2023-08-30: Puppets
- Cast: Jona Basta, Sayaka Yumi, Liam 7-020
- Where: Side 6: Outside Denver Colony
- Date: U.C. 0097 09 08
- Summary: A shadow of his former self, Jona Basta and the Neo Zeong II arrive at Denver Colony. Sayaka and Liam, separated from their companions as they escape the interior of the Colony, are the first to meet him.
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
The II Neo Zeong is a white gleam through space. It rockets towards Denver Colony -- towards the fields of helium-3 cylinders, in neat rows and with uneven gaps; towards the abandoned ships and resource satellites around it; towards the defenders inside. It comes with intent and fury alike.
But with a despair that runs deeper than that. It reaches out for any mind nearby. It asks to be understood, and pulls away before it can.
Once upon a time, Jona Basta betrayed his friend. He sold her out to the Titans, in an agreement with another friend. Once upon a time, he did a crime that he could not be forgiven for. And forever afer, Jona Basta knew one thing: his entire life would be shaped around redemption. Not forgiveness, but saving the forsaken.
Then, once upon a time, Jona Basta's friend betrayed him. She knew and she planned the entire thing.
His redemption vanished into the ashes of Sydney Crater. He realized not that he was mistaken, but that he had nothing. He understood, then, that only a miracle could save his friend.
A miracle has to be created. A miracle has a price.
And that is what comes screaming towards Denver Colony: a young man with rust red hair, cold and dead blue eyes, and an expression that is empty.
What comes to Denver Colony is a price, begging with all of his heart to be paid.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Lights flicker on the status panel of an exterior Mobile Suit airlock. A bright emergency-red beacon ignites, and the lock finishes cycling; two Mobile Weapons jet out into the void. The first is Liath Macha, a weapon of ZAFT design, but not wholly--its head has a visored design like more recent Federation suits, and while the rest resembles a CGUE, there's enough differences to identify it as something else. Its greyscale paint gleams red in the glow of the emergency light.
In its cockpit, Liam breathes. He lost track of Koji, LiSA, and Lucine during the escape--but he still remembers the last transmission from the Ra Mari II, and he's terrified for them. His right hand works the comms panel, but the Minovsky interference is hellacious, and he can't get an angle for a direct laser line. "Can't get through to the Ra Mari," Liam says, to Sayaka. "Or to the others. I--"
A familiar IFF appears, and Liam's heart drops like a stone. "JONA!" he screams, as the II Neo Zeong resolves. "HE'S HERE!" In an instant, Liath Macha has its shield and rifle in hand, and in the next, it has a firing solution. Desperation makes Liam want to shoot. He can't do it. He can't pull the trigger, why is he--
"JONA, STOP! PLEASE!" That's one of the pilots who found Jona while he was drifting, briefly. But Liam can't count on Jona recognizing him, much less his sympathy.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
Sayaka may have been separated from Koji, but she doesn't have any doubts he'll be okay. They made it through the worst of it, right? They just have to make it out of the goddamned maze, and link up from there. "They'll be okay, Liam. I know you're worried out Lucine, but... just means we need to get out of here sooner." She offers, maneuvering Areia ahead of the Liath Macha.
Unfortunately for them, the ultimate roadblock stands in their way... it's unmistakable what it is, the massive, hulking II Neo Zeong they came here to stop in the first place.
And inside, Rita's childhood friend she's desperate to save, Jona Basta. Liam seems to know who he is... which is interesting.
"Don't shoot, Liam." Sayaka urges her companion who's training beam rifle on the II Neo Zeong. "It won't do a thing to such a massive machine... but it sure will do /something/ if you hit a helium tank by mistake."
She tries to open a line to the II Neo Zeong next. "Get out of there, Jona Basta." She tells him, stern and harsh. "What do you think you're doing, running from Rita, and worse, putting the entire Earth Sphere in this much danger?" She asks of him. Of course, she doesn't understand his mindset in full. But he does seem like he needs to be snapped out of it, so to speak.
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
"Liam."
Jona's voice is cold when he hears the voice of someone who, once, could have been his friend. Now, he doesn't have room for friends; the price of a miracle can't have room or sch things.
The Liath Macha lights up on his screen, highlighted for a moment by it. He looks it over for a moment. Then, the Aphrodite A is also lit up across his 360-degree display. Jona looks at it, as Sayaka approaches.
"I'm not running from Rita," he tells her. "No... I've realized something. I'll be what both of them really need. What this damned, miserable world really needs."
His eyes turn to the Liath Macha.
"'Stop,'" he repeats. "No. No, I cannot -- I /will not/ stop now. Not when it's so close, not when the future that we can't dream of is almost at hand."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Sayaka's right. Liam feels the tension in his jaw, the way his teeth scrape together. He can't afford anything less than a cockpit shot, and given how massive and well-armored the target is, and how they're sitting in a minefield, he...
He can't make that shot. He doesn't trust himself to make that shot, even if he could /try/.
"For God's sake. You think. Killing everyone--everyone--is the answer?" He has no hope of winning this. Maybe running, and Liam starts to mark the tanks, to plot a way out. If nothing else they can get away, regroup, do /something/, anything. It can't end like this. "What is this future?" That horrible tremor is still in Liam's voice, like he's forcing the words out.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"He's right, Jona." Sayaka concurs, Aphrodite Areia's eyes lighting up... but ultimately not firing any weaponry. "If you accomplish what you're trying to do, there won't /be/ a future to dream of!"
This is her first time speaking with Jona. The young man... he reminds her of someone. Perhaps she would see it in those empty eyes of his. Even if this is a much, much larger scale than simple thrill-seeking with a motorcycle.
"What they both really need? Have you even /asked/ them if it's what they want? And please... don't give me that 'I know better than they do about what they want' shit. You and Rita are both like that, huh?" She almost snaps back at his words, his anger.
But if they can't shoot down the II Neo Zeong and they can't talk down the pilot, either, what do they do? "Let's all leave this place together, Jona. I don't know what it is with this colony, but /they/ will eat you alive if you even try." They don't have time to waste if this place is a ticking time bomb, of course.
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
"Do you think I'm wrong?" Jona asks quietly.
The despair is powerful in him. One might call it an emptiness, but that isn't quite right. No, it's a thing that fills him. It doesn't even seem to give him pause, to see that Liam is aiming at him -- ready to shoot at the cockpit.
The cockpit, in this case, is the Narrative Gundam C-packs. The Gundam is wedged into the II Neo Zeong, the armor surrounding it covering it from the waist down, and it is recessed such that it's hard to really line a shot up.
"The future is one we can't imagine," he says. "That's the point. The future should be something we can't see coming." His eyes close for a moment. "I didn't say the future we dream of, Sayaka Yumi. I said the future we /don't/ dream of."
His eyes open again. "They?" he asks. "No. I'm not leaving. And you're so sure I'm like Rita. I'm nothing like Rita. I didn't understand her. That's the problem, isn't it?" He laughs once, briefly, harshly.
"So let me ask you again." Jona's voice is quiet, until it is loud; an enraged scream, at the both of them. "DO YOU THINK I'M WRONG!?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
'Do you think I'm wrong?'
Liam has pieced together enough of Rita's history to know that she spent most of her life bouncing around from lab to lab. She was a priceless test subject. Jona's life couldn't have been that much better, but there's a deep vacuum where knowledge should go. Even worse, Liam can't /deny/ that there's something in him that hears Jona's despair, and /feels/ it. What if things never get better? What if this is a temporary reprieve before they get worse?
Terror clutches Liam's heart as Jona screams at them. He shrinks back in his seat, and then--
"Yes."
Liam's voice is a tiny squeak, at first, but even saying that is defiance. "Yes. Yes, you are. You're never wrong to--to feel, but... but you're talking about murder! Mass murder, because you can't see any other way out!"
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
It's true, Jona /did/ say the future they don't dream of. And that's what separates Jona from Rita, someone who's seen and changed the future. Yet... those powers put both of them in peril, through experiments.
"You don't need to be able to see the future to dream, Jona." Sayaka says firmly, as the young man lays his emptiness and despair before them both. "It seems you understand that the future is something that you make and grasp with your own hands. Otherwise... you wouldn't try to close it off using your own hands." As Liam shrinks in his seat, Sayaka leans forward in hers, in challenge and defiance of Jona's ideals.
"You're like two sides of the same coin." She insists, about Jona and Rita. "I'm not talking about special powers, or even your ways of seeing the world. It's that you both refuse to just talk things out. Whether it's Rita burning her soul out with some miracle or another or... whatever it is you're trying to do!"
But in spite of that, Jona forces her to engage with him on his terms, to answer that question. Liam makes his answer clear. Sayaka... "The future is so uncertain, and really, our world is so /small/ in the grand scheme of things! If you blew those reactors, then the future would become something we could never imagine. But that will never stop me from dreaming of a kinder, safer, healthier world! That's my dream and that's my answer. What say you, Jona Basta?"
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
Jona doesn't laugh. Nothing about this is funny; it's part of the tragedy of his life, and there is no comedy, no joy to be found in it. Even as his voice is on the edge in that scream, there is a certain clarity there.
"That is..."
Jona is quiet for a moment. /Is/ there a commonality there, in how Rita would burn herself out to save the future? In how he would destroy himself, to deny that future? It's a terrible, disqueting thought.
"I say that you're wrong," Jona says to her. "And you think I'm wrong."
He exhales, softly. "Good."
Once upon a time, Jona Basta betrayed his friend. He sold her out to the Titans, in an agreement with another friend. Once upon a time, he did a crime that he could not be forgiven for. And forever afer, Jona Basta knew one thing: his entire life would be shaped around redemption. Not forgiveness, but saving the forsaken.
"Because this world only makes sense if I'm wrong. I /will/ be wrong -- and I'll write that story until it's finished."
Wires suddenly explode from the II Neo Zeong's arms. They end with funnels, but not the sort that they're used to -- though Liam has seen them before -- but electromagnetic receivers. They go flying, one for the Aphrodite A and the other for the Liath Macha.
"And every writer needs a good pen."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
For a moment, Liam hopes against hope that Sayaka's gotten through. She's composed and confident, where he--to himself, in his own mind--sounds so weak. She talks about what she believes in, about Rita, and--
'Good.'
"...Jona?" Liam's voice feels like it's echoing in his cockpit, in his ears, backed by the pulse of his heart. "What do you mean?"
A burst of motion. Liath Macha matches it with sudden acceleration of its own; the tendril sent its way misses the mark, initially, as Liam jets upward. "Stop," he hisses, as G-forces press him into his seat. "STOP!" Liath Macha swerves to the right, past one rack of gas tanks, but the wire chases it. Another swerve to the right, a boost up, and a sharp jet down behind another rack. The wire follows, Liam sees it in his rear cam--
"JONA, STOP!" Spittle flies from Liam's lips. His eyes are wide as saucers. The tendril connects with the back of the STRIKER pack, and holds fast. Liam reaches for the emergency purge lever, pulls it--
Nothing happens. The jets fire on their own, killing the CGUE II's momentum. Liam reaches for the control sticks, tries to turn his machine, but Liath Macha remains still. Sickening horror twists his guts as reality hits him: his Mobile Suit is a puppet on Jona's strings, and he is helpless inside it. He will watch his world burn.
"No," he says, and he tries again, tapping the accelerator, working the manual weapon-eject systems, /something/, anything, to regain control. A tiny piece of green crystal presses against his glove, but he doesn't even notice it. It wouldn't help. "Stop. Please don't do this." He will watch his world burn, again. "You can't do this!" Tears bead from Liam's eyes, and he blinks them away. "Didn't they use you?! Why--what gives you the right to--"
Liam slams a fist into the side of his cockpit. There's a /crunch/ as part of the screen gives, and nothing more. Beyond is cold, unyielding steel.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"If you want to be wrong so much, then that's fine. Let me prove it for you!" Sayaka shouts... it's half a bluff, but the confidence is the point, as Liam surmises. The wire-like funnels sprout out. Fortunately, after Torrington and the Conqueror King Nu Gundam... Sayaka knows exactly how to handle this. Or does she? "Aphrodite Areia!!" She calls, for her machine to defend itself.
"...Areia?" Something's wrong. Areia won't hear her commands, and she realises what those wires were /really/ for, as they plug right into the Pilder, and Sayaka has no choice but to watch her beloved Aphrodite Areia be taken over.
"A-Areia, please!" Sayaka commands, pressing every button, every override that she and Koji put in there together. None of them work. She can't even escape with the Pilder and destroy the machine herself. Any sympathy she might have had for Jona evaporates, as she repeats the same sentiment she expressed not long ago. "Aphrodite Areia is /my/ partner." She insists, as the yellow glow of Photon Power in the eye turns to red. "How /dare/ you turn her into a puppet for your machinations!" Worse than that, seems Liam's in the same trouble as her, too... no doubt they'll be forced to turn their weapons on their very own partners.
"Do you really think Koji's never dealt with something like this before? Do you seriously think we won't come up with a way to sever your connection ourselves? I told you I'd prove you wrong, and I meant it, Jona Basta!" Even if the most she can do right now is call her attacks to warn him of what's to come...
<Pose Tracker> Jona Basta has posed.
"Nothing gives us any right, Liam," Jona says, his voice tired and empty. "We all take whatever we can."
The wires connect -- and their machines stop responding. After a moment, there are crackles and flickers across their screens; a little static, as they interfere with the controls. Jona leans back in the Narrative's cockpit.
"Then I'll show Koji something he hasn't seen before," he says. "We're all puppets, Sayaka Yumi. I figured that out."
Jona looks head; the whole mass of the II Neo Zeong turns, the massive white Mobile Armor shifting, and the eyes of the Gundam look towards Denver Colony. The eyes flare, once, a brilliant red.
"They're coming," Jona says. "Let's put an end to this."