroyed the Sturm Faust that had gone after Cagalli. "What the…" he murmured before the familiar silhouette of the Freedom flew past the two of them, beam saber drawn.
"Kira!"
Kira's senses were sharpened to a fine point and he knew he was in his seed-mode, but this mode felt different…almost as if he could subtly predict the enemy's next move and dodge it. His original seed-mode enabled him to see actions as if they were almost in slow motion. Even so, he dared not let that new sense get to him and instead glanced down for a quick second at the battle data flowing into his systems.
The Buster had already retreated, completely out of power and was being picked up by the Archangel. The ship was hanging behind the Babylon, Eternal, and Kusanagi, still limping with its damaged engines, but able to fire it's main weaponry. When he had arrived on the Eternal, he had immediately gone straight to the Freedom and Lacus had not stopped him, only saying to him that it wasn't his time to die yet.
"Kira!"
Kira ignored Athrun's call over the comm. and instead concentrated on the Destroy that was the closest to them. Through his newly awakened powers he could somehow sense Griever battling the other one, his clone-brother's smirk written all over his face.
Dodging the Destroy's attempt to take him down with its triple beam Scylla and detachable Sturm Fausts he raised his shield to block a couple of beams fired at him before swiping down with his beam saber, cutting across the top of the three Scyllas. An explosion ripped through the top before he flew out of the way, barely missing the wide discharge of the energy cannon on its mouth.
Suddenly the Justice appeared next to him, peppering the damaged area with missiles before activating its double beam saber. He was followed by a handful of Astrays.
Kira charged in once more, knowing that Athrun was probably going to go for its blind spot, in the back of its head. He watched as the three Scyllas prepared to fire at him and the Astrays behind him that were holding their position, unloading all of their missile payloads and beam rifles into the gigantic mobile armor. A quick check at his targeting system told him that the Strike Rouge, Duel, and what was the Murasame Gundam were helping Griever take down the other Destroy.
He struck the core of the charging Scyllas with all of his might as explosions went off around him as Athrun struck from behind, his beam saber penetrating the head of the mobile suit. Kira threw away his shield and pulled out his second beam saber and activated it. He drove it towards the cockpit of the Destroy, skewering it before suddenly lifting up and flying quickly away.
The Justice joined him as they hung back and watched as the Destroy was consumed in a series of explosions before culminating in one giant one. A little beyond, another series of explosions were taking place as the last Destroy was finally taken down by Griever and the others.
"This is Captain Ramius of the Archangel. Your mobile armors are gone, surrender now," Murrue's voice came over a broadband channel. He hoped that she had given a message to the ships to search for Haruka Satou before anything else happened. He didn't want her to die like Taylor did…didn't want her to be manipulated to the point where she went insane…
He closed his eyes briefly and let himself relax, willing away the alien seed-mode he had been in for the past battle. Opening them again, he watched the Heracles-class ships floating silently in space. He couldn't believe that they had fired upon their own ships…destroying them as if they were a nuisance. The anger and annoyance he had felt consumed him quickly while he was aboard the shuttle and he had forced himself to calm down for his own sake and the sake of his friends. He still hated what Griever had done to him during their little "training" session.
He could feel the pounding headache and the aches and pains of his training session along with the weird clarity of the tendrils that had occurred during that session coming back in full-force, threatening to send him into a large dizzy spell. Clamping down on his dizziness, he tried to force himself to focus. It would do him no good to collapse out here with three warships still facing them.
"We will never surrender…" the captain of the Ares said in a quiet and deadly calm voice.
"You are out gunned Captain. Please, we will offer you-"
"Oh to hell with it," Griever's voice cut through the conversation, "he's not going surrender…why bother." There was a suddenly flash of movement before the black form of the Ragnarok appeared beside the bridge of one of the ships; the only thing making it stand out from the inky black of space was a pink beam saber…that immediately sliced through the bridge.
"Stop it!" Kira called out as Griever teleported the Ragnarok to the second ship and sliced through the bridge.
He pushed the throttle to the maximum on the Freedom just as the beam saber emerged from the exploding bridge of the second Heracles-class ship. He knew he wasn't going to make it…he needed to stop Griever! Move! Move, move, move! He silently urged the Freedom to go faster when suddenly the tendrils appeared before his eyes…and he could see…
"Kira!" Athrun's frantic call was lost on his ears as the tendrils told him that it was all right…all he had to do was touch the place he wanted to go to. That was all. It was simple; he didn't need his anger or his annoyance. And he felt strangely calm…
He touched the spot next to where he knew Griever was going to appear. And just as suddenly, the tendrils were gone and he was facing the Ragnarok, his beam saber drawn. Kira clashed with Griever, ignoring the fact that he was feeling very weak and dizzy, his body crying out to stop the pain and his head pounding a mile a minute.
"Stop it!" he cried out.
"Why should I!" Griever shouted back as the two tested each other's strength with their beam sabers crossed, "they're never going to surrender. Take them out before they can report back!"
"They're out-gunned! Disable their engines, jam their comm. systems, just don't kill them in cold blood!" he yelled back.
"That's not like you, Kira," his clone-brother shot back at him, "what happened to the one who knew what was right and what was wrong?"
"Shut up!" Kira knew that he had changed a lot since the wars…and he was sick and tired of all of it. Yes, the Heracles-class ship was a danger, but what was the purpose of stopping the war if they just ruthlessly killed everyone? "I'm sick of what you've done to me! Just stop it!"
"I haven't done anything to you, dear brother," Griever sneered over the comm., "you've only done it to yourself. The changes within you, the change in your personality…it's all you."
"Shut up…" Kira gritted his teeth as he squeezed the controls he was holding on inside the cockpit. The clone had hit a very sore spot…he knew he was changing…but what could he do about it? He was trying his hardest to fight it…it was just that the catalyst of all those changes was none other than the pilot of the Ragnarok; right in front of him, about to destroy the last of the Heracles-class ships.
"Step aside, Kira Yamato. They are the enemy and they need to be destroyed," Griever's voice was flat and cold, but he narrowed his eyes, seed-mode, and held his ground, beam saber drawn.
"No," he replied in an equally cold voice. "They are prisoners of war and will be treated as such."
And right on cue as if Murrue had heard him, she put on a broadband transmission towards the last Heracles-class ship, "Furies you are ordered to stand down your weapons and surrender. We don't want anymore senseless slaughter."
"Fine, I'll finish this myself!" Griever's cold voice burst over the comm.
Kira sensed more than anticipated Griever's next attack and met him head on in a clash of beam sabers. He immediately kicked the Ragnarok in the stomach, breaking the stalemate and went after the mobile suit. Ducking a low swipe from the black mobile suit, he lashed out with his beam saber and caught the edge of the Ragnarok's shield. Pressing all of his weight on it, he flipped his second beam saber around and swung it in a backswing towards the mobile suit's head.
The Ragnarok blocked the blow with his own beam saber as the two locked beams.
"Why the hell are you doing this?" Kira shouted over the comm., his eyes blazing with anger. He could feel the pulsating anger flow throughout him, telling him to take the tendrils that had appeared and use it against him. But part of him still knew that it was dangerous and so he flatly ignored using the tendrils. But their beck and call inviting him was like a siren's call that he couldn't turn away from. It told him that he could use it and defeat his enemies so that no one could ever hurt him again. No one.
"You're too soft-hearted Kira Yamato, too deluded to see that enemies can't survive the battlefield we are in. Do you think Zala would have let any of us survive if we were faced with overwhelming odds?" Griever replied.
"That's what makes us different from Patrick Zala!" Kira blocked a blow with his beam sabers in an 'x' as the stalemate was broken by Griever.
"We're no different," his clone-brother snapped before throwing his shield at him.
Kira took the impact in the chest as his cockpit rattled around him before he shook his head to clear whatever stars were floating around his vision and flipped head over heels, barely avoiding a stab upward that would have cut his mobile suit from groin to navel.
Charging forward, he clashed again with his two beam sabers, pressing them in an 'x' against Griever's single one. The rage from all that Griever had done to him and to his friends fueled his strength and he viciously and unconsciously grabbed the tendrils he saw and augmented his strength to break through the block. However, he realized Griever was also using the tendrils to augment his own strength and so the stalemate continued.
Suddenly there was a spark of warning that flashed through Kira's consciousness and he leapt back at the same time Griever did too. A giant yellow beam tore through the space where they had been occupying…
Kira glanced up towards the direction the beam came from and saw the Murasame Gundam, looking oddly sinister in the silhouette of the sun behind mobile suit, giant beam rifle held in its hands. He suddenly glanced down and saw that the beam had torn through the bridge of the Furies…and the realization that the Murasame had been aiming at both he and Griever and at the Furies shocked him.
"Lieutenant Dena, what the hell are you doing!" Athrun's voice came over the comm. just as the Furies exploded, killing all aboard.
There was no answer from the Murasame as Kira watched the mobile suit warily… Suddenly Griever leapt into action and teleported from his current location to behind the Murasame. Faster than he could react, the Ragnarok stabbed its beam saber into the side of the Gundam, giving it serious damage before holding it in a lock, arms pinned to the side.
"Griever-"
"She's an agent!" Griever's voice came over the comm., "I forgot about this, but I realized that she was an agent! Sent to kill the pilots of the Justice and Freedom."
"How do you know that? She had plenty of opportunity to do so at her leisure," Athrun replied. Kira saw the Justice point its beam rifle straight at the Ragnarok's head, shot steady.
"Ha," the clone spat out, "you still don't get it, do you Zala? It's all a trigger to get agents like Lieutenant Dena here working."
"And that trigger could be you," Athrun's voice could have frozen hell over if it wanted to.
"Who knows," Griever replied, "how about we head back since this battle's over and you can have all of your questions answered?"
There was silence at the other end of the comm. After a few seconds a crackle over the comm. told him that his best friend had made his decision.
"With everyone present," Athrun conceded.
"Everyone present," the eyes of the Ragnarok flashed once before he suddenly sliced off the arms and legs of the Murasame, much to the protest of the remaining Astray pilots and Athrun, but Kira ignored all of that as he could feel himself come out of his seed-mode again…
His vision returned to normal and the tendrils disappeared…and that's when he felt the rush of pain, pounding of blood into his ears. His world immediately spun dizzily and he gripped the sides of his chair as waves and waves of nausea and pain threatened to overwhelm his senses.
He realized dimly as he could feel the blackness taking over him, that he had pushed himself too far this time. He was still healing from his wounds…and with this practice with Griever, the gun fight with Taylor…and now this battle…he was slowly, but surely killing himself. Athrun…Lacus…Cagalli…forgive me…he thought as his world was enveloped in a haze of blackness and pain…then…nothing.
Athrun ordered the Astrays minus a couple back, to the ships and sent the rest to escort the Ragnarok, holding the damaged Murasame, back to the Archangel, with orders to shoot the black Gundam if it even twitched funny. He was about to follow when he noticed the Freedom suddenly powering down. A jolt of fear shot through him.
"Kira!" he shouted, patching the comm. through to his best friend's channel. Static answered him.
"Kira!" he flew towards the Freedom and held it aloft, "hang in there Kira!" Making a beeline towards the Eternal, he patched a comm. through to Lacus.
"Lacus, I need a medical team on standby. Kira's not responding," he said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. He knew that it was bad idea to have Kira piloting the Freedom when he was still recovering. Why didn't his best friend listen to him! He was in no condition to pilot anything, much less even get into a firefight aboard the Archangel!
Lacus nodded and he could see the worry lining her face but she kept her mask of professionalism on and relayed his call through to the medical bay aboard the Eternal. In the agonizing minute it took to fly from the battlefield to the Eternal, he prayed that Kira was all right. The hanger bay doors opened for them as he carried the Freedom in and set it down. Running through his hasty post-flight checks on the Justice, he immediately opened the hatch and leapt out, floating towards the Freedom in the near-zero-gravity of the ship's hanger bay.
Punching the override code on the panel outside the Freedom's cockpit that was uniform for all ZAFT-built mobile suits, the cockpit panel slid open and Athrun nearly froze at the shock of seeing his best friend half covered in his own blood, eyes closed and face deathly pale.
"Kira…" he whispered as he leapt into the cockpit and quickly undid the crash webbing that held him in place. A quick check to his best friend's neck told him that he had a pulse that was a bit uneven, but still strong. "Why did you go out?" he muttered as he gently lifted the brown-haired man out of his chair, not caring that he got blood all over his own suit.
The distant shouts of the medical team arriving was all but lost to his ears until two of them popped their heads in. He looked up as one of them gently grabbed Kira's shoulders from his hands and lifted him from the cockpit. Athrun climbed out after him and leapt from the cockpit of the Freedom to the ground where the medical team was putting on a breather mask onto his face and getting ready to transport him to the medical bay.
"Kira!" the two shouts of both Cagalli and Lacus; Cagalli from a shuttle that had landed while he was inside the Freedom's cockpit, and Lacus from the bridge made him look over to see the two of them suddenly come to an abrupt halt as they saw Kira being rolled away, still covered in most of his own blood.
"Athrun…what happened?" Cagalli turned to him and he shook his head as he put an arm around her, trying to reassure her.
"He shouldn't have gone out…that idiot," he stared as Lacus' turned to follow the medical team down to the Eternal's medical bay. His right hand involuntarily clenched into a fist as he glared at nothing in particular, "We need answers and Griever's got them…"
Author's Notes:
Dear God this chapter was a total bitch (pardon the language) to write. No one would cooperate! No one! Gah! Many, many, many apologies to the readers and fans of my stories for waiting for so long. I had to force myself to finish this so it might sound a bit…messy. I hope this chapter is to your liking and answers to various questions that might pop up will be answered next chapter. Anyways, with AnimeBoston coming up this coming Memorial weekend, I might or might not be having another chapter posted. Going to have fun though! I'm going as Subaru Sumeragi from Tokyo Babylon (chess version), and Van Fanel from Vision of Escaflowne. Thinking of cosplaying Athrun or Kira next year though – woot!
Anyways, there's a new proposal of the Destiny Falling re-write. I realized that I absolutely did not like Gundam SEED DESTINY's characterizations and the story could have used a lot of work instead of it being tailored to fan-service and fan wants (i.e. – why bring back Neo as Mu LaFlaga? Or breaking up the Cagalli/Athrun pairing?). Gah…so messy. So here's the proposal: Destiny Falling will have its original core plotline that I had written so long ago, that won't change. But, I will be essentially re-writing GSD as Destiny Falling. That means, I will introduce Shinn Asuka and the GSD gang in my own terms. What do you guys think? Should I do it this way or just stick to what I had before?