Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 119
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.
"Boy, the sorry bastard in that Gundam is never going to know what hit him." Andrew Waltfeld shook his head in mock pity, with that faux pity directed at the menacing form of the Earth Alliance GAT-X666S Revenant Gundam. "I haven't seen Kira and the others this eager to take the field since the last nuclear attack on the PLANTs. The Alliance really kicked itself in the balls with their attack on Eden Prime."
The GAT-X666S Revenant Gundam was essentially nothing more than a black-and-crimson colored copy of the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam. The Revenant, however, actually wielded a great deal more more firepower than the Strike Freedom. Not only did the Revenant Gundam possess all of the weapons of the Strike Freedom, but it also had a battleship caliber beam cannon attached to its left forearm, a pair of long-range beam cannons and a pair of anti-ship swords, with the twin long-range beam cannons and anti-ship swords being identical to the ones wielded by Celestial Being's own Twilight and Eclipse Gundams.
"Eager isn't really a term I would use for Kira, but he does seem much less reluctant than usual." Murrue replied, allowing a slight smile to cross her lips. "Although he does seem to be taking what happened to the colony rather personally."
"Yeah, he even went so far as to swap out his dual beam rifles with a pair of twin buster rifles from the Wing Zero's spares, not to mention two more beam sabers and a spare subflight lifter from the Infinite Justice. If I didn't know him better, I'd say the kid was in a killing mood." Waltfeld shrugged, not really being able to blame Kira for those feelings.
"The Archangel will place itself between the enemy Gundam and the Shipyard and Command districts." Murrue said, outlining the battle plan. "Meanwhile, the Eclipse, Infinite Justice and Twilight will engage at closer range, while the Akatsuki, Wing Zero and Divinity will provide support fire from the opposite side. Hopefully we can keep him turning around and too distracted to focus his firepower on one of us, or the rest of the base. Keep on your toes, everyone! This will not be a quick battle, judging from the capabilities of the enemy as we have seen so far. We're going to have to wear him down piece by piece, faster than he can wear us down the same way!"
The legendary warship Archangel had rebuilt by Celestial Being decades earlier, and had been assigned as a defensive unit for the Eden Prime colony, so it was only fitting that its first battle was in the defense of its new home port.
"What the hell does he think he's doing, anyway?" One of the gunnery officers muttered, staring at the dancing, cavorting figure of the Revenant on his target screens. "How can something so big move like that!"
"He won't be dancing for too much longer, not after we blow a hole through his chest big enough to park a semi-trailer in. Just don't let him get to you...he's just trying to unsettle us." Waltfeld smiled grimly.
"Incoming communications, blanketing all channels. I'm trying to filter it out, but it's a very powerful signal. Origin is the enemy Gundam..." Meyrin Hawke reported. Even as she did so, the scratchy, buzzing voice of the enemy Gundam pilot blasted out over the bridge speakers.
"About fucking time you showed up! What took you so long! Get over here so I can break that pretty little ship of yours into a hundred flaming pieces! Hurry! Hurry! HURRY!" The image of the Revenant on their screens nearly went into convulsions as it pranced around like a toddler throwing a tantrum, reaching imploringly towards them with both arms, although he didn't fire so much as a single round at them. "AHAHAHA! YES! YES! Closer! Come closer and BURN! Come closer, little Archangel, so that I may pluck off your wings and watch you wriggle in the dust before I stamp my heel down upon your neck and crush the life from your limp body! YAHAHAHAHA!"
"I am officially declaring myself unsettled." Meyrin volunteered in a shaky voice, swallowing hard as she fought to keep her hands steady on her console controls. "Who talks like that! What sort of...?"
"It sounds familiar for some reason. I know that I've been threatened like this before..." Waltfeld mused, as he fought down his own case of the willies. Such maniacal hatred, such disgusting joy...it was a loathsome voice, and damnably familiar. "But surely not...everyone who spoke like this is dead!"
"He does seem to know us, though. I think I would remember a pilot with a Gundam like this one." Murrue acknowledged. "The last time we encountered anything like this, it was the Fury, and it was piloted by Kira Hibiki, but he is gone. We all saw him get forced out of the timeline by the Divinity's temporal inversion cannon. Nothing could have lived to come back after being thrown back in time to when the Earth was still a ball of molten rock."
"Though I hate the necessity of this, I'm glad we're going to be going in together." Kira said as he clapped Athrun on the shoulder in a friendly manner, drawing him away from the last set of pre-flight diagnostics he was running. "As far as reprehensible tasks go, these no better company to do them in."
"Well, if it really bothers you that much, you could always just sit it out." Athrun replied, with a slight smile. "I'm sure that Lexi can handle the Divinity."
"Are you afraid of me because I possess the powers of God?" Kira asked quietly but earnestly. Athrun paused for a long moment, and didn't look over at him.
"Are you afraid of the concept of Death, Kira?" Athrun replied at last.
"Concept of Death?" Kira echoed.
"Yeah. The knowledge that, at some point, you are going to die, because that is what all humans do. Its inevitable, no matter how virtuous a person is, or how undeserving of dying. People die. Its a constant, and the only thing we can even somewhat control is the time and manner of it, and even then it isn't really up to us alone. Does that scare you?" Athrun clarified.
"Well, yeah, of course it does, but it's not something I dwell on all the time." Kira responded with a frown. After a long moment of silence, Kira headed back to the other hanger mandible and boarded the Divinity. While he wasn't satisfied with the result of his conversation, he was unable to progress any further if Athrun wasn't willing to talk with him.
He'd had the flight crews swap out the twin beam rifles for a pair of dual barreled buster rifles, and added another pair of beam sabers to his machine's backpack, much like the ones he'd used on the GAT-X105 Strike, the ZGMF-X10A Freedom and the ZGMF-X62S Freedom's Destiny. The reason for this was because, frankly, he was at the end of his rope when it came to war and the brutal tactics employed by all sides. The innocent civilians who'd been beheaded or left to die of exposure during the Earth Alliance's occoupation of Switzerland. The innocent civilians ZAFT had gassed at the Copernicus lunar colony. The Orb civilians who were crushed and pulped by the combined invasion forces of ZAFT and the Earth Alliance. The members of Orb Parliament who had been tortured and skinned alive, for no reason at all other than cruel amusement. The injecting of Cagalli, his own sister, with a drug known as Pink Passion, which may have permanently damaged her brain and personality. Not to mention the attempt on his own life. No, Kira was definitely not feeling anywhere close to his most merciful with regards to his enemies, not at all. They'd get their lumps, and like them, and be grateful he was proud of the fact that he was a much better person than they could even pretend to be.
Kira Hibiki watched them launch with avidity shining in his eyes, the Revenant's yellow eyes actually growing brighter and brighter as extra power flooded into them as Hibiki tuned up his cameras and other sensors, to not only take in the maximum amount of data, but also to permanently record these moments for posterity's sake. He wanted to be able to look back on this fight for the rest of his days, however long they might be. He ignored the pitiful remnants of the base defenders, and the slightly less pitiful yet still ultimately inadequate Celestial Being troops, as inconcsequential. They were bugs, and drones at that, he wanted to sink his teeth into some real meat. Hibiki was almost giddy with excitement as he watched the Celestial Being Gundams launch from the Archangel and speed towards him, like figures stepping forth from a grand painting. The entire scene was perfect...him on the ground, devastation expanding out around him in rings of smoke, rubble and fire, them in the sky, charging down towards him on streams of brilliant blue thruster flames and trails of glowing green GN particles, more valiant heroes come to slay the dragon, or feed his hunger trying.
Leading the pack, with its angelic wings spread wide, was the Divinity Gundam, with the Infinite Justice slightly behind and to the left. The two machines held guns in either hand, and they were already spitting hyphenated bolts of green and yellow energy at the Revenant, the precise, incredibly well aimed beam blasts boring into already darkened places on the crimson machine's hide, eating into the armor beneath the disabled or deactived beam shields, leaving glowing yellow and orange divots visible like distant stars against the blackness of the Revenant's form.
Hibiki was still basking in the arm glow their appearance had suffused his half dead heart with when he saw the rest of the Alliance forces erupt from hiding a few miles away, from behind a low range of hills that had been shielding them from line of sight sensors and accidental firepower from either the defending forces or the Revenant. Twenty Dagger Ls, ten Windams, the Calamity, the Forbidden and the Raider. A formidable force by any standard, and definitely enough to send new shafts of dismay and despair through the battered souls of the defenders. Even the Archangel veered wildly away from the Alliance reinforcements, like a great ungainly bird avoiding a suddenly erupting volcano. Celestial Being's strategy was visibly thrown into disarray, and they halted their relentless charge at the Revenant to take stock of this new development.
Hibiki frowned as he saw some of the Windams and Daggers begin firing upon the Archangel, Twilight and Akatsuki. Not that any of them were particularly skilled shots or pilots, but even a bunch of drooling idiots could overwhelm a Gundam Miester through enough numbers, if their mobile suits had a certain degree of base ability, and by the standards which Hibiki judged things, the pilots of the Eclipse, Twilight, Akatsuki and Chimera Gundams had never been in the top ranks of the Gundam Miesters. Hibiki lifted his left arm and sent a ravaging barrage of Gottfried bolts across a long line between the Alliance forces and the Celestial Being forces, blasting two Windams and a Dagger to molten pieces and bringing the remainder of the ambush forces to a screaming halt. "Back off! Those ones are mine!" Hibiki directed furiously.
"We were told to wipe them out first, while working together with you!" Dylan Cross replied from within the Calamity Gundam, his cowardly uncertainty plainly obvious with every word. Dylan Cross was a worm, even among humans, which Hibiki saw as no more than an entire race of worms. "They're the most dangerous..."
"I'M THE MOST DANGEROUS!" Hibiki corrected thunderously. As he pointed his left arm in the direction of the Calamity and the bulk of the Alliance forces. "Next one to take a shot at them learns why!"
"You would destroy your own allies?" Randall Jeffries protested from the Raider Gundam, his words harsh but his posture faltering as he stared Death in the arm. "You cannot prevail against them alone..."
"In the words of someone famous...I have not yet begun to fight!" Hibiki announced fiercely. "I was just larking around before. You guys can clean up my mess here, and be grateful I allow you to do that much! And you aren't my allies...at best I could call you lesser enemies, though meat slaves is probably closer to the truth. Once I get through with the rest of the people I need to kill around here, I'll do the bunch of you as well!"
"Foolish to admit your treachery so openly, Hibiki!" Randall spat back. "The Boss is listening..."
"You assume he did not know what sort of person he'd built this Gundam for?" Hibiki snorted in contempt. "If I destroy Celestial Being for him, I don't think he'll cry overly hard for you worthless fools. After all, I would have single-handedly achieved something all three of you, plus your reinforcements, were unable to do! Why should he need deadweight like you when he has me?"
Suddenly, a speeding dart-like missile, trailing a huge streamer of white-hot plasma energy, speared into the Revenant Gundam, connecting just over the groin region, the missile itself exploding and sending small shards of armor flying like chaff, a fraction of a second before the plasma wavefront arrived and drilled into him, chewing an orange-rimmed hole almost five meters across, impacting hard enough to give him a slight tremor. He was almost impressed, as he turned back to the Celestial Being Gundams, which had been far from idle during Hibiki's conversation.
"Nice try...but you're about five years too late to castrate me, ya bastards!" Hibiki snapped, insulted by their choice of target location. Seriously, what sort of bastard deliberately targeted the family jewels? Well, besides him...but it was okay for him to use any tactic available against his dastardly foes. He switched his left arm over towards where the Celestial Being Gundams were all bunched up, the Twilight charging up another large ball of plasma for the Eclipse to thread with its missile launcher, undeterred by the lack of any real effect from the last shot. Rail gun shells from the Akatsuki, Divinity, Infinite Justice and Wing Zero kicked up plumes of dirt around the Revenant's feet and legs, while missiles, barrages of beam bolts and hyper-impulse blasts lashed out at Hibiki like a sprinkler directed at a rhino. Hibiki's return volley of Gottfried fire hammered out at them, enough energy to scour the lot of them from existence with just the first few shots, not to mention the dozens behind those.
That is, if it ever reached them, which was not by any means an assured thing Hibiki discovered, as he watched his assault sizzle its way along the ground, each bolt carving out a glowing hole about two meters across in the ground, before his arm tracked up into and through the Celestial Being position. The beams didn't follow that course though, instead they bent and twisted like snakes veering away from a sudden bright light, encountering the Divinity Gundam, with all 36 of its DRAGOON units deployed in Geischmedig-Panzer mode, the reinforced defensive shielding being more than capable of handling even the repeated pounding from the Revenant. Kira even managed to catch a few blasts and sent them back in the Revenant's general direction, though his accuracy was down. Hibiki still flinched backwards slightly, his own firepower sailing off into the sky as his arm twitched. The Akatsuki and the Wing Zero wasted no time in hurling themselves out from behind the Divinity and splitting up, moving in on the Revenant from either side, while another missile and plasma streamer, courtesy of the Eclipse and Twilight, rocketed at Hibiki from directly ahead, the missile along with the trailing plasma ball, having been allowed to slip through a hole in the Divinity's defensive tapestry.
Hibiki's defensive weapons caught the missile this time, and blew it into oblivion almost a hundred meters short of him, but there was no stopping the now uncontrolled plasma streamer, which expanded and widened its effect without the guiding magnetic fields of the missile to corral it. As a result it was more a wave of energy than a stream that hit him, chewing a layer or two deep into the exposed armor across his chest. One or two of his defensive turrets cooked off, their overheated barrels melting in the onslaught, but it was nothing to cry about. Hibiki smiled, dropping the Revenant into an eager crouch as his enemies closed in on him from three directions.
"I don't like you." Kira Yamato furiously scowled, as the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam, its DRAGOONs once again docked on its wings, suddenly appeared directly in front of the Revenant Gundam, the two mobile suits nearly touching. "Why don't you just stay dead?" The amethyst-eyed man snarled, even as he freed a beam saber from his right hip, taking the weapon in his left hand as he ignited the pure white energy blade and slashed at the Revenant, aiming to slice the black-and-crimson machine in half. Much to Kira's shock and anger, however, the shimmering beam blade missed its target, as the Revenant Gundam boosted away at the last possible instant.
Kira clenched his fists around the Divinity's controls as the Revenant once again approached. His last battle with that black-and-red machine had resulted in four ruined Gundams, but not this time.
The Revenant stopped short and leveled off a series of cannons on its body, and with a flash, the DRAGOONs that had eviscerated the Archangel's Gundams arrayed themselves around the white Gundam. Kira tensed himself for the attack, and the guns opened fire.
With that, the Divinity's beam wings flashed to life, the angelic mobile suit lunged over the blasts, and it came down with a beam sword hack that slammed against the Revenant's beam shield. The Revenant backed away with another salvo from its mounted guns while the DRAGOONs spread out, but the Divinity darted through the shots and slashed the Revenant's beam rifles in two with one sweeping sword stroke.
The black Gundam flung aside its ruined rifles and charged back with a beam saber, and the two Gundams came together with a crash and a shower of sparks.
"They told me your new machine was a sight to behold." The pilot's voice growled through the cockpit speakers, and Kira Yamato blinked as he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a young man with a scarred face and a mechanical eye, face-to-face with his clone, face-to-face with Kira Hibiki. "I guess that's to be expected."
Kira Yamato scowled back and let the Divinity's engines respond, the angel-winged Gundam throwing the Revenant back with a burst of exhaust. The Revenant darted back and fired again with its guns, and the DRAGOONs filled the sky with beam fire. The Divinity snaked its way through the fire, the Revenant came down again with its saber upraised, and the two Gundams slammed together again.
The Divinity's engines hummed as the angelic mobile suit effortlessly wove its way through the Revenant's furious DRAGOON fire. Kira seized his chance to lunge through an opening in the barrage and slam his sword down onto the Revenant's beam saber. It backed away and swung for the Divinity's head; Kira smacked the blade aside and swung down again, stopped only by the Revenant's beam shield. The black Gundam shoved his sword aside and charged for a lethal stab, Kira jammed back the controls, grunted painfully at the sudden change in g-forces, and then jammed his sword down to spoil the Revenant's blow.
"I wasn't expecting this kind of fight." Hibiki said quietly, and Kira scowled up at his mismatched eyes.
"You didn't think I would just let you do this, did you?"
"You'd better. We're going to create a better world out of all this."
The Divinity surged forward with a blast of blue exhaust from its engines and hurled the Revenant back. "By gassing people to death?" Kira shrieked. "By killing millions of innocent civilians?"
In response, the Revenant backflipped away and showered the Divinity with firepower. Kira threw his Gundam through the openings and rocketed back up towards the Revenant for another vicious swordfight. "You don't have any room to be talking, Angel of Death." Hibiki shot back, intentionally using Kira's more terrifying nickname, and Kira clenched his fists angrily around the Divinity's joysticks. "I would have thought someone like you would be all about what we're doing. We're going to create a world where what you do isn't necessary."
"Well, yeah." Kira grumbled. "If you kill everyone, then there won't be anyone left for me, you stupid shit."
The Revenant flung the Divinity back. "It's not like that. It's something bigger." The Revenant pointed its saber at the Divinity combatively. "Come on. You were bred to be a living weapon for a bunch of corrupt politicians. I know that. You know that. What are you doing fighting on that world's behalf?"
Kira took the opportunity to glance around the battlefield and find a handful of red clouds rising up from the surface of the planet. "Then what do you call this?"
"This is the only way to create a better world!" Hibiki cried, as the Revenant charged forward and the two Gundams locked blades again. The Revenant whirled around the Divinity; Kira turned and slammed his sword up against the Revenant's saber. "People only change when they have no choice. That was how I learned to pilot mobile suits. That was how you survived this far, wasn't it? And I can sense it from you. The pressure. You're a Newtype, like me, something more than a Coordinator, something more than an Ultimate Coordinater!" The Revenant rammed its knee into the Divinity's torso; it swept down and only a quick strike from the Divinity's beam shield saved Kira from the Revenant's sweeping saber stroke. "We're going to create a world where it's safe for people to become Newtypes. If we have to slaughter millions of people to do it, then so be it. The world we'll get will be worth it all."
The Revenant roared in for another blow, but Kira sent the Divinity diving to the side, rocketed back up behind the Revenant, ducked through its DRAGOON fire, and brought down a crashing downward sword hack against the Revenant's beam saber. "Nothing's worth killing millions of people!" He shot back. "If you want this to happen, you're going to have to go through me!"
Hibiki scowled. "That's what I thought." The Revenant surged forward, swarmed its DRAGOONs, and went back on the attack.
The Divinity's pure white beam sword flickered as it met the Revenant's own blood red beam saber. In the Divinity's cockpit, Kira ground his teeth as another blow was spoiled by the Revenant pilot's skillful swordsmanship, and he flung the black Gundam back to dodge another unnaturally precise volley of DRAGOON fire.
"If you won't stand aside, then I'll just have to move you aside." Hibiki warned, and the Revenant fired off another salvo from its cannons. The Divinity darted through the blasts, streaked back down, and dove back into another swordfight with the black Gundam. "We didn't come here to let you stop us."
"Then what did you come here for?" Kira shot back; the Divinity slammed down its sword onto the Revenant's blade, and the two Gundams rattled from the blow. Kira glowered down at the black Gundam.
A jolt of pressure shocked Kira's consciousness, emanating from the man inside the Revenant's armor. He blinked in disbelief as Hibiki's presence colored itself in: steely determination, icy resolve, a current of anger...and somewhere in there was buried remorse, horror, sorrow, hopelessness.
Kira struggled for words as the sparks flew from the locked blades. "You...even you know..."
Hibiki's eye flickered with emotion for a moment. "What?"
"Even you know that this is evil, and..." Kira said as his memories flashed back to Copernicus and that haunting cloud of death; his blood ran hot and the Divinity blazed crimson as it surged forward, angelic wings glowing with a pure white light. "That's even worse! You're doing this and you know it's evil!" The Divinity flung its black-armored enemy back with a furious swing. "Then you're just a monster!"
"I told you what we're here for!" Hibiki shot back. "We're here to secure the future."
"That's all just words!" Kira cut in, and with a crash, the Revenant and Divinity descended back into a furious swordfight as the Revenant's DRAGOONs danced around the dueling Gundams. "Not even you believe them!"
Hibiki's eye flashed with fury. "You're wrong!" The Revenant slammed back the Divinity's beam sword and went back on the offensive with roaring engines and blazing DRAGOON guns. "My cause is not like that!"
With a blazing saber, the Revenant stabbed forward towards the Divinity's cockpit; the angel-winged Gundam whirled around, effortlessly dancing through the DRAGOON blasts, and came back down with a sweeping overhead sword stroke against the Revenant's shield. Hibiki quickly backpedaled behind his DRAGOONs, but the Divinity effortlessly snaked its way through the web of firepower and the two Gundams returned to fencing.
"You say you're trying to build a world of Newtypes, and then a Newtype calls you out on the fact that what you say is nothing but a fucking lie!" Kira snarled furiously. "And then you reject it when someone achieves the understanding you said you wanted!" The Revenant swung for the Divinity's head; Kira parried the blow with a swift counterstrike. "You're just mad because I can understand you, and I can understand what a monster you are!"
"You don't understand anything!" Hibiki screamed; the saber came down again, the sparks flew, and the Gundam's eyes flashed.
The wreckage of the Celestial Being Galaxy-class warship Pegasus, along with the wreckage of the Earth Alliance Minerva-class warship Odyssey, came pounding down onto the surface of Eden Prime. Athrun Zala carefully watched through the smoke and flames as Shinji Ikari's purple, green and black colored machine; the ZGMF/GAT-X01A Evangelion Unit 01, struggled to stay on its feet, its eyes flickering with a white light.
As the name suggested, the machine was, in fact, a heavily modified Evangelion Unit 01, which now possessed multiple advanced technologies, including Variable Phase Shift armor, an ultra-compact hyper-deuterion nuclear fission reactor, and the ability to utilize a set of custom-built chest and leg flyers, which had been deveploped by the recently merged ZAFT and Earth Alliance forces. These custom chest and leg flyers allowed the Evangelion Unit to replace damaged parts or to duplicate the appearance and abilities of other mobile suits. In addition, Evangelion Unit 01 also possessed a Berserker System, allowing the pilot to push the Evangelion into a semi-controllable berserker state at will, and even with all of these modifications, Evangelion Unit 01 could still utilize its AT field.
"There's no way you can stop all these forces." Athrun warned. "If you surrender to us, we'll show you the mercy you won't get from the new Alliance."
Fury flashed across Shinji's face. "Mercy?" He screamed, even as the purple beast known as Evangelion Unit 01 let out an ear-splitting roar and surged forward with its shimmering yellow beam sword at the ready. "You mean to tell me that you're going to join forces with those sub-humans against your own people?"
Athrun jammed his glowing green beam saber forward to stop Unit 01's sword stroke. "You haven't been my people for a long, long time."
"You traitor!" Shinji screamed, and Evangelion Unit 01 surged forward again, its eyes changing color from bright white to blood red. "Mark my words, Zala; you will regret bowing down to the Naturals! They don't want to coexist with us; they want to destroy us! And you'll hand us all to them, and we'll be destroyed, and maybe then you'll understand why your father put us on the right path!"
At that, Athrun felt his blood run hot as Evangelion Unit 01 charged forward again; he slammed the purple mobile suit back with a hard saber swing, ducked against its counterattack, and then lunged up with his saber to plant the blade through the beast's chest.
"It's a shame you had to be so blinded by rage." He shot back, as Evangelion Unit 01's eyes went dark. "But I'm not letting you follow the path my father wanted."