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"Sensus Divinitatis"Written By: The Plotting Housewife Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sotsu
and associated Parties. This work is written for pleasure not profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements,
Ghosts, Demons, Apocalypse, Major character death, blood, gore, violence Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5x6 Summary: It begins with a prophecy and ends with
Judgement Day. What happens in between will determine the fate of
the human race. The murders of the Gundam Pilots was only the catalyst.
The beginning of the end. " Sensus Divinitatis"
Chapter
20: June
24th, AC 206, 9:45am "Dr. Po."Sally woke up with a start and blinked up at the Prime Minister. The man looked haggard, unkempt, and Sally realized she probably looked much the same. She had a nasty crick in her neck from falling asleep in the chair and she groaned as she tried to massage it out. Cambridge leveled solemn blue eyes on her and held out a rifle. "Here. The bullets have been blessed by the chaplain." Sally raised a brow. "Are you serious?" Cambridge turned and leaned against the wall beside her. "You don't have to be Christian for those to work. The things that are coming are still just inhabiting human bodies. They can be killed." "By blessed bullets." "The blessed bullets are for the Horsemen, not for the legions of creatures that will precede them." Sally pulled the clip out, slapped it back in, then propped the gun next to her chair, a resigned sigh slipping past her lips. "Why do I have the feeling I'm going to be hearing something ridiculously unbelievable?" "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'm sure you've heard of them before, Doctor." Sally's mouth curled up slightly. "I might have, yes. Sent by God to bring death to humanity through Pain, Pestilence, Destruction, and Death." "There's only one problem with the prophecy everyone is familiar with." "What's that?" "The Horsemen aren't sent by God. They're sent by the Devil." Sally crossed her arms over her chest. "It's time for you to start talking. What do you know?" "I know that Treize Kushrenada, Zechs Merquise, Dekim Barton, Quinze Rulafia are the Horsemen." "How do you know this?" Cambridge let out a harsh breath and seemed to sag against the wall. He was exhausted. They all were. "I watched it happen. I was on that ship when Treize died. I watched him resurrect and become that...thing. Whatever it is that Bensen is. He is Bensen's creation now. They all are. Because they pledged their souls to him." Sally couldn't understand it. "Why?" "They had their reasons. And Bensen told them what they wanted to hear. Promised them he could make their dreams come true." He shook his head. "They were all ideological fools. And easily manipulated. Once he had them, he could do whatever he wanted with them. Have them do his bidding. At that point, they no longer had a choice." "Can they, can Bensen be killed?" "They travel as pure energy. What we see as shadows, though that's not what they are. It's their dark energy we see. Though they can take on solid forms." "And you think blessed bullets will kill them?" "I'm hoping it will do something. At least until the Peacemaker is here, if she is able to get here." "What's the Peacemaker?" "Relena Peacecraft. The last of the Three Seals. She's the only thing holding the Devil back from killing us all in one fell swoop. Though its minions are doing a fine job wreaking havoc on our planet in the meantime." "What are these seals?" "God, or the Creator, whatever it is, gives every inhabited planet Three Seals for every generation there is life. It's there to keep the dark entities from destroying everything and everyone. If you remove the Seals, the entities will unleash an apocalypse that kills every living thing, including plant life. New Seals are born every twenty five years so that they may take over when the current set dies, usually of natural causes. The Martyrs are the First Seal. They're a subset, usually consisting of three to five people. They each hold an intricate part of the Seal within themselves, divided evenly among them. The Second Seal is the Bloodline, usually a relation to one of the dark entities' targets. The third is the Peacemaker and the name means exactly what it says." "The Gundam Pilots were one of the Seals, weren't they?" "Yes. The Martyrs. Also Mariemaia Khushrenada. She was the Bloodline. Their eventual replacements have been born, but they are only infants and of no help to anyone right now." "But why would Treize kill his own daughter?" "He didn't have a choice. What's left of Treize's humanity is long gone. He is nothing but a drone. And don't tell me you don't believe he wouldn't even if he did have a choice. If he felt it would serve his goals." She had to admit that much was true. Nothing got in his way when he was Hell-bent on accomplishing something. "So what can Relena do?" Cambridge glanced around, then crouched down until his face was level with Sally's. "Beneath this complex, there's a portal." Sally narrowed her eyes. Was he insulting her intelligence? "A portal." "Yes. To another dimension. It's closed now, but the only person who might be able to open it is her. If she can, she can bring back the Martyrs and the Bloodline. That's why I had their bodies transferred here. If they're brought back, they can reverse what has been done." Sally dropped her face into her hands. Now they were talking about bringing people back from the dead. "After all this, I really don't need you to bring zombies into the mix." Cambridge laughed, a harsh barking sound. "They would not be zombies. They would be very much alive." She rubbed her eyes. "This is not happening." "Why not?" "Why not? Because none of this is logical! You're talking about devils and demons, seals and portals and bringing people back from the dead!" "Those things far predate us, Doctor. They've been around for...ever. We only choose whether we can see it, or not. I've seen a lot of things in my life. Some of it easily explained. Others, much more difficult. Just because we don't understand something, doesn't mean it's not real." She had to give him that. "So what do we do?" "We hold them off as long as we can and wait for the Peacemaker. With any luck, she will open the portal and and bring the other two Seals back. The reversal will send Bensen and his ilk back to the slime hole they climbed out of. They'll likely lick their wounds for another thousand years before they try again." "If she's even still alive." "Oh, she's alive." "How do you know?" "Because we're still alive." Sally was feeling pretty weirded out as she headed downstairs, though not as weirded out as she thought she should have been. She walked back to the morgue, remembering for some absurd reason that she hadn't finished the autopsies. She pushed through the double doors and quickly slid a lab coat over her uniform, the thin fabric not doing much to ward off the chill of the room. Heero, Duo, and Trowa, their bodies already examined, were hidden away in cold storage. The bodies of Quatre and Wufei were still laid out, covered in sheets, their gurneys standing side by side. The body of Mariemaia Khushrenada had been brought in late last night and also awaited her autopsy. She glanced down at the floor, shivering as she considered the possibility that she was standing on a portal to another dimension. She crouched down and pressed her hand flat on the floor. She didn't know what she expected, but an impulse had driven her to it. She didn't know if it was her imagination, or possibly the vibrations from the generators, but she could feel a hum through the floor, reverberating into her hand. She watched, fascinated as the hair on the back of her hand and her forearm stood on end. Static electricity. She could feel it coming up in waves. She pulled her hand away from the floor and stood up, shaking it to rid it of the tingling feeling in her fingers. She had no idea what would happen if and when Relena opened this portal. Would it suck them all down into a black hole? What exactly were the physical possibilities of that? Would they be pulled into Hell? Was there a Hell? Could they possibly survive that? Probably not. But to bring people back to life...this was just too much for her to wrap her head around. She shook her head and stepped over to the gurneys and pulled back one of the sheets. She stared down at Quatre's face, ghostly white and still. It was eerie despite her having seen thousands of bodies in her lifetime. She lowered the sheet some more, her eyes taking in his torso which was covered in dozens of cuts. Stab wounds. Most of them were centered over his heart, though there were some on the right side of his chest, even less over his abdomen. She hesitated for a moment, second guessing her sanity, then pried open an eyelid, peering down into his eye. It looked just like any other eye of a deceased person. Colorless, cloudy, and flat. But for shits and giggles, she fished her key ring out of her pocket and clicked on the tiny flashlight that was hooked on it, shining the light down into the eye. The pupil was fixed and did not contract, didn't even waver. She felt embarrassingly silly as she leaned over his face, looking at him upside down and said, "Can you hear me? Quatre?" Nothing. She snorted, mostly at herself and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm talking to you like you're going to respond. This whole thing has just been crazy." She pushed the lid back over his eye and placed the sheet over his head. The idea that Relena, or anyone for that matter, could bring them back to life was preposterous. They were as dead as dead could be. She stepped over to Wufei's gurney and peeled the sheet off his face, cringing as the deep puncture wound on his forehead was revealed. Impaled by his own sword. She wondered if it had been Zechs that had done it. Killed his own lover. Was he aware of that? Did he care? If Cambridge was right, then chances were, the answer was no. The Zechs she knew would never have done that. He and Wufei had their problems, but nothing as bad that would drive him to this. She stroked his cheek, the cold skin sending a chill up her arm. She was overcome with a profound sense of sadness and anger. Why did this happen? What were these dark entities and why did they do this? What was the point? She felt so tiny and insignificant and so damned helpless. The idea that a powerful Creator would only give them a mortal set of Seals to keep out these entities and then leave them to their own devices in the hopes that things would work out was just something she couldn't comprehend. It made her angry at God, or whoever was responsible for all this. It made her want to know why. Why was this necessary? Was it even necessary, or did they just do these things for fun? Making all living things in the universe pawns in a cosmic board game. She clenched her teeth, drew the sheet back over Wufei's face and sat down in a nearby chair. She rested her head on her hand, tapping her fingers over her temple. And what happened...what happened if they didn't succeed? If Relena couldn't bring them back? If she never even made it here to try? Where would they go? Would they go to Heaven, or Hell, or was it just lights out? What would even constitute Heaven, or Hell? Were humans even remotely correct in their numerous interpretations of either place? Would they suffer first, before they died, or would it be quick like a nuclear incineration? She had so many questions and no one who could really answer them. She rubbed her eyes in frustration, too tired, her brain too fried to figure all this out. She was still running on little sleep despite her catnap. Her eyes drifted closed, thoughts slipping together, elusive, nonsensical. There was a hill, somewhere. She didn't know where, covered in red poppies. A man stood on top, facing away from her, looking over the other side at something she couldn't see. She climbed the hill, her dreaming mind registering the slip of her feet as the ground began to crumble. There was a strange sound that drifted over the top, but it was like nothing she'd ever heard before. A strange trill, and even fainter, a low rumble. The dirt and grass of the hill was disintegrating beneath her boots and it was getting more and more difficult to climb. She willed her legs to move faster, trying to keep up with the decaying ground. She broke into a clumsy uphill jog, occasionally bending down and grabbing handfuls of dirt and flowers as she lost her footing. She cursed as the hill seemed to grow larger, the man on top farther away which was impossible. She tried shouting, but her voice wouldn't carry over the din. It was tiny, muted, like it was in an enclosed space, a vacuum. Four figures appeared next to the man, two on either side and Sally gasped as she recognized them. While the man in the middle seemed frozen, the other four turned to her, smiling down the still growing length of the hill with three rows of razor sharp teeth. In her shock, Sally stopped climbing, her feet slipping down the steep slope. The acceleration of her fall caused her to roll. She could see the bottom, sort of. A faint blue light far down the depths of a pitch black pit. She never reached it though. Like the top of the hill, it was intangible, out of reach despite the fact that in reality she already would have tumbled far down into it. This is where you stand. A voice whispered in her mind. Between two places. The Earth is caught between two opposing forces. One force will succeed. Only then will you know which way you will go. She startled awake, her limbs, still stuck in the dream and thinking she was still falling, flailed wildly. She grabbed hold of Wufei's gurney, trying to orientate herself, finally realizing where she was. She swallowed around a dry throat, the fleeting thought that she was likely dehydrated surfacing in her mind. She panted, trying to catch her breath and slow her speeding heart. After a few moments, the adrenaline rush subsided and she rubbed her hand over her face, feeling suddenly ancient. She was even more exhausted now. There was a soft sound, odd, like the slipping of cloth to her left where the gurneys were. She jerked her head to the side, the notion that one of the bodies had just moved, for a split second completely logical in her mind. She narrowed her eyes and stared at the still forms beneath the sheets. No movement. Nothing had changed. She shook her head. Get a grip, Sal. You're losing it. Her sleep deprived mind was beginning to unravel and shit had just barely begun to hit the fan. With a final glance at the gurneys, she turned away and walked out to the staff lounge for some much needed coffee.
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