[X] Hold your fire
You could end her right now. All it would take is a single shot.
But… No. If this can end peacefully, it should. No more blood has to be spilled, right?
"Rita, I know you're hurting. You're hurting because of what they did to you… what I did to you." Michele continues, and you can feel the anguish and regret coming off of her,
"I'm sorry, Rita. Back then, I shouldn't have done what I did. I shouldn't have given you over to them. I told myself that I was doing it to save you and Jona, but it was a lie. I was just scared, and you paid the price."
Michele Luio can no longer fool herself. The Titans may have put the gun in her hand, but she pulled the trigger. At least, that's how she sees it.
"Sorry… You're sorry." Rita repeats, bitterness dripping off every word,
"What good does 'sorry' do now, Michele? Does it turn back time?! What I've lost, I'll never regain! You think words will fix that?!"
"I know that it's too late, that I can't undo the pain and the suffering, but I want to do what I can to make things right, even a little." Michele continues,
"I know Jona feels the same way. We just want to save you, Rita!"
"Save me? You want to save me?!" Rita laughs and cries in equal measure,
"Look at me, Michele! How much of this is still Rita Bernal?! There's nothing left to save!"
That… is the most coherent you've heard Rita during this whole engagement. Is she truly crazy?
Well, probably, but there's clearly still a person in there.
"That's not true, Rita!" Another voice cuts in, and you look to see the Narrative's Core Fighter approaching slowly, cockpit open with Jona standing on the seat, the Psychoframe on his flight suit glowing as it amplifies his thoughts,
"I know you, Rita. I know the kind girl who I grew up with. I see her in you. You're still here with us, Rita, and I won't let them hurt you anymore!"
"Hey!" You aim your Beam Rifle at his craft,
"Back off, Scarecrow. You Feds can't have her or the Phenex."
"I have no intention of delivering Rita to the Federation." Jona replies without slowing his Core Fighter,
"You have my word. Besides, my Mobile Suit is gone. I couldn't force the issue even if I wanted, and I don't. Please, let me see her."
This is a bad idea. You're about to tell him to shove off when another voice cuts in.
"Ensign Naese, stand down." Kamille orders you,
"They know Rita. Let them try to get through to her."
…. Damn it. This is a terrible idea. But you obey and lower your weapon.
As the Zeta approaches with Michele and the Core Fighter with Jona, you see the Phenex's hatch swing open. Holy shit, she's actually going to talk with them.
Jona ditches his fighter and pulls a cord on his suit, and you see the Psychoframe shell fall off of it. Huh.
The Phenex holds its hands open, palms up in front of its chest, and you see the three of them meet there. Jona Basta, Michele Luio, and Rita Bernal.
They're talking, but… ah, they must be using local comms. Hm, Jona has a Feddie suit and Rita has a worn civilian one, but Michele is wearing what looks to be a Londo Bell helmet. If that's the case, then you should be able to tap into her comms and do some eavesdropping.
So, you do, because you've got a really,
really bad feeling about this.
"Rita, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for what I did to you." You hear Michele, "I know that you're hurting, but if you want to take your revenge, take it out on me. This? This isn't the answer."
She gestures vaguely around her. You assume she means Rita's rampage.
"Revenge… that isn't the point, Michele. I just want to fly free, away from everything, but they keep chasing me."
Jona and Michele share a look, and you're not sure what they're thinking.
"They'll keep coming after you, Rita." Jona said, "The Federation, Zeon, Londo Bell, they'll never stop chasing you so long as you have the Phenex."
"If that's true, Jona, then I'll never be free." Rita says quietly, "I
need my Wings. They keep me safe, they set me free."
"No, Rita. What you need isn't the Phenex." Jona reaches out to her and opens his hand. You magnify the image, and see he has what appears to be two small pendants in his palm, "I'll take its place. I'll set you free."
"Do you mean that, Jona?" She asks as she leans forward towards him, "Will it finally be over?"
He nods, "It will, Rita. Just trust me. I wasn't able to save you back then. I'll save you now. You don't need the Phenex. We'll be your Wings."
"I…" She brings her hands to her chest, before falling into his embrace, "I'm so relieved… it'll be over… You'll be with me too, won't you Jona? Michele?"
"Of course." Michele moves to join the hug, but pauses. She's looking at something past the two. You don't follow her gaze, because something else has caught your attention.
"I'll be with you, Rita," Jona whispers as he slowly pulls his pistol from its holster, "every step of the way. To the end."
Oh, hell no! You're not letting that asshole murder-suicide Rita! You bring up the Sealant Launcher, to immobilize the two of them and prevent him from-!
"Jona! Rita!" Michele screams, pointing at something beyond them. Jona freezes to look, as do you.
It's Luke, approaching fast. His machine is missing a couple of limbs and looks scorched from head to toe. He doesn't appear to have any weapons left, but as he aims his head, you realize that he only needs one weapon to deal with unprotected pilots in Normal Suits. You switch to your Beam Rifle and take aim, but it's too late.
"Jona, you traitor!" He roars, as he unleashes a barrage of fire from his Head Vulcans, "DIE!"
Rita could feel Jona's warmth. Even through the vacuum of space, through their suits, she could feel the warmth of his light. He truly cared for her, him and Michele both. He just wanted to end her suffering. She didn't care how he did it, so long as the three of them were together.
Just like it was back in those carefree days…
Then Michele screamed their names, and she turned to see her pointing at something, terrified. Rita looked to see what was terrifying her friend-
Malice. Sheer, utter malice. How could she have not sensed it? Pure killing intent, aimed at all three of them. It washed over her at the same time as the storm of 60mm rounds slammed into the Phenex's hand, sending molten metal flying all around.
"Get down!" Jona shouted urgently as he acted on instinct. There was no time to think, no time to convince himself of right or wrong. Throwing away his pistol, he grabbed Michele and Rita and pushed with his legs, hurling them all towards the safety of the Phenex's open cockpit.
Rita felt the wind get knocked out of her as her back hit the pilot's seat, and she heard Michele bounce off of the monitors to her right. She could feel Jona's hand protectively gripping her arm.
He saved her.
"Jona," She smiled gratefully as she raised her head to look him in the eyes, "Thank yo-…"
He wasn't there. There were floating drops of red.
That… That didn't make sense. She could feel his hand on her left arm. He was there, right?
As she looked down, she heard Michele's scream of anguish.
Jona's hand was holding her arm, yes. Her eyes followed it, from the hand, to the forearm, to the elbow.
It didn't go any farther.
"…."
"…. Jona?"
You curse under your breath as you see Luke's Gundam explode, but his escape pod makes it away from the wreckage. Damn, your shot was off. Looking back to the Phenex, you see a fine red mist travelling away from it. Judging from the amount… shit. He got someone. Who-?
A howl of pure agony cuts through your mind. Emotions tear through you. Grief. Anguish. Despair. The Phenex almost seems to convulse as blinding light pours from the Psychoframe.
Rita Bernal has lost it. Pyscho-Energy rushes in to smother her Gundam. It's building up to something.
"The Phenex is going critical!" Amuro says as he reenters the combat zone, having been pushed far away earlier by Rita, "All units, pull back!"
"But Captain, can't we stop… whatever she's doing?!" You ask as you put some distance between yourself and the Phenex. You can feel it in your gut. Whatever this light is building to, it's going to be bad. Really bad.
"I can't get through to Rita, she's shutting me out!" Kamille shouts, the panic in his voice disconcerting, "Amuro, we need to find cover!"
"Cover? What's going to cover us from
that?!" Amuro retorts, "Just get some distance from her! It's all we can do!"
Other members of Londo Bell shoot at the Phenex, but you see their shots just disperse before hitting it. The Psycho-Energy is dispersing everything.
You knew it. You should have just shot her when you had the chance.
"Rita, you need to stop this!" Michele tried to shake her friend, to bring her back to her senses, but the blonde Cyber Newtype was unresponsive, curled into a ball as she sobbed inconsolably. All around them, the monitors flashed and flickered as every status display returned warnings of imminent catastrophe.
Rita Bernal was making the Phenex's reactor go critical. That, along with whatever she was doing with the Psychoframe, was sure to kill them both and consume the machine whole. Michele wasn't sure if she deserved to live, but she didn't want her friend to die.
Her friend, whom she had abandoned once before.
Not again. Never again.
"We need to go. Come on!" Michele tried to pull Rita out of the seat, but she was stuck fast.
At that rate, neither of them would escape the blast, and Michele didn't want to be the only survivor. What worth did life have if she had to bear the burden of knowing she let both of her dear friends down?
"Jona… Jona wouldn't want this, Rita!" She pleaded, "What use was his sacrifice if you die too?!"
"… Jona was going to kill both of us." Rita whispered into Michele's mind even as she wailed,
"He was going to set us free. I want to join him."
"Freedom… What freedom is there in death, Rita?!" Michele insisted, "That's just giving up!"
"I don't have anything left to lose, Michele. Not even myself. So much of me has been cut out and replaced. Only a broken weapon remains."
The Phenex groaned around them as it shook, the light becoming nearly blinding.
"Let's join Jona, Michele. We can finally become free. This world has nothing to offer us."
Michele felt so much regret as she looked upon what remained of her friend, the girl whom she owed her life to. If Rita didn't want to continue on…
"Alright, then." She finally relented, wrapping her arms around Rita as she accepted her fate, "I'll go with you, Rita. I just… don't want to be alone."
"That's fine, Michele." Rita held her friend, looking to her with tear-filled eyes,
"We'll never be alone again."
The light swallowed them whole.
Space detonated. Destructive light swallowed any too slow to flee. You ignore the barking of your consoles as they demand for you to slow down, to stop red-lining the engines. You don't, as you see the flames of an aurora lick at the corners of your eyes, a torrent threatening to consume you.
Ahead of you, Amuro and Kamille race to outpace the tide. You hope that the others make it.
A shrill alarm announces the end of your fuel supply. Your main thrusters sputter, switching to plasma from the reactor, but it's too weak. The light closes in from all sides.
"…. I'm sorry, Kaylen, Mother…" You whisper as you close your eyes.
The roar becomes nearly deafening-
Silence.
You open your eyes, slowly. You're still here.
Amuro and Kamille are slowing down. The light is… gone?
You rotate the Woundwort to face where you came from.
Stunning.
A storm of every color imaginable, and some you've never seen before. It swirls and churns, melting the void as it roils.
It disperses in four large clumps, heading off in separate directions.
All that's left is a rapidly-fading sphere in the center of it all, and once the light fades you see two small figures floating in the emptiness, unmoving.
"The Phenex has been… eliminated." Amuro says somberly, "The operation was a… a success."
He fires off a few flares, signaling for all forces to pull back. If the Ra Cailum saw that, they'll dispatch Search and Rescue teams to comb the wreckage for escape pods, survivors, and the dead.
What were those two figures you saw? Debris? People? You almost move to check them out, when Amuro contacts you directly.
"Return to the Ra Cailum, Ensign. That's an order."
"I..." You cast a glance back to where the Phenex used to be, "I… understand, Captain. Returning to carrier."
Rita and Michele held fast to each other, as the last wisps of Psycho-Energy dissipated around them.
As consciousness began to slip from them, a familiar voice spoke. The voice of a friend.
"We'll see each other again one day. Until then, Live."
A pendant, once broken into three, was made whole in a sparkle of light.
Rita reached out for it as it slowly drifted away.
"Don't leave… Jo… na…"
"Holy shit." You gape as you come in for a landing. The Ra Cailum is… well, it's fucked. Very fucked.
The hull is full of holes, one engine pod is missing entirely, one of the main turrets has been blown off, most of the AA mounts are just scorched craters…
Honestly, you're amazed that it's still holding together. If the hangar can still pressurize, you'll eat your shoes.
You notice other members of Londo Bell and Cascadia Team returning as well. Mort, with an absolutely battered Methuss. Theo in a partially-dismembered Stein. Christina, with only one arm left. Riddhe with a one-legged Banshee.
Then there's Sicilia. The Lord Frith is spotless.
You don't see Eris or Lorelei, not to mention most of the machines that departed with the strike force.
Hopefully the SAR teams find them. You didn't feel them die, and you would have if they did, right?
Lutetia is still out cold as you're brought into the main hangar. Should you be worried about that?
…
Nah, she's probably fine.
The monitors around you go dark as you power down the Woundwort. A lot happened during that battle. You have a lot to process. Is it going to haunt you? Probably, but you'll cross that bridge when you come to it.
All you want is to take a shower, collapse on your bed, and sleep off this weariness. With a tired sigh, you pop the hatch, stepping out and-what the fuck that's a gun in your face.
"Ensign Cybele Naese." The ECOAS trooper addresses you, backed up by two other armed soldiers, "Come with us."
It takes a while to secure the Lord Frith. There weren't many hands to spare from the SAR operations to tie your Mobile Armor back up to the cargo ships, so what should have taken a mere hour takes three.
You tried to contact the Ra Cailum, but the comms officer didn't let you talk to Cybele! Something about priority traffic. You tried reaching out to Big Sis's mind, but when the Phenex did that big flashy explosion, it got really hard to talk to other people like that. Almost like background interference? You dunno how that stuff works anyways.
Eventually,
finally, the Lord Frith is secured and you depart from it in the Hrududu, navigating over to the Ra Cailum and setting down in its hangar. Ah, you see Big Sis's Gundam! She made it back! Looks like she disembarked a while ago, though. There's also a few Mobile Suits you haven't seen before! A weird-looking Zeta variant, and… oh, that's…
"…Gundams are the enemy." You mutter as you stare at the ZZ, finger inching towards the trigger.
The Hrududu rocks suddenly. What was that? You look… ah, it's the technicians securing your machine down on the deck. Okay.
That Gundam over there is the ZZ, huh? You remember it… Why do you remember it? You've never seen this thing before… you think?
Your jumbled thoughts are interrupted as one of your grown-up sisters approaches you. She's helping another one of your sisters to walk, as she looks absolutely laid out. Oh, that's Lutetia, isn't it? Who's carrying her?
"You must be the little one I've heard so much about." Your new sister greets you cheerfully, "I'm Adrastea. You can call me Stea, though. Do you want to come with us? We're hoping a parfait helps Lutetia feel better."
"World still spinning…" Lutetia groans, "I'm gonna be sick…"
A post-battle parfait? That sounds excellent!
[] "Yay! Parfaits! Lead the way, Stea!"
[] "I'd love to, but I need to find Big Sis. Do you know where she went, Lutetia?"
[] They're talking down to you, clearly. You must T-Pose to assert dominance.
Note: And that's the end of "Cry of the Phoenix". Did that seriously take me over a year to write? Damn. I'll try not to have such long pauses between updates in the future.
The next few missions are little breather missions, and the main "campaign" missions won't become more urgent during them.
We all need a little break from high-stakes shenanigans, don't you agree?
Also, I have a Quest headset and I'm playing/watching the Silver Phantom VR "Movie".
Lots of content and lore I'd like to incorporate. Lots indeed...
] Shoot Rita
