Chapter Text
124 Ad Stella: Year Two of the Three Witches' War
--
"Know thyself." As axioms go, it's a good one. Pithy, as all the best are, and carrying the appearance of profundity, if not its substance. It seemed a fine thing, in theory; poetic, even. But the work of coming to know who you really are was a difficult, often painful process. And what did it even truly accomplish?
One is ever at the mercy of circumstances, and can only ever act within limits dictated by others. Did self-knowledge do a kind-hearted person any good if they were forced to take from others to survive? Did someone selfish cease being selfish simply by acknowledging the fact? What good did it do knowing thyself, if thyself was an absolute piece of shit? At least blissful ignorance had the benefit of being blissful. What did the truth bring except sleepless nights and old ghosts?
Belmeria Winston - Acting Governor Belmeria Winston - was enduring just such a night, haunted and restless, sitting up in the command tower of Greenhouse 54 with a dangerously low bottle of scotch. It was real scotch; one of the few perks of this job was that she never had to suffer the synthetic or fungal-based crap, able to drown her sorrows the old fashioned way, provided the stores held out.
Which, of course, was one of the many problems keeping her up. The stores were not holding out, and they were entering the fourth consecutive rationing month.
Well. Still. It could be worse. She could be stuck outside the compound walls. Those people weren't in rationing months so much as starving months. She did feel awful, what little comfort that may have given the poor bastards.When Belmeria had first been appointed (under protest and then under threat) to this position, she'd held more compassion for the suffering Earthians. She'd even tried to run food drives to ease her perpetually guilty conscience, but nobody had donated anything and she'd given up.
That was always her way, wasn't it? First the atrocities, then the guilt, then the half-hearted charity, and then quitting, spiraling, and doing it all again. Mea culpa, Hail Mary full of grace, and so on. It was pathetic, and the idea that it would just keep going on this way, forever, made her wish that she had enough liquor to drink herself to death.
If the dead child, Ericht Samaya, were here she'd be offering alternative suggestions in that chipper, cruel way she did. But Quiet Zero, its shadow a blotch against the full moon above, was restive tonight. Recharging. And the ghost princess rarely appeared to people on such nights.
There will be no escape for you, either, Bel.
Belmeria shuddered. Downed her glass in one gulp, and poured another, leaving the last half swallow in the bottle to give herself a little false hope.
It was a busy night at the Greenhouse, which was actually an old prison repurposed into a vertical farming and offworld shipping facility, as well as the ersatz Governor's mansion, with the workers hustling to get the supplies - supplies that they needed but we're still sending off world - loaded, launched, and past QZ's effective range before its Data Storm was back to full power.
The unseasonable fog that was starting to roll in wouldn't make things any easier. But that wasn't Belmeria's problem. One comfort of misery is that it never wants for company.
By the time Belmeria had, reluctantly, polished off the last of her scotch, the fog had reduced the visibility outside of her office window (a converted guard tower with a panoptic view of the whole compound) to blurs of floodlights and obscured motion. By the time she decided, fuck it she'd suffer the mushroom gut-rot, the fog was completely opaque. A wall of seething, graveyard mist covering the entire compound, as though they'd been spirited away to some dark underworld.
Belmeria frowned, pressing her nose to the glass and squinting. How could the fog be this thick? The weather today hadn't even been-
The scream was sudden, ear-shattering, and horrible. It sounded like nothing human, both for its volume, and the alien, guttural pitch. It was like something between God's own teakettle boiling over, and the death cry of some great and primordial bird of prey.
As the scream died away, the entire compound fell still and silent, but for the rattling of Belmeria's office windows.
Belmeria held her breath. Silence. Heavy as the fog.
"What the fuck...?"
The impact of something huge slamming into the tower pitched Belmeria from her feet, the empty tumbler glass shattering against the floor, cutting into her hand. She cried out, but it was swallowed by a hideous, grinding, tearing noise from above as massively clawed fingers of oily metal dug in through the roof for purchase.
The mobile suit that had leapt onto, and was now holding itself from the side of, Bel's tower, was a huge and wretched thing. This close, Bel could see it clearly even through the fog and cracked window glass. Its frame had been blue, once, but only the faded, cracked vestiges of its original paint job remained. The rest of it was an ugly mishmash of parts; some original but repaired, others welded patchwork from other mobile suits - Heindree-Strums, Dilanzas, Zoworts, even the odd Beguir-Beu parts - cannibalized to replace those components damaged beyond salvaging.
From its back, draped across its shoulders like a cape, was a thick tangle of industrial chains, each link bigger than a person. From these chains, a number of mobile suit weapons were latched into place. Massive knives, a small arsenal’s worth of rifles and heavy automatics. A Dilanza's beam axe, and a Desultor's shoulder mounted cannon. At the center of this was… well, it wouldn't really be accurate to call it a sword. That thing was too big to be called a sword. Too thick, heavy, and rough. It was more like a massive slab of iron.
The Mobile Suit's head turned to look into the office. To look at her. Its left eye was cracked, and this close, Belmeria could actually see the cameras zooming in on her, like the insectile pupils of a huge and hateful eye shrinking in contempt.
"Oh!" A voice, pleasantly surprised, distorted by static but somehow familiar, crackled over its speakers. "Found you!"
Belmeria opened her mouth to scream, but the thing's head turned sharply away, spotting something from the yard below.
"Oops! Please, stay put, Doctor Winston. We'll be back."
And then it leapt down from the tower, narrowly avoiding a burst of anti-mobile suit artillery fire that sliced through the air, shattering the tower's windows and taking a chunk out of the building's side.
Stay put? Fuck that!
Bel ran over to the destroyed window, and recoiled back in surprise as a gust of wind blew the fog into her office. It was hot! Not enough to burn, thankfully, but despite looking like roiling autumnal mist, it was actually more like a massive cloud of steam. As though the machine were manually cooling itself with water. Which, considering its patchwork, Frankenstein's monster design, it may very well be. If Gundam Aerial was an evil spirit, and Gundam Calibarn was a bestial monster, then this Gundam - this thing - was like one of the undead. A revenant come to collect a butcher's bill long past due.
And it was a Gundam. She was sure of it. She'd recognized the traces of the machine it had once been in its face, which although hollowed out to something lean and skeletal, still bore the four-pronged crown of Lfrith-Ur. The Gundam stolen from Grassley House, back from the dead, rebuilt from the corpses of its enemies, and bearing a new name that Belmeria had heard in whispered rumors over the past year.
Gundam Morrigan.
–-
Running through any battle, much less one between mobile suits, was tantamount to suicide. The fact that Bel chose to make the attempt anyway suggested that either this did not bother her all that much, or that the alternative seemed worse.
Knowing herself (quoth the dead Greeks), she guessed that it was probably the latter. That thing - or rather its pilot - had recognized her. Worse, they'd recognized her as Doctor Winston, which augured extremely poorly for her if captured.
She'd accumulated her share of enemies in her work as Doctor Winston, and one of them, the Space Assembly League, had already put her to use down here. Or, no, it was the Colonial Allied Unification League (rather inauspiciously abbreviated as CAUL). The only others she could think of who had access to Gundams were Peil or Prospera Mercury, and she would rather be smashed to paste by a mobile suit than be put at either of their mercy.
So, she ran. Where most of her employees and colleagues at the Greenhouse were running away from the fight, she ran towards it. Through it. Aiming for one of the transport shuttles that was ready to launch. She’d never actually seen a Mobile Suit in action with her own eyes before, preferring to filter it through the protective abstractions of data readouts and realtime schematic assessments. That was how she always preferred to engage with violence, especially her own; elided and sterilized with the comforting lies of protocol and instrumentation.
If she’d been asked to guess what witnessing this kind of battle up close would be like, she probably would have said something like “Frightening,” or “Loud,” or “Dangerous.”
Accurate, in the denotative sense, but far too anodyne to convey the absolute, biblical horror of these titanic machines pitched against one another. The basso of artillery fire that shook the fillings from your teeth. The screaming, grinding crash of actuators the size of automobiles propelling and guiding metric tons of violent metal. The ambient heat from their maneuvering thrusters, hot enough to melt steel, even on the lowest in-atmosphere settings. The pressure and weight of each footfall, which you could feel shudder through your bones even from yards away. And these were just the Desultors, the only Suits capable of regular, mostly unimpeded action within Quiet Zero’s sphere of influence.
Gundam Morrigan was something else entirely. It moved less like a machine and more like a half-starved bird of prey. It shouldn’t have been mobile, even with QZ in its “cooldown” cycle. And yet it wasn’t just mobile, it was fast. From her tower window, Bel had watched it leap away from the barrage of gunfire, use only the smallest and most controlled bursts of its thrusters to slalom side to side through the air as it fell, evading clouds of killing shrapnel, crashing into the static turret. Using its clawed hands, it ripped the whole thing free of its struts with a hideous sound of tearing metal. Then, as Bel had turned to begin her escape, she’d glimpsed it drop to the ground on all fours like an animal, gripping the sword-thing on its back as it readied for its foes to come meet it.
She couldn’t see Morrigan now, despite her proximity. The burning fog had grown thick again, so that she was running half-blind through a nightmare shadowplay of silhouettes, each one the size of her childhood home, covering her ears to prevent the cacophony from rupturing an eardrum.
The Desultors darted in and out of distinction, pursuing or being pursued, tearing up the very air with their wild gun and beam fire. Arm-length shell casings clattered musically to the ground. The fog churned and seethed, stinking of burning fuel and gunpowder. There came a sudden, massive whoosh, like some great bat taking to wing, and Bel just had time to notice the fog to her left lighting up a baleful, ghostly blue.
The Dilanza’s axe flew overhead, having been hurled like a hatchet, its rotations loud as helicopter blades, vanished again into the fog, and then struck home with an almighty crash, and then a plume of flame as the Desultor exploded.
Bel was thrown off her feet by the blastwave, buffeted like a piece of flotsam in a seastorm, ears ringing and vision blurred. She clung to the ground for dear life as there came more loud thudding. She screamed, covering her head with her arms as Gundam Morrigan leapt into view, shrugging off a barrage of gunfire that cast shrieking sparks down all around her. Just before it passed out of sight again, it let loose that awful cry, and with it a spray of water from somewhere within the Suit’s chassis, a self-cooling mechanism that immediately caused another burst of steam to boil out from around and within its mechanisms.
Bel scrambled away quickly, managing by sheer flight of terror to avoid being broiled by the waste heat. Bel made a noise that was a little like a laugh, a little like a wail (not that she could hear it over her ringing ears). It was a big tea kettle!
Well! That was certainly one way to circumvent Quiet Zero; scrap or disable as many Permet-run systems as possible, down even to the temperature regulators. It was also a good way to cook yourself alive in your own cockpit the moment your water reserves ran dry. No wonder it was fighting so recklessly; it was on a literal countdown.
Not my problem. She thought, somehow scrambling to her feet. Not my problem. Not my problem.
And she was up on her feet again. Running again. In the distance, armageddon sang its discord, but none of this was her problem. She could get away clean. Use the information she’d just extrapolated (guesswork, yes, but an educated one based on primary data, or close enough to it) to soften the punishment for abandoning her post. It was their own fault for putting her here in the first place. She was a scientist, not a fucking Governor! Yes, she’d done terrible things. Yes, she’d shut her eyes against worse. But her intentions had always been good. That counted for something, didn’t it? There was no absolution to be gained by dying here, was there? No, no, redemption could only come from the work. Once the work was done, it would all be justified. She just had to live!
She hammered on the hatch to the transport shuttle. Flashed her identification at the cameras, shouted who she was, even though it would be impossible to hear. Was there even anybody inside this thing? Protocol was that there should always be at least minimal crew on hand in case the need for a sudden departure arose. And the need had very clearly been fucking aroused! But what if the crew had already fled in a panic? What if they’d never been there in the first place, electing to sneak off and get drunk on that execrable goddamn fungal booze? She knew that stuff would be the death of her, but she’d never expected it to play out quite like this!
Behind her, there was another grinding, roaring, tearing crash as Gundam Morrigan was hurled end over end from somewhere in the fog. It skipped once like a stone, smashed through a row of parked vehicles, and then righted itself, digging its claws into the asphalt, digging massive furrows as it skidded to a stop. With its other hand it reached up for its mass of chains and yanked down on one; the Desultor Shoulder Cannon went up and over into the ready position, locked into place with an audible clang, and then fired, pushing the malnourished-looking Mobile Suit back a step.
The shell impacted against the pursuing Dilanza Sol, the only one allotted to Belmeria’s entire district.
The Jeturk company AI allowed for some degree of control when QZ’s influence was waning, but the massive Suit still was clumsy and awkward compared to how it would have been with full Permet links enabled. Still, it didn’t need to be graceful against an opponent armed primarily with primitive ballistics.
The shell detonated with a terrible roar against the Dilanza, but it simply powered through the explosion, hurtled towards Morrigan, its own beam axe slicing through the air in anticipation of the kill.
Something happened to Gundam Morrigan. It began within the jewel of its crown, which suddenly lit up with the three blood-red bars indicating the activation of Permet Score Three. In the space of two, maybe three seconds, however, the three bars fractured. Fragmented. Bisected. Then bisected again. And again. Splitting exponentially into increasingly small components, these components then running out from the crown and along thin carved rivulets encircling its body, limbs, and armor.
As the nodes spread, they changed first to a bruised purple, then a bright and vibrant blue, coiling around themselves in golden spirals. Like the tattooing and scarification of some ancient berserker. Then Gundam Morrigan moved.
Bel had thought that thing was fast before. But the speed and economy with which it avoided each of the Dilanza’s swings, hefted its slab of a sword, and didn’t so much sever the enemy's arm as bash it apart all happened so quickly that Bel only recognized it in retrospect. It was so hypnotic that she almost missed when the door opened behind her and the shuttle’s pilot yanked her in.
“Ma’am, what are your-”
The spell broken, Bel scrambled to her feet, slammed her palm against the door panel, and yelled, “Launch!”
She took one last look out of the external cameras before rushing towards her seat to strap in. The Morrigan was taking the Dilanza apart, dancing effortlessly around it and hacking it brutally to pieces with its hideous weapon. It probably could have simply speared that thing right through the cockpit and saved a lot of time, but Bel wasn’t complaining. At this rate they should be able to get off the ground before-
“Oh no you don’t!” Morrigan’s pilot called over its speakers.
It turned quickly away from its opponent, seizing one of its chains and in one fluid motion ripped the length of metal free and hurled it like a bola at the shuttle. Bel had just enough time to drop down, put her head between her legs and kiss her ass goodbye before the impact sent the entire world spinning.
–
Somehow, Bel opened her eyes. Somehow, she sat up. Somehow, apart from a headache equivalent to every hangover all at once, she seemed mostly unharmed. She was laying under clear sky, the last wisps of boiling fog dispersing, allowing the pale light of Luna - and the tumorous blotch of Quiet Zero - to show in the night once more.
She was on a stretcher, alongside several other stretchers, each of which were occupied by others in various states of distress. There were also some bodybags, but far fewer than Bel would have expected from such a violent skirmish. There were new Desultors, different from those she’d grown accustomed to seeing around the compound. They were older models, and wearing the green and gold decals of the Dawn of Fold.
That explained it, then. They always got livelier during supply shipment days, but most of the infrastructure to prevent attack from the terrorist group had been situated in low orbit. Nobody had expected them to attack the Greenhouse outright. After the events at Asticassia, nobody expected them to still have a Gundam.
The Gundam in question was kneeling several yards away from the main body of activity, steaming and creaking as it slowly cooled down. Two figures in fully sealed Normal Suits were standing close to one another, inspecting the damage.
One of them seemed to have only one arm, or else had one arm injured and bound up within the suit. That one was gesturing animatedly, pointing expressively with their one good hand.
Their partner hardly moved, resembling more a wax model of a pilot than a living one. They were much taller than One-arm, though, and from their half-bent posture seemed to be listening attentively.
Bel was fascinated by the sight. The compound was bustling with activity, both from the DoF soldiers and from a steady stream of what looked like refugees, bringing in bags of their worldly belongings, presumably to set up shop here. And yet for all of the people, nobody but those two were in Normal Suits. Why would they be? They were in atmosphere. The only time one wore a Normal Suit down the gravity well was in hazardous environments.
And suddenly it clicked. The temperature regulation of a Normal Suit didn’t use Permet, and was rated for use in all but the harshest celestial climes. Unless the Morrigan reached critical temperatures, the pilot would be quite comfortable despite the heat.
“Clever,” Bel muttered.
She shouldn’t have, though, because one of the nearby soldiers, a middle-aged man with a long scar across his brow and a close-cropped undercut, noticed that she was awake. He walked over, rifle slung easily across his shoulders. He didn’t say a word to Bel, simply took out a small flashlight, shined it in her eyes, one and then the other, and then held up two fingers.
“Two,” Bel said, opting for compliance.
He held up four fingers.
“Four.”
“Who is the President of the Benerit Group?”
“The President of the Benerit wing of the CAUL is Miorine Mercury."
“And the SAL wing?”
Bel shrugged, wincing a little at a sharp pain. So not entirely unscathed. “Are you asking me who’s the figurehead? Or who runs things for real?”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Do you know who runs things for real?”
Bel chuckled weakly. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
“No,” the man mused. “You’d probably be dead. Hey! Captain! Lieutenant! Winston’s awake.”
The two suited figures approached, the shorter one still poring distractedly over their handheld. At one point this led them to trip a little, only to be caught by the arm and gently steadied by their companion. The taller figure paused to admonish the shorter. The shorter figure thrust their chin up (a barely noticeable gesture in the Normal Suit), and the taller snatched their handheld and dangled it just a bit out of their reach, pulling it up each time their one-armed companion jumped and grabbed for it.
The older man sighed and gave Bel a shrug. “Kids.”
Eventually the shorter one gave up and they resumed their approach, whatever gravitas they’d been trying to affect was essentially gone. Even so, the tall one did their best to adjust their posture to a military rigidity and actually succeeded, effortlessly commanding attention and respect simply from a straightening of the spine.
“Doctor Belmeria Winston,” the tall one said. Their voice was distorted by the Normal Suit, and it was difficult to see their features through the helmet, impossible to tell if they were the speaker from before. “Formerly of the Vanadis Institute, Peil Technologies, Shin Sei Incorporated, and former acting Governor of Greenhouse 54 and outlying territories.”
With a hiss of pressurized air, the helmet came free, revealing a striking young woman with dark hair that was somehow perfectly neat even now, sharp golden eyes, and an expression as flat and hard as slate. She stared, unblinking and unmoving, at Bel; a bird of prey watching a limping mouse.
“Yes, Captain, that’s correct,” Bel said. Best not to drag this out.
The tall, oddly familiar looking woman just looked slightly irritated, and the older man bit back a snort of laughter.
“I am Dawn of Fold Lieutenant Sabina Fardin-Nanaura, Primary Pilot of Gundam Morrigan.”
Wait. If she wasn't the captain, then…
The shorter one was having a bit more difficulty with their helmet, struggling to remove it with only one hand but apparently unwilling to ask for assistance. With unflagging gravitas, Sabina went over and assisted their apparent captain. Once the helmet came free, a much more familiar face smiled amiably at Belmeria. A face that Bel had not expected to see alive again.
“Dawn of Fold Captain Nika Nanaura-Fardin, Chief Engineer and Secondary Pilot of Gundam Morrigan.”
Captain Nika Nanaura-Fardin’s hair was longer, and more unkempt than Bel remembered, the blue-streak now a long braid draped across her left shoulder. She had a leaner, hungrier cast to her features, but her eyes were the same striking, sky blue as ever. Her smile widened, still just as sweet as Bel remembered.
So why was she suddenly afraid?
“And this,” Nika rapped her knuckles against the side of Bel’s stretcher, “Is why I asked you to stay put.”