Chapter 9
CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD
It was high noon, but the shadows were cast far from the Ireland estate. The manor itself was simple; a fine wooden architecture built atop a rock face overlooking the Atlantic. It was chilly, but rather warm for this location and this time of the year.
Roihclem had his back turned on the fresh landscape, the scars of war across the area already healed. The cold breeze gently swept in from the sea. He was wearing his piloting uniform; a green sergeant's tunic with black pants cut with red bloodstripes.
It hadn't been long now, only a few years... since he had liberated LC 386 from the iron grip of the Controller, as well as defeated the only barrier keeping Mirage from expanding. The AI name Sera Cross, the AC IBIS... their words haunted him to this day; "XA-26483, my function is complete... Raven..... The rest is up to you."
Those mechanical yet human words, as simple as they were, wouldn't let him be. Did he make the right decision to destroy the Controller as well as the barrier between Layered cities? Had he been right to kill Sera and destroy the AI override signal?
She was only a machine... but perhaps she was once human. He would never know. He kept the facts secret ever since so many other ravens tried to assassinate the so-called hero of Layered for the past forty years. At the age of sixty, certain bio-weapon side effects had kept his youth and health in pristine order, for some reason, keeping him at a charismatic age of twenty.
His thoughts were broken, however, by feeling a familiar presence. He didn't turn around, the wind wasn't strong enough to mute out his voice. "Miss Tierney, good to see you again!"
Fiona Tierney, Alicia Reinhart... whichever name she was referred to now didn't matter to her. "Roihclem... I..." she swallowed another urge to sob. The encounter with Gustave was still fresh on her mind, "I have an urgent mission for you. It will provide you with your greatest challenge."
This interested Roihclem; he hadn't had a challenge in a good while. Ace, Kaiser, Mobius, and Exile refused to fight him anymore since he kept winning, although he hadn't heard from Exile in some time. Other LCs had little to no arena challenges. He was about to retire until a war started between Crest and Mirage. He was Crest's personal raven, thus he handled most of the missions for cheap. All he wanted now is a challenge to get his mind off of the haunting images of the past. "...Continue."
"...Well," she started as she held her left arm, "It's the agitator known as Gustave Macross. He's been wreaking havoc across the continent to the east. All free corporations have made a bounty on him... but no raven survived any previous encounters. Mirage's army can't even get close."
"Sounds good enough for me," said Roihclem, with new enthusiasm. As cheerful as he sounded, he didn't even care if Alicia was close to tears. He could care less; she was rather useless to him during missions, always off at Kisaragi working on some bio-research specimen. "I'll ready the Gemfire, it's best to get a head start!"
***
Near the Moscow LC 186, Raven was signaled to land at an abandoned dropship construction yard while it was raining heavily. There was no crew to help Raven out of the Tallgeese, so he did his best not to drop the pale figure of Kylia as he latched a cable onto the main door, jumped, and tried to control his descent as best as possible. Raven unlatched the cable from his belt as he was greeted by a balding military officer. Familiar...
The officer approached Raven at a jog until he was face to face.
"Raven Cross?" Raven nodded, "Good, I was sent by Roger Smith to ascertain if Kylia Cross is alive. Her MT didn't show up on radar..."
Dan Dastun's eyes glanced over to whatever Raven was carrying on his shoulder. "Oh... Is she injured?"
"She is dead."
Dastun couldn't suppress a surprised look, "What, dead?!"
"I don't intend to let this interfere with our mission."
Raven walked past Dastun over to the bunker entrance. Roger was blocking the doorway. "Isn't it a little too cold to be standing in the rain?" inquired Raven.
"I could be saying the same thing to you," a smile appeared on his face, "However... some people prefer to stand in the rain without an umbrella." His eyes glances at Kylia, his smile fading, "And what's her problem?"
Dastun ran up, "This man claims she's dead."
"Dead? Heh, I see... and you expect a foreigner like me to know something to do with her."
"Precisely," said Raven. "Here, take care of her," he asked as he placed Kylia in Dastun's arms.
"Eh, sure..." he said as he jogged back into the bunker.
Roger turned to follow, "We'll put her in cryo-stasis for now. I know what you're thinking; that's she's not really dead."
"I survived for a few days with a chest wound digging into my heart. I doubt Kylia would succumb to a few internal injuries. She is a Cross, after all."
"Yeah, about that... Is your family special or something?"
"...You could say that."
"Well, I know of a foreign ex-espionage agent named Angel. She's familiar with technology such as... bringing someone who's meant to be dead back to life, and whatnot. I'll call for her as soon as I can. By the way," he continued, "It seems Kisaragi has moved on the western European front already. That LC you passed by was the most recent slaughter."
"I see... thank you."
Roger was surprised at Raven's ability to keep his cool in this kind of situation. Even more so was the fact that his sister was the good Samaritan he encountered not so long ago. Then his watch beeped.
He pulled back his left sleeve to switch on the comm.
It was Norman, "Master Roger, may I suggest that you turn your television on?"
"Why? What channel?"
"It doesn't matter; it's on every station. It appears that Mr. Macross is making his 'last declaration to Humankind.'"
***
In the bunker, Raven was startled to see some large construct; it was unlike any tank, if it could be called such. It appeared to have two train-like transports at the front, two in reverse at the rear. In the center was held some kind of shallow, winding cone structure. All together it was as large, if not larger, than an AC dropship. "And what, pray tell, is this?" asked Raven.
"This? Ah, it's nothing. Just my transport for my 'Armored Core' called Big-O. It uses a system of subways long abandoned after the Great Destruction. It wasn't too long ago that I came to the discovery that the system connects to every Layered around the world. A great mode of transportation, if I do say so myself."
"And so you're a raven?"
"...I'd like to think of myself as a Negotiator."
Soon the two came into a small office overlooking the loading bay where Dastun was already waiting. Raven stood next to Roger as Dastun rerouted the main security monitor to pick up satellite transmissions.
"Now," Roger began, "Let's see who we're up against."
It came in fuzzy, but they were all sure it was Gustave. "...This war, by nature, must involve a great deal of lives. War in general, my fellow citizens of Earth, must cease to exist within this universe. What a warrior must receive from battle is not absolute victory, but a demeanor. An attitude towards fighting. Honored tradition appears blurred in the cry of the weak.
"The World Government is claiming that unity will achieve peace. I never dreamed I'd hear such rubbish from those old fools. I'm sure none of you have forgotten about an organization that existed before the Great Destruction called the League of Unified Nations. Now did that ridiculous organization eliminate wars and make world peace a reality? Of course it didn't. Under the guise of peace & justice the LUN came to other countries with it's overwhelming military force. If we truly want to eradicate wars it simply cannot be done by unifying countries or Layered Cities.
"It is a problem that requires an end to earthlings, because we all know earthlings have fought since ancient times; when our ancestors first stood upright. Battles between human races eventually became battles between countries and over thousands of years since the dawn of time, we have continued to write our blood stained history. There's no reason for this other than the simple fact fighting is part of human nature.
"I'm sure you noticed by now the citizens of Layered are a new breed of humans with the ability to gain true peace by controlling their instincts to battle. The Layered citizens have lived their lives underground, where earthlings are not welcome and the people of the Controller knew through experience just how meaningless these tragic battles are.
"Understand that the Layered citizens in the beginning used to be preoccupied with just living underground and they didn't have the ability to fight. Then why does Kisaragi stand up on their behalf? Because the old breed of mankind who loves to battle remains on their comfortable earth and tries to conquer the defenseless new land. It has been forty years now since our people started living on the surface, is it not about time we put an end to this history filled with disputes? To accomplish this we shall need to eliminate the hotbed of all these battles... the place we call the Human heart.
"Of course we don't intend to hurt people needlessly... this in mind I once again announce to Serge Ramirez, Sovereign of the Earth Government and leader of the resistance that we demand the Earth and Humankind be eliminated from the planet. Send them to space or back into the Layered Cities. If you cannot abide by this demand we'll have no choice but to start a war to end all wars.
"To put it in more simple terms you're bound to understand, it is my mission, ordained by the Maker, to finish the Great Destruction."
The new emotions of hatred swelled in Raven. This was it... this is what his mother warned him about, he knew it. But a thought occurred to him, "Why does Kisaragi follow him if he wants to annihilate the planet? Why don't they stop him?!" he inquired to Roger.
"You don't get it yet?" asked Roger with a confused look on his face, "Gustave dissolved the board of directors. Kisaragi never really had an army to begin with besides AI units. You see now, Gustave Macross is Kisaragi."
Raven turned towards the main gate, "Well, now... It appears the path before us has already been chosen."
"Then tell me, Raven, who is your enemy?" asked Roger. He quietly slipped on his sunglasses as he spoke. "Is it Kisaragi? Is it Gustave? Or is it the people who held you in high regard, but now have branded you a traitor? Surely, if you remember your enemy, then you can find your path, your 'truth.'"
"The one's who have hurt my family. The people who stand before me and wish to kill me," Raven turned to meet Roger's gaze. "That's obvious."
"Then your fight will never end, for your enemy is destiny itself," he said, leaving Raven with little comebacks.
"It doesn't matter what you learn or what you remember, nothing can change the fate of our time." commented Roger.
"Well, you did." I exclaimed.
"You're mistaken. I still don't remember anything about the past. I still don't know my true enemy. Rosewater, Gabriel, Schwartzvald... fear of memories... I still don't know my true enemy."
Raven stood confused as Roger walked past him.
"My greatest happiness and reassurance in life was talking to you and your sister, before all this happened."
"You do realize that she's dead, right?" asked Raven.
"You're the one who said she wasn't. I've talked to her before, but it's a shame nonetheless. Since your battle for what cannot be won is the same path I have taken, our time of death must coincide," Roger quoted as he turned towards me and flashed his watch at me. "Let's put ourselves in God's hands, and let us end our pointless retaliation."
"Not a very good negotiator, now are you... Were you hired as an assassin?" Roger only smiled, "In any case, it makes no difference to me."
"A soldier who's willing to die . . . In my opinion, that is the most correct attitude toward fighting. But you've lost sight of your path, much like myself. Gustave isn't the only obstacle you must move, you have more obstacles to climb to reach him. My battle for memory, unfortunately, has come to an end."
"Your battle isn't over. Even as we speak countless soldiers are fighting. I know for certain that your battle hasn't ended! If anything should end, it should be my useless and miserable retaliation against that so-called obstacle. No-one has beaten him thus far, I'm not sure I'm any match for him." said Raven as he lowered his head.
"Hmm . . . Raven Cross, please don't disappoint me any further," Roger said as he walked over to the nearest security panel, opening it, and taking from it a security keycard.
"I have a guide that will show you how to live from now on," he said as he slipped the keycard into a statue, a figure that looked like a demon.
The cone structure below shuddered a little before splitting apart, shedding the thin layer of dust, opening a doorway into a large crater. In the center of that crater stood an AC that looked larger than any Raven had seen.
Roger motioned me to look closely, "I've sanctioned it the Big-O."
The AC was painted black, it's ligaments black, and it resembled stunningly like a golem of ancient lore. It had huge arms, with some kind of gray cylinders at the elbows. The waistline was rigged with hidden harpoons. The neck contained the cockpit, and the head was the most humanistic of any other AC head part. It was large enough to hold a variety of weapons, but all seemed to be concealed.
"This can show the pilot a clear picture of his enemy, and his future. Regretfully, there was no future for me to choose from, just yet. After you use this Megadeus, and if you end up just like myself, let us both part ways. If you have no future, then that would be the most proper means to meet our destiny."
"Why did you make this thing?" I asked.
"I didn't make it. In a way, it made me... All my life I felt that Humans acknowledged their existence through a continuous conflict. However, I couldn't come to any conclusions. My battle may draw to an end soon and not now, like you say, but I have not yet determined the reason for battle. To find out, I figured something like the Big-O would be most appropriate. In addition, I would like to give my blessings to both the winner and loser. This Megadeus allows me to do so."
"You think you've found a god or something?"
"Maybe, as long as the pilot has the general will to fight. This AC will eliminate all barriers to lost memories, giving the user clarity of perception. There is nothing more noble or beautiful than a pilot without the hindrance of distractions. One could say that he's the closest thing to God."
"What do you want me to do with this?"
"Show me your ability to fight, your memories, and your future."
"I see. Well, let's get on with this!"
"I must warn you, you mustn't be a pilot 'controlling' a machine with Big-O. That AC is not a weapon. I hope you come back with a clear memory in mind."
As soon as I entered the suit via the 'neck,' the two red transparent side doors closed. The controls lowered from the ceiling. In front of me on the main control screen, the words flashed past me... "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD, YE..."