End game

A member of Celestial beings maintenance crew waved light sticks towards the open hangar door of the newly minted "Valhalla" as it sat in the port of Halcyon's colony. They had just gotten word of the Earth alliance opening an assault on the Plants defense Fortress Boaz. Many on the Valhalla were wanting to hasten their launch to go defend it. But sadly Noah was not giving them the launch command.

"Damn them…Noah expects us to just sit here and do nothing?" Stated one bridge member as they were allowed to watch essentially the battle through cut together bits from episode forty-five of Gundam Seed.

"I understand your concern, crewman Berit; but we will not launch without Noah's orders. Believe me I want us out there just as much as you do but as he says, "it's gonna get worse before it gets better." we just have to have faith he knows what he is doing." Said Rozene as she looked over the specs for the new ship. It was hard for her and every former Zaft crewmember to swallow the fact they all knew what was coming…

NUKES

Sure enough they watched as the base was destroyed by missile after missile. As nuke after nuke was launched on Boaz some men and women cried as they knew people stationed on Boaz. Others had family there. It was a sad day indeed. Finally the man of the hour arrived on the bridge along with Nina and everyone turned and began crying out various means of asking to be allowed to launch.

Noah held up both hands and sighed. "Listen. I hear you. All of you. I'm aware some of you likely had friends and even family at Boaz. But we can't forget. Our enemies are the Blue Cosmos AND the Plants radical faction. Just because I went after Blue Cosmos for killing Bailey does not mean we can shift our priorities in this war. Transmit the video data to the other members of the alliance. They all deserve to see it. In the meantime prepare for cast off! I already talked to my team members outside the simulation and Murrue and Cagalli. We will be putting ourselves directly between the two factions where, per Lacus' request, I will be making one final warning to both sides. If they do not heed my warning…we launch mobile suits and give both sides hell." Said Noah as he looked to Nina then back to Captain Rozene.

The captain nodded. "Yes Sir. I'll see to it that all pilots are prepped and that we have our own defenses worked out." Said Rozene. Noah nodded and turned around, heading back towards the elevator to head to the hangar.

To their knowledge the Blue Cosmos faction's battle group tango that had sent the N Dagger N's to spy on them and that had planned to assault Halcyon never arrived so they figured they backed off. However the fact was that the ballistic Zaku, star build Strike, and the Wing gundam fenice reniscita had attacked them and eliminated the entire fleet. So once the N Dagger N's were dealt with everyone had returned to fine tune their machines.

End game

The Eternal was silent short of the callouts in the hangar for various supplies and different things to prepare for cast off. Most either had seen or were watching the footage sent over from Celestial being of the attack on Boaz. They all knew what was at stake. It was why Kira had begged Cagalli to not sortie in the coming battle and tried to get Noah to bring back the Ptolemaios crew to bolster their forces. But neither agreed. As Noah said, they were in the end game now and both knew that nothing would change the outcome.

Athrun sat in the cockpit of the justice, running final diagnostics for his intended sortie for the tenth time. Finally he slammed his fist on his keyboard, nearly breaking it and sobbed silently. He had friends stationed at Boaz. Hell he overheard some crew mentioning family. Why? Why couldn't Noah stop this? Why did they have to fight both sides?

But then he remembered Noah's favorite quote from Gundam wing, one he usually used when someone asked that very question. "History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution will continue forever." and then he would tack on, "until someone stops it." in this case his theory behind fighting both sides was to always announce it wasn't the "earth forces" or "ZAFT" that they were engaging. But Blue Cosmos and the radicals. That way the survivors of any battle realized that either A, they were fighting for the wrong party, not side, or B they realized the wrong people were in power.

Right now he couldn't believe his father was going to be his enemy. But after his chat back at the Plants he couldn't help but understand what Noah meant by radicals. His father had been ready to execute him, or atleast see him rot in jail if it meant the justice wasn't being "used by the enemy" if piloting the justice made him an enemy of the Plants…Then so be it. He had even been tempted to talk to Kira about taking over the build Strike and him piloting his new Aegis prytwen and leave the nuclear powered gundams out of the fight all together. But Kira reminded him that technically the build Strike was nuclear powered but it just fueled a battery.

He also had thought of customizing the Justice, seeing if Noah would let him see the gundam he had already seen in reality, the Infinite Justice, and fuse the two to make his perfect gundam. However the enigmatic natural insisted on his policy of not using "future tech"

Looking at his screen he sighed and went about fixing the coding he messed up by hitting the keyboard.

As he did so he got a comms request from the Freedom, answering he saw Kira in the monitor, a sorrowful look on his face. "Athrun… Will the Plants retaliate with nukes of their own?" Asked Kira as he could be seen prepping the freedom.

"If my father were in a sane state of mind… and I didn't know Noah…I would say no. But unfortunately he is not so truly anything is up for debate as to what might happen." Said Athrun as they both looked at each other then back to their instruments.

End game

Nicol, Dearka, and Yzak were all sitting in the Valhalla's ready room digesting what they just learned. The fact Yzak wasn't going off and saying some bullshit about how Noah was a coward or something for not letting them defend Boaz spoke volumes to how he understood the gravity of the situation. Still as he gripped his helmet one could hear the material strain under his grip.

Finally Dearka threw his head back and sighed. "Fuck… nukes…are we really that far gone?" Asked Dearka as he looked to his fellow teammates. He looked at Yzak then Nicol and wondered what they were thinking. "You guys gonna be ok for this fight? We have to fight naturals and coordinators." Said Dearka as he tried to gauge their mental status.

That triggered Yzak as he finally threw his helmet to the floor and turned on the blonde coordinator, "WHY ARE WE FIGHTING OUR OWN PEOPLE DEFENDING THEIR HOME!?" he shouted as he grabbed his face with both hands and yelled angrily.

"Because not all of them are just fighting to defend their home. And this time it's not just us fighting. It's the Baker team, the Astray team, and we know it's gonna be ship based warfare too. So even if we show mercy to coordinators and go against direct orders while killing naturals, there's a chance they'll just go back to a ship that will ultimately get shot down possibly. So it's not even a question of if we just disable them will they come back or not with repaired units? It's a question of do we kill them or do we let the naturals?" Said Nicol as he tried to rationalize this whole farce of a battle that was about to happen.

Yzak growled. "That doesn't make it any better. He knew this would happen and yet he did NOTHING to stop it. So many lives lost for his stupid "end game" and he hasn't even told us what the Plants could possibly have to counter nukes with that makes them such a danger. Honestly I think if we just wiped out Blue Cosmos and brought the alliance to the peace talks table…maybe we could end this without more bloodshed." Said Yzak as he tried to come up with another way than fighting his kinsmen.

"He has to have a good reason…we just…have to wait and see what it is." Said Dearka as he slipped on his helmet. "I'm gonna go get in the Buster panzer, get it prepped for combat. You guys should do the same." Said Dearka as he walked out of the ready room.

End game

As Ezalia Joule gave her speech in the opening moments of the final battle of the bloody valentine war a new voice cut her off. One many had heard before. Talia Gladis had been sitting at the helm of her vessel listening when she noticed the familiar green shine of GN particles and saw that the four vessel alliance planned to put themselves dead in between the two advancing parties.

"Ahem…testing testing…oh who am I kidding I wrote the comm line override protocols that we use, I know all you dipshits can hear me. So as you know this is Noah Carson, leader of Celestial Being. This message goes out to all I can reach of the Plants and Earth and their armed forces." Started Noah, quite the…abrasive start but he hoped his message got through.

"To all the armed forces. We have no desire to engage you in combat. We really don't. But unfortunately we can not allow such things as what happened at Boaz to pass without intervention but the same goes for retaliation. We don't want to see more blood shed. I especially don't as I have lost a brother to this war who did not sign up to be here for more than support of me." Said Noah as he took a moment to let that realization sink in on both sides.

"So I will make this one final plea. Stop this stupid, pointless, pissing match of a war before more lives need to be lost. Seriously. Just put down your guns. Stop this endless string of needless battles." Said Noah as he could be heard cutting the communication.

With that, Talia looked out at the waiting Earth forces. "Have the Earth forces stopped advancing?" Asked Talia to her radar operator. All she got was a shake of her head and she sighed. It was silly to think the radical earth forces would stop such and advance.

"What about Celestial being? Are they making any moves either way?" asked Talia. The radar operator looked up at her and shook her head again.

"Fuck… all hands prepare for combat!" She called out and began giving orders to her crew.

End game

Noah watched the radar and saw the Earth forces still advancing. Now doubt under Azrael's demand. "Have the Baker and Astray teams run a defensive screen around the ships. Everyone else is free to engage as needed." He said as he turned and headed for the hangar.

Once down in the hangar he watched as the newly minted "Schwer Duel" following the naming scheme Noah had used for the Buster and Blitz to a degree, but watched as it loaded onto the catapult.

As the airlock door closed he floated over to the cockpit of EX-Caliber. He hoped this would be a quick and decisive fight. With so many extra gundams, and proper gundams not just the Buster and Duel as they were in the show along with the Astrays. Strapping himself in, he saw Nina float up to his cockpit door and lean in.

"You better come back…I refuse to be widowed before I am even married." She said with a playful grin. Noah smiled and leaned forward so their helmets touched in a sort of kiss before she left and he closed the cockpit.

Moving EX-caliber to the doorway next he started preparing to launch. Once he was locked into the catapult he waited and flexed his hands over his control orbs. Finally he got launched out of the short runway and once he was released he hit his accelerator.

The battle was in full swing and he was quick to identify key targets such as the Gat series prototypes and the Dominion which the Archangel was already heading into a duel against. Opening a comm line with all his pilots he said, "focus on the mobile armors and earth forces ships. Most of you are former Zaft and this one time I will allow them sympathy…but when you see what they have you will understand why I identify Zaft as an enemy as well." Said Noah as he flew into the fray.

Coming up on a group of mobile armored he was quick to feel their machine guns wrath, the bullets plinking off his e-carbon armor before he got close enough and engaged his GN-sword three, slicing two mobile armors in half with a spin he turned and launched a railgun round at a third. Keeping to his word he was not afraid to fight lethally.

Zooming in on some of the others engagements he could see the Buster Panzer engaging the Calamity while it appeared the Build Fighters had made an appearance and Fellini was in a game of back and forth chicken with the raider. As for the forbidden it seemed that Nicol was having fun playing hide and seek with it as he watched Nicol pop out of cloak and fire a couple shots at the prototype before recloaking to dodge its railguns in return.

Noah stopped as he watched as the fighting around him was just that. Around him. No one was directly targeting him. No one was engaging him since those mobile armors. It seemed they had either no intention of engaging him or they were so busy with the mass amount of enemies to target one lone machine they knew they had no chance against was suicidal enough they chose to ignore him.

Taking advantage of this he flew on through the fray, still needing to dodge flak and missiles he would shoot down the occasional GiNN or C-GUE as well as mobile armors or strike daggers. Using the zero system he marked each vessel holding the "peace keeper" wave of mobile armors and began striking them directly, destroying the vessel and its contents before they could launch or be activated. He knew he wouldn't get them all but at least he could try while going for a secondary objective.

End game

Yzak was now tangoing with the calamity, heavy weapons unit vs heavy weapons unit. As the battle raged he saw a new fleet of mobile armors flying off from the ships. "Wait... are those carrying more nukes?" He questioned as he zoomed in. Sure enough they're single missile payload was nuclear. Opening a comm channel with his fellow pilots he cried out, "they are launching nukes!" he made a move to engage them only for the Calamity to get in his way.

"Oh no you don't. I'm not letting one missile hit the Plants." Said Yzak as he opened up with everything his mobile suit had, pummeling the calamity before blasting past as the machine recoiled from the barrage of beams and missiles and railgun rounds.

Getting a targeting solution as the missiles were launched he was surprised when the Valhalla launched several large missiles of their own directly in the path of the warheads. As they did so the gundam pilot watched as they flew out in the path of the missile only to explode in huge clouds of gray smoke mixed with the sparkle of GN particles. As the nukes flew through the cloud they slowed till finally most of them stopped directly in the cloud, the specially designed chaff made specifically to snuff out the propulsion units once Alice realized they were dumb fired.

But still a few flew true and towards the Plants but a massive yellow beam greeted them as they all watched them explode in space harmlessly, Azrael was growing frustrated with Celestial being.

Yzak meanwhile was thankful as he watched the green and cream colored Fenice Rinascita fly through the explosion and draw a beam saber, coming to clash with several strike daggers. "Don't worry my friends, I won't let a single missile hit your home." Said the italian dandy over comms, his italian accent coming through thick.

At that moment the Zaft forces got a fleet wide warning to flee the firing lane for the Genesis cannon. As they began to retreat Noah knew exactly what was up and tried to decide what to do. To stop it before it could fire or let it happen and let them see the horror that the plants are ready to unleash….

As he decided he sent out a signal to the celestial being and three ships alliance forces that had showed up to clear out of the way as well. He couldn't afford to lose anyone to that beam. As his forces scattered out of the way he watched as the beam raced out from the genesis platform, slamming into the earth forces.

Noah watched as countless ships and an unknown number of mobile suits and mobile armors were destroyed. He also watched as sadly the Fenice Rinascita was included in those caught by the beam, thanking the stars that Fellini was not actually in the gundam as it exploded in a spectacular and particularly bright ball of fire being a nuclear powered mobile suit here.

End game

Natarle watched in horror as so many of their ships went up in flames. "Hard to port, pull left 35 degrees!" she commanded as the ship moved with her command away from the beam. "Full speed, all units, retreat!" she cried out as she tried to save as many lives as possible.

She saw one of the Celestial being units get caught in the blast and almost felt bad, hoping it wasn't someone she knew as she saw it explode in that particularly bright fireball. She guessed it was somehow nuclear powered. At this point she was not surprised.

Glancing to Azreal even he seemed stunned by the beam that had just decimated their forces.

Out in the field all three of the biological CPU's seemed just as stunned. Hell everyone was as the beam finally dissipated and the carnage was left to be seen.

The battlefield was now littered with the remains of ships and mobile suits from both sides, more so from the Earth alliance of course. As they retreated Zaft pressed their advantage, various war cries called out as they chased down the fleeing strike daggers. One daring GiNN flew in and went to cut a strike dagger in half but was blocked by the heat axe of the ballistic Zaku.

"They are fleeing Genesis just as you would flee the nukes. Can you not see that you're only making things worse by chasing after them as they retreat!?" cried out Tatsuya over the comms before he pushed the GiNN back, his funnels launching and quickly disabling the GiNN before he turned to the other approaching GuAIZ and C-GUE. At that moment Kira and Athrun showed up as they did in the show, disabling many of the mobile suits and allowing their comrades to grab the remains of the mobile suits and drag them back.

Meanwhile as everyone scrambled to reorganize after such a catastrophic event a message went out to all the Zaft forces, it was Chairman Zala.

"Dedicated and fearless members of the ZAFT armed forces! The naturals violence has escalated to a level we can not abide! Nuclear weapons were once again used against the Plants! This is no longer a war…It is clear the naturals intend this to be a massacre! What the naturals have done today is unforgivable!" he said, taking a moment to let it sink into his forces' minds. "If this proves anything…it is that they are incapable of anything but brutality!" shouted Patrick as he started to hear cheers from his people there in Jachin due.

Deciding to also take a stab at Celestial being he chuckled. "And then there's the Celestial being! With all their power and might they were unable to stop the naturals from attacking with their nuclear arsenal! Sure they stopped the attack afterward but now how many nukes sit aimlessly in space, and how do we know they won't complete their assault once this cloud dissipates?" he cried out and once again got cheers from his people. "Forces of ZAFT, as your supreme chairman I beseech you, please, eliminate these threats to our way of life once and for all and open the doorway to a world run by coordinators where we can all live in peace!" he called out and heard the cheers get louder. Sitting back down he grinned. He still had his ace in the hole.

Turning to Rau Le Creuset he smiled. "Soon this war will be as good as over. But the Celestial being will likely do all they can to stop us just as they did before. Go, take the providence, deal with them. I'll follow shortly in the judge." He said as he put a hand on Rau's shoulder while the man saluted him.

"Does that mean, if I come across Athrun, I have permission to kill him?" He asked which Patrick gave a rather deranged look.

"Of course! Do whatever is necessary for us to win this war. You failed me in destroying the Eternal, the least you can do is this." he said before letting Rau leave. Taking his seat once more he watched as the preparations were made to fire his beam once again.

Once in the ready room, Rau looked at his pills. Today would be him or them. There was no coming back if he failed and if he succeeded then he would get to see humanity collapse under the weight of their own failures.

End game

Meanwhile on the Dominion…

"Of course I'm serious! Your negligence is the reason we are losing in the first place!" shouted Muruta Azrael as he shouted at a member of the admiralty board from the comms station while requesting reinforcements.

"Captain! Churchill is requesting back up in retreating." Stated one of natarles officers and she turned to face them, "tell them we are on the way." stated Natarle but Azrael seemed to have other plans.

"No! Forget those idiots! They want back up? Every ship should be getting back out there and fighting! How else do they plan to win this war?" he asked frantically as he tried to get back in contact with the admiralty board.

"Director Azrael we have to-" started Natarle but she was cut off.

"All surviving ships need to get their asses out there and fight! Leave the weaklings behind, make whatever repairs or whatnot that are needed, and get us back in the fight!" stated Muruta

Natarle got up at this and glared at Azrael. "Director, might I remind you our forces just took heavy losses and immense damage. It will take more than just some maintenance and repairs to get us back out into the fight. What you're suggesting is insanity!" she declared as she looked him in the eyes.

"Reinforcements will be arriving from Lunar headquarters any minute now. Who do you think you are anyways? Giving orders, look me in the eye and tell me we can leave that…that THING alone? Not to mention whatever celestial being likely has up their sleeves." Said Azrael as he drew a gun from his shirt, aiming it at Natarle.

"I am TIRED of your constant questioning and undermining of my authority! You may think you're the captain here BUT I AM THE ONE WHO GIVES THE ORDERS! NOT YOU! Now be a good little captain and do what needs to be done to get us back into the fight." Said Muruta as he moved to sit in his chair.

"They call our warheads animalistic!? Those barbarians could destroy the earth with this weapon. We can no longer tolerate sitting back on our hands like you military types did that allowed such a weapon to be constructed in the first place. We CANNOT Wait for them to fire again!"he said plainly as he turned to look to natarle. She took her seat in the captain's chair and stayed silent. That outburst caused the entire bridge to be on edge.

End game

The Celestial being was in a state of shock after everything they just witnessed. Nukes being flung at the PLANTs. The PLANTs using their own WMD. Currently the Captains along with Noah were all on the Eternals bridge getting a debrief from Erica as to just what Genesis was. She had just finished explaining it was a giant gamma ray laser.

"If they targeted earth, the extreme radiation would burn the surface to a crisp, killing all life on the planet." Stated Erica which caused everyone to frown as they all knew it was likely in Chairman Zala's erratic state he likely WOULD eventually target earth.

"Do you think they would do that, eventually target earth?" Asked Murrue, turning to Noah as everyone did since he would know if this was the ultimate outcome. Noah sighed and shrugged. "I may as well explain how the rest of this day is gonna go down. Both sides WILL fire again, but we are gonna do everything in our power to keep those from causing too many more casualties, the nukes of course we plan to have no one be a casualty of those. But I can promise you this, they will not get a chance to target earth." Said Noah as he looked at everyone around him. "Earth is safe."

With that everyone sighed in relief. "That's good to hear. So where is their next target?" Asked Murrue as she was concerned it would still be somewhere with a high civilian casualty amount.

"The Ptolemaeus crater, Lunar base." Stated Noah and everyone looked down somberly. That meant that this wasn't over yet. Then again Noah did say both sides would fire again.

"I suggest you all get what little rest you can, we have one more big fight ahead of us. And it's gonna be rough. So say your goodbyes, make peace with your various gods. Cause I can't promise we will all make it out of this alive. Not with the Zero system in play." Stated Noah before he pushed off and floated back towards the back of the bridge.

Everyone was in a somber mood but Cagalli, Lacus then noticed Athrun and Kira both floated over to them. Kira stood before Lacus while Cagalli led Athrun out of the bridge.

"Lacus…what's up?" asked Kira as he looked to her, seeing she clearly had something to say.

Lacus reached into her pocket and pulled something out, soon revealing it to be a silver band. "Take this…please." She said as she held it up and Kira took it without much hesitation, however its significance didn't hit him till a moment later and Lacus let a smile settle on her face. They both stepped off the bridge and let the door close before Kira responded, "Thank you, Lacus." he said before he turned to leave but Lacus stopped him.

"Please…make sure you come back safely," she said as she pulled him into an embrace. Kira took a moment to register what was happening before he hugged her back, kissing her cheek and smiling. From there he floated off to go get the freedom prepped.

With Athrun and Cagalli though he had stopped her from heading to her shuttle to go back to the Kusanagi. She had just told him how she would be joining them out on the field in a mobile suite known as the strike rogue. Likely something Noah knew about and failed to inform the pilots of.

"What do you mean? What's this about a strike rogue?" he asked as he held her close to him.

"What's wrong? I have plenty of training with mobile suits, I can fly circles around those astray pilots." She said,

"I know but still this is gonna be an active war zone. Not just a battlefield." Athrun reasoned, trying to find a reason she shouldn't pilot the mobile suit.

Cagalli looked out at the Valhalla through the hallways window. "There's what we wanna do, what we can do and what we should do, it's the same for everyone. You, me, Kira, Lacus, all of us. Besides, why should I do anything less than give my all to this fight when someone like Noah is fighting to protect so many people. He was technically a civilian, ya know." She said as she tried to make Athrun understand she was gonna do it whether he liked it or not.

"Sure there are times when it makes sense not to fight, but this isn't one of those times. It is what I need to do to contribute the most to not only my people but the world. Besides…" she said, glancing down the hall towards the route to the Eternals ready room. But when she looked back Athrun had a look on his face like someone was on their deathbed. "Hey what's with that look? It's not like you or Kira haven't taken crazier risks! Besides I won't let you die out there! I can't…" she said somberly.

"Cagalli…." was all Athrun could manage before she continued.

"I gotta be out there to protect my little brother too." She said to which Athrun grinned.

"Little brother…you don't think he might be an older brother?" asked Athrun and Cagalli huffed.

"No way, can't happen. He has to be younger." She said, which made Athrun chuckle again.

"You got me there…" he said and just looked her in the eyes. After a moment he moved to embrace her, surprising her as he said, "Cagalli… I'm so glad to have met you." He said before pulling back from the embrace. "And I promise I'll keep you safe out there." He said before pressing his lips to hers in a surprise kiss.

Cagalli was taken aback for a moment but leaned into the kiss, enjoying the moment of tenderness while they had it.

End game

And that's the third to last chapter. Now there's just one more chapter to go then an epilogue and this story will be complete!