Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 128
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.
Lacus Clyne made it into the kitchen, and saw a cloth laying down in the middle of the floor. Even without examining it she knew what it was. Chloroform. The soldiers that had broken into the mansion knew that they were going after a Coordinator.
She fiddled with her keys as she walked towards the only locked compartment in the entire kitchen. Her eyes looked across the room cautiously, as she wondered if any of the soldiers were still around. It didn't seem they were. They had what they had come for. 'I have to hurry. I can't let them take Kira. If they want Kira, it's because they know he's the Ultimate Coordinator. Who knows what they'll make him do. Who knows what they'll do to him.'
She unlocked the compartment. 'I can't let them hurt him!'
The compartment was fairly bare, but what was there was striking. A pistol with multiple clips of ammunition, a zip-line, and a controller. She heard rumbles in the distance. Mobile suits. She was already almost too late.
She reached for the controller and zip-line, but hesitated as she saw the pistol. 'If I want to save Kira, I'm going to have to kill. There's no way around it.' She shook her head. 'I'm not a soldier. What am I thinking? I'm just going to get killed and that won't help Kira at all.' But then a new voice entered her brain, speaking as if it was Lacus Clyne, too. 'I love him. And I know he needs me. And anyone can be a killer.'
Suddenly, Lacus saw the seed in her mind's eye. 'Is this...is this what Kira sees?' It suddenly began to crack, slowly, subtly. There was a long silence, other than the soft cracks of the seed slowly crumbling away in her mind's eye. 'I must save Kira.'
Lacus suddenly felt a massive headache overcome her, and she fell to her hands and knees, clutching her head as the pain got worse and worse. 'I'm a berserker. I have to save Kira. I have no choice.'
Lacus tried to force herself back to her head, but everything was blurry, disorienting. She couldn't focus on anything other than that steadily shattering seed, the seed the same color as her baby blue eyes, cracking and crumbling to unleash something so utterly frightful inside her that she could not control.
His face kept flashing in front of her. The young man she loved so much and had striven to heal and help for so long. He was being ripped away and she was never going to see him again. If she didn't change, Kira would be lost forever. And she'd be left all alone.
'Kira must be saved. He can't be taken away. I have to kill.' Was that her own voice, or the voice of some berserker? She couldn't know. There was no way of knowing. Everything was blending, warping. Everything was hurting. The gun was becoming more and more alluring as was the power to kill and the power to destroy and the power to hold someone's life in the palm of her hand.
The seed finally shattered, and Lacus felt the stabbing pain rush from her head throughout the rest of her body. Tears streamed down her face, and her body was soaked in sweat. What she was becoming was so paradoxical against her nature that morphing her mindset was complete, total agony. Finally, the pain became so much that she had no choice but to scream. And the Lacus Clyne she had always been was gone. Everyone heard the scream.
The private, nicknamed 'Giraffe' because of his unusual height, turned around and aimed his gun at the schoolhouse that the squad had just exited. His buddy next to him shook his head. "What the hell was that?"
A third trooper chimed in. "That was the worst sound I've ever heard in my life."
The sergeant took charge. "Wolf, you and Giraffe see what the hell's going on in there. One of us better not be screwing around."
Wolf nodded. "Understood. C'mon, Giraffe."
How Giraffe hated his callsign. Right now, though, it was the least of his concerns. He thought the squad had been accounted for, but it wouldn't be the first time a commando squad had broken discipline in order to get some easy action.
They walked up to the door. Wolf whispered "Just go in, make sure nothing's going on, and get out. We can't fall behind. I got your six."
That was what doomed Giraffe in the end. He would become the first person to be murdered by the young woman he was about to see. He had just entered when he nearly bumped into her. He got a good look at her eyes. They were lifeless, focused, alien, and yet tears were relentlessly streaming from them, as if some inner self was trying to break out of her emotionless facade.
'Wait a minute.' Giraffe thought. 'Is that Lacus-?' The gun in her hand was raised in front of her forehead. 'Oh no.'
A single gunshot put an end to his musings forever. There was no control. There was no end. There was just her and the enemy. The enemy that had taken Kira away. She could feel her usual self wailing and screaming and crying and she ignored all of it. She could only focus on the mission. Just the mission.
'I must save Kira.' Lacus thought as another soldier entered the hallway. Her reflexes and senses heightened in her Seed state, she shot him in the head, the exact same way she had killed the previous commando.
The wailing became even more cacophonic, but also easier to ignore. She methodically stepped forward, and picked up the soldier's silenced submachine-gun. Logic dictated that she was going to need this a lot more than just a pistol. She was going to need the night-vision goggles too.
'I must save Kira.' She repeated in her mind, even as she checked the ammunition count. In her usual state, it would have wasted several valuable seconds. But she could move incredibly fast, all of a sudden. Or was the rest of the world just moving slow? Whatever the case, she knew the soldier had a full clip inside the submachine-gun in a mere second, and she shoved the clip back inside the gun.
Another caveat of Seed Mode. She knew how to hold the thing, just by seeing how both soldiers had carried the weapon before. She had always been a fast learner, and she was memorizing at a inhuman pace. But as she stepped outside, she could hear engines. mobile suits and a transport, all taking off. She was almost too late. Almost. There was one thing she could do.
'I must save Kira.' Lacus continued to repeat in her mind as she pulled out the controller, and turned on the microphone. "Voice authorization, Lacus Clyne. Password, Shining God."
The rumble to her left confirmed her entry, and she strode towards the sound, and the hulking machine rising from the ground, almost nonchalantly, as if nothing was wrong. This was what being in Seed Mode did. There was no life, there was no purpose, there was no hesitation. She had to do what she needed to do, with whatever she needed to use at her disposal.
As she used the zip-line to go all the way up to the cockpit, she got a brief look at her reflection. She was still crying, even though she could see clearly. Why? Why was she still crying? She couldn't understand. It didn't make any sense to cry. She wiped her eyes, but the tears wouldn't stop. It was as if something was bleeding inside of her, and the tears was representing that. She had to ignore it. She had a mission, and she could not stop until she had accomplished it.
'I must save Kira.' She repeated in her mind as she ignited the engines, and her gigantic machine roared to life and soared through the night sky.
The special-ops soldier thought he had the chance to breathe. The operation had gone fairly smoothly, other than the loss of a pair of troopers, losses he had been prepared for. He had already known that Wolf and Giraffe had been doomed the moment he sent them in there.
That was not a cry of physical anguish. That was all mental. He just knew.
He knew some things about Seed Mode. They had done tests on it. Supposedly, any Coordinator could do it, plus most Slants, and even a few Naturals. And even the most gentle, sweet-hearted Coordinator could become a killing machine with the Seed Mode activated.
He had a feeling that was what had happened, and he had sent Wolf and Giraffe in to buy some time so everyone else could get away before the squad was on the receiving end of a Seed rampage.
The squad had been sent with mobile suits in addition to the transport, where their target was still unconscious and unresponsive. Hopefully, they'd be gone before the person who went Seed caught up. The last thing the special-ops soldier wanted to do was die to a former pop princess.
She wasn't the target, though. There was no need to try and kill her. Who would believe her, anyway? They had a perfect Lacus Clyne already. Ironically, the real Lacus Clyne would be considered the imposter.
Suddenly, a sensor beeped. The special-ops soldier got on the radio. "What is it?"
"We have an enemy mobile suit inbound. It's classification is...is the Freedom Gundam."
So our pursuer caught up anyway. The soldier sighed. "You and the rest of the ZAKUs make a diversion, distract her in order for us to get away. Remember, the rendezvous is the old Carpentaria base."
"Understood." The pilot said, and communication was stopped.
The specal-ops soldier knew he would never speak to that pilot again, or any of the ZAKU pilots for that matter. Even an untrained pilot could do some spectacular damage in the Freedom, especially in Seed Mode. Now the only hope was to escape.
The special-ops soldier did not want to see what would happen if the berserker, whether it was Lacus Clyne or someone else, caught up. The results were not going to be pretty. Also likely to be fatal.
'I should have killed her.' The soldier thought. This was the price he was going to pay for his mercy. He hoped he would live so he could regret it.
The target was trying to flee, while the escorts were going to try to rush her, in order to stop her once and for all. She didn't have proper training on this Gundam, or any Gundam for that matter, but she knew how Kira flew it. It wouldn't be that hard to perform a passable imitation.
She turned on the automatic targeting, and locked on to all of the pursuers. She needed to wipe them all out at once before they tried to surround her. It would be an easy task, all it took was one pull of the trigger after she was locked on to every enemy she desired to destroy.
She fired. Several bright flashes erupted from her machine's cannons, and rushed with utmost precision towards all of her targets. They were all hit in the chest areas, in the cockpits, vaporizing the occupants. The machines sparked and exploded one after another, illuminating the night with bright red fireballs before they fell to to the ground in burnt, shattered pieces. With those obstacles out of the way, she could track the transport carrying the one she loved. And she found it. Immediately she put power to the engines and accelerated. Her machine's powerful thrust pressed her back against her seat as the machine propelled itself towards its target.
She wasn't going to dare to try to shoot the transport down. Doing that would risk killing Kira. No, she was going to have to use a different tatic if she wanted him back. She caught up to the transport in less than a minute, and as she expected, it was defenseless. They had shot their bolt when the ZAKUs had been annihilated. But she needed to bring the transport down anyway.
She moved the Freedom's right hand towards the cockpit, while the left reached towards a different area of the transport. The Freedom's hands became vises. The cockpit imploded, with both the pilot and co-pilot being crushed inside the Freedom's right fist. The left hand, for its part, immediately halted all momentum, and effectively made the transport docile and helpless in her hands. She was almost finished. She had almost won.
The next part of this was going to be the hard part. She could not risk killing Kira. She was going to have to defeat the final soldiers with the gun she had grabbed from the dead commando back at the school. She could do it. There was no fear in her anymore, or any remorse. By being in Seed Mode, she had parted ways with all of that, at least temporarily.
The Freedom landed on the ground, and carefully set the shattered transport to the ground. She prepared the submachine-gun. Once this was finished, she wouldn't have to kill again. She could try to go back to the way she had been. But was it even possible anymore?
No, it wasn't her problem. She couldn't fret about it. She would lose her focus, and the cause of the anger and torment that had sent her into this rampage in the first place. The moment she snapped out of it, she would die, and she could not die. She needed to finish what she had started. She unlocked the cockpit, and prepared the zip-line.
'Kira, I've almost saved you.' Lacus thought as she descended to the ground, and prepared for her final assault.
Kira stirred in time to discover that he had been restrained in a chair, handcuffs keeping him unable to move. He tried to get a clear vision on things, but he couldn't see well enough, or hear. Suddenly, he felt someone touching his hands. "Who's there?"
"It's me." The voice was familiar, but it sounded so hollow, so far away.
"Who?" Kira repeated.
"It's me, Kira."
Kira's eyes finally opened, and he finally saw the room. He was in the back on some ruined transport aircraft, and there were three commandos laying on the ground, blasted in the head with precision. They had been completely, utterly, slaughtered.
"Where...where the hell am I?"
"It doesn't matter. I'm here to save you. We'll be back where we belong soon."
Suddenly, the handcuffs fell away, and Kira felt his arms become free. He examined them, to make sure nothing was broken. Surprisingly, none were. Despite how brittle he had to be, he hadn't been harmed in any way by his kidnappers, other than being on the receiving end of chloroform.
The source of the voice suddenly appeared to his right and walked in front of him, the source's back turned. But Kira knew who it was, just by looking at the hair.
"Lacus?" Kira quietly asked.
Lacus turned around, and Kira saw a horrifying sight.
It wasn't just that her nightgown was torn in multiple places. Or the fact that she was carrying a gun. Or even that specks of blood were all over her. It was her eyes. They were so cold, emotionless, focused, fearless, without remorse. It looked like she had been crying recently, but had stopped. Then Kira realized what that meant.
'Lacus...Lacus saw the Seed?' Kira thought.
"Do you need help, Kira?" Lacus asked softly. Even her voice sounded like it was coming from another world, or another being, like she wasn't quite human.
"Uh, no, Lacus." Kira managed awkwardly, and he forced himself to his feet. The smell on her was becoming repugnant, he could barely keep himself from throwing up. He had to get out of here, out of this nightmare. As he began to stagger out of the transport, Lacus calmly led the way towards the Freedom. Kira was stunned to see it. Lacus had the code and voice authorization to activate it, but he had no idea she could actually use it. Unless she truly had no idea to fly it, and all of this was because of the Seed. Kira had a feeling what the truth was.
"Please grab on." Lacus said, as she aimed her zip-line at the cockpit. Kira obeyed without a sound, and they were brought up to the open cockpit. The cockpit hissed shut, and Lacus turned on the engines. The Freedom roared to life and took off, and it took Kira a lot of effort to not bump into Lacus as they blasted away. There was only silence for the next several moments. Kira wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what. Finally, he came up with something. "Lacus, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Kira." Lacus answered.
"Lacus, you can calm down." Kira said. "It's over."
"I said I'm fine." Lacus repeated.
The slight tremble in her voice suggested that Seed Mode was finally failing. Kira knew he had to keep pressing. He needed to see Lacus again. The Lacus he knew. Not this...berserk variation.
"Lacus, it's all right." He begged. "Please, I'm right here. Just relax."
"Kira..." Lacus whimpered.
"You can relax." Kira repeated.
There was silence, and then Lacus took a teary, soft breath. "Oh, Kira..."
"You see, you're fine." Kira sighed in releif.
Lacus held her hands in front of her face, as if she had never seen them before. Her voice trembled with sadness and horror. "Kira, what have I done? I couldn't...I couldn't stop myself, Kira..."
She brought her hands to her face and sobbed. The Freedom immediately started going off course and Kira had to engage the autopilot in order to keep them from falling into the ocean.
Lacus' trembling hands ran through her hair as she shook violently. "I became a monster, Kira...I felt nothing. I felt nothing at all."
"Lacus, it's okay." Kira said softly, as he wrapped his arms around her the best he could. The pain in her voice was so heartwrenching that he felt himself beginning to cry too. She had killed so many people for him. It wasn't right. It should have been anyone but Lacus. Anyone else.
"Is this...is this what it felt like, Kira? To have no feelings, to only kill...Kira, this is why you're in so much pain, isn't it? I finally understand, Kira...I finally understand." And she sobbed into his thin chest as they flew through the sky.
Kira tried to stay calm, but couldn't. Lacus had done all of this for his sake. It was like he had thought earlier. She had changed herself to suit his needs, and now she had done so again, becoming a berserker in order to get the power to rescue him.