Fractured Universe - Chapter 38
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.
Screams echoed through the private quarters of Rainbow Dash, the former pegasus startled wide awake in a cold sweat, terror surging through her veins.
Those nightmares again. That was the seventh time this month, and it was always the same one. The one with the cupcakes.
Flashes of memory lanced through her mind. Memories of her wings being hacked off, then ripped from their sockets, before multiple needles were plunged into her beating heart, as adrenaline was injected into her body to keep her awake and alert at the torture continued on. The smell of her own flesh cooking, the sight of her own blood and gore spilling from her surgically incised belly, the mastermind behind her terror, toying with those glistening organs like they were party favors. She knew in her heart that her fromer friend, Pinkie Pie would never be capable of doing such a gruesome act, but that thought didn't help to make the dreams any less vivid.
The former pegasus sobbed openly, curling up in her blanket and rocking back and forth as her body trembled with fear. She hadn't told anyone about those horrid dreams, or about the lingering feeling of the steel piercing her flesh and blades cutting her bones. Her work had suffered because of the constant night terrors, the nightmares being so powerful that she was beginning to bercome afraid of even going to sleep, some nights staying up altogether in an attempt to stave off the horrors for just one more night.
Everyone wondered why she had recently begun spending most of her day napping, in the open, in the daylight. It was because being in the shining brilliance of the sun was the only way that she could actually rest. Even then, however, the black clutches of her fear-addled subconscious had begun to creep into that relative safety, following her into the dreaming world.
Rainbow Dash whimpered as tears streaked down her face, her wide rose-colored eyes rapidly darting around the darkened scenery of her room, her heart pounding in her chest as her breath began to come in hiccupping sobs, her angelic wings involuntary extending from her back and clinging tightly against her form as paranoia began to clutch at the edges of her mind. Shadows lurched and moved in her peripheral vision, routine natural noises becoming distorted and echoing within her mind, as adrenaline surged through her shivering form.
A balmy summer night had settled around the massive form of the warship Excalibur as it silently floated on the surface of the Pacific Ocean. After nearly ten minutes, Rainbow Dash had finally calmed herself enough to move over to the window, which was not only made of bomb-proof glass, but was also protected by a forcefield, one that could contain the atmosphere within the ship incase the glass itself should somehow be shattered while the ship was in the airless void of space. A gentle breeze blew over the calm seas and into the open window, gently playing with her rainbow-colored waist-length hair. She stared out at the quiet surroundings of the huge ship for a long moment before then turning her gaze up to the clear star-filled sky. The moon was out in its full glory once more, washing over everything with its soft light.
The peaceful night was suddenly shattered, however, when Lexi Yamato's voice boomed from the ship-wide PA system. "All hands to battlestations! We are about to commence another armed intervention!"
Maya Ibuki huddled underneath her computer console in the Nerv Command Center as bullets of various caibers whizzed back and forth through the air. The command center was currently under attack by the JSSDF.
"Attention all JSSDF Forces, stand down immediately or you will be eliminated with extreme prejudice!" A new voice boomed throughout the entire base, even as a blindingly bright light suddenly filled the command center, and when the light faded, it revealed a young man with short brown hair and glowing amethyst eyes.
"Kill him!" The JSSDF commander ordered, even as he and his subordinates opened fire on the newcomer. To the horror of the JSSDF forces, however, their rounds harmelessly pinged off the newcomer's body, almost as if his body was made of solid steel.
"Give up now, and I may spare your pathetic lives." Kira smirked, his angelic wings slowly spreading out to their full span, while his plasma cannons and rail guns slowly moved to their firing positions.
"Cease fire!" The commander ordered, even as he stopped firing and slowly lowered his weapon, with all of his subordinates quickly following their instructions.
"Too late." Kira grinned, unleashing a pair of blindingly bright, blue-red plasma blasts, along with two hypersonic rail gun shells, the weapons effortlessly searing and slicing their way through the group of JSSDF soldiers which were currently in the command center.
At the same time, half a world away, a single royal guard stood in the street, just outside of the gate leading to Canterlot Castle. The plumage in his helmet indicated his rank as that of a captain, Twilight Sparkle reckoned. A number of Celestial Being soldiers, including Twilight, had their sights lined up on his chest, but they all held their fire, whether it be out of their reluctance to kill, or an attempt to hide their positions as long as they could.
Finally, the guard spoke up, his voice echoing between the houses. "You at the barricade, listen to this! Nopony is coming to help you to fight. You're on your own, you have no friends or allies. Give up your guns or die!"
Twilight turned to the various soldiers, both pony and human, arrayed behind the barricades. "Curse their warnings, curse their lies! They will see Equestria rise again to its former glory!"
Twilight answered the guard with a single shot from her Desert Eagle, spraying rocks up around his hooves. The guard turned his snout up, and smirked. As he turned, a drum began to beat a careful marching cadence on the other side of the gate. He trotted through the gate, then, from behind him came a column of armed guards. The officer in charge shouted back to his men. "Clear the streets! Leave no creature-"
He was cut off as a 50 caliber bullet suddenly tore through his armor. His eyes widened, and the tattered remains of his body, which now lacked its front right leg, the bottom right side of its neck and half of its flank, flopped lifelessly to the ground. The troops behind him faltered in their march, however, they gathered their wits at the prompting of several lower-ranked Pegasi overhead.
"Form a line, return fire!" One of the commanders ordered.
Suddenly, the district erupted into a sound resembling that of a thunderstorm, as hundreds of handguns, rifles and even a few sub-machine guns began firing into the tightly packed guards. Within moments, as some of the smaller caliber bullets bounced at angles from armor, while the heavier bullets blew smoking holes in guards, or in more extreme cases, left nothing more than lifeless corpses lacking limbs or heads, the column had retreated behind the gate, leaving behind two dozen or so bodies, some which were clearly dead, while others continued to writhe in agony.
The various rebel forces raised a great cheer, and white flags bearing the Celestial Being emblem unfurled from balconies, but Twilight shouted at them to be still. This was only the start, they had surprised the guards, but the initiative now belonged to the enemy.
A crack opened in the clouds, one hundred and fifty meters ahead of the Ponyville defensive line. Light streamed through, and rain began to fall from the cloud cover. The line of light would make it hard for the advancing guards to see the defenses in the darkness beyond. On the other hand, those sitting in the trenches would see the guards silhouetted in the light very early on.
Looking over her shoulder, Applejack could just see Ponyville in the distance. The nearest house was two hundred meters behind their segment of line, where Fluttershy had set down with her self-named Shy Gundam and its huge anti-matter cannon. The massive gun, as long as the Shy Gundam was tall, would overlook the center of the defensive line, and the weapon had a very good arc of fire.
To her right was her brother, Big Macintosh, chewing nervously on the strand of hay in his mouth, and to Applejack's left was Derpy Hooves, the delivery girl. A strange one, but she had seemed fairly enthused about the fight. If she could line her eyes up long enough to draw a bead, she would certainly give it her all, they just didn't trust her flying enough to send her up with Rainbow Dash and her squadron.
Unfortunately, the rain was starting to make the fortifications muddy and uncomfortable to be in, but Applejack was sure the fight wouldn't last that long. They'd push the royal guards back, show them the power of Ponyville's friendship and camaraderie, and all would end early enough for her to wash up and get back to life.
Cheerilee's line would be the ones, if any, who would continue the fight, chasing the royal guards into the sunset. Big Macintosh was just not concerned enough to do more work than he needed. Cheerilee, though...Applejack shuddered, not from the cold rain this time, at the thought of the near-execution of the mild-mannered schoolteacher, which had occurred only one week prior. No wonder the mare was so determined to take as many of the enemy with her as possible if she were to die fighting.
The sunlight running in between the clouds had an eerie red tint, and the sight of lightning in distant clouds was strangely distorted through the curtain of orange glow. The whole thing seemed ethereal, unreal. The weather, the war, all so unusual. Unheard of except by scholars.
'Oh well, maybe I'll get to be in a history book, maybe Cheerilee would teach fillies about me.' Applejack thought. 'Although, the history books normally only mention the dead.'
Suddenly, Derpy gasped. "Look! In the light!"
All down the line, ponies and humans alike raised their rifles, squinting to see, but then, they gasped in unison. A large chariot was approaching at high speed, quickly followed by second, and then a third. The mud was sticking to their wheels, making it harder for them to ride, but easier for their unicorn support to keep up.
No one moved along the line. Everyone waited, expectantly, but they couldn't bring themselves to fire the first shot. Finally, though, the lead chariot burst into smoke and flame as a burst of heavy machine gun fire hit it right at the joint between harness and reinforced body. As the numerous pieces fell to the mud, the guards began to open fire erratically at the low-flying P-47D Thunderbolt, one whose propeller engine had been replaced with a reletively silent GN Drive.
In response, the defenses fired, most without aiming, but the sound alone was enough to make the advance hesitate, however, a voice behind them shouted, and the advance quickly resumed. Applejack frantically worked the bolt on her harness in order to chamber another round, then chomped down on the bit hard again, this time trying to line up the sights on the guard nearest her. The harness heaved hard, and the shot went wide for the second time in a row. In response, a cloud of smoke blew out of the guard's own rifle, and warm dirt and mud splashed Applejack's face.
"Excalibur to Ponyville Defensive Forces!" The voice of Lexi Yamato suddenly spoke through the headset which Rainbow Dash wore over her right ear. "Someone, please respond!"
"What is it, Lexi?" Rainbow Dash answered, even as she pulled her F-22A Raptor, which bore a completely customized paint scheme, into a tight turn and opened fire with her plane's twin vulcan cannons, forcing the approaching pegasi to scatter. The paint scheme of Rainbow Dash's fighter was based on the standard forest camouflage scheme used by all of Celestial Being's combat aircraft, but in place of the standard colors of tan and dark green with grey trim, her F-22A Raptor was colored in azure, indigo and tangerine with crimson trim.
"Our radar has detected nearly 100 ADA-01 Adlers approaching the ground forces protecting Ponyville." Lexi responded.
"What the hell are ADA-01 Adlers?" Rainbow Dash asked, even as her Raptor screamed through the space where a large number of the royal guard pegasi had been only seconds earlier.
"The ADA-01 Adler is a ground-attack variant of our own ADF-01 Falken." Lexi answered. "Instead of a tactical laser system, the Adler has a pair of shock cannons, with one cannon on the underside of each wing."
"Shock cannons?" Rainbow Dash responded, barely noticing as one of the slower royal guards was sucked into the Raptor's left intake, the turbine blades effortlessly cleaving through bone and flesh before the brutally mangled and incinerated carcass was then coughed out of the aircraft's left exhaust pipe.
"The shock cannon spreads a cloud of highly flammable, fuel-like substance over the target area, while a small particle accelerator within the Alder itself channels the power required to fire the weapon, using extensive amounts of electricity in order to ignite an energy beam." Lexi explained. "The beam causes an explosive reaction within the cloud, thus igniting it."
Two guards who had been circling overhead waiting for targets saw the azure fighter jet as it sped by below them, and they both began a steep dive, coming out of the sun to catch her. A stream of bullets cracked past her Raptor's right vertical stabilizer, and she quickly dove into the cloud cover.
She jinked and juked, but the guards were hot on her tail, so she decided to take them for a little ride. She rolled onto her back, and then dove straight down, out of the cloud bank and into the chaotic maelstrom beneath.
The wind was whistling, and bullets and shells were flying everywhere. As it happened, Pinkie Pie's latest project was a catapult, prepared to launch explosives, tastefully packed with confetti by Ponyville's resident party master, anywhere in the town. Pinkie's time had been occupied by mapping out the town in detail, so that she could accurately target any point within it with rapid precision.
The balls of powder and ribbon were flying by in blurs, tearing through the rain and shrugging off the wind, and one of the guards following Dash was swept aside by one almost immediately upon exiting the cloud cover.
Rainbow Dash just laughed and started a barrel roll towards City Hall. Beneath her, the line of fillies, colts, and the elderly was streaming westward out of the city, and just ahead were the flashes of gunshots and explosions.
The remaining guard deftly followed her through the small gaps between the tightly packed buildings, and she smiled. This one would be fun. Another stream of bullets cracking by her canopy reminded her of the odds.
Dash threw herself into a tight left turn, narrowly avoiding a house which reminded her of just how low they'd gotten. The troops on the ground began firing upwards, but the two pegasi were traveling far too fast for anything but a lucky shot to be a threat. A glance upwards showed a v-shaped formation of royal guards on a bombing run, bags of explosive falling from their harnesses.
Dash pulled up hard, and started firing at the approaching formation. Two of the guards in the bombing run began unrecoverable dives before the others climbed into the clouds, and Dash immediately started back downwards again. Had she continued climbing any longer than she absolutely needed to, she would've slowed just enough to give the guard behind her the upper hand. No one ever got the upper hand on Rainbow Dash.
The guards she'd just shot down splashed into the mud, landing hard among their own troops, splashing the guards who were already struggling through the thick mud which had been churned up by bombs when the Ponyville inhabitants had held the ground.
A burst of blood suddenly misted the air as Rarity gasped and fell down to curl up around her shattered left hip.
Without warning, Fluttershy suddenly went very stiff within the cockpit of her Gundam, and what happened afterwards would always confuse everyone who was present and had been lucky enough to survive.
"You...do...not...hurt...my...FRIENDS!" Fluttershy's voice snarled from her mobile suit's external loudspeakers, the machine's wings exploding out to their full span as an ominous hum began to emanate from the huge anti-matter cannon that had been setup in front of her Gundam, and a few seconds later, the cannon fired and the world went white.
"Princess." A rumbling voice suddenly snapped Celestia back to the present, to where she currently stood in front of the towering form of the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, along with the machine's permanent and immortal pilot, Kira Yamato. This instance of the Ultimate Coordinator had been permanently merged with his mobile suit during what had been a simple recon mission gone horribly awry, one which left the human stranded in Equestria, only to eventually be captured and subdued by Celestia's magic. He sounded different now, almost sad. "It is over. Princess Luna has returned. The cycle of day and night can be performed by her. We are not needed here any longer. It is time for us to rest, Princess. Allow me slay you in honorable battle. With you dead, the curse will be lifted and no more innocent creatures have to die. It can be over."
For a moment, Celestia considered that option as she returned her gaze to the portal in front of which she stood. The man within the Freedom Gundam had never lied to her, had fought bravely and surrendered honorably when his one-man war had finally failed against the bloodcursed ponies of Canterlot after nearly a decade of fighting.
Through the portal, Celestia could see the ponies adoring her sister. A pageant had been created to make her feel welcomed and loved, as loved as her elder sister. And for a moment, Celestia saw her as she was over a thousand years ago. A kind-hearted and delicate filly who wanted to share her sky with the world. Who looked up to her big sister with such adoration and who only wanted to be loved back as much as she loved. But the moment did not last.
"No. Luna, you cannot hear me and never will. I cannot, I will not." Celestia paused as she tried to gather in her growing anger. "I will never forgive you, little sister. Your curse sent pony kind into two hundred years of war and barbarism. Two hundred years of bloodlust that is not satiated, even to this day. The deaths of these tens of thousands of ponys." She wildly gestured to the walls, her mouth frothing slightly as she released eight hundred years of anger and pent-up rage. "Are on your head! You hear me sister! Your head, not mine! You wanted your moon to rule over all and with my death, you would have it. Never! I said it before and I'll say it until the skies ring with it. Never!" She nearly leapt at the portal in her rage, checked only by the fact that it was only a sight portal.
"Even as I sealed you away, in our battle over this world, you thought you could have your way. You infected me and through me, all of ponykind! With my death, they are free, you mocked. I will see that you pay, sister. Somehow. Your prison may be broken and your mind cleared of your sins but I remember." A sadness crept into her voice, a sadness of shouldering a burden made by someone else for far too long.
"I remember, little sister." Celestia wiped her mouth of the froth that bloodlust made. The fact that it held blood from her gnashing teeth and tongue did not surprise her.
"Princess." The Freedom Gundam, the pilot's name long forgotten to all but himself and his jailor, had returned to his cold demeanor. "You suffer from more than her curse."
"No, it is only her curse. Has always been." Celestia replied.
"Then why?" The machine's question rang with honest wonderment. "Why set things to free her and wipe her memory of those last horrible years of bloodshed? Why?"
Celestia looked at her sister through the portal, the dimming light of her magic leaving an afterglow in her vision. She considered the question carefully and, for a moment, the human wondered if she even had one to give. Finally, after the cheering of the stands had died and the procession to the banquet hall had begun, she looked coldly at her fallen foe.
"Study. If I can study her and find out why she is missing this curse, why she is free while all other ponies have it, perhaps I can break this foul curse without my own death." Her gaze lowered to the portal again, which now showed her sister talking with one of her monetary ministers. Luna was at ease, she was happy. Those facts turned Celestia's stomach. "I will not let her win, human. No matter the cost."
Hurriedly, she turned and slammed open the door, illuminating the interior with more than the dim yellow eyes of the towering Freedom Gundam. As she rushed out, the light poured into the chamber more freely than it had since he had been sealed away and, for a moment, the Freedom's black and red chest, along with its white limbs, stood in sharp contrast to its regal head, crowned with a distinctive, gold v-fin. After a long moment of silence, the doors shut again, locking the pilot in darkness and loneliness. Save for the portal, still left open where Celestia had commanded.
The machine's pilot looked towards his portal, bathed as it was in Celestia's magical outburst. Luna was trotting through one of the many halls of the castle above, laughing with a few of the more relaxed nobility. Every so often, however, she would stop and look behind her, directly at the towering mobile suit, a puzzled look on her face. As if she could feel someone watching her. The Freedom Gundam hissed loudly as its chest vents opened, expelling twin clouds of steam away from its nuclear reactor, then the machine hung its head in exhaustion, its yellow eyes dimming slightly.
"Princess Luna, you cannot hear me, but you must be on your guard. The war you started but cannot remember lurks still in the hearts of your sister and your kin. There is a reason those cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner taste of blood and sit ill in your stomach. You must find a way to undo what you wrought, and soon. The ages weigh heavily on your sister. I fear that if she succumbs, the world will again be bathed in blood."