Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 90
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.
Even as these, along with hundreds, if not thousands, of other battles raged on the surface and in the atmosphere of the Earth, Athrun Zala sat smack-dab in the middle of a Celestial Being shuttle, with Meyrin Hawke next to him and Lacus Clyne in front of him, all returning from the L4 Research Colony, once known as Mendel, which was now being converted into a makeshift PLANT for the former ZAFT and Earth Alliance troops and citizens whom were loyal to Celestial Being. All told, maybe just over five million had left the PLANTs and the Alliance to be formally intergrated into, and brought under the protection of, the private armed organization.
As the shuttle continued on its reletively short trip back to the Excalibur, Athrun's cell phone; a perfect replica of the Motorola Razr V3, suddenly began to beep, letting him know that he had received a text message. With a nearly inaudible sigh, he pulled the device from his pocket, flipped it open and read the text, which was from Shinn Asuka.
"I'm not watching that shit entitled; Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv, on YouTube or anywhere else, Athrun." The message read. "I googled it, clicked on the first link, and out came a damn screenshot of a man, hanging from the ceiling of some room, by a pair of intestines, with no eyes, and to top it all off, his skull had been split open, revealing his brain."
Athrun, not having sent the other pilot anything to watch, was quick to reply. "What are you talking about, Shinn?" He typed. "I never sent you links to a video of any kind."
Another day, another port of call for the famous warship Katsuragi. As the boarding gantry locked into place, Misato idly searched the banks of her memory for recollections about the space fortress Boaz. They had made some changes, at least; the docking brace into which the Katsuragi was fitted seemed to be a new addition.
The airlock door swung open and on the other end, flanked by officers clad in a variety of uniforms from across various timelines, a man in the old style of an Orb flag officer's uniform coolly accepted Misato's salute. The man; Rear Admiral Oshida, ran a tight ship here; so Misato and her crew had no worries about getting shot in the back.
"Looks like you needed a pit stop." Oshida said as he shook her hand. "Did anyone follow you?"
"Not that we know of." Misato said with a shrug. "But a number of warships are known to use Mirage Colloid."
Oshida and his entourage led Misato and Asuka out through the gantry, and out the windows she glanced towards the distinctive tapering shape of the space fortress Boaz. In this fractured timeline, ZAFT had started to build it during the First Bloody Valentine War as a secret base inside the Debris Belt, not far from Lagrange Point 3. ZAFT had left before it was complete, and Celestial Being had finished the job. And now, after the disaster at Carpentaria and the destruction of various locations, it was one of the last strongholds Celestial Being had to its name.
Boaz had many interesting bits and pieces, and one of them was its ready-made escape ship. Asuka Langley Soryu drifted down the observation corridor, an hour later, taking in the image before her.
It was known as the Blizzard, the blue-painted tenth warship of the Eternal-class, that had been buried in rock up to its bridge tower and sequestered in here as one of Boaz's many surprises for attackers. Few officers from any military would expect that Boaz itself could crack open and vomit up a cruiser, and the Blizzard was only one of half a dozen ships concealed within the sprawling fortress. The humming reactors of the six warships, in the meantime, made for handy auxiliary power sources.
"You again, eh?"
The Providence Gundam's DRAGOON units flashed around the Divinity Gundam, showering it with beam fire. Kira tried to charge through the net, but a volley of shots blocked his path. He looked up and saw the Providence, and heard the voice of Rau Le Creuset.
"You shouldn't even exist!" Rau snarled. Kira ignited one of the METEOR's beam sabers and took a swipe, but the Providence expertly dodged and dove in with its own saber to slash the METEOR's saber in half. Kira abandoned the ruined weapon as it exploded and charged on with his remaining saber ignited. "If anyone discovered you." Rau went on, as the Providence dodged again and surrounded the Divinity with beam shots. "They'd want to be like you!"
The Providence's DRAGOON units flashed in, forcing Kira back, and the Providence itself sliced the second beam saber in half as well. Kira drew the Divinity's sabers and hurriedly deflected the Providence's shots, boxed in by the DRAGOON units.
"You know, Kira." Rau laughed as the Providence descended on the helpless Divinity. "You're not a person! You're not even a Coordinator! You're just an experiment, a tool, a weapon!"
The Divinity dodged as a beam shot slashed near its head. "I'm not just a weapon!" Kira exclaimed, firing back with the Divinity's twin plasma cannons.
The Providence dove out of the way. "And who will understand that?" Rau laughed. The Providence's DRAGOON units darted around Kira again, as he backpedaled away from the Providence itself. "No one will understand!" He shouted. The DRAGOON units stormed in, Kira found his METEOR being blasted away from the Divinity, and the Providence itself raged in for the kill. "No matter who!"
The Providence came down with a beam saber slash, and Kira ejected the remaining parts of the METEOR before they exploded around him. He drew the Divinity's physical shield and beam rifle and went on the attack. Rau laughed as Kira charged.
"It's useless!" He cackled as the Divinity struggled to hit him and was surrounded in a web of beam fire. "You know you're fighting for the wrong thing!" Rau looked off to the side, as the DRAGOON units fenced Kira in. He flashed a grin towards the Divinity, feeling a twinge of pressure from his white-armored foe.
"You're useless!" Kira roared, as the Divinity slithered out of the net the DRAGOON units had woven and charged, and Rau deflected the Divinity's beam saber swing with the Providence's shield. The mobile suits parted again, and the Divinity dove through an opening in the DRAGOON volleys.
"You know as well as I do that if you go back you'll be just a weapon!" Rau cried.
"You don't know anything!" Kira shouted, as the Divinity stormed forward with its saber. The mobile suits met again in a shower of sparks.
"Of course I don't know!" Rau cackled. "Humans can only understand what they've experinced!"
The Providence shoulder-rammed the Divinity and knocked it away, forcing it back on the defensive. Kira grunted in frustration, charging back into the Providence's face.
"One day." Rau laughed, as the beam sabers clashed again. "One day they'll understand!" He pushed the Divinity away and bombarded it with beam shots again. "That's what you said! Well they don't understand! And they never will!"
Kira grunted in pain as the Divinity rattled. "You're wrong!" He shouted.
"Am I?" Rau laughed again, as the DRAGOON units went on the attack again. "Eyes that see only blood, hearts that feel only hatred, hands that know only how to pull a trigger, and you say I'm wrong?" The Providence came down with a slash, and the Divinity repelled the saber stroke with its shield. With a beam shot, the two mobile suits separated again. Rau fired his beam rifle back at the Divinity, nearly clipping its leg. The mobile suits clashed again in a beam saber lock. "Look at that thing, GENESIS! Does it look like something made by creatures that won't destroy themselves?"
"You're wrong!" Kira cried, his rage slowly building.
Rau laughed maniacally. "We'll see who's wrong, little Kira!"
The Providence suddenly retrieved its DRAGOON units and sped away. Then the world went white as GENESIS began its fiery death throes. Risking one last glance around the battlefield, he latched onto the wreck of a destroyed Nazca-class ship to ride out the blast.
"I understand."
Sumeragi Lee Noriega looked away shamefully. She had envisioned the end of this war as something joyous, but this was hardly a joyful occasion. Athrun stood before her on the bridge of the Archangel, his face sad.
"I couldn't find Kira after the blast." He said sullenly. "I have to assume..." He trailed off, not willing to finish.
Miriallia and Sai looked down somberly. Most of the members of Celestial Being had no idea that Kira Yamato and with his lovers were immortal, and Athrun was not about to devulge what was considered to be top secret information.
Athrun glanced across the bridge. Yzak Jule was leaning there, arms crossed, staring neutrally at him.
"We can't go to Orb." Sumeragi said quietly. "The Seirans have taken over there, and they're extremely unfriendly to Athha family supporters like us." She looked out the bridge windows. "And Kira's gone."
"What will we do?" Athrun asked. Sumeragi looked back at him.
"Cagalli wants to fight the Seirans." The auburn-haired woman answered. "We're going to return to the Excalibur to refit ourselves into something that can actually take them on." She shrugged her shoulders. "We're basically going to be space pirates. That's how it sounded when she described it to me, anyways."
Sumeragi sank into her chair and sighed.
The Archangel silently glided into space, closely flanked by the Eternal and Kusanagi.
Dozens of green beam blasts seared their way through the blackness. The battle which had originally been a one-on-one between the Divinity and Providence, was now a two-on-one, with the Divinity fighting both the Providence and a highly modified version of the Legend, which Kira's computers identified as the ZGMF-X666B Eternal Legend Gundam.
At first glance, the Eternal Legend Gundam appeared to be nothing more than the original Legend Gundam, but upon closer inspection, it was obvious that the Eternal Legend had more weapons than its predecessor, specifically a pair of hip-mounted rail guns, a pair of plasma cannons hidden within the backpack and a single beam cannon in the chest.
"Ok, if you two morons want to gang up on me." Kira scowled. "I'll just pull out all the stops, one by one." With that, the Divinity unleashed its own DRAGOON units, before then transforming into its mobile armor mode, igniting its wings of light and streaking towards the Providence, ramming the machine in the chest. In the cockpit of the Providence, Rau grunted as his machine rattled violently, and an instant later, he found himself staring into the monitor and by extention, into brightly glowing, amethyst eyes of the Divinity Gundam.
Kira grunted in frustration as the Eternal Legend kicked him away from the Providence, before opening fire with its DRAGOON units and forcing him back even further. With an annoyed sigh, the amethyst-eyed man ignited his beam shields and recalled his own DRAGOON units.
Once the remote weapons had again docked on his machine's back, the Divinity rocketed towards the imposing shapes of the Providence and Eternal Legend. Within the cockpit of the angelic machine, Kira scowled at the dark forms of the sinister mobile suits. Those two things could no longer be allowed to exist.
Rau Le Creuset looked up at a familiar sensation. Up ahead, he could see the familiar translucent beam wings of the Divinity Gundam, as it streaked once again towards him.
"Rey." He said, as the Providence glanced at the Eternal Legend. Rey Za Burrel nodded; both machines launched their DRAGOONs with a flash and opened fire.
Kira's eyes widened as a white bolt split the air before him, and the Divinity slalomed through a wave of beam fire with a blur of afterimages. The Providence squeezed off a handful of beam shots, as the Eternal Legend combined its rifles and fired. The Divinity dodged again and stormed forward; another blaze of DRAGOONs stopped it.
"Fighting us again, are you?" Rau asked with a chuckle as the Divinity swerved and dodged. "There's always someone to try to stop the inevitable!"
The Eternal Legend fired a full burst; Rey scowled at the twisting and turning Divinity. "Get out of our way!" He snapped.
The DRAGOONs flashed in again, and Kira skillfully dove around them, watching the Providence and Eternal Legend carefully. The Eternal Legend opened fire with another full burst, as the DRAGOONs swarmed around the Divinity.
"What good can you possibly hope to achieve here?" Rau cackled. "Even if you stop humanity here, they'll just come back!" The Providence fired its beam cannons, spearing the Divinity's beam rifle and knocking its physical shield off its arm. Kira grunted in frustration, abandoning his beam rifle as it was torn apart by more DRAGOON fire.
The Eternal Legend swept in with another full burst. Kira backpedaled against the attack and swerved to avoid a flashing net of beam fire. He grunted as beam blasts landed against the Divinity's beam shields.
"I'll show both of you!" Kira screamed, as the Divinity began to glow with a blood red light. "TRANS-AM!"
"What is that thing?" Rey asked, as the angelic machine lit up with a crimson light, now leaving a five-mile long trail of blindingly bright afterimages in its wake. Unlike the afterimages left behind when the Wings of Light or Trans-Am were operating alone, the afterimages left behind when the two systems were operating together weren't red-shifted, making them a perfect match for the real thing. Not only did the afterimages match the Divinity in color, they were also physical manifestations of the angelic machine.
"This is the power of God." Kira smirked, but an instant later, everything came to a sudden halt as multiple voices, all of which were familiar to the former Nerv personnel, echoed through the communications lines.
"The Eva series have opened up their S2 systems!" The voice of Shigeru Aoba spoke through the communications line.
"Dimensional values are inverting! They're going negative!" Makoto Hyuga yelled. "Measurement impossible...Numerical expression is invalid!"
"An anti-AT Field..." Fuyutsuki said, his voice just above a whisper.
"We have begun Third Impact!" The voice of Maya Ibuki announced, her voice tinged with fear.
"Who were those people?" Rau and Rey asked at the same time, even as the Providence and Eternal Legend recalled their DRAGOON units and came to a stop.
"Shit." Kira growled, transforming the Divinity into its mobile armor mode and streaking away from the pair of grey mobile suits, speeding towards Earth.
In the blink of an eye, a massive explosion enveloped the city of Tokyo-3 and the Geofront below, the force of the blast violently shaking the Command Center.
"Direct impact!" Aoba yelled. "Surface layers melting!"
"Second wave excavating headquarters periphery!" Hyuga reported at the same time. "It's exposing the outer hull!
"These are just physical shock waves!" Fuyutsuki said. "Set the absorbers to maximum!"
The explosion quickly expanded outward from the Geofront, revealing the egg of Lilith; the Black Moon.
"No you don't!" Kira shrieked, as the angel-winged mobile suit plunged into the Earth's atmosphere. The machine's armor blazing bright red with the light of Trans-Am and the heat of re-entry. "I will not let this shit happen!" The amethyst-eyed man roared as the Divinity Gundam cleaved the clouds themselves in half, transformed into its mobile armor attack mode and closed its claws around Evangelion Unit 01.
"Where the hell is the Katsuragi?" Kira growled, igniting his thrusters, the Divinity Gundam was actually attempting to force Evanglion Unit 01 out of the glowing orange form of the Sephroticum, which now surrounded the purple beast.
"Unidentified high-energy source approaching rapidly from Terminal Dogma!" Aoba suddenly announced from within the Command Center far below.
"AT Field verified!" Hyuga yelled. "Analysis pattern blue!"
"It's not...an Angel!" Maya asked, terror obvious in her voice.
"No!" Hyuga answered. "It's...a person! It's human!"
Lilith-Rei rose through the Command Center, her left hand passeing through Maya, who shrieked in terror.
"Damn...Damn...Damn...Damn!" Shinji whimpered from inside the suspended form of Evangelion Unit 01, even as the Lance of Longinus pulled freed from the surface of the Moon and sped towards Evangelion Unit 01.
"I don't fucking think so!" Kira screamed as the Divinity Gundam released Evangelion Unit 01, transformed into its mobile suit mode, ignited the beam sabers on its wrists, and sliced the rapidly approaching weapon in half length-wise, before then slicing it into more than a dozen other pieces, all of which fell harmlessly to the ground below.
"Ahh, the whore finally arrives." Kira grinned as Lilith-Rei rose from the ground to face Evangelion Unit 01.
"The Eva series' AT Fields are resonating!" Aoba yelled, even as the mass production Evangelion Units began to glow with a white light.
"The resonation is increasing!" Hyuga added.
"Has the assimilation with Rei begun?" Fuyutsuki wondered to himself, even as the Eva series took Rei's laughing faces and Evangelion Unit 01's core was exposed as Shinji clutched futilely at the controls.
"About time you guys arrived, Misato." Kira sighed, even as he fired his twin buster rifles continously, along with a steady stream of rail gun shells and plasma blasts at Lilith-Rei, but much to the amethsyt-eyed man's annoyance his weapons were blocked by the AT Field. The purple-rimmed warship Katsuragi streaked into the fight, its positron cannon already deployed and quickly charging, even as it spewed a hail of beam blasts and armor piercing shells at Lilith-Rei, only for the weapons, like those of the Divinity, to harmlessly impact the creature's AT Field. Even as the Katsuragi prepared another volley, the blood red form of Evangelion Unit 02, or as it was now known; Crimson Fury, streaked from the warship's portside launch bay, the crimson machine holding a beam rifle in its right hand, opening fire as soon as it had cleared the launch bay.
"Sorry, Kira." Misato replied. "We got hung up at Boaz."
"As long as we can stop this, it's not a problem." The amethyst-eyed man smiled slightly, freeing both of the twin buster rifles from his back and unleashing full-power columns of glowing yellow energy on the mass production Evangelion Units, destroying them with one shot each. "Oh, shit!" Kira yelled, as six pair of bright orange energy wings suddenly extended from Evangelion Unit 01's back, the glowing wings extending for more than five miles.
"We will be the only ones to destroy the human race!" The voices of Rau Le Creuset and Ray Za Burrel yelled in unison as the Providence and Eternal Legend Gundams streaked into the fight, both machines unleashing their flight-capable DRAGOON units and opening fire on Lilith-Rei from all sides, only for the AT Field to block their shots.
"Don't worry, Kira." The voices of Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke spoke through the communications line, as the Eclipse and Twilight Gundams sped into the fight, both machines wielding their anti-ship sword in their right hand and their beam rifle in the left, with their long-range beam cannons slung under their left arm. Even as a dozen mobile suits; four DINNs, four ZAKUs and four GuAIZ-Rs, launched from the Katsuragi, the twelve machines quickly forming up around Crimson Fury and opened fire on Lilith-Rei.
A moment later, the Divinity shook violently, and Kira stared in disbelief, as the pale-skinned creature swung at the Divinity, severing the machine's right arm. With a disorienting smack, the Divinity went staggering down towards the ground, a screaming Lilith-Rei followed at a breakneck speed, and a moment later, came driving down with an open palm towards the Divinity, clearly intending to squash the angelic machine. Kira's instincts took over and he ejected the Wyvern superfighter just as Lilith-Rei slammed her open palm into the Divinity's chest. As the Divinity Gundam was smashed into the ground and exploded, Kira yanked back on the Wyvern's joystick, pulling up, the underbelly of the aircraft skimming just above the tops of the trees.
The amethyst-eyed man stared down in disbelief at the Wyvern's controls. That thing had beat him so easily. His disbelief quickly turned to rage and hatred, however, as he spoke through the communications line. "Misato, I need a replacement Chest Flyer and Leg Flyer." He paused for a few seconds to get his quickly rising anger under control. "I also need a Lightning Striker."
"Understood." Misato replied from the bridge of the winged warship, and a few short seconds later, the requested equipment streaked out of the Katsuragi's centerline catapult.
Kira grinned from within the cockpit of the X-02 Wyvern as he initiated the automated docking sequence, and felt the wings of his X-02 Wyvern begin to retract into the sides of the aircraft as it waited for the Chest and Leg Flyer. The slight shaking of the jet and loss of vision granted him access to the next combination stage. Kira pressed a button on the control panel as the Leg Flyer docked with his Wyvern; two seconds later the Chest Flyer docked forming the complete Divinity Gundam.
As soon as the combination sequence had completed, the Divinity Gundam raised its head slightly and its eyes flashed with a bright purple light. At the same time, the Divinity's MCPS armor activated and the grey color which the armor displayed in its powered down state was quickly replaced by a two-tone of white and black. The chest armor changed to white and black with a few red accents, while the armor covering the arms and legs changed to white, with black accents, then the words 'CB-X60D DIVINITY GUNDAM' suddenly appeared, in black letters on angelic machine's arms, the text looking almost like a demonic tattoo, finally the Orb Union national crest appeared on the mobile suit's right shoulder, while the Celestial Being crest appeared on its left shoulder. Three seconds after the Divinity Gundam had completed its combination sequence, the Lightning Striker attached itself to the angel-winged machine. Kira scowled as he combined the two components of the rail gun, and started firing at the huge creature towering over him.
"Lilith's anti-AT Field is expanding!" Lexi's holographic vestige exclaimed, as the Katsuragi quaked under fire from Nerv's few remaining anti-aircraft defenses. Misato nodded grimly, things were falling apart much faster than she had thought.
"Begin pulling back!" She ordered. "Lexi, recall the-" Misato continued as the winged warship began to turn away from the huge creature and its engines blazed to life, only to be cut off as Lilith's anti-AT Field swept over the ship.