Quick authors note: i will openly admit this is not my best work. Chapter one of the new story is nearly done, i`m just waiting on finding some beta readers to give me good feedback on where i can fluff it up so its up to snuff word count wise. I decided to put this out there as a way you all can gauge where this story is at as to how much of a true grind it is for me to work out these chapters. Also there is a re-write of yzak getting his duel HWS in here, i`ll remove the one last chapter in the re-write when/if that happens at this point.
Midnight hour, halcyon colony, orb union territory
Casar hettich looked around cautiously as he waited for his contact. Finally they arrived, their van pulling up and opening the door to let him in. Once inside the van drove off. A mobile meeting place. It was bullet proof, sound proof, and perfect for assassin's like him to be briefed in.
Ignoring the stench of cigar smoke he looked at the table set up in the back of the van, easily holding himself up as he admired the rifle before him. An antique by modern comparison, but it was a solid choice for the job. A Barrett MRAD. It was high enough caliber and customizable enough to easily do the job.
Turning to his client he waited to hear who his target would be. Instead a file was offered to him. Opening it he saw the photos of several people…well not really people to him. Monsters in human skin. "These are basically kids….you know that means my price gets tripled. Coordinators for sure but that doesn't mean shit when it's kids."he said.
His contact blew out a large cloud of cigar smoke. "My client has actionable intel that these "kids" pilot mobile suits for celestial being. That make any difference?"he asked and casar spit at the floor.
"Price doesn't change…but that group is fighting in defense of a world that isn't pure and where we live in harmony with those monsters. So i`ll do it. How many do you want me to take out?"he asked as he set the file down and turned to start customizing his weapon.
"As many as you can. And any collaborators obviously. Anyone with them is clearly a sympathizer. The price change is fine…but for that price we expect them all dealt with. Understood?" asked the mystery client.
Casar nodded and turned back, looking down the scope he had attached to check it. "I'll make sure to get them all. Any time frame?"he asked.
"Within the next day or two. Can you handle that?" to this Casar nodded again and the van stopped. Breaking down and placing the rifle in a case along with its attachments he closed it up and as the van door opened he turned back to his client. "Any other intel you can give me?"he asked as he needed to know all he could about his targets.
"We have a local ice cream shop intent on offering celestial being free sundaes while they are in town. I would scope out a spot targeting that shop. It`ll be your best bet. The ice cream store is the one on fifth street. Couple of good vantage points to my knowledge." Casar nodded once more and got out of the van, listening to it walk away before he slipped into the shadows of a nearby alley.
Halcyon
As the now four ships alliance discretely docked their ships in the colony's harbor murrue let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in. They were finally in a safe place. They all had cagalli's full endorsement that this colony would shelter them no matter what came their way until they were ready to leave. Noah was off sending the ptolemaios and it's crew home, well the ones actually going back home but he had stated this was "off script" so he had no clue what was gonna happen next currently.
She had ordered some well deserved R&R for the entire crew of her vessel so they were tucked back behind the kusanagi in the harbor in case something DID happen. Next to them was the eternal, still needing few last minute calibrations and such for some of its armaments and in front of the eternal was the purgatory. The kusanagi and purgatory intended to run skeleton crews with rotating shifts to allow the archangel some breathing room/time and each had at least one ace pilot ready to launch at a moments notice.
Meanwhile the baker team was currently back in "reality" where they were assembling their new machines along with yzak from the purgatory. Getting out of her chair she floated back to the entrance to the bridge and began to head down to her quarters for a well deserved nap.
Halcyon
Valeria was astounded that the baker team had been given free reign to come and go from "reality" as often as needed. Before Noah left to take the ptolemaios group home they had been officially sanctioned by the original celestial being group as gundam meisters given they held out for a long as they did against heavy odds. Now they were being given the opportunity to make whatever they wanted gunpla wise for their new machines. Well…maybe not WHATEVER they wanted. They had restrictions mostly in the gundam seed selection.
Regardless of their build though, all of the baker team agreed they would try to use a GN drive or equivalent to power the unit as they wanted to give off the same particles Noah did. So currently valeria was looking over the gundam 00 section of models. She wanted to stick with her sniper role so far but felt just going with a straight built dynames or even a cherudim wasn't enough. She had found the zabanya but felt it wasn't...sniper-ish enough for her but still held onto the box as she had liked the idea of its bit system. Of course they all had been given an idea of what the final fight would be like. A cluster fuck of unimaginable proportions. And then there were the nukes.
Looking over the box again she decided perhaps just a straight built zabanya would be best. With her coordinator abilities it may even be better used. Deciding to just change the paint scheme she took the box and went off to examine paints.
Halcyon
Cecil was holding what was left of his gunpla he had made previously. It had held up well against the earth alliance machines but its physical weaponry left a lot to be desired in terms of its potential to fight back. Especially since he never got around to making them heat weapons.
But given that the team baker had agreed to use a GN drive as a power source he had been looking into other era's, even some of the older stuff. While nothing really caught his eye he was starting to see where Noah got his outlook on the war. He watched breakdowns of different "teams" and pilots and one that caught his eye was the preventer organization, especially preventer wind aka zechs marquise aka millardo peacecraft. The tallgeese three was nimble and easily able to be used in a non-lethal manner, something he planned to point out to his team that he wanted to try and fight non-lethal like kira IF POSSIBLE.
Killing wouldn't be seen as a bad thing but they had the power to make a difference and not break up as many families as possible. Show both sides that it didn't matter how one was born, The capacity for kindness was in everyone.
Another thing that caught his eye was the mercurius and its defensive funnel system. As Cecil walked the isles of the store he wondered if he could combine the two, the defensive funnels with the speed and power of tallgeese. Coming across china he decided to check in with her and see if she could help him achieve his ideal mobile suit.
Halcyon
Alfred was looking at a massive box. The MG psycho zaku. It had enough armaments and thrusters and was designed with space combat in mind. As much as it nearly broke Noah's rule of using advanced machines from future timelines it TECHNICALLY didn't. While yes he could make a zaku warrior version he enjoyed the way this one looked. It would be a task and a half for the Englishman to build and further to customize it….but from what he understood they had time.
For starters there was converting it to a GN drive powered machine. Then there was adding in his now somewhat signature funnels. As much as it had already with the sub arms he wanted to add in more funnels as he enjoyed the expansive fire range of them. As he began to look through the add-on kits for more funnels to add on he noticed one that had a triple pack designed for adding onto a HG zaku from the origin series. As well as he had noticed an anti-ship rifle for the HG series with a few of those zaku's.
Nielsen labs had offered their services for any building help the pilots might need and so he went back and grabbed a couple of those boxes and then grabbed the funnel kits and went to check out so he could take them back and get it all re-scaled. He would leave figuring out the GN drive power source to them as well. He was a fighter, all this model building was a bit outside his league.
Halcyon
Yzak was amazed by what he had seen. It was a whole 'nother world. This "reality" was certainly something else. He had even been stopped by a few people at the store he was told to visit for pictures because of how "authentic" his costume was. When the shop owner, or who he assumed owned it, saw them pestering him she walked over with a child in her arms and waved them off, stating he was probably here to get a new kit.
A new kit was indeed his intended plan but he was still grasping the concept that his entire existence was a fictional story for the people here. The woman who had helped him held out a hand and smiled. "i`m china, my husband owns the store but he is a big time builder and fighter so I run the shop in his stead. You must be yzak obviously. Good to see you came around. Guess now Noah has the whole team under his command. So what can I help you with? After all this must all be so new to you you probably have no idea where to start."she said with a kind smile.
Yzak nodded and chuckled slightly. "Yeah…it's a real humbling experience to get to see all of this. Um i`m looking to upgrade my duel, or get an upgrade from my duel. Something that can put me on par with the others and get away from what this supposed zero system set me up with. I would hate for it to decide to backfire on me in the middle of a battle."he said as he looked over their latest line up of models, from a series known as gundam breaker battlogue.
China nodded and thought for a moment before motioning for him to follow her. "Now this may be the zero system at work or it may be something my husband is planning to build but I'm sure he won't mind waiting for another. Now technically you guys aren't allowed to use kits from the future aka gundam seed destiny. But a side story set between the two time periods….i think noah can allow some substitution."she said as she lead him behind the front counter and pulled out a box. It was on the larger side and showed the model half in color, the other half was a yellowish material. "Now you will need a master grade duel assault shroud for a base BUT i think this will be your best bet for an upgrade. Its the blu duel hws conversion kit. It's known as a garage kit cause it's not officially recognized by bandai as a kit. Its made by a third party. I don't get many of these kinda kits in but it came with the latest order so…call it fate? Luck? Whatever you wanna call it i think it`ll fit you perfectly. Just take it and it's base kit to neilson labs and they can build it for you quickly and show you any modifications they made."she said as she motioned to an isle. Yzak assumed this was where he would get the "base" model kit.
Walking over he noticed he was walking past a case of people's custom models. One of them had the name "shinn asuka" next to it and it looked to be a heavily custom model. Something about that name struck him as familiar. Maybe he heard it in passing as a strong builder? He shrugged and soon found his duel as well as several other kits that caught his eye from the gundam seed destiny line up. But shaking his head as he only needed this one kit he walked back and grabbed the conversion kit.
Stopping for a moment a thought occurred to him. "How rich is noah? I mean…he has to be, how else is he able to afford letting us buy whatever we want."said yzak as he realized she was letting him leave without paying for the materials. China giggled and shrugged. "Well I don't know about Noah being rich, but neilson labs certainly has a pretty hefty bank account. They are the ones funding your mission currently. In exchange Noah gave them nearly full rights to his gundam cockpit design and the rights to the zero system as a game engine. After all this I doubt he is gonna stay here to the point he will need local currency. Pretty sure he plans to reside in orb with you all."she said.
Yzak nodded, satisfied with that answer. With that he went and headed out to where the shuttle back to neilson labs was waiting. He would have a bit of a wait while the baker team finalized their purchases but he was willing to wait. Looking down at the conversion kit he was eager to get into this gundam.
Halcyon
Finbarr fergal was sitting in his captain's seat as he looked over his fleet's orders. He was in command of "Battle Group Tango" who was now supposed to track down celestial being and their allies. His key orders were to eliminate the threat before regrouping with high command for some special operation that had all the blue cosmos members giddy. While he agreed coordinators were a threat to the natural way of life for humans, his own niece was one and she was as sweet as could be. Hell his brother would only have made her a coordinator if his wife wasn't infertile so they figured if they were gonna go the test tube route they might as well go coordinator. So he didn't see them all as monsters. But he was also a god fearing man and if god had intended for his brother to have children he would have provided him a wife who could bear children. Not a love of his life with a barren womb.
So to sum up finbarr, yes he was a minor member of blue cosmos…but he didn't entirely believe in the whole "preservation of our pure and blue world" or whatever their rhetoric was. He just felt the coordinator creation process was an abomination of god…though he would never tell his brother that or let his niece know. She was an artistic prodigy and he had several lovely clay pottery gifts from her in his cabin. But again she was a coordinator. For all he knew she was genetically disposed to knowing art or some bullshit.
Looking over the roster of his pilots made him a little sick. Most of these "biological CPU's" were just kids according to their pictures. But they were supposed to be top notch pilots and should be able to tangle with celestial being just fine. If not then they should at least get him his secondary objective which was to capture one of celestial being's mystery power sources. The GN drives that were the talk of the cosmic era.
The point of the blitz daggers was to get confirmation on celestial being being harbored by the colony. If they couldn't confirm it then he had orders to leave them alone given the closest colony they could have come across was the halcyon colony which was owned by the orb union. And while azrael had confirmed the death of 90% of orbs higher ups they still had a standing government in the form of members who had been away in space at the colonies. While this meant the orb union still existed it also unfortunately for them meant most of the government members now in power were in blue cosmo's pocket.
However this presented a unique opportunity to catch celestial being off guard if they were in the colony. Either way as his fleet moved towards the colony they were taking their time, making sure no zaft patrols got between them and their goal.
Halcyon
Alice, Nina, Feldt and Soma, who was out temporarily while Marie let her meet her new family, all sat at a small cafe table. The four women had decided since they had some time to relax in the colony while Noah took the 00 team back that some time to discuss the rapidly growing family was in order.
Nina decided to start as they were all served their drinks and had otherwise been quiet thus far. "So…soma you're a super soldier right?" she asked as she sipped on her coffee. Soma nodded. "Yes I am from the superhuman institute, though I suppose at this point it means very little. After all i`m not that much different from the coordinators of this world. Even Marie, who technically is also a super soldier, is not much more than a designer baby. I was merely a persona they implanted into her mind to break her out of her mind and make her a perfect soldier for the fight against celestial being." she explained as she sipped on her tea, a small measure to thank Marie for this time even if she would prefer something sweeter.
Alice giggled as she listened and the three others looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Sorry sorry. It's just the gundam concept of a perfect soldier….it's a recurring theme. Heero yuy was meant to be the perfect soldier but he just saw his life as worthless till he ran across relena peacecraft. Just like in the Gundam 00 series you viewed your life as not much more than that of a soldier until you met colonel smirnov. And I mean really met him. Hell you had the chance to capture or kill allelujah at the end of season one but instead you insisted on rescuing the colonel. Just like heero you disobeyed orders once you came across someone who gave you purpose off the battlefield. How did the colonel die if Noah was around? I would have figured he would have rescued him. If it's not too much to ask."she said as she sipped her hot chocolate.
Soma sighed and looked down into her drink. "It was during the break pillar incident. While Noah successfully stopped Andrei from killing his father, hell he even almost turned him to our side…another player as Noah put it ensured the colonel still died. He doesn't know where he came from but apparently he was wielding a unique gunpla as his mobile suit. Noah thinks either the zero system created him as another challenger for Noah or there's someone in Nielsen labs who is trying to derail Noah in fixing things. Last we saw, Noah had speared the cockpit of his gundam with his GN sword 3 and the gunpla disappeared in a mist of particles. So I hope Marie and I can have our peace that he is gone."she said as she sighed and looked up to the other three women.
Feldt reached out and took one of soma's hands in hers. "I'm sure he is gone. And even if he does rear his ugly head again noah will just crush him again."she said and soma nodded.
Alice sighed and sat back, laying her head on the back of her chair. "The zero system….shit. It's hard to believe my adoptive dad actually made a sentient AI sentient enough that it split into two parts."said Alice as she lowered her head and looked to nina.
Nina nodded. She had met the young girl that was the "gamer" aspect of the zero system. It was what created her originally and was basically the spirit of Noah's gunpla. It even got upset when noah just kept upgrading in 00 and had challenged him to use his "real grade" ex-caliber instead of the "zeus gundam" he made. That real grade ultimately became what he was calling his "royal version" of EX-caliber.
Then there was the "realism" aspect of the zero system. The part that wanted things to happen exactly as they were supposed to in the series. It wanted Nina dead and only Noah had met it so far in a bar where it offered him a deal, let Nina die and he would get to keep his story going here. But Nina was the love of his life so of course he had said no.
Nina sighed and continued to sip her coffee. "Well regardless how about we focus on what I gathered you all here to go over. Our family. Now Noah has already given me three amazing daughters thanks to adopting you three…but I hope you all don't take it personally when I say I still want more. Namely, I want a baby or two of my own. Now given most of you are grown women I hope you can understand how missing out on those early days i feel like i don't know you as well as i`d like to being your mother."she said and all three girls nodded…well soma kinda nodded.
To address this Nina turned to soma and smiled. " honey. I know you are basically a child yourself, and if we could i`d implant you into a child i could raise and give you a proper upbringing instead of just "bam your a soldier now'' trust me i understand given i just woke up one day and was the pilot of a mobile suit, no real memories of my own or if i did the zero system never fleshed them out to where they are foggy at best. But sadly I don't think Noah would go along with overwriting a child's persona with yours. I like this clone idea though.``she said as she reached out and held soma's other hand.
Focusing on Alice and Feldt though Nina looked at them both. "So…what do you all think? Are you ok if once this war is over me and your father look into having a baby or two?"she asked. Feldt was the first to respond with a happy clap.
"Yes it sounds wonderful! Especially since you don't exactly have childhood memories with us let alone memories of your own. A child would be a great way to help you feel more at home with us."said feldt to which Alice nodded.
"Yeah plus with coordinator technology if you and dad had twins you could do something similar to kira and cagalli…just not to the extreme measures they went to with kira. Don't need another "perfect coordinator" running around."she said with a giggle.
Nina smiled. This made her heart soar to hear. Now it was down to soma. Soma was deep in thought, likely discussing with Marie about this idea. Finally she came out of her thoughts and looked to nina. "I`m all for it as well. And if you`ll allow it i`d like to discuss with you and Noah an idea me and Marie came up with for when it comes to me and possibly getting to raise me as well…if you're ok with that." she said, a hint of fear of being shot down on her face.
Nina smiled and nodded. "Sure soma. If you think there is a way then i'd be happy to hear it later with noah."she said.
With that the girls went about discussing each other and this new family they were a part of and sharing what memories they all could.
Halcyon
Murrue smiled as she walked through the halcyon colony. She was holding hands with the former lt commander mu la flaga as they just explored the colony. It was a relief that they had the chance to try and have an actual date. So much conflict recently, the one reprieve had been the fact that she hadn't lost Kira or Noah way back before Alaska, and now they were poised to end the war, or so Noah stated.
"Here we go! I knew they had to have one around here somewhere. It's a super popular chain back in orb. With delicious burgers and some killer fries."said mu as they turned a corner and sure enough his new favorite restaurant, well fast food joint, the afternoon sugar. It was something like the 21st century dairy queen, specializing in cold, sweet, creamy treats but also had a wide array of burgers.
While murrue would admit this wasn't the kinda date she imagined, in this time of war and having been living off military rations for most of the past year she was just happy to have something non-military to eat.
As they entered she was greeted with the scent of hot oil from the fryers, the smell of warmed buns and a slight chill. Going to the front they ordered and found their seats, getting their drinks on the way. Once they were seated Mu immediately took murrues hands and smiled when she blinked.
"Thank you for taking this chance with me. I know with us on the run and me being a mobile suit pilot now and so many other things it must be crazy to think of dating…but thank you for at least taking a chance on me."he said as he smiled as he always did. She blushed for a moment and smiled back. "Well i mean i had to try one of these burgers and i couldn't remember the name and besides…why not take a risk when we have someone like noah and his people watching our backs."she said as she sat back in her chair, still holding Mu's hands she ran her thumb over the back of his hands.
Halcyon
Nicol flipped through the current symphony he was composing. Tweaking a note here, changing something there he kept a close eye on his monitors as he floated in space in the blitz jaeger, cloaked and with an extra radar dish attached to his back to expand his sensor range. It was a temporary addition as he was here to make sure that neither the alliance nor zaft tried anything against the colony. Thanks to advancements from celestial being and tricks used both against them and by them he also had cast a wide net of sensors in case the alliance somehow reproduced his blitz gundam or a variant of it and tried to use it to infiltrate the colony.
Sure enough as he was deciding on what octave for a specific note he heard his sensors ping an anomaly not far off from him. Bringing the blitz jaeger to full power but not de-cloaking he turned to examine the location with his optics. What he saw momentarily confused him as he noticed a blur moving against the blackness of space…but then he remembered what Noah told him about how to spot cloaked enemies if he was going to do this. Look beyond what you're seeing and compare the background to the foreground. Determining that they were indeed cloaked mobile suits he slowly began to move to follow them. He didn't want to interfere too much lest he give them away but if they started to sneak into the colony then he had no choice but to act.
As the machines neared the colony he moved closer to one, his hyper-jammer coat keeping him off their sensors till he managed the grab ahold of one. Drawing one of the armor schneider daggers he equipped to the gundam he stabbed it into the torso of the machine, disabling it as Noah had done with him long ago now.
Expecting the pilot to have a flight suit on he tossed the machine aside as he saw the others decloak. Firing off an sos signal to the others he de-cloaked himself and drew one of his pistols and a beam saber from the cuff on his machine's left arm. Boosting forward he slashed at one of the machines before he closed his close quickly to deflect a barrage of beam shots from their new 70mm high-energy blasters.
At this point the colony was aware of their presence and as the other "ace" pilots who were on standby inside,namely baker team in their new machines, a few mobile armors also joined them in coming out to meet the n dagger n squad.
As that battle commenced something even more sinister was about to happen inside the colony.
Halcyon
As kira, athrun, dearka, and yzak all caught up around the table of the ice cream parlor, Bailey smiled. He was joining the teens in enjoying some complimentary ice cream as he was told by cagalli it was the best ice cream chain in all of orb. So of course he had to try it, see if he wanted to bring his kids to one sometime after all this was over. It was kinda nice knowing him and Noah had their own little pocket world they could visit and share with friends and family.
As dearka shared a rather embarrassing story about how yzak had botched a training bomb trying to show off for some girls in their zaft academy days the hot headed coordinator stood up and nearly threw his ice cream at the blonde coordinator only for athrun to initially get up and try to calm him.
"No! I didn't do it to impress girls. That was dearka who was always trying to impress the women!"shouted yzak as he tried to defend his pride.
Across the street in an open window a rifle barrel just barely slid out of it. It was casar and his barrett MRAD rifle system. It had a moderate scope on it and a red dot targeting laser. He wanted to make sure his shots hit. So as he tweaked his scope he noticed a prime target. The white haired kid had jumped up multiple times in rage. Perfect for him to hit first. The only outlier so far in his targets was the adult with them. But it doesn't matter. Anyone with them was as good as dead. That was his current contract after all.
Turning on his laser he got ready to take the shot as the purple haired kid tried to calm his target.
Just as he was about to depress the trigger though across the way Bailey noticed something off. He lifted his glass and noticed a red glint off it, looking back he blinked and it took him a moment to recognize the flash of a red targeting laser. Eyes going wide he followed it to where it sat on yzaks chest. Without thinking he jumped over the table just as the shot rang out and he tackled yzak. Everyone was originally alarmed but their training quickly kicked in as they flipped their table, the whole scene alarming everyone else in the parlor as another shot rang out but dinged off the table. Athrun, who was closest to yzak and bailey quickly rolled bailey off of yzak and immediately saw that the natural human had been hit, seeing bailey cough up a bit of blood and it began to pool under him.
"Shit baileys been hit! I'm calling for backup!" he called out as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a communicator he had with the ship. "This is athrun, we are at the ordinary bowl under sniper fire from an unknown assailant!" he yelled into the communicator as another shot rang out and pinged the table. "Baileys been hit, we need medical and some back up asap."he called into the communicator. When there was no response he cursed, thinking his message had not gotten through.
Dearka was focusing on trying to stop the bleeding for Bailey while yzak was laying on the floor stunned. Kira poked his head over and saw where the sniper was just before he had to take cover from another shot. "Does anyone have a gun on them?"asked Kira to which athrun and dearka shook their heads. "But I do have the buster panzer. Anyone got their scanner?"asked dearka as he reached behind him to pull the model out of the case Noah gave him. Kira raised an eyebrow. " What made you bring the buster panzer but not your scanner?"asked kira. Dearka rolled his eyes. "Not the point right now kira! Does anyone have theirs?" he asked. Sadly no one had theirs. However it seemed their message had gotten out as they all heard and felt the loud crash of a machine landing outside. Looking over the table kira could immediately tell what machine had landed in the street before them. It was Noah's EX-caliber.
As the machine dropped to one knee, Kira saw Noah already lowering down the lift to the ground. Once he hit the ground he ran inside and vaulted the table. Grabbing his friend he quickly moved to lay his head in his lap. "Emergency services are on their way but I was already in the air running maneuvers. Come on bailey, stay with me!" he exclaimed as they heard the sirens of the emergency services. Bailey looked up at Noah and reached up, Noah taking his hand even though it was covered in blood. Bailey smiled weakly and tried to say something but it came out as a cough with some blood.
"Save your strength man….you gotta survive for your wife and kids."he said to which bailey laughed and coughed up more blood. Bailey gripped Noah's hand tighter and finally choked out, "welp….this sucks…"and with that Noah watched as his eyes faded and his grip released on Noah's hand.
"Bailey…bailey come on….bailey…."
"Bailey!"
Halcyon
And with that I finally finished this chapter. I know it's late. I know i said by christmas but this last part was so hard to write, the whole thing was cause i had no frame of reference for a somewhat original chapter. I still feel like it's not my best work but seriously with everything that has gone on the past few months I am just happy to have another chapter out. Please forgive me if this is not my best work. The next chapter is going to be admittedly short but I hopefully will have it out fast. Then we return to the actual anime and finish this bitch up. Also i am aware that i already gave yzak the idea for the blu duel HWS but i forgot and i thought i wrote this out better so i`ll figure out later which one to keep.
As always please R&R and let me know how I did.
addendum post putting on the site: the authors note will stay up for another week or so until i make my final decision.
