A/N: I'm-a back! And with another super special awesome chapter of Misanthrope to boot! Now somebody please punt me for quoting Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. -.-0

Have I mentioned how fun it is to write this thing? Because it is. Because it's actually an amusing story, despite all the dire "war is bad" themes. And because Carmen hearts Nicol.

Once again, I'd like to thank my super special awes-... I mean very nice and helpful beta reader Storms-winter, for being so very nice and helpful despite the fact that she forgot to attach the file to her email the first time. :)

Please review intelligently, or else countless people on the Internet will despise you.

End author's useless rant.

Chapter Three: Heliopolis

“…complete waste of the military’s time! If the information isn’t correct, then don’t give it, damnit! Stupid, incompetent…what the hell were they thinking, sending us out without even verifying…”

The voice faded around the corner, and though the information that it provided was scarce, Nicol knew immediately that it was Yzak Jule, and that he, surprisingly, shared his sentiments on the matter.

The day before, word has reached the Vesalius that the Earth Alliance Forces had begun construction of a military satellite in the proximity of Lagrange point 3. Perhaps not a wise choice of location, considering the relative gravitational instability of L3, and though some of the more vindictive members of the ZAFT military and High Council doubted the Naturals’ ability to actually construct something in such an unsteady area, it had been voted that the Le Creuset team and the Vesaliusshould investigate nonetheless.

And of course, after all of the preparations made, the rushing and scrambling about, it would seem natural that a bit of faulty Intel should be enough to dampen the spirits of many.

Though in Yzak Jule’s case, they seemed to flare instead.

“…look, Yzak, the only way that they could have verified the information is if we were sent there!”

“Oh, yeah? Why can’t they get some stupid patrol ship to do it instead, huh?”

“Yzak… God, just get over it.”

“What did you say?”

Nicol could tell that Yzak was pacing up and down the hall – as effectively as anyone can pace in non-gravity, anyway – by the way his loud, angry voice kept on swelling then fading, though its intensity never wavered. He could also tell that Dearka was doing his best, as usual, to calm the other’s nerves, and was, also as usual, not having much of an effect.

Nevertheless, Nicol found himself strangely lethargic after their useless sortie, and was just about to drop off, curled over the starched bed sheets, when Yzak bounced violently into his room, still muttering curses as he floated his way to the adjacent bathroom.

“Yzak!”

Nicol sat up as Dearka entered as well.

“Sorry,” said the second intruder immediately, as Yzak furiously pounded the door-release mechanism, sealing the bathroom closed, “When he gets this pissed, he always needs to go to the bathroom. You know, to… take a piss or something…”

“Yeah… okay…”

The words Too Much Information struck his conscious mind with a mean right hook, but he managed to swallow the need to voice them.

Nicol had noticed that Dearka seemed to be making somewhat of an effort to be kind to him, probably due to the fact that Yzak seemed to be making somewhat of an effort to be even nastier to him, as of late. Try as he might, Nicol simply could not understand what he had done to arouse the other’s ire. He had followed his instinct and stayed out of his way, had not tried to start any conversations, hell, had not even dared sharing the same table as him in the mess hall. And yet, it seemed inevitable, ridiculously preordained that Yzak should hate his guts.

“You coming?”

“Huh? Why?”

Dearka, his hand already on the room’s door switch, jerked his chin towards the ceiling, where a speaker was spewing out in a mechanical voice: “… the Le Creuset team, report to Commander Le Creuset’s office immediately… I repeat, the Le Creuset team, report to Commander Le Creu-…”

A resounding curse was heard from behind the bathroom door.

“The commander’s office?”

“…office… I repeat, the Le Creuset team…”

“Guess so. Shall we?”

“But what about Yzak?”

“Damnit!”

“… to Commander Le Creuset’s office…”

“Aw, he can take care of himself. He’s potty-trained and everything.”

“I heard that! Come here so I can…”

“…report to Commander’s Le Creuset’s…”

………

Commander Le Creuset’s headquarters were coldly formal, quite a contrast from the warm tone of voice he always used. Nicol could not help but shiver as he surveyed the white metal sheet wall ahead of him, very carefully commanding his body to stillness. Not even a finger could be allowed the tiniest bit of movement. He had been shoved around far too many times during military school for such a thing to forget it so quickly.

The commander himself was sitting as his desk as the five of them stood in a row before him. Dearka was at Nicol’s left. Rusty’s red hair caught his eye at his right. Glancing towards him from the corner of his eye, Nicol reflected that he had not interacted much with him since the beginning of their imprisonment aboard the Vesalius… in fact, he did not believe that he had ever interacted with him at all.

Rusty Mackenzie… he was most likely the son of some High Council member by the name of Mackenzie. What other reason did they have to have all been placed under this man’s command?

…other than the fact that they were the most skilled of the ZAFT Reds, of course.

Initiating ego inflation. Beep.

The commander nodded gently, as though in response to some private acquiesce, then stood and faced the five young soldiers for the first time since their orderly entry. Nicol felt himself involuntarily stiffen as the man studied each of them in turn, and it seemed, to his inconveniently paranoid mind, that his masked gaze lingered on his figure the longest.

Finally, the commander spoke, and Nicol could not help but let loose a breath of relief.

“I have called you all here to bestow upon you your first, true mission.”

He waited until a thick, most appropriate tension had settled upon the group before moving to the front of the desk. The glassy, seemingly sightless eyes of his mask gleamed in the fluorescent light.

“The information regarding our assignment at Lagrange point 3 has proven faulty, as you all know. However, as I was filing the report towards the High Council, I received word from one of our spies concerning the colony known as Heliopolis.”

Nicol’s brows creased with doubt. Heliopolis was a neutral colony, housing nothing but the numerous families who wished to avoid the war. It had nothing to do with the military, so why…

“You must be wondering why our forces would bother with something as trivial as a neutral colony,” Commander Le Creuset continued, seeming to thoroughly enjoy keeping them in suspense, as far as Nicol was concerned. “Well, this certain spy has just recently forwarded some very interesting information to the Council. It seems that the Earth Alliance Forces are using Heliopolis as a base for mobile suit construction.”

A tremor of surprise ran through the line. The combined emotion of the five boys seemed to chill the room as effectively as a blast of cold air come directly from space.

“The Council suggests that we act quickly,” the commander kept on briskly. “The Le Creuset team is to infiltrate Heliopolis tomorrow to capture the five mobile suits, five units known as the GAT-X series. You will each be assigned to one of the units, and will be responsible for bringing it safely out of the base and onto the Vesalius, which will be standing by.”

He fixed each of the young soldiers in a steady gaze, indiscernible from behind the mask, and smiled.

“You must have been fretful these past few weeks,” said Commander Le Creuset in a tone of slight condolence, “and with good reason. I assure you all, this is the perfect opportunity to put the skills you have developed to work. Do not disappoint me.”

“Yes sir!” they chimed automatically.

“Report to the briefing room tomorrow at 0400. Dismissed.”

………

Nicol felt like he had slept through the entire briefing.

As he clambered into the pod that he would be sharing with three other members of the ZAFT army, snatches of that morning’s meeting returned to him.

They would be stuffed into pods in groups of four and launched into the supposedly neutral colony of Heliopolis.

They would land.

They would steal the Earth Forces mobile suits.

They would get the hell out of there.

They would not damage the colony or harm its citizens in any way (or in the least ways possible, at any rate).

Okay.

That seemed doable.

The other three soldiers were murmuring amongst themselves.

“Hey, do you think we’ll get to step on some of the Naturals and say it was an accident?”

Nicol had no intention whatsoever of stepping on Naturals.

Mechanisms clicked and whirred. Alarms and last minute instructions sounded. Everyone braced themselves against the walls of the pod. Bracing for what? Are we gonna drop? OH GOD NO, they’re gonna drop us!

They dropped.

Centuries later, they landed with a dull thud on the colony’s surface. The pods cracked open and they floated out one by one, grabbing the metal struts protruding from the metal sheets. As Nicol pushed himself out from his pod, last of all four soldiers, he could not help but imagine Commander Le Creuset staring down at them from afar, like some white-beaked sentinel, making sure they did not screw up. Like God, looking down upon the desolation from above.

Le Creuset. God. The thought made him suffocate with the unpleasantness.

Athrun gestured to them all from a gaping, man-made hole in the outer surface of the colony, where red lasers crisscrossed within the opening. Athrun looked at his watch, stared at it, and as though on command, the thing beeped and the lasers suddenly died, leaving the passage free. Their savvy shipmates had done their job.

In unison, they kicked off of whatever surface they could and launched themselves into the tunnel. The walls were unlit and soon they lost the little light they had. With a nervous jerk of his hand, Nicol lit the tiny flashlight at the end of his rifle and used it to point the way.

The hallway seemed interminable, every linoleum panel identical to the last. Athrun was watching the little holographic map on his wrist. He seemed totally at ease, and despite his troubled state, Nicol could not help but feel the familiar jolt of admiration.

To think that Athrun was even capable of directing others in such a dire situation…to think that, if there had never been a war, Athrun would have been able to do something else, something more humanitarian and just with his abilities. They all could have.

But there was war, and they were in it.

Suddenly, Athrun was beside him, or maybe he was beside Athrun, having gravitated towards him in the midst of his beginnings of a nervous breakdown.

“This is doable, right?” Nicol whispered to Athrun, desperate for some friendly reassurance, and too late he remembered that his head was encased in the ZAFT military space helmet and everyone had just heard his last words via the very handy communication device. A few of the soldiers sniggered around him, and if at all possible, Nicol began to suffocate even more vehemently. It was becoming extremely tempting to try and swallow the communication device and see if he could induce a deadly choking fit.

“Of course it’s doable,” said Athrun over the helmet radio, gracefully ignoring the jeers around them. “Anything is doable. This is what we were trained for, Nicol. Now it’s time to just do it.”

“Y-Yeah. Okay.”

“Good.”

They had stopped above a metal grille, and as Nicol looked down he was near-blinded by the bright lights coming from within. There, clearly visible, was a massive ship. A warship.

Around him, the soldiers, red and green alike, made low, grim sounds. It was apparent now what the spy had reported. Heliopolis was no longer neutral.

Athrun gazed down through the floor for a long time, and the others did not say a word as he did, assuming, perhaps, that he was assessing the situation in a purely commanding officer-like way. But through the gleam of the light on Athrun’s visor, Nicol saw the boy’s face change into an expression of deep sorrow and even deeper regret.

Then Nicol blinked. The look was gone from Athrun’s features, replaced by the usual static serious face that such times required.

Athrun lowered his arm and gestured sharply: the signal to move out.

Operation Heliopolis commenced.

………

At the intersection marked by the grille, they separated on Athrun’s command. The ZAFT greens headed off on their own, Nicol knew, to place bombs at strategic places around the white ship’s dock. The Elite soldiers floated further down the dark hall, keeping together, guns at the ready, though the only likely thing they could encounter in this place was space dust.

The greens joined them along the way thanks to the complicated series of tunnels riddling this part of the colony. Their spy had done his work well and had been able to supply them with maps of the entire complex.

It seemed to Nicol that time had suddenly gotten very short as they rushed down the next passage, gliding effortlessly towards their destination. The bombs had been set for ten minutes…they had to infiltrate the place after the bombs’ explosion…what else was he forgetting?

BREEEN, BREEEN, BREEEN.

Holy shi– Oh, that. It was just the alarm signalling the unlawful approach of ZAFT vessels.

They sped on as the next step in the plan unfolded, and the alarm urged them forward.

After a few minutes, gravity returned to the passage and the company continued on foot before emerging into blinding sunlight. Nicol had never been more grateful for artificial sun.

They had surfaced on a small cliff a ways from the actual Earth Forces military base. It was in plain sight, with a line of carrier trucks working its way into one of the larger buildings. They all looked like ordinary buildings. Nicol realized that perhaps even the civilian inhabitants of the colony had no idea what was going on behind those walls.

The alarm sound was faint up here. Nicol wished he could just stay on that little cliff forever, instead of launching himself headfirst into some stupid mission to filch some stupid mobile suits for his stupid army. He could live here, on his own. He could make a hut out of branches and leaves and harvest wild berries for food. After all, he had learned how…oh, who am I kidding?

Yzak had trailed a binoculars’ gaze down towards the advancing trucks, and with a little sneer, proclaimed: “It’s exactly as Commander Le Creuset said.”

“What, that with the right amount of prodding they’re sure to come out of their hole?” Dearka answered with his usual lightness.

Nicol remembered that line. He had shivered upon hearing it.

Yzak was making some tasteless jest about the Naturals’ lack of intelligence, but Nicol no longer listened. He looked down at the green, peaceful country, the clean shine that the military base’s roofs gave off in the sun. He felt the heavy realness of the gun in his hands. Soon, he would have to point this gun at someone, a real, living someone. Soon, he might have to shoot that real living someone. He might have to kill him.

It occurred to him that if he killed anyone today, he might cry.

To stop himself from crying now, he looked up to where Athrun was standing, also looking out to the distance. Nicol wondered what he was thinking, if he regretted the possibility that they might have to take lives today.

…right?

In a whoosh of air and power, the scheduled GINNs burst from another passage and sped towards the buildings to begin their assault. Yzak immediately rattled off the coordinates of the district where the carrier trucks were headed.

“Roger. That’s showing ‘em, Yzak. That didn’t take ya long.”

Yzak gave an ominous snigger at Miguel’s praising transmission, and they all watched as ZAFT’s mobile suits began to bombard the indicated area. Nicol bit his lip at the scene. Billowing smoke clouds were already rising up into the fabricated atmosphere.

It was their move now. Their ZAFT-made jetpacks carried them across the green valley. Nicol had used to think that their jetpack thingies were cool, but now they were only tools used to destroy this other part of their race.

“Intel indicates five…are the two others inside?” Yzak asked as they made their way down. He indicated the three trucks, currently under assault by the GINNs.

“Rusty and I will continue,” Athrun instructed. “Yzak, you and the others take these three.”

You and the others. That meant that Nicol had to stay outside while Athrun went inside. Boo.

“Okay, go for it. If you’re piloting one, deactivate the self-destruct system first,” Yzak added in his and Dearka’s direction, although if Nicol had not been there, it would not have made any difference.

They floated down to the military complex and landed amidst the turmoil. The clatter-clatter of machine guns drew their attention. Already they were in the thick of it. With the agility granted him by his Coordinator genes and military training, Nicol ducked behind a turned over jeep and fired towards the nearest threat. There was a yell of pain, and the shots assaulting him ceased. He let out a painful breath.

My first kill.

Oh no. Oh God. My first kill.

………

They had been fighting for a while. Athrun and Rusty had long since disappeared into the hangar, along with half of the ZAFT greens of the company. They were edging their way towards the carriers, taking out any surviving soldiers. The shots became fewer and fewer. Nicol was weirdly grateful for the distraction the ships were providing outside. That way, there were fewer soldiers to stop them from actually taking the mobile suits, and that meant less people to kill.

Nicol reached the farthest carrier and gazed up to his assigned mobile suit, the GAT-X207, codenamed Blitz.

Hello Blitz, my name’s Nicol. Nice to meet you. I know we’ve just met, but I’m going to steal you now, if that’s okay.

He scaled the carrier with one boost from his jetpack and landed unsteadily on the mobile suit’s chest plate. A hidden mechanism on the edge of the plate opened the chest cavity, and he hopped inside, settling into the pilot’s seat with a squirm.

The screens and controls were new and shiny. The cockpit even had a new cockpit kind of smell, sort of like a new car smell, but without the pleasant new leather aroma. Come to think of it, his father had gotten a new car just before Nicol had left for his second year at the ZAFT academy. They had all ridden in it on the way to the shuttle, and Nicol had spent those few luxurious moments just sitting back and breathing in the leather and other new car stuff smell. He had always liked that smell, and now that he thought of it, it was kind of a weird inclina– hey, fighting a war, here! Focus!

Slapping his meandering thoughts away, Nicol pulled out the keyboard and set to work on the OS, to deactivate the suit’s obligatory self-destruct system. Via the communication system, Yzak and Dearka were exchanging news. Nicol let his fingers and brain do the work automatically as he listened to their chatter and his gaze wandered to view of the outside, visible on three of his monitors. Yzak and Dearka’s mobile suits were rising from their carriers like undead rising from their graves in a corny horror movie.

System. Access. Deactivate this for me, please. Won’t you? I’ll be your best friend. Thank you. Please wait.

“And Nicol?”

“Oh…not yet…almost there.” Another prompt had barged into the main screen, necessitating another feat of hacking. Tap-tap-tap. Done.

“Okay.”

Nicol gripped the main controls, and for one terrifying second, he could not remember how to operate a mobile suit. But then his hands moved out of their own accord and his own machine rose from its carrier to join the other two in a standing position. Oh the wonders of painful, repetitive military training.

“Where are Athrun and Rusty?” Yzak demanded on the communication line. Both him and Dearka showed up on Nicol’s other monitors. He saw Dearka give a non-caring as if we know shrug as Yzak uttered a sound of annoyance.

“Taking their time, huh? Well, whatever, I don’t think they’ll have any trouble. We’ll stick to the plan and get these three back, got it? Get them back to Commander Le Creuset before they get damaged.”

Yzak, with his usual impatience, was the first to launch his mobile suit into the air, shortly followed by Dearka and Nicol.

“…an…own…”

“What?”

“The communications line is screwy…”

“I know that, stupid! Athrun, Rusty! Where are you? We have to go!”

“We ha…man down…sty…”

“Athrun!”

“Rusty’s down! Taking the GAT-X303 now!”

“Repeat, Rusty is down!”

“No way…” Dearka murmured.

“Get back here!” Yzak shrieked suddenly, causing both Nicol and Dearka to cringe away from the devices in their helmets. “Get back here! We have to get back to Commander Le Creuset, now!”

Static.

A scream of rage.

A whispered word.

“Kira.”

“Athrun! What happened?” That was Miguel now, responding to the earlier transmission. He sounded tense, far less joyous than just a few minutes ago.

There was a heavy silence over the radio, and then Athrun said, “Rusty failed. The other machine has been boarded by an Earth Forces officer.”

Panicking, breath catching, Nicol turned his attention from the radio to the monitors. Several buildings were spewing smoke; jeeps and bits of equipment littered the roads. And on the ground…

On the ground, people were running.

For one second, Nicol tried to convince himself that they were just military personnel from the base, trying to save their skins. But the closer he looked, the more ordinary these people seemed. They were not wearing uniforms of any sort. Some looked like teachers, others like students.

Students. Children.

The ground exploded and screams erupted from everywhere. The people were screaming, running for their lives. They’re innocent, why are they involved?