Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 104
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.
Kira began screaming over the communications line. "Coming to kill me, Cagalli? What a wonderful, caring sister! You shunt me aside until I become a problem, and then, when I'm all nice and quiet you can just pretend I don't exist!"
There was a pause, but finally Kira spoke again. "How does it feel, Cagalli?"
'I need to find a way to cripple the Destroy Gundam.' Cagalli thought, even as she dodged the hail of firepower from the mamoth Gundam. 'If I take out the reactor it'll kill all of us, and taking out the high-energy beam cannons are too much of a risk. I must cripple it in such a way that I can strike a non-lethal finishing blow.'
The fighting had moved to shallow waters just off the coast of an island, the same island where Lacus Clyne had been shot down. That made it even more imperative that Cagalli didn't get the area all irradiated.
"Are you going to put me out of my misery?" Kira roared. "Is that what you think you're doing?"
"I'm the one who's in misery right now, and you don't see me whining about it." Cagalli calmly replied, she was going to save her crying for later.
"I hate you!" Kira shouted. "You don't deserve what you have! You put me in this thing! You ignored me and abandoned me!"
'Like it's all about you.' Cagalli thought.
"I'll kill you!" The Destroy let loose several volleys as Cagalli prepared her pass, and the Akatsuki took several hits as it flew overhead.
"Why won't you just die?" Kira screamed.
"Because I'm not going to give up on you." Cagalli said, she was now directly above the Destroy Gundam. The Owashi sky pack suddenly dropped the Akatsuki, and Cagalli aimed her anti-ship sword in a downward arc, slashing right between the main Destroy unit and the backpack unit attached to it.
"I've won, Kira." Cagalli smirked.
Kira screamed in panic and fired futility. Cagalli's blade struck right where she wanted it to be, and she felt the beam weapon steadily slice through the middle connections, slowly but steadily removing the Destroy's main power source and the majority of its weapons in one blow.
Kira was screaming, and Cagalli could hear sparks shooting off in his cockpit. 'I'm so sorry, Kira. But this is for your own good.' Cagalli thought as the backpack was finally severed and splashed into the shallow water. The Destroy managed a few staggering steps forward before turning around.
"It figures that he'd have some kind of secondary power source." Cagalli sighed, taking cover behind her physical shield.
"Damn you!" Kira roared, and both of the Destroy's hands opened up to reveal many miniature beam guns.
Cagalli prepared her anti-ship sword again. "I'll cut off both of the legs." She said over a private channel. "He has no propulsion system anymore and without its legs the Destroy can't stand up."
Kira was breathing heavily. "Why? Why, why, why, why, why?"
"Because I care." Cagalli said softly, even as she charged.
Kira screamed again as he fired the trio of high-energy beam cannons at Cagalli, but the Akatsuki once again absorbed the blasts as she charged forward.
A warning alarm went off, signifying that the reflection system was at ninety percent. But it didn't matter anymore. Nothing Kira could do now would stop the inevitable.
As Cagalli moved to strike, Kira's screams became nothing more than garbled gibberish, she couldn't understand a word. But due to her telepathic link with Kira, she knew exactly what it meant. "I hate you and I want you to die."
Cagalli struck, and her sword cleaved off the Destroy's right leg first. She kept the Akatsuki moving, knowing that if she stopped the Destroy would crash right on top of her. So she kept moving until she sliced off the left leg as well, and let the Destroy crash face up into the shallow water at the beachhead.
Kira's gibberish continued, screaming incessantly as the trio of chest cannons, along with the cannon positioned in the Destroy's head fired in futility over and over. Cagalli just waited, and the gibberish steadily turned into sobs and wails.
Athrun came on. "You'd think we committed bloody murder."
"We did. We sold this damned thing to the Earth Alliance." Cagalli said softly. She turned the Akatsuki around, and the Owashi pack once again hooked up to the Akatsuki.
After one final shot into the air from the mouth cannon, the Destroy fell silent, as did Kira. The radio had shut off.
The Akatsuki slowly walked over to the fallen Destroy. Kira was still silent. The behemoth looked little more than wreckage now, being taken apart piece by piece until there was nothing left. Which was how Cagalli wanted it.
'I don't think I killed Kira, but he's not giving me a sign.' Cagalli thought. 'He may have shut down mentally. Maybe he's traumatized. He might even be mute.'
Tears appeared in her eyes. 'My poor brother. I should be in his position. I'm the one who committed the wrong.' She silently sobbed. 'He's nothing more than a pawn used by the Earth Alliance who went insane.'
The shimmering form of the Akatsuki stopped right beside the Destroy, and Cagalli quickly prepared to exit the cockpit.
'You've been in the dark for so long, Kira.' Cagalli mused. 'I think it's time that you saw some light.'
It then occured to Cagalli just how sunny the day was, and a small smile crossed her face despite her tears.
'It's a beautiful day, Kira.' She smiled. 'And I want you to see it.'
Cagalli opened the Akatsuki's cockpit, and prepared for what she hoped was reconciliation, not confrontation, with her twin brother.
Kira Yamato sighed as he typed away at his laptop. Professor Kato had given him a lot of work do, and the guy who he was supposed to be working with on this had decided about thirty minutes ago to take a break and had yet to resume working.
After being captured by the OMNI Enforcers and forced to pilot the GFAS-X1 Destroy Gundam, Kira had finally decided to publicly step down as the leader of Celestial Being and move to one of the colonies on the dark side of the Moon, specifically the Heliopolis Colony, which was in actuality, wholey owned and controlled by the private armed organization. And although Kira had publicly stepped down as the leader of Celestial Being, he was, in reality, still in command of the private armed organization.
"You know, you could actually start working again." Kira said as he looked up from his work at the only other boy in the gazebo.
The other person, a Coordinator named Shinn Asuka, was currently playing his guitar. Shinn, like Kira, appeared to be only 18 years of age, when in fact, they were both well over 2,000 years old. Shinn had crimson eyes and short black hair. He was wearing blue jeans with a simple leather belt, a black t-shirt, and a gray unzipped hoodie. A pair of dog tags hung around his neck.
Along with Shinn and Kira, there were two girls in the gazebo, Asuka Langley Soryu and Lunamaria Hawke. Like the two boys, Asuka and Lunamaria both appeared to be only 18 years of age, when in fact, they were both more than 2,000 years old. Asuka was wearing a pair of black sweat pants and a blue polo shirt, while Luna was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a red t-shirt.
An instant later, a massive explosion suddenly erupted from the left block of the colony.
'Time to go back to war.' Kira thought, a slight grin crossing his face.
"If we're under attack, we should probably go find a shelter." Shinn suggested, and his friends nodded in agreement.
"All of you! Get down here now!" The voice of Murrue Ramius ordered a few short moments later, as the four friends sprinted across a catwalk in the factory, on their way to the shelters.
"Doesn't look like we have much of a choice." Shinn said, already knowing what was meant to happen. "Now the question is, how are we going to get down there?"
"I've got an idea." Kira replied before he leapt over the railing and onto the middle-left mobile suit, the one that Murrue was on.
"I know I'm going to regret this." Shinn said, before jumping off the other side of the catwalk and onto the machine his aunt was on.
Luna scanned the area, and spotted her uncle on a suit next to the one Johanna was on, promptly jumping down from the catwalk onto that one.
Shinn landed on his target machine's left shoulder. A little sore but otherwise all right.
"What's going on here? Why is ZAFT attacking us?" He shouted as his aunt fired off rounds from a pistol at a ZAFT soldier.
"Long story! Basically, ZAFT wants the machines we've been building!" Johanna replied as she fired the last rounds in her handgun, killing the soldier.
"Isn't that a treaty violation?"
Johanna was about to reply when an explosion tore through a part of the warehouse. Flames quickly spread across the warehouse.
"Damn! This place isn't going to last much longer!" She said. "Get in the mobile suit! We need to get out of here!"
Shinn nodded. The whole warehouse was going up in flames. He quickly scrambled into the cockpit, followed by his aunt.
As Luna landed on the mobile suit her uncle was on, Nick got hit by a burst of fully automatic fire from a ZAFT soldier, though his return fire killed the soldier.
"Uncle Nick!" Luna cried, running over to him. Nick, blood running from his mouth as he lay dying on the machine, reached up and grabbed Luna's shoulder.
"Get...this machine out of here, Luna." He choked out through the blood. Tears ran down Luna's face. "Don't let ZAFT have it..." Nick's hand released Luna's shoulder, and his arm fell to the ground limp as his eyes closed.
Tears still running down her face, Luna did as she was told, and jumped into the mobile suit's cockpit.
On the machine Kira had landed on, he and a ZAFT red stared at each other in shock.
"Athrun?" Kira breathed. It was none other than his childhood friend, Athrun Zala. Kira knew, however, that it couldn't really be his long-time friend. Athrun Zala along with his wife Meyrin Hawke, were both on the recently commissioned Sovereign-class warship Carolina. And the Carolina was currently docked at the Aprilius One colony.
"Kira?" Athrun asked, incredulous. Athrun's stance slacked, and Kira stood up, putting his eye level almost even with the blue-haired soldier across from him. The brunette woman lifted her gun, aiming it at Athrun, who jumped back, evading the two haphazard shots. The woman stood up and knocked Kira into the cockpit of the mobile suit before then dropping in herself.
Asuka deftly evaded the knife as it was swung through the air. The ZAFT red may have been a professional soldier, despite his young age, but Asuka was a black belt in a very rare form of martial arts. The redhead delivered a vicious kick to the soldier's hand, knocking the knife into the air, and then delivered a punch to his gut, sending him tumbling backwards away from the machine.
"We have to get out of here now! Forget about the remaining machines!" Another soldier shouted. The ZAFT red, Erik, stood up, threw a glare her way, and rushed back. Ignoring him, Asuka ran to her mother...who, to her horror, was covered in her own blood.
"Mom!" Asuka cried, running to the woman's side. Kyoko looked up at her and smiled weakly.
"Asuka." She choked. "Get it out of here...don't let anyone else have Savior...I made it...for you..." Kyoko hacked up blood.
"Mom, don't talk, you'll be okay." Asuka said desperately through the tears on her face and in her voice. Kyoko simply smiled, a little stronger.
"I'm fortunate...to have been your mother." She said. "Asuka...I love yo..." Kyoko's voice trailed off, and Asuka felt the body of her mother go limp.
"Argh!" Asuka screamed. Explosions tore through the factory, and the redhead kissed her mother before running to the cockpit of the mobile suit.
A massive explosion tore through the warehouse as the GAT-X102 Duel, the GAT-X103 Buster, the GAT-X104 Eclipse, the GAT-X105 Strike, the GAT-X207 Blitz, the GAT-X302 Savior, the GAT-X303 Aegis, and the GAT-X308 Twilight broke through their cradles and stood up
As the flames consumed the warehouse, eight mobile suits shot out from the ruined building. Their movements were erratic, at best. Three of them were slow and shaky, like trainees piloting a mobile suit for the first time were operating the machines. Five of them landed fairly smoothly, though they effectively stood their ground after doing so.
The last one landed, seemingly smooth...then tumbled off-balance and collapsed to the ground.
"What the hell?" Luna muttered, her voice still cracking slightly from the death of her uncle. She glanced over the readouts and realized that several of the control components of the mobile suit, the Twilight, were incomplete, and the battery was extremely low capacity as well.
The Aegis, Blitz, Buster, and Duel quickly pulled away from the other four prototype machines as a pair of GINNs landed nearby.
Shinn watched his aunt struggle to operate the mobile suit, the GAT-X104 Eclipse. Though he knew they were still in danger, he couldn't help but feel concerned about Kira, Luna and the others.
"Damn. They still haven't perfected the OS yet. How did they ever expect this thing to be combat ready with this OS in this shape?" Johanna said in frustration.
Shinn couldn't help but agree with her. The operating system was clearly of an inferior design. Which was very bad for them, if those GINNs decided to attack.
Asuka was completely silent as she rapidly typed away at the keyboard in the cockpit of her commandeered mobile suit, the GAT-X302 Savior. She'd seen the mess the OS was in, and had immediately begun rewriting it. Four of the eight machines, specifically GAT-X102 Duel, the GAT-X103 Buster, the GAT-X207 Blitz, and the GAT-X303 Aegis, were occupied by ZAFT soldiers, and her typing had become even more frantic when she saw two GINNs land nearby.
As the Aegis, Blitz, Buster and Duel began to retreat, the two GINNs began moving to attack the five stumbling machines.
Suddenly, a woman's voice came over the radio, one which everyone recognized as that of Murrue Ramius. "Pilot of the Savior, identify yourself."
"This is Johanna Asuka of Morgenroete." Came the reply. "Lieutenant Ramius, is that you?"
"Yes." Murrue answered. "It's good to see that you managed to survive and get that machine out of there."
"Is Kira Yamato with you?" She asked.
"Yes, he's here." Murrue answered.
Asuka sighed in relief, knowing that Kira was safe.
"Pilot of the Twilight, identity yourself." Murrue's voice spoke again.
"Um...this is Lunamaria Hawke." The voice of Shinn's wife answered. Feigning shock, Asuka stopped typing for a moment. "I'm Johanna Asuka's daughter-in-law."
"What?" Johanna exclaimed. "Luna, what are you doing in there? Where's Nick?"
What sounded like a choked sob was the first reply, and Shinn felt his heart freeze.
"He's...dead." Came the choked reply. Shocked, Johanna's control on the mobile suit slackened, and the GINN attacking them landed a hit near the foot of the machine, sending it tumbling off-balance.
"Damn it." Murrue cursed.
"No." Johanna whispered. She blinked back tears, and shook her head, getting herself back under control. "Listen to me Lieutenant Ramius, the OS still isn't ready for a Natural like you or myself to pilot. Allow Kira to pilot the machine."
"What?" Murrue asked, feigning disbelief.
"Kira's a Coordinator, just like my daughter-in-law." Johanna said, quickly regaining control of her emotions. "They should be able to better handle these machines than we can at the moment."
"I can not allow a civilian to pilot a top secret machine." Murrue countered.
'Come on, Murrue.' Kira finally interrupted, using his telepthy. 'We are both well aware of how this scenerio is going to play out.'
'We'll see about that, Kira.' Murrue grinned, even as her hands flew over the keyboard. A few seconds later, the Strike's eyes flashed with an omnious yellow light, even as the eyes of the Eclipse, Savior, and Twilight lit up green, red, and blue, respectively.
Suddenly, the two GINNs holstered their rifles, pulled out their swords and started running towards the Strike and Eclipse.
Murrue quickly pushed a button on the console, activating the Strike's PS armor. The machine's dull gray body turned white, blue, and red. One of the GINNs raised its sword over its head. She barely managed to raise the shield on the Strike's left arm to block the sword strike and push the GINN onto its back.
The Eclipse and Twilight had both activated their PS armor, turning the Twilight a brilliant red, and the Eclipse white, blue, and red. Activating her own PS armor, Asuka idly noted the readouts indicating her machine had turned red, silver, and black in the same patterns as the Eclipse and Strike.
As the GINN approached, Shinn finished his first set of calibrations, and fired the head vulcans at the GINN, causing it to stumble as it stabbed forward. Shinn deftly evaded, and punched the GINN in the face, before then using his left hand to free and ignite a beam saber from his machine's right hip. The crimson-eyed man smirked slightly as he swund the glowing red energy blade, severing the GINN's head with a single slash.
Murrue raised the Strike's right arm and opened the palm, revealing a beam cannon, and fired. A searing green energy blast streaked towards the GINN.
Unfortunately, the cannon's calibration was off. The first shot missed entirely, while the second shot severed the GINN's right arm at the elbow. The GINN staggered back a few steps, to be quickly joined by its comrade, and then the two machines took off into the air, quickly fleeing the Heliopolis Colony.
"Oh no you don't!" Kira roared, as the angelic form of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam suddenly appeared in the sky, directly in front of the retreating GINNs. Murrue watched as Kira's body dissolved into thin air, and she quickly realized that he had probably teleported himself over to the Divinity's cockpit. Her suspicions were confirmed as the Divinity's eyes lit up with a bright purple light.
"You assholes think that you can attack a neutral colony and get away with it?" Kira's voice snarled from within the Divinity's cockpit. The angel-winged mobile suit blazed with a blood red light, ignited the pure white beam saber on its left wrist and sped towards the pair of GINNs, glowing afterimages trailing behind it.
Kira smirked as his beam saber cleaved the GINN in half at the waist. Just before it exploded, the GINN fired off all of its missiles. The missiles flew wildly into the central shaft of Heliopolis. The shaft broke in two, causing Heliopolis to start collapsing all around them. As the colony began to break aprt, the crimson form of the Aegis Gundam seemed to drop in from nowhere and clash blades with the Divinity Gundam.
"No..." Shinn said as he watched his home for more than a year crumble into dust. Suddenly, the effects of the massive vacuum that was being created violently pulled on the Eclipse. He struggled to control his mobile suit, but, even with the wings of light, it was pointless. There was nothing he could do but sit back and pray that he would survive.
"Athrun? Athrun Zala?" Kira asked in disbelief. "Why...Why are you here?"
"You should talk!" Athrun shot back. "What are you going in that thing?"
Before Kira could answer, parts of Heliopolis began to fall all around them. Kira looked around in horror. Heliopolis was tearing itself apart. A few seconds later, both Kira and Athrun found themselves being violently pulled outside the colony.
Kira screamed as he was pulled into space, and he heard Athrun shout out his name before the Aegis was pulled out in a completely different direction.
Nicol, Dearka and Yzak watched in muted horror from the pilot lounge onboard the Nazca-class warship Vesalius as the Heliopolis Colony broke apart.
"Heliopolis..." Nicol said weakly.
"Jeez...How the hell did Athrun and the others screw up so badly?" Dearka asked.
"The council's gonna have Commander Le Creuset's head for this." Yzak said solemnly. "There's no way he can get out of something like this without some form of punishment. Using D-Type Equipment inside a civilian colony. What the hell was he thinking?"
Meanwhile, the Celestial Being warship Carolina sped away from the Aprilius One colony, the sleek vessel quickly making its way towards the Heliopolis Colony.
The Carolina, as with all of Celestial Being's Sovereign-class warships, was quite large, with a length of 685 meters, a height of 88 meters, a beam of 224 meters, and a total of 24 decks.
The basic design of the Sovereign-class warship consisted of two hull sections; an elliptical saucer-shaped primary hull and a secondary hull, which was attached to a pair of symmetrical nacelles running parallel to the main hull and contained various propulsion systems. The Sovereign-class had a mass of 3,255,000 metric tons and a cargo capacity of 60,000 metric tons. Under standard operation conditions, the ship could accommodate 885 people; consisting of 130 officers and 725 enlisted crew members. In extreme circumstances, however, the ship had an evacuation limit of 2,500 people.
The bridge, sub-light engines, hanger bay, lifeboats, six phaser arrays and twenty beam cannons were all located on the dorsal surface of the saucer section while an additional fifteen beam cannons, six phaser arrays, lifeboats, and twin torpedo launchers occupied the ventral side. The engineering section featured the main navigational deflector, docking bays for ten METEOR units, various propulsion systems, half a dozen power sources, a pair of phaser arrays, ten beam cannons, and a pair of torpedo launchers. The ship was armed with multiple new weapons, including energy weapons known as phasers, and two new types of projectile weapon known as photon and quantum torpedoes.
Meanwhile, a fierce battle raged at the debris field which had formerly been the Helioplis colony. As the stolen Gundams launched from the Nazca-class warship Vesalius, it quickly became apparent that the Celestial Being mobile suit Divinity, was among the opposing forces.
From the cockpit of the Duel, Yzak watched in amazment as everytime the Divinity shot off a volley from its weapons, it always managed to hit an arm or leg, to which point, one of the GINN pilots remarked. "What the hell? How the hell can he always hit us, it's like theres some cheap God allowing him to have constant God-mode on!" Also because of this constant stream of fire from the Divinity, the ZAFT mobile suit forces were quickly damaged to the point of temporary disrepair for some time. Once all of the mobile suits had been disabled, the angelic machine turned its attention to the Vesalius. A white bolt spilt the air in front of Kira as he unleashed all 36 of his DRAGOON units, the remote weapons spiraling elegantly through the blackness and spearing the engines of the Nazca-class warship with searing green energy blasts, quickly disabling the ZAFT vessel.
Even as the battle at the now destroyed Helioplis colony came to a close, a pair of Alliance battleships spotted a large group of GuAIZ mobile suits near the air space of Jachin Due. The two Alliance warships were quick to begin launching their Strike Daggers.
"Hey, you guys hear about that new mobile suit that has started attacking both sides, seemingly at random?" The pilot of the lead GuAIZ asked his wingmates.
"Yeah!" One of the others answered. "Rumors say that it's a stolen ZAFT machine, it attacks huge squads of mobile suits from out of nowhere, completely disables or destroys them all in like, two minutes, and then dissappears in a large flash of light. They're calling it the Space Demon."
"Space Demon?" Another pilot scoffed. "Why not just, The Demon?"
"I dunn-what was that?" The pilot of the lead GuAIZ began, only to stop when his sensors blared. "My senors just blared a warning but there's nothing there!"
From above, shooting straight down from the abyss of space, a golden mobile suit suddenly fazed into view. The mobile suit was holding a glowing white beam sword in its left hand and a huge rifle in the right, its glowing golden eyes with blood red centers, murdously coming at them.
"The Demon!" One of the pilots screamed. "Its The Demon!"
"Fire, fire, take it out!" The leader yelled.
"It's moving too fast, it keeps dodging my shots!"
Two quick slices and the pair of GuAIZs exploded in a ball of light. The Akatsuki Gundam landed fast and crouched with its right arm stretched foward, and its left behind it, the fire of the explosion causing it to look like a devil from the deepest pits of hell. The explosion drew the attention of another pair of GuAIZs who started to fire, but when the bullets hit, it was only the ground that was their target. The Akatsuki had pitched foward at blinding speed, raced around the new threats and diced them before they knew what happened. A pair of high mobility GINNs rounded a corner, but before they could fire, one of them exploded. From up above the Chimera Gundam crouched on an overhanging ledge, firing off a pair of rail guns mounted on its hips, picking off one mobile suit at a time.
The stolen GN-X666D Divine Legend Gundam was sweeping the battlefield, deploying its DRAGOON units on every mobile suit around, even its ZAFT allies. They were nothing to the pilot of the grey mobile suit, only more cows for the slaughter. Death was his ultimate goal. He hefted his beam rifle, and shot off a round, the blast peircing the back of a Strike Dagger. His name was Rau Le Creuset, and his mobile suit would be the last thing that these foolish pilots would ever see. He turned and saw a trio of mobile suits attacking a squad of GINNs and CGUEs, and with a flash of exhaust, he took off towards them.
Back on Earth, in South America, a group of Dark Dagger L's emerged from the tree line. They carried Dopplehorn and Jet striker packs at the ready. They came face to face with their target. A group of Celestial Being ZAKUs with Launcher and Sword packs lined the botton of the ridge. The startled ZAKUs raised their rifles and cannons. The beams ripped over the field. The Daggers merely stepped aside, as the shots tore past them, destroying entire sections of the forest.
The ZAKUs quickly drew their weapons. The Daggers did the same, but to their surprise, a few of the Daggers exploded suddenly. Then three more, until only one Dagger was left. Shocked and confused, the pilot dropped his weapons and raised his machine's hands in surrender. From above the ZAKUs a glimmer was seen. The grass in front of the Dagger started to sway, as if a powerful wind was being created there. From nothingness a lone, angel-winged DINN appeared in front of the ZAKUs, its wings were spread, and the helmet still covered its face, but it was indeed a DINN. The DINN raised its shotgun at the remaining Dagger and fired off a round. The Dagger pilot was too slow to respond and exploded. The ZAKUs high-fived, and the DINN fully emerged from its flight mode. Seeing its mission accomplished it saluted the ZAKUs and flew off.