Disclaimer: Mobile Fighter G Gundam is owned by Bandai and Sunrise. I just write about it in my spare time.
Author's Note: Many thanks to ALittleSalty1 for some help with this chapter.
On the Dark Side
Chapter 3: Temptation! The Darkness Beckons!
After searching for nearly a day, the stranger finally managed to pinpoint which government facility was hiding the coveted Dark Gundam. He knew which radio frequencies the military tended to use, so he used his own internal radio to listen in. Naturally, everything was described in code, but he was also familiar with a lot of the code words and numbers. After listening in for several hours, someone uttered the English phrase, "Lassie with the Classy Chassis." That was the code word for the Dark Gundam - he was in business!
He tuned in to what they were saying about it. He found out that the base where it was currently being kept was actually pretty far from his current position - probably about a six hour drive from the shelter that Colony Dynamics Systems was located in. He also learned that they were about to ship the Dark Gundam back to Earth for some reason. He wasn't quite sure why, but if he had to guess, he'd say it had something to do with the fact that the colony had been completely trashed, and they had no other choice. The problem was, he'd never make it in time; the facility was six hours away, and they were getting ready to ship it in four.
Consulting the ZERO system told him that he could get there a lot faster by mobile suit, possibly within the four hours if there were no mishaps. He looked around from the rooftop he was currently on, and spied a nearby unused Nobusshi parked on a side street. There weren't a lot of people around, so it looked safe to take. Just to be sure, he asked the ZERO system again. It told him to wait about three minutes - it calculated that the few people hanging around down in the street would eventually leave, and no one would see him get in. He patiently waited the three minutes, and sure enough, the street was eventually deserted.
He leaped off the rooftop and landed on the sidewalk next to the Nobusshi, his feet leaving cracks in the pavement. He took another leap right into the opened cockpit of the mobile suit and strapped himself in. He then flew north as fast as the suit would take him to the destined base.
Unfortunately for him, he was still too late. Just as he arrived on the scene, he saw the cargo ship taking off in the base's spaceport with a large entourage of armed mobile weapons. He cursed to himself - perhaps his ZERO system wasn't as foolproof as he thought.
Perhaps he could fly after them, sneak into the entourage, and blend in? No, he was in an unarmed construction mobile suit - they'd notice him immediately. Besides, this thing was probably not built for atmosphere re-entry anyway. He then decided to see if the ZERO system could redeem itself, and asked it how to catch up to that cargo ship.
It told him that it could, but he would have to act fast. He didn't particularly like acting fast; he liked to take his time to weave his elaborate plans. Unfortunately, he didn't have a choice right now - if he wanted to get at the Dark Gundam, he would have to do things on the fly.
He abandoned his mobile suit a safe distance away, and made his way into a small grove of trees. The system told him that the first order of business was to get inside the base and then into a hangar full of military-grade mobile suits. The hangar was tucked away in a corner, not too far away from this grove. He knew of a way he might be able to get in over there without being seen.
The stranger reached the base's wall, which was about fifteen feet high and made of fortified concrete. Its top was lined with barbed wire, and there were revolving cameras every few feet. There was one placed right on corner, too. Staying in the cameras' blind spots, he climbed up the tree nearest to the corner. However, he couldn't go any further than this and not be spotted. Meanwhile, the camera was still about ten feet away; way too far to take out without some sort of projectile weapon such as a gun or laser.
Or perhaps an extendable arm. His right arm twitched and bulged as he commanded it to reach out and shove the camera away. His forearm burst forth on green cables and forcefully knocked the camera off its hinges, making it point straight up and stopping it from moving. His DG Cells began to give him error messages as he retracted the arm. He hoped he didn't have to do that a lot; that took a lot out of him, and he needed his strength.
With the camera out of his way, he leaped over the fence and quickly disappeared into the shadows. He carefully made his way over to the hangar, moving when the ZERO system told him it was safe.
The hangar was lightly guarded at the moment, due to most of the security forces on this base focusing on transporting the Dark Gundam. There were a few guards at the entrance in his way, but they were easily taken care of. He created a simple distraction by tossing a rock over their heads. When they got curious, he sneaked up on them from behind and smacked them both upside the head with a cybernetic fist. They were both out cold before they even knew what was going on. He dragged their unconscious bodies inside the hangar with him, so as not to immediately attract unwanted attention. He still had to move fast, however; pretty soon, someone would realize the guards were gone and get curious.
After tossing the guards aside, the stranger slipped his way through the shadows of the hangar, avoiding cameras or taking them out when there was no way around them. He made his way down to where the mobile suits were kept. He found a dozen or so Busshi down there, and a couple of Fantomas. Not a lot, but he would be needing all of them.
Now came the tough part: he was going to hijack each one of them by infecting them with his DG Cells. Then he was going to link them all to his CPU in a sort of neural network. Both of those things he had never done before; he really hoped his mind and body could handle it!
The stranger leaped from cockpit to cockpit, tearing off small pieces of himself and placing them inside the mobile suits' main computer system. It took longer than he liked. His self-replication ability had been damaged, so his DG Cells were a bit slow on the uptake. He was also only capable of infecting small areas and objects. Infecting these suits' motherboards was no big deal, but infecting the entire mobile suit was out of the question. He was just glad he could still infect anything at all - he wasn't sure what he would do if his DG Cell completely failed to take!
Once the task was finished, he strapped himself into the nearest mobile suit, which happened to be a Busshi. He then sent out a search signal from his CPU, trying to connect the other infected suits to himself. He felt a bit of a strain as his "consciousness" suddenly expanded. He felt a sort of phantom pain in his processor...his equivalent of a headache?
Now came another tricky part: he needed to march them all out of here and take off after that cargo ship. It was tricky because there was absolutely no way to do that without being spotted. He consulted his ZERO system just in case, but it just confirmed what he already knew. There was just no way to steal a small squadron of mobile suits from a military base and not have at least one person notice. But, he calculated that if he could do it fast enough, no one would have enough time to retaliate.
The stranger took a moment to focus on his new hive mind, then gave them all the command to activate, grab their beam rifles (if they had them), and leave the hangar. Their optics lit up as they obeyed. He felt his mind and body slow down a bit from strain as they all began to move in two neat lines. Once they were outside, he gave them the orders to fly after the cargo ship, supplying them with the general route and an image of what the ship and its entourage looked like. One by one, they took to the sky with him bringing up the rear.
Needless to say, the personnel at the base were not happy to suddenly see a small handful of mobile suits just randomly take off like that. He was hardly a few thousand feet in the air before he received angry transmission asking who he was and what did he think he was doing. He tried feeding them a line, saying he was part of the cargo ship's entourage. There was some sort of miscommunication, and they didn't receive orders to take off until after the ship already left. The lady on the radio actually seemed take his answer into consideration. But it would probably take her about two minutes to realize he was making things up, so he cut off his communications link.
He then made his network fly ahead at full speed, not only to put some distance behind him, but to try and catch up to that ship. He wondered if he could apply the ZERO system to his drones as well. He'd probably find out soon enough.
It wasn't going to end well, was it? The thought nagged Rain all day.
She awoke very early that morning when Karato and a few agents came to get Domon. She decided to go back to sleep after he left. So she crawled back into bed, closed her eyes, and waited for sleep to come.
She waited. And waited. And waited.
She tried not to think about the ship headed to Earth or its gruesome cargo. However, the more she tried to push the thought out of her head, the more she ended up accidentally thinking about it. Scenarios in which the Dark Gundam would escape and Domon would be forced to fight it kept sneaking into her head.
She looked at the clock. 6:33. It had only been about a half an hour since Domon left. She rolled over on her other side, closed her eyes, and tried her best to relax. Tried to think soothing thoughts this time.
She laid there. And laid there. And laid there.
Her shoulder started hurting. She looked at the clock again. 6:56. She tried laying on her back. She ended up staring at the ceiling for another half an hour before she gave up and got out of bed. Perhaps it was for the best; Rain had a feeling that if she did fall asleep, she'd just have more nightmares.
She changed into her usual attire of a short magenta dress with a blue vest and round golden earrings. As she stepped into the bathroom to brush her hair, she suddenly remembered something very important. She opened up the medicine cabinet, and sitting on the bottom shelf was the sheathed syringe containing the anti-nanomachine resin that Dr. Kasshu gave her. She poked the glass to make sure they still functioned. The charcoal-colored sands rippled and hummed back in response. She put the syringe in her vest pocket...just in case. A chill ran down her spine as she really, really hoped she wouldn't have to use it for whatever reason.
Not wanting to give today's events any more thought, Rain finished fixing up her hair, then slipped on her hairband. After that, she wandered into the kitchen for some breakfast. After checking and re-checking the cabinets several times, she realized she wasn't all that hungry. She ultimately decided to make herself some toast and some coffee. She found the toast to be a chore to get through - but the coffee, at least, kept the chills away.
She went back to her room, picked her phone off from the nightstand, and checked her emails. Just some ads and a random piece of junk mail that slipped its way through the spam filter. She sat down on the bed and stared at the screen for awhile, wondering what to do. She knew she didn't want to read the news, as most of it would be about the colony's cleanup. Maybe she could play a game? It would keep her mind off of things. No, she really didn't think she could focus on a game. She looked up a few videos on cute animals, but it got a bit boring after awhile.
She put the phone back on the table and stared into space, still trying to keep out any thoughts about today's events. She stared at the carpet. You know, the floor could use some vacuuming...
Rain went to the closet, took out the vacuum, and started cleaning up the place. It seemed to work for awhile, as she was able to focus on her chore. But since the apartment really wasn't all that big, she quickly ran out of floors to vacuum. She tried to get some cobwebs off the walls and ceilings, but it wasn't long before she was done with that, too.
Well, she just needed another chore to focus on then. The dishes? She went to the kitchen and found there were only two plates in the dishwasher. Not worth it, and probably not worth it to wash by hand, either. Mop the kitchen floor? It seemed clean enough. They had just recently gone grocery shopping and done the laundry, so that was out, too.
Rain sat on the living room couch and sighed. She wondered where that cargo ship was...was it even on its way? No, no, no...she wasn't going to think about that. She decided to stave off the encroaching dread by turning on the TV. After quickly flipping past a few channels that had the news on, she found a wacky daytime game show. Currently, two teams were digging around in cream pies, trying to find some sort of object. Some of the pies were on levers which were rigged to hit them in the face when they walked up to them. Okay, this was good; she could really use a few laughs right about now.
Everything was fine and dandy until the show moved on to the next challenge. A mystery guest came out onto the stage in a costume, and contestants had to ask questions in order to guess who they were. Today's guest just so happened to be dressed in a Gundam costume. A Gundam with an extra set of horns on its head and six odd little wing-like protrusions sticking out of its back. No thanks, she didn't need to be reminded.
She changed the channel, and was now on some sort of cartoon. It was a very weird one about a man in his pajamas wandering through a swamp, trying to look for a dragon. With the way all the swamp monsters were bleeding, it didn't look like a cartoon for little kids. Well, as long as it didn't have any creepy evil robots in it, she was fine with it.
Five minutes later, however, Rain stopped paying attention to the show. She was tired, though she wasn't sleepy. And cold. She glanced at the time on the TV menu; it was almost noon. She caught herself speculating on if the cargo ship had landed already. Ugh, she needed a better distraction. Maybe she should make herself some lunch. She still wasn't very hungry, though, but some more coffee sounded nice. It would both wake her up and warm her up.
Rain stood up and sluggishly began to make her way to the kitchen, but then a sudden drop in the temperature of the room stopped her in her tracks. She had to lean against a wall as she steadied herself from all the shivering - half of it out of fear. She knew this feeling...she felt it two days ago. It got very cold just before...
She suddenly heard the sound of surf and felt icy liquid flow over her feet and ankles. She yelped in surprise and jumped away. The silvery waves retreated back into her now darkened living room before completely disappearing. To her horror, she looked down at her feet and saw that they were now covered in an all too familiar metal coating. Quickly she bent over to pull it off of her, but her fingers went right through it. It wasn't actually there - this was yet another hallucination.
Her fear began to subside into irritation. This was the third time in two weeks; these hallucinations were really getting out of hand. This was probably brought on by her lack of sleep. Then again, she's had sleepless nights before and didn't see oceans of metal try to drag her into their depths. She was really going to have to see a doctor about this. In fact, maybe she'd make the appointment right now!
But just as she was about to go retrieve her phone from the bedroom, the world around her darkened until it was almost as black as night. She began to hear the whispers and laughter of people behind her, as well as the deep rumble of enormous engines idling.
She knew exactly who it was behind her, but she was not going to play their game. They didn't exist, anyway - they were all just figments of her traumatized imagination. First, she tried rubbing her eyes. Nothing changed, everything was still dark, and she could still hear her unwanted "house guests." She rubbed then harder. Nothing. She pinched her cheek. No change. She flat out slapped herself. That did nothing except make the nightmare creatures laugh at her.
"Shut up!" she yelled over her shoulder, trying not to look at them. "Go bother somebody else, why don'tcha?!"
It was time to bring out the big guns - she was going to go to the kitchen sink and splash her face with water. The sink was only a few feet away, so she shouldn't have too much trouble feeling for it in the gloom. But before she could even take a single step forward, a pillar of liquid silver began to rise up in front of her. She yelped and stepped back. Even though she could barely make out the details of her own home in this illusory darkness, she could see the metal ooze just fine for some reason.
The sludge rapidly formed a humanoid figure, and then turned itself into a completely-silver version of Michelo Chariot. Though his head and face were perfectly formed, the rest of his metal body was featureless. He loomed over her with his hands on his hips and a greasy grin on his face.
"What's wrong, pretty lady?" he mockingly squawked at her in a metallic voice. "Don'tcha ya wanna say hi to us?!"
Rain's aggravation turned into rage. "No, I don't!" she shouted. "Now go away!"
With that, she hauled off and punched the metal Gundam fighter right in the jaw, causing him to splatter everywhere - all over the floor, the walls, and the kitchen chairs. She was really glad he wasn't real, or else this would have been a huge mess! Some of the silver stuck to her fingers, and quickly spread to encase her whole right hand. She knew it was just a hallucination, but found it disturbing anyway.
"You're...you're no fun!" Michelo's disembodied lips said from a puddle on the kitchen floor.
"Yeah, quit being such a spoilsport!" a metallic, but familiar female voice said next to her.
Rain nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw a silver Allenby sitting in the middle of her kitchen table. Her unkempt hair, wild eyes, and psychotic smile told her she was supposed to be in her berserk state. Like Michelo, her head displayed perfect details, but not her body. There was a bow-shaped lump on her chest, implying that she was supposed to be wearing her fightsuit. She was crouched on all fours like she was ready to pounce.
"We're not here to cause trouble. We just wanna talk to you, is all!" she gave Rain a big shiny grin that made her look like she wanted jump off the table and gnaw her face off with those metal teeth.
Rain quickly got over her shock and went back to being angry at the waking nightmare. "Well I don't wanna talk to you!" she shouted. She wanted to slug the fake Allenby, but hesitated. It was easy to punch out Michelo, as he had tried to kill both her and Domon several times, and wasn't above taking little girls hostage. She would have liked to have done it even if he was real! But Allenby was a friend. Yes, she fought the real thing before, but only because she had to. She kept trying to remind herself that this was an impostor (who wasn't actually there anyway), but to no avail.
Thankfully, she didn't need to. Another familiar figure without a speck of silver on him emerged from the shadows and unceremoniously shoved the steel Allenby off the table. She fell to the floor, and like Michelo, she splattered liquid metal everywhere.
"Don't you know it's rude to put your feet on the table?!" Kyoji scolded the silver puddles.
"Kyoji! You're here!" Rain didn't care that he was also an illusion, too. She was so relieved to finally see someone who wasn't a metal monster.
"Listen Rain, the Dark Gundam is trying to give you orders over its network!" the ghost said, his voice urgent. "You need to-"
Kyoji was abruptly silenced when a metallic sash shot out and wrapped itself around his mouth, neck, and shoulders. He was yanked into the next room by superhuman force.
"That's enough out of you, traitor!" a tinny, gruff man's voice said in the darkness. "You oughtta be deleted for this!"
Rain was forced to look into her living room. Like two nights ago, the room seemed to have completely disappeared and replaced by a lake of liquid metal with a black sky. Completely silver versions of the Dark Gundam, its Four Kings, and all the humans that were voluntarily or involuntarily associated with it were all rising up out of the metallic ooze. Near her, a silver Master Asia had Kyoji tied up with his sash and had him face down in the slime with a foot on his back. Unlike the first two metal doppelgangers, he actually had the outlines of clothing on his body.
The metal Master looked up from his prisoner and turned to Rain with a stern look on his face. "We've got something very important to tell you," he told her in a threatening voice. "It would do you good to listen!"
Both the humans and the Gundams moved aside as the Dark Gundam began to lean over. It slowly lowered itself the best it could to Rain's eye level, its massive silver head inches from her face.
"Come back to us, Rain Mikamura. You belong with us," the Gundam spoke in a deep, purring female voice. Rain immediately recognized the voice as a distorted version of her own.
Its minions chimed in, encouraging her to join them again. This hallucination must have been really wearing her down, because she felt sleepy all of a sudden. However, her sleepiness couldn't stop her resurging anger.
"Get lost! I wouldn't join you in a million years!" she barked. "None of you are even real! One good splash of water in my face, and you'll all be gone!"
She turned around to go find the sink again, only to find Michelo and Allenby standing directly behind her, blocking her path. They must have reformed themselves. Well, no problem, she'll just walk right through them. They weren't actually there! But just as she tried to pass, they both shoved her back. Their hands went through her, but the sudden cold sting she felt in her chest was real.
"What the hell? That hurt!" she cried.
"We need you, Rain Mikamura," the Dark Gundam continued. "We cannot do this without you. Please reconsider and join us again."
Rain didn't know why, but with every word the Gundam said, she was getting sleepier and sleepier. She really wanted to just go to bed, but she afraid to do it when she was already in the middle of a nightmare.
"Snap out of it, Rain!" she heard Kyoji shout in the distance. He somehow managed to untangle his face from Master Asia's scarf. "The Dark Gundam is trying to hypn-" He was silenced again when the silver Master shoved his face back in the sludge by stomping on the back of his head.
Rain looked at him with bleary eyes. She wanted to help him, but she was so tired, she didn't know if she would be able to. Groggy, she trudged over to the false Master Asia and Kyoji. Finding herself becoming intimidated by the death glare of Domon's former mentor, she reminded herself that he was fake; unlike the real thing, this guy would go down in one punch. But before she could even make a fist, the silver Master lightly pushed her away with one hand. Rain felt another icy sting where his hand went through her shoulder and recoiled in pain. She tripped over her own feet and hit her back against something hard, possibly a chair or the kitchen table.
"And just where do you think you're going?" the metallic Undefeated of the East sneered at her.
As Rain struggled to stand back up, Allenby and Michelo grabbed her by either arm, pretending to help her to her feet. Their freezing touch sent waves of pain through her body.
"You look sooooo tired, Rain," the scruffy, berserk Allenby jeered at her.
"Yeah, maybe you better go lie down!" Michelo cackled. "You don't wanna pass out in the floor, do ya?"
"No...let me go...," Rain tried to shout at them, but it came out a tired mutter.
She pulled herself out of their grasp, which was rather easy as they were only illusions. But as soon as she got away from them, she found herself in the frozen clutches of a dozen more silver hands. The metal humans were crowding around her on all sides, using their painful touch to push her toward the Dark Gundam. Some of them would whisper, "Come with us," or "Join us," in her ear as they herded her into the living room.
"Go away!" she sputtered. "L-leave me alone!"
They ignored her, of course, and kept shoving. She had nowhere to run, as they had her surrounded. She tried to fight her way through them, but merely touching them caused her to feel cold pinpricks everywhere. Pinpricks that drained her energy with every sting. She began to feel lightheaded, and her vision became blurry. Eventually, her legs gave out and she fell to her knees.
The pushing stopped. The steely waves were inches away from her legs. In her haze, Rain suddenly became aware of someone holding out their hand to her. She looked up, fully expecting to find another enemy or corrupted friend about to drag her into metal slime. She let out a small gasp when she saw who it was.
"...Saette?"
The metallic man nodded. She briefly remembered seeing him in her last hallucination, so it would make sense that he'd be here too. She watched as he knelt down next to her, his arm still extended.
"Yes, it's me, Rain," he answered. "You trust me don't you?"
Rain was so tired, she didn't know how to answer that. On one hand, she shouldn't. Like the others, he was completely silver - he was fake. But unlike the others, his body had more detail. She saw the outlines and folds of the suit he had on when she was reunited with him a year ago. He wasn't in his berserk state, either. His hair remained neatly combed, and he smiled softly at her instead of leering. He looked the most human out of all of them, and he was the only one being nice to her besides Kyoji. He seemed like he wanted to help rather than poke and prod her into something she didn't want to do.
She tried to take his hand, but it went right through her. It felt cool rather than blistering cold. She slowly got to her feet on her own, swaying from exhaustion. The metal Saette pretended to help steady her by putting a ghostly arm around her shoulders.
"Easy does it, now," he told her. "Are you going to be alright?"
"Maybe. I wish I wasn't seeing things right now," she mumbled softly as she glanced around at all the onlookers, both human and machine. They were all staring at her with great anticipation in their grey eyes.
"You're obviously tired, so let's get you some sleep," the silver Saette said. "It's hard to see, but there's a chair right over there." Unfortunately, he was pointing to a spot that was right on the other side of the Dark Gundam and its Four Kings. But that was okay, none of them were real, right?
"But what about Kyoji?" Rain asked. "I-I have to save him." She glanced through the crowd, but she couldn't find him nor Master Asia.
"Don't worry about him, he'll be fine!" Saette reassured her. "Come now, let's get some rest."
He stepped into the next room, wading right into the liquid metal. He stopped and reached out to Rain, as if inviting her in. The Dark Gundam in front of them seemed to understand as it backed away, giving them some space.
Rain hesitated for a long time before she finally came to the conclusion that the creepy lake wasn't really there and followed Saette into it. For a moment, she thought she felt something cool touch her ankles. She saw the silver climb up her legs and completely coat her body, just like the Dark Colony did to her before. This time, however, she was too tired to care. Besides, it wasn't real anyway; if it had been, it would have glued her eyes shut again.
As Saette guided her through the water, she tried to ignore the cheers from the metal people and deep rumbling from the Gundams that almost sounded like laughter. She thought she heard Kyoji scream, "Rain, no!" far in the distance. The Dark Gundam leaned in front of her again, opening its chestplates to allow her inside its cockpit. As if in a trance, she walked right in. She was only vaguely aware that Saette was no longer with her.
Rain was in complete darkness now, but she kept wandering forward. She eventually bumped into something. Was it the chair? She couldn't see anything at first. Eventually, she thought she could make out the outlines of thick cables and wires. Well, whatever it was, if she could lay down on it, that's what she was going to do. She felt around in the dark for a bit before sitting down and laying back. She remembered feeling freezing winds nip at her cheeks before she fell asleep, covered in the cold silver.
Rain was correct that the silver people and Gundams were not actually there. All that time, she had been staring, yelling, and taking swings at nothing. It ended with her falling asleep in a recliner chair.
The effects of the hallucination, however, were very real. Rain did not stay asleep for long. After a few minutes, her eyes fluttered back open, though they were glazed over. In a daze, she got up from her chair, grabbed her car keys, and left the apartment. She slowly staggered down the hallway toward the elevator. Mr. Watanabe was exiting just as she was entering.
"Why hey there, Miz Mikamura!" he greeted her. "How you doin'? You look a little tired."
She didn't answer. She stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.
"Miz Mikamura? You okay?" Mr. Watanabe asked.
She still didn't answer as the door closed. That was weird. Too weird. Mr. Watanabe found himself growing concerned. Miss Mikamura almost always greeted you back, even if she was in a hurry. And that look on her face...she looked like she was half asleep!
Maybe she was asleep? He heard about people doing strange things while sleepwalking. But he also heard it was dangerous to wake a sleepwalker...if that's what she was actually doing. He wondered if he could get a hold of that boyfriend of hers. He might know what's going on!
Meanwhile, down in the parking lot, Rain got into her car, still in a trance. She drove off, heading toward the nearest expressway. She needed to get to the drop off point of the cargo ship that was carrying the Dark Gundam.
