Phase 35: Grasshopper

Phase 35: The battle has ended, but not the war. The brief respite that Kira and everyone were enjoying was just a preclude to the incoming storm. The unknown hand will advance the doomsday clock from 100 seconds to 50 seconds before midnight, and the upcoming result was something that no one could predict. Or was it really unpredictable?

"So, you want to talk about it?" Cagalli repeated when Kira didn't reply. "I can't promise I can do much, but a listening ear can help make it lesser. Besides, CAP is going to last at least for another 30 minutes since we're the last to take off,"

Kira didn't say anything, but instead went about his work, pressing some buttons on his console.

"You owe me because of that spray and pray, since I think that grumpy will also get on my case because of you. Even if he doesn't, well, we still must align our stories together during the debrief. Make sense to you?" Cagalli said, changing her approach.

Kira let out a long breath. "You're going to lie?"

"Of course not!" she said with a slightly loud voice, before she caught hold of herself. "We're offline, right?"

"Yes. I already switched off the coms when I realized I messed up,"

"Good. Anyway, what we're going to do, is tell them what they want to hear, and it will be the truth. Well, it's the truth, from a certain point of view,"

"That sounds familiar,"

"Yeah, so I stole the line from a classic film. Big deal. Everyone does that, so sue me. You, on the other hand, are not off the hook. So, what's your story?"

After a pause, Kira told her, all of it, at least what he could in ten minutes.

"Let me pack all of it in. You have a survivor's guilt and even though you've been trying to work your way through, which is impressive despite our… your ship doesn't have an onboard psychiatrist since they're rarer than unicorns during this war, and then the reappearance of this whatchamacallit…Feist…"

"Freedom,"

"Freedom caused it to get worse again. Sounds right?"

"That's about it."

"Okay… So normally that doesn't change you into a trigger-happy desperado. Where's the part where you overkill that retreating DINN because it didn't surrender, and hence considered as an active combatant, fit in?" Cagalli didn't think Kira was someone who really thought about the legality of everything even as he engaged in combat, but there he was, quoting something that she wasn't sure even existed. The way he said it, line by line, convinced her that such regulations existed.

"Mercy is the privilege of the powerful,"

There it was again, a touch of brutal and violent pragmatism tempering the idealistic side of him.

"But you're a Coordinator,"

"And yet I'm unable to teleport to anywhere I want, even though I'm a Coordinator," Kira said before muttering softly, "I do have the coordinates for Bahamas in case one day I suddenly can do that,"

"What are you rambling about? I don't get you there,"

"A Coordinator is still a normal human being,"

"But you people can do more than what we can. More, much more,"

"Only if we practice, study, or train properly. We're not born with special abilities. It's true our genes are operated on to alter our potential abilities and physical features, but that happened because the parents, Naturals or Coordinators wanted that to happen. As for not catching deadly diseases, after the outbreak, it is permitted, even for Naturals, right?"

Cagalli pondered his words. "Can't find fault with that logic," she admitted.

Indeed, Coordinators had been modified so they would have more and better latent abilities than Naturals, but as Kira had said, he had to put in the efforts to bring out those abilities and use them. A Coordinator with an IQ of 200 could contribute a lot to humanity, but it was moot if he decided to be a professional drug addict, for example.

Since Kira had done telling her his personal problem, the two decided on what to tell during the debriefing session. In the end, it was the truth, properly seasoned with some misdirection and omission of facts. The attack on the DINN was explained as Kira believing it was a commander's unit, and Cagalli concurred with his opinion. Since they had split seconds to decide the course of action, she, as the pilot, decided to take down the DINN, with Kira as the WSO making the shot. Due to the difficulty of making the shot and confirming the kill, they ended up emptying the full cannon rounds into the DINN.

Afterwards, Fllaga had they stayed for a moment after the rest had left. He told them while their explanation had some holes in it, given that he didn't really care, he was willing to let it go as it was. However, they shouldn't repeat it in the future. The two nodded, and he waved them off, telling Kira and Cagalli that thanks to them, he had a long report to write. Therefore, they could at least make themselves scarce and not be nuisances to him.

"Sheesh," Cagalli said, hands behind her head, as they walked away from the room. "He sounds more like a Balk of Endymion to me. Is he really an ace?"

"Higher ups think so, and he's from Atlantic Federation, so I don't think they really want to pad his service record," Kira replied, "Plus, he was there since the very beginning in Heliopolis,"

"I was being sardonic,"

"If it helps, we're having steamed white rice with sardines in tomato sauce, and steamed vegetables,"

"I was talking about sardonic, not sardines… wait… sardines in tomato sauce? With white rice?" she asked, expression brightening, "Hoko or Nissui brand?"

"I don't think it's one of those two. What did Signal Wolf mention at that time… Marushin, maybe?"

"Wow, such a refined palate. Our navy's going to cry if they ever find out about it. You people are spoiled when it comes to food, aren't you? When you people negotiated for food from Waltfeld, and that jerk at the Suez base, I thought that you were starving and had food problems. Such fierce negotiations that I can learn for future reference,"

"That's the way our Captain's way of apologizing for throwing us into danger time after time. They said that we're paid good money, but having no place to spend…" Kira shrugged.

"Food therapy. One of the best bribes that exists,"

"We live to eat, as Featherlite said it,"

Cagalli sighed. "Food variety and opulence at the expense of mental health. This is one messed up ship, with messed up priority, crewed up with people messed up mentally," Before Kira could respond to the comment, she quickly added, "Yes, darn ship built by the Atlantic Feds, housed in Orb, coveted by ZAFT and ended up in Eurasian's hand. And not to mention it underhandedly drafted our refugees with the vague promise of eating French fries for the rest of their lives."

"Belgians disagree with that origin story, and the citizenship does come with conditions,"

"Well, you'll have to decide by the time you're twenty two, so there's some time for you people to decide the rice dish for breakfast is superior to whatever they're cooking up," Cagalli said with an exaggerated haughtiness.

She would like to believe her talking to Kira had helped assuage his situation, but it was like putting a bandage on an injury and hoping it would heal.

"Personally, I agree with that, though Assa… Sai says it' the next best thing to buttered toast. Oh, we've arrived at the Mess,"

Cagalli cringed at the statement. Compared to admittedly short interactions with Athrun, the Archangel's crew was strange. Her mind went to Athrun, as her cheeks began to heat up.

"Looking forward to it too much?" Kira asked.

"Yeah,"

Meanwhile, the person in her thought was also thinking about her, even as he was struggling to pay attention to the female face on the screen in front of him.

"Athrun?"

The young man blinked as he was forced out of his self-induced trance. "Sorry, just appreciating the beauty in my sight," he said a bit guiltily. The response he gave was the truth, while at the same time being a blatant lie that was truthful. Lacus was a very beautiful woman, objectively and subjectively, so he was saying the truth. However, he was lying because the beauty that was in his sight in his mind was another person, who had her own charm; he was telling the truth when he described that person as beautiful.

"Oh, Athrun, you always know what to say," Lacus gushed happily.

"Thanks," he said guiltily. Knowing what to say didn't alleviate him feeling like the biggest two-timing, cheating, asshole. "So how was your work?" he said, subtly changing the topic of conversation and reminding himself to listen to her.

Lacus was kept busy with her work as an artist, singing in concerts and shows in PLANTS, both through tours and televised performance. In between, she worked with composers to come up with new songs for her performances, well as making public appearances to meet her fans. All in all, she was being kept on her toes by her work.

Athrun forced a smile on his face. "That is good, but you should slow down a bit. We don't want you to get sick, do we?"

"Don't worry. Father and my manager also said the same thing,"

He almost forgot about the said manager, not really interacting with her after the argument onboard Archangel. "You should listen to them, and me,"

"I will. I don't want to make you worry. Besides, I have more time since the Peace Messenger has finished filming for the second and third season,"

"Oh, that propa…er," Athrun coughed, "…the good versus evil show," he finished, thinking about how Nicole would be interested in that nugget of information as there was no announcement about the masked hero show being renewed after its first season. "Any info about it you can share with me?"

Lacus looked around her and then put a palm near his mouth and leaned toward the screen, "Peace Messenger's Battle Hopper would be given to his supposed successor but Peace Messenger in turn would be given another Hopper equipped with a special system called 'Guided Robust Autonomous Striker System'.

"Let me guess, both the predecessor and successor mechas are insect-inspired?"

"Yes, in the show they're anthropomorphic insect warriors. How did you know?"

"I had an inkling about that," Athrun replied.

While the main character's name was general enough, having him commandeering something named GRASS Hopper made it clear the demographic the show was aimed at. Nicole liked it, but he also alluded to enjoying being a victim of a pedophile, so his friend was not exactly a good reference to what could be said as normal. Then again, Athrun didn't consider Nicole and the rest of his group, himself included, as normal. Except for Creuset, they were, in all considerations, child soldiers, since they were of teenage age. It just showed how desperate the situation was for PLANTs if the colonies had to lower the age of drafting compared to the Earth Alliance which drew its forces from an older pool of populations. Thinking about it clearly, Nicole not developing more severe quirks as a coping mechanism could be seen as a positive development.

"Say Lacus, may I ask you a favor?"

"Sure,"

"That's a very fast answer,"

"My fiancé is asking, so of course it's a 'yes',"

"What if I ask something impossible," Athrun gulped, "or even something inappropriate?"

"You're not someone like that," Lacus said before moving away so Athrun could see the top half of her body. She was wearing a white blouse which went so well with her body. As Athrun's eyes appreciate the sight, Lacus right hand then moves to unbutton the top button of her blouse, revealing more of her skin. "But if that's what you want, I'm happy to oblige…" The hand then slowly moved to the second button.

"WAIT!"

The hand stopped. "You want me to stop?"

"No! Of course not!" Realizing what he had just said, Athrun quickly changed gear. "Yes! Yes! Please stop what you're doing! And button up!"

Lacus pouted and did what she was told. "I thought you would like to see more of me?"

"Yes! But in person, and not literally…both are literal in that sense… Figuratively? Wait! that's not important! What if someone else intercept this signal?"

"Aren't we're on a secure channel?" Lacus said with a small smile.

"Yes, but this transmission is rerouted through many routers, some of it is not ours. Besides, why do you think stripping naked in front of me is a good idea?"

"Oh, you think it's a good idea too?"

"Yes, wait, scratch that!" Athrun said as he realized that his face was long burning up. "What I mean is, why do you feel the need to do it?"

Lacus's eyes squinted at him cutely, before she slowly turned away. "It's ensuring that flies buzzing around wouldn't attract your attention," she muttered, barely audible to him.

"Say what?"

"I don't want someone else to get close to you," Lacus said softly.

Athrun felt his blood curdled at the realization that his fiancé found out about Cagalli.

"That Nicole, he has his eyes on you, right?"

"Huh? No! Of course not!?"

"Really? And why was he following you around all the time?"

"All the time? Not all the time,"

"Oh, he was following you always, then?"

"No. He…Nicole was just following me that one time because he like the show and wanted to see if he can get the special edition merchandise,"

"I'll get them for him, so he doesn't have to follow you around,"

"You will?"

"That's what you wanted to ask from me, right? To get him the items so that he doesn't have to follow you?" Lacus asked while her smile became saccharin.

Despite that, Athrun could feel the rather suspicious tone in her words. "Yes," he said while nodding vigorously, "He would be very engrossed with the things that he wouldn't spare a glance at me."

"Then I'll arrange them to be delivered to where you are, along with my poster,"

"You shouldn't have..."

"I insist, since someone told me there's a lingering smell of a 'dorobo neko' around me,"

"Dorobo neko?"

"I thought the reference was for a perfume or something, but I later found out it means a 'thieving cat' in Japanese,"

"Someone called you a thieving cat?"

"Interestingly enough, it had another meaning, which is a home wrecker. I didn't understand why it was said to me then, but later it hit me. While I was involved in my career, there's a big possibility of someone taking you away,"

Athrun didn't know how to respond to her words, as he wasn't even sure she was being serious or not. That would have explained the flirtatious behavior she demonstrated, not that he minded them. Suddenly, a vision of Cagalli wearing cat ears flashed in his mind and Athrun smacked his forehead before wiping his face down.

"Athrun?" Lacus asked, concern with his sudden behavior.

"Send me two posters," Athrun said. She was right to suspect him.

"I will. Anyway, enough about me. How about you?"

"The situation is not that good," Athrun said. While the situation was being confirmed, Marco Morassim, who headed his own submarine corps operating in the Indian Ocean, went Missing in Action. While the investigation was underway, it was very likely the commander was killed in action and an announcement about it would be made soon. Athrun briefly wondered whether the situation had to do with Archangel, but he wasn't privy to such information, so he wouldn't know. Regardless, Marco's death would greatly affect ZAFT's operation in the region, as he was a skilled commander specializing in aquatic combat. "There have been a lot of things going on and the higher-ups are quite worried,"

The new units his team fought recently had shown the Eurasians had begun to close the gap in mobile suit technology. Knowing the Atlantic Federation and Orb were working on the G Project, it would be logical to assume both would start fielding mass-produced mobile suits soon, causing the fear that the war would degenerate into one of attrition. It was probably due to the fear of such development, as well as the strong desire to bring a quick end to the war, that his father became popular and became the current chairman PLANT Supreme Council Chairman.

Athrun, however, didn't know how his father would bring the war to a quick end. There were a few ideas that came to mind, one being attacking JOint Supreme Headquarters – Alaska, JOSHUA, the Alliance Headquarters in the said place. The idea was made popular by some armchair strategists who probably watched too many war shows and convinced themselves that they knew what they were talking about. They argued that capturing or destroying the place was akin to hitting a snake on its head to take it out. That would kill the snake, yes, but proper military organizations were designed and intended to be resilient. Take out Alaska today and it's not impossible to expect that another base would be up and running by tomorrow, if not earlier.

There was another idea, one that Athrun didn't want to spend a moment thinking about.

"I think everyone is thinking about ways how to end the war," Athrun says,

"I'm thinking, Athrun…" Lacus said, some concern in her expression.

"Yes?"

"Do we… does everyone want the war to end?"

Athrun didn't have an answer to that.

He was not the only one who didn't have a proper response to that, as even Lacus's father, Siegel Clyne, didn't have it too. At that very moment, he was seated in his office, watching as the big screen in front of him came to live and displaying the faces of numerous people on it. One or two, he knew personally, others were acquaintances, and there were even a few of them he considered enemies. His eyes focused on the face of the person chairing the meeting.

"It's been a while since the COMPASS meeting had convened," Uzumi Nara Attha, the person chairing the meeting, said.

Compulsory Overseer of Mankind's Progress, Adaptability, Security and Stability, or as Siegel mentioned, COMPASS. The group has been there since the Reconstruction War, as there was a need for communication between all major powers in the global community to ensure any conflict wouldn't quickly escalate into a disaster level catastrophe. The group had played a crucial role in managing and mitigating the spread of the Type S Influenza outbreak which spread globally during the war, exacerbating the deaths toll caused by the conflict.

It was COMPASS which had to manage the chaos caused by George Glenn's revelation that he was a Coordinator in C.E. 15. The man, before embarking on the Jupiter Exploration Mission for the Atlantic Federation, revealed the existence of Coordinators, and the means of how they came about. The revelation of how Coordinators were produced, as well as existence of the library of enhance genes, had brought about the Coordinator Boom as parents began to modify their children so that they would be born as Coordinators, with their genes enhanced so they would surpass unaltered humans in every aspect.

Glenn revealed his identity as a Coordinator to push for the betterment of the mankind and bring about the next step of humanity's evolution. However, as they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Various humankind conflicts that were caused by ethnicities, religions, political views and other factors had morphed into a conflict between the old and the new type of humanity, the Naturals who viewed the Coordinators as unnatural beings while the Coordinators view themselves as a superior race. Glenn's opinion that anyone who works for the betterment of humankind was a true Coordinator was twisted by both sides; for Naturals, he was being condescending to them, while for Coordinators, it was their birthright to determine the future of humanity.

Despite multiple conflicts between both sides, COMPASS maintained the 'temperature' and 'pressure' to ensure no escalations would jeopardize humanity. Despite the conflict, the body had managed to bring about all sides to assist in the construction of the new type of space colony proposed by George in Cosmic Era 38. The colonies, focusing on research, technological, development and production, would become what was known as Productive Location Ally on Nexus Technology, or PLANT, were constructed at Point Lagrange 5 of Earth orbit. Even the Alliance-PLANT war broke out, COMPASS was still functional, albeit communication between members became hampered.

"It was only thanks to George we can meet online simultaneously like this," Uzumi said.

"It's a pity he lost his life due to a terrorist attack," a woman said.

"Or it could have been one of your people, Ms. Meyer. Who knows, Sergey could have ordered someone. That snake Pogba, for example," a man remarked.

Angela Meyer snorted in derision. "You overestimate that man much, Koto. Despite what Sergey tries to convince everyone, he's just an earthworm, and from what people told me, the one in the trousers is also of the same species. Pogba's intelligent, but the thing with an intelligent person is that they don't want to do something stupid. But I digress. We're here to discuss something else, don't we, Siegel? Remember, even though we're having this conversation, we're still enemies."

"Indeed. But even though we're on the opposing sides, I believe we could agree on certain issues of graver concerns."

"Such as?"

"Logos,"

At that announcement, the audio was full of chatter as people began talking at the same time.

"What of it?" Uzumi asked.

"Logos appeared on battlefields. It's twice, now,"

"Twice? The first one was recorded just a few months back and now we have the second time it is invoked," the Orb leader said with a bit of concern in his voice, something not often seen in the stoic man. "It is a cause for concern. Is this the reason why you requested for the meeting?"

"Yes. Twice," Siegel said. "While it's the reason why I initiated this meeting, there's something else that we must urgently settle,"

"And what is that?" the man named Koto said in a dismissive voice.

Siegel was about to answer the question when Koto suddenly looked away, as if the man was distracted by something off screen. The same thing also happened to most of the people who were attending the online meeting.

Online, Uzumi was still looking at the screen.

"Is this your doing, or Orb's? Maybe specifically one of Orb's personnel or organization, regardless of whether they're government-linked or corporate entities?" Siegel asked the man. "Morgenroete, perhaps?"

"As long as it doesn't contravene our pledge to never attack another nation, never allow another nation to attack us, and not intervene in the conflicts of other nations, we will do anything that we can to safeguard and further our interests,"

To a normal listener, Uzumi was admitting to whatever that was disrupting the meeting. "You're neither acknowledging nor denying," Siegel said, wondering why the man had to go the roundabout way of saying 'no comment'. Uzumi wasn't talking to his Orb constituents that would swallow all the nice-sounding propaganda spiel the man would deliver. The Orb leader was among his peers, Siegel himself included. Short and direct would be nice.

After a while, most people had returned their attention to the screen. Kato, who had a dismissive look earlier, was solemn. "This is the reason?"

Siegel nodded as a countdown clock appeared on the screen. "We only knew about this happening enough for us to call for the meeting," His eyes roved at the numbers. "The last time a similar clock appeared, it was chaos and I'm sure it would be the same thing this time. Maybe even worse. We have less than 200 hours to negotiate and conclude a Non-Proliferation Treaty,"

His statement caused another round of uproar as most of the attendees were still trying to adjust to the current situation, much so the new reality that was about to fall on them. In fact, a few of them were screaming at him, telling him to stop the clock or take responsibility. However, Siegel wouldn't do it, because he couldn't. Having an advance notice from Amalfi that something was about to happen didn't mean they had any control over it.

At least, that was the answer he must give as a politician, just like what Uzumi said.

Siegel had a bad feeling about the whole thing. Unlike the previous announcement, which was broadcasted throughout the whole world, the current one seemed to be known only to those in COMPASS. No, there was no way of confirming that. Amalfi only told him that the announcement would be made to them, but his colleague never said that they would be the only ones to know. It would be reasonable to assume that someone else out there knew about it.

1

A/N

1. Japan prohibits dual nationality. For non-adult that has a dual nationality, he must choose one citizenship before he reaches twenty-two years old, failing which, he would lose the Japanese nationality. As Orb is based on Japanese, I believe it has a similar law.

2. While the term French fries is attributed to the dish supposedly invented in France, there are some who contend that the food was invented in Belgium.