Post by Azrael on Oct 29, 2014 19:28:00 GMT -5
There wasn't much else but time left. Sean had assigned the Scorpio on auto-pilot, with the coordinates for Colony D9. Quiet place. Nothing special about it. Maybe he could just hide the mobile suit there. It was close enough that he wouldn't get too hungry. But enough time for him to sleep. Dressed in his black space suit, form-fitting and with a helmet firmly attached, he sat strapped to his pilot's seat. Leaning his head back, his eyes were closed but moving beneath the eye lids. Dreaming. Dreamed a dream he hadn't had in so very long. He dreamed of orange fire.
Flowing orange fire. Crackling and burning in an endless world of darkness, lighting up the stone floor at his feet, warm and embracing but not burning and fierce. And amidst the fire, the form of a knight in saint-like clothing, looking at him through a Templar Knight's helmet. The Saint stood there, a powerful and authoritave stance before him. "Azrael..." he said in a voice that was surprisingly aged and almost gentle. "Why do you deny me?"
"St. Dumas....?" Sean murmured in his sleep, his head moving around from the dream.
The sound of metal clanging against metal in the background, rhythmically. As if what you would hear in a blacksmith's workshop. A winged figure in the back somewhere, clanging a hammer against some metal object on an anvil. Still, the Saint stood there, looking like everything that was controlled strength in a man. Softly, the voices of angels, beautiful young women and chanting the "Dies Irae" in the background..."The Day of Wrath". Still, the figure stood there, looking as powerful as an armored knight could and yet somehow...non-threatening....
"Why do you still deny me, Azrael?" Saint Dumas asked him. It was not threatening. Almost...pleading. "Why do you continue the pretense of being a normal man, when Heaven has prepared a place of honor for you...a place that is needed so desperately?"
"St. Dumas....I cannot..." Sean murmured sleepily as his head rolled left and right. "The Crusade...I see no end to it...no end to the darkness of the world..."
"Ah. You grow weary of the battles, as I grew weary trudging through the burning sands on my path to Jerusalem, yearning to see the Holy Land." The Saints voice was comforting. As if it understood very much what he was going through. "But this dark world needs you, Azrael. An Avenger of the Innocent."
"I cannot be...Azrael...." Sean's head jerked back in his sleep, wrapped in his dreams of fire as the sounds of metal clanging against metal continued in the background with the choir's beautiful voices. "I have...nothing...no life...no....power....."
The Saint stood amidst the fire as firm as ever. Unwavering. Adamant. "The power is yours, Azrael. Not within the flesh but the soul. You are Azrael, the Living Angel. Would you leave the cries of the gentle and the peaceful in dark silence? I hear their prayers, Azrael. Begging for justice, that they might find peace to quell the despair and rage burning in the Children of the Lord. And still, you leave this world without an Angel of Retribution, to punish the cruel and rob the vicious of their power. The pretenders who usurp the Cross and violate our most sacred codes. Would you leave this world in darkness, Azrael? With the sweet and the loving helpless victims to the demons that walk wrapped in human flesh?"
"No!" Sean's head dropped and his shoulders moved around as he began to toss in the dream. "No, I do not want that! I love them...all of them..." His face contorted in anger at the memories of his childhood, abused and destroyed. At the cruelty to the ones he loved, the brutality forced on him and on others. "I...I do not know...if I can succeed..."
"It is not whether you succeed, Azrael," The Saint said, almost gently. "It is whether you have the faith....the devotion to your beliefs...to never cease attempting. There is no more noble a warrior, Azrael...than the one that will fight for a hopeless cause. But if God is with you...and He bestows upon you the miracles of angelhood...what can man, even the darkest and most powerful, do to stop you?" The Saints voice echoed as he disappeared in the flames, before they made way to reveal the winged figure hammering a sword of solid fire before turning, adorned in red robes and blonde hair with a book by his side that read "Torah tsadiyq." "God shall be your light," he rasped as his face was stained in red with the symbol of the six-winged seraphim. He held out the sword to him with his left hand as another winged figure, adorned in Roman battle armor with dark hair reached out to grab the sword with his right hand, both of them now holding the sword out. The other angel looked at him and in a challenging tone demanded, "Who is like God, Azrael?"
"Urrk!" Sean lurched forward suddenly as his eyes opened from the dream. He took in a deep breath then laid back in his seat, letting it out slowly. "What is it about life...that every time I think I have the answer to who I am, something disrupts it on every level?" He murmured as he let out a sigh, then looked at the control panel as it began to flash a red light, beeping. He was coming up on Colony D9. He frowned as he noticed something else. His radar was picking up...
Mobile suits.
Azrael smirked. "Hm." Azrael promptly switched the Scorpio to Mobile Suit mode then slowly began to fly towards the Colony. 5 mobile suits. 1 Leo-S command type with 2 Leo-R's and 2 Leo-N's. Hardly a hard fight unless they were skilled pilots. If they were skilled enough, they could be a very real threat. He had no intention of starting a fight....but nor did he have any intention of walking away from one either. He felt a familiar burn in his heart. An anger. A refusal to tolerate any form of threat or intimidating attitude. He was beginning to feel like his old self. Back in the days when he was an assassin, before he was ever a soldier. Azrael piloted his Scorpio just shy as he waited.
"Sean Watts," a voice stated over the intercom. "I'm telling you right now, to surrender."
"Now where, o where, do I know you from?" Azrael said without the slightest bit of humor to his voice.
"My name is Sergeant David Malenko." Azrael could tell it was from the Leo-S one at this point. "Part of the new White Fang led by your father. I'm ordering you to stand down and turn over your mobile suit."
"Yeah, like that's something I'll do," Azrael retorted. "I don't answer to that old man. And I don't answer to you, either." The Scorpio gripped it's Beam Bayonet tightly in it's right hand. "I think I'm eager to test this new mobile suit out against an arrogant punk. And you seem like just the guy for it."
"I didn't come here for a fight, Sean," David said.
"I did." Azrael's voice was simple and to the point. There wasn't much talking on this matter. Already, the anger was building. "The other four. Just mobile dolls, aren't they? Always wanted to test out that piloting system in a clean fight. Punk like you couldn't find 4 people to help him out anyway, so I'm not surprised."
"Sean. I'm warning you." David's voice was trying the threatening tone.
"And I'm calling your bluff." Azrael started up the Planet Defensor on the Scorpio's left arm that would work as a shield, then had the whip rod released and started heating it up. The Beam Bayonet would be more like an extended punch with a blade at the end but it would suffice. Azrael was a competent hand to hand fighter. If anything, the Beam Bayonet made it just a LITTLE bit easier. "But it sounds to me like you don't want the fight. So why don't you and your little zombie dolls get lost? I'm not wanting anything but getting into Colony D9."
"You know I can't do that," David said.
"You can but you won't," Azrael corrected. "You're an arrogant man. I can tell. I've been one for a long time. Difference is, David, you were only good at beating up your wife and kids. Always wondered if you had the guts to handle someone that could fight back."
David started at the sudden directness of Azrael's comment. It was cutting and to the point. Azrael had basically summed up his belief that David was a coward and was essentially challenging him to prove him wrong.
"Even outnumbering me 5 to 1, you look for a way out of it," Azrael continued.
David promptly piloted his suit up, arming itself as the other Leo's aimed their weapons at him. "I'm serious, Sean."
"Play or pass, jerkwad," Azrael said bluntly.
David promptly entered the attack commands for the Mobile Dolls. Azrael only smirked as he shot his Scorpio up as fast as he could, then swung it around. It was so much easier here in Outer Space. So much room to move. So many ways to use his agility, everything so stark against the dark colors of it all. The Scorpio began to move in tight S-shaped maneuvers as it dodged left and right, up and down from whatever general direction Azrael saw the weapons point at, then charged it forward, using his Beam Bayonet to impale one Leo-N. They were powerful but beam blades could cut through some of the toughest of armors. Titanium Alloy was no exception, no matter how thickly plated it was. The thrust of the Beam bayonet pierced the Mobile Doll and sent it's punctured frame floating back to another Leo-N were it blew up in front of it, damaging it's sensors.
David fired a shot from his Leo-S, but Azrael's Scorpio suit sent out the "You are Targetted" warning beep just in time for him to move his mobile suit out of the way to avoid the shot. The Leo-R's responded by trying to fire on him as well. Swiftly, he piloted the Scorpio around the seemingly dazed remaining Leo-N and wrapped the Scorpio's whip rod around it's torso. The heated whip rod was eating into the metal but Azrael knew the Leo-N's armor was too thick to just cut through it. Thus, he yanked the Leo-N in front of him and used it as a "human shield". The Leo-R's were unable to target it as Azrael flew towards them. David caught on and tried to pilot to the side to flank him with fire. Too late. The Leo-S was fairly fast, but not as fast as the Scorpio mobile suit. Azrael had the Leo-N shoved in front of a Leo-R that couldn't fire (it's targetting system was unable to fire on a target that was "friendly" unless a passcode was put in), then promptly impaled both of them, before shoving them away with the Scorpio's legs to avoid getting caught in the explosion.
"Ungh!" Azrael let out a slight grunt of surprise as the cock pit rocked forward for a moment. He just took a few shots from the remaining Leo-R. He gripped the controls tighter as it rocked to the side from a few shots coming from what he knew was David's Leo-S. He swung his planet defensor to deflect the shots, then flew backwards before repeating the S-maneuver to pick off the final Leo-R.
It was just Azrael and David now, two red mobile suits left amongst the carnage as the pieces of the other mobile suits drifted aimlessly in space.
"You were always a freakin' idiot, David," Azrael said as the Scorpio stood stout and unafraid of the smaller red mobile suit, then dove in. David's Leo-S fired repeated and tried to move back but David never had the skill or training of an OZ pilot. Azrael did. He simply repeated the S-maneuver a third time, then came to a stop in front of the Leo, his whiprod wrapping around the Dober Gun and yanking it out of the Leo's hands before shoving it with the Scorpio's legs, sending it back to the Colony.
"This was always your problem, David!" Azrael snarled as he waited for the Leo to pull out it's beam saber. "You thought you could just talk tough and put me back as second-rate! You got promoted because you were liked, not because you were good!" The Leo-S charged forward as David desperately tried to throw a slash to the Scorpio's mobile suit. In almost obvious disgust, the Scorpio retracted the whip rod, deactivated the planet defensor and dismissively blocked the Leo's slashing arm with it's own. "I'm not your puny 'Sean' anymore!" Azrael made the Scorpio slash the Leo's left arm in half with it's Beam bayonet. "I'm not Andy's little boy neither!" The Scorpio promptly slashed through the Leo's leg above the knee joint as it grabbed the Leo by the chest plate and yanked it forward. The Leo desperately tried to push the Scoprio off of it with it's free arm as the Scorpio pulled it's Beam Bayonet back for a lethal strike. David stared in panic at it. Never in his life, had he felt so insignificant, so utterly weak before the controlled rage of such a man before. "I'm Azrael - Harbringer of Death!"
David swore in panic and promptly activated the emergency escape hatch, opening the back end of the Leo-S, letting the vacuum of space suck him out of it and away from his mobile suit before the Scorpio's Beam Bayonet promptly punctured it, then threw it back discardingly before it blew up. Azrael snorted derisively. "Infidelt. Go live in fear." There was no worse a fate for a warrior, if David could ever consider himself one. Azrael deactivated his beam bayonet, then promptly piloted his mobile suit to a docking bay.
He was hungry.