Prologue:

The year was Cosmic Era 71.   Shin didn’t have time to think, all he could do was run. The sky above him was blue and the weather was calm but the sounds of war were all too clear above him. The sound of far off beam cannons and the stomping of mobile suits mixed with the never ending buzz of the air- raid sirens. He just wanted to run, and run and run.
“Only a little further, kids ” reassured his father from behind as he kept the family together. At this, Shin felt a tug at his hand. He looked back for a second to see his sister, Mayu, reaching for him. Shin grasped her hand with all of his might and tried desperately to smile for her. He’d never seen his younger sister so scared. Normally she was faster than him, but now she was crying, and just trying to keep her feet.
“I won’t cry, for Mayu, I won’t cry ” Shin reassured himself as the roaring gunfire drew near.
But nothing made any sense. This country, Orb, was supposed to be neutral, these  things weren’t supposed to happen. But they were, right before his own eyes they were. The Alliance had invaded, everyone was in real danger. The country was doomed. King Atha had lied, Orb wasn’t safe, nowhere was. The war between the coordinators, those who were genetically enhanced, of ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, those who were not, had reached them. But Orb was supposed to be safe, coordinators were supposed to be able to live in peace, but the mobile suits were right there, it wasn’t, it never really was.
The family braced themselves suddenly as a white mobile suit with blue wings flew above them, knocking them to the ground. Shin looked up to see the suit fighting off three other suits, fighting effortlessly.
“Oh no ” Cried Mayu, “I dropped my cell phone ”
Shin looked around, their flight had lead them to a forested ridge. He could see the pink cellular phone, about seven meters down the same ridge.
“Mayu, there’s no time ”
“I’ll get it mom, just keep going, I can catch up ” Remarked the boy as he immitated bravery sliding down the ridge for the plastic treasure.
“Shin stop ”
The boy wrapped his fingers around the pink piece of plastic and looked up. Four cannons had unfolded from the winged mobile suit and it appeared to have locked onto one of its three adversaries. As the bursts of light came forth, the other great machine dodged but the beams continued toward their former target, in a direction Shin recognized. Before he could look up the ridge was already flaming and the shock wave quickly weakened the hold Shin’s feet sending him face down into the dirt.
He couldn’t tell how long he had been out when he woke up, but around him were men in the familiar purple uniforms of the Orb Self Defense Force. The sound of cannon fire now far off.
“Hey this one’s alive ”
“What?”
“Hold on kid, it’s okay. Are you hurt?”
“Where are they?’
“Who?”
“My family dammit ” Shin pulled himself away from the medics, he had to see the where the ridge once stood, to see through the walls of smoke. Shin ran closer, he had to know for sure Then he stopped. Before him were two charred adult skeletons, but closer was an all too familiar sight; the sleeve of a favorite yellow sweater, now stained in blood and wraped around the severed arm of Mayu..
“No, not... It’s not... Ah ”
The medics struggled to console the boy as his red eyes filled with tears which mixed in the sweat of his  untidy black bangs. The boy had entered an anguished rage which created a scream with the power to silenced even the air raid sirens. It would not be until he finally passed out, that any man dared to move him.
The weeks passed, the war ended. Neither side came out the victor. After the king died, his daughter, the Princess Cagalli Yula Atha, and a group of ex-ZAFT and ex-Alliance soldiers, came out on top of both sides in the end. The victors were titled “Heros of Orb”, and the country began to rebuild. It was then that Shin would see the winged mobile suit again. Its name was Freedom and its pilot was Kira Yamato, the long lost brother of the princess. It was all too much to stomach. Life had become a sick dream of a country he no longer believed in. He couldn’t live there anymore, not were his family’s murderers would be called heros. Taking what money he could gather, the boy turned the gaze of his Red eyes to space and the PLANTs, home colonies of ZAFT. After all, he was a coordinator;” They were his people.” The year was Cosmic Era 71, that December Shin Asuka joined ZAFT.