Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 73
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.
"I hate to interrupt in the middle of a military operation, but we have a VERY BIG problem." Meyrin Hawke said without preamble, her voice edging towards hysteria. "Long range sonar is detecting a large mass moving towards this location at incredible speed. It'll be here in minutes. I think that by killing that shark earlier, we may have disturbed the local marine life and they called for help." Meyrin trailed off, her voice stangulated. "And help heard."
"This wouldn't happen to be that one big mass we were..." Asuka started to say, even as Evangelion Unit 02 took up a defensive position, hovering high above the Excalibur's forward deck.
"Yes, in fact, it would." Meyrin quickly cut the redheaded Evangelion pilot off, her voice cracking noticably. "If the shark which Shinn sliced in half earlier has a mommy, she is now inbound, going several hundred miles per hour at a depth of almost thirty eight hundred meters! The displacement is insane, she must be three times the size of the Archangel!"
"Taking measurements of incoming massive biological object." Lexi announced. "Logging data in targeting databanks for future reference. Incoming object, to be hereby designated as Epsilon 1, is roughly nine hundred seventy meters long and likely weighs over 450,000 tons, making it bigger than the Archangel, the Eternal and the Minerva combined. Data on animals within the merged timelines compiled from various sources indicate high probability that size corresponds to intelligence among animals, and often though not always to psychic power as well. If such is true, then Epsilon 1 can probably be safely classified as a strategic WMD level threat." Lexi's analytical tone faded away for a moment, her tone of voice and choice of language surprising everyone. "HOW IN THE FUCKING HELL CAN SOMETHING THIS BIG EVEN EXIST?" She demanded, either mimicing hysteria incredibly well, or actually perturbed by the thought of such a gigantic living thing. "If the size to intelligence ratios are anything close to what I think they are, this thing could be as smart as I am!" Lexi continued to rant. "Epsilon 1 is now at fourteen thousand meters and closing rapidly, depth 2,000 meters on a shallow ascent." She added, her voice somewhat calmer as the Excalibur's thrusters and wings of light flared to life and the dagger-shaped ship lifted out of the water.
"Dear lord...can you guys see what I'm seeing?" Asuka called down from above, her eyes locked onto the ninety foot high and several mile wide wave that had risen out of the distance and was hurtling down at them like a runaway express train. "It's pushing a goddamn tsunami in front of itself! All hands, brace for sudden impacts!"
Asuka's warning turned out to be unnecessary, as the wave subsided into barely more than a gentle push before it reached the fleet, but all the same, the water displacement caused by countless tons of water being moved actually pushed the ships around in the water, like a hand stirring a bathtub filled with rubber duckies from below.
"Epsilon 1 is surfacing! Epsilon 1 is surfacing!" Lexi warned, watching with an audible gulp as the water around the fleet began doming upwards until there was a noticable hummock of water encompassing a several mile diameter section of ocean, the center parts a good ten to fifteen feet above the usual water level of the ocean. And then that hummock suddenly flattened out, becoming concave rather than convex, a huge depression in the water's surface that dragged at the ships unfortunate enough not to be able to take to the air, tugging them towards the center of the bowl. And then that too flattened out in a matter of moments, it was almost like Epsilon 1 couldn't decide what she wanted to do long enough to cause any harm.
Suddenly, a column of water exploded from the ocean beneath one of the escort frigates, not striking in a manner focused enough to slice or even to crush, it just propelled the entire ship skyward like a bottlecap on a geyser, the edges of the column overlapping around the sides of the ship until the vessel was almost entirely encased within the rising spume of water, armored observation ports shattering inward, watertight hatches ripping off hinges as unstoppable water pressure slammed into the frigate from all sides at once before the water column jerked to a halt, imparted momentum flinging the frigate free of its watery tomb, flipping through the air like a oddly shaped poker chip as it upended and plummeted towards the ocean's surface, almost 1,600 feet below its current altitude. The frigate struck the surface of the ocean canted on its side, and the ship shattered as if dropped upon hard, rocky ground, a telekinetic impulse stiffening the water's surface to the consistency of ice at the moment of impact.
A second frigate was simply hauled underwater, the entire ship pulled straight down as though it were no more than a balloon on a string, its propellers still madly churning, trying futilely to propel the ship back to the surface when the water pressure crushed the hull like it was made of thin eggshell. And still, Epsilon 1 continued to make her stately way to the surface, gargantuan flukes and flippers of telekinetic force slapping and slamming into the hulls of ships, battering them about like plastic models.
And then the Minerva was manuevering around to bring its weapons to bear, the primary turret with its pair of automatic beam cannons unleashing a volley of energy blasts into the water, each energy beam containing almost as much explosive power as a small tactical nuke! The secondary dorsal turrets, mounted two forward and one after, consisting of a rapidfire positron cannon and dual linear cannons in each turret, also revolved around and began firing, churning the ocean's surface into a mass of steam and shrapnel, various mobile suits and the remaining ships starting to add their firepower to the cauldron of destruction that was chewing its way down to meet the rising behemoth. Raging currents of telekinetically propelled water surged forward to replace the fluid being vaporized by the attacks, and Epsilon 1 remained safely cocooned in soothing, cool moisture no matter how much firepower was directed down at her.
And then the Minerva cut loose with its prow mounted positron cannon, a seventy foot wide beam of crackling crimson and cerulean energy spearing into the divot pounded into the ocean's surface by the other weapons. The blast wave from the firing of the weapon sent the Minerva heeling to the side, and the other ships and mobile suits were forced to scatter before the expanding walls of mist and steam. The crater of water slowly settled and refilled, the ocean swallowing the hyperthermal energy blast like it had never been fired. The only sign that it had actually been fired were the wisps of heat coming from the prow of the Minerva, and the roiling heat signature in the depths. Which strangely wasn't disspiating at all.
"That's odd." Lexi commented, on the bridge of a dozen ships at once. "The heat signature seems to be getting closer." Even as she said that, she calculated out the probable short term outcome, and as one the ships jerked into evasive maneuvers. Some ships were more agile than others though, and even on its best day, the huge trimaran supercarrier known as the Uzumi Nara Attha, was not a sprinter of a ship. yes, it could go quite fast in straight lines, fast enough to keep up with most of its escorts at flank speed. But it wasn't quick to start nor was it particularly good at evasive maneuvers. It was certainly not fast enough to avoid the telekinetically corralled positron blast coming at it from below, which cored through the main hull and exited out through the left-center of the flight deck only three seconds after Lexi started the automatic evasive manuevers. For an agonizingly long quarter second, there was a perfectly circular, seventy foot wide, molten orange rimmed hole in the supercarrier, where someone standing on the flight deck could have bent over and seen almost a mile straight down into the ocean. Then the shockwave caused by the flash heated water arrived, and the supercarrier went off like a massive firework, fuel supplies, ammo bunkers and energy capacitors combining to make the ship practically disappear in a near mushroom cloud!
"Dear lord, the Uzumi..." Murrue gasped, sitting in her captain's chair, her eyes wide, hands clenched against the armrests of the chair, but a second after that, her hard won resolve replaced the shock. "All ships, this is Captain Ramius on the Excalibur! We cannot prevail against this foe! I am ordering a full withdrawal, all ships, scatter and meet up at the rendevous point as soon as you can! All mobile suits should return to their carrier ships, any suits from the Uzumi should hitch a ride on the outer surfaces of the Excalibur, Minerva, or one of the other surviving ships. Do not expend any more firepower against Epsilon 1, it will only send it right back at you or another ship!" Murrue bit down on her lip just shy of hard enough to draw blood. "Who would have ever thought the sea contained such monstrous creatures. It's like something out of the myths of the age of sail."
Murrue watched on the bridge screens as the Excalibur fled what had suddenly become a battlefield. No, it was no battlefield, there had been no chance of their victory as soon as Epsilon 1 arrived. They fled the site of a massacre with their tails tucked between their legs and the shattered remains of Orb's most powerful naval fleet slowly subsiding into the depths. This was a very dark day indeed for both the Orb Union and Celestial Being, their proudest combined fleet put to undignified rout in a matter of minutes by a single creature, albeit one bigger than any two ships of the fleet combined! Murrue wondered for a moment how something so big could even survive. What did it eat, and how had they not spotted it before? Why had it chosen now to come to the surface and attack? Had it been called when Shinn had sliced that shark in half? There was still so much they didn't know about their own changed world.
One of the last things Murrue saw through the cameras, before the Excalibur broke through the lower layer of clouds was a huge, grey-black mass of slick hide, faintly reminescent of that of a whale, though the size of a small atoll, break the surface of the water far below, plumes of exhausted air quickly escaping through a multitude of what could have been blowholes. At first she thought that the creature had just breached its back, until a solid golden eye the size of a Gundam opened in the middle of the mass, and Murrue realized that she was just looking at the thing's head, and only one side of it! The water was so turbulent around the thing that it was impossible to get a real feel for its actual shape, there was just a massive dark spot in the ocean, with that great golden eye staring up at them, watching them as they fled.
A few hours later, Kira stared in disbelief at the creature which now floated defiantly before his angel-winged Divinity Gundam. The creature was strange, to say the least. It was about the size of an average human, but unlike any human Kira had ever seen, the creature had a pair of black wings on its back, its skin was colored light-green with black spots and had black sections located on the shoulders, chest, and ankles, in addition to an orange section near his crotch area, bordered with black. The creature's face and hands were pale, there were purple lines on both sides of its cheeks, and a yellow line across from its ears and chin. Its eyes were pink, and finally, it had purple veins.
"Whoa!" Kira cried out in slight surprise, as the creature drew its right hand back, thrusting it forward an instant later and sending a glowing sphere of energy speeding towards the angelic machine, but the energy blast merely bounced off the the Divinity's MCPS armor. "Who the fuck are you?" Kira's voice snarled through the Divinity's external loudspeakers.
"I am the perfect wapon." The creature calmly replied. "I am known as Cell."
"No, you are far from the perfect weapon." Kira laughed, clearly amused by the creature's claim. "That privilege is reserved exclusively for my family, my friends and myself!"
"You fool!" The creature yelled back, clearly angered as it began sending a flurry of glowing energy blasts at the stationary Divinity Gundam, the blasts bouncing harmlessly off the machine's armor. "Don't you realize yet you're up against the perfect weapon?"
"Ok, you mindless moron." Kira sighed in annoyance as the Excalibur dropped the shroud of its phase cloak and faded into existence a few miles behind the angelic machine. "Stop trying to fight me, or I'll be forced to conclude that you are guilty of promoting conflict, and will have to eliminate you." Just as Kira finished speaking, the song Meteor, performed by T.M. Revolution, began to blare from the Divinity's external loudspeakers.
Suddenly, a burst of yellow energy erupted out of Cell's body. Violent winds broke out through the surrounding area like pieces of glass that were slowly shattering, and the entire area unexpectedly dimmed from day to night as black sparks of electricity began to flow around Cell's body.
"Are you quite done with that shitty light show of yours?" Kira yawned, even as he merged himself with the Divinity Gundam and shrunk the machine down to the size of a normal human, if for no other reason then to make the rapidly approaching fight at least somewhat fair. Even when the Divinity Gundam was the size of an average human, it could still utilize its METEOR unit, which was also scaled down, in order to dock with the angel-winged machine, and if it should ever become necessary, Kira could always return his angelic machine and its METEOR unit, to their normal size.
Before Cell could answer, the voice of Hope Yamato, blared from the Excalibur's external loudspeakers. "Lacus, what does the Excalibur's computer say about Cell's power level?"
"It's over 9000!" Lacus answered, before she, along with the others on the bridge burst into laughter, even as they headed towards the hanger, leaving Lexi to control the ship itself.
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Kira groaned, even as the Divinity Gundam buried its face in its hands. "That was not needed."
Kira's lovers never understood why these stupid flight suits had to be so tight. There were all kinds of flight suit models, both civilian and military, that had more room for the wearer. But no, not for pilots. Instead they each had a custom colored Celestial Being flight suit; pink and white for Cagalli, red and white for Hope, dark pink and light pink for Lacus, gold and black for Mayu, and blue and white for Murrue. The flight suit that hugged their every curve in ways they didn't always appreciate, and made it a pain to cram their body into them and then peel it off when they were done. It was like Kira had designed the things that way intentionally.
With a shove, they finally squirmed into the boots, yanked on their gloves, seized their helmets, and staggered out of the locker room. And of course these stupid flight suits made all five of them blush the whole way from the lockers to the cockpit of their respective Gundams. Kira had definitely done this intentionally.
The five women jogged down the corridor towards the hangar. In their minds, only Kira should have ever seen them wearing these embarrassing flight suits. They each rounded the final corner and headed into the hangar, aiming straight for their machines. Back to war.
Licking his lips as the various forms of energy flashed around his rumbling Divinity Gundam, Kira Yamato watched eagerly as Cell leveled off his left arm and sent a searing yellow energy blast towards his angelic machine. This creature was definitely something else, judging by the way it had actually caught his beam blasts and now had them spinning around its body in an elegant display.
"Long-range combat doesn't seem to work against you." Kira growled, even as he ignitied the beam sabers on his machine's wrists and charged forward. "So let's see how well you handle close-range combat!" Cell's eyes widened in shock as the angelic machine suddenly vanished, seemingly evaporating into thin air.
Energy blasts sizzled by the Eclipse and Twilight Gundams, both of which had, like the Divinity, assumed the size of an average human, as they made their approach to assist Kira. Shinn scanned the sky for a sign of his enemy, and abruptly it appeared.
"Luna, split up." Shinn instructed, and a moment later, Cell filled the sky with various energy blasts. The Eclipse rocketed up over the creature to draw his fire, and the Twilight lunged at the green humanoid with its beam saber shining to life.
Instead, Cell charged down towards Luna and swung back, a makeshift energy shield surrounding his left arm, stopping the Twilight's blade cold, even as the creature began to launch a torrent of energy blasts towards the Eclipse. Luna scowled in frustration. "It'll take more than that...!"
Up above, the Eclipse whirled around Cell's furious energy shots and pounded a salvo of his own beam blasts against Cell's left shoulder. Cell darted aside as Shinn rushed in for a finishing palm cannon blow, but instead, Shinn whirled around with a beam boomerang in hand and hurled it through Cell's right arm.
Cell smirked as the severed limb regenerated, he then surrounded both arms with energy and lunged to slam them both against the Eclipse's beam shield. As the boomerang came whirling back in, Cell jinked to the right, and Shinn caught it with a grunt of frustration.
"Well, if it's going to be like that!" Shinn growled, and with a crash he stashed his beam rifle, instead drawing the massive anti-ship sword. Cell raised both his arms and waited as the Eclipse charged.
"Surprise, motherfucker!" Kira's voice roared, as the Divinity Gundam, its eyes now shining with a bright amethyst light, suddenly reappeared, the machine's face now only ten inches from Cell's own. Cell had no time to react as the Divinity's eyes suddenly lit up with a blindingly bright white light. "Die!" Kira shrieked as he fired the Divinity's plasma cannons and cross flare cannons. The twin plasma cannon blasts effortlessly tore through Cell's body, vaporizing his right arm along with the entire left side of his body. An instant after the two searing beam blasts had hit Cell, a pair of explosions, both of which posessed destructive power equivalent to a large thermonuclear bomb, enveloped the remains of creature before then exploding into a single, pure white cross of energy. The cross of energy quickly spread out, the base impacting the ground nearly a mile below the hovering machine, while the top exteded another mile into the sky before finally spreading out. Nearly an entire minute had passed before brightly shining energy cross finally began to fade.
"Damn, we missed the fight." Hope sighed, as the Destiny pulled up beside the Divinity.
"Where the hell did that silver Archangel-class ship come from?" Meyrin Hawke's voice suddenly shrieked, even as a pair of transparent blue tractor beams lashed out from the ship in question and latched onto her GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type. "I can't break free!" She growled, even as her machine's thrusters flared with bright blue flames, the wings of light projected brillint pink energy wings and the armor of the machine lit up with the red light of Trans-Am. "Athrun!" She cried out as the tractor beams dragged her into the open hanger bay of the silver Archangel-class battleship.
"Let her go!" Athrun screamed, as the Infinite Justice Gundam lit up with the light of Trans-Am and roared towards the now quickly fleeing battleship, but he already had a feeling that he wouldn't be fast enough. Much to Athrun's horror, the Archangel-class ship suddenly produced a pair of glowing pink energy wings and sped away, leaving an army of glowing afterimages in its wake.