Respect between Enemies – The BetanWerecat

Gundam Seed: "Descending Sword" and after. OCs with appearances by canon characters. The actions of Kira, Athrun, and the others have far reaching effects. Ah, interpersonal relationships! What joys they are. Rated T for language and off screen activity. (Reviews are welcomed but not required. This is written only for my own enjoyment. Flaming me will get you ignored.)

I will be out of town over New Years. Updates will therefore be delayed as the computer will be in one state while I'm in another. I will post a chunk of what's ready before I go.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.


Lance Thoms had come for his wayward Elite pilot. He had not come to talk to Dr. Ito. But the staff had very firmly refused to direct him to his missing officer or to summon the young man. What they did do was just short of drag him up to the old geneticist's office. So here he was, losing time he really didn't have to waste tonight, being announced by a secretary.

"Captain Thoms? Oh, good, good! Send him in." Old Ito sounded remarkably cheerful this evening. "And have the kitchen send up something snack-like. Something with too many calories in it please. Yes, and chocolate! Make sure some of it is good quality chocolate!"

"Yes Doctor, right away." The woman bowed herself out of the office and Lance in.

"Make sure some of it is drinkable." Thoms ordered under his breath just loud enough for the secretary to hear. "And that it's suitable for washing excess chocolate out of your mouth."

"Yes Captain, of course." She murmured through a small smile as she closed the door firmly behind him.

"Ah! Just the man I was wishing to see!" Roland Ito waved him toward the inner office, his own private space and not the place he normally entertained any company at all. This was interesting. And a bit unsettling truth be told. What had that young idiot gotten himself into now?

A very dense beaded curtain cut the inner office off from the more public outer one. As he reached to part the strands, Lance was startled to discover it was three layers deep. The layer facing the outer office was an attractive but conservative pattern done in shades of cream, brown and rust. The middle was a solid layer of pearl white. The inner however, flashed brilliant color as he shifted the beads aside.

He stopped just inside the curtain. This space was nothing like the public one. The outer office was the domain of an eccentric genius with conservative taste and poor filing habits. This room belonged to someone else altogether. There were colors everywhere. Harmonious colors, somehow soothing colors for all that the colors were also mostly fairly strong ones. And the space was almost painfully neat. It was also so full of files and equipment that any mess at all would have made it uninhabitable.

Dr. Ito was seated behind a small desk at the far end of the space. It wasn't all that far either, it just seemed that way as one had to make one's way through all this gear to get there. But there was a second, very comfortable looking chair pulled up close beside Ito's and as he got close, that was where the older man indicated he should sit.

Just as he arrived, a trap in the floor directly in front of the desk opened and a lift rose. There was a fair sized tray on it holding covered plates, a pitcher and glasses, and napkins neatly folded beside a small basket of silverware. The snack had arrived in record time.

"Oh, good, would you be so kind as to put that on the desk? The lift won't retract until the weight is removed."

Lance was a bit surprised to discover just how heavy the tray was. Just how much 'snack' had they sent up here? He hefted it enough to swing it over and plop it on the empty desk. The lift had already vanished back into the floor by the time he let go of the handles.

He sat down as Ito took the covers off all the dishes. The assortment was quite wide, cheeses, meat sticks, cookies, the requested chocolate candies, even what looked like chocolate cheesecake! Yeah, they'd sent up the extra calories all right. The Doctor handed him a tall mug of what proved to be very good tea before he also sat down, with a small mound of goodies to nibble on.

"Now, you will want to know why I've had you bundled up here instead of sending Adrian out to you I suppose."

"The thought had crossed my mind." Lance replied drily.

"Ha! I'll bet it had!" The geneticist popped a small cheese ball into his mouth and ate it with an expression of pure bliss before he went on. "Do you know what a pheromone is?"

"Not really. Biology was not my best subject and it was a good few years ago anyway."

Ito snorted. "At least you remember enough to immediately associate it with the proper scientific field. Let me explain then. After that, there is something I will want you to hear a bit of. You will understand a great deal more at that point."

Pheromones sounded outright dangerous the way Ito described them. These things, you couldn't consciously smell them really so you wouldn't know they were getting to you. And they appeared to have the power to completely readjust a man's thinking regarding any specific woman. Worse, the effect lasted for years!

"Let me be sure I'm understanding this. You are saying these attractant pheromones will, when they really lock on, do something like fixate two people on each other? That they'll literally pair up because of these things and stay that way for three to seven years?"

"Oh, in rare cases it can last longer than that." Ito sounded so damn cheerful about this! "The thinking is that these evolved as a means of assuring that a man stayed with a woman long enough to insure at least the first child they had was old enough to keep up on the march and help with the food gathering before he got distracted by some other woman and left the first one with no provider for herself and the child. Of course, they also hold the woman faithful to the father of the child as well."

No one had ever accused Lance Thoms of being particularly dense. It was pretty clear to him that Dr. Ito thought these pheromones had gotten to his grandson. Since the only woman that idiot had been in an enclosed space with in a high tension situation lately was the Natural pilot he'd captured, it was also pretty clear just who the old man thought the boy had gotten himself tied to.

"You're sure they're a pair?"

Ito's eyebrows rose. "Oh, yes. I'll keep the volume down but I'm sure you'll agree if you just listen for a bit."

He reached back and carefully turned up a unit that looked identical to a topflight ZAFT security monitor. The visual was off and Lance was glad of it. He was even happier about that dark screen as low noise resolved itself into the unmistakable sounds of two people enthusiastically making love. Thankfully, the geneticist did indeed leave the volume turned well down. Even so, the girl's tiny yelps progressed quickly to small screams that got steadily shriller until both cried together. Ito shut it off after that. He'd made his point.

"If you look at the log, that wasn't their first completion this evening either." Dr. Ito noted calmly. "She's one strong girl. She'll keep up with Adrian. She might even wear him out. Which is not how it normally works when the boy is a Coordinator and the girl isn't."

"I did not need this in my squadron right now."

"I do understand that. However, this actually happened at Josh-A. It simply has been building toward this since then. This intense phase will pass."

"When? A week? Six months? Next year? I'm going to have a tomcat who knows where there is a queen in heat on my hands until then! This is not good for team discipline."

"This level is unsustainable. It will wear off sometime tomorrow. They will both be too worn to keep this up beyond that point. What they are doing involves friction and solid physical contact. They'll be sporting some fine bruises. Joints will be strained and muscles overworked. No, tomorrow will see this burn out. Neither will be physically able to renew the activity for at least two or three days given the current intensity. You'll have time to beat some sense and discipline into Adrian's head."

"That's fine. For tomorrow. But how long is this overdrive phase as a whole going to last?"

"Until she gets pregnant and her scent changes. At the moment, he smells the pheromones that tell him she capable of conceiving. Once she has, the pheromones will shift and the message will be, child coming. It will back his interest down remarkably."

"What do you suggest I tell the team?"

"You tell them that he is heavily involved in meeting his obligations to the Project. It actually is the truth after all."

"Wonderful."

"Sarcasm does not become you. I have another reason for asking you in here. I've had another call from your mother. Have you heard from her?"

Lance looked up sharply. "No. Mother doesn't attempt to send me any sort of news that might be the slightest controversial while I'm on base. She knows how many eyes and ears there are there; and how many loose lips."

"Wise woman." Roland Ito said grimly. "You heard of course of the escape the other day of Miss Clyne with Commander Waltfeld and the Eternal?"

"Oh yes, that story, in many variations, is all over the base."

"It seems the Eternal has met and joined the Archangel and the Aube battleship Kusanagi, the mysterious second ship to escape from Aube just before Athha destroyed the mass driver. They took refuge at the old Mendel Colony, of all the places in the universe to chose, and Le Creuset tracked them there. So did the latest of the Earth Forces battleships, the second in the Archangel class. There was a fairly insane three way fight. We lost Vesalius, the Earth Forces were driven off, and the three ships with Lacus Clyne have dropped out of sight."

"So we now have a very small but not inconsiderable third party to this war."

"Correct. Very importantly, the Eternal was specifically designed as the support ship for the Freedom and the Justice. All special armaments for those mobile suits are on that ship. And both those suits are with Miss Clyne's group. Much may depend on what the pilots of those suits decide to do with them."

It was the tone of voice that alerted him. Lance looked sharply at the older man. Roland Ito was staring off into the distance at something only he could see, something that put a very bitter twist to his lips.

"You see, Captain, there are things to learn at Mendel. I wonder if Miss Clyne and her people learned any of them. I must hope they did. I must hope they learned enough to grasp at least the thinnest edge of the danger we are all in."

Powerful golden eyes suddenly stared straight into his own. "One very interesting fact was included in your mother's report. It seems Le Creuset tossed out an escape pod with an Earth Forces prisoner in it just before the battle began. He told the Earth Forces ship they could come pick it up. The battle was well underway when that pod transmitted a message. It said the occupant had the key to end the war and begged the Archangel to come get them. Unfortunately for whoever was aboard, it was an Earth Forces mobile suit that picked up the pod. Azriel of Blue Cosmos is aboard that ship. Now he has whatever 'key' Le Creuset was passing out."

"I'm not getting the message here." Lance said very quietly.

"Le Creuset is playing both ends against the middle and has been for years. I will wager you the existence of the Plants that he has given Blue Cosmos the data on our N-jammer canceller."

Captain Thoms suddenly couldn't breath. Blue Cosmos? With the information on the N-jammer canceller Mother had whispered about? They would come here, back to the Plants again, with nukes. This time, they would come for each and every one of the Plants.

"That damn defective clone intends to take all of humanity down with him. Just as he promised me he would eighteen years ago." Ito said coldly. "Thoms, pray the two boys flying Justice and Freedom chose to help us. Because without the firepower built for those mobile suits, we will lose Plants, perhaps we will lose all of them."

"Defective, . . . . . . . ." Lance looked intently at the coldly enraged old man. "Are you referring to who I think you are?"

"Rau Le Creuset? Yes. And if you love your life and your son's life, you will keep that knowledge to yourself! I tell you only so that you may keep your eyes open in battle and save what you can as he brings us all to the brink of mutual genocide. Make no mistake here, Captain, he will do this."

"How, . . . . . , cloning humans is as illegal as it gets!"

"I know." Ito replied with a smile that spoke volumes for his grasp of the realities of the toxic ethics he had discussed with Grayhawk the other week. "But Hibiki was a man utterly focused on his goal and he could be bought to attain it. His work was expensive, very expensive, and it was not paying off. His funding was threatening to dry up. So when the offer was made, he took the bribe for his greater goal and made the wretched thing. The purchaser was not satisfied with the product; it aged too quickly, and pressed for another. The man died before that was done. Or at least I do not believe there was a second clone made. I do know Hibiki was planning on trying. The money was simply too good to pass up."

"What the hell was worth that kind of risk?"

"Dr. Hibiki was trying to develop an artificial womb. It would take the human variation factor out of Coordinator reproduction; or so he believed. He thought if he could do this, he could produce an ultimate Coordinator."

"Did he?" Lance asked with the kind of repulsed fascination usually reserved for exceptionally bloody shipwrecks in docking bays.

Roland shrugged. "I don't know for sure. I left the program before the last test was decanted. But a former colleague who stayed did call and tell me there was one successful birth; the male embryo Hibiki took from his own wife apparently was the magic child. Very shortly after that, someone betrayed Hibiki. Blue Cosmos got the data on what he was up to and word of the boy. They struck Mendel and destroyed the place, killing anyone and everyone they found. Hibiki, his wife, the boy and his Natural twin sister all vanished. Considering the state of many of the bodies, or what was left after they tried so hard to make the remains unidentifiable, I'm not surprised no one could ever identify any of the family. Still, Hathaway was very optimistic about that boy. Who knows, that obsessive fool may have actually succeeded. The price was impossibly high though. Even if it worked, it is unlikely there would ever have been a second made that way."

"If he survived, that kid, how old would he be by now?"

"Lance," the old geneticist said gently, "don't waste time on dreams that impossible."

"It's my time and it isn't a dream, just an idle question."

"I suppose so. Well, for whatever it may be worth, the boy would be sixteen if he has somehow miraculously survived."

"Old enough to be caught up in this war somewhere."

Ito regarded that idea thoughtfully. "Yes, yes he would be. And if he is indeed alive and a soldier, and if he is what his father designed him to be, he will be a notable factor in it too."


Roland Ito looked thoughtfully at the swaying bead curtain Captain Thoms had just left through. Now why had he been so interested in Hibiki's lost experiment? Did the idea of an ultimate Coordinator fascinate him too?

"You shouldn't have told him so much, Roland."

Eyes not leaving the quickly stilling beads, Dr. Ito just shrugged. "He will be going out into the battle Le Creuset is driving everyone toward. Adrian will be with him. If he knows, there is at least some chance he will be able to protect the boy."

"Oh, the clone. I wasn't referring to him. I meant your talk about the child, Hibiki's child. You've given him an empty hope, Roland. He needs to believe there is a balance for Le Creuset and you handed him one on a plate. He will be watching for the miracle child to appear to save the Plants. That was a very cruel thing to do to a brave man."

He turned to the hidden door way that led to the private lab. His daughter-in-law, Serin Ito, stood quietly in the open passage. She just shook her head at him in disapproval.

"Eh, I'm not responsible for how he chooses to interpret my words. And, I remind you, in the face of insurmountable odds, hope is often the only refuge we have. I gave him hope, Serin. Our people need that desperately."

"I understand that. Understand in your turn that if there is nothing on that battlefield to support that hope, it will destroy him. Adrian depends on Lance Thoms. I will not forgive you if your careless decision making costs me my son."

"He is all I have left as well girl." Roland snapped. "Why do you think I've had you and the others spiking their food and drink with aphrodisiacs? I need that brilliant, smart-mouthed Natural girl pregnant! And it has to be in a manner she thinks is all her own idea. Because if that's what she believes, she will defend herself, the child, and the child's father like the tigress she really is!"

There was a long minute of silence; then Serin replied softly. "Yes, yes she will. But she is a Natural. Despite all her courage and she has enough for an entire squadron, when all is said and done, she is still physically less able than any Coordinator."

He grinned mirthlessly at the far wall. "True enough. But you forget, everyone here in the Plants forgets, that Naturals excel at weaseling their way through disaster to safety. The entire history of the species is one huge example of it. Present a sharp Natural with a mortal threat and, nine times out of ten, they'll come up with a way to escape. This girl is a very sharp Natural, I'm betting everything on her. I have no other choice, Serin. Kayla Grayhawk is all we have. And Adrian does genuinely love her."

"I know. Did you know that her feelings for him are just as real?"

He turned in surprise. His psychologist daughter-in-law merely raised an eyebrow at his startled look. So Serin had done a complete workup on the mutual attraction between her son and his Natural captive. And discovered they'd actually captured each other. Yet she wasn't angry about it.

"I thought you were set on the Rince marriage."

"Helen Rince is a pleasant girl but no more than that. She has no real interest in Adrian nor he in her and she has at least two other good matches her father likes better now that there is no property or standing for Adrian to inherit. No that is over. I've already told Adrian. Besides, even under the best of circumstances it would have been a thing of societal convenience only. There was no affection there and little likelihood of it ever developing. They would not have done well together. That would have negatively affected any children such a hollow marriage might have produced too." Serin told him bluntly.

Then she smiled wryly. "Whatever one may say of his Grayhawk, they are unquestionably passionate about each other. Their children will never have to question their parents love or their interest. They may fight, they may not, but they will never go through life in a mannered dance of civil indifference."

"That pair aren't going to go through life in a civil anything." Roland muttered.

Serin smiled, "No, they aren't. For once, we agree."