The door opened and the head engineer walked in to find two unknown men talking to each other in the far corner of the room. Well, great. The entire organisation's most powerful man is standing in my humble little office. I could wet myself right now.

"Excellent," the man in the grey suit jabbed a cigar into the air for emphasis, then spoke to the other man again, who was in some kind of Federation uniform," So their production has gone up to a hundred thousand?"

The Federation officer nodded.

"Good, as long as Richter continues his work up there as well, we should..." the blue eyes strayed towards the head engineer, who suddenly felt very uncomfortable. The man in the grey suit, the president of his organisation, Raye Harzen, dismissed the federation officer with a wave of his hand and snubbed the cigar onto the ashtray on the table. Then he beckoned the head engineer over.

Loosening his collar slightly with one finger, the head engineer tried to walk briskly over and offered a weak salute.

"Salutes are for them," President Harzen tilted his head towards the leaving federation officer, before continuing," So, how's the recovered gundams?"

Oh, so that was why he was here, the head engineer thought, while feverishly turning and flipping over files clattered over the table to get to the important documents. "Uh, President, sir. The Airmaster Burst was in real bad shape, with a leg and the cockpit totally destroyed. Because the cockit was blasted open by a beam shot, all the computers and data were lost, so we were unable to retrieve anything of value. Even the upgraded configuration itself had only extra armour and-"

The blue eyes looking at him suddenly turned steel cold, and the head engineer immediately knew he had done something wrong. The president was not renowned for his patience. "The GX? How about the GX, Mr Engineer?"

"The GX, sir? Oh, right! Yeah, the other one we got back here. It appears to be heavily remodified externally and the satellite cannon was ripped off-"

"What I want to know." Soft and dangerous.

"It's not there, sir. Apparently, someone manually erased the data from the hard drives."

Just as he had guessed, Raye Harzen fiddled with the thought of lighting another cigar, Jamil Neate had removed the most important data from Garrod's gundam X. They should not have had given the old DX to the New Federation, which enabled Jamil to know that the Newtype's brainwaves can be recorded in the gundam's cockpit. Well, no big problem. Luckily, he had prepared a little backup plan in all these. "Nevermind, we still have gundam TX."

"Sir? But I thought it still cannot fire its satellite cannon. And it's now in the hands of some kid."

"And, it's also very poorly built. It has got to be one of the lower quality gundams we have produced, too." Raye smiled.

"Why, sir?"

"Because," this was one of the things Raye loved to do, telling others he had thought of things they hadn't," All we need is Tiffa Adill's brainwaves. That is the reason TX was built. To obtain her brainwaves. No need to enhance it any further. We have got more powerful gundams as it is."

* * *

When Jamil Neate came to, he found himself lying on the distorted steel floor. It was so hot that his skin burned upon contact with anythig metallic, and the clothes on his back were burned off and the flesh was toasting. The stench of burning meat and plastic filled the entire bidge, and the screens were cracked away so he could actually see the outside. Ignoring the pain on his back, Jamil staggered over to the rest of the crew, who were all unconcious and badly burned. "Sala!" he turned her over and saw the wide, deep gash on her side. No!

To his surprise, the comms at his seat beeped, and Jamil hurriedly went over and answered it. "Techcs!" A badly shakened Techcs Farzenbarg was rubbing his bruised head, screaming about something, but the voice transmission module was apparently not working. At least he was alright, Jamil thanked God, then flipped the switch over to the hangar. People were running all over the place, catering to the wounded or stopping fire from spreading fro different locations. How did we survive that?

A blast of hot air stinged his back, and Jamil turned around to stare at the opening in the screens, which led directly to the outside. He stumbled over some debris while approaching it, then stuck his head into the night. The gundam Raiden was standing there motionless, cannons no longer glowing, looking towards them, silently. Lowering his head, Jamil realised that he was still wearing his cracked sunglasses and dropped them, then discovered a huge, twisted metallic body under him. It was charred and smoking.

"Witz!" A dizzy Toniya Malme stood beside him, clutching her bleeding head and screaming at the melted Cypher. Tears streamed down her burned cheeks and turned into steam when they reached the red-hot metal.

The second stream of energy was much weaker than the first. There was no way anything could fire off two streams as powerful as the first without using the satellite cannon, in so short a time. The second blast was also most probably the last, seeing as to how the cannons are not glowing anymore. However, the Raiden pilot was right, the Freeden IV had no way of surviving even the second blast, if not for Cypher coming in at the last moment and shielding the bridge. Luckily, because the bridge was at the centre of the front of the Freeden IV, and the blast from Raiden came in two separate streams (two cannons), so the bridge was caught in the middle of the two streams and received the lesser of the damage. (Though more of the accumulated heat) Further more, the hospital section and the hangar was also placed in the middle sections of the ship, behind the bridge. (After the Olba abduction incident in Freeden I, the hospital section of Freeden IV was deep in the middle. Even though the hangar consisted of the entire back section in the Freeden, the Freeden IV was much larger and it took only the middle section.) However, the sides of Freeden IV were totally blown away and its engines and generators were nothing but metal scraps left. In truth, only 30% of the ship survived, with lots of casualties and deaths, and the entire ship was inoperational.

The ground trembled, and Jamil held on to a railing by his side to steady himself. He looked up from the charred remains of Cypher and stared at the large blackened chest of Gundam Raiden, which had now stepped in front of the downed ship, supposedly to destroy the rest of the ship, even though it had no noticeable weapons left. But then, it doesn't take much to do so at this stage.

* * *

"Come on....come on.... Yes!" Garrod Ran wiped his sweating brow with his left sleeve while pulling the thrust lever all the way down with his right. Even so, he was appalled at the speed of this semi-finished gundam. He had driven GX and DX before and even they were much, much speedier. This was so damned slow, only about moderately faster than the 'ol Leopard.

The grey metallic gundam (if it's still considered one, grumbled Garrod) skidded heavily on the desert sand, no heavier than the GX. Armour was not fitted onto it yet, and the gears and large cables can still be seen on its arms, chest and legs. As the Alpha rounded the Freeden IV (will some difficulty), Garrod finally saw the enemy. It's gonna be tough even with the GX, he laid back on his seat, staring at the giant of a gundam lumbering slowly towards the ship. I wonder how this little tin can with legs can deal with it.

"Argghh!" Garrod shook his head furiously to the sides, flinging dark green hair all over the place, "Concentrate!" Forget about the odds, didn't he win Caris before!? Hand unconsciously straying to the weapons trigger, Garrod stayed hidden by the side of Freeden IV, bidding his time.

And it came, just when the enemy gundam was standing directly in front of the bridge. The Alpha quickly ran to its left, away from the side of the ship. Because its view was obstructed by the bridge, as it was standing too close, the narrowed angle of sight prevented the enemy from noticing that the Alpha had ran out of its hiding place. Facing the enemy gundam, the Alpha slided to a stop, bent down, then lept into the air, firing its boosters to give it that extra lift over and behind the giant. All without it knowing, and in a matter of seconds, too.

Sometimes, Garrod beamed, I am so proud of myself. Happily, his fingers flicked the switches and the Alpha pulled a beam saber from its back, then stabbed beneath the left shoulder of the enemy gundam. Garrod was aiming for where he though the gears of the left arm connect to the main body. There was no way this giant can go down in one hit, so he need to injure strategically. Cripple the enemy's ability to fight, and you have nothing to worry about. The gigantic gundam suddenly turned at a dizzying speed and slammed its right arm full-on into the chest of the Alpha. The force of impact was so great that it threw the tin can fifty metres to the back, and the screens in the cockpit fizzed out just as it hit the ground.

"Crap!" Garrod screamed in panic and started flipping switches at a frenzied rate. God, don't give up on me now...

* * *

"Faster! Move it!" Toniya Malme, hands gripping tightly on the bars on the stretcher, ran faster than any of the paramedics by her side. Her vision was fast fading and her head hurt like hell, but none of these were anything compared to what will happen if Witz died. It was only after the stretcher reached the emergency room that she finally let go of her hands unwillingly, white with over-exertion. As Techcs, the resident physician rushes by, she grabbed hold of his sleeve," Will he make it?"

Techcs Farzenbarg took one look at the unconscious Witz Sou, then brushed past her, straight into the operating room. "Hey, hey!" Toniya shouted weakly," I'm talking to you!" A hand on her shoulder led her to turn around and see Jamil Neate. "Captain..." she collapsed into his arms, her spinning head finally getting the better of her. Witz Sou mustn't die, she still cannot accept that yet. Not after all they have been through. And she still haven't told the man what he wanted to hear.

"You should go to the sick bay and lie down for a while." Jamil adviced, noticing the blood that was dripping off her head and onto the floor.

"No. I want to wait here."

* * *

"Alright!" The screens sparked back on and Garrod Ran silently thanked the Man upstairs. The Alpha got back up to its feet (with some difficulty) and withdrew another beam saber from its back. "Okay, who wants some of this?" He waved the beam saber around menacingly, looking for the enemy. Wait a sec...

Where is the enemy?

Something white glinted on the top of the valley, and Garrod saw a shadow standing with the Moon behind it. He blinked his eyes, then activated the zoom function on the camera. This can't be- it's DX! But, how can this be!?

Still, reality was undeniable. The MS standing on the top of the valley sported the gundam-ish face and two long cannons strapped to its back. Even though the body shape resembled the GX's and several things looked different, it is still the DX. And it is standing in front of the Moon.

Is there any end to this? Garrod wondered, they just keep coming, one after another. The Airmaster, the giant, and now another DX... He suddenly felt an irresistible urge for a satellite cannon again. If for nothing more than to blow the hell out of these idiots. Just as he was in the midst of fantasizing, a flash of light threw him back into reality. He had unconsciously blocked a beam saber move by the mysterious DX with his own. What? Why didn't it use its satellite cannon? Garrod seriously pondered this question, all the time dodging and blocking the wild swings and slashes of the supposedly-superior (in terms of mecha ability) attacker.

He's an idiot? Maybe.

He doesn't know that he can use the satellite cannon? Unlikely.

He's an idiot? May- wait a sec. I thought about this before.

Hmmm... That's right! Garrod snapped his fingers at the sudden burst of intelligence. This pilot is not a NewType! Then he remembered his own GX. Garrod was not a NewType too, but Tifa got him the authorisation needed to run the satellite cannon anyway. He tried to recall what Shagia Frost said. Something about... the satellite system destroyed! That's right. But, if that is so, how did the giant fire off two blasts each with the power of a satellite cannon?

"Arrghh!" His brain overloaded at this rare occasion of thinking. Forget it all, I'll leave it all to Tifa and Jamil to figure it out later. Right now, he looked over the exhausted DX-lookalike, I'm taking you down. Unrivalled in the art of beam saber fighting, Garrod Ran now adopted an attacking stance. No more playing. The other pilot also seemed to sense this, and raised his own beam saber.

Just when the DX was moving forward, about to strike, two red bolts cratered the ground in front of the DX, causing it to leap backwards in surprise, lose balance, and fall onto the ground. Garrod had to restraint himself from slapping his own forehead in frustration at the pilot's pathetic skills.

"Hey there, tin can!" the unmistakenable shrill voice of Paula Cis cut through the cold night air. Her G-Falcon appeared over the horizon.

"Paula! But, what are you doing here?"

"Back for a vacation. Don't you miss me?" She pouted.

The DX got up quickly and stared for a while at the red craft approaching them, then turned and thrusted at full speed towards Garrod.

"Hold on a minute there, will you?" Garrod noticed the incoming MS and parried with his own beam saber.

A few exchanges were made, until the DX kicked the Alpha down onto the ground, and moved in for the final blow. However, it jerked to a stop just a few metres away from him, retreating slowly backwards with its saber raised. Garrod turned his head to see a huge, white mobile suit standing behind him. It was Lancerow Dawell.

"Quit fooling around." Lancerow scolded.

"Fooling a-" His angry retaliations were interrupted by the ever-annoying chirping noise from the communications module. He flipped the switch impatiently and came face to face with a bandaged and tired Jamil.

"Jamil! Nice to see that you're fine." Garrod exclaimed.

"Garrod, Witz Sou is dead."

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