Fic: Defection (X-Men: First Class / Shin Kidou Senki Gundam Wing, PG-13)
title: Defection
author: ilovetakahana
word count: approx. 1410
fandoms: X-Men: First Class [movieverse], Shin Kidou Senki Gundam Wing
characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier, Raven Darkholme, Emma Frost, X-Men First Class ensemble. Mention of characters from Gundam Wing.
rating: PG-13
notes: Direct sequel to Starbound, Ironclad, so please read that one first. X-Men First Class as a Gundam Wing AU. And once again, the "Five" refers to Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei; and to be very specific about it, there is a comparison between Charles and Quatre.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org.
A few moments of quiet.
A heartbeat's worth of peace.
Peace was something he only knew as a word, now, and as the stillness he craved and feared. A sort of sickly-needed sensation, familiar and alien as the swoop in his stomach when he entered the cockpit and buckled himself into the seat, and when he grasped the control levers for his mobile suit.
There was an itch at his collar. His jacket. A meaningless uniform, a useless rank.
He could be demoted all the way down to civilian status if he came out of this alive. Unable to fly.
Erik shook his head. Foolish, to think of hope. Not here. Not when he didn't even stand a chance of making it away from Caspartina.
A twitch of his fingers: the engines roared to life. He reached up to his helmet and turned all his comms off. No point in listening to the others now.
Warning klaxon.
Space and stars ahead, deceptively beautiful.
Erik smiled, a smile with no emotion or warmth in it, just the smile of one who was seeking death, and raised his beam rifle into ready position, and: takeoff. Gundam Ironclad. He and the suit were one. He was its heart of steel and its iron-human mind.
Mobile Dolls and the Super Leos in ranks ahead. He knew their formations almost as well as he knew the backs of his own hands and he cut swathes of destruction through them, as easily as breathing. The shield was a weapon, too. He imagined the shriek and stress of metal as he slashed through another wave of opponents. Sparkling metal in shreds, weapons unto themselves, and each fallen MS took out the one next to it. Chain reaction.
The shot just off his left side was expected, too. The enemy mobile suit lining up for another shot. Dark red and black, such a stark contrast to its pilot, a woman pale and icy as the colony she'd come from, equidistant from the Earth and from the Moon.
Shield and beam pistol, switching from long-range firepower to short-range, and he charged the other MS, charged at Emma. Twisting and turning as she fired salvo after salvo at him, her preternatural aim, the fierce hatred that made her such a force to reckon with on the battlefield. Closer. Closer. Shield up, protecting Ironclad's sensors. Erik raised the pistol, got ready to fire....
A scream.
Emma and her MS blurring out of the way, burning into evasive. Something that looked like a jet and like a bird of prey hurtling after her, lancing fire after her. Silver and grey and blue, darting around the bulk of the larger suit, striking and swooping like a song of attack, through the cold dark of space.
The itch at the back of his neck was the warning and he, too, threw himself off course, switching weapons in an instant, pistol to rifle and his hands tightening on the control sticks, Ironclad's fingers tightening on the trigger, and a flash of silver and red and blue.
It was the shout in his mind that stopped him dead in his tracks.
-ndam Ironclad! Hold your fire! We know what you're doing!
He replied, loud in the silence of the cockpit though there was no one to hear. “Gundam Starbound.”
And the other suit seemed to live up to its moniker. Two beam swords; one in an easy front guard position and the other held ready, pointing down. Its hands seemed to absorb the faint light of the stars all around them.
He'd heard the tales of the pilot of the other suit, and how he was fast enough to deflect even bolts of laser rifle fire with his two blades. The whispers of green-eyed madness - the pilot who'd bent the infamous Zero System to his will.
Erik shuddered, remembering his own experience of Zero. Just a handful of times, and each one had generated enough nightmares to last him a lifetime. The shadowy faces of the men and women he'd shot out of the sky, and the two young ones, a boy and a girl and both of them little more than children - their faces burned and shattered and frightened of him.
He knew those two had survived.
He'd seen to it, and lied through his teeth to name them both dead.
He didn't think. “Computer, comms.”
Burst of angry static from Caspartina.
“Mute transmissions. Tight beam, MS frequencies only.”
Erik closed his eyes. He didn't know what he was waiting for.
Green flare, a mind touching his, a soft voice speaking. Starbound speaking. Ironclad, respond.
Erik closed his eyes. Are you the one they call the Prince? The boy who carried the infinity of space in his human heart?
An impression of a laugh. No. The one you are talking about is one of the Five. I am...I follow in his steps, in theirs, though I cannot hope to match them in skill.
Then if you are not the Prince, you must be the pilot who conquered Zero.
We have reached an...understanding. More laughter.
This time, the impression was of blue eyes, ringed with green light. My name is Charles. I know what you're doing.
Erik laughed, bitter and echoing in the cockpit. Then tell me, because I have no idea. Nothing left but ashes and defeat. Afterthought: I am Erik.
Through his eyes, through Ironclad's sensors. Starbound was moving towards him - and it seemed about to drop its weapons when a shadow seemed to open up in the stars behind the suit and before Erik could shout, before he could think, he was already flowing forward and both rifle and pistol were firing, and not just at the threat to the other Gundam but at all the others.
Starbound falling away, twisting into evasive manuevers. Swords out and flashing, and Erik was on tenterhooks, waiting for him to finish it off, finish it all off, Ironclad included.
But instead Starbound was behind him, was fighting to protect him. Even as Erik watched the suit was leaping into the fray, striking and killing even as its victims were taking their time falling apart around its weapons.
Erik's smile had returned. There was a strange lightness in his heart.
I hope you know what we are fighting, Charles said.
“Not helping you unless you get out of my head and talk to me. I have too many nightmares of Zero as it is.”
“You're not alone in that,” was the sudden reply. Tinny and distant and echoing strangely in the confines of Ironclad's cockpit. And: “Computer, transmit Starbound and Shifter please.”
Heart hammering in his ears, Erik returned the command. “All comms. Transmit Ironclad.”
The images flickered into life on his viewscreens.
“You!” Erik cried out.
Identical heavy helmets, two raised visors. The image labeled Shifter showed a girl with red hair and strange golden eyes, bandages wrapped around her hands.
The pilot of Starbound. Charles: dark auburn-brown hair falling into his blue eyes. The familiar cloud of green light, and now Erik could see the tell-tale wires and electrodes attached to pale skin.
“You remember us, then,” Charles said, a little smile fixed on his mouth.
“Thank you,” the girl said. “I'm Raven, Charles's sister. And by the way, whoever was piloting that other MS is very good.”
“Not as good as you, though,” Charles said.
They were alive. The two he'd saved.
They were in the war.
“Reunion later,” Raven was saying. “If you're going our way, Ironclad....”
“Call me Erik. And - I am,” Erik heard himself say. “As for these, they're called Puppets. Mobile Doll AI grafted onto a new generation of prototype deep-space suits.”
“They used you as one of the AI templates,” Charles said, nodding knowingly. “They'd have been stupid to do otherwise.”
“Does that mean you can fight me?” Erik asked.
“Yes,” the other two said, together.
That should have made him angry; that should have made him turn away.
Instead it made him smile, and he threw the challenge to the other two pilots: “Are you ready for this, then?”
“Let's find out,” Raven said.
Starbound's pilot merely flipped down his visor, and gave them both a thumbs-up.
Erik smiled. The engines roared a sound like laughter and hope in his ears.
author: ilovetakahana
word count: approx. 1410
fandoms: X-Men: First Class [movieverse], Shin Kidou Senki Gundam Wing
characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier, Raven Darkholme, Emma Frost, X-Men First Class ensemble. Mention of characters from Gundam Wing.
rating: PG-13
notes: Direct sequel to Starbound, Ironclad, so please read that one first. X-Men First Class as a Gundam Wing AU. And once again, the "Five" refers to Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei; and to be very specific about it, there is a comparison between Charles and Quatre.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org.
A few moments of quiet.
A heartbeat's worth of peace.
Peace was something he only knew as a word, now, and as the stillness he craved and feared. A sort of sickly-needed sensation, familiar and alien as the swoop in his stomach when he entered the cockpit and buckled himself into the seat, and when he grasped the control levers for his mobile suit.
There was an itch at his collar. His jacket. A meaningless uniform, a useless rank.
He could be demoted all the way down to civilian status if he came out of this alive. Unable to fly.
Erik shook his head. Foolish, to think of hope. Not here. Not when he didn't even stand a chance of making it away from Caspartina.
A twitch of his fingers: the engines roared to life. He reached up to his helmet and turned all his comms off. No point in listening to the others now.
Warning klaxon.
Space and stars ahead, deceptively beautiful.
Erik smiled, a smile with no emotion or warmth in it, just the smile of one who was seeking death, and raised his beam rifle into ready position, and: takeoff. Gundam Ironclad. He and the suit were one. He was its heart of steel and its iron-human mind.
Mobile Dolls and the Super Leos in ranks ahead. He knew their formations almost as well as he knew the backs of his own hands and he cut swathes of destruction through them, as easily as breathing. The shield was a weapon, too. He imagined the shriek and stress of metal as he slashed through another wave of opponents. Sparkling metal in shreds, weapons unto themselves, and each fallen MS took out the one next to it. Chain reaction.
The shot just off his left side was expected, too. The enemy mobile suit lining up for another shot. Dark red and black, such a stark contrast to its pilot, a woman pale and icy as the colony she'd come from, equidistant from the Earth and from the Moon.
Shield and beam pistol, switching from long-range firepower to short-range, and he charged the other MS, charged at Emma. Twisting and turning as she fired salvo after salvo at him, her preternatural aim, the fierce hatred that made her such a force to reckon with on the battlefield. Closer. Closer. Shield up, protecting Ironclad's sensors. Erik raised the pistol, got ready to fire....
A scream.
Emma and her MS blurring out of the way, burning into evasive. Something that looked like a jet and like a bird of prey hurtling after her, lancing fire after her. Silver and grey and blue, darting around the bulk of the larger suit, striking and swooping like a song of attack, through the cold dark of space.
The itch at the back of his neck was the warning and he, too, threw himself off course, switching weapons in an instant, pistol to rifle and his hands tightening on the control sticks, Ironclad's fingers tightening on the trigger, and a flash of silver and red and blue.
It was the shout in his mind that stopped him dead in his tracks.
-ndam Ironclad! Hold your fire! We know what you're doing!
He replied, loud in the silence of the cockpit though there was no one to hear. “Gundam Starbound.”
And the other suit seemed to live up to its moniker. Two beam swords; one in an easy front guard position and the other held ready, pointing down. Its hands seemed to absorb the faint light of the stars all around them.
He'd heard the tales of the pilot of the other suit, and how he was fast enough to deflect even bolts of laser rifle fire with his two blades. The whispers of green-eyed madness - the pilot who'd bent the infamous Zero System to his will.
Erik shuddered, remembering his own experience of Zero. Just a handful of times, and each one had generated enough nightmares to last him a lifetime. The shadowy faces of the men and women he'd shot out of the sky, and the two young ones, a boy and a girl and both of them little more than children - their faces burned and shattered and frightened of him.
He knew those two had survived.
He'd seen to it, and lied through his teeth to name them both dead.
He didn't think. “Computer, comms.”
Burst of angry static from Caspartina.
“Mute transmissions. Tight beam, MS frequencies only.”
Erik closed his eyes. He didn't know what he was waiting for.
Green flare, a mind touching his, a soft voice speaking. Starbound speaking. Ironclad, respond.
Erik closed his eyes. Are you the one they call the Prince? The boy who carried the infinity of space in his human heart?
An impression of a laugh. No. The one you are talking about is one of the Five. I am...I follow in his steps, in theirs, though I cannot hope to match them in skill.
Then if you are not the Prince, you must be the pilot who conquered Zero.
We have reached an...understanding. More laughter.
This time, the impression was of blue eyes, ringed with green light. My name is Charles. I know what you're doing.
Erik laughed, bitter and echoing in the cockpit. Then tell me, because I have no idea. Nothing left but ashes and defeat. Afterthought: I am Erik.
Through his eyes, through Ironclad's sensors. Starbound was moving towards him - and it seemed about to drop its weapons when a shadow seemed to open up in the stars behind the suit and before Erik could shout, before he could think, he was already flowing forward and both rifle and pistol were firing, and not just at the threat to the other Gundam but at all the others.
Starbound falling away, twisting into evasive manuevers. Swords out and flashing, and Erik was on tenterhooks, waiting for him to finish it off, finish it all off, Ironclad included.
But instead Starbound was behind him, was fighting to protect him. Even as Erik watched the suit was leaping into the fray, striking and killing even as its victims were taking their time falling apart around its weapons.
Erik's smile had returned. There was a strange lightness in his heart.
I hope you know what we are fighting, Charles said.
“Not helping you unless you get out of my head and talk to me. I have too many nightmares of Zero as it is.”
“You're not alone in that,” was the sudden reply. Tinny and distant and echoing strangely in the confines of Ironclad's cockpit. And: “Computer, transmit Starbound and Shifter please.”
Heart hammering in his ears, Erik returned the command. “All comms. Transmit Ironclad.”
The images flickered into life on his viewscreens.
“You!” Erik cried out.
Identical heavy helmets, two raised visors. The image labeled Shifter showed a girl with red hair and strange golden eyes, bandages wrapped around her hands.
The pilot of Starbound. Charles: dark auburn-brown hair falling into his blue eyes. The familiar cloud of green light, and now Erik could see the tell-tale wires and electrodes attached to pale skin.
“You remember us, then,” Charles said, a little smile fixed on his mouth.
“Thank you,” the girl said. “I'm Raven, Charles's sister. And by the way, whoever was piloting that other MS is very good.”
“Not as good as you, though,” Charles said.
They were alive. The two he'd saved.
They were in the war.
“Reunion later,” Raven was saying. “If you're going our way, Ironclad....”
“Call me Erik. And - I am,” Erik heard himself say. “As for these, they're called Puppets. Mobile Doll AI grafted onto a new generation of prototype deep-space suits.”
“They used you as one of the AI templates,” Charles said, nodding knowingly. “They'd have been stupid to do otherwise.”
“Does that mean you can fight me?” Erik asked.
“Yes,” the other two said, together.
That should have made him angry; that should have made him turn away.
Instead it made him smile, and he threw the challenge to the other two pilots: “Are you ready for this, then?”
“Let's find out,” Raven said.
Starbound's pilot merely flipped down his visor, and gave them both a thumbs-up.
Erik smiled. The engines roared a sound like laughter and hope in his ears.