Chapter 2
Throttling out of the base was a rocky ride, some of the emplaced weapons there were trying to fire and shoot Shinn down as he flew from the base. Taking a deep breath, he tried to regain some calm from the chaos, before they send interceptor Mobile Suits after him.
Chairman's got Stella…gotta find out where that is…and burn it down to the ground. Shit maybe this was what Athrun was getting at…
Destiny shook as it was hit briefly with a beam shot, Shinn maneuvered the MS to get a better look at his attacker, jaw tightening up slightly, it was a Gundam: The Legend Gundam.
Rey…
"Shinn halt!" Rey Za Burrel ordered as his face appeared on the incoming video in his cockpit. Rey was a friend of Shinn's since the days at the Academy, he too got reassigned to a Gundam by the Chairman. His blue eyes were piercing, but Shinn hesitated.
"Rey, the Chairman has gone crazy! You can't seriously believe that I'm a traitor!" Shinn cried
"What I know is that you attacked the Chairman, what I know was that you were involved with an Alliance Pilot and aided her escape."
"That you helped me with!" Shinn countered
"I did it thinking you weren't serious, hoping that you'd get it through that thick head of yours at the insanity of the idea! Instead you let her get away and put people in the hospital. If that doesn't scream turncoat I don't know what is."
"Rey, you're my friend…we've went through the academy together."
"The Shinn I know is long gone and dead, I don't know who the hell you are, you're standing in the way of the Chairman's plan for peace, that means you must be exterminated." Rey coldly and venomously sneered. His words were like a dagger through Shinn's chest, leaving him dazed and hurt. Rey's Gundam raised up his beam weapon and fired. Shinn raised up the shield with very little time to block the shot, preventing damage to the torso of Destiny before kicking his engines into gear charging at Rey, Destiny's palm beam weapon charging for a nasty strike to the Legend Gundam's camera. Rey countered, by dropping his altitude down and swinging back for another attack with a Beam saber. Anger built up within Shinn as the fighting went on, he was branded a traitor to his Government, his best friend is trying to kill him, and was now Public Enemy number 1.
"Dammit Rey!" Shinn cursed before throwing a spear kick to Rey's midsection, breaking the dance that both Legend and Destiny were stuck in.
"Face it Shinn, there's nowhere for you to go and nowhere for you to hide." Rey spoke coolly. Another Mobile Suit was pinged on Shinn's radar. It was the Impulse Gundam.
Luna…. no.
The Impulse flew in between the two of them causing a stop in the fighting.
"Lunamaria, what are you doing?" Rey questioned before the Impulse Gundam's head turned to look at Rey's.
"Stopping you from making a mistake!" Lunamaria countered, her weapons weren't raised at either of them but more so her hands were up, trying to shield one or the other from attacking
"There is no mistake to make here Lunamaria, I'm stopping an enemy of the state." Rey snapped
"Are you so blinded by loyalty to the Chairman that you don't see something is up with this?!"
"If you're not going to get out of my way and continue to speak such treasonous things, then die with your sister." Rey raised the Beam Rifle, Shinn's eyes went wide before he grabs one of his 'Flash-Edge' beam boomerangs and chucked it quick, severing the firing arm of Rey's Gundam.
"Damn you Shinn!" Rey hissed. The beam pods from Legend were let loose now as it broke off its attack to cover the retreat.
"Luna, kick it into high gear now and follow me!" Shinn ordered before breaking away, seeing more warships and boats on the horizon coming after them with ZAKU escorts. Lunamaria followed promptly after him, flying into the nearby storm, disappearing from their radar.
The duo's flight lead for a few hours before they made it to Scotland, in a forest about four hours outside of Glasgow. The adrenalin started to fade from the EX-ZAFT fugitive as he rubbed his face in his hands, cracking open the cockpit before climbing out, taking the rope down. Lunamaria was already out looking out on the water.
"What the hell were you thinking?!" Shinn snapped in anger "You could have just let me go, you didn't have to get involved with me. Now ZAFT probably marked you as a criminal for helping me."
"You think that I don't know that Shinn, really? You're my friend- what the hell else was I to do in this regard? You're no criminal to me, you've done more good for the Minerva and have shown me that you're much more than what they say." Shinn looked away from Lunamaria as she talked, everything he worked for in his military career was now gone, his name was shit. Fortunately, Glasgow was in neutral territory, sure there was traffic that came and went with in Glasgow be it ZAFT or the Earth Alliance, so it bought the two of them some time.
"They're going to be looking for us. We have to come up with a plan." Shinn changed the subject as he paced the beach front. "Our Gundams won't last long without a place to refuel and restock. The only option I can think of is hijacking a passing ship, Alliance or ZAFT, one that preferably has a Mobile Suit hangar."
"That means we'd need to get to Edenburgh then. It's the one place that has a massive port for ships to refuel and to dock." Lunamaria added "That'd be about a six-hour travel if we secure a car or vehicle."
"How's your acting skills? Maybe we can do 'Get Help'."
"What wha-?" blinked Lunamaria
"'Get Help' we come out of the woods, you're hurt, and we stop a car and see if we can't convince them to give their car up, I mean the uniforms should help to convince them as well."
"Shinn, I don't think that'll work!"
William MacGregor, age forty-five was on his way home when he saw two people stumble out of the woods, one male and one female trying to flag someone down. The male looked wounded and hurt, and the female looked haggard.
"Please, help us!" she cried out as William slowed down and got out.
"What happened to you two?" William inquired as he approached them
"Our ship was attacked, and we got thrown off, we spent the last day and a half on the water when we got here…" the girl spoke "My friend got hit with a stray bullet."
"I'm amazed he's still alive…" Will mused. He looked at the male briefly before blinking and felt a swift punch to the gut that doubled him over.
"You son of a-"William grunted before looking up to see the male standing above him
"Sorry, it's nothing personal, but we need this vehicle more than you." The male said, and last thing that William MacGregor heard before blacking out on the side of the road.
"Shinn let's go!" followed by the sound of the car door slam and the car speeding off.
Shinn sat in the passenger seat before removing his bloodied shirt leaving a white tank top underneath, taking a deep breath he relaxed a little.
"I can't believe that actually worked…" Shinn laughed a little
"Pure luck." Lunamaria countered "Did you really need to punch that guy in the gut?"
"Do you wanna trust some random stranger we just met? Sides, he looked like he was heading toward the city and we needed to go the opposite direction." Shinn then began to meander through the car looking for a map. Checking the glovebox however he found a rather large hand cannon, specifically an old style .357 Colt Python Revolver and a little red book.
"What the fuck?!" Lunamaria eyed the Python
"Still feel like I didn't need to punch that guy in the gut?" Shinn asked her. Lunamaria looked at him but didn't say nothing and went back to focus on the road ahead of them. Shinn looked back out onto the road as well as the uncomfortable silence started to fill the air.
"Shinn, I just want you to know…I don't blame you for Meyrin." An unpleasant feeling sat in Shinn's stomach now as Lunamaria began to talk. "Maybe I blame myself, maybe if I was more there with her instead of Athrun she would be here."
"Luna drop it." Shinn quickly snapped
"But-"
"As far as I know, Durandal lied to me about Athrun being a spy, same with Meyrin and basically used me as a hitman to kill the both of them from escaping." Shinn spoke, interrupting Lunamaria "If anything you should be yelling at me, trying to bite my head off. But I'm not letting him get away with that."
"What are you going to do?" she asked
"You remember that female pilot I rescued and brought to the Minerva some time ago? When she died, I brought her to a place to lay her to rest, but Durandal fished her from the water and is now doing tests on her." Spoke Shinn, as he was inspecting the Python and checking the rounds within, "Needless to say I'm gonna wreck his shit, I'm gonna burn down his world and then I'm going to kill him."
"Shinn, you're talking about Assassination." Lunamaria finally spoke up "Getting to the Chairman is not going to be an easy task nor an easy feat to do!"
"It's the only thing I can do, I can't run, I can't hide. Rey was right in that regard. I've ran from things for too long before, enough is enough for me. Durandal dies, Rey dies, they all die." Shinn looked at Luna who looked unsure. "I'm telling you now Luna, you shouldn't have come for me. You should have stayed." Lunamaria shook her head, choking back on some of her emotions about how incredibly messed up this entire situation is and how Shinn was now in the center of it all.
"No, I'm with you in this." She told him "Durandal is just another evil that needs to be stopped." Their goals were set now as they both agreed, Lunamaria had reservations about killing them but her reservations were tabled for another time, right now she focused on the task at hand, getting to Edinburgh to steal a ship.