Disclaimer and Notes of Ownership: I do not own the Gundam Franchise, or any of the characters from said franchise. If I did, I would probably use the massive fortunes resulting from that to develop real-life mobile suits and conquer the world, with a corresponding level of glee and madness.
("He actually drew up plans for it too.")
I do however, own all the technical designs labeled with PGAT, XHMA, MMA, XSBF, XABF, PMU, MLWS, CI, CPH and SDDGN in their alphanumeric designations, along with a portion of those labeled XGAT. I own Jack Kagizaki's mind, body and soul, as well as those of Captain Gary Shimizu and his Shoki Team. Along with that goes the Abaddons, the Grigori, and good ol' David Sariel. Drake too. If anyone should use any of these without my permission...well, I'll mope. And then I'll find you and crush you underneath a tank. Filled with high-explosives. And all the mopey, whiny Gundam protagonists that didn't grow something resembling a spine.
Similarly, Velshard has dibs on almost the entire line of replacement units for ZAFT, excluding one. He has administrative privileges over the Noctoraptor (Enhanced), Ferox, and Verin Gundams. He also has ownage over the horrifying abomination or deification (depends on your point of view) of all that's good and pure in this universe, otherwise called the Tetsujin. The beings of Andrew Victor Payne, Karlton William Hertz, and the Van Dalygon family are belong to him.
The Megalodon design belongs to...well Kojiro Kun gave me the idea.
The ZONGS design belongs to animefan29.
00virtuezero's contributions include the Gundams Repulse and Outlaw, and his OCs Wesley Mercis, and Michael Archer.
Gundam Seed: Killer's Realm
Phase 32: Civility, Part 4
- The Troopers -
JOSH-A, Alaska
April 13, 71 CE
12:11 PM Local Time
The wall exploded outwards, the force of the explosion sending pieces of concrete knifing through the opposite wall of the hallway, and even before much of it hit anything, the no-longer-cloaked members of Shoki team barreled out the hole and down the hall, heading for one of the emergency exits their newly-updated map of JOSH-A noted.
"Will you hurry up you big Russian brute! I like having my blood all wet and liquidy in my veins!" John shouted, quite literally pushing against Boris' back as he urged the largest Shoki Team member to greater speeds.
"Believe me my little friend, I would enjoy being cooked and boiled by my own superheated blood as much as you." Boris rumbled, still sounding rather stolid. "To say nothing of the agonizing nerve damage. Of course, you could go laughing."
"How the hell would we laugh at that?" Lilou demanded, third in line and jogging.
"Well, if you did a hand-stand, the microwaves would hit your brain before the rest of your body, irreparably damaging it and of course, the centers for pleasure and pain, causing you to feel inexplicably joyous as your body cooked." Ryan explained, bringing up the rear. "By the way, where did Shepherd go?"
"Oh, he's way up there." John snorted. "Bastard's fast. Comes from having to reposition all the time to keep a target in sights."
"And it also helps when fleeing reprisals." Gary chimed in. "By the way, this is a one-way express elevator to the surface and departs in forty-five seconds. Might wanna hustle."
"Oh no you don't you bastard, if that elevator leaves without me on it and OMNI's Cyclops kills me, my ghost will haunt you and whack you upside the face with your own sniper rifle!" John roared.
"Da, I agree." Boris added. "Only, I will be using your car."
"Hey. Do what you want to me, but leave the 71 CE Leetcar alone. It didn't do anything to you."
"Moot point, we're here, move." Ryan growled, shoving at Lilou to get them all in the elevator. Which, being made for maybe a dozen people dressed at most in light combat armor, was rather cramped for the power-suited troopers.
"How long did the guy say we had?" John asked nervously.
"About thirty minutes, say twenty-seven when we get out of this elevator. We can make that. Can't we?" Lilou asked, a bit nervous.
"Let's see...the Cyclops detonated on Grimaldi had an effective radius of about fifty kilometers, and that was in near-vacuum conditions...so the one here...aw, hell, I dunno, just run!" Gary snapped.
- The Inventor -
Drake Complex, Level 27- Terminal, Alaska
April 13, 71 CE
"Well, they're rather interesting." Drake mused, watching the antics of Shoki team on his western wall-screen. "Hopefully they can make it. It'd be difficult to get out of here otherwise."
From the cage, a brief hiss/grunt/snort issued, sounding insulted.
"Forgive me Rex, allow me to elaborate: It'd be difficult to get out of here without Azrael catching on. And then...well, the whole gambit we and Bogeyman had here would potentially go wasted, now wouldn't it?"
The beast in the cage answered with a desultory growl.
"Yes, I would have liked to see you eat him too. One way or another however, Muruta Azrael will not live to see 72 CE. Speaking of which, what do you think of Edward Abaddon?"
That query was answered with a respectful, throaty, rumble, along with the sound of sharp implements scraping on metal.
"He is formidable indeed. Thankfully, OIA's profiles on him and the rest of his crew are promising. Especially since the Joint Chiefs, or rather, Azrael, let him stick around to see JOSH-A's final moments. Not particularly smart. He'll be more susceptible to Bogeyman and Simba now."
- The Destroyer -
Grigori, Bride, JOSH-A Dock Entrance
Abaddon growled again, forcing Sariel to, for the fifth time, excuse himself to go to the bathroom. It was extremely frustrating that Le Creuset refused to come at the Grigori, instead using hit-and-run tactics on the Eurasian ships around them. Edward would have been perfectly happy to deal with him personally, but his Gundam, the Azazel, was still undergoing preventative maintenance, necessary considering that its previous service as the Praetor.
"Vice-Admiral sir, coded transmission coming in from Lunar HQ." The comms officer said.
"Bring it up on my screen." Edward ordered, picking up the comms phone.
The image of Azrael, blond, stupid and arrogant, flashed up on the screen Abaddon had built into his armrest.
"Abaddon, you are to leave the battle now, at maximum possible speed and head for the Philippines."
"Yes sir." Edward replied coolly. That lasted until he replaced the phone in its cradle. Then the aura of restrained fury returned, giving the returning Sariel another bout of bowel movement.. "Prepare the Longinus, deuterium-core shell. Set for airburst five seconds after firing, target the epicenter of the largest ZAFT aerial formation."
Oh shit. Was the communal thought.
Deep in the bowls of the Grigori, automated systems activated, humming to brief life. Capacitors built into the forward half of the ship began drawing energy from the Grigori's extensive hydrogen fuel cell network, even as a mechanical claw reached into a compartment the size of a semi-truck, briefly scanning before selecting a large shell. As the claw transported the projectile to the loading chamber, the weapon's officer's station on the bridge connected to the shell's electronics and programmed the settings in. That done, the claw delicately set the shell into a box. The moment the claw withdrew, the box receded into the 'wall'. Inside, a panel extended and pushed the shell into the enormous Linear Cannon's barrel.
Fully charged capacitors instantly discharged their entire store of electrical energy, dumping thousands of watts of artificial lightning into the magnetic coils that twisted around the barrel. The magnetic field generated, forming in front of the shell, pulling the highly-magnetized outer layer of metal around it, which took the main body along for the ride. Then the rails, set inside of the coils and spiraling around the barrel, activated. The shell instantly broke the speed of sound, darting past the halfway point of the Longinus' barrel in the blink of an eye, and shot out of the muzzle at a good 5 km/s.
The round shot past the defensive network the Grigori and surrounding ships had set up, past ZAFT's front-line, and into the zone where most of the submarine-launched units emerged and dropped units reformed. Twenty-five kilometers away, the rounds internal mechanisms counted down to zero before activating.
Shaped charges perfectly surrounding the core of super-compressed deuterium detonated, compressing the already dense sphere into an even denser form, combined with the heat from the explosions.
The shell instantly turned into a puny star, by solar reckonings. For a brief second, it lived, before dying out as the pressure that kept its core intact died away and allowed it to expand into a mere collection of heated gas.
By the time the light from the short-lived sun died, the mass of ZAFT's forces that was blocking the Grigori's way had gone. It was a sizable number, but still nothing to the rest of the force that continued to land.
"Forward, all power." Abaddon ordered. The Grigori's thrusters flared brightly, propelling the enormous ship into the gap. Almost immediately, chatter from the surviving Eurasian warships intensified as they began to question the movement. "Cut them off." The lines silenced.
- The Crucible -
Rau wasn't all that surprised to see the Grigori leaving. Muruta Azrael was a fool, but he wasn't about to sacrifice one of his biggest trump cards on a mere trap. Checking his display, Rau saw that several of the ground-based Mobile Suit units had managed to blast open the land gates and force their way in. Even now, IFVs and APCs rolled in from their ships, carrying soldiers to secure area behind the spear-head of the Suits.
Right in front of him, from his perch on top of a half-sunken Alliance Cruiser. All around him, the IAAMS and glider-riding ZONGS, ZAMS, and SCAUs pulverized the closest ships, even dealing with the occasional jet that the Eurasians flew.
It should happen any minute now. Without a word, he jumped the Charcharius off of the wreck and into the air, flaring the thrusters as he left the battlefield.
- The Troopers -
All of Shoki Team was, at the moment, even more appreciative of the work SpecOpsIntel R&D did for them.
Not only was the OMU completely insulated from outside conditions, it also allowed them to move at a brisk seventy-five kilometers per hour. Away from any potentially fatal microwaves.
There was, however, one problem.
In order to make full use of this awesome speed, they were forced to choose the straightest and clearest route availabe, which happened to be the enormous canal that connected JOSH-A's dock in the Yukon River to Norton Sound. This was also the same canal in which the fiercest part of the battle between the Alliance and ZAFT was taking place.
"Hmmm...Anyone else notice how straight this canal is?" Ryan asked.
"Shut up and keep running FNG." John grunted. "Before my boot connects with your ass. Padding or not, that'll hurt, trust me."
"Huh...he's right." Gary noted, arcing his neck to study the stream of water next to which they traveled. "And look at the edges. Looks almost like..."
"Like what?" Lilou butted in.
"Like the remnants of a beam. You know, like when a beam hits the ground, and there's a divot left, all glowy and hot and shit, and after a while, it's cooled down and looks all glossy and crystalline?"
"Whatever, let's just run faster!" John urged them on from the rear, followed shortly by Boris.
- The Beast -
Hundreds of kilometers away, fathoms below the surface of the ocean, a single large submarine skimmed the seabed, silent and unseen.
In the core of it, there was a room wherein several of the Joint Chiefs of the Alliance sat. A long table was centered in the room, with maybe five people sitting at it, not one single person there under the rank of Captain.
Captain Sutherland sat in a seat at the table, waiting along with the rest of the officers from JOSH-A. It was almost time. They had just received word that ZAFT had breached the interior of the base and would soon overrun it. Sutherland had personally told the doomed fools that reinforcements would be there in less then twenty minutes. All they had to do was hold out until then. The door to the briefing room opened, Admiral Stephen Halberton entered the room. All of the officers except one pale white haired Colonel who was leaning against the wall near the door Hymen enter, in the room saluted the Admiral. "It's time." Sutherland informed him.
Stephen nodded. He silently took his seat next to Sutherland. Before both of them was a pair of metal boxes attached to cables with a keyhole in the center. Both men pulled out their keys and inserted them into the keyholes.
"It is my sincerest wish that this terrible sacrifice will bring a swift end to the war," a solemn and weary Stephen said.
"For the preservation of our blue and pure world," Sutherland added.
As Sutherland began to count down one officer that was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed looked at the seen with silent contemptuous and disgust. While this was an intelligent move and it would wipe a large scale of ZAFT's forces, it would however cause the deaths their fellow soldiers, mainly the Eurasians. That was the general plan lead ZAFT into JOSH-A, activate the Cyclops system wipe out the enemy's forces, along with Eurasian Federation soldiers so the Atlantic Federation would be in complete control in the Alliance. Still, the Colonel couldn't help but think of his dark reservations about this action and how Blue Cosmos, along with Zala's Elitists would use as propaganda to the people of Earth and the Plants. Still, while it was logical and sound, it was a disgusting move.
"For the preservation of their blue and pure world. What a pathetic excuse." Colonel Eunathas muttered under his breath.
His cold gray eyes held no empathy as Sutherland and Stephen turned their keys.
"Idiots" he muttered.
Under JOSH-A, in the deepest rooms and natural caverns, the Cyclops array activated. A distinct humming echoed throughout the empty rooms, as the dozens of hundreds of emitters began to glow. Within a short time, the air ionized and arcs of electricity crackled in the air. Unseen microwaves traveled, heating up the bedrock and air, and all else in their path.
In the interior of JOSH-A above, surviving Eurasian soldiers contorted and screamed as their flesh was cooked inside and out, and their blood boiled until it expanded and heated into gas and vaporized, exploding out of veins and arteries and everything else, their bodies popping like blisters. Moments latter, all that remained of them was a faint bloody mist and the cooked, steaming giblets that was their bodies.
Not even half a minute later, ZAFT's soldiers felt the Cyclops's effects as well. Gunpowder ignited, cooking off ammunition, electronics displays sparked and burst into flame, gas tanks heated and exploded, and among that chaos, Coordinators died.
Not even the Mobile Suits, avatars of a new age of warfare and among the most deadly weapons a single man could be entrusted with, were unaffected. The microwaves overcharged their batteries and capacitors, set off missiles and bullets still in the tube, and excited stored plasma to new heights, melting through their containers as the conductive materials melted and exploded. Like their pilots, the suits exploded.
All around the base, stockpiles of munitions and fuel exploded, devastating the area. As structural supports were destroyed, the base collapsed inwards, the ground above caving in as well in a sinkhole.
The microwaves reached the sea, boiling water and cooking the WAAMs and SIMCA until the suits exploded. On the surface of the sea, the Eurasian warships died as their own reserves cooked off. Within minutes, all of JOSH-A for twenty-five kilometers around was a burning, irradiated crater.
- The Destroyer -
The bridge was almost empty. The Grigori was left on auto-pilot, and all that remained was the figure of Edward Abaddon, claw-like hands gripping his chair's arms as the main screen replayed the scene from minutes ago. Slowly, as it ended again, Abaddon wrenched his hands from the plastic, now molded to the shape of his fingers.
- The Troopers -
They were silent. Shoki Team stood on the lip of the canal, gazing back towards JOSH-A. Around them, lay the bodies of those who had managed to, like them, escape the fatal range of the weapon where they exploded, but not far enough to escape being cooked to the inside. Ryan stooped to examine one who was still writhing in pain, only for Gary to grab him by the shoulder. Stiffening, and then standing back up and looking away, Ryan kept his gorge down as his team-mates drew their sidearms.
- The Inventor -
Drake sat, and gazed at the images of JOSH-A that surrounded the room, casting it into light and shadows that shifted as images swapped in and out, videos played and paused, following no visible stimulus, as the devious individual scanned them. Under his mask, Drake grinned as his pet, curled around his chair, growled and hissed.
"Oh, they'll get what's coming for them. Especially when he sees this..."
- The Author -
I'm wicked.
("I'll say. Especially with that description..."
Well hey, if they'd seen the original Seed imagery of JOSH-A, and also if they've seen District 9 and the effects of the 'Prawn' electrolaser, I don't think my withholding the description would have helped. Anway, here we are, at the end of the battle. Yes, it's short, but I don't consider it to be one of the big battles in this story. It is, however a Moral Event Horizon. People are gonna be jumping the Alliance ship like rats. Well, not really.
But, as Drake says, they are gonna get their comeuppance.
("Via the foot of a fifty-foot mecha.")
Indeed. Also in this chapter, we see 00virtuezero's new OC, and Stephen Halberton, Lewis Halberton's brother. Yes, let the rumors flow.
Review Replies:
Alex Yamato: Now ends.
He's quite a bit more than a spy...
Heh.
Not entirely sure, although I think I'm gonna be taking some influences from Metal Gear Solid stuff too...
You're welcome.
Kojiro Kun: Heh. Nice to see you here.
Might wanna wait a bit for that.
G. Wagers: Go ahead and google Le Creuset. I laughed when I first found it.
Quite frankly: EVERYONE DIES! (insert cackle) Excepting some of the more plot-important ones.
There was no way you'd be wrong. The Freedom isn't even an idea in this story.
Gladly.
Infinite Freedom: Knee her in the stomach and then run! Run fast as you can!. Oh, and you might wanna keep away from Jack's body. He has a tendency to gnaw on things when unconscious.
Mathiasosx: Next Omake then!
Ah...
That it is.
Soon, my apprentice, soo-
("Oh, shut up with the Star Wars!")
Ack! Not the brain, not the brain!
Evci: Thank you.
00virtuezero: Yep, It really smarts when you're mortal enemy (yes, even more so than Kira) is literally within your reach, and yet your code prevents you from dealing with him at the moment.
Just wait until Destiny. Then you'll get to laugh at Shinn instead of your own characters.
Special Systems, like the Freedom's multi-targeting system from Canon, stuff like that. Like...who developed it, built it, How it got assigned to its pilots, stuff like that.
And short-lived.
Oh, he's still nuts. But...well...surprises will abound.
I made a few modifications, hope you didn't mind. Also, wasn't Jamitov the guy in the Titans in UC?
Knightmare Gundam of Ni