Gundam SEED Fan Fiction ❯ Gundam Seed Shadow ❯ Episode 1 The End ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Episode 1

From the dawn of time there were stars lighting the way in the cold dark sea of space, almost as if to give humans a tiny hope in finding a way in this often confusing and uncertain world. The sun shines the brightest; illuminating the hourglass structures which represent humanity's newest achievements.

Sadly though war has slowed the gears of space progress for all, it has been no more than two months since the official signing of the peace treaty ending the Second Bloody Valentine War and most are simply content to float where they are.

Still others reached for the stars, to go beyond the beyond, for surely there must be something more out there, something yet to be seen. You would be right, dream seekers, the universe is great and humans have yet to see all of the wonders it holds but be warned for where there is light there shall forever be darkness.

There are just as many nightmares as dreams yet to be discovered but if you can brave and accept the darkness you may find more then the hell you expected. But enough of tales of moral high ground and adventures yet to come, let us turn to the present blue and green planet in which all originated from.

#########

Location: Unknown.

Five soldiers marched down the hallway. Dressed in proud blue and white, they manage to match steps, despite the abnormally high pace in which they ran. The all carried two handed automatic weapons in hand; ready to fire at a moment's notice.

They were not afraid although perhaps they should have been. They believed to have all of the advantages. They knew this mansion; they had been assigned to protect like the back of their hand, thanks to their lieutenant drilling them nonstop. They carried in their hand the latest automatic rift from Morgenroete, the 27 Mockingbird.

They could feel each other's strength now as they marched towards the enemy. They were ready to face this threat to Orb together and fight for what is right. They believed they could handle anything. They rounded the corner and stopped, something was horribly wrong. They were in a hallway painted baby blue, lined with elaborate paintings. They stood in classic battle formation, two in the front, two in the middle and one watching the rear.

Where they had expected to see the same ocean carpet with gold trimming instead lay the sentry that had been detaining the intruder. His blood still flowed freely from his corpse dying the peace in an ugly red and it pained them all to not have known his name. Still he was a comrade, a fellow soldier for this country in which they all loved; they would not let his killer escape justice.
Yet to their slight surprise the killer seem to have no intention of escaping. It was clear that the other figure in the room was the killer; it was not just his odd choice of clothes that lead the soldiers to this conclusion. The figure wore a dark grayish black cloak with wolf's trimming and a hood drawn, hiding any features of his face. The sleeves of his cloak were evidently three sizes too large from the way they hung loosely from his arm, but it was his blades which drew their attention.

The hooded being made no attempt to hide them, even the right blade soaked in blood. To the soldiers he might as well have hung a sign that said "I killed this man here." Yet they hesitated for a fraction of a second, although they didn't notice anything before suddenly the room seemed to feel cold as if it had started snowing but that was impossible during this season.

Shaking the feeling Mitch, their undeniable leader stepped forward, although they all had their guns pointed at this odd intruder Mitch raised his a little higher. Not enough to affect his aim but enough to let this guy know he was in their sights. He could have started shooting but Mitch had believed the man had not shown any hostilely towards them other than the obvious killing of a comrade. A live prisoner would give them more intel then a dead one and it was not his style to just kill in cold blood. Besides it was 5 armed soldiers against one guy with a knife in a cloak.

"Raise your hand sl-"

Mitch's first mistake was assuming the weapon the hooded figured carried was a type of knife, a crossed between a butcher's knife and some kind of medieval short sword. Mitch's second and last mistake was assuming that his coordinator reflexes would allow him to fire faster than the intruder could throw his weapon.

The intruder had moved faster than not only his reflexes but his eyes as well. The weapon was in the intruder's hand one heartbeat and materialized in Mitch's face the next. Now we can see clearly the thick chain that attaches to the blade, we can hear the slight click of the mechanism under the figures sleeves.

Things were not as they appeared. Lucos the man beside Mitch made the third mistake, he should have fired the moment he sensed movement but instead he twisted his head to face his deceased friend taking his eyes off his enemy. A very human mistake many would be guilty of, but not the nightmare that they face. The phantom takes advantage of this distraction and moves without hesitation or fear.

While his chain blade is very threatening, it is his speed that is his greatest weapon. Before any have time to process Mitch's death, he's already behind Lucos appearing from thin air in a similar fashion to his blade's appearance. In one fluid motion he retracts his right hand blade back to his hand while simultaneously slicing off Lucos's head with his left hand blade.

Not wasting a breath, the grim reaper turned to face the remaining three who through some miracle managed to take a single step back. But this step back was the group's final mistake; if they had stayed in formation the monster would have had to deal with the two guards in the middle first then the rear guard, but in this new arc formation all three were exposed with no shielding or protection.

Demonstrating absolute mastery of his weapons, the phantom whipped out both of his chain swords at once, he manipulated both blades with a slight movement of his arm which transfers to the chain connecting the blade to him, the right hand blade cuts off the heads of the soldiers, while the left hand blade cut off the hands decreasing the chances of dead men trigger fingers.

With a thud all of the bodies fell at the same time, spraying the walls with red turning peace into war. The figure hung back for a moment, not to admire his own work although he supposed some would have been happy to have killed five armed men in less than a minute, he stood back so the blood would not get on his cloak. To him there was no joy, no sense of accomplishment from his kills, he had done the calculations in his mind and it was the most likely outcome.

His cloak was one of the few things he had any emotion for. Most of his coworkers assumed he was emotionless but that was incorrect. All human beings had emotions on some level including himself, it's just that almost nothing inspired within him an emotional reaction. Even these corpses that litter the ground did nothing to stir within him feelings.

The blood subsided and the figure began to carefully walk on the remaining blue of the carpet as if walking on the peace so many worked so hard and died for. He heard them before he had even finished killing the first batched of soldiers. Even on the carpet their boots thudded, followed by the clang of the guns on what he knew to be battle armor. To anyone else the sound would have just alerted them to the movement but to those who received his level of training and had his natural gifts, the sounds revealed so much more.

For example he could tell there were six soldiers fast approaching, each carrying the latest Orb automatic rifle but more importantly they wore the standard Orb battle armor.

The first of the six began to round the corner in classic military fashion; the lead hugged the wall then quickly stuck his head around to check for opposition while another member covered her. The darkness charged the soldiers moving at blurring speeds. Just as he expected the lead tried to readjust her aim before firing, she had underestimated his speed.

Like an arctic breeze the figure was upon her before she even had a chance to pull the trigger. Not wishing to sacrifice any of his speed, he leapt to and kicked off the wall on his right positioning himself directly in-front of the six soldiers. He corkscrews in mid-air, releasing his blades as he did so becoming a living propeller from planes of old.

Landing lightly on the other side of his foes, if you consider rats or insects foes, he retracts his blades back to his hands with a bone chilling cracking sound. As for the six soldiers, they quite literary fell apart behind him decorating his path of travel clearly. The armor did nothing for them that their clothes weren't already doing against his blades. They were crafted solely for him, the blade sharpened to a molecular level combined with his skill allowed him to even slice steel as easily as butter.

He inferred the rest of the soldiers in the building would now be wearing the same armor. As silent as a winter's night, he walks the halls seeing no point in hurrying. As the hooded figure does so, he pulls out some type of device. The device is metal in construction and shaped in a one foot square with a simple red button on the side but other than that there were no visible signs of what it could be.

Pushing the red button the figure places the square against the wall, immediately we hear a single beat followed by duth as the rectangle magnetically locks onto the wall. Doing this in one fluid motion, the figure never misses a step. He comes to a split in the hallway where he turns left to find another unit of soldiers.

This time the soldiers open fire without hesitation. Pulling back the cloak he pivots on his right foot and rotates back to the previous hallway hugging the wall for cover. He pulls out a sphere now, no more than three inches in diameter and hitting the top lightly rolls it down the left hallway. Although the soldiers had never seen this brand before they all knew what it was.

"GRENADE!"

He heard the shouting and the scuffle of feet as they desperately struggle to get back, not that it did much good in this hallway with no cover. He knew his aim to be true as the blast sounded and rang in the hallway, flames scorched the walls and burned the carpet, but the walls being made from mostly steel had a plaster coating and the carpet was made from a flame resistant material causing the fire to quickly burn out.

Coming off the wall and rounding the corner, the figure was not surprised to find that his calculations had been right. His aim had been true landing the JQ-12 grenade directly in the center of the group, judging by their remains that now decorated the hallways. The JQ-12 was something he knew the Orb soldiers had never seen before because it was technology that Orb and even the PLANTs had yet to acquire.

The JQ-12 was a small lightweight grenade that was easy to throw, like a baseball yet the chemical reaction produced a high powered flame like explosion, but what the grenade had in power, it sacrificed in blast radius, five to ten feet. Still that was all that was needed for someone of his skill.

The dark figure expected the sprinkler system to go off from the bomb as he walked down the hallway, instead though the lights began to flicker on and off. The programming of the mansion's systems has been corrupted causing the smoke detectors to send the activation signal to the lights instead of the sprinklers, he thought as he walked down the hallway alert for his next opponent.

Most likely a side effect to his sabotage of the complex's defense systems. The price people pay for running everything through a computer. Still it had been a miscalculation, he hadn't calculated on the secondary systems being compromised but still he felt nothing from that. Despite what some believed he was still human, he occasionally makes minor miscalculations, all humans did, all he needed to do was recalculate the data with the new information.

The hooded figure was about to turn a corner when bullets flew out at him. Stopping mid-step the hooded figure once more rotated on his left foot hugging the wall again for cover. This time though the hall made a U turn and his opposition hugged the opposite side of the wall for cover.
On a whim the dark phantom pulls out another grenade and throws it against the back wall, ricocheting it towards the target.

"SHI-" The soldier cried in fear just as the blast went off consuming him in a flaming inferno. After the fire died down he took off once more his work nowhere near finish.

######

Location: Command center in mansion.

The green haired middle aged woman knew she was in deep shit as she tried to pace the floors of the control center. The control center was an average looking conference room with multiple computers and people manning them spread throughout. It was designed to hold about ten people yet Jess knew that twenty-four were in there now which of course made her pacing difficult, adding to her irritation.

"Someone tell me SOMETHING! How much longer till we get the cameras back up, what's the situation with the lock down, and what about the radios?!" All forms of communication are down which was why so many people were in the control center at once. Everyone had to report to her directly and receive verbal instructions for assignments and while she sent out patrols in a combat situation like this, instant communication would be essential to coordinate her troops against the attackers.

"It's useless lieutenant whoever sabotaged our computers knew what they were doing, the cameras are fried, you can forget about ever getting them back. As for the controls to the bunker, we'll eventually be able to restore them but it's going to take time and until then we're stuck in here." One of the computer techs told her as he turned in his chair and shook his head in defeat. Jess knew she should know his name, a lieutenant should know everyone who served in her unit at least by name, at least that's what Jess believed. Then again Jess wasn't even used to being called lieutenant yet.

Her promotion last week had come as a complete shock, not just because she didn't think she was lieutenant material but because she hadn't taken any of the tests or even filled out the request for the promotion and its paperwork. One day at work the letter just came stating, well ordering actually, that she was to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant and would be reassigned.
In hindsight it shouldn't have been that surprising. The day before one of her friends, Hiraze who had survived the war was also promoted without notice, and he had only joined the military shortly before the second Bloody Valentine War! Two wars in such short time had taken its toll on the Orb military.

A lot of the higher commands had been wiped out and the government was struggling to fill the very large gaps. One way was to chuck out new recruits from boot camp at higher than normal positions and second was to order if needed, veterans of the wars to higher positions.

Jess should have known that surviving both wars with only some blast scarring on her face would have instantly given her a promotion whether she wanted one or not. And that's how she ended up here body guarding the party, showing off this new "mobile suit proof" mansion bunker, with the majority of her new unit being fresh out of boot camp. "What about my damn radios?!"

She asked a young technician in the corner named Robby, who was working on the radios now with equipment that she couldn't even begin to understand.

"It looks like someone tampered with another radio and fired a frequency back at us on an extremely high TMz, shortening our systems."

Jessed rubbed her temples annoyed. From what she could understand someone by messing with one radio shut down them all. Damn it why didn't I contact HQ when the cell phones suddenly stopped working or when we lost contact with the teams outside? She thought bitterly to herself. The mansion bunker was still a prototype and hadn't yet been connected to the main military grid, so unless a major explosion happens there was little chance of help coming unless HQ was contacted.

She had been too relaxed, too trusting in this peace to have expected an attack and that had made her sloppy. When all the cell phones lost signal at the same time, she had been concerned but since none of the patrols outside had reported anything and their radios still worked she let it pass as some kind of satellite interference.

Jess's worst mistake though was not contacting HQ the moment she had lost contact with the outside teams; Jess was still a team leader in mind. She was used to only having to watch out for herself and her team; used to doing assignments alone and to the best of her abilities until a superior office came in and told her she needed help, but now she was the superior officer and had to make the call whether or not the teams needed assistance. This is exactly why I shouldn't have been made a lieutenant! She screamed in her mind.

"Can you fix it?!" Robby flinched intimidated by her strong tone, making Jess instantly regret taking out her own self annoyance at this younger soldier.

"YES Ma'am! I won't be able to restore long range communications for a while but short range communications should be up and running in a few minutes"

Finally some good news, she thought with relief. With this she'll be able to at least communicate with her people inside the mansion, coordinate them against the enemy, and once the messengers from the teams she had sent out start returning; she'll have intel on the enemy. Hopefully she'll get a good estimate on numbers, firepower and maybe even origin.

Jess stopped right in her tracks, her orange eyes opened wide in surprise by the man who stood before her. Hiraze, one of her few living friends, who Jess had sent out with the other teams, stood in the doorway to the control center but that was not what disturbed Jess. His uniform, the proud blue and white of Orb was drench in the horrible red, red that Jess had spent much time with after both wars trying to erase from her memory. She could see no visible wounds on Hiraze's body, although he did look much whiter clearly in deep shock by something and considering Hiraze had lived through the Second Bloody Valentine War Jess shuddered to think what could make Hiraze look so scared. But as the highest ranking officer in the control center it was her duty to know what was going on despite how unpleasant it is.

"By the Goddess of Haumea what the hell happen to you Hiraze?" Jess was not the only one who had noticed Hiraze entering the command center; Hiraze had the attention of everyone.

"We're getting slaughtered out their lieutenant, Charlie's and Yulnks's teams are gone and they're not the only ones. Bodies are covering the floor in every direction and it's only our people I'm seeing, I can't find a single enemy corpse anywhere!" Hiraze knew he was losing it, he was trying to fight it for the sake of the new soldiers looking to him for guidance but the cold hands of the unknown enemy had gripped his heart in fear. It wasn't the sight of the corpses that brought on this fear; he had seen much the same during the war. It was the fact that all of the corpses belonged to Orb soldiers that scared him; he knew that a lot of the soldiers were new recruits, but come on!

With the number of bodies, there should have at least been one enemy corpse, this had gone beyond any battlefield experience he had ever had. Jess was also beginning to feel the situation spiraling further and further out of her control and she once again tried to pace. She had to regain control of this situation for the sake of her men, for the sake of Orb's leaders who had placed their safety in her hands! "Get short range communications up NOW! The moment you do tell all remaining forces that we are under attack and to gather in the grand hallway outside the ballroom that will be our final line of defense, we absolutely cannot let our leaders be-" Jess gets cut off mid-sentence by the sickening sound of metal slicing through flesh. If it had been a gunshot she would have already grabbed her gun and opened fire at its source but because the sound was foreign her mind didn't process it as fast. Slowly turning around as the back of her spine tingled; Jess looked back at Hiraze as did the rest of the troops in the command center.

A towering hooded figure was behind Hiraze, his face as well as most of his physical features was masked by the cloak he wore. A flash of light shone in Jess's eyes drawing her gaze to the blade covered in an innocent's blood, which was the source of the noise, sticking out from Hiraze's chest. Hiraze had just enough time left in this realm to look down upon the mortal wound before the life fled his body.

With a flick of his wrist the demonic man threw Hiraze's body off his blade and away from himself not wanting the jet stream of blood splashing on his grayish black cloak. Jess being the most battle hardened was the first to get over the shock of the surprise enemy and the death of a friend. Reaching for her automatic rifle at her side, Jess drew her weapon and pulled the trigger. "BASTARD!" She screamed.

While Jess knew she should have had two hands on her rifle, from this distance she figured she could allow her aim to be slightly off from the recoil, speed was better than aim in this situation she thought to herself as she tried to unload her clip in the enemy. What Jess hadn't counted on was the enemy being faster than herself. Sidestepping the already poorly aimed bullets, the figure released the snake which was his blade.

Jess never saw the blade or the attack itself, she was standing up with her rifle in her right hand and went to move her left hand to grip it. She hadn't even been aware she was missing any limbs until her left hand grabbed air were the rifle should have been. That's when she realized that both her right arm and leg were missing, both having been severed in the blink of an eye. Blood poured from the wounds like a leak from the gas tank that was her strength. Almost immediately she felt the strength in her remaining leg begin to weaken and combined with the fact that she was now off balance Jess began to fall backwards. "Fu-" Jess mumbled weakly as the darkness overtook her and the veteran of two wars finally met her end.

The remaining troops jump into action by their commanding officer's death fumbled for their weapons. None of them had been fully prepared; they had expected to see the enemy coming if an attack came to the command center. Like a quiet fog the enemy had appeared without so much of a breeze of air until he claimed his first victim.

He would not show them mercy or give them a chance to collect themselves. With a flick of his wrist and a hiss of the chain, the cloaked man beheaded five people who had been situated at computer terminals. Without breaking momentum the gray darkness retracted his blades back to his hands as he charged those standing as they were about to aim their drawn guns at him.

He quickly stabs the closest one in the chest directly followed by him ducking down from the gun fire. Squatting he begins to rotate in a circle once more becoming the propeller from hell serving several legs left and right, disabling the soldiers. While this goes on, Robby alone forsakes his gun and scrambles to reassemble the radio to fulfill his dead commander's final orders.

When the radio is assembled a light blinks on indicating to Robby that the short term communications signal was working once more. "We are UNDER ATTACK! I repeat we are UNDER ATTACK; all personnel are to report to the grand hallway outside the ballroom!"

No one surrenders to death, they all charge despite their fear, determined to carry out their duty to the end. Robby's call brings the attention of the hooded figure as he's parrying a rifle aimed as his head with his right hand blade. The bullets fly harmlessly three inches to the left of his head as the figure launches its left hand blade at the radioman. Robby felt the cold steel pierce his body. Looking down Robby had just enough time to see the red metal making an odd contrast with the white of his uniform before it just as quickly disappeared. Robby in shock placed his hand over his wound in a half-hearted attempt to stop the bleeding but the red liquid poured anyway and it wasn't long before his hands turned white. Robby falls flat to the ground as his strength fails him.

"Come in command, these are the guards in the ballroom, how many assailants are we facing? I repeat how many assailants are we are facing?!" Silent, like in Antarctica after a winter snow storm, not a soul remained standing against the grim reaper. The radio had crackled to life but it was too late as far as the figure was concerned, without the command center to properly direct the remaining soldiers, the short range radios being back meant nothing. Ignoring it, he walks calmly and coldly out of the room.

Robby still lived, he was dying he knew that, but the life had not completely left his body yet. Upon hearing the radio crackle to life Robby lifted his weary head and began to drag himself over to the radio. Once there, Robby hit the button and spoke his last words performing his duty till the very end. "It's…..It's….a monster." Robby's head collapsed to the ground as his hand slipped and death had taken yet another soldier tonight. It was going to be a very long night.

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Location: Ballroom of mansion. Time: 21 bloody minutes later

A ballroom, a place of joy and celebration of happy times, the white walls have been decorated with gold artistic designs. Orb's emblem has been engraved onto the floor tiles, while brilliant elaborate gold chandeliers lit up the room illuminating everything whether we want to see or not.

A massacre of epic proportion took place here, fresh crimson red drips down the walls, slowly towards the pool on the floor. Bodies lay everywhere but something is horribly wrong, these aren't the bodies of soldiers or even people that could defend themselves. They're civilians, mercilessly killed in cold blood and in the center of this carnage stands the dark figure in grayish black. He cared little for the bodies of which he stood upon. He had taken no pleasure from killing them, yet he had no remorse either. They were witnesses they had to be killed yet even if he had the choice to not kill them the figure could not promise he wouldn't have killed them anyway. He saw no reason to spare them, but that was beside the point.

He calculated a high probability of everyone in the mansion being slain by himself, other than his final target. Of course there was always the chance he missed someone, one of the less brave that hid in a small space somewhere, but he would address that later. Right now all that mattered was that his actual target cowering before him.
This person was the reason why he broke in and killed everyone who got in his way it was the person he was told to kill. Yet despite himself he couldn't help but feel disappointed. He had fought soldiers before but something was different about these Orb soldiers. The determination they showed in the face of their fear, their unwavering desire to protect those in this room. It was expected for a couple of soldiers to show these traits but for every single soldier in this building? They had all come and charged him despite their comrade's death, he had not witnessed a single one lose their nerve and run. This act of bravery began to stir something within him, emotions.

He had felt something, a building of excitement. He had begun to look forward to meeting his target, to feel something from their battle that reminded him he was alive yet there she cowered. Those emotions turned to disappointment that he knew would soon leave him again.

"How…disappointing. Your soldiers fought heroically, pass the point of what one would consider duty. Some had even tried getting up to continue fighting me after I had severed their leg. As their leader I was expecting something…more. Yet there you cowering, soaked in the blood of your people shaking like a little girl who wet her pants. Is this truly how you wish to meet death? Have you no dignity, have you no pride?" He shook his head and sighed as he felt his disappointment begin to leave him like all of the other emotions. "I just don't see why soldiers as excellent as they were, would follow you."

He prepares to throw his blade for the final kill of the night, when to his surprise his target Cagalli Yula Athha stood up. The girl was still shaking from fear and was unsteady on her feet yet she faced him. "Why?" A simple question out of many, but then again he supposed it was the only one worth asking at this time and place.

"To kill you," he replies coldly after a moment then charges her with blinding speed, his blade sinking into her chest.

#######

Location: Orb's parliament building. Time: 28 hours and 23 minutes before the massacre.

"No, No, NO! Orb is not a nation of arms dealers!" Cagalli screams as she slams her hand down upon the table. In hindsight she realizes this might not be the best gesture to display during a meeting of Orb's new parliament but she couldn't help it. The idea of selling weapons to another nation especially after the Logos incident infuriated her and besides she needed to show dominance to these people. One of the reasons Yuna was able to fool her so well was because she never stood up against him in meetings like this. She had trusted his judgment and was afraid to look foolish or stupid in front of the other senior members of the government. Not that she had to worry about that anymore; most of the senior members of parliament had been killed along with Unato during the attempted Zaft invasion. She took a moment to look around the meeting room, a simple room painted light yellow with a large long brown table in the center with built in computers at each seat, a blue carpet and bullet proof windows overlooking the courtyard. Cagalli realized that only four people were original members of parliament before both wars, and not counting herself only two more survived the second war.

"Cagalli all we are saying is that the Equatorial Union is making us a reasonable offer and we should not be so quick to turn them down. We should at least take some time and discuss this." Cagalli knew who had spoken against her without even turning around. Adam a newly elected official, he had worked in the military before becoming an elected official but he still held himself with the silent pride of all soldiers. His face was cleanly shaved and his head was bald.

Cagalli turned to face her opposition who choose to remain sitting despite Cagalli herself standing. Adam was at the opposite end of the table from where Cagalli was sitting as if in direct challenge to her. "I don't see what there is to talk about Adam. An arm's dealer is one who sells weapons to other people for money which is exactly what you're suggesting we do." The statement was childish Cagalli knew that, but she also knew the feint was her best move at this point. Adam maybe a newly elected official but he knew Orb's constitution and laws better than anyone which he had demonstrated on several occasions. If Cagalli let this become a battle of laws she had no doubt Adam would defeat her.

"I wasn't referring to the definition of an arm's dealer as the topic of our discussion as you well know," Adam replied glaring at her with his brownish green eyes. How he hated this pestering blond amateur. "We can all understand your reluctance to the offer, the idea of selling our mobile suits and weapons for money does leave a bitter taste in one's mouth but let us not forget that we are dealing with a NATION not some terrorist group that wants to blow people up, if we can't trust our fellow nations to carry weapons then how is this peace treaty ever supposed to work?" Adam could feel the silent nods of approval from those around him as he opened his hands in a gesture of a question. What he said made sense and already he knew he had eased the doubt from several of the members of parliament. If the blonde wanted this to become a battle of ideas so be it, he hadn't spent months and hundreds of dollars on public speaking classes for nothing.

"You speak of trusting our fellow nations but how are our fellow nations going to trust us if they see Orb selling weapons to their neighbors, especially after the Logos witch hunt?" Cagalli liked Adam. Adam hated her she knew that, even now she could feel his angry gaze trying to burn holes in her face. Adam had made it very clear from day one that he did not like Cagalli; he made no attempt to hide it. Cagalli could trust her mistrust of Adam and that's why she liked him. Although she would never tell anyone this Yuna's betrayal had shaken her. She knew Yuna since they were kids for God's sake, she had grown up with the man! It's true that she didn't love Yuna at least not like she loves Athrun but that didn't mean she didn't trust him and respect his opinion. Even after Kira had saved her and opened her eyes to the truth about the Alliance, she had refused to believe that Yuna had purposely betrayed and used her. She believed that Yuna was trying to protect Orb and just like her made the wrong choice for the right reasons.

It wasn't until the battle of Dardanelles that Cagalli began to doubt Yuna, but she stubbornly pushed it down believing Yuna didn't have a choice but to fire on her with the EA behind him, plus he still believed what he was doing was right. No it wasn't until Operation Fury that Cagalli had to face the truth, Yuna didn't care about Orb, he was a spoiled brat who only cared about himself. With Yuna's true nature at last revealed to her, the true extent of his betrayal and manipulation dance before her eyes, but the worst part was that she never saw it coming. Cagalli ordered his arrest, she had planned on privately questioning him, to find out when he first stopped caring about Orb, to find out why he did what he did but most of all she wanted to know what he truly thought about her.

Yuna didn't love her either, the marriage was just an ends to a means in his book but did that mean he cared nothing for, or worse did he think of her as no more than a child incapable of doing her job? Yet before she could ask these questions he had died, like her father. Now Cagalli was stuck, how could she possibly trust her judgment on people after that? "You do have a point on that, the Logos witch hunt caused much paranoia but it's not as if we plan to continue doing this. It's a one-time transaction and to be quite frank most other nations aren't facing a rapidly deteriorating financial situation, which could have been avoided if we had chosen to spend our money more wisely." Adam briefly smiled as he saw the child flinch; it had been Cagalli's idea to send relief money and aid to nations that had suffered greatly from the war like Berlin.

Unfortunately, Cagalli was not an accountant and had seriously underestimated the impact that "loaning" the money would have on Orb’s economy.

The damages made by ZAFT were only sixty percent repaired, the military only at thirty percent strength, and the economy was in a depression with everyone leaving Orb after the attempted invasion, the government did not have the money to loan to other nations.

Of course Adam had raised all these points when Cagalli had presented the idea but she had swayed the younger newer politicians to her idealistic way of thinking, claiming that there were others that needed the money right now more and that they would be able to get by. Only now did younger politicians and possibly Cagalli herself realize he had been right. This is why this deal was even being heard in the first place, if they didn't need the money so bad the other politicians would have instantly agreed with Cagalli and burned the paper. In a way Cagalli herself had open the door to this questioning of morals by trying to be overly nice. "Should we not have helped our fellow nations in their time of need?" Cagalli knew her "Lend A Hand" deal had been unpopular by the more senior officials, except Adam who had outright called it "a naive idiots dream." Another example of why she liked Adam, if he had a problem with one of her ideas you bet to hell he was going to bring it up and say it straight to her face. Not like the older officials who tried to sweet talk "sense" into her before and after the official meetings. They had all started off in much of the same way with "oh your father would be so proud" but that always instantly raised her guard. Unato would always start like that before he talked her into something and she would absolutely not allow herself to be manipulated AGAIN! Then again looking back on some of the conversations, they might have just been honestly trying to find out how she was doing but she just couldn't be sure! So not trusting the older staff she had talked all of the newly elected officials except for Adam into voting for the deal. Even now Cagalli felt the deal had been the right move, while it may have put them in a little bit of a financial strain it was more important they show the other Earth nations that despite the treaty and following dealings with the PLANTs, Orb would always be there for those who lived on Earth as well.

"We are also in a time NEED! Thanks to Morgenroete Inc. our mobile suit supplies have been fully restocked but because of the losses from the war we're short on pilots and lack the funds for recruiting and training new ones! How could this nitwit not see that her "Lend A Hand" deal had been a bad idea! Thought Adam, no it was his own fault in the first place for believing a child could see her own errors, besides this was not a debate about whether or not her "Lend A Hand" deal was bad, but if Orb should sell weapons to other nations. He had laid the ground work; he could still feel the resentment the older generation had for Cagalli for going around their backs and getting the younger generation to vote for the deal. The younger generation had thought Cagalli being their senior in politics knew what she was doing, only now did they realize what a bad idea the deal had been with the wells of money drying up and them forced to make cutbacks. The people were not happy with these cutbacks, they wanted to know why the elected officials they had put in official had voted for such a horrible idea. At first the younger generation tried to pass the blame to Cagalli but they quickly realized that people would not blame their heroine, who had saved Orb from the monster which was Yuna Roma Seiran despite the fact that it was her idea. The masses were so stupid sometimes.

The deal was a mistake that the younger politicians were paying for, while the girl got off scot-free, in one deal Cagalli had gained the resentment of all of parliament. By subtly reminding everyone of this deal while at the same time showing the logic of agreeing to the new deal, Adam was discrediting Cagalli and increasing his own value with one stone. Plus he enjoyed stabbing at her obvious guilt that she carried for the deaths of Orb soldiers in the second war, it was her fault. Cagalli finches at the mention of the casualties of the second war, but she wasn't going to be defeated that easily. "So what, we should just give up our PRINCIPLES! We are in a time of peace for God's sake the last thing we should be doing is selling weapons and another thing don't you wonder where the Equatorial Union got the money to buy our mobile suits, and why the sudden interest in buying mobile suits at all?"

Cagalli looked around the room for support, some of the younger politicians looked at her and smiled, nodding their heads but Cagalli couldn't tell if their smile was genuine or not. Yuna had often smiled like that at her in the meetings when she was arguing her point, at the time Cagalli felt encouraged by this and continued to make her point but now Cagalli realized that depending on the meeting Yuna was trying to make her look stupid and foolish so that everyone would go to him. She should have realized that sooner, how many times had he turned around and changed his opinion in the middle of a debate and then convinced her to swing the other way so that he looked like the lion tamer and she had fallen for it hook line and sinker. No she couldn't trust the smiles of the younger staff; they look too much like Yuna. "They probably got tired of being pushed around by other nations, which will happen to us if we wait too long to get our military strength back up!" Although Adam outwardly did not appear worried he knew that it wasn't a good idea to head in that direction.

"But what about the money?" She's being overly stubborn today, Adam thought silently annoyed. He spread his arms wide in an uncaring gesture. "Who cares where the money came from as long as it isn't counterfeit?" Cagalli may have liked Adam but that doesn't mean he didn't bug the hell out of her. She had heard enough and it was time she made that clear to everyone. "I care and this deal is not going to happen!" She looked around for support to this proclamation; while she knew Adam was convinced that this was the way to go, the other members of parliament were more inclined to her disgust. To Cagalli's surprise she only saw looks of outrage and anger directed at her, although many were quick to try and hide it when they saw her looking.

The fool, Adam thought as he saw the look of confusion on Cagalli's face. She doesn't even realize that by proclaiming such a thing she offended the rest of parliament, making them feel as if their opinion didn't matter to her or this government. Of course Adam knew that Cagalli didn't mean it that way, she was trying to rally people like a battle cry unfortunately for the little girl no one else seem to perceive it like this and he sure as hell wasn't going to point it out. "If I recall correctly you can't decide that by yourself. Now I propose we talk about it a little more and then tomorrow we take a vote on it." And boom suddenly he was the hero. Already Adam could feel the nodding of approval to the idea of a discussion, he still needed to talk them into agreeing with him but they appreciated him making a point to say they mattered. Cagalli too saw the nods of approval but where Adam knew they weren't yet sold to the deal, Cagalli mistakes their nods of approval as nods of acceptance. What the hell is going on, she thought looking left then right at the faces. How could they agree to this? How could they not realize the mistake their making?! Cagalli had talked to several of them before the meeting and each had assured her there was no way they would accept this deal so what…unless they had been lying to her!

It was the only explanation that made sense; the only way Cagalli could have lost this much support for her argument was if she had never had it at all. They had lied to her, tricked her by giving the answer she wanted to hear! Just like Unato and Yuna, they were trying to manipulate her! Cagalli began to break into cold sweats, her pupils had dilated wide; her confidence was shaken. She was losing it; the faces of parliament were beginning to look like Unatos and Yunas. She couldn't trust them any of them but she knew her judgment was compromised, she couldn't trust her mistrust of them except for Adam. She had to get out of here, before they could tell how shaken she was, how badly her confidence was collapsing. But she couldn't just leave without saying anything, she had to show them that she was the dominate one, that she wasn't one to be messed with. "You can talk all you want but I won't change my mind and anyone who supports this deal is not only betraying Orb's beliefs but themselves as well." With that Orb's chief Representative leaves the room leaving a stunned parliament.

Cagalli knew she had acted like a child as she entered the underground parking lot of the parliament building, but it couldn't be helped. She had begun to lose it, bad, well she had been working a twelve hour shift for a month straight now. Yes that was it, she was overworked she needed a day off. Tomorrow after a full day's rest I'll feel better. Cagalli thought to herself as she began scanning the cars in the parking lot looking for her limousine. She quickly spotted it and began walking towards it. As she got closer Cagalli could see Matheul, her driver leaning in the driver's seat with his hat over his eyes taking a nap. Tired and annoyed at herself, Cagalli taps on the window awakening the driver. Startled the black haired man jumps in his seat, his hat flying off his head as he widely looks around to get his bearings. Cagalli takes this opportunity to enter the backseat, upon seeing his boss through his rear mirror our friendly driver panics thinking he's screwed up bad.

"Sweet mother of god, I am so sorry Ms. Cagalli I wasn't expecting you for another eight hours and-" On another day Cagalli might have joked a little at Matheul's expense, they often engaged in that sort of actively to and from work, it helped relieve her stress but today she just wasn't feeling it.

"Relax Matheul I took an unexpected day off." Matheul having been Cagalli's driver for years picked up the subtle hint that she didn't want to talk about it and respected her wishes. He'd just have to talk to the other drivers later to find out what happened, people would be amazed at how much information and gossip you could learn by working as part of the help. He started the car and took a small smile of satisfaction from the way the engine purred like a new born kitten; he had tuned it himself the other day.

"So, Ms. Cagalli where would you like to go on your day off?" Matheul asked her as he pulled out of the underground parking lot.

Sighing and still depressed about her behavior Cagalli slumps back into her seat and replies. "Just take me home." The kind purple eyed driver nods his head in understanding and begins to steer towards that direction. Cagalli begins to mindlessly watch the scenery pass by until they come to a red light. She spots a group of teens about her age walking on the sidewalk, they're talking and laughing and overall just having a good time. It must be nice to have just a regular group of friends to hang out with, I bet they're going to the movies, Cagalli thought silently. Cagalli couldn't remember the last time she went to a movie theater, or any public relaxation place not counting the hot springs on the Archangel which did nothing to ease her stress during that hellish war. The light changed and they disappeared as her limousine rounded a corner.

Time: 20 hours and 34 minutes until massacre.

The rest of the journey to her house remained uneventful, and Cagalli walked into her house with Matheul close behind. Merna, Cagalli's ever faithful nanny was in the middle of dusting a flower pot when they walked in. Surprised Merna squeaks "Ms. Cagalli I-"

"I have the day off so I'll be in the study if anybody needs me," Cagalli says too embarrassed by her behavior to explain and quickly walks away.

Merna sees right through Cagalli's act and turns to her source of gossip, Matheul. "Did something happen at the meeting?"

"I'm not exactly sure what happen today but from what I've been hearing the Equatorial Union wants to purchase weapons from Orb which Cagalli of course opposes but this new politician Adam strongly supports the deal and he's gaining favor."

Forever wise, Merna raises and eyebrow at Matheul suspicious of the depth of his information. "That's some very detailed information you collected Matheul."

Matheul just shrugs uncaringly as he takes off his coat. "I wouldn't say collected as much as heard, everyone likes gossip even me but these new members of parliament are just awful at confidential. The older guys know to keep their mouths shut about any specific details that go on in the meeting, although that doesn't stop them from gossiping about the relationships they notice but from what I've heard the new guys have open phone chats in the backseat of the limo about the deals and stuff not to mention they just leave their notes and stuff everywhere. It's a spy's paradise."

Merna contemplates this out loud for a moment. "I guess it's a sign of the times, but still something should be done, this is a major security issue."

Matheul nods his own head in agreement. "You're right, I'd go to one of the military directors; they'll scold the newbies real good about keeping everything under wraps."

Merna smiles fox like "What a great idea, I'm glad you volunteered Matheul." Shocked the driver looks at the elder woman and is about to protest when her hard brown eyes shot him down.
Sighing in defeat he exclaims. "Fine." With that done Merna turns back to her main concern, the young woman who she helped raise.

"Oh I hope Ms. Cagalli will be alright, at times like this I wished that Mr. Athrun were still here. Even before she became Chief Representative Ms. Cagalli never had many friends especially around her own age which is why I was so delighted when she met Ms. Lacus, Mr. Kira and Mr. Athrun. They were huge pillars of support which she could rely on for advice in tough times such as this."

Matheul raises an eyebrow confused. "Why can't she just talk with them over the phone?" Merna glances at the simple minded man "Of course not, for starters Mr. Kira and Ms. Lacus are with the PLANTs now so mentioning anything going on in the meetings is against the law."

"But it was against the law before and she still did it?" Merna sighs as she struggles to explain this to Matheul. "That was different, while it's true that it's frowned upon to talk about the meetings it's not heavily enforced, especially when you're talking to family, but it's a completely different situation when the people you're talking to are leaders of nations that fought against yours in the war. I know for a fact that the day after it was publicly announced that Kira and Lacus would be joining the PLANTs Supreme Council, the new military directors came here and told Cagalli that if she leaked any information regarding what was discussed during the meetings to Kira or Lacus not only would they take away her position as Chief Representative of the Orb Union but they would also arrest her for treason."

"Can they do that?"

"It's rare but it has happened before, if all of the military directors agree they can temporarily suspend her authority, then parliament takes a vote that will decided if it's permanent or not." After thinking about if for a moment Matheul begins slowly, trying not to offend her.

"Well ZAFT did almost destroy Orb less than half a year ago so it makes sense that the military would be stricter on any security risks." It fails, Merna's small brown angry eyes suddenly remind Matheul of an enraged mother bear and he quickly backtracks to save himself. "I mean those BASTARDS, how dare they!"

While Merna and Matheul continue to talk, Cagalli enters her study. The warm brown colors of the room brought forth warmness to Cagalli's saddened sprit. She had often come into this room at the annoyance of her father to play; the memory of his strong unyielding figure working hard was forever burned into her mind. If he still lived she had no doubt he would be able to show the other members of parliament that the deal with the Equatorial Union was a bad idea. She quickly pushed the thought out of her mind, her father wasn't alive anymore; there was no one here but herself to watch out for Orb so she would have to deal with it. Cagalli took the seat behind the desk and began to tap her fingers as she thought about what to do. Cagalli was very organized and prompt with her work so there was nothing that needed to be done in that direction. For a moment Cagalli was tempted to call Lacus or Kira but the idea was quickly shot down. For starters they wouldn't be home; unlike herself they'd still be at work now, second even if she could talk to them she couldn't talk about what was really on her mind, how to convince the rest of parliament to vote against the deal with the Equatorial Union.

When the princess had first joined Orb's government she had been easily overwhelmed and lost but Lacus and Kira had helped her through it. Whenever she had a problem they had a solution, but now they had their own problems to deal with. Cagalli could sense it, the growing rift between herself and what little family she had left. When they had first left for the PLANTs Cagalli had called them three times a day but as Kira and Lacus began to get adjusted to their new jobs they began to take on more and more responsibilities. The calls had become less frequent as work consumed most of everyone's time and even when they did talk they had nothing to talk about, just as Cagalli had been restricted from talking about the Orb government from them, she suspected they too were restricted from talking about the PLANTs to her other than general topics. Their conversations were growing shorter and shorter as their topics began to run dry.

Now Cagalli could barely manage a twenty minute conversation with either one of them three times a week. Then there was Athrun…when he had chosen to stay in Orb it filled her with so much happiness that she thought she would burst but just being close by didn't fix all of their problems like magic. Their relationship was in that ugly grey area between broken and steady, before they could…no before they were ready to talk about it, the recommendation for Athrun to be put on the peace treaty team came. It made perfect sense to Cagalli, while major issues in the peace treaty between ZAFT and Orb had been solved, there were still many details that needed to be amended or mentioned and who better to represent Orb's interest then Athrun Zala. Athrun was a major war hero for the PLANTs and would still be respected greatly despite having deserted not to mention no one knew how the PLANT's government worked better than Athrun.

Athrun at first considered turning it down, not that Cagalli was even sure that was possible, he didn't want to leave Cagalli by herself in Orb and he didn't want to leave the relationship as it was. But just like herself, Athrun wasn't ready to face the problems in their relationship either, and Cagalli knew for a fact that this assignment would help Athrun's career in Orb's military.
Cagalli suspected that many soldiers would be weary of Athrun because he was from ZAFT and so bringing back a peace treaty satisfactory to the military would help him earn the soldiers trust. Cagalli had no doubt that Athrun would accomplish the task but it was still a long assignment six to eight months, estimated and Athrun didn't feel comfortable leaving Cagalli alone for that long of a period of time. Cagalli though didn't want to be one of those girlfriends that held their boyfriends back, which had been one of their problems, so Cagalli talked Athrun into going. As for their relationship…they both agreed not to talk to each other, except for emergencies, so that when he returned they would have a better perspective on their relationship and be able to judge where to go next. So Athrun joined Kira and Lacus in space.

Cagalli would be lying though if she said it wasn't hard. She had already had to stop herself from calling him several times and just getting down on her hands and knees and begging him to take her back. But Cagalli was determined not to guilt Athrun back into this relationship, she would win him back and her first step was to prove to Athrun that she was capable of running Orb without his or anyone's help and if Athrun came back and decided not to continue this relationship then she would just have to grow up and deal with it! Don't even think that! Cagalli commanded her mind to cease this line of thinking; it was only causing her more stress. Instead Cagalli distracted herself with a book she had yet to read. Cagalli began at the beginning but by the time Merna came down to get her for dinner she had finished the entire book. The young leader wished she could have said her evening was better, but eating dinner alone at a dining table designed to hold up to eight people only depressed her yet again and ending her day flipping between late night channels on her TV in her bedroom only added to the depression. Some days just suck.

########

Location: Outside Parliament building. Time: 12 hours and 42 minutes until the massacre.

Adam was pissed! The meeting was over and all of the politicians were leaving. The cold air hits Adam's shaven face, sending a slight chill through him; the soldier suspected it was after midnight although he wasn't in the mood to check. Everything had started off perfectly; the brat had behaved just as he thought she would. Every move he made, every blunder she made brought him one step closer to convincing the rest of parliament to vote yes to the deal but then that nitwit left! Even Adam had not expected her to act so childishly, at first Adam just assumed it was part of her behavior that was overlooked by the rest of the politicians like so many of her other traits. That had been his greatest mistake, Adam quickly found out that Cagalli was not one to just up and leave in the middle of a meeting and after thinking about it Adam had to agree that it wasn't the brat's style. By doing such an unexpected thing the other members of parliament began to worry about her and feel guilty about their actions. The idiot has no skill whatsoever when it came to politics but I swear she has the luck of the devil on her side. It had taken everything Adam had to stop them from dismissing the deal right then and there. God these people were so stupid, they refused to see the dumb blond for what she really was, a little girl trying to run a country. No matter how many blunders or mistakes she made they just simply refused to see her in anything but the most appealing light.

Adam entered his black limousine; unlike the other politicians Adam had customized his limo with the latest bullet proof and blast resistant technology. He had also sound proofed his limo, reinforcing the wall between the backseat and the driver. The retired military officer never understood why anyone would want a window in the wall between the passenger seat and the driver's seat. It was a tactical weakness, and a potential information leak. Adam didn't even know his driver's name and that was how he wanted it. He gave all of his commands to his driver through a built in intercom not that it was needed today, by this point the driver knew to take him straight home after work. As the limousine began to move, the lights dimmed as a screen came down from the ceiling. It was a warning sign Adam had setup so that he would never be surprised by Mr. Green's sudden appearance. Mr. Green was obviously not his real name but some stupid code name he must have gotten from an old spy movie, there were only two communications networks on which Mr. Green contacted him. One was in his limo the other at his house, Adam needed to be very careful when he dealt with Mr. Green. The screen blinks on to reveal Mr. Green, as was his usual custom Mr. Green had turned off all the lights within whatever place he had set up his communications network, thusly shrouding his entire appearance in darkness. Sure his general outline was still visible but making out any details was impossible other than his green eyes.

Adam had only ever met Mr. Green in person once, the day Mr. Green had come to offer him the deal but even then Mr. Green was careful to keep to the darkness of broken street lamps. Mr. Green liked to keep his secrets. "Hello Adam."

"Mr. Green what a pleasant surprise."

"Let's cut the pleasantries, how is the deal progressing?"

Adam was a spy for Mr. Green, however he did not work for Mr. Green. Mr. Green and Adam had made an agreement, Mr. Green would use his resources and fund Adam's rising political power and in return Adam would inform Mr. Green about whatever information he desired and at times such as this passed certain deals….or at least tried,

"I can't get it passed." Adam suspected Mr. Green was somehow involved with the Equatorial Union's government but at this point in time he simply didn't have enough resources to investigate Mr. Green's organization further. No for now he needed Mr. Green's power to rise to the top of Orb's government and once he got there he would deal with Mr. Green in a befitting manner. Some might consider him a traitor but Adam didn't see it like that, to him the Orb government had become corrupt and was leading the nation to ruins. Adam might sell his soul to the devil but he did so to save Orb from the blond one who was leading Orb to sure destruction.
"What do you mean you can't get it through?" Mr. Green thought he did well to suppress and hide his rage but Adam was not stupid and could probably still detect the trace amounts that slipped out. Not for a moment did he doubt Adam, he was quickly becoming very skilled at politics and Mr. Green knew that he would have done all he could to get the deal passed. Adam was not foolish enough to go against Mr. Green, yet.

"Cagalli strongly opposes the deal and none of the other members of Orb's parliament are going to go against her."

Mr. Green gritted his teeth with growing rage but the conspirator calmed himself. Anger was not going to get him anything, he needed to think rationally. Suddenly an idea hit him, an idea that he had dismissed as being immature and rash before but now seemed just right. He began to talk slowly, trying to work the problem out loud. "What if Cagalli were no longer there then could you get the deal passed?"

Mr. Green saw Adam's muddy green eyes open wide in surprise and could have sworn he saw Adam's heart skip a beat. It was not surprising although he didn't know the exact reasons for why Adam hated Cagalli with every fiber of his being and not Orb nor the Orb government. "What do you mean if Cagalli were no longer there?"

It was unlike Adam to ask such a question in a demanding tone of voice, but Mr. Green understood why. This was probably his deepest desire coming true and Adam wanted to be sure he wasn't being played. Still that doesn't mean Mr. Green would show any more of his hand then he already had, Adam might be an ally now but tomorrow he could just as easily decide to be an enemy. "That is not your concern, just answer the question!" Mr. Green only raised his voice slightly but he made sure his tone was swift enough to let the spy know not to challenge him again. Adam only hesitated a second after that before replying.

"Yes without Cagalli I'm positive I can talk the others into agreeing."

"I see; I'll get back to you."

Flipping a switch the mastermind cuts Adam off in mid-sentence. "Wait-" With his computer turned off Mr. Green is left in total darkness, the room he is in appears spacious but with only the tiny moonlight coming in from the windows it is impossible to make out any details. Suddenly Mr. Green heavily annoyed snaps. "If you're going to spy on me Mr. Blue could you please try to be quieter, your breathing is distracting."

From the darkness we spot grayish blue eyes as a figure moves closer to the tiny specks of moonlight. He stops though before any of his features become visible other than his frame. "As always your hearing is excellent Mr. Green, I apologize for the interruption I just came to see how you were doing."

Mr. Green eyes his supposed ally not fooled for a second. Mr. Blue may also be one of the masterminds behind the grand plan but that didn't mean he wouldn't throw Mr. Green under the bus to better his own position or worse attempt to do Mr. Green's job better than him. "Cut the crap Blue, Orb is my territory shouldn't you be trying to accomplish your own tasks with South America?"

Mr. Blue held up his hands open palm, in a gesture of peace. "Whoa, Whoa, Whoa Green, take it easy I wasn't trying to show you up or anything." He lied. "I'm ahead of schedule in South America so I figured I'd look around and make sure everyone else was doing fine but I can see that Orb's little angel is giving you a hard time, what do you plan on doing?"

Mr. Green debated several courses of action. He could call the guards and have Mr. Blue removed but that would blow both their covers, he could take on Mr. Blue himself but that was forbidden by a power above him. Finally he decided to humor Mr. Blue; there was nothing else he could do at this moment. "I haven't decided anything other than Cagalli Yula Athha can no longer be allowed to stay as Orb's Chief Representative."

"True, she has been a pain in the grand plan since the beginning, normally we would work around her but that is impossible here. The deal is a milestone for the grand plan, it must be passed."

"Yes but she's managed to root herself down pretty damn good. The other Orb leaders aren't going to push her out for two reasons, one the people love her; she's their golden little angel. The second is her good relationship with the PLANTs, if they kick her out they risk ending that relationship, and they won't risk jeopardizing that under any circumstance."

Mr. Blue finishes the train of thought. "And military pressure won't work either, what with her brother and boyfriend being the pilots of the Freedom and the Justice."

Mr. Green pounders for a moment then decides on a course of action. "That just leaves one option left."

"Oh, which is?"

"We have to eliminate her."

Mr. Blue takes this in and then goes on as if that was a normal suggestion. "That would certainly save us a lot of trouble or expose the grand plan before it even truly begins. It's a risk but since you decided to do this I can recommend a couple of good assassins."

Mr. Green is not fooled by the offer to help, even if Mr. Blue was being sincere he had already decided who he was going to hire. "Thank you Blue but that won't be necessary, there's an organization I want to test out."

This raises Mr. Blue's interest, a new player in the game and Mr. Green thought they were capable of running with the big dogs. Mr. Green began rummaging through his desk while Mr. Blue inquired. "Oh a new shadow organization huh, is it me or has a lot more of them begun to appear lately now that LOGOS and Durandal have been eliminated?"

"LOGOS and Durandal were the two biggest powers in the underworld after the end of first war. They pushed out a lot of small criminal organizations that got in their way and in a twisted way kept peace in the darkness while the light fought each other. With them gone a lot of power hungry individuals are rising up, trying to fill the empty void, not that any of them could."
Mr. Green finally finds what he's looking for, an ancient floppy disk. He had to have his computer customized to play it; a process that had taken months, although that was what originally lead him to his high opinion of this mysterious organization. Anyone could come up with a code or password protected device but to use archaic technology in itself for security was both clever and creative. "However I feel this new organization is more like us."

"You mean existing before LOGOS and Durandal?"

"Yes, those two not only blocked small organizations from being created but by being so big and flashy they helped hide those intelligent like ourselves who chose to hide in the shadows and wait."

Mr. Green puts the device in his computer as Mr. Blue registers this new information. "So what else do you know about them?" Mr. Blue asks in order to get a better understanding of this new player.

"Not much, they contacted me by hacking into my video chat and disconnecting the other callers. They're no armatures, the level of intelligence gathered by them rivals our own but they didn't have all of the answers. They requested information on a subject that I personally oversaw but no documentation of it remained which is why they needed me. I gave them what they wanted and in returned I asked for a single favor."

When Mr. Green doesn't go on Mr. Blue prompts. "Which was?"

Mr. Green smiles fox like as he replies. "I haven't asked them yet, the rule we agreed to was that the favor could be asked at any time as long as I didn't pry into any more details about them."
The floppy disk finally finishes loading as a video chat window opens up covering the entire screen. A hooded cloaked figure on the monitor stares back at us, judging by the similar cloak this person belongs to the same organization as the hooded man who would be responsible for killing many innocent people but unlike the wolf's fur this cloak is covered in medals of some unknown origin. The frame of this hooded person is also different, smaller and more feminine.
"Hello Mr. Green….and Mr. Blue."

A chill runs down Mr. Blue's spine, how the hell did she know my code name and she stated it with no hesitation at all like the answer was right there in front of her!

One's identity was their very weakness and the organization Mr. Blue belonged to went to extreme lengths to keep such secrets, LOGOS's destruction only highlighted the reality of what happens to shadow organizations when revealed to the light. Durandal thought he could be the one exception to the rule, that he could use the light to his advantage and while that may have worked for a time in the end it too led to his destruction.

"Ms. 3 I see your information network is as powerful as ever." Mr. Green replied casually, Ms. 3 had ambushed him before by showing off the depth of her knowledge of their organization, he would not allow her knowledge to shake him twice. Although he knew little about her own organization judging by her indifference towards him and his agenda he rationalized that she cared little for their grand plan or simply did not know of it. Either way Mr. Green saw no point in provoking a sleeping lion.

"What is it you want Mr. Green, I assumed that it is about the one favor we owe you." Straight to the point hmm, Mr. Green thought silently then decided such games would only tire both of their patience and followed her lead.

"I want you to kill someone."

Ms. 3 eyed the little man before her, looking for his hidden motive. "Are you sure you want to waste this one favor on something that you are more than capable of doing yourself?"

"The target is definitely worth your time, Cagalli Yula Athha." The moment Mr. Green said her name Ms. 3 understood everything; this was a test, Mr. Green wanted to see how powerful her organization was. "Cagalli Yula Athha, yes a high profile target with serious repercussions for anyone caught. Very well we shall take the job, within two days we will contact you and show you the body for confirmation of the kill"

"Then I will wait to hear from you." The monitor Ms. 3 was looking at goes black as she leans back in her chair, so Mr. Green wants to see what we can do, fine I'll show him our overwhelming power. Ms. 3 gets up and begins walking down the empty corridor; she's on a solid metal ship of some kind, strangely though there's no rocketing motion.

Ms. 3 comes to her destination, a single metal door which she opens to reveal a small metal room containing only one bed and therein lays the cloaked figure with wolf's fur trimming we saw in the beginning, the one who would soon kill countless innocent people.

"Mr. 4 get up, there's a job for you to do."

Mr. 4…the name or designation he went by now, but such things meant nothing to him. He had held two names before this one, one was his original name, the name he had when he still had emotions. The second was the name his trainers gave to him before he killed them. The third and current name was given to him by the organization, not that he understood why. He could have just as easily been called Man and still not care. "What is it?"

Mr. 4 didn't really care what it was, he asked based on an impulse that had survived the training almost like his body was trying to force himself to feel by repeating phrases that had once brought emotion to him. It never worked. Ms. 3 dropped a folder on his chest, with a picture of Cagalli on the cover. "An assassination, your target is Cagalli Yula Athha. She will be at the coordinates given to you at the time specified. You are to kill her and leave no witnesses."

Mr. 4 sat up and quickly began to skim the contents of the folder, some of the other members of the organization might have been annoyed that Ms. 3 just assumed he was not busy, but he cared little for her treatment of him. She was not his friend and he felt nothing for her, she simply gave him missions and he completed them and in truth he had been sitting looking up at the ceiling for five hours twenty-three minutes and four seconds before Ms. 3 came in. While that did not bother him, and he could have gone on longer looking at the ceiling he supposed it was by definition doing nothing. "Isn't this at the new safe bunker, the one that's supposed to protect the people inside in case of an attack by mobile suits?"

"Yes, which is why you won't be using your Gundam." Now that was new, Mr. 4 almost always had to use his Gundam to complete the missions; it was exceedingly rare for him not to use it. "It's been a while since I went Gundamless, I assume I have permission to kill everyone within the area?" Mr. 4 always asked that now, a little over three years back, Mr. 4 had been given a covert assassination mission. He was supposed to make his target's death look accidental and as always been given permission to kill any witnesses. His target lived on Junius Seven and on a whim Mr. 4 stole one of the Alliances mobile armors that had been about to attack the PLANTs and equipped it with one of the nukes he had found while killing the entire crew. He then did the next logical thing, he fired the nuke at Junius Seven destroying the space colony. In his opinion it had been a successful mission, by destroying the entire colony he had killed his target unquestionably, before the war evacuation protocols were lacked, most people didn't think it was possible for a space colony to be destroyed by a single weapon and the blitz attack only helped the chances of not a single person making it to an evacuation pod in time.

As far as anyone who was concerned, the attack was a massacre aimed at all of coordinators, not a single individual and that was basically what an accidental death was supposed accomplish. Everyone blamed the Earth Alliance and the Earth Alliance in turn blamed Azrael since he had put the "nuke" ship out there in the first place, what no one knew was that the nukes where there just for show at least that was what the data Mr. 4 had taken from the ship had told him.

Azrael had sent the ship out as a bluff to scare the PLANTs into agreeing to the Earth Alliances terms but the ship had never been given orders to actually use any of them nor were they going to according to their personal logs, none of them felt comfortable killing that many civilians in cold blood even if they were coordinators. Azrael of course had told the Earth Alliance he had never meant for nukes to be actually used and that it must have been the crew's own decision but everyone had thought he was full of shit.

Lucky for him before they asked any more questions the PLANTs dropped the N-Jammers which ended all further investigation into the incident. Like Mr. 4 had thought a successful mission but when he return to base Ms. 3 was waiting pissed, apparently he had caused war not that Mr. 4 cared but Ms. 3 did. War was trouble; it meant their organization would be a lot more restricted with its movements with everyone on high alert. While they could work around the higher level of security, it was annoying, or at least that was what Ms. 3 told him. Next came an hour and thirty two minute debate on the difference between killing everyone in the area and killing witnesses. Mr. 4 saw no difference but Ms. 3 had been insistent that there was so now he asked every time.

"You can kill anyone within the area of the mansion.” Mr. 4 nodded his head already forming a battle plan from the data. He looked to the clock in the hallway and quickly calculated how long it would take him to get to Orb.

"I better get going; after all we won't want Ms. Athha to miss her appointment with the grim reaper." Another joke which he knew if he had said during the time before the training it would have brought forth the emotion of amusement, but once again it failed.

########

Location: Orb's new prototype mobile suit proof bunker. Time: 1 hour and 36 minutes until massacre.

Cagalli was in hell. She had been forced to attend this stupid political party showing off the new mobile suit proof "bunker". First off she highly doubted that it was mobile suit proof, she had seen firsthand what mobile suits were capable of. Second and the most annoying of all was this place looked nothing like a bunker; it was a mansion even bigger than her own. The ballroom she was currently standing in was evident of that, the ballroom looked good enough with Orb's emblem covering the floor and gold decorations on the wall, there was also many tables set up as well as a buffet. The food did little to help her mood, this party was a complete waste of her time.

She should be preparing for the vote against the weapons selling deal later that night, she had come up with several speeches to talk the other members of parliament out of it but she still wanted to go over them but no instead she was force to come here. The party was Morgenroete's idea, the theory was because of the tragedy of the wars, many of Orb's current leaders and influencers were new and it was felt that a party with everyone together would help everyone get to know one another, easing stress and overall improving work efficiency.

The truth though was that Morgenroete was trying to ease people's fear of them being a "LOGOS" type business by showing off their new defense system, they were trying to say "Look we can make things besides weapons." A few people saw through the act and didn't bother attending the party like Adam or Ms. Sahaku head of one of the noble families and a few others.

Cagalli envied them now, how she wished she didn't have to be here but no it was the duty of Orb's Chief Representative to attend almost every single one of these parties to show support for Morgenroete and Orb's hardworking people. No the party she could tolerate for Orb but what she absolutely hated with all her might was this stupid outfit Merna had forced her to wear. Cagalli had just wanted to go in her standard Orb parliament outfit or her military uniform but Merna had insisted that she dress up, a lot of the people at this party were so new that they had never met Cagalli in person before so it was important that she make a good first impression so Merna prepared her outfit; a lavish blue and green ankle high dress with two inch heels, black eyeliner and rose red lipstick. Orb's Chief Representative felt ridiculous, she hated heels, she hated dresses and she hated makeup! If it wasn't for the fact that Merna look so happy when she had finish putting on this clown outfit, she would have turned around and refused to wear it but Merna had work hard putting the outfit together so Cagalli gritted her teeth and bore with it for her nanny. Of course this had all been planned out weeks in advance so it's not like Cagalli was blind sighted, she knew what was coming.

As the young leader forced herself to mingle with the crowd she spotted the designer of this bunker…Carl she thought although she wasn't a hundred percent sure that was his name. Having nothing better to do she joins the crowd surrounding him as he boast about his great invention.
"That's right with just a flick of a button this bunker will seal up tight. I can't discuss the details for obvious reasons but to give you and overview once activated all windows and doors will be sealed the doors are made out of the same metal armor as the walls of the building while thick platting of the armor will lower down covering the windows. Simply put there is no possible way to get into this building once activated, as for the metal armor the building is made out of, it's a two part layer, the outer armor absorbs beam energy so beam rifles and sabers as well as positron cannons will all be absorbed into the armor and transferred to the power grid while the inner armor is made from an incredible dense metal that stops all physical attacks such as explosions, bullets, swords and missiles. In short when active this bunker becomes mobile suit proof."

Carl gets several laughs from the pun, one of female politicians asks playfully. "But Carl surely you're not saying that this bunker can withstand a mobile suit attack indefinitely?"

"That is true but if I had to take a guess I'll estimated it would take a week for a regular sized force putting constant physical attacks on the bunker to break through the inner armor but you have to remember this bunker isn't supposed to last forever. It's designed for the civilians of Orb so they have a safe haven to go to during an attack involving mobile suits; God knows how we could have used this place during the last war."

At the mention of the last war Cagalli's mood turns even darker, she already didn't want to be here. "Can you tell me how much longer until you show us this indestructible bunker?"

Carl span around to spot the rude person who had spoken, he immediately identified Cagalli as the source. He knew who Cagalli was and how much power she had, but Carl had just spent a year working his ass off designing this bunker which was no easy feat and now that it was almost completed he deserved his time in the spotlight and he wasn't about to take any shit from anyone.

"Why, do you have some urgent business to attend to?"

"As a matter of fact I do."

Cagalli and Carl begin to glare at each other intensity, but before the situation can escalate further a bystander cuts in. "So um did you choose today on purpose or was it a coincidence?" Carl breaks his glare from the girl for moment looking at the bystander trying to figure out what he's talking about, then it hits him

"Oh no that was just a coincidence although I suppose you can consider it divine fate if you want."

"What are guys talking about?" the fiery blond demands as she looks back and forth between the two.

"Oh you don't know?" Carl asks mockingly but before Cagalli can reply another bystander interrupts.

"She's probably just forgotten; I'm sure if we talk about it she'll remember."

Carl nods his head in agreement. "Yes you're most likely right, very well then I shall be the one to tell her." Carl says this in a grand voice as if he's doing Cagalli a huge favor, which annoys the crap out of Cagalli.

"You see about five hundred years before the start of the Cosmic Era, when there were still fossil fuels, a scientist by the name of Issaic predicted that eventually we would need a new power source but instead of waiting around and saying, 'Oh by the time that happens I'll be dead so it will be someone else's problem', like so many other scientists of the day he decided to build his own source of power. He called this new source of power the S-generator."

Cagalli's amber eyes open wide as she starts to remember something. Wait a minute I think one of my private tutors talked about this before, how did the rest go? Frustration quickly grips Orb's young leader as she struggles to remember.

"From what little we know about this source of power is that it was a type of fusion reactor, to simplify, using a chemical reaction it made a miniature sun which is where it got its name Sun Generator or S-generator for short. It didn't get much recognition though until he had it power a whole city," continued Carl.

"That doesn't sound like a big deal?" Cagalli replied

"It is when the power source was the size of a baseball, well not counting the equipment it took to make it into usable energy but still for that time period it was unbelievable. Many governments wanted to buy his blueprints for his S-generator right there and then but in true scientist fashion he moved on. Instead he promised his backers that he would make something even grander, a space ship capable of holding a million people and being able to travel at one hundred and eighty miles per second and those that didn't laugh right in his face fully believed in Issaic's genius and funded him with everything they had. He built that massive ship with technology far ahead of its time that he himself had designed, like it's engine the S-generator, the graviton g-force canceller, Odin's eye and flex the long range scanners combined with a program to alter the ships course around any objects like meteors or planets just to name a few. Issaic was truly the genius of all geniuses, it took him twenty years to build that ship but when he finished it, it shocked the world. The ship was proven capable of supporting one million people for an extended period of time unfortunately it didn't quite live up to his speed hopes, it could only travel at about ninety miles per second, still impressive though. With the ship completed and a crew of one million picked from billions of volunteers, Issaic launched the largest ship to date in space. The plan was for them to test drive it to Mars and then back as proof to all of his backers that the ship was gold."

Memory finally dawns on Cagalli but it isn't a nice memory; it's the memory of a tragedy. "But something went wrong, just as they were rounding Mars the ship exploded killing everyone."

"The explosion's size was estimated to be about as big as Australia, it's unimaginable the amount of lives it would have taken if it went off on Earth, so naturally all the governments banned any further research into the S-generator, not that you could copy it anyway because Issaic was so secretive about his work."

Everyone in the group takes a minute to reflect on such a sad moment in history, but Carl looks at them all strangely for a second. "You know it's not known for sure that they died, after all there were no traces left of them when a satellite was sent out to investigate."

Everyone looks at him surprised by this insane idea. "The reason for that is because by the time the satellite got there the pieces of the ship had probably floated away." One bystander calls out.
Cagalli adds. "That or it was completely incinerated by the explosion." Carl looks hard at Cagalli for a moment then starts to walk away shaking his head and calling over his shoulder. "Yeah, you're most likely right, what was I thinking? I must be out of it from working too many hours straight on this bunker." With Carl gone the rest of the group disbands wandering off to mingle somewhere else. What did he mean by most likely? Cagalli pushes the irreverent thought from her mind and glanced at her watched. Then upon seeing the time the bored girl sighs and goes back to mingling.

######

Location: In the woods surrounding the prototype bunker. Time: 33 minutes until massacre.

The assassin under the cover of the setting sun flipped the switch on the cell phone jammer; the jammer itself was small about the size of ironically a cell phone. He placed a jammer on top of a tree, out of sight and reach of anyone not looking. Mr. 4 also carried three more with him as well as a signal checker designed to inform him immediately if the jammer stopped working. He had already scouted the area; the mansion was located outside the city deep within the forest. The trees directly surrounding the mansion had been cut down allowing for a twenty-three yard clearing around the mansion. There were fifteen patrol teams each consisting of five soldiers, a high number for such a small area but understandable considering how many of Orb's leaders were attending this party.

Mr. 4 had a rough estimate of where each team was located based on where he had spotted them and their patrol routes. The patrol routes, security codes, blueprints of the mansion and recorders on each of the soldiers assigned to the mansion had all been included in the intelligence folder Ms. 3 had given him. The teams were all located within the forest; apparently the person in charge had felt confident in the armor the mansion was made out of.

There was only one entrance into the mansion and all windows had been made from a bullet proof and blast resistant glass, from the notes he had read there was a debate about putting an underground exit into the design, but the designer had insisted that such a thing would only be a weakness. The designer's reasoning was that if the enemy found out about this route they could get in with almost little to no resistance since the bunkers were being designed for the general population not the military and besides what good can going outside do when a mobile suit battle was going on?

Mr. 4 knew he would be going through the front entrance considering that was the only way in; he did not possess an explosive that was powerful enough to break the mansions armor from the outside. First thing was to eliminate the teams patrolling the grounds, from the intel he knew that each one of them was an experienced war veteran team. The military was taking no chances and while they didn't have enough veterans to fill all of the positions they made sure that the first line of defense, the patrol teams and the last line of defense the guards in the ballroom where all experienced soldiers.

Still that meant little to Mr. 4, others might have felt nervous, excited, or something but Mr. 4 felt nothing. He had fought many experienced combatants before and they would be no different. The grim reaper moved quickly, he knew he had a time limit; he had to kill all of the teams before command did its routine call in. The patrol teams never had a chance, Mr. 4 used his cloak and darkness of the forest to his advantage, and he would be right on top of a team before they even noticed him.

The lucky teams were killed in an instant, his chain blade danced in the air as it sliced their throats preventing them from crying out warnings. Mr. 4 missed his time limit, he had managed to kill all of the teams with relative ease but he had been hoping to disable the last set of communications within the area, the soldier's radios, before command did their call in. He accepted the situation for what it was and recalculated his plan accordingly; the only thing that changed was that he had to fight an additional team of soldiers who would undoubtedly come to investigate. Mr. 4 began to play around with one of the radios while he waited for the investigation team to show up. Mr. 4's plan to defeat this device was simple, after messing around with the radio he would send a frequency back to the command radio at a much higher TMz then it would be expecting, in short blowing a fuse and with the command radio down all the others would be useless.

After Mr. 4 completed his work he saw the red signal light go out indicating that their last communications network was down. Just in time too since the investigation team had reached his location but his eyesight was better than that of coordinators and death spotted them long before they saw death. With a couple of flicks and yanks of his wrist the team was destroyed. He gets up and begins to move quickly, it wouldn't be long until they realize their radios were down. He comes out of the forest into the clearing and heads towards the entrance, lights come from the windows and deck but they aren't powerful enough to make the entire area visible especially against someone wearing all black. It created a twilight that Mr. 4 passed through unnoticed, when he was within twenty feet of the main entrance's staircase the guards finally spotted him.

The soldiers moved fast and all at once, they had been on guard since they lost contact with the patrol teams. There were four in total, the first two began to climb down to face him, the third only took a single step down and went for his radio not yet aware of its uselessness, the final one moved up a step and placed a hand on his gun. "Don't take another stethug" Those were his last words as a short sword drops from Mr. 4's sleeves. He reaches the bottom step at the same time the guards do and slashes in one fluid motion, the neck of the guard talking. He then takes a step and with his other hand cuts off the head of the other guard.

Without breaking stride he throws both swords, nailing the remaining two guards in the face at the same time. He pulls his swords out of the guard's faces and brings them back to his hands and then after shaking the lose blood off his blades flips them back into his sleeves. His sleeves were very large and his mastery over his blades perfect, he would not stain his own cloak. All of the bodies collapsed at the same time, raining the crimson blood on the stone steps creating a waterfall from Hell. Moving quickly and avoiding the red rain, Mr. 4 enters the mansion. The moment he steps foot into the mansion he feels the machine eyes of security cameras locking onto him. He moves fast though not running, they had already seen him and even if they didn't have radios they could still verbally communicate, they were most likely at this moment sending people to intersect him. The hallways were wide allowing for three average sized people to walk them side by side. He reached his destination without problem, a precise spot on a wall within the compound. He cut a square out of the wall by making four cuts with his ultra-sharp blade that to the naked eye appeared to be one cut. Behind the wall was a circuit board similar to a computer only there was also many wires sticking out. He quickly pulled out one of his many devices that had been prepared beforehand and began setting it up.

"DON'T MOVE!"

He had heard the soldier's footsteps a mile away but ignored it so he could finish setting up his device. Since it was a single soldier chances are command didn't send him, probably a messenger sent by his team to verbally contact command while they remained at their post. It had been nothing but bad luck for all for him to have stumbled on Mr. 4. Rather than fight though Mr. 4 chose to humor him and stop moving.

"Good, now turn around slowly and no sudden moves unless you want to look like swiss cheese," the guard said in a lower voice. Mr. 4 raising his hands in a gestured of defeat turns around slowly and stands up. "Ok so you can listen but can you speak? I don't know who the hell you are but you're in a lot of trouble so you best cooperate. Start by telling me your name and what you're doing here?"

"My name is unimportant and meaningless; I have come here to kill one of your leaders." The soldier suppresses a sarcastic laugh as he replies, "HA so you're one of those crazy war veterans we've been hearing about. What were you doing to the wall just now?"

"I was setting up a device known as the Alien." If the soldier thought Mr. 4 was crazy before, he thought that Mr. 4 was a complete nut job now, suppressing laugher but still keeping his automatic rifle aimed at Mr. 4 he asks, "And what is an "Alien"?"

"A hacking device that enters a system's mainframe and overrides all security codes and locks everyone out but me."

"Then shouldn't you have tried to plug that thing into the command center, that's where the controls for this bunker are?"

"Not necessary, a series of circuits cross at this point, by hooking up to them I'm able to backdoor my way into the system."

This nut job's calm confidence was beginning to get on the soldiers nerves. "Ok smartass then why would you tell me any of this?"

"Several reasons, if I were to kill you right now, command would see it and therefore have a better understanding of my abilities. They would also send all of their teams at me." The soldier stares at Mr. 4, angry by the confidence he displays but suddenly a loud beeping tone starts going off.

"What the hell is that noise," he demands to know as he begins to franticly look around. The beeping noise continues to grow and become more frequent.

"The other reason, it takes a few minutes for Alien to work so I had to distract you, I couldn't risk you getting a shot off and hitting it." A cold fear begins to grip the soldier's heart as he begins to realize that this guy might not be as crazy as he seemed.

"Lock down mode is engaged, I repeat lock down mode is engaged please step away from the windows," shouts a pre-programmed voice from the loud speakers, further startling the soldier.
"What the hell is going on?!"

"Alien has hacked into your system and activated the lock down, as we speak metal plates of special armor have slammed in front of all the windows of this building and the door to the only exit has been slammed shut and locked.

While Mr. 4 talked he noted that the security cameras had dropped slightly, deactivated indicating that Alien had wormed its way into the security systems and disabled them.

"Enough-" Too fast, Mr. 4 bridged the gap between himself and the soldier in an instant. The soldier didn't even have the time to process the movement let alone pull the trigger on his gun. Only the pupils in his eyes have time to widen as Mr. 4's cold blade pierces his still beating heart. With the cameras down there was no longer any need to keep this man alive, no one would be able to see the extent of his skill until it was too late. Death pulled his blade out and took a quick sidestep evading the blood that had shot out like a shotgun. The body crumbles to the ground as blood oozes out of the very visible wound, the figure no longer needed to keep his blades hidden so he left them out. He heard the sounds of marching, as he had expected the command center had sent out a team to intersect him, probably before this unlucky individual had crossed his path.

#######

Mitch and his team appear around a corner and start hurrying towards Mr. 4, we have come full circle. Time: 0 minutes until massacre.

########

Location: Ballroom Time: While Mr. 4 is killing everyone else.

They were under attack; every instinct in Sig's being was screaming this in his ear as he stood by Jeff, the only soldier assigned the ballroom guard with a mechanic engineering degree in communication devices. At the moment Jeff was trying to figure out why their radios weren't working but Sig had little hope for Jeff to figure it out, it had been years since Jeff had actually used his degree

"Major Sig, Chief Representative Athha is demanding to speak to you." Another of Sig's soldiers informed him, Sig sighed. The jamming of communications and activation of the lock down pretty much told him that they were under attack but he still had no physical proof of this, as far fetch as it seem to him this could all be a technical hiccup. That didn't stop Sig from sending a messenger to the command center for instructions while quietly informing the high ranked military personal attending the party his suspicions and slipping them some side arms.

They had all agreed that moving the civilians was premature not to mention dangerous, if they were under attack, they could be walking right in the middle of enemy fire. "Tell Ms. Athha to kiss my ass." Unfortunately being the babysitter to a party full of Orb's most influential people meant that everyone wanted to know what was going on which is why Sig was in effect, hiding over here.

The last thing he wanted was to be forced to hear every single party goer with no combat experiences two cents on the matter. He had already consulted with the people who KNEW what they were doing and not just trying to force control over a situation where they had none. He assigned some of his men to watch the front door and the rest to act like a shield, blocking the crowd by force if necessary, from getting to him. He would deal with the repercussions later assuming he kept himself and everyone else alive.

"Are those the exact words you want me to use Sir?" His subordinate asked with a raised eyebrow. Unlike most of the military, Sig wasn't a Cagalli fan boy, while it was true that the Chief Representative lead the military during times of war they were still technically in a time of peace which meant the directors had final say with military matters and besides in his opinion Cagalli wasn't that much better then Yuna when it came to military matters. Many people would argue this point by saying Cagalli had saved Orb during the ZAFT invasions but Sig had BEEN at the ZAFT invasion and saw FIRST HAND what happened. It was not Cagalli that had saved them; it had been the remnants of the Takemikazuchi forces and the Clyne faction that had saved Orb. While she had given the Takemikazuchi forces orders the orders themselves were not impressive. Sig was confident that Yuna, if he had been right in the head at the time, would have given the same orders if their positions had been reversed.

It was thanks to the Takemikazuchi's skills as mobile suit pilots that had saved them and even though Sig had never personally piloted a mobile suit, even he could tell Cagalli sucked at piloting one. She had been hit multiple times and if it wasn't for that new model she would have been shot down in minutes. As for the rest of the war, well she just agreed to whatever Lacus Clyne had suggested so in Sig's opinion it was not Cagalli that saved Orb and the stopped the war but Lacus. So he cared about Cagalli's opinion about as much as all the other none combatants, still since she did have the most authority in the room he couldn't just curse her out. "It was the guild lines you would use to explain to Ms. Athha that I'm currently engaged in other matters at the moment but rest assured the situation is under control."

Before his subordinate could question him, the radio Jeff had been playing with, burst to life. "We are UNDER ATTACK! I repeat we are UNDER ATTACK; all personnel are to report to the grand hallway outside the ballroom!" Gunfire and screaming can be heard over the voice, everyone goes silent upon hearing the all too familiar sounds of battle which they had hoped to never hear again. Sig a soldier to his end wasted no time and grabbed the radio.

"Come in, these are the guards in the ballroom how many assailants are we facing? I repeat how many assailants are we facing?!" Silence, not just from the people in the ballroom but from the radio as well, Sig felt a chill run down his spine as he realized the battle must be over. Who won? A question that ran not just through his head, but everyone's, a question that was soon answered.

"It's…it's…a monster," came the dying breath of soldier on the other end. It took a full minute for everyone to process this; they could hear no signs of battle anywhere, no gunfire, no explosions, no shouting, nothing to indicate they were in any danger. Still the way the dying man had said a monster was attacking unnerved many of the non-military party goers and they began to move aggressively towards the doors out of the ballroom demanding to leave.

"Hey that's where the monster is just in case anyone forgot." The effect was immediate, the aggressors eased up, no longer quite so eager to head in that direction, just what Sig had hoped for. It's not like Sig wanted to keep them here it's just even if they did leave the ballroom there was no way out of the mansion itself, Carl the designer had reluctantly told him this when pressed. At first he had suspected that Carl was a spy, how else could the enemy have knowledge of this complex plus Carl had been reluctant to share the fact that there was no way out but as Sig talked more with Carl he realized the man was just an egotistic asshole that didn't want to admit his design had a flaw in it. He had mentioned several times that the lock down wasn't designed to be activated while the enemy was still inside…OBVIOUSLY, Sig had screamed in his mind while biting his tongue! Talking to that asshole was the exact reason why Sig avoided contact with the rest of the party goers.

"Now everyone calm down, there are three hundred armed Orb soldiers in this building here for the sole purposed of protecting you. I promise you have nothing to fear so long as you listen to us and keep away from the doors." That final blow helped relieve the fear many of the guests were feeling, and with them calming down Sig was able to move them to the back of the ballroom while he ordered the rest of his men to flip all the tables over to make a barricade against the door. The door to the ballroom would give them an advantage; the enemy could only enter two at a time which would make them easy to mow down with his twenty-five men. Still the enemy would definitely come in firing and that's why they needed the tables for cover. Not that the tables would do them any good if the enemy decided to just grenade the hell out of them, in which case they're all screwed but at least they go out guns blazing.

#######

Location: Corridors leading to the ballroom.

He was feeling something. It had started slowly, he wasn't even fully aware of it until just recently; Mr. 4 was experiencing some kind of emotion. It had been so long since he experienced any feelings that he had forgotten what they felt like, even now he was unsure of which emotion he was feeling. He tried forcing his mind to remember the time before his training, when things still made him feel as he walked down the hallways painted red by his blade. He allowed his mind to wander because he had already massacred most of the soldiers in the building; he had killed two hundred and twelve soldiers leaving another eighty-eight soldiers alive somewhere within this complex as well as the forty-three party guests. Besides he was confident that his reflexes would give him plenty of time to react to someone stumbling upon him. Now which emotion was he feeling, Regret? No, not regret or any of the sad emotions like remorse, joy maybe? Not quite, killing in itself gave him no pleasure. Excitement, YES that was it! He was feeling excited, something about these soldiers was different from normal. He had fought many soldiers before from many different militaries but these were different, they emitted some kind of force of will he could not understand, yet he felt that each battle he fought in was getting progressively harder. Not hard enough that he had to use anything but ten percent of his abilities but still a building of climax.

He found himself wondering more about this Cagalli person. What kind of leader was she to lead these fine soldiers, the profile the intel had built wasn't flattering to say the least. It said that Cagalli with all respects was a below average leader, her success was mainly thanks to her public image and ridding on the victories created by her brother and Lacus Clyne, but for the first time Mr. 4 began to doubt the profile. How could soldiers like these follow a worthless leader, it made no sense? She must be powerful; the profile must be missing something. Mr. 4 wasn't expecting her to be physically strong but power came in all sorts of shapes, she could be the smartest, most creative, most determined. She could even be the bravest yet the profile made a point of stating that due to Yuna's manipulation Cagalli had suffered a significant confidence decrease, Yuna did this most likely to be better able to control Cagalli. It also stated that in the absence of Kira, Athrun and Lacus, while going up against a strong opponent Cagalli would lose all confidence and cower in fear but that couldn't be right, what kind of leader couldn't walk on their own two feet?

Mr. 4 was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice the five dozen soldiers standing in the grand hallway just outside the ballroom until he turned the corner. Almost immediately the ones in the front line open fired on him while the ones behind threw grenades. Mr. 4 switching mentally to battle mode calculated the trajectory of the bullets from the angle of the guns within a heartbeat, impossible to many but the first thing they did to Mr. 4 during his training was making him calculate bullet trajectory from the angle of the guns. It took him several years and countless hours dedicated to training but he reached a point where doing it was now second nature to him like catching a thrown ball. The front line pulled the trigger early before checking their aim, none of the bullets would hit him yet, but already he could see them moving their guns to adjust. The bullets passed by him harmless as the grenades fell at his feet. Mr. 4 waited a moment then began to move backwards as the grenades exploded, he moved back into the corridor and pivoted on his left foot to hug the left corner.

The grenades weren't that powerful, mostly smoke meant to disorder attackers so the blast wave died out as it hit the back wall. The soldiers stopped firing so they didn't waste their bullets as they waited for the smoke to clear. Mr. 4 took advantage of the smoke, going head first into it then stopping in the middle. He whipped his chain out causing a gust of wind to dispense the smoke more rapidly revealing himself to the soldiers. Distracted by the explosion they hadn't seen Mr. 4 move back and duck behind a corner in the hallway; to them it appeared as if Mr. 4 just stood there and taken the explosion with little to no effect on himself. Given the time to think, many of the soldiers would have reached the right conclusion about how Mr. 4 survived the explosion and bullets but it was that first second Mr. 4 was looking for. That one second where fear beat logic and he took full advantage of it, he moved faster than a coordinator at Olympic speeds charging straight at them while he threw a grenade at the far left and right sides. He threw his serpent blades at the front line cutting a path right down the middle while his grenades went off ripping apart many of the soldiers. He pulled his blades back to himself as he entered melee combat, his speed made him an incredibly hard target to lock onto and the soldiers weren't experienced enough to try taking a shot while their comrades were so close. He unleashed a series of kicks aimed at the chest that broke ribs and crushed internal organs while he hacked away with his blade numbly, moving around the clumsy rifles, stabbed into chests and sliced off heads.

Occasionally he released his blades to slice off his enemy's feet making them immobile. There were also soldiers bold enough to try firing on him while their comrades were still so close but they learned their lesson the hard way as Mr. 4 flipped the closest soldier around and pushed him or her in front of the bullets making him or her a human shield. No, only those closest to Mr. 4 chanced firing while angling their gun down decreasing the chances of them hitting a comrade but the truth was that their guns were too big and awkward for the fast melee battle Mr. 4 was forcing this to be and they lacked the experience to successfully pull out combat knives in the middle of battle.

He continue to throw grenades at the soldiers furthest away causing chaos as the ones closest to him try to back off to switch weapons or have more room to aim while the ones furthest away pulled in trying to not to get hit by the explosion. Their overall lack of combat experience was showing as Mr. 4 was easily turning their overwhelming numbers against them, their formations were breaking apart and they were quickly becoming more uncoordinated in their attacks, running into each other at times. Mr. 4 made sure to keep himself smack dab in the middle of their troops so they couldn't all fire at him at once or use their grenades.

All the while Mr. 4 was growing in anticipation of his final fight against Cagalli. Despite all logic and reasoning he allowed himself to believe that perhaps Cagalli would match his power and he would have to use one hundred percent to win. Meanwhile in the ballroom, Sig's team waited and prayed that the other teams would hold off this unknown attacker. All military trained fighters crouched behind the table made cover with fire arms in hand and pointed at the door. They could once again hear the sounds of battle, screaming of the wounded, gunfire, and explosions. Then all at once silence. To go from so much sound to no sound was a little unnerving to many of the soldiers as they shifted uncomfortably in their spots and waited to see who won. A bead of sweat begins to run down the back of their neck, as the seconds feel like years. BOOM, all at once the doors exploded in a burning blaze fireball, the intense flames scorched the ground and set the tables ablaze while the shockwave sends everyone flying including the tables. Burning pieces of wood fall all over the ballroom while the guests begin to scream, the guns are knocked out of the soldiers hands while they struggle to come around and in the mist of all this chaos Mr. 4 burst through the smoke. It had been as he had planned, he calculated the odds of them waiting in ambush, which had been high so he placed several of his bombs on the door intending to stun them.

The soldiers having regained their sense of surroundings, reached to pull out their side arms, with the flick of his wrist and the release of his chain in his right hand Mr. 4 slashed twelve of them, opening several arteries on all of them. The remaining soldiers jumped to their feet and reached for their side arm, with the flick of his wrist and the release of his chain in his left hand Mr. 4 decapitates twelve of them. That just leaves one single military officer left in the whole complex. A young cadet fresh out of boot camp alone was able to get up and pull out his side arm and aim it at this creature of darkness.

His entire body trembles with unimaginable fear but in true Orb spirit he doesn't run away or back down, he opens fire on what he fears. Mr. 4 easily sidesteps the bullets and reaches the kid in a moment; he thrusts his right hand blade into the soldier's heart lifting him off the ground. The body spasms for a second then stops moving, for forever. Mr. 4 tosses the body away so the blood doesn't splatter on his cloak then eyes the stunned civilians. They're in shock witnessing one man take out twenty- five armed soldiers in less than a minute with ease, this is quickly fixed when Mr. 4 throws his chain straight into the face of one of the guests, making it all too clear that death isn't showing mercy or taking prisoners. Realizing this many of the guest scream as they all begin running in a mad panic trying to find an exit out of this room with this monster, but Mr. 4 had already calculated this behavior and placed himself directly in the path towards the only door out of this room. He remained standing in that one spot, manipulating his blade chains with the skill installed within thanks to the training. The chains rattled and the blades appeared to dance in the air to the screams of the people as they cut off heads, limbs and entire torsos. Mr. 4 moved at the same pace he had all night, not counting that one battle outside the ballroom, but to the guests he might as well have been a turtle reaper. Slowly killing them and reaping their souls.

Cagalli witnessed all of this from the back right hand corner of the room. She had originally wanted to go up front with the soldiers to fight but Sig the person in charge had forbidden it claiming that if she so much as got a scratch under his protection his bosses would have his head. She had humored the major and planned on coming to aid them once the battle had started but then she saw it. The figure dressed all in black had come in and killed them all before she could even blink an eye let alone move to help. Cagalli had thought she knew war, she thought she had seen the worst mankind could offer but she was wrong. This scene playing out before her was the worst thing she had ever seen, something straight from hell. Mobile suits fighting each other were nothing like this, seeing a faceless machine losing an arm or blow up meant little unless she knew the pilot beforehand but seeing beheadings, seeing limbs chopped off as blood gushed and sprayed everywhere. Hearing the horror filled screaming as people shouted out and begged for mercy or prayed to God to save them, she could smell the burning pieces of table and chairs still scattered around the ballroom and flesh as people ran into them. Only now did she realize she knew so little about ground warfare, even in desert dawn Kisaka had shielded her from battles such as this, oh how she wished he was here and not working at the military headquarters right now. The young woman wanted to look away, she wanted to shield her eyes but the fear was too much it froze her in place as the images burned into her mind. She could see the growing dark red pool slowly flow towards her until it touched her hand, startled by the still warm liquid she pulled her hand away but this distraction caused her to miss a beheaded body fall right on top of her. Blood still gushed out from the neck and rained down on her head, hair and face; Cagalli wanted to scream, puke, and do something but her mind was frozen, overwhelmed by the fear and then it was over.

Other than the crackling of burning wood, there was silence as the figure stood facing her. Mr. 4 was disappointed, he had let his emotions go to his head and influence his judgment, Cagalli had behaved exactly like the profile stated she would, without Kira, Athrun or Lacus to help face her fears she would cower. Still it was disappointing, which was not the emotion Mr. 4 wished to feel. Disappointment did not last long and already he could feel it slipping. "How…disappointing. Your soldiers fought heroically, passed the point of what one would consider duty. Some had even tried getting up to continue fighting me after I had severed their legs. As their leader I was expecting something…more from you. Yet there you cower, soaked in the blood of your people shaking like a little girl who wet her pants. Is this truly how you wish to meet death? Have you no dignity, have you no pride?"

He shook his head and sighed as he felt his disappointment begin to leave him like all of the other emotions. "I just don't see why soldiers as excellent as they were would follow you." Mr. 4 sighed and prepared to throw his blade finishing the job when to his surprise Cagalli Yula Athha stood up. "Why?"

A simple question out of many but then again he supposed it was the only one worth asking at this time and place. "To kill you." He replies coldly after a moment then charges her with blinding speed, his blade sinking into her chest. She flinched slightly as the cold blade pierce her chest; the figure pulled it back allowing her blood to pour out. In a matter of heartbeats Cagalli could feel her strength failing, her vision began to darken; she stumbled, trying to keep herself standing but failed. Cagalli fell to the floor and to the greatest irony she thought on top of one of the burning pieces of wood, for everything she had done to help the world the last thing she would feel from it was the flames scorching her chest and burning her flesh, she really was in hell.

The profile had been slightly wrong at least, it was not expected for her to get up and actually talk to him, then again he had influenced it by talking to her first so it proved nothing. Mr. 4 kicked his target's body over; her chest was slightly aflame due to her falling on one of the burning pieces of table. The flame was burning her clothes and flesh, Mr. 4 quickly beat it out with a couple of hits from a severed hand nearby. He had been given orders to keep as much of Cagalli's body intact as possible, an unusual request but he supposed it was because Ms. 3 wanted to show off to their client but he cared little for that. With the fire out he stood up and double checked the body to make sure Ms. 3 would not complain.

The fire had been contained to the chest and had only burned through some of the flesh in areas where the dress had burned away quickly; in his opinion the mission was a success. He picked up the body and threw it over his shoulder and walked out of the ballroom and back towards Alien. He deactivated the lock down and then commenced a system meltdown that would make gathering any data such as security footage useless. With that done he walked out of the mansion the same way he had come in and once he was far enough away he activated the high grade chemical explosives he had planted while massacring the soldiers outside the ballroom.

The mansion blew in a burning ball of yellow light, promising no DNA or forensic evidence would be found linking back to him. "When in doubt blow it up," was something his trainer used to say. The bunker was not designed to be attacked from the inside out and besides with the lock down mode turned off the bunker lost almost half of its resistance to explosions.

########

Location: Mr. 4's transportation vessel.

Mr. 4 stood next to a metal table in some kind of twisted medical room, the fallen princess laid on the table, almost like a display for the monitor which sat in front of her. The monitor blinked on revealing their client, Mr. Green. Upon seeing Cagalli his eyes widened in shock, he didn't actually think they could do it so quickly. "Is this Cagalli Yula Athha the girl you wanted killed?"

Ms. 3 normally did this kind of thing but she had ordered Mr.4 to contact Mr. Green the moment he had the body on the ship. Mr. Green regains his composure and replies evenly. "Yes, or a girl who looks exactly like her." Meer Cambell had proven that people weren't always who they appeared to be.

Mr. 4 goes over to the body, takes her finger and puts it on a finger print scanner, then pulls on her hair to show that it is attached to her head and cuts a lock off. He puts the lock of hair in a device attached to the wall and turns it on, the device starts humming. "The finger print, and DNA, is being sent to your computer to confirm for yourself that this is the real Cagalli Yula Athha."

"I see, well if everything checks out I will look forward to working with you again."

"You will not, you did us a favor and we have just repaid it, our relationship is over goodbye."

Mr. 4 hits a switch cutting off Mr. Green before he can protest. Just then a new person comes into the room clapping, he too wears a cloak with hood up but his is decorated with bones that don't appear to be fake. "HAHAHAHAHHA oh that was just great, did you see that look on his face?"

The new person countered Mr. 4's emotionless manner with a cruel twisted sense of humor, a comedian of death . "No nor do I care Mr. 6," Mr. 4 highly doubted Mr. 6 had been assigned to any mission near him, for some reason Mr. 6 liked to follow him around commenting on the way he accomplished his missions.

"So why didn't you just use poison to kill everyone in the mansion then walk in and take the body and then blow everyone sky high, I mean I like melee because I get to see them scream and squirm which is so FUNNY but you don't care about that stuff."

Mr. 4 shrugs his shoulders and said simply, "Because I wanted to." While Mr. 4 didn't feel emotion he still got impulses and instincts, like favoring his chain blades to guns in battle, there was no logical reason for it he just had an impulse that told him to go melee and he listen to it.
"HAHAHHAHAHA because I wanted to, listen to this guy." Suddenly Mr. 6 stops laughing; something was wrong, very wrong. "Did you see that hand twitch," Mr. 6 asked Mr. 4 as he walks over to Cagalli's hand and begins feeling for a pulse.

"Don't be stupid I stabbed her in the heart, she can't be alive." Mr. 6 looks up at Mr. 4 now very serious.

"Then how come I have a pulse?"

"WHAT!" Another emotion shot through Mr. 4, outrage, anger and pride. Not since his battle with 1 did Mr. 4 ever feel so many emotions at once. He walks over to Mr. 6 and grabs Cagalli's hand from him, checking for a pulse himself, Mr. 6 meanwhile goes to examine the wound on her chest. Mr. 4 slowly starts to shake his head as he too gets a faint pulse, Cagalli still lived, "I don't understand."

"It looks like you missed her heart by a millimeter."

Mr. 4 snaps back clearly angry, "Even if I did miss she should have bled out, I stabbed her over eight hours ago!" Mr. 6 walks over to a computer and sits down while Mr. 4 goes to examine the wound.

"Her wound's been cauterized but if it makes you feel any better it still counts as a kill since the wound is infected. She's still going to die it's just taking longer than you intended."
Cauterized, when the hell did she WAIT [wait for what?] when she fell on that burning piece of wood! Damn it I didn't think at the time to check the wound to make sure it was still open, she must have the freaking devil's luck. Mr. 4 had had enough, this was not a simple small miscalculation that he could pass off as being human; this was a large mistake, a screw up that he would not allow to exist any further. "I made a mistake, which I'm about to fix."

Mr. 4 raises his blade not caring about the slow death but wishing to end this blunder as quickly as possible when Mr. 6 cuts in. "You didn't make a mistake, she dodged your attack." Mr. 4 stops dead in his tracks and turns to look at Mr. 6; it was one thing after the other.

"That's about as likely as me making a mistake twice in a row." Mr. 6 gets out of the chair and gestures to the computer.

"Look for yourself; I copied the security footage before you blew up the bunker."

We see the footage; it's being shown frame by frame. We see Mr. 4 move, on the third frame is Mr. 4's short sword touching Cagalli's chest. On the fourth frame we see Cagalli move by a fraction before he actually penetrates her. They play it again as Mr. 4 takes this in, in silence. The FLINCH, at the time he hadn't thought anything about it since it wasn't uncommon for people to flinch just before he struck them but now when he did a mental rewind of the scene in his mind he realized that it wasn't a flinch at all but a subconscious dodge.

"There's no way she did that on purpose." A subconscious dodge on that level had meaning, it showed instincts and potential, both of the hooded figures thought so to themselves.
"It makes some sense, after all her brother is the pilot of the Freedom." There had been no hint whatsoever that Cagalli might possess this kind of potential so Mr. 6 was trying to come up with a logical reason for something that had come out of midair.

Mr. 4 on the other hand was not about to accept some half ass explanation. "He's also the ultimate coordinator; it's not even a stretch to say they don't have a single gene in common."

"Soooo what do you want to do, we could put her into a training program and if she survives add her to our ranks." Mr. 6 suggested, it wasn't his mission so he had no say in the final matter. Mr. 4 studies Cagalli for a moment and thought, none of their intel which was the best in the galaxy had suggested Cagalli might be capable of becoming as powerful as Mr. 4 yet that dodge suggested otherwise.

Potential like that was rare but it was something the organization sought for desperately but if he was to base his decision off the intel then it was just a fluke, dumb luck if you will. Then again this was not the first time the intelligence was wrong about her, it had said she would face death like a coward yet she had stood up and spoke to him, it had said she was incapable of a dodge like that yet she pulled it off. She still should have died yet she lives thanks to devil's luck. The profile was not correct; it was missing something, something that no one could see, a factor that no one knew about it. Still Mr. 4 was no fool, he could see her frail untrained body and knew that the training would kill her, she simply didn't have the physical requirements to survive it and besides he wasn't fully convinced, the profile was missing something important. She needed to be tested, to see if she had potential or the luck of the devil.

"We'll heal her wounds and then place her in Slyer. If she can stay alive for a month in that poor excuse of a prison; that will prove that she has some skill, and that the dodge wasn't a fluke. Then we'll erase her memories and start training her."

Mr. 6 looks at Mr. 4 slightly surprised and asks, "Isn't Slyer on Sora?"

"Your point?" Mr. 6 looks at him for a moment then smiles. "This is going to be interesting."