Orb Union, June 15, 71 CE
"Quickly, this way!" Shinn could hear his father call out over the sound of his panting as the two of them, along with his younger sister Mayu, brown-haired nine year old, and their mother, ran through the forest. Even with all the preparation in the world, the Earth Alliance's attack still came as a surprise, and now they were desperately running as fast as their legs would take them before ships left.
Shinn had been so laser focused on getting to his destination that he almost tripped several times along the way, but the sound of something flying overhead stopped him and the rest of his family in their tracks.
"Dad!" he called out as he caught up to them, worried they had gotten lost, but his father didn't respond.
"Oh darling!" his mother, a middle-aged woman wearing a pink and yellow suit unfit for running in, replied in concern, though he wasn't sure if she was referring to him or his father.
"It's alright, they're only targeting military installations," Shinn's father tried to assure her before turning to him, his black hair and broad face drenched with sweat. "Keep moving, Shinn."
Without so much as a nod, he kept running as soon as the rest of them did, though his attention was somewhat distracted by the distant sight of Orb's orange and white mobile suits, supported by tanks and artillery, defending against a numerically superior group of the Earth Alliance's red, white, and blue mobile suits.
As the harbor came into sight, the source of the earlier sound, a blue mobile suit riding on top of a red and black mobile armor, flew overhead, the wind buffeting them to the ground. Shinn could feel his father protectively holding onto him as they looked up to see the blue mobile suit fire beams from its chest and the two cannons on its shoulders at an unseen enemy, creating an explosion that made Mayu scream in terror and his own heart race with fear as he averted his gaze.
As Shinn and his family got up and continued running, he could hear yet another mobile suit firing at the blue one as it dropped to the ground with an audible 'thud,' creating an explosion that he couldn't help but turn his head to see for a moment.
"COME ON!" his father shouted, unable to keep calm anymore as his previous assurances were proven so horribly wrong.
"MAYU!" his mother screamed to his sister, who seemed only unable to keep up because she was holding onto her. As she tried to step up her pace, she suddenly tripped on a rock. While she didn't fall, Shinn could see her pink cell phone jostle out of her satchel and fall down the hill.
"No, my phone!" Mayu cried as she saw it come to a stop in front of a tree before she herself stopped.
"Just leave it!" his mother tried to tell her, refusing to let go of her daughter, but she refused to listen.
Without thinking, Shinn slid down the hill to retrieve the phone, but just after he knelt down to pick it up, the force of a massive explosion from behind threw him screaming off the hill and onto the concrete surface of the harbor. His ears ringing from the explosion and his head throbbing in pain from the impact of landing on the concrete, Shinn laid there until he heard the footsteps of someone running up to him.
"Hey, are you okay!?" a concerned, middle-aged man dressed in the blue and white uniform of the Orb National Defense Force asked as he helped him up and moved him in the direction of the ships. "You've gotta hurry!"
Slowly coming out of his daze, Shinn was about to comply before he remembered his family, after which he turned around to see that the hill he had been on was destroyed by the explosion.
"Dad… mom…" he began to ask aloud as his faculties returned to him, still not fully realizing what had happened. "Where's Mayu?"
Gazing downward at the burning forest, he gasped aloud when he looked down and saw his sister's hand behind a pile of rubble.
"MAYU!" he screamed in horror as he ran back to investigate, ignoring the man behind him.
Coming to a stop, his horror would only intensify as he realized only her severed arm was behind the rubble. Hyperventilating, his gaze would peer upward, where, to his desperate but futile denial, he found the bloodied and mangled corpses of his sister and parents strewn about the hill in front of him. Still gripping Mayu's phone, Shinn weakly walked towards her hand, tears welling in his eyes as he fell to his knees and clumsily reached out to it and started to cry.
"Come on," the man said, trying to get him back on his feet as three mobile suits flew overhead.
Hearing the sounds, Shinn looked upward to see two of them fighting against the third before he screamed and screamed and screamed, his anger and grief keeping his vocal cords from giving out until it seemed like he would scream for all eternity.
Two Years Later
Shinn awoke screaming in his quarters, a spartan, military arrangement, having had the same nightmare that plagued him for almost two years now. Some of the sweat that matted his naturally unkempt hair dripped down his forehead and into his dark red eyes, stinging them.
Recoiling from the irritation, Shinn rubbed his eyes before lying back down and curling into a fetal position in an attempt to go back to sleep, but to no avail. The image reversal therapy sessions recommended to him by the Minerva's psychologist had done little to help him. In fact, the only thing that did seem to help was listening to Mayu's voice recordings on her phone, and even that was just a stopgap. Reaching for keepsake on his nightstand, his attention was then taken away by the sound of his own phone ringing next to hers. Picking it up, he saw that Yolan Kent, a technician on the Minerva, was calling him, so he answered it.
"Hello?" he groggily said into the phone.
"Finally!" Yolan excitedly exclaimed upon hearing his voice. "I've been trying to call you forever, Shinn! You slept in again, but if you're ready by the time I get to your quarters, we can still go out and have a quick breakfast in the colony before we have to report to the Minerva."
"Well shit," Shinn wearily replied, his friend's words having gotten him up. "I'll be ready, Yolan, don't worry."
"You better be," he told Shinn before hanging up, leaving him to rapidly shower and get dressed before he arrived.
A sense of foreboding intruded upon Cagalli's thoughts as she and Athrun glided through one of Armory One's passenger terminals. She had been extensively briefed on what Orb knew about Chairman Gilbert Durandal and even went over several of the most likely talking points before leaving Earth, but she couldn't help but feel unprepared now that she was on the recently constructed military colony.
"Do you think that's the appropriate attire?" she heard her boyfriend and bodyguard ask from behind as she turned to face him, his tone even and inquisitive as he referred to the maroon and white outfit commonly associated with members of Orb's government. "Tell me you brought at least one dress with you."
"What does it matter what I wear?" she asked in response, irritated because his questions made her even more nervous. "Don't you think this is good enough?"
"I suppose it is," Athrun conceded with a small smile as he briefly imagined Cagalli in a dress before getting to the point. "I don't want you to change who you are, but a little acting doesn't hurt in situations like this."
"Well, I guess you have gotten good at dressing up," she teased with a reciprocated grin in regards to his green and black ensemble, crimson visor, and slicked back hair, all meant to grant him anonymity from casual glances while in PLANT territory. "Perhaps you can give me some lessons for next time."
Athrun didn't say anything else, but the stifled chuckle Cagalli briefly heard did somewhat put her at ease, at least until they rendezvoused with the ZAFT soldiers meant to escort them to Durandal. Descending through the colony's spine in one of its loading elevators, the soldiers then brought them to the main administrative building, a modest structure which only stood out because of the squadron of GINNs guarding it, where Durandal, accompanied by several more soldiers and a few PLANT officials, awaited them.
"Ah, Princess, so good to see you," he politely greeted with a thin smile as Cagalli and Athrun walked into the meeting room, referring to her by the incorrect title on purpose to gauge her triggers. "I appreciate you traveling such a long distance to meet us here."
Athrun swore he could see the hairs on the back of Cagalli's neck bristle at being called "princess," but she otherwise seemed unaffected as she walked forward to meet the chairman.
"No, I should thank you for fitting us in your busy schedule," she calmly replied after a brief pause as she shook his hand. "I'm grateful you did."
Maintaining his smile and firm grip on Cagalli's hand, Durandal's eyes momentarily darted towards the young man accompanying her, who respectfully bowed his head upon meeting his gaze. Despite the visor and copious amounts of hair gel, he immediately knew who he was and pounced on the opening provided to him.
"And I'm grateful to see that you're accompanied by Athrun Zala," he said, his smile slightly widening at the momentary flash of discomfort he saw in Cagalli's expression. "Our nation owes him a debt of gratitude for his… unconventional actions during the war."
Cagalli gritted her teeth in search of a response while Athrun continued to silently bow out of respect for decorum and to hide his own growing unease.
"Well, yes," Cagalli eventually stammered as she released her grip on Durandal's hand, mentally kicking herself for looking like an amateur in front of her peers and her boyfriend. "Athrun is my chief bodyguard, so of course he would accompany me."
"A task he performs admirably, I imagine," Durandal remarked, taking in Cagalli briefly looking away from him at the implication of his comment before gesturing towards the chairs in the meeting room. "How are things in your homeland? I have heard a great many problems have been resolved since you became Chief Representative, princess."
"Yes, we have, but there is still much that needs to be done, Chairman," she replied as the two of them sat down, determined not to let him get the better of her again.
"Of course, which is why I'm puzzled by your sudden decision to come here in order to discuss what our ambassador describes as 'a complex matter,' despite your own obligations back in Orb," he politely pressed, keenly analyzing his younger counterpart's body language.
Cagalli shifted in her chair slightly as she pondered what to say next, eventually settling on what she thought was best.
"Personally, I don't think it's a complicated matter," she matter-of-factly began, deciding now was the time to be direct. "The matter I'm here to discuss is whether or not the PLANTs are honoring the spirit of the Junius Treaty."
The various officials present exchanged nervous glances at each other while Athrun bit his lip to keep silent at his girlfriend's choice of words, his eyes briefly darting towards Durandal to see his reaction. While he knew next to nothing about the man, his mannerisms uncomfortably reminded him of Rau Le Creuset, his late commanding officer, a comparison that became more pronounced now that he saw the predatory smile he regarded Cagalli with.
"I hear your concerns, princess," Durandal patronizingly assured her as he rose from his seat. "I don't believe there's a soul in this room that would dream of starting a new war, especially after the destruction wrought by the last one, but perhaps you should see what we're doing yourself. Come with me."
Before Cagalli could respond, Durandal and his entourage began making their way to the door. Getting up from her chair, she briefly gave Athrun a look of appreciation for his silence, feeling comforted by the firm yet sympathetic gleam in his eyes not even his visor could fully obscure, before taking a deep breath and following the others out.
"Tell me we can only have a quick breakfast and then still waste time window shopping," Shinn thought to himself in a mixture of amusement and annoyance as he and Yolan power walked through an alley to get to their ship on time, a prospect that seemed less likely because of the latter's absent-mindedness.
In contrast to Shinn, who had pale skin, black hair, dark red eyes, and wore a red uniform awarded to him for graduating from the academy with high honors, Yolan had dark skin, blue eyes, and wore a bright green uniform indicating at he was a technician aboard the Minerva. He was a decent enough guy, but his flightiness and proclivity for bad jokes sometimes made him difficult to be around.
Just as the two of them were about to get back onto the main road, which granted a view of the colony's reservoir and artificial islands, Shinn found himself nearly knocked off his feet by someone bumping into him.
Acting on instinct, Shinn firmly grabbed onto the stranger to keep both of them from falling over. Now that he had time to think, he took a look at who and where he was holding, his hands becoming clammy when he realized she was a blonde-haired girl in a short purple and white dress, and that he had accidentally grabbed her breasts.
"Y-you okay?" he stammered, both out of genuine concern and in the hope she wouldn't think he was some sort of groper.
After a moment, the girl turned to look at him, her frown making him tense up in anticipation of a punch, before breaking free of his grasp and running off.
"Hmmm, I wonder how Luna would react if you touched her like that, Shinn," Yolan joked as he walked up to join him.
"S-shut up, Yolan!" Shinn yelled in embarrassment as he checked his pockets to make sure Mayu's phone wasn't broken, his face turning as red as his uniform as he involuntarily thought of his squadmate. "Come on, we're going to be late!"
"Don't blame me for speaking the truth!" he replied as the two of them started running to where the Minerva was docked, but it quickly became apparent to both of them that there was no way they'd be on time after making it to the edge of the dockyard. Feeling frustrated as the two of them stopped to catch their breath, Shinn was about to berate Yolan before the sound of a car horn interrupted him.
"Hey slowpokes, what are you up to?" a familiar female voice cheerfully inquired, prompting Shinn to turn in the direction of its source. To his almost absolute lack of surprise, he saw that Lunamaria Hawke, his squadmate and friend whose short red hair was almost the same shade as her uniform, was sitting in the driver's seat of an open-hatched military buggy, a friendly smile on her lips. Sitting next to her in the passenger seat was Rey Za Burrel, another mobile suit pilot and their mutual friend, his piercing blue eyes betraying the amusement he hid behind a neutral expression.
"It looks like they're running late, Lunamaria," Rey sarcastically replied in a deadpan tone before Shinn or Yolan could say anything. "Am I right, gentlemen?"
"Yeah, Rey, you are," Shinn answered after catching his breath. "Could you drive us to the Minerva?"
"Sure! Hop in!" Luna happily replied, giving the young men time to quickly climb into the back seats of the car before gunning the engine, after which she resumed making smalltalk. "So, why actually are the two of you cutting it so close?"
"Hey, unlike you mobile suit pilots, I don't like living on the edge," Yolan jokingly began to explain before Shinn could answer. "First Shinn sleeps in, then he feels up a girl who bumped into him! "You should've seen-"
"THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED, YOLAN!" Shinn interrupted, his face once again turning red from embarrassment. "And besides, you're the one who wasted our time window shopping, so shut up!"
"Okay, okay, sheesh," the tall-telling technician replied, having caught the message to stop. "Everyone's a critic…"
Feeling satisfied at clearing things up, Shinn took a deep breath as he sat back in his seat, only to notice that Luna was looking at him from the corner of her eye, a confused look in her expression. Shinn tried to think of something he could say to placate her, but his racing heartbeat caused words to escape him.
"Luna, GINN," Rey calmly said, making everyone else in the buggy look forward to see that they were driving into the path of a GINN.
"SHIT!" Luna screamed as she quickly swerved to avoid it, going so fast that it seemed as though her small strand of idiot's hair would fly off her head, the situation jolting her out of her confused thoughts.
The mood having been thoroughly dampened by nearly being crushed, the four of them then spent the rest of the short drive in silence before arriving at the loading ramp to the Minerva.
"Okay boys, here's your stop!" Luna playfully declared, her cheerful mood having returned as the car came to a stop.
"Thanks, Luna!" Shinn gratefully told her as he and Yolan hopped out of the car and began running onboard.
"No problem! Just promise me you won't do anything to Meyrin if she bumps into you!" she called back, not needing to see the look on Shinn's face to giggle at his exasperation, before driving off towards hanger her and Rey's ZAKUs were stored in.
"I think Luna took that pretty well," Yolan felt brave enough to tease as he and Shinn entered the ship and made their way to the duty officer.
"I swear, you're on the thinnest of ice, cut it out," Shinn simply replied, though he couldn't help but wonder if he saw jealousy in Luna's eyes. Shaking these thoughts out of his head, he and Yolan reported to the duty officer, after which they split up, with Shinn going to inspect the Impulse's Core Splendor.
Athrun looked at the various mobile suits present in the airfield Durandal and his entourage had taken him and Cagalli to see while the two heads of state continued to discuss politics. In addition to the older generation units, plenty of the current generation Zodiac Alliance Keeper of Unity, commonly abbreviated as "ZAKU," Warriors and Phantoms were also present. Lacking the thruster packs and head-mounted sensor fins of the older mobile suits, many of the ZAKUs were instead equipped with modular equipment backpacks, something that the intelligence briefings back in Orb called "Wizards" and greatly reminded him of the Striker packs used by the Strike, Strike Rouge, and Earth Alliance Dagger units.
"As you can see, princess," Durandal self-assuredly began to explain while the group continued to walk, "while we are indeed producing new mobile suits, it is all within the confines of the Junius Treaty."
"Yes, but aren't you concerned that the rapid construction of an entire military colony could be seen as a provocation by the Earth Alliance?" Cagalli diplomatically countered, becoming increasingly irritated at being called princess.
"Oh yes, the paradox of wanting to remain peaceful yet needing to maintain strength," he replied as the group came to a stop, finding his younger counterpart endlessly predictable. "I believe I speak for all the PLANTs when I say that we want nothing more than to avoid a new war, but at the same time, military deterrence will always be necessary. Was that not something your father, Uzumi Nara Athha, the Lion of Orb, understood? Is that not why Orb has worked to be on the cutting edge of mobile suit technology these past two years, princess?"
"Please do me a favor and stop calling me 'princess,'" Cagalli finally insisted, trying her best to be angry over her late father being used against her, while Athrun unconsciously gritted his teeth, not pleased to see his girlfriend slowly cracking under pressure.
"Please forgive me, Chief Representative Athha," Durandal corrected himself in a less than sincere tone before gesturing for the two of them to continue following him. "Still, I must question if the true reason for this visit is because of the pressure the Atlantic Federation has been placing on nations not part of the Earth Alliance. Do you believe that a new war is inevitable?"
Cagalli involuntarily bit her lip as she searched for an appropriate answer, having already realized she was making herself look weak. As much as she hated to admit it, Durandal was right about at least some of her motivations for this meeting. Even after ending the occupation of Orb, the Earth Alliance had been constantly hounding the country to modify their policy of neutrality in a way that benefitted them over the PLANTs, if not outright join them, an idea that even some members of government, particularly her prime minister and his son, were in favor of. Before she could say anything, however, the blaring of an alarm broke her concentration.
"So it begins," Durandal thought to himself as he turned to one of the soldiers following him. "Whatever hangar that is, get security to it right now!"
Before the soldier could confirm his command, several beam shots penetrated the hangar's door and went clear through two GINNs in the hangar across from it, resulting in a massive explosion that took out the entire building and sent a gust of smoke and debris towards the tour group.
"CAGALLI!" Athrun cried out as he moved to shield his girlfriend while the soldiers and officers did the same for Durandal and the other PLANT officials.
Once the smoke had cleared, everyone looked up to see three mobile suits emerging from what remained of the hangar. The first mobile suit, its phase shift armor colored blue and white, wielded a lance and had a variety of ranged weapons built directly into its body, most notably in its chest and the two binders mounted on its shoulders. To its left was a black, red, and yellow unit with two beam sabers and a pair of cannons mounted to its back, while the trio was rounded out by a green mobile suit with what appeared to be two thruster pods mounted to its back and a yellow head crest evocative of a bull's horns.
"Are those… Gundams?" Cagalli asked in quiet horror, borrowing the term Kira had come up with to describe the Earth Alliance's G-Weapons and other mobile suits that resembled them, as Athrun, the blast having blown his visor off, helped her to her feet, but Durandal either didn't hear her or ignored the question.
"We have to stop whoever hijacked the Abyss, Chaos, and Gaia at all costs! Get the Minerva and Impulse here!" he ordered one soldier before turning to another one. "Get the Chief Representative and her bodyguard to the shelter."
"Sir!" he replied before gesturing for Athrun and Cagalli to quickly follow him, the three hijacked units violently responding to ZAFT's efforts to bring them down.
The three of them ran through the hangars towards the shelter before coming upon the Chaos impaling a GuAIZ R with its beam saber, the felled machine exploding when it hit the ground. Athrun and Cagalli managed to duck into the building to their right, but the soldier ran to the left in a vain attempt to reach safety, only to be engulfed by the explosion.
Athrun protectively held Cagalli to his chest until the explosion cleared, after which they cautiously peeked out of the door frame. Doing their best to ignore the soldier's mangled corpse, they saw that the Chaos had turned its attention to another. Taking their chances, the two of them made a break for it, but were quickly stopped in their tracks by the Gaia, now in its mobile armor mode, leaping into the air to bisect a DINN. Well aware of what was about to happen, Athrun and Cagalli took cover behind an abandoned buggy just before the crashing mobile suit hit the ground and blew up, the rush of smoke and debris accompanied by a loud thudding sound close by.
"Athrun, are you okay?" Cagalli frantically asked him once the smoke cleared, feeling relieved by the comforting smile he gave her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he assured her, his smile giving way to a serious expression as he looked around to see where the thud originated, discovering that it was from a fallen but otherwise intact ZAKU Warrior.
"Come on," he told her as he pulled her towards the mobile suit.
Climbing into the cockpit, he quickly got it back onto its feet, the noise attracting the attention of the Gaia, which aimed its beam rifle at them.
Thinking fast, Athrun dodged before the resulting beam shot could hit them, countering with a shield bash that pushed the Gaia back and knocked its rifle out of its hand. Quickly recovering, the Gaia drew and ignited one of its beam sabers and charged the ZAKU, which Athrun responded to by pulling the ZAKU's beam axe out of the shield mounted to its left shoulder before countercharging. Despite his best efforts, the Gaia quickly put him on the defensive, his situation becoming even worse when the Chaos intervened, cutting off the ZAKU's left arm beneath the elbow before he could react.
Just as Athrun and Cagalli thought they were about to die, however, machine gun fire from an unknown source staggered the Chaos. Looking up, they saw a fighter, accompanied by three other units, strafe the three mobile suits before turning back around. Upon further glance, they saw that one of the units resembled a set of legs, while the second unit looked like the head, arms, and upper torso of a mobile suit, beam rifle in hand, folded in on itself. The final unit, resembling a drone, had two anti-ship swords and what appeared to be a backpack attached to it.
A moment later, the fighter entered synchronous flight between the upper torso and leg units, revealing that it could transform into a lower torso. The three pieces then combined into a single mobile suit, after which the fourth unit transferred the backpack to it before withdrawing, the color of the machine's phase shift armor changing in the process. Unsheathing the two swords, the mobile suit then combined them at the hilt to form a double-bladed weapon to drive the Gaia back with a forceful downward strike, after which it inserted itself between the stolen prototype and the damaged ZAKU.
Reviewing his borrowed machine's HUD, Athrun discovered that this mobile suit was called the ZGMF-X65S Impulse, a prototype modular unit currently in its Sword configuration.
"Why is this happening!?" Shinn, angrily asked the pilot of the Gaia through the open comm as he charged forward. "ARE YOU TRYING TO START ANOTHER WAR!?"
As the battle inside Armory One raged on, the Girty Lue, a next generation Earth Alliance stealth battleship that had transported the three infiltrators to the colony, trailed two patrolling Naza-class vessels. Developed from the Archangel-class, the Girty Lue bore some similarities to its predecessor, namely its legged mobile suit hangars and a loadout consisting of Gottfried beam cannons, Igelstellung CIWS guns, and Helldart missile launchers.
That was where the similarities ended, however, as the Girty Lue was built to operate exclusively in space, allowing it to be more compact and utilize half the number of thrusters than the Archangel-class. Lacking its predecessor's signature Lohengrin positron beam cannons, the navy blue stealth ship instead possessed a more insidious weapon, an illegal Mirage Colloid stealth system that rendered it invisible to the naked eye and most sensors.
While the ship and its crew were part of the Earth Alliance's 81st Independent Mobile Group, an unconventional special forces unit more commonly known as "Phantom Pain," the operation they were undertaking was done without the knowledge or sanction of the Alliance Council. Instead, this was done at the behest of their financial backers, Logos, an anti-Coordinator cabal of industrialists and military contractors led by Lord Djibril, a captain of industry who had succeeded the late Muruta Azrael as leader of Blue Cosmos.
While the crew knew who they were getting their orders from, only the commander of the operation fully understood why they were doing this. Captain Neo Roanoke, a blond-haired, masked man whose black uniform identified him as the leader of Phantom Pain, had been told the truth. The Earth Alliance was falling behind in the mobile suit race because some military thinkers wished to develop a mobile armor that outclassed ZAFT's mobile suits, something that Logos found unacceptable. Wishing to rectify that problem and start a war that would line his pockets and give the Earth Alliance another opportunity to wipe out the Coordinators, when Djibril received information on ZAFT's prototype mobile suits stored in Armory One from an inside source, he wasted no time in deploying the Girty Lue.
Remembering his orders, Neo felt conflicting emotions as the two ships entered the Girty Lue's firing range. As the commander of the operation, he should be pleased that it was so far going without a hitch, especially since Djibril had assured him that he and his crew would not be punished by the Earth Alliance. Instead, the feelings and memories he inherited from his gene donor filled him with disgust at the unprovoked violations of the Junius Treaty he was committing in the name of starting a new war. Still, orders were orders, and if he wouldn't follow them, someone else would, someone who didn't care about the Extendeds the way he did.
"Disengage Mirage Colloids as we open fire," he commanded, hiding his doubts. "Get ready, people, things are about to get a lot more interesting."
"Now, Gottfrieds, fire!" Ian Lee, the stern-faced, mousy-haired commanding officer of the Girty Lue, ordered, a self-satisfied grin on his lips as the crew obliged him.
Breaking stealth, the Earth Alliance battleship opened fire, its beam cannons shredding the closer of the two Nazcas before they react, after which it bombarded the second one as it made its approach.
"Turn twenty immediately after launching our mobile suits!" Neo commanded, hoping the heat of battle would quiet his conscience. "Target Indigo, Nazca-class! Watch out for their return fire!"
So far, everything seemed to be going according to plan. If the Girty Lue and the two Doppelhorn Dagger Ls it launched could quickly dispose of the remaining Nazca, while the Dark Dagger Ls that had been sent ahead succeeded in their task to cripple the ships docked at Armory One, then they would be able to extract the stolen mobile suits and return to Arzachel without any fear of pursuit. He just hoped Sting, Stella and Auel would keep their cool and follow orders.
"Dammit! We never trained for this!" Shinn complained as he blocked a charging attack from the Gaia, ignoring the sudden and violent shuddering of Armory One beneath his feet. Two DINNs attempted to intercept the Gaia as it rebounded, only to be shot down by the Abyss's beam cannons.
"Hey Sting, that mobile suit wasn't part of the plan! What are we going to do!?" Auel impatiently asked his comrade over an Earth Alliance frequency as the two of them observed Stella fighting the Sword Impulse.
"Well, let's make sure it's not part of any other plans!" Sting angrily replied before charging forward, a suggestion which greatly pleased the pilot of the Abyss.
"I'm gonna take its head as a souvenir!" he gleefully declared as he followed the Chaos, the two of them assisting Stella in overwhelming Shinn while Athrun and Cagalli watched in their damaged ZAKU.
"Help him!" Cagalli frantically insisted, prompting Athrun to prime the mobile suit's hydraulics and run at full speed towards the Abyss as it prepared to attack Shinn from behind, using its shield to knock the stolen machine down.
"You're gonna pay for that!" Auel screamed as he sat the Abyss back up and primed its chest-mounted beam cannon. "TAKE THIS!"
Before Athrun could react, a powerful multiphase beam shot erupted from the Abyss's chest and punched through his ZAKU's shield, destroying it and the rest of the left arm and knocking the mobile suit into the remains of a destroyed building. Cagalli, unbalanced by the attack, hit her head against the cockpit's bulkhead before falling into Athrun's arms, who froze in terror when he realized she was bleeding from her wound.
"Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit!" he panickedly screamed in his head before regaining enough of his senses to pilot the ZAKU away from the battlefield.
"Well shit," Shinn muttered to himself as he prepared to fight the three stolen mobile suits on his own again, but the discharge of beam shots quickly changed things. Looking behind his adversaries, he saw Luna's red ZAKU Warrior and Rey's white ZAKU Phantom flying towards them.
"You bastards, how dare you try to trick us!" Luna angrily declared as she laid suppressing fire on the Abyss while Rey charged the Chaos. Dodging out of the way, Auel prepared to counterattack, but saw that his mobile suit's phase shift armor was nearing the red.
"Hey Sting, time's up!" the blue-haired kid informed the pilot of the Chaos. "My machine's running out of power!"
"Ugh! We're gonna withdraw!" Sting replied after blocking a strafing run from Rey, irritated that the Chaos was also running on fumes. "Stella, can you shake them!?"
"No, I can take him!" she defiantly insisted as she charged the Impulse, their blades clashing as they flew past each other. "I CAN TAKE HIM!"
"That's enough! We're leaving!" Sting demanded to no avail.
"Then I guess you'll just have to die here!" Auel cruelly insinuated. "I'll tell Neo your last words were 'Goodbye!'"
Immediately after Auel said the word "die," the Gaia suddenly ground to a halt, the block word already affecting Stella. Where once there was a vicious child soldier who liked killing her enemies with knives so she could admire the bloodstains on the blades, there was now a scared little girl who believed her life was about to end.
Seeing the Gaia freeze up, Shinn attempted to bring it down with one of his beam boomerangs, only for the Chaos to intervene, deflect it with its shield, and drive him back with suppressing fire.
"Why did you do that, Auel!?" Sting admonished his comrade out of concern for Stella. "That was uncalled for, idiot!"
"NOOOO!" Stella suddenly screamed in mortal terror before flying off, the Chaos and Abyss following her while the latter provided covering fire with its shell-firing cannons.
"Get back here!" Shinn roared as he and Rey flew after them.
Luna attempted to follow, but her ZAKU's thrusters suddenly gave out from damage it had received during the initial attack, causing her to lose altitude, something her comrades quickly noticed.
"Luna!" Shinn called out in concern when he saw her lagging behind, debating whether or not to go back for her, but Rey had other thoughts.
"Leave her!" he insisted, prioritizing the mission over his friend. "She can get back to the Minerva before she crashes!"
Luna wanted to call Rey out for being so callous, but a cursory check of her systems revealed he had a point.
"Yeah, I can make it!" she assured them as she turned her mobile suit in the direction of the ship. "Give them hell guys!"
"Got it!" Shinn reluctantly replied, briefly watching her depart from the rear screen of the Impulse before returning his attention to the three stolen mobile suits.
Cagalli felt a sharp yet fleeting pain in her head as she regained consciousness. The last thing she remembered was the ZAKU being hit by one of the stolen Gundams' beam cannons. Looking around, she realized she was laying on Athrun's lap, who had a wild and fearful look in his eyes as he walked the mobile suit around.
"Athrun?" she muttered in confusion as she sat up and looked out the view screen, seeing that he had taken them to a field hospital.
Hearing his girlfriend's voice, Athrun snapped around to see her awake, his panic now beginning to subside.
"Cagalli, are you alright!?" he concernedly asked her as he comfortingly put his hand on her cheek.
"I'm fine, but look at this," she assured him before looking back at the view screen. The colony was littered with rubble and destroyed mobile suits, the prelude to what would very likely be a new war, a realization that harrowed both of them.
"I know, but right now, let's find a place to get out," he replied before continuing to search for a place where they could safely get out of their damaged mobile suit. Just then, he saw what appeared to be a red ZAKU Warrior, its thrusters close to sputtering out, flying across the harbor. Having nowhere else to go, he decided to follow it.
"What's the status of the Biological CPUs?" Neo impatiently asked the Girty Lue's helmsman as they sank the second Nazca.
"Unknown, sir," the man replied before returning his attention to his console.
"They might've failed," Ian dismissively commented as he considered the realities of the operation. "They might have smashed the harbor up, but the colony is still a heavily defended military arsenal."
"I know that," Neo replied as he rose from the command chair, quickly coming up with a way to both buy his subordinates time and quiet his moral outrage. "But I wouldn't have sent them out if I didn't think they had what it took. In the meantime, have the hangar crew prep my Exus for launch. You're in command!"
"Yes sir!" the captain affirmed as the masked officer made his way to the elevator and took it to the hangar deck, where his custom mobile armor awaited him, its pink and white color scheme belying its deadliness.
Vicariously remembering his gene donor's Moebius Zero from the Bloody Valentine War, Neo couldn't help but be amused by the similarities of the two mobile armors, except that the Exus was designed and properly equipped to destroy multiple mobile suits on its own, something he was more than happy to demonstrate.
Launching from the Girty Lue, Neo was quickly met by a GuAIZ R and two GINNs as they cornered and destroyed one of the Dagger Ls before turning their attention to him.
Despite the death of his comrade, Neo paid him no heed as he closed in on the enemy mobile suits, which opened fire on him as soon as they spotted him. Smugly grinning, he effortlessly dodged their beam and machine gun fire before unleashing the Exus's four wired gunbarrels. Finding the tables turned as the multi-vector weapons surrounded and shot at them, the three mobile suits vainly attempted to escape before being torn apart by an impenetrable grid of green beam fire.
Before Neo could savor his self-satisfaction, however, he felt a familiar pressure forming in the back of his head, its source emanating from Armory One.
"Another clone?" Neo asked himself before shaking the thought away and flying towards the colony.
Sting and Auel respectively used the Chaos and Abyss's weapon pods and beam cannons to hold Shinn and Rey off while Stella continued flying away, whimpering in fear at the prospect of dying. Realizing he would need something faster to catch up with the hijackers, Shinn opened a line to the Minerva.
"Minerva, this is Shinn Asuka! Send out the Force Silhouette!" he requested before turning his attention to the Gaia, which, for reasons he couldn't understand, had begun firing at the walls of the colony. Before he could close the distance, however, the Chaos, which had transformed into its mobile armor mode, boxed him in with its weapon pods before snapping his sword in two with a flyby attack.
Seeing Shinn being put on the defensive, Rey broke off from the Abyss and forced the Chaos back with a burst of beam fire, after which he saw the Silhouette Flyer coming towards them.
"Shinn!" Rey alerted his friend, drawing his attention to the incoming drone, before dodging the Abyss's charging attack.
Seeing the Force Silhouette, Shinn detached from the Sword Silhouette and aligned himself with the flyer, letting the Impulse combine with the Force Silhouette as he adjusted the Impulse's phase shift armor to compensate for the changes in energy output. Once the combination was complete, Shinn flew past the Chaos and Abyss, hoping to stop the Gaia from blowing a hole in the colony. Seeing the enemy mobile suit chasing their comrade, Sting and Auel opened fire, which the Impulse quickly avoided.
Unfortunately, while he was able to dodge the beam cannon fire of the other two mobile suits, the projectiles instead impacted against the wall, melting it and leaving behind a hole that began sucking everything close to it out into the vacuum of space. Seeing no point in resisting the depressurization and already looking for a way out, the three stolen mobile suits simply rode the current out. Having already come this far and not wanting the hijackers to escape, Shinn and Rey flew after them.
Just as Rey said, Luna had been able to land her ZAKU in the Minerva before its thrusters gave out. Disembarking from the damaged mobile suit, she started going over what had happened with the hangar crew before they noticed a second ZAKU, this one missing its left arm, landed in the hangar as well. Seeing a dark-haired man and a blonde woman, dried blood matting her hair, descending from the machine using its lift wire, Luna pulled out her pistol and switched the safety off.
"Hold it, you two!" she commanded the strangers, pointing her sidearm at them before recognizing the man, who protectively stood in front of the woman. "Wait a minute, you're Athrun Zala!"
"Yes, I am," he replied, ignoring the murmurs of the hangar crew. "And this is Chief Representative Cagalli Yula Athha of Orb. She's been injured and needs medical attention."
"Moreover, we have reason to believe Chairman Gilbert Durandal is aboard this ship," Cagalli added, trying not to wince from the lingering pain of her head injury. "If so, it is imperative that we speak to him."
Luna processed this barrage of information while she searched for an appropriate response, but she was cut off by her sister speaking over the intercom.
"Gunnery crews, prepare for FCS contact!" Meyrin professionally declared. "Set all projectile configurations to Grade One!"
"Well, even if I wanted to throw you off this ship, I can't, now that we're entering combat," Luna informed Athrun and Cagalli as she holstered her gun. "So follow me. Our doctor will get that wound looked at."
Having no other option, the two of them nodded and followed the red-haired redcoat, both of them too engrossed in thought to say anything. Athrun couldn't help but wonder how his identity would further be used against him, while Cagalli racked her brains for a way to keep this attack from spiraling out of control.
Author's Note
Finally, after two years of planning, researching, rewatching SEED Destiny (during which time I realized it wasn't as bad as I initially thought it was), revising, and being unsure of if I could even write this, I finally have enough of a backlog of chapters to start uploading them. Because it takes me about a month to write one chapter, my current plan is to upload them on a monthly basis, then switch to a weekly basis once I get to the final stretch.
Also, while I started working on this rewrite before SEED Freedom was even announced, it had quite a few similarities to what I planned on including in my rewrite, especially its handling of Kira and Lacus's romance, so I'm going to incorporate some elements from the movie into this fic. Conversely, I don't know how to include Foundation or the Accords without having to write a completely new fic, so I won't be using them
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of my SEED Destiny rewrite. I apologize in advance that this will take at least a few years to complete, but I will adhere to the monthly release schedule and keep you informed of any hiatuses that might occur. Feedback, reviews, and questions are appreciated, so have at it. Until next time.