Gundam SEED Destiny
Kira
By: Tellemicus Sundance
Phase 1: My Name is…
Complete, utter, inconceivably dark blackness surrounded him. Where was he? How did he get here? Why was he here? To the darkness, he asked these questions. And from the darkness, he received no answer. Then, slowly, it started as a whisper that gradually grew louder.
"How do you determine the winners and the losers?"
A voice? From where and who? It sounded male, and there was a definite note of iron in that tone.
"If you have the power to make a difference, why not put it to good use?"
Another voice?
"Everyone's fighting desperately to protect the things that are so important to us!"
"But you're already a traitor to your fellow Coordinators, are you not?"
"What gives you the right to sound so superior?!"
"You are the dream of humanity."
"There would be no wars in this world if things could be resolved through discussion."
"NICOL!!!"
"You soldiers wanna be cowards and runaway, do ya?!"
"The enemy's beside the bridge! Get back here!"
"It really makes you wonder if the only option is for one of us to destroy each other."
"We know the reason why you're kind. It's because you are you."
Emotions he didn't understand the reasons behind were attached to those voices. They flooded through him with all the force and power of a tsunami. Confusion, fear, anger, helplessness, joy, regret, affection, the list was nearly endless. But the voices…so many voices saying so many things all at once! Stop it. It hurt to know what was said, yet completely not understand at all! Stop! Make them stop!!
Eventually, the voices softened to a dull noise. Then, at some point, they stopped altogether, leaving him emotionally numb as he continued to float aimlessly through the blackness. It was a blackness that he happily surrendered himself to.
KIRA - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - KIRA
Near Jachin Due, 71 C.E.
Chaos. That was the word that came to mind for Captain Jonas Brimfield. The debris, shattered and deformed remains of countless mobile suits and mobile armors, was scattered erratically across the enormous the battlefield. Many lives had been lost here only two days ago after the Blue Cosmos-controlled Earth Alliance launched their devastating attack on the PLANTs. In tribute to those lives lost, many among the people would've felt it prudent to treat the debris with respect as it slowly drifted into the Debris Belt.
What Captain Brimfield saw in that debris was money. Though he and his crew of the Early Harvest were pirates by occupation, it was also in their nature to salvage debris. With the war between Earth and the PLANTs, they had been focusing more on their salvage skills since there was a literal gold mine of classified and hard-to-find weaponry and technology out there, drifting in the vacuum of space, just waiting for an entrepreneur to collect and utilize it. Combine those parts with a team of able engineers and an out-of-the-way factory they'd seized control of several years prior, and the pirates of the Early Harvest had developed a rather self-sufficient government of sorts set up.
As he floated near the holographic table in the bridge of his beloved ship, Brimfield silently surveyed the battlefield. Outside he could barely see the weak trails of light that the engines of his various mobile suits and armors as they drifted through the debris. He didn't have to tell them what to look for since they were all veterans of this type of work. If it weren't for the fact that they were unsettlingly close to the PLANTs' and Earth Alliance's space fleets, this would've been a routine operation. Nor did the fact that the Early Harvest and all mobile suits were safely cloaked under their Mirage Colloid systems give Brimfield any sense of security.
It was this uncomfortable feeling of uneasiness that caused Brimfield to glance almost continuously towards radar officer. If either side caught them snooping around this gold mine, they'd have to flee and quickly. Thankfully though the Early Harvest, while not overly fast, could maintain a constant velocity for a prolonged period. This little trick had aided in their escape more times than any of the pirates would've liked.
Brimfield would've hated missing this chance though. After all, both sides had brought out the best of their arsenals. Who knew what they could find among all that garbage? In fact, his crew had already recovered enough parts to build a small team of mobile suits, from either side. And there was enough discarded ammunition to give them a huge addition to their already near-limitless supply back in their hideaway.
"Captain!" Yachi Lungho, his CIC, called out. "I've got a report from Yul Tui of the Hulda Team. He's found a survivor!"
"What?" Brimfield said, snapping out of his slight trance. "A survivor?!"
"Yes, sir!" Yachi confirmed, not turning from his terminal. "The survivor seems to be unconscious—"
"Order Tui to drop his loot and bring that man aboard immediately!" Brimfield barked out. A pirate, smuggler, and tomb raider he may be, but never let it be said that Brimfield and his crew did not help those who were in dire need of it! "Inform Medical of the survivor! Send word to Hulda, Gysdar, and Hymney Teams to double their efforts! That survivor will likely need some precision medical attention. So we're leaving the area in five hours! I'm heading to Medical. Lieutenant Ohajin, you're in charge until I return."
"Yes sir!" chorused various individuals throughout the bridge as their leader launched himself for the exit.
KIRA - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - KIRA
After what felt like an eternity to the young man, the total blackness from which he'd been encompassed in for as long as he could remember began to change. A feeling of weariness and complete disorientation washed over him. The world seemed to be spinning at tremendous velocity and his body was sluggishly attempting to follow it.
"He's waking up, Captain," a nearby voice said, seeming to have come from somewhere beyond the darkness.
Oh no, were those voices back?! He didn't want to have to deal them now! He was too tired still, emotionally. However his body disagreed, it was time wake up. They had slept long enough.
Blearily, he became aware of a light. It seemed to be shrouded over by something, dimming it partially. However, the longer he focused on it, the brighter it became. Yet the brighter it became, the more it began to hurt his eyes. Letting out a small grunt, he tried turning his head away from the light. To his immense relief, it did help a bit.
"Welcome back among the living, boy," the voice from earlier spoke up. It was much clearer than before. As it spoke, a hand grabbed his jaw and turned it back straight as another hand gently cracked open the boy's eyes one at a time. "I'm Doctor Rokrona. How are you feeling?"
"I…I…don't feel well," he managed to grate out as the world suddenly started spinning again.
"That doesn't surprise me one bit, boy," Rokrona, a man in the traditional white doctor's jacket, said. He finally released the boy and picked up a clipboard to survey. "Given what your body had gone through before we found you, I'm honestly surprised that you'd even survived for as long as you did out."
"What…are you talking…about?" he asked, glancing around him at his surroundings. He was in some kind of infirmary, an IV stuck into his arm, resting on an uncomfortably stiff bed with a worn-out pillow.
"Presumably your mobile suit had been badly damaged during the battle and you were forced to eject yourself into space to escape the explosion," the doctor said as he stood up and headed over to rummage in a nearby cabinet. "I am not aware of how long you were drifting out there, but I do know you had exhausted your flight suit's air supply. When we found you, you had fallen unconscious from lack of oxygen. It's nothing short of a miracle that you'd survived like that out in space for easily two days alone!"
"Mobile suit?" he asked, trying futilely to understand what the doctor was talking about.
"You don't remember?" Rokrona asked, glancing over at the brown-haired teenager. "We found you drifting amongst the battlefield of Jachin Due. We assumed you were the pilot of an Earth Alliance mobile suit; you were wearing their standard issue pilot suit after all."
"…Sorry," he said quietly as he tried to sit up. "I…don't remember…anything."
A sudden bout of nausea swept through him and forced him to retreat back to the pillow that his head had just vacated. He had only just managed to settle his empty through sheer force of will. So lost in the throes of suppressing his sudden need to vomit, he didn't even notice the doctor walk up to him and inject him with a syringe.
"Try not to move too much just yet," Rokrona said as he gently withdrew the needle. "Your body still needs to readjust and you're still too weak. You need some more rest. Those sedatives I just gave you should help you with that."
"Where am I?" he asked, feeling a bit more balanced and alert now.
"Currently you're onboard a freelance salvage vessel, the Early Harvest," Rokrona answered, carefully hiding certain truths with practiced ease. "We're headed for an old colonial outpost to give you some better medical attention. Our arrival time is sometime within the next three hours. You've been unconscious since we found you four days ago."
"Four days?" he repeated, not at all surprised. "I guess that's why…"
"Why what?"
"Nothing, forget about it," he said quietly as he tried to recall why he had such trouble remembering what he'd been dreaming while unconscious.
"By the way, young man," Rokrona said as he turned and headed for a desk on the other side of the room. "what's your name? We couldn't find any identification or nothing on you when we found you, just this ring."
"Ring?" he repeated, utterly confused.
Digging through a drawer, the doctor quickly withdrew something and returned to the boy's side. Hanging limply from his hand on chain necklace was silver ring with a gentle, flowing wave-like pattern that circled its length. The simple design of it seemed to scream out that it had once belonged to a girl. It was both elegant and plain at the same time.
Without realizing his own actions, his uninhibited hand was reaching out to grasp the delicate looking artifact and examine it much closer. In doing so, he noticed a pair of letters scratched into the underside of it. L.C. Who was that? Perhaps the girl who'd given it to him? Or had he merely found it on the ground somewhere?
Looking back up at the doctor, he blinked slightly in confusion as he tried to search his memory for the answer of the first question. He knew he should've remembered. He knew he had a name, and that he belonged somewhere with someone. But all he could find in his memory was that all-consuming blank blackness that had been haunting him for the past few days.
"I…don't remember, doctor," he said slowly, as though to confirm it to himself as well as Rokrona. "All I do remember is…nothing, nothing at all of who I am…or was."
"…I see," was all the response he got. Not that he was really paying attention anymore anyway.
KIRA - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - KIRA
253 Mathilde AsteroidEarly (forgotten) colonial mining facility
Brimfield stood next to the bed of the sleeping teenager. His rugged features were twisted deeply as they accented the frown that was etched into his face. It was sometime after midday, according to the clock they used that was tied in with Earth's rotation. With his sharp brown eyes narrowed, he stared down at the brown-haired boy.
What he was staring at in front of him was a real John Doe. The boy was clearly a mobile suit pilot. After being a captain and piloting numerous suits himself, he'd developed a finely tuned sixth sense when it came to detecting the presences of other pilots near him in a crowd. All pilots, whether they realized it or not, wore a hooded shade in their eyes and expression. It was the weight of all those they'd killed pulling at their soul, regardless of whether it was a green newbie who'd just had his first kill or a grizzled veteran. And this boy had that slight-hooded gaze of a genuinely skilled pilot.
When the Early Harvest had returned to the Mathilde Colony, he had immediately commandeered one of their computers. Rokrona claimed that the boy couldn't remember anything, not even his own name. But even if that were true, there were most likely people out there looking for him; unless he'd already been declared killed-in-action, along with countless others. And since he'd been wearing an Earth Alliance uniform, it was therefore logical to start there.
Brimfield and several of his aides had spent the last few hours scouring the EA's database for the boy's identity. And despite their considerable computer hacking talents (a necessity to anticipate and locate battlefields for salvage), they couldn't find anything. Granted, the EA's personnel roster was extremely large so it wouldn't have been a simple check either. However, when they'd received the results of his blood test, they'd learned that he was actually a Coordinator like them. What was a Coordinator fighting alongside the Alliance for?! Sadly, that question would likely never be answered since not even the boy knew anymore.
After they'd scrubbed searching the Alliance, they had switched to hacking into the ZAFT computer network. This network was predictably much more difficult and only offered limited success. Yet the boy wasn't listed as a ZAFT member or even a citizen of the PLANTs at all. With the choices narrowed considerably on where he was from, Brimfield was forced to come to a conclusion. If he was neither in ZAFT or the Alliance, then the next only logical explanation was that he was a citizen of Orb. But when that search proved fruitless as well, Brimfield changed his opinion yet again. This boy was clearly a survivor of the collapsed Orb satellite Heliopolis. If so, then it was likely that he'd never regain his lost identity unless he found someone who knew him earlier. When Heliopolis collapsed, everything went with it, including the birth records and personnel files on each individual within the colony.
If the boy was indeed a Heliopolis survivor, then that raised a whole new set of questions for how he came to be in the state that he was in when they found him.
"How long are you going to state at me, sir?" the 'sleeping' boy asked suddenly, a small smile pulling at his face.
"So you are awake, eh?" Brimfield stated, not seeming to react to the surprise. "I was just trying to decide what to call you until we found out what your name is."
"Who are you, sir?" the teenager asked, opening his eyes to reveal bright amethyst orbs.
"Jonas Brimfield, captain of the Early Harvest and leader of this colony," Brimfield answered, not taking his gaze off the boy. "I've had my people working on finding your family for the past few hours, but we haven't found anything yet…Though in my opinion, you're likely a survivor of the destruction of Heliopolis. That'd explain why we can't find your data anywhere."
"I see," was all that the boy said as he stared up at the grainy and rough ceiling. "…So I'm a nobody after all."
Seeing the teenager's saddened expression, Brimfield felt a sudden burst of inspiration. Reaching out, he ruffled the boy's hair in an affectionate manner that would've left his crew gawking in surprise. Glancing up and around the man's massively muscular arm, the boy stared at him in curiosity. Dropping his deep frown in favor of a small smile, Brimfield said, "The only person who's a nobody is someone who's completely given up their will to live life to its fullest. Tell me, do you lack the will to survive?"
The curiosity was momentarily overridden by a look of pure steel in those amethyst eyes and that small frown he now wore.
Taking the expression as his answer, Brimfield continued, "As long as you possess that will to live, you will never be anything or anybody but yourself…Akira Iyadomi."
"What?" the teenager asked, his hard gaze softening immediately in his confusion.
"Your name shall be Akira Iyadomi," Brimfield stated, resolutely nodding his head to his own statement. "Until you find your own name, I would be honored if you bore this one in its place…I'm sure my old friend, one of the best mobile suit pilots I'd ever seen, would've been honored as well."
"…Okay," the newly-named teenager said, uncertainty thick in his voice. "My name is…Akira Iyadomi."
(Author's Note) You know, I think I'm glad I finally posted this idea of mine. Ever since I started getting interested in Gundam SEED about a month ago, this idea (and several others that I'm going to include later on) has not left me alone! It was really starting to get frustrating for me because I desperately wanted to write Chuuten, The Last Mazoku, or even Saotome Shinji: Final Duty. Maybe now that I got this prologue out in the open, I will be able to concentrate more on my other stories. Let's hope so!
Anyways, I'm sorry that this chapter is kinda vague. I had just wanted to establish the story from 'Akira's point of view that he remembers nothing before he was found, save for some strange voices and pieces of conversations that he didn't understand. The next chapter will probably be much more interesting as we're likely to see how Akira spends the next two years in the company of pirates and salvagers. After that brief overview, I think the 'official' start of SEED Destiny will begin.
Whatever the case, I hope those of you who've read this story will have enjoyed it. Should you decide to review, please flame me for all I'm worth. This is my first Gundam SEED story, I'll likely need all the help I can get later on.