Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 79
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.
"We shal...oh my God..." One of the German soldiers broke off into a whisper, as, from out of nowhere, the Divinity Gundam, the angelic machine now brightly glowing with a blood red light, suddenly burst into the midst of the German formations like a hungry eagle amongst a flock of canaries, the sonic booms of its hypersonic arrival parting the ranks of the German troops like a pair of invisible hands hurling them aside, the mobile suits tumbling head over heels as the pilots struggled to regain their balance before plunging to the ground, six of them not so fortunate, having been sliced apart or gashed into pieces by the Divinity's QC anti-ship sword before they even realized they were under attack.
"HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!" Shinn shouted, as the angel-winged Gundam cannoned into the German ranks, scattering them like a tank shell would scatter bowling pins. The Eclipse was buffeted by the sonic wash of the Divinity's sudden approach, but Shinn managed to keep his balance and poise, thanking the long hours of training over the past few years for that. The communications channels broke out into surprised yells and screams and questions being shouted back and forth as the German soldiers fought to retain cohesion in the face of the unexpected attack, but it was difficult to be composed when a rabid dog had its jaws ripping at your belly, and the Divinity was no less distracting or violent, everywhere it went, mobile suits exploded or fell earthward with huge gashes torn through them, or else sliced completely in half. Everyone was too bunched up to fight back effectively against such a machine. "Shoot him, Luna!" Shinn directed frantically.
"I can't get a clear shot!" Luna shouted back, equally frantically. "He's moving so damn fast..." She complained to herself. She'd been training against Shinn and other top end soldiers for years and years now, and she thought she had a handle on the way that the Divinity Gundam could move, but now, Kira was making everyone else she'd ever trained with look like they were moving in slow motion. How he could possibly attack in a coherent manner at such speed was incomprehensible to her.
"Large mobile armor approaching!" Lexi suddenly called out, her voice a combination of surprise and panic. "What the fucking hell is that thing?" The mobile armor which was now approaching the battlefield appeared to be a no more than a massively scaled-up version of the ZAFT-built Savior Gundam, although with a black and red color scheme in place of the original Savior Gundam's crimson color scheme.
"So all they can do is copy the designs of our machines?" Kira rhetorically asked, glaring at the rapidly approaching mobile armor. "That's sad, especially since we have copyrights on all of our mobile suit and mobile armor designs." The amethyst-eyed man paused for moment before continuing. "Lexi, access all of the world's electronic bank accounts and transfer all of the money into our own account. Please be sure not to leave any evidence behind which could be used to track us."
"Understood." Lexi replied, pausing for a few seconds as she quickly carried out Kira's orders. "Commencing transfer now."
Meanwhile, the Divinity Gundam had switched targets, the angelic machine was now in its flight mode, screaming towards the still approaching mobile armor, which suddenly banked towards the Minerva and was now moving to attack the grey and red warship. The Divinity Gundam didn't arrive soon enough however, as the huge mobile armor ignited a pair of beam blades on the leading edges of its wings and effortlessly slashed through the Minerva, slicing the winged warship in half length-wise with a single pass.
"No..." Kira whispered, his lips feeling parched and his tongue tasting of burnt meat, as he dropped his shields and welcomed the tide of frantic emotion into himself, letting it wash away his numbness and replace it with more useful emotions. Rage. Determination. Sorrow. Hate. All those negative emotions that Hope had once exposed as the essential natures of humanity. Kira still did not agree with that assessment, regardless of his current situation he knew there was as much light and lovely about humanity as there was dark and ugly, but he did have to admit, the darker emotions made a fine turbocharging fuel when love and kindness couldn't reach him! "No more..." Kira repeated, hauling the Divinity back up to a standing position. "No more of this...I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS ANY LONGER!" He screamed the last, across channels both technological and psychic, and all who heard the rawness in his voice shivered for a moment, many in fear, some in anticipation.
Kira watched his seed, violet in color with crawling rooting veins of purest gold, float towards the termination plane in the fastness of his mind, a void that slowly reformed into a vista of a forest, mighty trees towering on all sides, the soil thick and loamy beneath his bare toes. He watched with narrow eyes as the seed descended from the heavens, his arms tensed as he waited for it to fall within reach. And then he snatched for it, the seed smacking into his palm like it was meant to be there. Kira tightened his fist around his seed, feeling the texture of it as the veins began to writhe and venture outwards, sinking into the flesh of his palm and fingers, rooting itself in him. Alternating waves of fire and ice seemed to shoot through his veins, his limbs trembling with pent up energy as he carefully knelt down, the seed clenched in a fist held high...and then that fist was slammed downwards, punching deep into the soil, cracking the forest plane open as the seed gestated and became a gigantic tree, a tree that enveloped Kira and lifted him up, higher and higher, absorbing him into its essence until he was cradled inside it like a baby in a womb.
Back in reality, Kira's eyes opened, once more shaded a metallic color, though they were more gold than violet now, his pupils expanding until his corneas were but a thin rim of violet around the gold, like the glowing corona of a sun during a total eclipse.
With all of his senses operating well past their peak efficiency, Kira could already see that waiting for the Alliance forces to begin their attack would only place himself and his forces at a disadvantage. It was time to strike while the iron was still hot. Without any hesitation, Kira holstered both of his beam rifles and ignited his thrusters.
"All Celestial Being forces, follow my lead!" Kira directed, infusing the soldiers with such a degree of confidence and authority that even if he were to charge headlong into the mouth of Hell, he felt fairly sure they would follow him. And in truth, the situation was pretty close to that, as Kira accelerated the Divinity to near its maximum speed, crossing the space between him and the Alliance forces in a fraction of a second, moving so fast not even he could attack in real time. Fortunately he had no need to, with his more divine powers so souped up, he could see where his opponents would be when he did arrive, and he could thus start his attacks without having to react or rely on his slothful physical senses...he shot at empty space, knowing it would be filled by the time the shot arrived.
The Divinity punched into the mustering Alliance forces like a barbed spear thrust into a block of ballistic jelly, not only penetrating with ease, but dragging pieces of machines which had been destroyed earlier by his beam wings, into the wound alongside himself, even as he lifted armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and main battle tanks with the Gravametric Manipulation Field Generators, hurling the vehicles around like skittles, dropping them onto others of their kind, or throwing them into the sides of larger vehicles, like the Archangel and Petrie class battleships.
Even as the vehicles impacted with the hulls of the the Archangel and Petrie class battleships, multiple explosions rocking the vessels, a pair of GN sword/rifles launched from one of the Excalibur's few catapults which was dedicated solely to launching weapons to allied forces. The Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright amethyst light as Kira rolled around both weapons, plucking them out of the air and opening fire on any enemy units nearby.
"All Earth Alliance forces are ordered to pull back!" The familiar voice of Natarle Badgiruel suddenly boomed through the communications lines, and immediately the Alliance mobile suits began to retreat, their weapons spewing cover fire as they sped away. Unknown to anyone, the ZAFT Minerva-class warship Fortune, had been hiding in a nearby debris field, the gold winged warship cloaked beneath its Mirage Colloid as it silently monitored the battle.
"You know." Athrun Zala sighed as he sat in the cockpit of the Infinite Justice Gundam, as the machine sat in the hanger of the ZAFT Minerva-class warship Fortune, and Faith Yamato glanced down at him with her piercing amethyst eyes as she sat on the Infinite Justice's chest by its cockpit hatch. "He used to be my friend."
"You mean the guy piloting that angel-winged mobile suit?" She asked, moving a lock of her waist-length blonde hair from her eyes.
"Yeah, him." Athrun stared forward with a hurricane of emotion churning within. "He was the guy who commandeered the Strike Gundam and used it on Heliopolis six years ago. We were best friends."
Faith studied his haggard face for a moment. "Were?"
"He killed his sister, Cagalli Yula Athha and his own fiancée, Lacus Clyne." Athrun said with a resigned wave of his hand. "We're not friends anymore."
"Then what happened to him?"
At that, Athrun cast a hateful glance across the hangar at the Legend Gundam. "You asked me once why I have a problem with Rau." He said. "That's why. Rau was the one who drove us apart and turned Kira into the monster he is today." He floundered for words for a moment. "Whatever the hell he is now. I don't even recognize him anymore."
Faith glanced skeptically at Athrun. "How did he do that?"
"I don't know. I guess he blamed me for killing someone important to him, or something." He shook his head. "My best friend would not have ordered an attack on civilian vessels or any of the other stuff that he is doing now. And I have Rau to thank for that."
"Athrun-" Faith started.
"But he won't get to pull off whatever it is he's planning now." Athrun went on. "Not while I'm here."
'We'll see about that, Athurn Zala.' Faith thought to herself as she pushed off of the Infinite Justice's chest, floating over to her own Destiny Gundam.
Faith looked up at the Destiny Gundam as it silently sat in the hanger. She was working undercover for Celestial Being, and as such, she had used her powers to change her eye color from gold to amethyst and to shorten her silky blonde tresses, much to her annoyance, so that they only reached down to her waist.
Along with the changes in Faith's own appearance, her Destiny Gundam had been reprogrammed so that its MCPS armor would now appear to power down, changing the machine's armor to a dull grey color scheme when it wasn't in combat. In truth, however, the Destiny never needed to power down since all the machine's energy was supplied by a pair of GN drives, a zero-point module, an ultra-compact hyper deuteron nuclear reactor and a trio of high-capacity energy batteries. The Destiny's zero-point module, twin GN drives and ultra-compact hyper deuteron nuclear reactor provided, in essence, unlimited energy with the added benefit of keeping the auxiliary energy batteries charged, should they be needed.
It was not victory.
Kira Yamato sat in his office, deep within the Excalibur, clenching and unclenching his fists. In front of his desk, Hope watched him with a nervous expression. "We'll have other chances to destroy the Fortune, sir." She spoke up. "Meyrin said that their projected course will take them to L1. We could follow them-"
"No." Kira said suddenly. "We have a schedule."
"Will we proceed to the Aprilius One colony, then?" Hope asked.
Kira nodded painfully. "Send the order up to the bridge. Proceed to L4, target the Aprilius One space colony, and charge the Excalibur's weapons. Like most of the colonies, it's an Island Three type, and can be destroyed by punching through the mirror and breaking apart the central axis. We probably won't even need to launch the mobile suits."
Hope saluted and excused herself, leaving Kira alone in his office, seething with anger.
A few minutes later, multiple alarms began to sound, only for them the go completely silent as the lights flickered for a few tense seconds before finally going out completely, only to be replaced by the Excalibur's emergency lighting, which lit up the interior of the ship with a blood red glow.
Kira snarled as he rose from his chair, slowly moving to the door, bringing all of the Divinity's weapons online as he did so. When he reached the door, he put his ear against it and listened intently, but he couldn't hear anything. Finally, after ten seconds, he engaged the manual override and hit the access button, causing the door to slide open and reveal the corridor, which like his office was bathed in blood red light.
After a few moments, Kira reached the main hanger. The place looked like it had seen better days. There were a number of corpses spread out across the area, pools of blood were splashed across the ground and the walls. There were vehicles and aircraft within the hanger, but most of them looked as though they had been trashed beyond reason.
But there were no survivors, no one to tell the bloody tale first hand. Kira moved silently forward, weapons at the ready. He was nervous, he felt like he was being watched, but there was no one around that he could see. Something was wrong, with everything around him. He could almost feel a palpable sense of dread and ominous foreboding in the air, thick and heavy and overwhelming. He tried to keep calm, but the bodies strewn around the hanger spoke of a terrible fate. There were bullet holes in their pale flesh, ripping jagged, bloody rents in their clothing and armor. Bullet indentations lined the walls, screens either flickered on and off or were chaotic static or were just blank black, like a void.
Kira paused briefly, he thought he'd heard something...but maybe it was just his imagination. This place was certainly playing tricks on it.
"God almighty..." Kira whispered to himself, studying one of the bodies. "What in the hell happened here?"
The amethyst-eyed man carefully progressed on through the hangar, looking over the dead bodies in search of survivors or maybe just a familiar face. He kept looking around, trying to ascertain any details from his environment that could help him solve the cryptic scenario that had been placed before him, but a lot of it didn't make any sense. Why exactly was everyone so dead and what killed them besides each other? Sure, the bullet holes made sense, in their own sort of way. But there were other things, like claw marks or burn marks, and it looked as if something large and nasty had been eating a few of the bodies. They reached the doorway at the end of the hangar, it was marked 'Garage'. Kira hit the access button and looked inside.
He found himself staring into a dimly lit room of medium size, littered with crates and parts and blood and bodies. Most of the vehicles were broken down, a few looked as if they had actually been taken apart, but the rest them seemed like they had just been torn asunder with sheer, brute force.
Kira carefully moved forward, weapons at the ready, but nothing presented itself as a target. Kira's head snapped around as he heard something coming from around one of the wrecks of a vehicle and he stalked silently forward. It sounded like heavy breath and snapping and chewing, as if something was eating furiously. Kira swallowed, his eyes wide, wondering what he was going to find.
He rounded the vehicle, crouched down in absolute silence, plasma cannons swinging forward, and that's when he spotted the creature. The creature, in this case, was a technician in a tattered, bloodied blue jumpsuit, knelt down over a corpse facing away from the trio. Already, Kira could tell what he was doing. The man was eating the corpse.
"Identify yourself." Kira stated, just for something to say, to get his attention. The tech paused at the sound of his voice, and slowly rose to his feet. He turned around quietly, almost as if he was taking his time, and then Kira saw. He saw it all. The man's face had an almost demonic quality to it, pale and no doubt cold as stone to the touch, his eyes were blank and emotionless. There were no pupils, just small expanses of blank yellow. He moaned eerily and began stumbling forward, hands outstretched and dripping fresh blood and gore.
Kira instantly fired a pair of searing blue-red blasts from his plasma cannons, the twin blasts vaporizing the creature. As the dual plasma blasts slowly faded, Kira noticed a hellish light, like fire, coming from behind the grate of an overhead air vent at the top of the far wall. The amethyst-eyed man looked up just as the grate exploded off its mount and out came a skull that was on fire and flying.
More of the things began pouring into the room, hissing and shrieking like demons. Kira raised his beam rifle and fired, the beam blast nailing one of the things that was coming straight for him. The skull simply blew up in a mix of bone fragments and blood, which was disturbing in and of itself.
A dozen or so of the creatures had quickly come into the room, and Kira was now firing his weapons, one after another, in rapid sucession. He blasted another one out of the air, and then suddenly the breath was knocked from him as one of the skulls slammed directly into his chest with an alarming amount of force. He slammed into a computer console and cursed loudly, before vaporizing the thing with a pair of point-blank blasts from his twin chest-mounted multi-phase cannons. With a slight sigh, he then proceded across the hanger, shaking his head in anger and slight regret as he passed his beloved X-02A Wyvern, which despite its MCPS armor, had somehow been bashed and beaten, with multiple dents now covereing the once pristene exterior of the superfighter.
After exiting the hanger, the amethyst-eyed man proceeded towards the genetics labs. Immediately upon entering the genetics labs, he found himself immersed in chaos. A few dozen zombies were indulging themselves happily in a very large meal of the scientists and staff of genetics labs. Kira reacted instantly, bringing the barrels both beam rifles up to bear. He opened fire, vaporizing the head of the nearest zombie with a single green energy blast. This, of course, was an open invitation to all the other drooling undead, who slowly rose to their feet and turned towards the newcomer. About half of them wielded weapons of some sort; from wrenches and hammers, to pistols and shotguns. Kira aimed for the most immediate of threats, his rail guns swinging up and pumping round after round into the monstrosities.
Holstering the two beam rifles, Kira seized both of his twin buster rifles and opened up, squeezing the triggers and waving the guns back and forth in wide, sweeping arcs so that it caught everything in the room in a column of destructive yellow energy. A bullet would fly past him every now and then, and a few of them actually hit him. One nailed him in the chest, only to ricochet harmlessly off his MCPS armor before striking another of the undead. Countless bodies were being reduced to vapor, even as blood and brains and bone were boiling away due to the unimaginable heat from the huge beam blasts.
As Kira lowered slowly the rifles, his communications line suddenly crackled to life. "This is Murrue Ramius, is anyone still alive? Please respond!"
"This is Kira Yamato." The amethyst-eyed man replied, his now voice lacking emotion.
"Kira!" Murrue's voice swelled with relief. "Where are you?"
"I'm in the genetics labs." He answered.
"Don't move, I'll be there in a few minutes." She quickly replied and after a few seconds of silence she added. "That's an order."