Guilty Gear Transmigration: Light of Madness

POV Aria

The thunderous roar of Aria's Gamma Ray faded to an unsettling quiet. The heat from the blast shimmered in the air around her while the Ocean stretched in an uncanny stillness. The once-raging waves now whispered as they lapped at the ruins of the country she had obliterated.

Her enormous body trembled with terror as she stared at her huge, claw-tipped armored hands and thought, "No, no, no, no, no, I couldn't have... I didn't mean... !"

Aria struggled to breathe and stay sane under the crushing weight of guilt that threatened to burst from her chest at any moment. She could picture the terrified faces of millions as the beam approached them second by second. Aria hunched over, sinking towards the Ocean as her body began to shrink, unable to maintain her size due to the immense energy drain. The pauldron's unblemished exterior showed signs of damage with visible fractures.

"Ah!" Wincing and looking to her shoulder, she saw and felt the blast's painful effects. Yet, she might have been mistaken if they ever were damaged, as they were slowly fixing themselves, with each crack smoothing out. While the exterior had been regenerated, the perfect Gear knew that a gamma ray of this magnitude could never be replicated again, nor would she want to. 

She stared blankly at the horizon, where the Ocean met the sky in a seamless expanse of emptiness. Life no longer existed in this part of the world. All of Japan, animals, people, songs, history, microorganisms - all had vanished. Not even a speck of dust remained. Sighing regretfully and with much hate, Aria became infuriated when Asuka's voice echoed through her head by the device installed into her helmet, the Gear Maker sounding depressed with each word spoken.

"Aria, are you still there? Are you in control?"

Aria's fists were clenched so firmly that her claws were embedded into her palms. She was unable to say anything. There was a moment of silence between them as if it were bottomless and impossible to bridge.

'Control? He asks about control?! Of what the Gears? Fuck, I just erased Japan from the globe, and he talks about control?!'

"You know this wasn't your fault, Aria. This was because of—"

"Stop." She begged.

The word barely left her lips but cut through the static between them. Asuka paused, the next few seconds filled with nothing but her breathing. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, almost drowning out those voices minutes ago, begging for their lives.

Asuka found the courage to begin talking to his friend again, saying, "Aria, I understand—"

"No, you don't! You never will! You're not the one who just erased an entire country from existence. You didn't hear their screams in the seconds before it all ended!" Aria cut him off while snapping at him.

Asuka was silent again. His words usually had a way of calming her, of explaining things in a detached, intellectual way, but not this time. Not today.

"Aria, listen to me. What you are experiencing right now is natural based on what you just went through." Asuka assured.

Aria's hands shook violently, rage and despair twisting into a single unbearable emotion at the word. Natural?! Was this just another experiment for him? Her guilt, her pain, just another "variable," as this tone of voice he was using was the same as when he was in the lab?

"What do you want from me, Asuka?" Aria asked icily.

She wants him to give her a reason, any reason, to justify this, to make it stop hurting, to show her that there is still a shred of hope for making up for this disaster.

"I don't want anything from you, Aria. I just want you to come back. We'll figure this out together." Asuka stated calmly in the same voice used to convince her to enter cryosleep.

Aria blinked, her chest tightening. His voice, always so calm and measured, now made her sick. How could he be so calm after everything she had done? Especially to her brother.

"Does he think I'm some malfunctioning machine that needs to be recalibrated?!" She thought as her rage reached a breaking point.

Her fingers moved to her helmet. The device was still there, connected to her mind, him, and the other humans. Her breathing grew heavier as her vision blurred. She couldn't think straight, couldn't hear anything but the screaming in her head. She had to stop this and at least stop one source of these voices.

Without saying another, her left hand shook in an instant and penetrated her skull, ripping that device out of her head, crimson liquid flowing down her clawed fingers while staring down at it. Releasing her grip on it and letting it plop into the Ocean, it disappeared into the watery abyss.

So, within the next hour, between grieving and trying to make sense of it all, she saw a blip on the horizon.

Far overhead, a small, metallic flash tore across the sky, plunged with terrifying rapidity nuclear warhead, a smooth omen of annihilation stroking down toward her. Sunlight flashed along its length as it cut through the cloud, casting a shadow that spread and intensified over her in a second. Although she seemed too lost in thought.

"Maybe I just need to take a nap. When I wake up, everyone, and my baby will be there to greet me." Aria thought as she looked above her.

Finally, her yellow eyes, noticing the bomb falling ever closer to the Gear, just sank down as if to accept none of this was real and that her love, brother, and friend would all be there in a few more seconds to wake her up. The surface Aria looked up at was shattered as the warhead hurtled toward impact by the rising, high-pitched whine of impending annihilation.

As the nuke hit her, the Ocean's serenity exploded in an unearthly flash that devoured everything. The water burst outward, forming a massive, roiling mushroom cloud that climbed higher, reaching for the heavens as heat and light radiated in all directions.

This shockwave spread through the water and the air, waves crashing in fury that were ever heavier and more violent as the water was boiling.

The Ocean boiled around Aria, its pristine blues turning white with steam as the explosion's light illuminated the depths and chased any shadow in its blinding fury. It was like the world had ceased to be, had perished, leaving only flames and lights and a big, awful silence.

Her form was sent hurdling towards the depths of the Ocean while being carried by the currents. However, the armor worn by this Gear didn't regenerate because the nuclear bomb did not have enough power to leave a scratch on her armor.

Drifting through these waters and seeing clearly from her monstrous eyesight reminded her of the time she and Daubeny had hidden underneath one of the beds in the orphanage they grew up in. This was during the Dawn Of Revival when all technology stopped working. Transportation ceased to work, life support, water, and planes fell from the heavens like giant meteors.

"Nothing was that bad during the first few days, of course; my younger self was oblivious, but eventually, food and water began running out for us and others."

She thought again drearily back to that memory of a group of adults raiding the orphanage, hoping for whatever supplies they could find. While she and Daubeny hid underneath a random bed, she covered Daubeny's mouth to stop him from screaming at one of the dead caretakers of the orphanage.

"So, to calm him down, I softly hummed the lyrics to Africa from that band. It was TOTO, I think? It's my favorite song, and he liked it too whenever we listened to it while it was on the radio."

Daubeny relaxed while gently crying into Aria's shoulder for hours until they knew it was safe. After hours of waiting in the orphanage, the two would scavenge for supplies until the apostles would introduce magic into the world. They would both move to another orphanage in a different state than ###########. They ended up moving to Alaska.

"Thinking on it, I've always been a little too dependent on Daubeny." She spoke out loud. "But who am I even saying this to, myself? It's only a dream. None of this is real." She went quiet before humming the lyrics of Africa grogerly, the water distorting what came out, but none of that mattered as she was slowly falling asleep.

"But I know what my life would have been without him. Alone."

She kept humming as Aria fell asleep, with her mind starting to break itself apart to cope with the guilt and stress she had endured.

-

Most gears were humanoids, but that didn't mean they appeared as humans most of the time. However, in some cases, they did. Still, all Gears had a symbol somewhere on their bodies that showed they were not human: Daubeny's wings or the Gear symbol on Sol's forehead—along with one such Gear Algeria had manufactured a few years ago before this day. This Gear appeared to be a girl no older than fourteen, wearing a white dress, long brown hair, red eyes, and a hammerhead shark's tail and fin connected to her vertebrae.

She was standing inside a fortified base overlooking a battle in which lesser gears clashed with a nearby country of Libya's gears because of a war between the two countries. This war had been dragged out for over two years, with inhumane skeletons spread throughout the sands the Gears fought on. Surrounding villages were wiped off the face of the Earth due to this conflict, either with the gears destroying everything or eating them. Regardless, the outcome was the same, the extinction of those people's existence.

Sitting close by while drinking red wine in a small glass was the officer in charge of the base, in his late fifties, in an olive-drab decorative uniform and hat, surrounded by two dozen armed soldiers guarding the room. The commanding officer took a swig from his bottle; standing up, he approached the Gear, standing still while issuing silent commands to the gears fighting the current battle. He rested the giant wine bottle on the girl's left shoulder while talking sluggishly and loudly.

"Why haven't you finished this fight yet, huh, Lina? O-our forces have more gears than thEm."

This Gear he was talking about was Algeria's Command Gear, which controlled all the weaker gears assigned to them. These gears are the only ones capable of independent thought or as close as thinking for themselves. Each country in the world has at least one, but the powerful nations created handfuls of them. She slowly turned to face her superior, giving him a dark look. She spoke slowly and softly while trying to hide any indication of anger.

"It is not my fault, Sir; Libya's Gear is proving higher quality than expected. Permission to have your forces retreat so I may devise a better strategy?"

Instead of a reply, Lina felt the small glass bottle slam against her head; the glass shattered, falling down her skin, which didn't get a single cut, and as the shards plummeted onto the floor, she was slapped with a muscular, aged hand. The officer looked disgusted while looking at her. Not even considering her human or deserving of any rights.

"Don't you dare call a retreat; you will keep sending those things at our enemies." Grabbing her by the neck with force, he continued. "You don't do anything. I tell you what to do. I say what you think. Breathe, eat, sleep. You are NOTHING!"

After yelling, he took his hand off Lina's throat; she didn't even look remotely armed by the action. However, she nodded and, without batting an eye, turned to gaze out the window and towards the battlefield. Gears are completely obedient unless given orders. For example, the officer poured a small amount of wine on Lina's head, falling down to her dress and staining it a dirty red, without her tail or fin moving an inch. Generally, gears are treated as objects and tools to be used and discarded without thought.

Some people had fun performing actions to these motionless Gears, shooting them and then incinerating their bodies so they would not regenerate. But after a while, some twisted humans decided to have more "fun," not shooting to kill, but chopping Gears into tiny pieces to see them regenerate from rapid gunfire. A few would go around them and slit their throats while making small talk with other people, laughing while seeing these monsters grasp for breath. Spiting in the Gear's faces, punching them... though there were occasions where... more vicious actions were done to them.

"Stupid monster..." Snorting to himself, the officer walked with a limp step back to his chair, slumping into the soft cushion while drinking from the extensive wine bottle itself. The sounds of monsters, the weight of tons tearing, biting, slashing, and mauling themselves apart, prevented him from sleeping.

"I wish those things would stop for one moment." He muttered out as he had a hard time keeping his eyes open. Thinking back to when he was serving this base's former commander, she had done much the same with excessive drinking, and he had wondered why she was so unprofessional and not behaving like a soldier. But soon after being promoted to this position, he saw what his commander saw: with each order to Gears, anyone caught in the crossfire was on their conscience. Stopping this line of thought, he took a large gulp from the wine, drowning out these thoughts.

Lina would look out the window, clenching her fists while looking down in subtle defiance.

A few minutes passed, and the fighting slowly started to die down. The soldiers in the room gathered around the windows with binoculars to see that the fighting had stopped.

One soldier in her thirties put down her pair of binoculars to her side and shouted out, "Sir! Something's happened. All the Gears are standing still!?"

Hearing this alarming news, the officer slightly sobered up while rubbing his eyes. "What?! Including ours?"

This would have been the ideal situation for the world since not all Gear battles took place in deserts with a few villages but populated areas; half of the cities had been wiped out in most countries. Take this war. Even though the surrounding villages were reduced to ash and dust, the Gears continued fighting over a wasteland. When the soil turned black, and the sky around these battles was covered by smoke day after day, no one called off the Gears. If one country backed off, it would show weakness to the world, and one nation would be ready to be devoured by the rest.

"Yes, Sir, all of them, but now it looks like they're parting ways, and our Gears are returning to the base. And a Gear in white and blue armor appears to be flying towards our base."

Having heard enough, the officer tried to stand up, so he tried again, this time to realize he was being held down by two porcelain small hands. Hands that were slowly increasing pressure, as Lina's voice was just over the officer's right ear. Filled with a deep hate and a demanding tone.

"No. I'm ordering you this time, so lay down, shut up, and wait for more orders, human."

Struggling to pry himself from Lina's hold proved pointless due to the massive difference in strength a commanding gear has to a regular human, even a trained one. The soldiers standing by raised their weapons to fire, but before they could, the upper half of the room was slashed open. Revealing a seven-foot-tall blue and white armored gear menacing floating above them all. Looking down on all the humans as if it were a god. Turning its head to Lina, the Gear ordered out loud, though this was purely theatrical since the Gear controlled others of its kind telepathically.

"Kill all the humans, starting with their leader."

Every human in the exposed room scoffed at the creature's order, knowing that countries would have already used it if it were possible to control Gears. But to their shock and horror, the shark gear, with enthusiasm, opened her jaws, revealing two rows of dagger-like teeth, before lunging her head forward, chopping at the older man's head halfway. Relishing in every second, the commanding officer squirmed in vain as his last actions to escape. Raising her bloody covered jaw from the human that tasted horrible, but killing her captor was more than worth it. Then she wiped her mouth of the blood, and then tossed the corpse outside the exposed side of the room.

All the soldier's eyes widened in horror while watching the hands holding their swords and weapons begin shaking as a terrifying realization dawned on them.

Lina is no longer following human orders.

It was a slaughter as every kind of Gear tore apart each soldier in the base. The humans screams echoed out from the base, along with miles away the 

The dominating Gear ordered all her kindreds to stop killing as only one soldier remained. Lina brought before her new leader with glee as she threw the soldier harshly towards the liberator. The soldier looked to be a new recruit, freshly out of training and looking to be in his late teens, as he stayed glued to the floor out of primal fear. He thought that any slight movement would be the end of his life, but he was surprised when he understood what the monster in front of him was saying.

"Make no mistake, human, you will die just the same as your grotesque race." Stating coldly with venom as it continued. "Go to other humans and tell them what I have done. Tell them that Gears will no longer die for any inferior human."

Daring to make eye contact with it, the recruit shakily peeked up to see the massive armored Gear, which would strike fear into the hearts of almost every human for the next century.

Justice looked up at the sky, finally starting to clear from the black smoke. A ray of light landed on herself and the environment. Breathing in this feeling of freedom for Gears and herself, she exhaled in satisfaction. Looking to see the surviving human sprinting desperately away to warn the rest of humanity of this new threat made her chuckle mockingly while turning to face her current forces.

"Humanity has been sending our kind against each other for as long as we have existed." Justice started while controlling the commanders and every Gear to glimpse upon her, regardless of whether they were sentient. "So while all of you had once been enemies, that ends now." Letting out an angry growl at the end and clutching her claws into a fist.

It was starting to see its kind as their own. And now it... she... Realized how cruel these humans actually were, using her kind as soulless, mindless puppets in their pointless wars. Her only purpose was to serve them and make Gears do all the dirty work. And she saw while walking onto the beach she walked to from the Ocean that they, humans, would never give her kind freedom. They'd use Gears until all of them were destroyed, just like how they had forced her to exterminate her brother, the only one she couldn't control.

"Remember this, for I will be the justice that our people need!" The blue armored Gear stopped saying, "My original designation was 001, but I will now be known as Justice!" She exclaimed as all the other Gears roared in what might be cheer.

While the Gears were cheering, whether from Justice unconsciously forcing them to do it or by their own will, her thoughts returned to her last orders. From those inferior humans to control all Gears to protect and defend the world. Close, but not quite. Not the way she would put it, her original mission.

"My original mission was... It is genocide."

-

AN: I have been gone a while. I've lost friends I won't see in years, and I have been drowned in assignments from my university. I am sorry I haven't been updating. Still, I also needed help writing the next chapter because I realized the need for Gears in this fanfic and world-building. More updates are on their way.