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 am putting these up one, two because I think I might aggravate a number of people if I didn't. The end of the second one will be bad enough for some. Part Two of Ito meets the Grayhawks.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.
Kayla jumped when Maria grabbed her arm. "Get dressed in something warm, something you will stay warm in for hours. You can't be here when Larry gets in the door. And he will come in. Alys! Get over here!"
The younger girl came over immediately. "I want you to do the same thing I just told Kayla to do; dress in something warm you can stay warm in for hours. I've got to get her out of here before Larry gets in. You'll be going with her. She shouldn't be going alone. Got that?"
"Right. I'm going." Alys suited action to words and whipped up the stairs to her room.
"What are you going to do?" Kayla asked.
"Saddle you two some horses. Now move!"
It felt like desertion but Kayla knew her sister was right. If she was here when Larry and his Blue Cosmos friends, and that's who had to be with him, came in, she and the babies were as good as dead. She was pregnant enough now to be slightly clumsy as she was trying to adjust to a body with the center of gravity someplace other than where she was used to having it. So she was no longer quite as fast to get anything done as she'd been even three weeks ago. Then too, nothing fit right any more either. It took far too long to get ready and down to the back door.
Alys was already there of course. She helped Kayla get into her heavy sheepskin boots, hat, gloves and the long coat with its split skirts for riding. By the time she was ready, Maria had the dun gelding ready for her and up by the porch. Normally Kayla would be insulted by the idea she needed any help at all to get into a saddle. Now she just accepted it gratefully. It saved time and time was clearly not on her side. Alys was already up on the paint mare.
"Alys, I want you two to go to the hunting blind on the low meadow. It's out of the way, solidly built, has some supplies that are kept there and a lean-to for the horses so they're out of sight as well." Maria told her quickly. "Stay quiet unless you see it's me, Douglas, or Crystal. You got that?"
"Go to the low meadow blind. Stay out of sight until you, Doug or Crys comes for us. Yeah, got it."
The bronze eyes turned to her. "Do you understand?"
"Perfectly. I'll go, Maria. I won't endanger the family by staying here."
"No, you don't quite understand but we'll discuss it later." She stepped back and waved them off.
They trotted quickly through the yard and let themselves out the back gate. Alys went through first and swung aside to let Kayla pass. She closed the gate behind them. They immediately kicked the horses into a quick canter to cross the small home pasture. At the back gate, the training of a lifetime betrayed them.
Once again they stopped to open the gate. Alys leaned forward to pull up the latch and shoved it open, holding on to the gate rope as she did so. She rode forward at a walk to clear the gate for her sister. It was when she turned the paint mare to wait for Kayla that two rifle shots rang out.
The mare screamed once and dropped like a stone. The dun gelding gave one great jump and crashed to the ground. Kayla kicked her feet out of the stirrups and rolled out of the saddle as the gelding's body slammed into the frozen track. The dying horse kicked a few times, and then was still. Kayla hit fairly hard but the power of the strike was absorbed into the roll and she wasn't hurt.
She rolled four or five times before the energy was spent and she came to a stop face down in the sheep pasture. She raised her head carefully, not wanting to stop a bullet herself. Alys was on the ground beside her dead horse, trying to drag air into her lungs. She must have hit flat on her back and knocked the wind out of herself. And running toward them across the pasture was that bastard Ricky Tomlinson, rifle in hand.
She glanced around, looking for an escape route. There was none. They were right out in the open here. The nearest trees were over two hundred yards away. The nearest rocks of any usable size were further than that. And whatever else he was, Ricky was a crack shot. They'd never get more than ten feet if they tried to run.
So she did the sensible thing. She rolled the few feet over to her sister and grabbed her nose, tipped her head back, sealed her mouth over Alys' and blew into her lungs with all the air she could, trying to force them open again. It worked. Alys was coughing and still gasping a bit when Ricky got there but she wasn't lying helplessly on her back any longer.
"Well, well, lookit what we got here. Ol' Larry was right. You did try to sneak the bitch and her space monsters out."
When Alys looked up, Kayla recoiled. She'd never imagined her little sister could ever hold so much unadulterated hatred. Even Ricky backed a half step.
"Shut up you ugly blob of toxic waste!" She snarled.
"Now that's no way to talk to your future husband, girl."
"Isn't happening. And if you're really stupid enough to try, I'll geld you long before you can touch me."
Ricky's blue eyes flared with a rage that came close to matching Alys'. "The hell you will bitch! You'll learn soon enough just who's in charge here and it sure ain't you! Now get up! Your brother's got things to say to you about your support for this whore."
"You . . ."
"Later Alys." Kayla said firmly, interrupting her with a quick shake of the shoulder. "He's got a lot to answer for already. I don't want him adding shooting you to the list."
The younger girl just looked over at the dead horses. "Autumn Chief and Quilt Patches, yeah, he's got some answering to do."
"Oh, I'm so scared." He mocked.
Both girls looked at him, eyes cold and flat. His laughter died. He jerked the gun at them, an answering snarl on his face now. They stood silently and headed back to the house. But if he got too close, they'd both turn and stare dead eyed at him until he backed off again. They held him off all the way to the back door.
Yuri crouched behind a massive stone, caught in place by indecision. He'd managed to tow Voril this far but the younger Elite had refused to go any further. He too was watching what was happening on the flat below the slope where they were hiding.
They'd been concentrating on Adrian and hadn't noticed the two riding off until they'd cleared the shadow of the outbuildings. Just about the time that black haired bastard quit kicking the Captain and slung him over his shoulder instead, they heard two shots come from the girls' direction. They saw both horses fall and their riders go down with them. And they saw what had to be the rifleman run toward the fallen women.
"Got any bright ideas on what we do now Yuri?" Voril asked, anxiety and anger blending equally in his voice.
"Not yet." He admitted.
"Well kindly think of something! I don't plan to sit on this hill while they butcher Adrian!"
"Neither do I! And I am thinking!"
"Think faster!"
"Shut up!"
Inside, the key was getting inside. Trouble was, they knew exactly nothing about how the house was laid out or how many people were in there or if any of them could fight or about a dozen more useful things to know before one invaded a place. The thought of going in that blind just about gave him hives. But it looked like they weren't going to have a choice about it. They had to go in if they were even going to pretend to try to rescue Adrian.
"Yuri! Someone just came out the back!"
His attention shifted. There was another woman down there now. She moved like an experienced soldier too. And she was armed; there was a familiar Earth Forces service rifle in her hands. She ghosted across the yard and vanished into one of the buildings.
Yuri reached into the pouch at his side for his glasses. He needed to know something about the two women and their guard who were now slowly walking back from where the horses had been killed. It was pretty obvious this new one was here to rescue them.
The guard looked like a vicious piece of work. He pretty clearly hated at least one of the two he was herding back to the house. The one girl was a younger version of Kayla, very lovely and very, very pissed off. The other girl was Kayla.
"We have a problem here." He told Voril.
"That being?"
"We have to stop that would-be rescuer. She's got one gun. The guard has another. We may or may not be able to get it. But if she fires, the rest of them inside will come checking and they all have both rifles and pistols. At least three of them are still in fighting shape. We can't assume the wounded two are so far down they can't be left to guard everyone inside either. The taller of the two being walked back is Kayla. We can't take the chance she could get hurt."
Voril looked over the ground. "He'll be in the shadow of the buildings from here in a few moments. We'll be able to move then."
"Right. Don't forget the Captain's bag."
They started down the slope the moment the guard's head disappeared behind the first outbuilding. It was a fast and a challenging trip. They needed to avoid being seen by the guard and they had to keep out of sight from the house as well since they had no idea who might be peeking out a window. That aside, there was also a cactus to avoid falling on and a barbed wire fence to not get caught on as well. They managed it all, arriving at the back of the building the rescuer had gone into only slightly winded.
"You know, I'm glad it's this cold and the local snakes have all gone wherever it is they go in cold weather." Yuri said softly. "I don't think I could have coped with a rattlesnake too."
"They hibernate." Voril said absently, as he tried to carefully look in a very dirty window to see if he could locate the rescuer.
"They what?"
"They hibernate." He repeated. "They get together in large numbers in sheltered, underground locations and sleep in big piles for a few months."
"You know the oddest things, you know that?"
"What?"
"Never mind. Can you see her?"
"Not through this sorry excuse for a window."
Damn! He didn't dare open the door. That would alert her that there was company and she just might shoot first and ask questions second. Yuri gave the building another once-over. This time he paid attention to a small opening about six meters to the right of their position.
It was on the other side of a low fence that enclosed a grassless area that looked like it got very muddy when it rained. It also seemed to be pretty densely covered in small, dark, roundish, pebble like items that he suspected weren't pebbles at all considering the whole area smelled rather like an ill kept latrine. He looked at the opening, decided it definitely was large enough to get through and suddenly wished fervently that he was back in his old GINN. You didn't have to worry about the contents of a barnyard if you were in a mobile suit.
He gave a tiny sigh of resignation and tapped Voril. When he looked down, Yuri pointed to the small opening. The younger pilot nodded and moved out, hopping the fence effortlessly. Yuri followed about three seconds later.
The pebbles were exactly what he thought they were. Fortunately they weren't fresh. Unfortunately they were frozen. And fairly round. They made the footing treacherous.
A look inside the opening showed them a chute leading into a more open area. The woman they were looking for was not in sight. The floor of the structure was poured concrete, something Yuri was glad to see. He'd been dreading trying to cross some squeaking wood floor to sneak up on the stranger.
Voril set both bags he was carrying to one side and slipped in. He moved up to the front edge of the chute and stiffened. He slipped back a bit, looked over his shoulder and nodded. He'd found the woman they were looking for. Yuri set his bag with the other two and also eeled his way through the opening to join Voril.
He peeked around the edge. The woman was down on one knee by a gap in the boards of the wall less than ten meters away. The strap of the rifle was wrapped around her left arm and the butt was resting on her left thigh. She was still as a stone.
Oh yes, this was a combat veteran all right. It was there in the stance and the relaxed yet absolute stillness. It was even more evident in the casually competent way she held the gun. He sat back thoughtfully.
A few seconds later he turned to Voril and spoke very softly. "Silence matters and you move both faster and more quietly than I can. You've seen her, think you can take her and keep her quiet long enough for me to explain things to her?"
He gave it some thought and took a second look at both the woman and the path he'd have to take to reach her before he answered. "Yes. I can do it. But don't be far behind because I don't know how good she is and I could get surprised."
He shifted slightly and made sure there was good traction under his feet for his first charge. He checked his route one more time, then moved. Yuri watched, amazed at how fast and how silent Joule was. Even among Coordinators, he was unusually skilled at this.
The woman didn't know he was coming until he was almost on her. She had no time to react before he was there, one hand and arm pinning her right arm and covering her mouth, the other securing the gun and controlling her left arm. His long legs wrapped around hers and he had them both down on the floor in seconds.
Then Yuri reached them. He carefully pried the gun out of her hand, unclipping the carrying sling at both ends to remove it without having to work the strap off her arm. He set the weapon aside and glanced out the gap in the boards. Kayla and the younger girl, who had to be a sister with those looks, were still a good fifty meters or more away, the gunman a good ten more behind them. It was safe to talk for a little bit here.
"I'm sorry to have done this but I can't let you fire. There are still at least three of them capable of fighting inside the house. If you shoot this bastard, there's no telling who they'll decide to shoot in there but the highest chance is our friend will get hurt. And if they come hunting, there's just you with a weapon to meet them. Those odds stink."
She wasn't fighting Voril. In fact, she was studying him with a disconcertingly look of recognition. He gave Joule a nod and he took his hand off her mouth. She turned her head to get a look at him and one eyebrow went up. Yuri wasn't sure what that meant.
"Well, neither of you is Captain Ito so I'll assume that's who Larry has inside then."
Yuri froze and he saw Voril stiffen. "Excuse me?"
"Lieutenant, give me a little credit please. I've done a bit of research ever since my sister came home and announced she was pregnant and the kid was a Coordinator. Then too, I flat out asked her for the story. She told me. You I have on file. You're Lieutenant Yuri Lubbek, formerly wingman to Captain Ito and now aide to Commander Thoms. I think the kid wrapped around me is Elite Voril Joule, currently Ito's wingman and relative of a much better known Joule with a much nastier temper."
"And who the hell are you?" Voril demanded, shaken by the accuracy of this woman's information.
"Brigadier General Maria Grayhawk, a.k.a. the Bronze Spider." She replied calmly.
Voril made a rather strangled noise. Yuri found himself sitting on the barn floor. And General Grayhawk was silently laughing at them both.
Yuri gave himself a violent shake. "All right, Spider. Do you understand why we stopped you then?"
"Oh yes, I do. And now that I know who's in play here, I'll go along with you on this. I take it you plan to sneak into the house and take them all there?"
"That was the idea. I was hoping you would be willing to tell us something about the layout. Going in blind is hard on success."
"Are you willing to listen to me regarding how to best protect the family?"
"Yes." Voril replied immediately as he unwound himself from her and sat up. "Your people will, if things don't fall completely apart, be the Captain's in-laws. We want to keep them safe too."
"You have a deal." She said, sitting up as well.
Yuri glanced out the gap. Kayla and the other sister were getting close now. It was time to be very silent. He pointed and put his finger to his lips. They both nodded. But the General also made a turning motion as though she wanted them to look away. He frowned at her.
She rolled her eyes at him in exasperation. When that got her nowhere, she stared hard at him, making him very uncomfortable. Then she brought two fingers up to her focused eyes and moved them out along her direct line of sight until she poked him hard in the forehead. She hit him three times before he got it.
The pressure of a stare. Some people could feel when they were being watched. She knew this gunman and this suggested very strongly he was one of those. He waved to Voril and put his hand up so it would cut his sight of the passing group. Joule got the message and also looked away. They stayed like that until they heard the back door slam.
"He feels the pressure of eyes does he?" Yuri asked.
"Ricky? Oh yeah. Hypersensitive son-of-a-bitch." Maria replied grimly. "You wanted to know how the house is laid out. Let's use the dust on the floor here."
She began drawing and describing the structure of the Grayhawk home. It had some definite infiltration possibilities. The back door was not visible from the living room or dining room, and those rooms were the only ones large enough to hold everyone and still leave enough space between the family and the intruders to permit them to effectively guard them. It was also designed to allow people to flow in a full circle around the lower floor. There were no doors in the way of this either. The two pilots were soon asking questions about where the furniture was and the like to aid their planning. Between the three of them, a strike plan was quickly developing.
Maria Spotted Horse saw the two girls coming and warned First Kay. She in turn saw to it both Janet and Howard were aware that the escape had been thwarted. So Howard was standing, cold eyed and angry, when Ricky shoved Kayla hard as she came through the door, clearly trying to knock her off her feet. She stumbled and might have gone down if Jamie hadn't suddenly crossed twelve feet of open space to catch her.
"Hey, you don't got no permission to get up!" Jones yelled. "You sit down and let the whore fall. She's got a lot worse coming to her."
"Jamie, you let her fall." Larry ordered.
"Rot in hell." Jamie told them both as he helped his sister to a chair.
"You seem to forget, you got something to lose here." Hopping Frog chortled as he waved his rifle at three small children. "You better learn how to do what you're told."
"I see your courage still comes out of a bottle and is in direct proportion to how many buddies you have clustered around you." Kayla said coldly.
"Shut up bitch!"
"Why? You're planning to murder me anyway."
"Hey!" Ricky snapped. "Where do you think you're going? We have business."
"The hell we do." Alys replied bluntly as she stalked past him.
He grabbed for her arm but she evaded him. "You don't walk out on me!"
"Watch me!" Alys snarled as she kept going.
He made a major mistake at that point. He charged after her, intent of catching her. Alys timed it perfectly. He was moving too quickly to stop in time when she wheeled around and threw a straight punch at his nose. She put her whole body behind that blow and he walked right into it.
His head snapped back. Blood fountained from the broken nose. And Ricky Tomlinson crashed down on his ass, felled by a girl eight years his junior.
"I told you to go to hell! What part of hell don't you get? Stay away from me Tomlinson! Or the next one'll break something that matters!"
"Hey! Whadda you think you're doin' bitch?"
"You shut up, Frog, or I'll deck you too!" Alys promised in cold fury.
She turned her frozen gaze on her brother. "Larry, don't you ever call me 'sister' again. From today forward I don't have a brother named Lawrence. Because no brother of mine would do what you're doing. Since you are doing this, you aren't my brother. Now, drop dead you bastard!"
"Mind your mouth bitch."
She gave him the finger and went to stand beside Kayla's chair. Maria nearly smiled. This was shaping up fairly well. Pete and Ricky retreated to the kitchen for several minutes to get ice for the nosebleed. Even when they came back, Ricky was no longer really an effective fighter. It's hard to be an efficient big, bad, evil villain when you're stuck in a chair with an ice bag half the size of Pike's Peak covering your nose. That left Larry with three real fighters remaining. The odds were now overwhelmingly against him.
"Hey, Larry, I wanna play with gene freak. Wake him up now." Joe suddenly demanded.
Ah yes, now what do you do Lawrence? You need Hopping Frog right now and he knows it. You have plans for slowly killing that young Coordinator in front of the whole family; to make sure they get the message about how serious you are about destroying them. Then you will kill your sister and her children. But only after you've proved what a ruthless enforcer of genetic purity you are. And now Hopping Frog wants to upset your plans. He wants to take the Coordinator apart himself. So, how badly do you need him at the moment? Because if you give him the Coordinator, you're giving him command too. I wonder if you've figured that out yet. Maria thought to herself.
Larry studied his cohort in crime until the other squirmed under his unrelenting stare. Hopping Frog started out meeting his eyes readily enough but that didn't last. Long before the stretched silence ended, the older man had lost the contest.
"Sure," Larry agreed once it was clear just who was still in charge. "We can wake him up. He took a hefty dose so it'll probably take a while before he comes out of it anyhow."
As her grandson made a show out of giving the unconscious boy a simple shot, Maria suddenly felt a small breeze. There was air moving from the shattered front room windows to the kitchen. The back door was open. Then that slight air movement stopped. The door had closed. She smiled grimly. Everyone was here now.
Larry dragged the Coordinator out from behind the coffee table where he'd been lying. He jabbed him in the buttock with the needle, right through his clothing, and pushed down hard on the plunger. That forced the drug out into the tissues in one rapid spurt, stretching and tearing the injected area as the new material came in too quickly to be absorbed. That done, he dragged him over in front of his sister Kayla and dropped him, adding a solid kick in the ribs just for the hell of it.
He still wore the Dreyfus uniform. He was filthy, there was blood clotted in his hair, and dirt caked into the blood. It was impossible to identify his hair color. If he'd been dropped on his back, Maria knew the girl would have recognized him; Larry had been careful so far to leave his face alone. But face down like this, she didn't know who he was. That lack of recognition would be the saving of both their lives.
For Larry would have gleefully torn him apart, conscious or no, in front of Kayla if he'd known who he was. And Kayla would have killed him for it. She in turn would have died at the hand of either Ricky or Joe.
"I wanna play with him." Joe grumbled. "How long before he wakes up?"
"Maybe ten minutes." Larry told him coldly. "Just be patient. You can kick him in that bum knee in five to see if its starting to work."
"All right!"
Howard stared at his son in cold wrath. "Alys is right. Lawrence Grayhawk would not do the things you are doing. Since you are, Lawrence is dead. I don't know who you are but you better find a name other than Grayhawk to use because that one doesn't belong to you. I no longer have a son named Lawrence. We will bury him with the proper ceremonies next week."
"Don't give me that crap Pop."
"I do not know you. You are no son of mine. Do not presume to call me 'Pop'."
Larry rolled his eyes. "Mom, you want to talk some sense into him?"
"I am not your mother. My son is dead." Janet replied in an empty voice. "You killed him. I have nothing to say to my son's murderer."
Maria watched that smash through the shell of indifference he'd been cultivating. This was not the reaction he'd planned for. He'd anticipated overwhelming the family with his power. He would cow them all and then they would follow his orders. He'd never considered that they might reject him as one dead to them.
"Jamie! What the hell is this?" Larry screamed.
"The consequences of killing my brother, you bastard."
"What did you do with my twin?" John demanded hoarsely. "Where is Moon Lynx my brother? Why did you kill him and leave me to go on with no twin at my back? May the dark Spirits eat your black heart!"
All five of the younger Grayhawks stood as one and turned their backs to him. They said nothing. They didn't need to.
"You know, whoever you are now, I could almost feel sorry for you if you hadn't chosen this of your own free will." Kayla told him quietly. "The father of my children lost twenty three of his family to the attack on Junius Seven. But he can at least remember them as loving and caring for him. You, you've thrown everyone away. You don't have anyone to love or care for you any more. And it was all your choice to have it this way. I can't feel sorry for anyone that stupid."
Maria had been catching flickers of movement in both the front room and the dining room as this rejection had developed. She couldn't see who it was clearly, they were moving with too much care not to be seen. But they had been steadily working their way closer and closer to the doorways guarded by Ricky and Pete on the one side and Joe on the other. Suddenly she knew they'd better be close enough. Larry had just snapped.
He staggered to his feet, staring at the family that was rejecting him. Him, they were rejecting him! But they were going to accept this bitch and the crossbreed space monsters she was carrying? Well, fuck them then!
"You wanna know something?" He said derisively. "You can go to hell!"
"Shoot her in the belly!" Joe yelled. "I wanna see the monsters die first!"
"Sure, why not?" Larry agreed, his hand going to his belt.
Things abruptly came apart at the seams. Two war cries came from the dining room. A young man with very dark hair and only one eye shot through the door and slammed into Pete Jones. Somehow, Jones' rifle was suddenly midair in several pieces, having never gone off and Pete himself was out cold on the floor.
Right behind the dark haired boy, the Bronze Spider jumped Ricky Tomlinson. The heavy butt plate on her service issue weapon smashed into Ricky's prized rifle, shattering it. The powerful strike carried past the broken weapon to crash into his lower abdomen. He survived only because the rifle had absorbed enough of the blow to prevent the rest from rupturing his intestines or bladder. But he was writhing on the floor, in pain so intense he couldn't even scream. And General Maria Grayhawk was very, very happy about that.
There was no verbal warning from the front room at all. One instant Joe Hopping Frog was yelling for Kayla's blood, the next he was down on the floor with a broken skull, a tall, very thin boy with pale gray hair in a Dreyfus western Pacific uniform standing over him, old fashioned police club in hand. That boy immediately shifted his focus to Larry.
But Larry was fifteen feet from either the Fox or the Jay. And fast as the Fox moved, this time the Natural was faster. Larry had the pistol out and aimed.
"Die Bitch!" He screamed as he squeezed of the first shot.
There were three Coordinators in the room. A fact Larry had overlooked. Adrian Ito came up off the floor with no warning. He made no attempt to attack. He simply put himself between Kayla and Larry's pistol.
The first round caught him dead center in the chest, lifting him off his knees and throwing him back towards Kayla. The second, third, and fourth were all placed within a few inches of the first. The fifth hit the ceiling as Voril's club came down to destroy the man's arm. There was no sixth.
Ito fell. He managed to turn as he did, allowing him to see that Kayla and the children were not injured at all. Maria watched as his face lit briefly with absolute joy as he understood he'd been able to save them. Then the eyes flickered and went blank, the body suddenly collapsing as though all the bones had vanished.
In those few seconds, Kayla recognized him. And realized what he'd done. And what it cost.
"ADRIAN!"
