"Noin! We've got ten Leos heading straight for us! They're coming from somewhere near the Earth's south pole!" Quatre rotated his mobile suit away from the two Gundam pilots shaking hands in the vacuum of space and looked down at the Earth.

"What?" Noin turned her suit as well, switching the viewpoint of her screens. She sighed. "Actually, I'm not that surprised. We're in Oz space so, of course, they would be monitoring it. What's their ETA?"

"Three minutes and fifteen seconds."

Noin flicked the comm switch. "Hey, you two, we've got a little problem. Ten Leos looking for a fight."

The two pilots floating in space glanced at each other and immediately headed back into their Gundams. They both clicked onto the comm system at the same time.

"Origin?" Arys asked, her face coming up on Noin's comm screen.

"What's their ETA?" Heero's voice came on soon after Arys'.

"Earth's south pole." Noin waited for Arys' reaction. "And ETA's two minutes forty-six seconds."

Arys bowed her head and muttered something under her breath that the comm did not pick up. She tapped something on her console. "I've got it. Antarctic Outpost." She looked up at Noin. "You and Quatre head back to the Cinq Kingdom. Heero and I will cover you."

Noin nodded. "You think you two can handle it?"

Arys looked slightly amused. "If we can't handle ten Leos piloted by incompetent soldiers, then we shouldn't be Gundam pilots."

Noin laughed. "All right, Arys. You can have them. Quatre, we're going home. Arys and Heero get to blow these guys away."

"Acknowledged," Quatre replied.

The two Taurus suits changed to fighter form and blasted off, down into Earth's atmosphere.

As soon as Noin cut the transmission, Arys opened a direct channel to Heero. "You get all that, Heero?"

"Yes."

"Then, let's go."

The Silverwind and the Wing fired their thrusters simultaneously. They met the enemy right above the Earth's exosphere. Soon, they were surrounded by the ten Leos.

"Arys Walker. Heero Yuy. You will surrender your Gundams to Oz and you will be executed."

Arys fought the urge to laugh. "We don't have a choice, huh? Surrender and be executed? Whatever happened to 'Surrender or be executed?' Well," Arys narrowed her steel-gray eyes, studying the Leos' formation, "I choose neither."

She pulled out her rifle and aimed it at the leader. "You'd better surrender to us or you'll find yourself scattered across the exosphere in a million little pieces." She touched the button to activate the Zero System. She hated to waste it on these soldiers, but she needed to see how the system worked against a real enemy. The Oz soldiers in their Leos provided the perfect chance.

The Leo did not move from its position. The comm remained silent.

Arys felt the effects of the Zero System begin to take over her mind. Her emotions went cold as the ice glaciers of the North Pole. Feelings served only as a distraction during a battle, and distractions were what got many seasoned pilots killed in battle. Arys' focus centered on one thing and one thing only - the enemy.

Silverwind, use the beam sabers. The Silverwind reached up and replaced the rifle behind its shoulder.

"Heero, let's waste them." Her eyes flashed briefly as the Silverwind leaped forward, unsheathing its double beam sabers in a blaze of power.

_____________

The leader struggled to move out of the Silverwind's way, but the Gundam was not aiming for him. Instead, Arys attacked the Leo hovering to his right. The lead pilot watched in horror as his subordinate's mobile suit disintegrated into four pieces and exploded in a flowering bloom of orange and red. The pilot's death scream echoed through his mind. The leader gulped as a robotic foot floated by his mobile suit.

"Attack formation!" The lead pilot yelled into the comm. The other eight Leos immediately followed his orders. Four of them taking on each Gundam.

It was too late for one Leo though. Heero had already pulled out his buster rifle and blown another one of the mobile suits apart. The remains of the Leo drifted down into the Earth's atmosphere, glowing red with friction as they fell. Soon they would dissolve into nothing more than meteoric dust.

Heero's monotonic voice pierced the air in the lead pilot's cockpit. "You die last, lead pilot."

The Wing turned away from the leader to take on the last three Leos.

Lead punched his comm. "Homebase, this is Alpha One. We have two Gundams attacking. I have two Leos down. Request reinforcements."

"Alpha One, this is Homebase. Sending Alpha Two to your coordinates."

Lead leaned back in his seat with a sigh of relief. The reinforcements were coming in the form of twenty mobile dolls. Surely, they would be able to handle these two Gundams. Lead's comm suddenly clicked on.

"Sir! They're too strong! What do we do? Argghhh!" The pilot's voice was suddenly replaced by static.

"Three down," Lead whispered. "These Gundams are unstoppable! And we're dropping like flies." Lead raised his head, his eyes filled with resolve. "But we'll die fighting."

________________

"Too easy," Arys muttered to herself. The enemy was clear in her mind. She knew where each Leo's position was, she knew how and when they would attack, and she could see the pilots' frightened faces right before they died. Some part of her deep inside regretted their deaths, but her feelings had been shoved aside by the Zero System. She simply could not feel emotion.

Behind you.

Silverwind's message flashed into her mind instantly and in a millisecond, Arys responded by spinning around in a move that would have been impossible without the Zero System. The Silverwind's beam sabers came up in a defensive maneuver that blocked some rifle shots from a Leo. Then, the Silverwind dove forward, its beam sabers ready for another kill.

The Silverwind slashed its sabers through the Leo. It briefly staggered back drunkenly and then disappeared into a cloud of exploding gases. The Silverwind whirled around to impale another Leo on the tip of one of its beam sabers. The Gundam whipped the saber to the right, cleaving the damaged mobile suit in half, just in time to take the head off a Leo bearing down on it from behind.

Arys favored the headless suit with a grim smile before she destroyed it with a precise slice down the middle. The Leo split in half, its surface crackling with released energy. The Leo glowed blue for a second before exploding in a yellow ball of fire. The Silverwind jetted away to avoid the oncoming shockwave.

Mobile dolls detected. ETA: one minute.

Shiv rifle. Was that her thought or her Gundam's? Arys did not waste time trying to figure it out. She thumbed a button on her flight stick.

The Silverwind pulled out the modified Shiv rifle after sheathing its beam sabers. The Gundam drifted in space, the rifle aimed at the onslaught of mobile dolls. Arys charged the rifle to full power. Her glowing gray eyes narrowed to slits.

"Fools. All of them."

Arys patiently waited for the enemy.

____________________

Heero shot the arm off the remaining Leo with a blast from his buster rifle. The arm floated in space, the Leo's gun still attached to it. The Leo itself fell back, its arm socket filled with frayed wiring that shot off sparks of electricity.

"You Gundam pilots deserve to die!" Lead yelled.

Heero remained silent. He observed the Leo make a last-ditch attempt to pry its gun from the fingers of the detached arm. He let the Leo get a hold of the gun. He raised his buster rifle.

"Yes, we may deserve death, but so does everyone else who lives on Earth and in space."

"You're insane!"

Heero's voice remained impassive. "Everyone dies sooner or later. You, however, will die sooner."

He fired his buster rifle and a brilliant gold beam shot from the weapon. The energy beam slammed into the Leo's chest, boring a hole through it. Heero fired again, taking off the Leo's other arm. He began to laugh, hysterically. It was a laugh not filled with genuine mirth, but with borderline insanity.

Heero managed to get himself under control long enough to level his rifle at the Leo again.

"You are not a worthy enemy."

Heero fired the rifle and the Leo dissolved in a wash of destructive energy. He spun away from the exploding Leo to come up beside the waiting Silverwind. He noticed that it held its Shiv rifle at the ready, aiming down toward Earth.

"Heero, mobile dolls," Arys said. "Twenty of them."

"Hmm..." Heero said.

"How much power do you have left in your buster rifle?"

Heero checked the gauge on his console. "Enough for one high-powered shot."

"Charge it. We'll take out as many of them as we can with a double shot."

Heero immediately charged up his buster rifle. The gauge drained to zero. He glanced at his radar. It beeped at him, signaling that the enemy was within attacking range.

"Here they come."

Twin wide-width gold beams flared from the barrels of the buster rifles of the Wing and the Silverwind. The fatal energy flowed over the approaching mobile dolls. Many of them exploded in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics on contact, but a few of the ones following behind survived the blast.

"Seven left," Arys said. "Use your beam sabers."

Heero was not sure if Arys was speaking to him or to her Gundam, but then he realized that she was speaking to both of them. He put away his now useless buster rifle and pulled out his beam saber again. Arys took out her own double blades and crossed them in front of the Silverwind, forming an X in front of the Silverwind's face. The sight of the two Gundams holding beam sabers would probably have frightened a human pilot but the mobile dolls were soulless. They knew no fear.

The Silverwind flew forward, Arys yelling a challenge to the computer-controlled mobile suits. The Silverwind drove its sabers through two mobile dolls at the same time. The dolls both managed to get off a few shots at the Gundam before floating off, split in half.

Arys did not bother to stay and watch them blow up. She blasted away, to take on one mobile doll. It aimed its gun at her, firing, the red light on its triangular head blinking unfeelingly. Arys dodged the incoming beams and came down on top of the doll.

"You are useless." Arys swung her sabers down in a sweeping arc onto the doll's shoulders.

The doll stayed in one piece for only a few moments before drifting apart like sliced bread. One arm twitched involuntarily, firing a few harmless stray shots. Then, the doll was enveloped in an orange plume of fire, just as all the others had been.

Arys flew off again, watching Heero take out the remaining four mobile dolls with a few slashes from his green beam saber. Arys switched off the Zero System and sighed with relief as her emotions slowly began to return to her. She rubbed her arms, trying to rub some warmth into them. She always felt cold after using the Zero System. She had yet to figure out why. Arys silently drifted in space as Heero approached her after defeating the mobile dolls. He was indeed a fighter, and he was not even using a Zero System. Arys did not want to think of how Heero fought while using the Zero System. He was probably practically unstoppable.

"That was too easy," Heero observed, his bowed head appearing on the Silverwind's comm screen.

Arys looked around at the screens in her cockpit. Debris from the enemy mobile suits floated in space in all of the screens. Every single enemy had been destroyed and soon their remains would be nothing more than shooting stars in the Earth's atmosphere for some stargazer to enjoy.

"Yes, it was," Arys said as she had the Silverwind put its beam sabers away.

Those were unpiloted mobile suits, Arys. Silverwind spoke into her mind.

Arys reached over and switched off her comm system. "I know. They were controlled by computers. They're called mobile dolls."

They were the enemy?

That was when Arys realized that Silverwind had fought the mobile dolls only because she had them associated as the enemy in her mind. Arys bowed her head. "Yes, they were."

All mobile dolls are the enemy?

"Yes." Only Oz used mobile dolls in battles. Arys figured it was a safe assumption.

Saving in databank.

"Sure, that's fine, Silverwind." Arys briefly wondered if Silverwind seeing mobile dolls as the enemy for itself would speed up her reaction time any. It probably would. She would have to try a simulation when she got back to the Cinq Kingdom.

The comm system clicked back on. "Arys? What's happening over there?" Heero almost sounded worried.

"Nothing's wrong, Heero. I was just talking to Silverwind."

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. You talk to your Gundam." Heero's voice was sarcastic.

"Doesn't everybody?"

Heero was quiet for a few moments. "Yes, I guess so."

Both pilots were silent, then Arys turned around to view the Earth. "I was right. The Earth does look beautiful from outer space. So peaceful."

"It does look peaceful, but underneath the peace, lies the threat of a war that has already begun, in outer space."

"The Earth itself has done nothing against the colonies. It was Oz who began this war. When Oz is destroyed, the war will end."

"Perhaps. But human nature is corrupt. There will always be war."

"So when Oz is destroyed, another war will begin. The balance of power. Empires rise and empires fall. And innocent people die. It is a vicious circle." Arys studied the Earth as it slowly rotated beneath them.

"Indeed it is," Heero said, observing the faraway look in Arys' eyes.

"Is it worth trying to stop the circle, Heero? Humans can only do so much." Arys lowered her eyes to look at Heero on the comm screen.

"No, it probably isn't worth trying, but we have to try anyway. We have to stand up for what we believe in."

"And what are those beliefs, Heero?"

"Oz, the Romefeller Foundation, and anyone else who dares to try to establish a tyrannical rule should be destroyed. Earth and the colonies must strive to coexist, neither trying to take over the other. The people should be allowed to live in peace, go on with their lives without the worry of being killed."

"That's utopia, Heero. It's impossible to achieve."

"But we can't be blamed for trying."

"I suppose you're right." Arys sighed. "I just feel as if there's something more out there... Something more to believe in than universal peace. I just haven't found it yet. I don't even know what it is."

Heero remained silent, realizing that Arys just needed to talk to someone. He happened to be the only one available at the moment. He did not mind being a sounding board for a few minutes. But Arys had other ideas.

Arys shook her head. "Let's get back, Heero. Quatre and Noin are probably wondering if we're dead."

"They know us better than that, Arys. They're probably drinking tea right now, talking out how we defeated the enemy."

Arys had to laugh, the picture was too funny. "You're right."

The two Gundams transformed into fighter mode and fired their afterburners. They vanished into the whirling atmosphere, the white-hot flame trailing them blending in with the clouds.

________________

Seemingly out of the stars, a dark figure coalesced a few kilometers away from where the Silverwind and the Wing had defeated the Oz mobile suits. It raised its midnight bat-like wings slightly and jetted forward until it drifted amongst the debris.

"Whoa! Talk about a debris field!" Duo exclaimed to himself as he batted away a robotic hand. It disintegrated as soon as he hit it.

"A girl was piloting that other Gundam?" Duo said aloud.

He flicked a switch on his console. He noticed the destination of the two other Gundams. He smiled. "I think it's time to pay a visit to the Cinq Kingdom for a little bit. And maybe I can get Heero to help me do a little bit of repair work on my Gundam while I'm there. Provided he doesn't steal any of my parts again."

A red light blinked on his console. An incoming transmission. Duo tapped the receiver. Hilde's face appeared on the screen.

"Hey, Duo!"

Duo grinned from ear to ear. "Hiya, Hilde! What's up?"

Hilde pushed back her beret, revealing her sparkling brown eyes. "Remember that mission you gave me? Well, I completed it!"

"Good girl! You found Trowa?" Duo leaned closer to the screen.

"Yup, he's working at a circus here in town. But he doesn't remember anything, Duo." Hilde frowned sadly. "Not you, not his Gundam, none of the other Gundam pilots. And Catherine doesn't want him to remember."

"Hold on just one second! Who's Catherine?"

"She's really good friends with Trowa and doesn't want him fighting anymore. She's known him for a long time." Hilde paused. "Catherine's a knife thrower in the circus and she uses Trowa in her act."

Duo chuckled. "Boy, if a girl like that had me up against a wall, I wouldn't want to remember the past either!"

Hilde's brown eyes laughed along with him. "So how's your search for Quatre going?"

Duo smiled. "Well, I think I just may have hit the jackpot, Hilde. I found the Wing battling some Oz mobile suits right above Earth." He didn't tell her about the other Gundam. "Maybe Heero can tell us something about where Quatre is. Once I find Quatre, I'm dragging him over there to knock some sense into Trowa."

Hilde laughed. "You would, Duo. Get going. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Right." Duo cut the transmission. He stretched his arms above his head. "What a great girl!"

Duo lowered his arms and tapped the console. "Time for the Great Destroyer to make an appearance on Earth!" He rested his hands on the control sticks beside his pilot chair and pushed them forward.

The Deathscythe's wings folded close to its back and dove into the atmosphere.

Author's notes: Boy, this chapter was just action, wasn't it? Except for that little part near the end where Arys and Heero actually have a serious conversation. It might take me awhile to get Duo down right. So if he doesn't sound quite like himself, well, just give me some time and I'm sure I'll get him right soon. I should warn you now. Duo won't be cussing any in this story. :-)

Teaser for Chapter 6: Duo and Arys meet and instantly become friends. Hey, they're both Americans. Arys and Relena take a trip to see the Romefeller Foundation, but both go for very different reasons. Relena basically disowns her brother and Arys is interrogated by Romefeller officials. Afterwards, she remembers nothing about it and thinks that she was just given a tour of the Romefeller Foundation building. Talk about memory loss. Heero tries to take on the Romefeller Foundation's attack force at Luxembourg by himself and fails. But in the process, he acquires the Epyon from Treize.