Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 54
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.
In the Heaven's Base control room, Lord Djibril laughed with manic delight at the images before his eyes. Resistance fighters fleeing in terror, only to be cut down by Alliance infantry and armor and mobile suits; the antiquated fleet of the Resistance getting blown away, that huge ancient battleship of theirs snapping in two under a Gottfried cannon barrage; the Destroy Gundams plowing through the enemy lines and tearing them open, never to be resealed, before they had themselves been taken out. Grand Admiral MacIntyre already suspected that at least half of the Resistance's forces were dead or wounded, and the overwhelming majority of the survivors were in craven, desperate flight. It was complete. It was unquestionable. It was victory.
And, as the screens suddenly went dark and Lord Djibril's laughter went silent, he knew deep in his heart that it was now meaningless.
An emblem appeared on the screens, and every person in the room gasped in disbelief. Djibril felt fire rise up his spine. He knew that logo, the blue globe and the stylized, swooping, yellow angelic wings.
The Celestial Being warship Excalibur floated silently in the blackness, surrounded by hundreds of ships of various classes and designs, some of which were from completely different universes. The Celestial Being fleet was nothing if not impressive, as it now consisted of hundreds, if not thousands of ships. The most notible of these ships were the Excalibur, the original Archangel, the highly modified Bismarck, the Dominion, the Enterprise-E, the Equinox, the Eternal, the Executer, the Izumo, the Kusanagi, the Minerva, the Prometheus, the Ptolemaios, the Purity, the Relativity, the Voyager and a trio of Borg Cubes.
Fear. It was fear. It was enveloping the Earth like a dark cloud, icy tendrils reaching out to grip everything, every heart, every mind, every soul. The Earth was in fear. And that, mused Kira Yamato as stood on the Excalibur's bridge, grinning for the cameras, made his return that much sweeter.
"Greetings, people of Earth." He said with a smile. "I am Kira Jesus Yamato, Supreme Commander of Celestial Being."
He paused and glanced almost imperceptibly at a woman across the room, but she caught it, and Hope Yamato offered him the barest of smiles.
"Three years ago, you thought we had been destroyed, and our survivors had been exiled to Mars." Kira went on. "But we have returned, and we are here now, not to eradicate all conflict, but to declare war upon you of the Earth; you foolish people who tried to destroy us. We have been exiled, but we have returned, and we have not forgotten. You, however, might not remember. Very well. We will remind you that we, Celestial Being, still live; our hearts still beat; and we are here to take what is ours." He stretched out his hand dramatically. "Mark my words well, people of Earth. You do not know what agony we endured in our exile, but you will. When our war is done, you will know it as well as we do."
Kira's grin flashed wicked, and he clenched his fists. All as he had foreseen.
"We are Celestial Being...and we have returned."
As the communications line closed, a massive asteroid appeared nearby, dropping its Mirage Colloid. This asteroid was known as Messiah, and its primary weapon was the dreaded NEO-GENESIS cannon. As soon as the structure was completely visible, the NEO-GENESIS weapon fired, and a giant beam of death streaked across space.
"Incoming!" Meyrin shrieked as she sat on the bridge of the Eternal, as the Purity floated off its starboard side.
"I'll handle this." Lacus calmly replied, from the bridge of the Purity.
The vision of a blue seed suddenly exploded inside her head. In an instant, Lacus's eyes had faded into the washed out glaze of a SEED possessed individual. Now her eyes were glowing with a bright golden light, while blue and black swirled in her pupils almost as though a tornado was confined within each of her eyes. Everything around Lacus instantly slowed down to a crawl, but she was still able to move at her normal speed. There was a brilliant flash of light and suddenly, the Eternal and Purity were no longer in the firing line of the NEO-GENESIS blast. In place of the two ships was a vast majority of Alliance troops.
"Oh, that is just bullsh-" One of the many Alliance pilots began just before being obliterated by the the huge energy blast from the NEO-GENESIS. The crew and pilots of Celestial Being simply watched as the NEO-GENESIS shot hilariously destroyed a bunch of Allaince mobile suits and vessels, while the Eternal and Purity were now floating off to the side of the blast.
"Huh, so that's what your SEED does." Meyrin said, slightly shocked. "It alters reality."
"Not exactly." Lacus smiled. "There's a perfectly good explanation, grounded in science and realism...but explaining it would be boring and of no interest."
"Sooo...miracle?" Meyrin asked.
"Miracle." Lacus nodded.
"I will...take the Freedom down!" Rey Za Burrel scowled within the cockpit of a pink ZGMF-X666S Legend Gundam, as the machine suddenly appeared and pulled up alongside a pink RX-78-2 Gundam, which had been engaged in combat with the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, only a moment earlier. "You go after the Justice."
"Don't screw up, Amuro." Rey said, ignoring the hystarical laughter of Kira Yamato, which was now eminating from the Divinity Gundam. "I've put all my hopes and dreams in your hands!"
"Wow, bad move." Kira smiled, finally regaining his composure somewhat.
"Shut up!" Amuro roared. "Be careful, Rey!"
Kira grinned as the Gundam turned and flew towards the Infinite Justice as the Legend and Divinity faced off.
"Alright, junior." Kira smirked. "Bring it."
"You are an abomination that needs to be eliminated!" Rey scowled.
"Me?" Kira scoffed. "Which one of us is not only a clone, but is also piloting a pink Legend Gundam?"
"I will end you; here and now." Rey growled, ignoring Kira's taunting.
"You can try." Kira laughed. "You suck."
"You suck." Rey retorted, unleashing his DRAGOON units.
"I'm sick of you, Rey!" Shinn Asuka roared, as the Eclipse Gundam suddenly streaked in out of the blackness, slamming into the Legend Gundam, grabbing the pink mobile suit by its left arm, and hurling it into the open catapult deck of a nearby Agamemnon-class warship. The pink machine rattled violently as it slammed into a mass-producation Freedom Gundam which had just received launch clearance.
Kira Yamato knew that he would have to be strong, cold, hard, ruthless. That was what eternal life demanded, and when he had needed it, millenia ago, he had failed, and so Tolle had died, Fllay had died, the Coordinators had died, and now it appeared as though even Celestial Being's hopes for revenge had died. He would have to go further, he would have to do more. He had not shed enough blood and cast his heart into hot enough flames to change the world then.
The vision of a purple seed exploded inside Kira's head, and in an instant, his eyes had faded into the washed out glaze of a SEED possessed individual. Now his eyes were glowing with a bright golden light, while purple and black swirled in his pupils almost as though a tornado was confined within each of his eyes. Everything around Kira instantly slowed down to a crawl, but he was still able to move at his normal speed. He would have to be different this time. He would have to be ruthless, uncaring, emotionless, heartless.
Kira glanced at the Eclipse Gundam. "Shinn, take the fleet and get rid of the Alliance forces. Use whatever weapons are necessary. I'll win this battle for us in one blow."
Shinn sputtered in surprise, but Kira switched the connection before he could respond.
"Supreme Commander Yamato, we've received word-" Talia Gladys, captain of the Minerva, said.
Kira's eyes narrowed. No tears were left; this time he would have to be ruthless. "I'm authorizing Contingency Plan Omega." He said, the voice beginning to sound like that of another man in his ears. "Authorization code..."
Talia blinked in surprise. "Sir-"
Images of all of the past tragedies flashed before his eyes, vanishing in smoke and fire. He would make those deaths mean something more than wanton violence or cruel carelessness, and if he had to throw his heart and soul into those very flames of hell...then so be it.
"Thunderclap."
"Authorization code received." Talia replied, straightening up in her seat. "Launch will commence in six hundred seconds." She glanced down at one of the bridge crew. "Broadcast the warning message to all Celestial Being units. We are to evacuate our forces as far as possible from the battlefields on the Earth's surface and in the atmosphere." She turned her eyes out the bridge windows, towards the approaching mobile suits from the Alliance's meager space fleet. The Celestial Being ships were already moving to intercept, their own mobile suit forces sallying forth to meet the threat, and Talia reckoned that they would be enough to at least hold the tide back.
She glanced back down at the planet below. The evacuation order was already going out and, if the tactical map was to be believed, some scattered Celestial Being units were already starting to pull out. The highly advanced weapons which Celestial Being would be utilizing would be more than enough to take revenge on Humanity for its arrogance, while leaving the Orb Union and its citizens completely untouched.
Talia sat back with a sigh and waited for the launch.
"What do you mean, 'pulling out'?" The current president of the Earth Alliance, Barack Obama sputtered on the bridge of the flagship Unity. "We didn't destroy that many of them. What the hell are they planning?"
"All we've verified is that they're pulling their forces back." The soldier on the auxiliary screen reported. "The Celestial Being troops seem to be moving towards a point ten clicks south of our location."
Obama sat back uneasily in the captain's seat. Were they planning a siege? The Celestial Being troops had been unable to make any exploitable gaps in the defensive lines, but if this was turning into a siege, why move their lines so far back? And the Alliance space fleet had launched an attack on the Celestial Being ships in orbit. How could they expect to lay siege to the planet without the orbital approaches secure? It would be child's play to drop reinforcements or launch orbital attacks if the Alliance fleet gained supremacy here.
"What about the Divinity?" He asked suddenly.
"Divinity is currently perfroming atmosphereic re-entry in its flight mode, moving south at maximum speed." The sensor officer reported. "All units reporting in that combat has ceased."
Obama stroked his chin thoughtfully. Was Celestial Being giving up? Was the Alliance on the brink of victory?
Something flashed red from the sensor console, and the surprised voice of the operator snapped him out of his thoughts. "Heat source detected. There's a missile heading for our location from planetary orbit."
"What? Just one missile?" Obama asked. "What do they expect to do with-"
His blood froze as he turned his eyes towards the sky. Yes, there was one missile approaching, and there was only one reason Celestial Being would launch a lone missile at the planet.
"They wouldn't..." He started, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Shoot it down! Karl, turn the ship around! Activate the CIWS! Don't let it-"
Obama said no more as the warhead detonated and the world went white.
Everything stopped as the missile impacted and unleashed a blindingly bright, blood-red light. The light quickly spread out to cover the entire planet as the searing, million-degree heat vaporized everything it touched, sterilizing the entire planet, save for the Orb Union, which had been protected by Cagalli's more divine abilities.
For a moment, the Earth registered more than one million times brighter than the Sun itself, but then, there was nothing, just a smoldering cinder, under a great planet-wide swath of radioactive fallout.
The citizens of the Orb Union watched in confusion and terror as the seas suddenly boiled away, revealing oceans of violently churning, blood red lava. The water within about twenty miles of the shoreline remained, but beyond that, only the crimson lava was visible.
It was, in a way, beautiful.
Hope Yamato broke into a grin as she sat in the cockpit of the Destiny Gundam and watched as the light began to slowly fade. She had felt those billions of lives vanish down below. Kira had done well. He would do what was necessary to obtain ever-lasting peace.
"Break formation!" The voice of Juri Wu Nien, suddenly shouted.
Engines blazing, the three Impulse units from the Kusanagi darted apart and let a wave of beam fire tear through the space they had just vacated. Asagi's Blast Impulse lined up to return fire with a withering barrage of beam cannon fire; Juri's Sword Impulse and Mayura's Force Impulse rushed forward around Asagi's blasts, both of them racing towards a squad of Strike Daggers and Windams belonging to the Earth Alliance. The enemy mobile suits broke their own formation to dodge the Sword Impulse's opening sword strokes, but an instant later one of the Windams went up in flames as the Force Impulse opened fire.
The Sword Impulse lunged up and sliced two of the Daggers in half, and then darted aside to let the Force Impulse shoot down a third. The remaining mobile suits darted to the sides to flank the two Gundams, and a moment later, two more of the Windams were blown to pieces by a volley from the Blast Impulse.
"Juri, Mayura, move!" Asagi shouted; an instant later the Blast Impulse let loose a salvo of missiles that pounded another two Strike Daggers out of the fight. The remaining two Windams and one Dagger clawed for distance and showered the three Gundams with beam fire; Juri charged straight at them and tore the final Dagger in two with her swords, as Mayura shot down one of the Windams with a beam rifle shot through the cockpit.
The last Windam backed away behind its shield, but too late, as the Sword Impulse rushed forward and chopped it in two.
"Another squad inbound." Juri said, before anyone else could speak. "Two o'clock! Move!"
The Divinity Gundam shuddered slightly as it docked with its METEOR unit. A few moments later, the angelic machine pulled up alongside the Infinite Justice Gundam and the Akatsuki Gundam as they approached the main NEO-GENESIS array.
"Yo, guys!" Kira smirked.
"Kira, where have you been?" Cagalli asked.
"Just off owning some random Earth Alliance grunts." Kira shrugged.
Suddenly the Divinity peeled off while the Infinite Justice and Akatsuki continued forward, even as the Providence destroyed a bunch of Astrays with its DRAGOON beam spamming.
"Lament and die! For the day of your death is upon you!" Rau Le Cruset cackled within the cockpit of the Providence Gundam, but he suddenly turned the Providence around to see the Divinity Gundam headed straight for him.
"Oh, it's you." Rau sneered, dodging a pair of beam blasts which Kira had unleashed from the METEOR unit. "Are you going to make fun of my evil, evil plan?"
"Actually, I'm not totally sure what it is. I don't think anyone knows. I don't even think anyone cares either. But if I know anything; it's that you deserve one hell of a beat down!" Kira roared as the Divinity opened up, firing with all the weapons on the METEOR and its own frame. Despite its bulk, Providence managed to avoid all of the firepower coming its way, and even as it dodged the shots, the grey machine detached its DRAGOON units.
"You see, if I explain my ridiculously evil plan to you, you'll just mock it. Then I'll just get all indignant and unpleasant. I'm not fun to be around when I'm indignant and unpleasant." Rau grinned as the Providence fired a shot from its beam rifle, blowing the left-hand cannon-arm off the METEOR unit.
"Pathetic." Kira yawned as he casually discarded the METEOR's now useless left-hand cannon-arm.
"Besides, you don't deserve to exist!" Rau screamed.
"Is that anyway to talk?" Kira sighed. "Come on, tell me your plan."
"No." Rau answered, clearly not amused. "Die."
"But sharing is caring!" Kira smiled. "Or so I've been led to believe."
"Share this, you little freak!" Rau snarled as the Providence quickly swooped in and sliced into the METEOR unit with its shield-mounted beam saber. The Divinity tried to blast the Providence away with a full-burst, but Rau avoided it and fired back, destroying one of the METEOR unit's engines and buffeting Kira around violently.
"Argh!" Kira growled. "This getting-my-ass-kicked-thing sucks!"
"Just die, you ungrateful brat!" Rau yelled.
Kira sighed slightly as the Providence's DRAGOON units once again deployed, swarming around the Divinity as they pummeled it with beam blasts. Kira instantly activated his angelic machine's wrist-mounted beam sabers and beam shields, desperately batting away the torrent of beam shots coming at him from all angles.
"Do you think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your arms around like that?" Rau asked, annoyance evident in his voice.
"Actually, I am a Jedi." Kira replied, somehow unaware of the Providence's DRAGOON units as they quickly moved surround his METEOR unit again.
"Crap and a half!" Kira yelled, detaching the Divinity Gundam from its METEOR unit just as the DRAGOONs opened fire and completely obliterated his massive weapons platform.
"Ooh, that looked expensive." Rau said, grinning.
"You'll be getting my repair bill after this fight is over!" Kira screamed.
A solitary DRAGOON unit from the Providence Gundam suddenly moved above a nearby escape shuttle and fired downward directly into it. An instant later the shuttle exploded, no one could have possibly survived. The force of the explosion was powerful enough to send the Divinity spiraling away.
"I'm such an asshole." Rau cackled in amusement, as he watched the shuttle explode.
The Divinity Gundam tumbled about in space for a moment, knocked for a loop by the explosion. After nearly ten seconds, the Divinity finally reoriented itself, majestically spreading its brightly glowing, pure-white wings, as its faceplate split, revealing a mouth filled with bright white teeth. Within the cockpit, Kira's eyes now emanated steely resolve.
The Divinity Gundam suddenly let out an unearthly scream as it ignited its thrusters and wings of light, the sound waves from the shrieking machine actually vibrating the loosely clustered atoms in the void, the shrieking quickly encompassing the entire battlefield. The sudden screaming made everyone on the battlefield freeze in terror as the angelic machine streaked after the fleeing Providence Gundam, an army of brightly glowing afterimages following in the wake of the angel-winged Gundam.
"Surprise, bitch!" Kira screamed, slashing at the Providence with both of his wrist-mounted beam sabers alight, only for the grey machine to dodge to the left.
An instant later, Rau came roaring down with a furious scream and a powerful overhead swing, only for the beam blade to be blocked, as the beam shield generators within the Divinity Gundam's wings flared to life. "There is nothing in this world that could possibly be worse than you, Kira Yamato!"
"I haven't attepmted to commit genocide!" Kira lied, even as he turned the Divinity Gundam to once more face the Providence Gundam, the angelic machine's wing-mounted beam shields slicing the grey machine's shield-mounted beam saber in half, leaving nothing but a glob of glowing pink plasma floating between them for a few seconds.
The Providence rushed him again and Kira ground his teeth as his angelic Gundam took a vicious beam saber swipe to the torso, rendering useless all three of his chest-mounted beam cannons.
"YOU'RE DEAD!" Kira screamed in rage, firing the Divinity's eye-mounted cross-flare cannons, the twin beam blasts slamming into the Providence Gundam's head, instantly severing it. An instant later, the beam blasts exploded into a pure white cross of energy that extended for nearly a mile into the blackness. Kira sighed as he extended the Divinity's left palm and bathed the Providence in the purple cone of radiation from the Directed Neutron Disabler, overloading the grey machine's Neutron Jammer Canceller, and without the Neutron Jammer Canceller blocking the effects of the N-Jammers, the grey machine instantly powered down.
Although his heart still ached from all of the losses that he had suffered over the millenia, Kira Yamato knew that there was so much more to be done.
'By the time we're done with the Earth, the world will be changed...or there won't be a world at all.' Kira thought, as he turned the Divinity towards the Excalibur. With steel in his heart and ice in his veins, Kira opened his eyes and guided the Divinity Gundam back home.
Kira closed his eyes as he slowly guided the Divinity back towards the Excalibur. "Am I weak?" He asked, his own voice sounding hollow in the Divinity's cold cockpit. "Am I hypocritical? Have I become evil?"
Yes, he was and he had. He had already nuked two cities completely off the map and exterminated humanity, those were but two of many other, less severe sins which he had commited. He had insisted on creating a better world, even after he had killed billions of people. He could never leave this life he hated, the life of both a God and a Devil. He could never leave undone the work he had started out to do millenia ago. He was going to bring upon the already-suffering human race vengeance spoken of only in their most ancient scriptures. He would become a demon, and everyone, even his descendents, would curse him for what he was going to do.