Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Phase 28 - Angel of Nightmares

The Destiny Gundam ducked beneath a sweeping sword stroke from the Crusader Gundam and jetted backwards, wings of light blazing, with the pilot inside glowering at his agile foe. The Crusader followed up with a long-range cannon blast that sent the Destiny scrambling for cover; it fired back with its own cannon, only to see the Crusader arc gracefully over the blast and storm in close for another swordfight.

Shinn jammed the controls back and barely dodged the swing, then rushed towards his nimble adversary and slammed his sword into the Crusader's beam shield. The dark Gundam reeled for a moment and Shinn leveled off his cannon— but the Crusader slapped his shot aside with its beam shield and charged in again, and the swords crashed together.

"Persistent today, are we," he growled.

The Crusader surged forward again and flung the Destiny back. Shinn rocketed up over his enemy's head and leveled off his cannon again, but his blast caught nothing but afterimages, and he threw the Arondight up to deflect another punishing strike from the Crusader's sword. The Crusader swung its sword again, aiming for the Destiny's waist; Shinn jammed his sword into its path and deflected the blow with a bone-jarring crash.

Inside the Crusader, Sven Cal Bayan fought to keep his eyes off the switch to activate the Psyco System. It was power— but it had a price— but it was power...

Beam bolts sliced through the air as the CGUE Assault danced amid the storm of firepower offered by a squad of Jet Dark Windams. Inside, Rau Le Creuset glanced back at them, whipped around, and showered them with machinegun bullets— but they merely broke their formation and kept up their stream of firepower.

"Not the ideal form for this battle to take," he grunted, and the CGUE Assault lunged away from another salvo of beam fire, "but I suppose it will have to do..."

The CGUE whirled around again and let loose another wave of machinegun fire. The Windams darted around it and opened fire; Rau darted to the right, letting the blasts sear by, then leveled off his machineguns and fired again. The Dark Windams rocketed apart, but one was too slow, and Rau smirked tightly as the machinegun bullets shredded it and sent its flaming wreckage spiraling into the sea.

"That's a start— " he began.

The CGUE rattled and Rau grunted in pain as he was slammed into the left-hand side of the cockpit. He turned in surprise, only to find an IWSP Dark Windam on the attack, smoke curling from its overhanging cannons— and with mobile black mobile suits on the way.

"Mess with one and the whole hive is stirred up," he snarled, and the CGUE rattled again as more shells slammed into its shoulder shields. "I'll have to lead you into the city to make this work..."

Emily grunted in pain as the rattling rang in her ears. These Alliance mobile suits were getting irritating.

Up above, the Gale Strike Gundam hefted its swords and charged down on the attack, and with a series of crashes, it slammed its blades down against the Eclipse's beam sword. Emily seized her chance as the Gale Strike reared back for another blow and ducked beneath its legs— but before she could follow up, a beam blast and a railgun shell shot by in front of her. An instant later the Regen Duel dropped in on top of her, standing atop a sub-wing unit and spewing firepower after the black Gundam. Emily wheeled around, sword in hand, but the Regen Duel darted back— just as a yellow beam coursed through the battlefield and sent the Eclipse reeling behind its beam shield. The Hail Buster flickered into existence on the left side and fired again; Emily rocketed back, drew the Eclipse's beam rifle with her left hand, and opened fire—

Instead, the Nix Providence lunged into the way atop a sub-wing, a sparkling barrier lit up from its oversized right shoulder,— and the Eclipse's beams went bouncing away harmlessly.

"What— a positron reflector?!"

The alarms screamed and an instinct of danger flashed up her spine; Emily whipped around, beam sword in hand, and swung upward just in time to deflect a downward saber slice from the crimson Nebula Blitz. It kicked forward into the Eclipse's chest with a crash; Emily darted aside to avoid its beam fire, and then roared upward to avoid a salvo from the Regen Duel. And an instant later, the Gale Strike was upon her again with another string of sword blows.

A bazooka shell slammed into the Gale Strike and sent it staggering away amid a cloud of smoke; Emily seized her chance to duck out of the crossfire and catch her breath, and down below, skimming over the ocean's surface, Trojan's green DOM Trooper leveled off its Gigalauncher and rifle for another beam salvo at the five Alliance mobile suits.

"I can't believe you're taking them all on yourself," Trojan muttered— and up above, the five Alliance Gundams broke ranks and scattered again as the Vent Savior shot through their formation in mobile armor mode, plasma cannons blazing.

"Yeah," Lily chimed in, "haven't ya ever heard of teamwork?"

Emily scanned the skies quickly as the enemies charged at her again. "If they're all focused on me, they're not focused on anything else," she grunted— and threw the Eclipse back into the fight.

"So here we are again, little Extended girl!" cackled Shams Coza as the Vanguard Gundam bore down on the agile Gaia, beam cannons blazing. "I've been looking forward to this!" The Vanguard charged forward, leveled off its ram cannons, and slammed a salvo of shells into the Gaia's face to send the black Gundam reeling towards the sea. "Got a lot of aggression to take out, y'know!" Shams grinned and pounded another salvo into the Gaia— and then the Artemis lunged forward, beam rifle leveled off—

Abruptly, the smoke ripped apart and the Gaia's splintered shield crashed head-on into the charging Artemis. Mudie flung the ruined shield aside with a snarl— only to find the Gaia blasting over her head, sending the Vanguard staggering back under a hail of beam rifle fire.

"Gotta be difficult, don't ya, bitch?!" Shams shouted. The Gaia darted to the left as the Vanguard spewed back a storm of firepower; Shams jerked to the right and fired the Vanguard's rocket anchor forward, but the blades caught nothing but air as the Gaia ducked beneath the blow, then backed away as the Artemis filled the sky around it with beam fire.

"Quit mouthing off and keep her disoriented!" Mudie snapped. "I'll deal with this!" The Artemis roared up after the Gaia, spitting beam fire.

"Who pissed in your coffee this morning?" Shams shot back, and he leveled off the beam cannons to drive the Gaia back. Mudie closed in with a shout and a beam saber drawn in her left hand—

The Gaia whipped around, a saber of its own drawn, and the two Gundams crashed together with a shower of sparks. Shams lined himself up for another blast; the Gaia kicked off its foe's chest and rocketed away as the blasts seared past.

"Mocking me, are you...?" Mudie snarled as she rushed past the black Gundam.

A missile streaked by far too close for comfort to the CGUE Assault's head as it pitched through the air with a squadron of heavily armed Dark Windams on its tail. Rau ground his teeth in frustration as another round of shells slammed into the CGUE's shoulder shields— and he frowned as he caught sight of cracks starting to appear in the armor.

"They were empty anyway," he grunted, and whipped around in time for one of the IWSP Windams to charge down towards him, anti-ship swords upraised for a finishing blow. Rau jammed the controls back, the CGUE Assault roared backward with a blast of thruster exhaust, and the Windam's swords sliced down through the CGUE's two shoulder shields— only to find that the CGUE had ejected its shields, and with a crash it drew a beam rifle taken from a GuAIZ and drilled a shot straight through the Windam's cockpit.

Rau scanned the skies for his next target— but before he could react, his instinct screamed within him and he threw up the CGUE's right arm...just as a railgun shell slammed into its shield and shattered it like glass. The CGUE rocketed away from a storm of beam fire from the other Windams, as a Lightning Dark Windam on a sub-wing roared into battle with its electromag cannon leveled off.

"Pulling out all the stops, I see," he grunted. The other Windams fired again, forcing the CGUE on the defensive; Rau switched his rifle to his left hand and with a flourish, he drew the heavy laser sword, a prize from an abandoned ZAFT machine, from its rack on the mobile suit's backpack and lit the blade up. "Well, two can play at that game..."

The Nix Providence shrugged off another wave of plasma cannon blasts to its positron reflector and fired back with the beam cannons in its composite shield; up above, the Vent Savior darted to its left to avoid the blasts. And that was all the opening the Hail Buster needed to materialize again and fire off a pulsing blast towards the Gundam Eclipse. The black Gundam flung itself to the side— and then the Gale Strike came down with both its swords.

"And now you're mine!" roared Travis, and the Nebula Blitz charged in from behind with its beam saber lit—

Instead of landing a blow, a bazooka shell slammed into the red mobile suit from below and threw it off course. The Eclipse jerked back for a moment, then slammed the Gale Strike in the face with a lightning-fast roundhouse kick and rocketed over the charging Regen Duel's blasts. Kelly scanned the seas below and found the green DOM Trooper skate past, smoke curling from the end of its Gigalauncher.

"Where the hell did he come from," Travis snarled; the DOM opened fire again, forcing the Alliance mobile suits on the defensive.

"Forget about him," Kelly ordered. "Push the Midnight higher, out of the DOM's range."

The Vent Savior, not to be forgotten, showered a volley of plasma cannon blasts down onto the Alliance Gundams. Kelly whipped around and activated the positron reflector to deflect them all. The Vent Savior charged in, beam rifle blazing; the Nix Providence darted to the side, just in time to let the Nebula Blitz lunge into the silver mobile suit's path and slap it aside with a heavy saber blow, before charging again after the Eclipse.

Stella Loussier flung the straining Gaia Gundam downward, just below a withering barrage of beam fire from the charging Vanguard Gundam. The pale blue mobile suit pulled up and redirected its fire towards the sea; the Gaia darted to the side and fired back with its beam rifle to force the blue mobile suit back— but no sooner had the Vanguard pulled back than the Artemis lunged into the Gaia's path. Stella jammed the controls back, but too late— the Artemis flung a trio of Stiletto anti-armor penetrators into the Gaia's face and sent its foe reeling towards the ocean.

"I won't fall that easily," she snarled; and as the Artemis closed in with its beam rifle raised, she lunged forward and tore it in two with a quick beam saber stroke. The Artemis slammed its knee up into the Gaia's chest, then pounded it with a hard kick to the face; Stella rocketed up and shook her head, her ears still ringing from the blow. The Vanguard followed with a wave of beam fire.

The Gaia ducked beneath the Vanguard's fire, engines roaring angrily; Stella grimaced at the sound and hoped her aging machine would hold out. The Artemis whipped around, beam saber in hand; Stella flung her own blade up, and the two Gundams crashed together with a shower of sparks.

"Just like Neo," she grunted, as the Artemis drove her inexorably back. She glanced over her shoulder and found the Vanguard lining up for a lethal blast to her back. "Won't leave me alone!"

With a hard crash, the Gaia knocked the Artemis back, then whipped around and squeezed off a beam rifle blast that tore through the Vanguard's rifle and blew it apart. The Artemis charged with a sweeping horizontal saber stroke; the Gaia whirled around again to deflect the blow, then took off over the two Gundams' heads.

"But I won't go back!" Stella shouted; the two Gundams closed in, the Vanguard spewing firepower. "Not to you!"

The Destiny Gundam rattled under a relentless string of sword blows from the furious Crusader. Shinn grimaced at the anger radiating from inside the Alliance machine; he was fighting like a man possessed. But he knew as well what else anger could do.

The Destiny flung itself back and then vaulted over the charging Crusader's vicious horizontal sword swing. Shinn whipped around and ducked beneath the Crusader's long-range cannon blast; the Crusader turned, eyes blazing, sword in hand.

"Well," grunted Shinn, "this is new."

Across the way, seething inside the Crusader Gundam's cockpit, Sven ground his teeth. "This is another pointless battle, Asuka," he said. "You're trapped now."

"Trapped?"

As if on cue, the boom of artillery rumbled out of the horizon— and an instant later, tall white columns of water rushed up around the Minerva. Shinn's eyes went wide in surprise; naval gunfire coming from the southeast, from— his hand slammed down the magnification switch and he felt his jaw drop at the sight of Alliance warships and mobile suits on the horizon.

"If you surrender— " Sven began.

"Who said anything about surrender?" Shinn shot back, and the Destiny pointed its sword combatively at the Crusader. "You've still got to take me down, and so far your track record isn't looking very good."

Sven's face darkened and he raised a hand. "Then so be it."

He slammed a hand down on something on the Crusader's console— and an instant later, Shinn's eyes went wide at the strange feeling rippling out from the Crusader's innards. Sven gasped in apparent pain, the Crusader's eyes lit up— and the Gundam charged with its sword drawn back.

Emily yelped in surprise as a bazooka shell slammed head-on into the Gundam Eclipse's chest and sent her mobile suit reeling. The Gale Strike plowed through the smoke, swords raised high; Emily swung back with a hard blow against the Gale Strike's swords that drove the white mobile suit back.

Trojan and Lily had gone off to protect the ship as the shells fell and the Alliance's noose tightened. It was just as well; against these five Gundams, they were only getting in her way. But, as she flung the Eclipse aside to dodge the pulsing yellow blasts of the Hail Buster's impulse cannon, she was beginning to wonder if that hadn't been a mistake.

The Eclipse rattled and threw Emily forward; she shot a glance over her shoulder and found the Nebula Blitz there, with the huge two claws on its back firmly clamped around the Eclipse's chest. Inside the red mobile suit, Travis Alterman laughed triumphantly.

"Leaving yourself open like that? Bad form, angel chick!" The Nebula Blitz's engines flashed to life and drove the two mobile suits forward. "A mistake like that will cost you, y'know!"

"Finally!" cried Erin, and the Gale Strike came roaring down with its swords pulled back for the kill. "Time to end this!"

Emily furrowed her brow at the sight of the charging mobile suit— and with a flash of light, the Eclipse's Voiture Lumiere system blazed to life. The Nebula Blitz lost its grip and went flying— and with a devastating upward blow, the Eclipse smacked the Gale Strike aside and then rocketed upward to dodge a furious blast from the Hail Buster.

The Eclipse whipped around to face the black mobile suit; the Hail Buster vanished from sight, replaced by the Regen Duel firing its bazooka. And up from behind lunged the Nix Providence, beam saber ignited—

An instant later, a beam blast lanced between the two mobile suits and drove the Nix Providence back— and a Murasame roared by in mobile armor mode, before arcing upward and showering the combatants with more beam fire.

"What the— is that the Resistance's reinforcements?" breathed Emily, as she seized the chance to catch her breath. The Alliance Gundams pulled back in surprise as the Murasame pounded them with beam fire. And on the auxiliary screen appeared the grim, dusky face of a girl Emily's age, with a look on her face that brooked no disagreement.

"So, the Angel of Death," she said. Up above, a BABI, a DINN, and a Jet Dagger L fell into formation around her, and the four mobile suits arced around for another pass at the surprised Alliance Gundams. "Fighting five high-performance Alliance mobile suits on your own. Tell me, are you crazy, or just stupid?"

Emily frowned. "Nice to meet you, too."

The girl glanced at her wingmen. "Break formation!" she barked; the four mobile suits snapped apart as the Alliance Gundams opened fire again. "The name is Coniel," she said, "now get back in the fight and draw their fire with that fancy Gundam of yours!"

Emily swallowed hard and plunged back into battle.

The CGUE's left-hand shield shattered under a punishing blow from a Jet Dark Windam's bazooka, and Rau grimaced as he watched the shards fall into the sea. The other shields could be sacrificed, but he was going to miss that one, he knew.

The CGUE ducked down beneath the Windam's next shot and closed the distance with a roar of thrusters. The Windam backed up; its comrades opened fire to box the CGUE in. Rau licked his lips as he saw his opening, slithered through the blasts, and speared the first Windam through the cockpit with a beam rifle blast— and as it exploded, he whipped around to face a second Windam, dropping in from behind, and drilled a shot through its chest as well.

Another wave of beam fire kicked up and the CGUE dove for the sea, then pulled up and skimmed along the water's surface under a hail of beams. The Windams closed ranks and intensified their fire; the CGUE shuddered as missiles detonated entirely too close to the mobile suit's armor and sent it reeling towards the water.

Rau jammed the controls back up and the CGUE struggled back into the air— where it was surrounded by another wave of beam fire. He fired back with his own rifle, but the Windams merely staggered their formation, the front row deflecting his blasts and giving time to the second row to hurl back a salvo of their own.

"So you're learning," Rau snarled. "King Leonidas would be proud."

The Crusader Gundam's blade crashed against the Destiny's Arondight, and the latter mobile suit went reeling towards the sea. Shinn struggled to regain control— but the Crusader was there again and it was all he could do to jam his sword into its path to block its next blow.

"I hate that you're making me use this," snarled Sven, and Shinn blinked in surprise at the furious, fearful quiver in his voice. The Destiny rattled as the Crusader brought down its sword again. "And I hate that you've dredged up this weakness in me!"

Shinn grunted as the sword slammed down again. "Now that is not my fault," he growled.

"And now," Sven went on, "I have to fight this system as well as you!"

The Crusader rammed itself into the Destiny and sent Shinn flailing back— and with a shriek of broken metal and a painful shudder, it sliced off the Destiny's left leg at the knee. Shinn jammed open the thruster and rocketed away, but the Crusader sent two beam boomerangs after it instead— and before Shinn could react, the whirling blades claimed the Destiny's right shoulder armor, the boomerang attached, and ripped two long, smoking gashes into the armor.

"This system is what it will take to defeat you," Sven snarled, "and if it comes at the cost of the walls that keep me who I am, maybe you're not worth killing!"

"Dammit," groaned Shinn, "once he draws blood..." He yanked back the controls and barely dodged another sweeping sword strike— but an instant later the boomerangs came whipping back from behind. Shinn threw the Gundam towards the sea and leveled off his long-range cannon; the Crusader dropped in from above with a crash and sliced the barrel in two before he could fire, then slammed its sword against the Destiny's blade and sent it staggering back. It gave chase with a roar of engines and a storm of afterimages, and the two Gundams' swords crashed together again under a hail of sparks.

Shinn blinked in surprise as another feeling washed over him— and the knot of fear pulsing in the Crusader's cockpit suddenly flashed to life like a sickening star. Something seemed to crack around the center of Sven's presence, and a moment later a thousand voices rushed into Shinn's consciousness and the world itself grew fuzzy.

"Get out!" roared Sven, and with a tooth-rattling crash, the Crusader smacked the Destiny away and went back on the attack.

"The more you fight, the more annoying you get!" snarled Shams Coza, as the Vanguard rumbled and showered the Gaia with firepower. The Gaia danced through the beams and charged, just in time to smack the Vanguard back with a hard beam saber swipe. The Artemis dropped in from behind with a saber stab; the Gaia whipped around and flung its beam rifle into the Artemis's face, and the exploding weapon drove back the green and white Gundam long enough for the Gaia to escape into the air.

"Awfully long-lived, you are," grumbled Mudie, "but your luck will run out sooner or later!" The Artemis lunged up after the Gaia; the black Gundam drew its second beam saber and descended into a furious swordfight with the Artemis. The Vanguard leapt up from behind, cannons leveled off; the Gaia skirted to its left, forcing the Artemis to duck as the Vanguard opened fire.

"Very cute!" Shams snapped. "Get back here!" The Vanguard roared after the Gaia; it backflipped away, over the Vanguard's stream of fire—

An instant later, Shams yelped in surprise and yanked back the controls. Up above, the Gaia had its beam cannons folded down and rained fire down on the blue Gundam. The Artemis vaulted up over the Gaia's head, saber blazing; the Gaia flung itself back to avoid the slash and charged back into its swordfight.

"I thought these things were supposed to lose their tempers and get sloppy," Shams grumbled as he scrambled for an opening.

Mudie ground her teeth as the sparks flashed around her. "Apparently we have the one Extended that's decided to be different. Now shut up and cover me."

Shuddering under a hail of missiles, the DOM Trooper slalomed its way through a forest of explosions and towering columns of water, and Trojan bit back a curse at the sight of a mobile suit snaking its way towards him. He whipped around, lighting up the beam sabers on the end of his rifle, and blasted through the mist to take by surprise a white and blue Jet Windam. The Alliance mobile suit reared back, beam rifle in hand; Trojan took the opportunity to speed in low under its blasts and slice it in two.

He whipped around at the sound of more fire and ducked away behind his beam shield; up above, another squad of Jet Windams bore in on him with rifles blazing— only to break formation and dart aside as Lily's transformed Vent Savior blasted through their ranks.

"You'd think with reinforcements, this would be going easier!" she snapped, and the Vent Savior sped back into the sky with the Windam squad on its tail.

Trojan blew out a sigh and turned again— this time towards another Windam streaking in low over the sea towards the Minerva's exposed ventral side. He threw the DOM forward and let loose a salvo from the Gigalauncher's beam cannon; the Windam darted aside and two more appeared from above to cover it as it pulled back. Trojan jammed back the controls and, sorely wishing his machine could fly too, took cover behind his beam shield.

Gonna need a miracle at this rate...

Arcing gracefully through a storm of firepower, Rau Le Creuset's CGUE Assault wormed its way closer to the shore as the Dark Windams poured fire after it. One of them lunged up from behind, beam rifle leveled off; Rau swung the CGUE around and sawed through its waist with his sword, then darted away as the remaining mobile suits opened fire.

He spared a glance back at the Minerva. "Breaking through the center, are you?" he grumbled. "Good luck with that." He blinked in surprise as something else touched his senses, and he glanced towards the water. "But there are others here too..."

The incoming fire reclaimed his attention and he sent the CGUE into a steep dive. The Windams spread apart and intensified their fire; Rau jerked back and skimmed along the water's surface, edging closer to the coast.

"In the meantime," he said, as the Windams sharpened their aim, "I'll have to do something about you..."

"I'm getting really sick of this!" screamed Lily Thevalley as she guided the transformed Vent Savior in between the furious fire of the Windams protecting the Alliance naval squadron. One of them darted to the side and lashed out with its right leg just as the Vent Savior passed, and with an ear-ringing crash, the silver mobile suit tumbled out of the sky. Lily yelped in surprise, transformed the machine back to its mobile suit mode, and took off before the remaining Windams could follow up— but another one forced her back on the defensive with a blazing beam cannon volley from behind. "And that's just cheating!"

Up above, the Windams formed up again and opened fire; Lily knocked them out of formation with a plasma cannon volley, but they simply put the formation back together and shot at her again.

The Vent Savior rocked and Lily snapped her attention downward— just in time to see the warships below launching missiles, and some of them twisting towards her. "Oh, they wanna play too, huh?!" She pitched down towards the warships— but stopped short as the Windams threw a curtain of beam fire in her path. "Hey— no fair!"

More missiles and bazooka shells pounded the Vent Savior from above and forced it off course. Lily glared up at the sky, and the second squad of Jet Windams swooping down towards her.

"Jeez, you guys are everywhere!" The Vent Savior darted to the side as the Alliance forces attacked again and went spiraling back down on the defensive.

Stella jammed her beam sabers up in a cross over the Gaia's head, just in time to catch the Artemis's sweeping downward hack. Sparks flew for a moment, before the Artemis lunged forward and smashed its knee into the Gaia's torso. Stella grunted in pain as the force slammed her back in her seat— and an instant later, she had to throw the mobile suit towards the sea as the Vanguard lined up behind her and opened fire.

"You just don't give up," Stella grumbled, and then ducked again under the Artemis's furious horizontal slash. She took off low over the ocean surface and fired back at the pursuing Alliance mobile suits with the Gaia's beam cannons, but the blasts impacted uselessly against their beam shields, and their return fire forced her back into the air to weave her way around the shots.

The Artemis vaulted into the air, saber held high over its head. Stella cut the engines and whipped around as the Artemis came back down— and with a resounding crash, the Gaia's left leg lanced out to slam the Artemis's torso and send the Alliance mobile suit reeling. The Vanguard forced the two mobile suits apart with a volley of beam fire; Stella rocketed up over its head and fired from above to drive it back.

"The ship," she breathed, "I have to protect it!" The Gaia shuddered under a near miss from the Vanguard and she turned her attention back to the Alliance Gundams with a scowl.

With a scream of rage from its pilot, the Crusader Gundam slammed its sword down hard onto the Destiny's Arondight. Shinn groaned as his ears rang under the blow; Sven was fighting like a man possessed, and the tornado of jumbled emotions whirling around from his presence was not helping in the slightest.

And then there were those jolts of intuition arcing across his consciousness. The shreds of memories and the wisps of identity...he saw a telescope in a boy's hands, he felt the familiar pain and strain of military training, and the pangs of something buried deep— but not deep enough—

The Crusader was upon him again and with a crash, it sliced off the Destiny's left arm at the elbow. Shinn shook his head, but the visions would not go away and he struggled to look past them— long enough to dodge another sword blow from the Crusader.

"I felt you in my mind, Asuka," Sven snarled. "Tell me what that was." Silence answered him, and he pounded the Destiny's blade with his own. "Tell me!" He stormed forward and slammed his sword down over and over again onto the Arondight. "Tell me!" The sword came down one last time and blasted its way through the Destiny's sword, sending the ruins clattering down towards the sea. Shinn backed away.

"Those walls you mentioned," he snapped back, "they weren't there. You put them there. And whatever the hell your mobile suit is doing to you took them down." He swallowed hard and hoped this wouldn't end badly— and, as though to prove the point, he had to fling the sparking Destiny back to avoid yet another swing. "So now I know. Under all that bluster is a victim."

Sven's eyes flashed in rage and Shinn winced at the white-hot ball of fury. "You don't know anything about me!" he roared. Shinn jammed back the controls but the afterimages swarmed; the instinct raced up his spine and he jerked the Destiny to the side—

...and an instant later, the Crusader brought down its sword in a powerful overhand swing, and the Destiny's beam wings, its head, and its entire right arm went spiraling away. Shinn screamed in pain as the sparks flew and the shrapnel sprayed out— and, belching smoke and sparks, the Destiny's eyes went out and the Gundam plummeted into the ocean.

"No," Sven growled, hands trembling as he watched the carnage, "no, not yet, not 'til I see the body!" He drew the Crusader's Agni Kai cannon and leveled it off, and fought through his blurring vision to aim the weapon. "Not yet! Not 'til I'm sure you're dead!" He blinked furiously at his clouding sight. The walls around him quivered and cracked. "Not...not while you know...!"

The walls came down, all went dark, and the Crusader collapsed into the water.

Inside the humming Gundam Eclipse, Emily's eyes went wide at the feeling from across the battlefield. She snapped her attention in its direction— but a moment later, beam fire from the ever-persistent Nix Providence reclaimed her attention. She flung the Eclipse downward, ducked under the combined fire of the Regen Duel and Hail Buster, then swatted aside the charging Nebula Blitz's beam saber and backflipped over the Gale Strike's horizontal scissoring sword swipes.

"Shinn," she breathed, "what happened to him?"

Up above, dodging fire from the Hail Buster, Coniel shot Emily an angry look. "The hell are you sitting there for? Draw their fire!"

Emily threw herself back into the fight and charged towards the Hail Buster. It winked out of existence, replaced by the Nix Providence and its beam-spewing hip-mounted DRAGOONs. The Eclipse lunged to the right, only to have to throw up its beam sword to deflect the twin downward sword hacks of the Gale Strike. And an instant later, the Nebula Blitz leapt up from behind and leveled off its Trikeros—

Then the world shook.

Emily vaulted out of the trap and turned her eyes towards the source— and in disbelief, she watched the Alliance's surface ships crack in two, one by one, and vanish between towering plumes of water and flame. The survivors struggled to turn away, but each in turn something underwater rose up to snap them in two and send their flaming remains beneath the waves.

"What the...are they being torpedoed?" Coniel muttered. "Who?"

The answer came with another column of water. A huge winged form burst out of the sea and mobile suits rocketed out of its innards on vertical linear catapults— and Emily blinked in disbelief.

"That giant ZAFT sub," she murmured, "the one from Belém..."

Coniel's Murasame moved in next to the Eclipse. "Friend of yours?"

"N-Not exactly." Emily watched in shock as the ZAFT mobile suits broke formation and opened fire— on the Alliance units, tearing them apart with the element of surprise in their sails. "Are they helping us or just taking an opportunity...?"

Coniel glanced around the battlefield for a moment and heaved a sigh. The dead could be mourned when the job was done. "Either way, I don't intend to stick around long enough to find out. Help me fish survivors out of the sea and then we'll get your ship to safety."

To be continued...