After Colony: Revelation

by Aeternus.Flamma

The peace obtained after Mariemaia's regime was short lived. Her rule was doomed to fail from the start, but his was one that would last. He had dedicated years of his life to perfecting his weapons and he would not be thwarted by any rebel. The Gundam pilots have no choice but to take up arms once more, this time facing four new models called the Four Horsemen. [Epilogue posted]

18. Part II: Verse IV

After Colony: Revelation

Part II: Verse IV

000

At the rebel camp, tensions were running high. The soldiers crowded around televisions and computer monitors, watching as the horrors of the Rio de Janeiro 'bombing' unfolded.

"How can we fight that," one of the soldiers, Erikson, said in disgust. It was less of a question and more of disdained statement.

Carlino leaned against a chair, gripping the edges as tightly as his jaw was clenched. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that your CSO ally had no idea about any of this?"

Heero did not provide the Lieutenant with a response. He stood silently, watching the screen in front of him.

"What intelligence do we have from our South American divisions? What about Vitore? Her location?" Trowa asked, trying to move the conversation onto more pressing matters.

Carlino shot one more look to Heero before responding to the question. "We haven't heard much. Vitore called a last minute press conference in the center of the city, requesting the attendance of many other peace minded individuals. As far as we know, they were all included in the attack. There were a few other people claiming to be ranking CSO officials, but I've never heard of any of them. They also haven't been heard from since before the attack. They're likely going to try to pin this on us, 'the Seraphs.'"

"If there's anything I've learned," Duo said, his voice low with warning, "it's that as soon as a group has a name, they're liable to become someone's boogeyman. Remember White Fang? They were just a rebel group until they named themselves. Then they were terrorists."

The Lieutenant put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, tightly squeezing. "Moira was the first one to start calling us 'the Seraphs.'"

"Now we have biological and psychological warfare." Duo hung his head and sighed. "You know, there used to be a time when we were the smart ones—the guys always two steps ahead."

"That was when we were the ace up the sleeve, not the rest of the deck," Trowa said evenly. There was no sarcasm, no humor, just… a statement. He sat down and pulled one of the laptops to him, resuming his research. After he had managed a secure network, his primary task was to find the source of the filter manufacturing.

Duo nodded and gave a 'ha.' "Never thought I would see the day when we became old news. I'm going to go… do anything else but stand here."

000

It was two days later when Moria made her first appearance on television. For the second time since her rise to Prime Minister, her face could be found everywhere—every news network, paper and magazine had her image front and center.

Though she appeared to be behind a table with a microphone in a meeting room filled with pro-CSO reporters to ask her questions, it was only her holographic image. She was not foolish enough to step out into public and risk her life.

"Thank you all for coming," her digital doppelganger started, her voice ringing out through the room's speakers for everyone to hear. "I wish I could meet with you under less dire circumstances. However, that is not the case. We cannot dismiss the terrible tragedy that has befallen the poor souls in the Brazilian territory. The lives that were lost in a single day are almost equal to all those lost during Dorian Adelphie's regime. It cannot be forgotten; it cannot be forgiven."

The real Moira watched the surveillance monitors as she spoke, taking in the scene of reporters. Some nodded in solemn agreement; others teared up out of sadness or anger. Few showed any signs of doubting her-but that was the point of selecting who was allowed to be in her presence. Only favorable reports would come from this press conference.

"The greater Rio de Janeiro area has been evacuated and quarantined, indefinitely. Until we have had ample time to test the air and soil, we cannot allow any re-entrance into the city. We have yet to identify the agent that was released into the air, as we do not know what lasting effects there will be. Our organization will be working around the clock to provide housing for those who have been displaced as well as a remedy for the warfare agent."

Immediately, hands shot into the air with questions—likely, where will this housing be?, who qualifies for this housing? and what leads do you have on the agent?

"What we do know, at the moment, is this—the agent that was released is some sort of virus, manufactured and unnatural. When inhaled, it causes sickness within a matter of hours, shutting down the neurological and respiratory systems. It is extremely deadly. However, we hope to quickly create a vaccine, which we will distribute through qualified centers. I promise you that we will do our very best to stop these attacks before they happen. In order to ensure your own survival, I recommend getting to one of these centers as soon as a vaccine is available, in case your town or city becomes a target as well. We cannot let these terrorists, these… Seraphs… win."

There, that was it. Moira had planted the seed of destruction in their minds. With her control over the media outlets, newsources would take the idea and run with it. They would immediately question her quick conclusion, but her slow trickle of 'proof' and goodwill towards the survivors would skew belief in her favor.

The gundam pilots tried so hard all of the time. But it was just so easy to turn them into scapegoats. Everyone wants someone to blame for their troubles, and the five, outlaw men were the poster boys for chaos. She could only pursue her total conquest while the public believed her to have someone to fight against.

000

With Moira's press conference on behind him, Quatre typed away at his computer. The frustration he was feeling was evident by the way he furiously clicked away, and the quiet muttering he did to himself. It was rare for the kind hearted young man to lose his cool, but if he ever met Moira Adelphie directly, he had half a mind to sock her one.

His research had concluded only a short time before. Quatre felt he had honestly learned all he could and was preparing to send out an in depth analysis to his fellow pilots and some of the central rebel leaders.

"Virus?" He said with disgust, a scowl on his face as he stopped and looked at the television screen. "Now you're flat out lying!" As he proceeded to slide together a slew of relatively light insults, Quatre was glad he was left in the lab alone. He would be embarrassed if anyone else saw his behavior.

His typing became heavier and he shook his head as Moira called out the rebels, the Seraphs, for the terrorist attacks. Quatre knew that CSO had kept anyone from getting too close to the ghost town-city in order to control the public's perceived understanding on the attack. If there was one thing he was completely sure, it was the fact that the biological warfare agent was not a virus.

Quatre slowed his typing and then stopped, standing. "Why would you encourage someone to get a vaccine… for a virus that doesn't exist?" He crossed the room to a small box filled with vials that held a champagne-pink colored liquid.

Something didn't feel right.

He shut the lid on the box and locked it tight before placing it on a shelf littered with miscellaneous storage supplies. It was better not to leave the precious liquid sitting out in the open.

For no known reason, Quatre could feel his heart start to pound. He rushed back into his seat, nearly sliding away on the wheels. His message was almost done—he had to get it out, in case something happened to him.

"Next question," said Moira Adelphie's voice from the screen behind him. He hardly registered her words until it was too late. "Yes, we do have some leads on the manufacturer of the device used to release the agent. It seems that the gundanium alloy used to case the device was a customer commission filled by the Winner Corporation. We will be pursuing this lead quite seriously."

By the time Quatre realized what he had heard, the doors behind him were already being shot open. He barely had enough time to press send on his email before a gas filled the room.

000

"We've got Quatre's analysis," Heero called out as he pushed aside the flap to the tent they used as a 'mess hall.' The skies had darkened and threatened to open up at any moment, and none of them wanted to get caught with a plate of drenched food.

The three remaining pilots and Edan finished scraping at their dishes before they quickly ran to the small shack housing most of their computer equipment. Just as the door shut behind them, the downpour started. Unfortunately, that also meant that they could end up losing power and only able to run the bare necessities if a storm kicked up.

"The results?" Wufei stood just a bit behind Heero at the computer, his arms crossed and brows furrowed.

"Not good," Heero grunted, "CSO is lying about the virus. There is no virus. The tubes hold two compounds that create a toxin when mixed. Once it's been inhaled, there is no going back. It starts shutting down the organs and is fatal within hours. Whatever CSO is doing at their medical clinics, it isn't vaccines."

"Do you know anything about this?" Wufei turned a bit, looking over at Edan. From her corner of the room, she shook her head. "I thought as much."

Duo let out a semi audible exhale and shook his head. "You know what's horrifying? Thinking about how long Moira's been planning this. Creating a two part toxin like that and finding a way to disperse them through a relatively commonplace filter design… This has been years in the making. How did no one catch this? How was it that CSO—Dorian and Moira—how could they just slip under the radar?"

"For so many years, the focus has been on the colonies," Trowa replied, "so no one noticed what was happening on Earth."

"War has revolved around the mobile suits—"

"—and the dolls—"

"—and the gundams—"

"—that we've stopped thinking about people," Wufei said and walked away from the computer. He instead looked at the table littered with pictures. They were random snapshots of persons of interests—faces in crowds. Just people.

"Dorian Adelphie's focus was controlling people through weapons. Moira's is controlling people through people." With that, the room fell silent and Heero resumed scanning through Quatre's findings.

It wasn't until the next morning that Trowa started to suspect something was wrong with his fellow pilot. Quatre had not checked in during his usual times, and they couldn't get a hold of any of their men stationed around the lab in Seville.

"We've got to go," Duo said for the third time, pulling a bit at his hair in frustration. "If that's the next attack location, we need to get someone over there to dismantle the device. We can't just wait around until something else happens."

"I know that," Trowa replied with a slight edge in his voice, "but Quatre would want us to exhaust every other option before we split up and possibly instigate an attack."

The braided pilot flopped into one of the swivel chairs and let his head roll as he groaned. Trowa could only handle Duo spinning around for so long before he finally sighed and slid away from his computer. "Fine, you're right. We need to go. Start getting the gundams loaded onto carriers. I will go tell Heero we're leaving."

With each hour that went by with no contact from Quatre, their concern grew. There was increased movement by CSO troops, with reports of groups entering at the Spanish border. If they were going to try to stop a repeat of Rio de Janeiro, they needed to act fast.

When Trowa finally tracked down Heero, he found him leaning over a table and exchanging tense words with Carlino.

"Apologies for interrupting," Trowa said after a moment, looking between the two men who seemed to be in a heated debate. "Duo and I will be leaving shortly to head to Seville."

Carlino seemed to hang his head in defeat as he exhaled loudly.

Heero turned to face the other pilot, ignoring the lieutenant. "Good. We will send reinforcements just behind you in case you need back up."

"—I'm telling you, it's a ploy—"

"It doesn't matter if it's a ploy," Heero said loudly, not looking back at Carlino, "the fact is that we're missing Quatre and CSO is circling the city just like Rio de Janeiro. We can't afford to sit here, holed up."

"If something else happens, you'll still have Wufei and Edan. We're lucky we've all been able to stay together as long as we have. We may be reaching the point where we have to split up. If you want to have some of the men tail about an hour behind us, that's fine. Have them lay low though so they don't blow our cover too soon." Trowa and Heero gave each other nods before they parted.

Carlino still seemed to have words to say, but Heero wasn't going to stop Trowa.

In just over an hour, the pair of pilots were on their way. Each were driving their own carriers, with tarps securely over their gundams. It would be a tough ride in some parts—they had to take all matter of absurd routes in order to avoid any patrols while they entered into Spain, and it would take them longer than they would have liked. That hardly stopped them, though.

000

"We're going to have to ditch the suits," Duo groaned, slouching against the steering wheel of his carrier. "I'm picking up all kinds of broadcasting activity. We won't be able to get much farther without drawing attention to ourselves."

Seville was crawling with CSO activity. They were still a good ten or so miles from the main city, but there wasn't a suitable place to cover their gundams if they continued on. If they were going to try to get to the labs that Quatre had last reported from, they were going to have to be less conspicuous.

"My satellite search shows that there is a storage facility nearby, and it doesn't look like it's in use," Trowa replied over their secured radio line.

"Doesn't look like it's in use?" Duo asked, pulling up a satellite map on his phone. He toggled around until he found the area Trowa was talking about. There was, indeed, a large vehicle storage area. The main structure was half collapsed, but could probably still fit one of their suits and maybe part of the others. "Oh, huh, yeah, looks clear."

The two pilots shifted gears and pulled away from the side of the road, rerouting towards the storage area. It would put them a little further away from the city than they would have liked, but it was better than drawing fire and being stopped from reaching the lab.

It didn't take them long to safely get pack away Heavyarms and Deathscythe, the former being secured with full cover while they opted to keep Deathsyche's lower half sticking out. His black wings helped to provide extra thermal coverage beneath the heavy transport tarp.

There was an old maintenance truck that was housed inside. After siphoning off some fuel from their suit carriers, Trowa was able to hotwire the vehicle. It wouldn't last very long, but they felt it would be good enough to get them closer to civilization.

CSO mobile suits, the Seals, caused quite a bit of commotion with the city's commuters. However, despite any inconvenience, they were not restricting travel into the city. They were merely… watching it.

"I don't like this," Duo muttered, craning his neck as they continued down the freeway to watch the towering mechas. "They're targeting the city. It's got to be more than just Quatre's lab work. They're going use the warfare device. How long do you think we have?"

Trowa didn't answer. It was too hard to gauge how much time they would have before they were in serious trouble.

"Vitore called an emergency meeting before the device went off. I bet one of the ambassadors in this area will try to do the same thing. That's when we will know for sure. We know how to dismantle the device—assuming it's the same exact set up as the one from Red Horse. My best time two and a half minutes. We can do this. We can definitely do this." Even as Duo spoke, he didn't sound nearly as convincing as he thought he would.

They made it into the city without much of a fuss. As they had expected, their truck had barely enough gas and over all power to make it into the city. It would take them another half hour to walk to the laboratory Quatre had been working in when he was last heard from.

They had almost reached their destination when they stopped next to an electronic store and catch a news report saying that the goodwill ambassador from the U.K. was requesting a conference to broadcast his thoughts on the routes to peace. Apparently, there was a children's art center set up for the conference—and it was only about two blocks from the laboratory. The rebels had less than an hour to try to stop an impending attack.

Getting to the lab was the absolute hardest part of their plan. Police and soldiers were canvassing the area, supposedly looking for rebels who could be involved with terrorist attacks.

"There is almost no way we're getting in there without being spotted," Duo groaned and ducked back down to hide in an alleyway. Soldiers were passing by and he hopped they hadn't seen him. "We could always steal uniforms and pass off as soldiers."

"We could do that," Trowa replied. "We might have to do that. Otherwise, we have to wait for them to start to clear the area and hope we can make it in before the device is activated."

"That's pretty risky. What if we don't have time? We'll be too late and everyone dies," Duo said. It was almost disturbing how casually he spoke of the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

They were quiet for a few moments as they watched the patrols. If they were going to try to make a run for it, they would only have a few minutes to get to the lab and force their way into the building.

"We can make it in. I have a silencer; we can get the door open, but as soon as we get in, you'll have to disable it. Think you can do it?" Trowa asked and shifted his weight, preparing to run at the next break in soldiers.

Duo followed suit and nodded, "yeah, sure, no problem."

They tensed for about six seconds more before sprinting off to the side entrance of the lab. Trowa had his gun drawn and did not hesitate to shoot two shots into the door—one of the handle and one the other lock. Duo had to wiggle the handle a bit and force the door open, but they didn't have a problem otherwise.

When they slipped inside and Duo turned to find the control panel that went with commercial security systems like the one for their building, he found it was already disabled.

"It's been almost a full twenty four hours since Quatre's message. You would think a security company would have shown up by now," Trowa muttered and looked around. The lights were out, except for a few red backup lights. They could see in the hallways, though it was still rather dark even in the flood of red.

He started into the next hallway, peering around corners and clearing them as they went. Duo followed behind and would double check, just to make sure no one entered one Trowa passed by.

As they neared the heart of the building, shots were fired as Trowa looked down one of the hallways.

"Soldiers!" Trowa said and ducked down. They could hear the shooters started to creep up the hallway. "Two of them—fully armed and it looks like they're wearing Kevlar."

Duo nodded and sprint forward as fast as he could to cross the opening of the hallway. The soldiers fired as he did, and they managed to clip his shoulder. He let out a slur of curses as he slid against the hall and took a bit of low ground.

Trowa waited until Duo waved to show he was okay before he quickly popped back out to let off two shots. His first one missed, but his second one went right into the closest enemy's neck. There was a brief pause in the firing that Duo took advantage of to shoot the remaining soldier through the eye.

It was a bloody affair, but they didn't exactly have time to try to save their enemies when they knew how many lives were possibly at stake.

"How bad is your arm?" Trowa asked as he stood straight and slowly started to approach the two fallen men.

Duo touched the bleeding wound and then shrugged. "It could be worse. I just need to find something to bandage it with. Looks like mostly a scrape."

They carefully stepped around the bodies, trying not to step in the pooling blood. The last thing they needed as a trail of footprints to lead others to them. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Trowa was sure that neither of the CSO soldiers could have possibly survived their shots.

However, as Duo was about to step over, an arm shot out from the ground and grabbed his ankle. He barely managed to restrain himself from letting out a very high-pitched scream.

Trowa whirled around, gun drawn, to see Duo frantically trying to shake off the hand at his ankle. The man who had been shot in the neck was apparently still moving—though his motions were very jerky and imprecise.

The pilot watched in bewilderment as the soldier started to flip over and claw at Duo, using Duo's legs to pull himself up. "Don't just stand there! Shoot him!"

Drawn out of his awe, Trowa shot the soldier in the head two more times. It took the second bullet to get him to stop moving and finally slump to the ground.

"Zombies," Duo said, his voice breathy, "freaking hate zombies."

Trowa shook his head. "Not Zombies: Gen Two's. This is exactly what happened when Zechs went to rescue you at the party. He shot the woman, but she was able to attack them again a short time later—and he was sure he had delivered a kill shot."

Duo's mouth was downturned into a deep frown, "zombies, Gen Two's, I don't care. What's dead should stay dead."

Though he didn't respond, Trowa still agreed with his friend. Before they continued on, he leaned over and looked at the uniform tags. "Their names. Looks like they're both French, if I were to take a guess. There were many troops stationed in France and I'm willing to bet they were the ones mobilized to come here. I can only imagine they would do that if they didn't have any other Gen Two's in the area."

"Good point," Duo replied, "maybe this hadn't always been a planned attack location and CSO hurried to move people into position."

"Probably because of Quatre."

They eventually found the particular room Quatre had been using—but mostly because the door itself was littered with bullet holes. They could see movement from within, shadows coming across the door. There was a groan and cursing in Spanish.

The pilots looked at one another. Duo stood back and readied his weapon while Trowa kicked the door in, throwing it opened. There was a bit of resistance, which lead him to believe that perhaps someone had tried to relock it after the door had already been damaged.

Though they prepared to shoot, there was a voice from within. It took Duo a moment to recall his Spanish, but he knew the woman was shouting something along the lines of 'don't shoot, don't shoot!'

Inside, there were two people: a man dressed in a security outfit, and a woman in a lab coat. They hurried to get away from the door and raised their hands.

Trowa and Duo held their weapons still, though they were trained on the two individuals.

"Please, don't shoot! We are captives!"

"Captives?" Trowa asked, having no problem switching languages.

"Yes! The soldiers—they grabbed us and locked us in here! They made us disable the security! Please, we are just employees, don't shoot us!" The woman said once in Spanish, then again in heavily accented English. She carefully tapped her badge hanging from her breast pocket. The security guard as well turned his hip to show he was unarmed and that his own badge was hanging.

The pilots slowly lowered their weapons and stared at the pair ahead of them.

"They had you disable the security system? When, last night?" Trowa asked, thinking about their last communication with Quatre.

The man looked to the woman and the back. "I responded to a break in call. When I arrived, there was a vehicle leaving. I came in to clear the building, and they caught me. They had me shut down the system entirely…"

"Our… fail safes," the woman quickly interjected, trying to find the right words. "If there is a chemical leak, the building seals itself to keep outside exposure—I came in for weekend work and they grabbed me. They used my clearance to manually cancel the failsafe. If there is some sort of leak… it will leave through our ventilation system."

"Trowa, beneath the computer," Duo said and nodded back behind the woman. There was a white unit, just a bit smaller than the unit they had found in Red Horse.

Without waiting for further explanation from the workers, Trowa holstered his weapon and hurried past them. They scurried out of his way and watched as he knelt down. "There's a timer on this," he said, "less than twenty minutes until detonation."

"Oh my god, an explosive?!" The woman shouted, her hands going to her face in terror.

"Worse," Duo replied and went to help Trowa. They both had enough tools on them to each disarm a device. So far, this was the only one they had seen. "A biological warfare agent."

"The one that was on the news yesterday?! The one being released by the Seraphs?" It was the security guard this time who panicked.

Duo growled, "did you see who grabbed you? What were they wearing?"

"CSO uniforms."

"Who do you think is really releasing the agent?" When Trowa didn't have enough room to remove the lid of the device, the two of them grabbed the desk and dragged it out of the way—it was lighter and safer than trying to move the armed filter.

The pair started sobbing behind the pilots, their words reverting to Spanish as they panicked. "Why, why would they do this?"

"Because Moira Adelphie is a psychotic bitch, that's why," Duo muttered as he and Trowa lifted the lid. It was a bit more difficult than the Red Horse filter—it was more compact with a slightly more in depth operating system, but in just under two minutes, they had it shut down and sighed a breath of relief.

"We need a way to transport these vials, separately and safely," Trowa said as he started to pull the gold and blue colored vials out, one by one. "It's disabled now. But it would be helpful if you could take us from room to room and help us find any more. It will only take one to do significant damage. We should also reinstate the failsafes."

It took a few moments before the guard and the lab tech could calm down enough to nod. The guard was ready first, escorting Trowa out of the room and down the next closest corridor. The woman stayed behind for a bit longer.

"I can bandage your wound," the woman said after a sniffle. Duo gave her a small smile, relieved that she had started to calm down.

"I can wait a little bit longer. We need to check the rest of the lab. But when we're done, that would be mighty kind of you."

She nodded and took her badge off so that she could use it to open the other doors. "Yes, I understand. Are you… Are you one of them? The Seraphs?"

Duo shrugged. "We didn't give ourselves that name. We are just groups of people who want to stop the Adelphie's. They put on a nice show for the public, but they've been doing really awful stuff to people for a long time. We're worried for the rest of mankind."

The woman nodded slowly. "Well… then maybe seraphs are just what we need."

000

Author's Notes: I wasn't initially planning on updating again so soon. I was sort of going to just let that last chapter... linger for a bit. But, I decided I would post anyhow, especially since I amount to get slammed with miscellaneous things over the next two weeks. I am glad (in a horrible, author sort of way,) that I have now sparked enough doubts in readers minds that they are responding with concerns for Duo's well-being! (Pat and ShinyWurple.) I... I have a tendency to write unhappy endings. This may or may not be in relation to Duo. So... I've given you at least five chapters of head's up?

Anyhow, in regards to "the Seraphs"... This is correct. Seraphs or Seraphim, both are plural versions. So I play D&D (surprise) and if there's anything I've learned, it's that the teams don't usually get to pick their own name. To quote Duo: "Names are things other people give you." When you do pick your own name, especially something that deals with something biblical, you usually look like a pompous ass-this is why Moira chose to start calling them the Seraphs. If she says they named themselves, they immediately look like radicals. It is very easy to manipulate the mass public when you regulate what they're exposed to.

Also, Wing Zero looks like an angel so...

Thank you so much for your reviews. I am not kidding when I say that they prompted me to update today. (Pat, Shiny, and new reviewer ! Thank you guys!)

Ever Your Servant,

A.F