Chapter 2:

Awaken, Thy Name is GUNDAM

A spark of power,

Echoing through the starlight.

The sound of conflict,

Draws upon the Shadow Knight.

"Thoughts"

"Speech"

Author's helpful little notes and stuff

Previously on SEED: Eternity:

The world around Setsuna flashed green for a moment. When the flash of green had faded, only the ruined remains of the 0 Gundam were left.

Location: Heliopolis Colony

Time: January 25th, C.E. 71

"I'm telling you Kira, the professor's giving you too much work for one guy!" Tolle Koenig said jokingly to Kira as they entered Professor Kato's office with Miriallia Haw. Kira Yamato was a brown-haired teenager with violet eyes and a fairly average height and build. He was currently 15 years old and one of Professor Kato's brightest students. He had a green and yellow mechanical bird called 'Birdy,' which was given to him by his childhood friend Athrun Zala. He was secretly a Coordinator.

The hum of computers and other electronic hardware running was evident. Sai Argyle and Kuzzer Buskirk were busy typing in their respective terminals. Everything seemed to be set to be another ordinary day, except for a couple of details.

Two strangers were also present in the room. One person was a guy with blonde hair and a shadowed face leaning on a wall away from the door. He was wearing a brown overcoat and a flat cap concealing his features. He looked at the three of them when they entered by looked away immediately, seemingly anxiously waiting for something. The other person also leaning on the wall of the door to Professor Kato's office was equally, if not more, mysterious. He seemed to be a Middle Eastern man in his early twenties with black wavy hair and a pair of black shades on his eyes. He was wearing a long-sleeved dark blue jacket, a white buttoned shirt untucked, black pants and casual shoes. A red scarf wrapped around his neck completed the bewildering ensemble. He had looked up as the door had opened but did not look back down, seeming to keep staring at them.

Sai looked around his computer and noticed Kira and the others. "Hey Kira! Glad you could come!"

Tolle went up to said and whispered, "Who are those guys?"

"They're waiting to speak with the Professor, apparently they've been told to wait here." Sai shrugged. The group of teenagers proceeded to have small talk while doing their work, seemingly ignoring the two strangers. After a few minutes of not being noticed the man near the door tried to open it but couldn't because it was locked. He gave a sigh that was unnoticed except by the blonde teenager who was alternating between watching him and the group of teenagers fooling around.

All of a sudden they all felt a great shaking of the colony like an earthquake. It suddenly stopped and automated communications systems went online and began blaring a pre-recorded message, "Attention all citizens, please calmly proceed to the emergency shelters nearest you. A map of-" Another, stronger wave of shaking rumbled the complex they were in, cutting off the communications system and off balancing a lot of them in the room. The lights flickered slightly and then went out, with emergency lights kicking in at the sudden loss of power.

"W-what's happened?" Miriallia said in fear as she clutched at Tolle. Kira looked around and noticed that no one was harmed in the latest quake. Everyone's faces reflected his he idly noticed, fear and confusion was evident in all of them.

"No idea. At any rate, we should go now." Kira said to everyone. They immediately went out and into the emergency staircase, with the two strangers bringing up the rear. The general talk amongst the other people in the staircase was that ZAFT had attacked their colony, violating the treaty with Orb.

"Why would ZAFT attack us? We're a neutral colony!"

"I don't know, do you think it has to do with the Alliance?"

"Nonsense! Lord Uzumi would never let the Alliance drab Orb into the conflict!"

All around them the shaking continued to happen sporadically. Kira and the others were becoming increasingly more worried about the situation, not noticing that the strangers behind them were restlessly fidgeting.

Suddenly the blonde teenager turned around and walked down the corridor towards a balcony. The Middle-Eastern man had noticed this and turned to follow him, a shout of warning in his lips.

"Hey!"

Kira and the others noticed this, with Kira moving to follow the black-haired man.

"No wait you two!"

Tolle shouted after him, "Kira! Where are you going?"

Kira had looked back and responded, his feet already carrying him to the two strangers who were beginning to argue, "I'll be fine, and I'll see you guys later!" A sudden earthquake then shuddered through the corridor and caused a blockade, preventing them from returning. Kira stared blankly at the corridor which a second ago had the face of Tolle, shaking his head in consternation, he went nearer the two strangers.

Meanwhile the two were still arguing.

"Miss, it's not a good idea to go out alone-" The black-haired man started again after observing the blockage behind them. His tone seemed to be urgent as well as exasperated at the blonde.

"Wait what? He called the blonde person 'miss?'"Kira thought in confusion. He then reached the two and noticed that he was actually right, the gust of dust from the collapse had blown away the blonde's cap and showed that the person underneath was actually a girl. An increasingly agitated girl it seems.

"I'm perfectly fine! Look, I know my way around this place. You two should never have come with me." She said, sporting a ratter annoyed look in her face. In contrast the man was calm and collected, cold even. He didn't seem perturbed by the circumstances that happened recently.

Kira decided to speak before something worse happened, "Umm, I think this isn't the best time to be arguing? We have to get to shelter as soon as possible." At that the two strangers looked at him in surprise before the man nodded decisively and turned towards the only exit they had. Kira and the girl looked at in confusion at his sudden departure, but were forced to follow him after another earthquake had nearly thrown them to the ground.

They emerged into a scene of devastation. There were large fires everywhere, wreckage and debris were scattered and the bodies of the dead were strewn about the roads carelessly. The smell of burning plastic and metal was in the air, cloying and invasive. Kira could feel unnatural heat from the wash of the thrusters of mobile suits cling to him like a second skin. He heard distant explosions and shouting from below them, as well as the deep booms of the GINN guns and the whine from the turbines. Below them he noticed people firing guns at each other, men in blue and orange uniforms against people in green and red suits. All that was nothing however, to the large open-topped trucks being fought over that had strange mobile suits in them.

The mobile suit closer to them had grey-coloured metal and an oddly shaped head. It seemed to be emulating what a human head with a helmet looked like, complete with eyes and all. It was currently bound in restraints that helped it not to move in transit. In as few words as possible, the mobile suit looked elegant.

Kira did not notice that the man had stiffened when he saw the suits and was now staring at them in horrified fascination. What he did notice was the girl suddenly dropping down on her legs and staring at the suits in anguish.

"No…father, how could you…?" She said softly, her eyes closing in denial. Beside her the man was still frozen in shock, his hands which were holding the railings clenched so hard the knuckles were white.

"G-Gundams… impossible…" The man muttered quietly.

The girl was still in denial, her voice slowly gaining volume, "father…HOW COULD YOU?" She shouted suddenly, gaining the attention of the fighters below. One of them swung her gun at the three of them and fired reflexively. The man had noticed and quickly pulled the other two down with him out of the field of fire. They then began moving to the nearest shelter that was across from them. When they reached it they found out that there was only room for one more. In unspoken agreement Kira and the man pushed the girl into the shelter and closed it despite her protests, now they were left outside with nowhere to go.

Kira looked at the stranger, the stranger still seemed to be calm and unruffled about all that happened, only slightly clenched hands the indication of his reaction to the events. For his part Kira was in equal parts terrified and confused. What was happening? Why was ZAFT here and why were they attacking?

A hand on his shoulder jolted him from his thoughts and he looked up to see that the stranger was looking straight at him.

"Do not think about the hows and whys for now. First, live, then you can ask those questions." The stranger said.

"How can you be so calm? When our home's falling apart around us?" Kira said to him, incredulity evident at his tone. He didn't think that anyone he knew was this calm.

"Again, first concentrate on staying alive. When all this is over can you ask those questions." The stranger declared, a strangely compelling tone in his voice. Accepting that that was the most he would get for now, Kira nodded tersely.

They started back to the other side of the building where more shelters were, however another earthquake happened and caused some of the damage structure on the building to fall down. Kira was pushed roughly by the man forwards while he propelled himself backwards, evading the sudden avalanche of concrete.

"Argh!" Kira shouted as he tumbled to the ground, slightly skinning his elbow. Recovering quickly he scrambled up and looked back at the now blocked passage. He could still see a little bit, enough to see the man's shades looking back at him. He swore he could see a little hint of gold behind the dark lenses.

"Are you alright?" The man asked. He seemed to have not had any serious injuries so Kira nodded back. The stranger then nodded back to him, "Good luck, and get to the shelters. I'll find a different way around." At that Kira opened his mouth to protest but yet another shaking dislodged the pile in front of him and hid the stranger from view. Seeing nothing else he could do for the man who saved him, Kira began to move.

Turning around, Kira felt troubled. He knew that the shelters in that side were already full, that stranger knew that as well. That meant he would try to go through the middle of the fighting. Kira wished him luck in his mind.

Location: Heliopolis Colony, city outskirts

Time: 40 mins after ZAFT attack

Setsuna was conflicted.

It has been a year since he had arrived to this alternate timeline. The changes to his original timeline were immense. These Coordinators and Naturals, the lack of the Solar Elevators, indeed the lack of any Aeolia Schenberg in any meaningful field cementing that observation. He didn't know how to get back, indeed he questioned whether he could get back. In the absence of a clear way to establish contact or return to Celestial Being, he resolved to continue his mission as a Gundam Meister.

When he had arrived he was fortunate that there were no ships around to notice the disturbance. He had been exhausted from the fight with Ribbons and had passed out almost immediately after arriving. When he had woken up he managed to sneak his Gundam into a space colony and hide it in an unobservable place. Thankfully the optical camouflage system the Exia had was still fully functional. He had spent the majority of the time since getting acquainted with this new universe and whatever disruptive groups there were as part of his purview as a Meister.

Now it seems a need for the Gundam had been found. The Bloody Valentine war had been raging on for a few years, with atrocities committed on each side. Setsuna was hesitant to conclude that the PLANTS were entirely blameless in the affair of war since then but it was unmistakable to him that the Earth Alliance was the primary aggressor in the war. Regardless, as a Meister he was to not take any sides in conflict, only to take the most efficient course of action that will guarantee the eradication of war and the distortions that cause it.

That ZAFT had attacked a colony of a neutral nation without provocation was a clear act of malicious intent, Setsuna had been planning to sortie the Exia when he had stumbled upon the prototype gundams in the hangars. If Orb had been developing such suits in secret then ZAFT had the right to stop such machines from being put into action in order to prevent the escalation of the conflict. However Setsuna knew that he didn't have all the information necessary to declare that either one or the other had caused an escalation of war.

That led to his decision now. Despite his mission as a Meister, the act of involving innocent civilians in armed conflict struck a chord in Setsuna. He was going to sortie the Exia regardless of who was in the right. After all, while politicians talked the people died on the ground.

He ran up to the winch ladder of the Exia's cockpit and activated it. Taking out an earpiece from his pocket he adjusted it to his ear and began pre-combat preparations.

"GN System Repose. Priority: Setsuna F. Seiei."

He reached the cockpit and pulled himself into the seat, the biometric scanning him and confirming him to be the authorized Meister. He checked all the booting systems of Exia, all green.

"Remove Optical Camouflage."

A shimmering was evident in the air, and suddenly the side of the mountain was taken up by the towering bulk of the GN-001REII Exia. The GN Drive started up and began spewing GN Particles at an acceptable rate. Constant maintenance on his Gundam, courtesy of the basic engineering skills from his time in Celestial Being, was a lifesaver to the isolated Meister.

"Setsuna F. Seiei, Exia, launching."

With a blast of wind, the Exia flew once more.

Location: Heliopolis Colony, site of attack

Time: 1 hour, 20 mins after ZAFT attack

Kira was not having the best day of his life.

First there had been the attack on the colony by ZAFT. Then he saw his childhood friend Athrun Zala fighting for ZAFT and had been about to kill a woman in cold blood. After that he had to pilot a mobile suit with said woman, who turned out to be an Alliance Officer named Lieutenant Murrue Ramius. Said officer then detained Kira and his reunited friends at gunpoint and ordered them around while Kira was to stay in the suit. Said suit then was the target of a special ZAFT mobile suit, luckily he had managed to activate Phase Shift at the final moments and repelled the bullets. Then of course a massive legged ship had blasted its way out of their colony's underground and proceed to give Kira the shock of his life.

All this probably shaved off a decade from his lifespan.

Now however the rest of the GINNS had re-entered the colony along with another gundam like his, this one had red armour on it and looked like the suit Athrun had used to get out of the colony. Kira had to keep dodging the GINN with the heavy equipment load out, as it seemed to focus solely on him. Equipping the so-called Sword Striker pack was a good decision in hindsight, the added mobility enabling him to dodge the relatively slow missiles from the suit. The missiles proceeded to detonate on the colony itself, damaging it even more as weapons suited for storming fortified positions were used on a defenceless colony.

"Argh!" He said to himself as he barely twisted the GAT-X105 Strike from the latest missile barrage from the GINN. Again the video feed in his cockpit opened up and the face of Athrun once again filled the feed.

"Kira!" Athrun yelled. It turns out that his childhood friend really did join ZAFT. Athrun asked him to join him at ZAFT as a member of his team. Kira had to refuse as he remembered Tolle and the others with the Alliance.

"I can't join you Athrun!" Kira responded, taking out the beam boomerang stored in his shoulder pack. He threw it hard at the GINN while dodging another missile that exploded and took out a small park below him.

Mu la Flaga was having problems of his own trying to take down the CGUE. He kept missing his shots and hitting the colony's structural foundations instead. The absurd luck of hitting those pipes again and again had struck Mu as something out of a TV show, but he was in real life dammit! He cursed once more that the CGUE had managed to take down two of his gunbarrels earlier. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the civilian piloting the Strike throw its boomerang at the GINN facing it and miss, only for the boomerang to return and clip the GINN in the leg. The Strike then followed it up by using the massive sword that particular pack had and bisecting the GINN into two. Inside his head a suspicion began to form.

Athrun's world seemed to go stop as he watched Kira slice through Miguel's GINN. "MIGUEL!" He seemed to shout, yet he couldn't hear his own voice. Miguel was one of his team, he graduated alongside Athrun and Yzak and the others from the academy. They weren't as close as best friends due to the difference in rank, but all the same it felt like a spike of ice had rammed his heart.

Unfortunately Kira's killing of the GINN pilot froze him for a moment, allowing the two surviving GINNs to get past them. One fired its Canus Launcher at the Archangel, hitting it and doing superficial damage to the hull, yet jostling the ship enough that the few shots fired at the other GINN were wildly inaccurate. The advancing GINN flew up to the Archangel's bridge and readied its gun to fire.

Time seemed to slow down for all the combatants in the field as they noticed the GINN about to kill the last of the Archangel's bridge crew. Kira and Mu turned their suit and armour respectively to try and intercept the GINN but were too slow. Murrue didn't close her eyes, even as she stared death down in the face. If she was going to die, then she was going to die with dignity. Beside her Natarle Badgiruel stiffened at attention, her steely eyes staring down the barrel of the massive gun in defiance. The GINN's finger slowly pulled at the trigger, mere milliseconds away from firing.

A bright pink beam suddenly cut through the GINN's 76mm rifle and destroyed it utterly, shocking all participants. At the same time an alarm sounded on the bridge as an unidentified source was distorting their scans.

"What was that?" Murrue immediately demanded from the bridge. Even though they were just saved from the brink of death she would have to deal with that later. Right now the primary concern was the unidentified source up above them that was approaching at high speeds.

"Putting it up on visual now! What…" One of the crew uttered in amazement as the image of the unknown was show on screen.

It was similar to the G-Weapons in how it looked, with a blue and white colour scheme. It didn't seem to have a visible thruster system but instead a large cone behind it with a strange engine that emitted green light. It had a massive sword lined with green coating tucked into its right arm with a small shield over it. A small gun held in its right hand that was pointed at the GINNs who was looking at it in shock. Besides the overly large sword and gun it didn't seem to have any other weapons on it.

A video feed suddenly opened up in the main screen of the Archangel. Murrue was shocked when she saw the person. It was the same Middle-Eastern man that she had seen and fired upon before. He seemed to be the one piloting the suit that was in front of them. He had removed his shades and so she could see that his eyes were brownish chestnut with flecks of gold. A calm and collected demeanour was emanating from him and he opened his mouth to speak.

"Identify yourself." The statement was curt and commanding. Despite his apparent civilian status he held himself like a soldier, most likely a high-ranking one if the mobile suit was anything to go by. "Maybe this suit was a G-Weapon project developed in secret even from the Archangel?"

"This is Lieutenant Murrue Ramius of the Archangel. Identify yourself as well." She stated. She was not expecting the pilot's response though. He immediately shut off the feed.

When the feed had died numerous questions began to be fired by the personnel on the bridge.

"Was there another G-Weapon we weren't informed of?"

"Who was that pilot?"

"Maybe he's a coordinator trying to get into our good graces to finish us off!"

"SILENCE! We will deal with this once this crisis is over!" Murrue shouted above the din, reasserting her authority. Whether or not this new player was an ally or enemy wasn't resolved yet, she'll have to make a decision about that soon.

-000-

"The ZAFT strike force had been judged to be performing in a capacity that distorts this world. Setsuna F. Seiei, eliminating the targets." Setsuna declared to himself, the Gundam Exia responding to his call.

Keeping up his momentum, he aimed his Gundam towards the closer of the GINNs, the cumbersome suit unable to react in time to the Exia. He drew the Kai and pointed it in front of him in a lancing thrust. The GINN tried to evade but it was too late. The GN Sword pierced through the armour of the suit like knife through butter, the momentum of the Gundam arrested by the now ruined body of the GINN. Pulling his Sword out, he noticed the other GINN aiming its 76mm assault rifle at him and firing. Not even bothering to take cover, the Exia simply stood up under the hale of fire and emerged unscathed. He then boosted his thrusters and charged at the other GINN, the Kai gleaming in anticipation.

Idly he reflected on the differences in mobile suit technology between his universe and this one. For one the mobile suits here seemed to be more of the HRL's vein of suit technology. They were slow, snail-like compared to the Flags and Enacts of the Union and AEU. Their weapons seemed designed more to combat conventional weapons rather than towards anti-suit combat. Understandable in that only the Coordinators here had the skill to pilot mobile suits.

As he easily cut through the cockpit of the other GINN, he compared this battle to be the same as the initial interventions against the divided states of the world when Celestial Being was just beginning its campaign. They were severely outmatched even by the primitive Gundams that he had seen. It was pitiful.

As Setsuna decimated the two GINNs that was giving them so much trouble before, Mu wondered at the skills of the pilot. Certainly this one had military experience, it showed in his fighting style. "Dammit, how many of these things did the Alliance make?" Kira for his part was equally awed and horrified at the callousness of the new pilot. The ability to kill without seemingly feeling remorse for his actions was a phenomenon that Kira never experienced, nor would ever like to.

After finishing off the last GINN Setsuna focused his attention to the final ZAFT mobile suit, the CGUE. Rau had to veer away from finishing off the badly damaged Moebius Zero when a lance of pink light cut through his vision. Turning his high-manoeuvrability suit into gear he spotted a leftover Cattus Rifle from Miguel's GINN on the ground. An idea began to form in his mind as he dodged and swerved away from the pink lances of light the unknown mobile suit was firing at him as he closed the distance to the intact weapon. Setsuna realized the plan of the enemy suit and began accelerating the Exia towards the Rifle as well.

Twisting his suit beyond normal stress levels, Rau cursed slightly as the enemy suit neared, "That guy flies like a Coordinator!" A shock of light through his consciousness alerted him to a lance of light that was about to corner him into being hit, and he fired his thrusters in order to twist away from the beam of death mere meters away.

Setsuna felt a flash of surprise when the mobile suit managed to pass through the net that he created. "He shouldn't have been able to spot that pattern in time…" he narrowed his eyes, "Are there similar people to me here? But GN particles haven't even been discovered yet by the nations of the world."

Rau and Setsuna then clashed in a gust of wind. Setsuna had drawn his Kai sword and thrust at the CGUE, which had felt the incoming attack and attempted to strafe away. Unfortunately for Rau the CGUE was too slow to react to his instincts and the Kai managed to cut through the left wing of the CGUE. Crashing to the ground in a shower of dust, Rau managed to grasp the grip of the Cattus and bring it with him as he pushed the thrusters to move. Setsuna recovered quickly and dashed through the haze, Kai sword drawn back in preparation for a slashing blow.

The dust parted to reveal the CGUE braced in a crouched position holding the Cattus Rifle, aiming straight at the Exia. Reacting quickly, Setsuna pulled at the controls of the Exia and managed to push it into a quick slide, crashing through abandoned cars and streetlights as the CGUE fired the Cattus. The shot flew straight into the Exia's shield and to the shock of all watching, the 500mm Armour Piercing round failed to penetrate the Celestial Being Gundam-class E-Carbon. Manoeuvring quickly, Exia drew one of its beam sabres and threw it at the CGUE, forcing Rau to clumsily dodge to the side as the pink blade cut through the rest of his left wing.

"DAMMIT!" Rau yelled out in frustration as the CGUE's thruster system lost one of its main thrusters. Fortunately he was saved when the colony began to break apart from the stress of combat and the damage to its structure, forcing the conclusion of the battle. The Exia, the CGUE and the Strike were blown out of the colony with the strong winds and were separated from the Archangel for a time.

"That mobile suit was exceedingly advanced, the pilot moves like a Coordinator as well. There's no going two ways about it, the mission is more complicated than I had planned for." Rau thought. Turning around, he began to limp his way back to the Vesalius to debrief and prepare his team for the new mission parameters.

Setsuna, having no other way of moving to another colony without support, decided to board the Archangel and take advantage of the wrong assumptions the Alliance team was making. The quantum brainwaves that he had begun experiencing had developed enough that he could discern fragments of thoughts if he focused. This enabled him to hear enough of the crew's general attitude towards him that he could masquerade as one of their men until he had to move onwards. Spotting the Archangel moving out of the ruins of Heliopolis, he pointed the Exia towards them and prepared himself for contact. He couldn't shake the thought that he was violating his code as a Meister with his recent actions however.

Kira Yamato on the other hand, had found a lifepod and proceeded to bring it with him, the guilt over killing someone driving him to try to find something to occupy and be happy with himself with. He knew that he was not cut out for war, but if it meant protecting his friends from danger, then he would gladly use the Strike once more. Taking hold of the lifepod, he began to bring it back to where the Archangel's signal was, the thought of the new mobile suit troubling him.

Overall the battle was a resounding victory for the Le Creuset team, what with capturing four of the five reported G-Weapon suits. Yet it left a bitter taste on the team with the deaths of Rusty and Miguel, as well as the appearance of the sixth G-Weapon that no one had foreseen. This supposed oversight would haunt them in years to come.

Location: Remains of Heliopolis

Time: 30 mins after Destruction of Heliopolis

Special Mentions:

LancelotQuanta – Thank you for your show of support! Which characters seem OOC to you? I'm open to suggestions about characterizations because I'll admit I haven't watched SEED for a while now XD. That said, that'll probably be the only first person Setsuna POV in this fanfic, as I'll have to use Third person to accurately cover everything.

Arthogawa – I was actually torn between pushing for the entire Ptolemy crew to be also transferred to the SEED universe but a friend of my who is helping me with the stuff suggested for me to slightly tone down the amount of POVs there are in my story :P. I MIGHT make an alternative work where I'll bring em all into SEED but that'll be in the backburner as I have to gain more writing experience. I will be doing some chapters where I'll push the POV to their perspective so I can capture what's happening to CB without an Inno, and I might have a use for them WAYYY later on in the fic. Thank you for your support and hope you enjoy

Sajuuk – Sorry but I already have a set sequence on how things are gonna go for the most part, I'll gladly take any suggestions like reactions to the appearance of GN suits and the like, but the major aspects such as Setsuna's suit or pairings are already final in my mind. That said, this fic sadly presupposes that SEED and 00 are separate and distinct continuities so no other side of the galaxy stuff. I appreciate your support of this fic and I hope that despite not being able to implement your suggestions I am still able to deliver with the premise I have established

To everyone else who read, reviewed, alerted, favorited me or my work – THANK YOU ALL XD

Cheers,

Creleuth