In the year After Colony 200, humanity’s age long curiosity to discover life beyond the Earth was answered. Aelan Marcus and Kiron Gorrs came from the distant planet of Eden to observe humanity, and with the orders to destroy humans if they became a threat.
Their mission was to undertake several unexpected turns, as the people of Earth proved to be more cunning and resourceful than even the wisest of Eden had imagined. Now the battle to save humanity begins in earnest, a battle that could alter the course of the galaxy itself…
"Are you sure you don’t want the Virgo MD’s?" Miliardo Peacecraft asked.
Advisor Kiron shook his head, "At our final destination, one LEO would be enough to suffice. For the missions here on Earth, we’ll need them, but afterwards, they can be scrap for all I care. As a matter of fact, once on Eden, we will be able to completely abandon the forces we have acquired."
"The Mobile Dolls do have some incredible advantages to manned suits. I think it is foolhardy to believe that they will not be of use, especially since it’s highly likely to anticipate a counterattack if your preemptive strike is not effective."
Kiron stared at the human, marveling at how stupid they could be sometimes. "If our plan to exterminate Aelan fails, then the Mobile Dolls are definitely out of the question."
"What do you mean?" Miliardo queried.
"Aelan was one the finest tech engineers in all of Eden before he was promoted to a Tenant. If you don’t think that given five minutes, he could come up with 30 ways to either disable or even use the Mobile Dolls against us, YOU are the fool."
"I understand. It is easy to forget that on an intelligence standpoint, Edenites far outweigh humankind."
"Considering all the playing down that Aelan and I used, I suppose that it IS easy to forget. Try not to forget again."
North Am, Advisor Offices
"Heero!" Duo shouted out as Heero and Relena stepped inside Aelan’s Advisor Offices. "What were you two up to on Eden? Come on, the two of you, alone, in the dark… come on… what’s the scoop?"
Duo stared at Heero, hoping for some sort of reaction.
Heero smiled. Broadly.
Duo shook his head, and rubbed his eyes. When he focused on Heero again, the smile was gone. ‘I really gotta switch to decaf, I’m beginning to see things.’ Duo thought.
"Duo, our experience was disturbing at best." Relena chided, "I don’t appreciate you making jest out of our ordeal." She led Heero away, Duo’s head following the couple as they passed.
Just as Heero was about to pass Duo’s line of vision, Duo could have sworn that Heero stuck his tongue out at Duo, but as Deathscythe’s pilot turned his body to get a better look, Heero was facing away from him once again, but Heero was also holding Relena’s hand.
"What the hell…?" Duo said, flabbergasted. All of a sudden, his face brightened. "Wait… Heero and Relena hooked up! Oh YEAH! WUFEI, open your wallet, buddy! You owe me 30 creds!"
Noin knew that talking to Aelan could at times seem like talking to a wall. Sometimes, though, she swore that a wall had more of a chance at replying. This was one of those times.
"Well, so far, there doesn’t appear to be any sort of activity from deep space. We haven’t detected any folds that would suggest that Eden is planning anything." Noin explained, while Aelan continued to diligently focus on his terminal.
"It is possible that the Tenant Council had already set up safeguards to make sure their rookie Tenant did the job he was supposed to do. I think that you should be careful." Noin continued but with still no response.
Noin pursed her lips, then finished, "By the way, I fully intend to strip naked, and dance in this pool of chocolate pudding I had put here while you were working."
"I highly doubt that you would be able to get enough chocolate pudding through that door without me noticing, Lucrezia." Aelan finally replied.
"So you ARE listening." Noin smirked, but Aelan had already went back to working on his terminal.
Finally, curiosity overcame the Admiral. "What is so entertaining on that terminal that you won’t even make eye contact with me?" As she began to walk around Aelan’s desk, he turned the terminal so that once again, the screen was out of her line of vision.
"Aelan, what are you being so secretive about?" Noin sighed in exasperation.
Aelan looked up at her. Now that he had taken out the colored contacts he had used as part of his disguise, his bright orange eyes seemed to burn into her soul deeper than they had before. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes." Noin answered confidently.
With a defeated breath, Aelan turned the monitor back around so that Noin could see the project on the screen. "You cannot tell a soul about this… yet."
Two days later…
"Are you sure that you don’t want to come for a walk with me?" Heero asked, "It’s not going to be this beautiful when winter starts to set in."
"I said that I’d join you later!" Relena repeated, "I do need to talk to Aelan first. I’ll meet you at the Centennial Memorial."
Heero leaned over and kissed her gently, pulling away with a giant smile plastered onto his face, "I’ll be waiting." With that, he slowly walked away, but not before looking back at Relena twice. She shooed him on, then started to turn back inside the offices.
‘If one thing good had come out of our time in Hell was that Heero had changed greatly, and for the better.’ Relena mused. ‘Remembering what it was like to be totally alone had seemed to make him a lot more willing to embrace his life, and everything he had. Including me…’ She said with a giant smirk.
Just outside the office, hidden behind the row of shrubs, were two figures. As the romantic couple split ways, and were finally out of earshot, one of them hissed, "Of all the heaven’s injustices! How could such a heart of stone bleed?"
"Pay up, Wufei!" The other demanded, "You saw it for yourself."
Reaching into his wallet, Wufei pulled out several neatly folded credit notes. "What god has decided that he shall drive me into poverty?"
"I don’t know, my dear man." Duo said cheerfully, "But I’ll be saying my prayers tonight, I assure you."
"I’m sorry, Madame, but Advisor Aelan is not in his office." Aelan’s secretary said meekly, somewhat embarrassed. The poor young lady obviously didn’t like saying ‘no’ to a high dignitary.
Relena wasn’t upset, however. ‘He’s probably down in the suit bay.’ She thought. With a smile, she said, "Very, well. I’ll just wait for him in the offices." She walked by the secretary, and once out of view, she took a quick left, which led to a stairwell, which eventually led to the hangars for the Gundam pilots.
Relena had noticed that the Advisor to North Am had been spending a lot of his time in the hangars. She assumed that he was preparing for what he had called an ‘inevitable strike’ from Eden. "It’s amazing that not even a world with no weapons can truly have peace…" Relena muttered to herself.
That was one part about her trip to Hell and back that she wasn’t enthused over. True, she liked Heero paying more attention to her, but Eden seemed to totally defy everything she had been taught. "Am I really striving for an unattainable goal? If a race like the Edenites couldn’t do it, what makes me think that humanity can?"
She remembered Aelan trying to explain it. He had claimed that Eden wasn’t necessarily a model case. He admitted that most Edenites were, and likely still are, VERY warlike, something that Eden’s early history did seem to support. It is only the iron fist of the Tenant Council, and the threat of punishment in Hell that keeps them in line.
However, that brought up another set of problems in Relena’s mind. Is the only way to attain peace by bringing down the oppressive hand that she had railed against since her childhood?
Before she knew it, Relena was in the hangar. The lack of activity seemed startling at first, but she realized that the pilots were most likely enjoying themselves like Heero was. Speaking of Heero, she decided she had to find Aelan fast, before Heero started to get worried.
As she walked through the hangar, she finally heard a pair of voices. They belonged to a pair of the suit techs that Aelan had hired three days ago. Listening intently, she was able to pick up on their conversation.
"Who would have thought that forging Durium was so simple?" One of them asked. "A specific supersonic frequency makes the stuff melt like ice!"
"No kiddin’. Why doesn’t he want the whole damn thing made out of the stuff?" The other shot back.
"Supposedly, even when forged, Durium alloy still is affected by that frequency. That’s why he wanted the main body and frame with the Gundanium alloy. Then just add the Durium as extra armoring."
Relena stepped to the side as the techs walked by. They were so engrossed in their discussion that they didn’t even realize that she was there. Relena peeked around the corner they had appeared from, and noticed a small open door at the end of the hangar; a door she had not known was there.
Relena quietly strode to the door. She leaned across the half open door, and looked inside. The scene nearly made her shout in surprise.
On the other side of the simple wooden office door was an entirely new hangar. Aelan was at ground level, looking over a console. Right in the center was a large, golden colored mobile suit. She didn’t know much about suits, but she could only guess that it was either complete, or very close to it.
"How could he have done all that in three days? Even with all the techs he had hired? He must have had these plans in the works for a while, like he knew that he was going to have problems with Eden…"
Suddenly, a large explosion rocked the hangar bays, slamming the hangar door shut, and throwing Relena against the hangar wall. Several more explosions followed, causing paneling and support beams to fall from the ceiling.
From the other side of the hangar, she watched Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and Wufei (in that order) bolt down the hangar steps, jumping nimbly away from the falling debris. As she watched them board their Gundams, and fly past the hangar doors above as the panels opened before them, she noticed that Heero had not been with them, and Wing Zero still remaining in its hangar, unmanned.
Relena fell backwards as another blast rocked the facility above, dropping a large I-beam on Heero’s Gundam.
"I can’t let something so valuable to Heero be destroyed…" Relena admitted, "Even if it IS a weapon." With a deep breath, she rushed down the hangar bay, and climbed the ladder up to the cockpit of Wing Zero…
Heero quickly pulled the scared child out of the strewn piece of metal that was once a jungle gym. The sudden attack on New Richmond took everyone off guard. Why hadn’t the sensor arrays from the colonies caught such a regiment of suits forming an attack?
As he saw that the enemy units seemed to be focusing on the Advisor offices, it all clicked. "Unless the colonies were in on the attack…" Heero hissed, and quickly rushed off to the battle scene. Most likely the other Gundams were scrambled already, and he wanted to get back in time to help.
However, once he arrived, he watched Wing Zero emerge from the hangar bay. "What in hell is going on? Who is piloting…" He fumed as he watched the evacuation of the offices, then noticed Relena wasn’t with them.
He quickly grabbed Aelan’s secretary by the arm, and demanded, "Where is Relena? Is she still in there?"
"She was looking for Aelan." The young woman panted, "She said she was going to wait in the offices, but knowing that Aelan has been spending a lot of time in the hangars, she might have went down there…"
Heero looked back up at Wing Zero, and the other Gundams engaged in battle. "Oh, God… no…"
Relena had never piloted a mobile suit before, so she was quite pleasantly surprised that she was able to handle the thing rather well. She was no Heero, but it seemed like second nature as she lifted off out of the hangar.
She remembered Heero explaining how the Zero System enhanced the abilities of the pilot to levels they couldn’t reach on their own. ‘Could the Zero system be making up for my inexperience somehow?’ She pondered.
Once clear of the hangar, Relena started looking for a safe place to land. As she scanned the surrounding area, she noticed the blips of enemy mobile suits on the sensor screen.
"Virgo Mobile Dolls." Relena commented, "Even I could take those things out with Wing Zero here…. WHAT ON EARTH AM I SAYING? I can’t fight… I’m a pacifist… but I could take out those things, if I wanted to… AND I DON’T!"
Relena found herself arguing, with herself. There was a part of her that wanted to attack, to destroy those suits for what they were doing, but her logical mind was equally adamant that it was out of the question. "I’LL BE STARTING A WAR! Or will I? I’ll just be ending a battle that THEY started."
"I CAN’T ATTAIN PEACE THIS WAY! But… isn’t peace already out of the question? They already destroyed the peace I desire. And for that… THEY WILL PAY!"
Trowa watched Wing Zero emerge from the hangars, and he nodded. "Nice of you to join us, Heero…" Trowa said to himself, as he engaged two of the enemy mobile dolls that were trying to attack the evacuating citizens.
For a moment, Wing Zero just stood there, as if trying to understand the situation, which caused Trowa to show some concern. Usually Heero didn’t have to think very long before acting in battle. Such trepidation was very uncharacteristic of Wing Zero’s pilot. However, Trowa had noticed that Heero was quite different since escaping from his ordeals on Eden.
Finally, Wing Zero moved into the fray, quickly removing two of the enemy suits. However, there was none of the usual finesse that Heero was known to show. His ability to maneuver and dodge was almost unequaled. Wing Zero was winning on pure power alone, a trait that Trowa knew Heero tried to avoid, never utilizing more power than necessary. Yet, Trowa watched Heero blast ONE Virgo with his twin buster cannon, a definite waste of such a weapon.
"It’s like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, like a novice." Trowa commented, trying to understand what the deal was. Then, looking back down to the ground, he saw… Heero?
"If that’s Heero, who’s piloting Wing Zero?"
"My enemies are those who destroy peace!" Relena shouted, nearly in a maddened froth, "AND I WILL DESTROY ALL OF THEM!" With a swipe of a beam sabre, Wing Zero obliterated the last mobile doll.
From there, she turned around, surveying the battlefield. All that remained were the Gundams. "How many people and cities did they destroy?" Relena hissed, "They are no better than those Virgos I destroyed. Friends or not, I must destroy them in the name of peace!"
However, as Wing Zero began to move, another blip appeared on her sensor array. Turning in the direction of the blip, Relena saw the golden suit that she saw in the hangar hovering over its launch point.
"RELENA!" Aelan shouted, "STOP THIS!" It became quite apparent that Aelan was operating the mysterious golden suit. "It’s the Zero system, Relena! It’s warping your mind and logical thought."
"Actually, I don’t think I’ve thought clearer. It’s so simple! If I destroy all who fight, no one will!"
Meanwhile, Aelan continued to try to keep Relena talking, while his fingers flew across the console on his left-hand side. With just a few more seconds, he could tap into Wing Zero’s command matrix, and disable the Zero System.
"Relena, listen to me, you don’t want this, and you know it." Aelan said.
"YES I DO!" Relena screamed in reply, "AND I WILL DO IT!" As Wing Zero began to thrust forward, straight at Aelan, beam sabre preparing to slice downward, Aelan hit the final button needed to deactivate the Zero System.
He watched as the suit slowed its assault, then finally stopped, "What have I done…?" Relena moaned, "What… have I done…?"
Aelan slowly guided Relena to the ground. Heero quickly caught Relena as she exited the suit, and he was quick to chide her, tears slowly dripping from his eyes as he pulled her into a tight embrace.
"What on Earth were you thinking?" He demanded.
"I didn’t want you to lose something that has become such a part of you…" Relena explained.
"Damn it, Relena." Heero gasped, "As much as I use Wing Zero, and no matter how much it represents who I am, it’s just a machine, although I know that it doesn’t seem like it the way that Wufei and Duo treat the Gundams."
He took Relena’s face in his hands, making her look him straight in his eyes before continuing, "A Gundam can be rebuilt. YOU CANNOT be rebuilt. If you are destroyed, you’re gone forever."
"Heero…" Relena sighed.
"Promise me you won’t ever do something so stupid ever again."
Relena could only nod. At that moment, Aelan stepped out of the golden suit, and reported, "This is NOT good. Amore Doran has just reported that a fleet of Virgo mobile dolls trashed her Fold Generator. At the same time, Kiron was reported leaving with a large contingent of soldiers through the fold at the L1 Colony, from there, the entire science bay holding the Generator was destroyed."
Heero looked up, all business once again, "It appears he’s going somewhere that he doesn’t want to be followed, but where?"
Aelan looked down, and said simply, "He’s going to Eden. He has to be."
Eden, just outside the Hall of the Tenant Council…
"What do you plan to accomplish?" The voice of the Tenant Council asked.
From his position inside a Virgo mobile suit, Kiron was smiling sinisterly, "I will end the days that Eden needs to hide from the galaxy. No longer will we cloak ourselves from those would challenge us. Eden will return to the fore as it should!"
"Are you insane, Tenant Kiron? You will bring upon the mistakes of those committed eons ago!"
"Better to commit the mistakes of the past than to make entirely new ones!" Kiron shouted, then fired his beam cannon directly at the hall. With a deafening explosion, the hall, and the Tenant Council, were no more.
At that moment, Miliardo approached, and reported, "We have finished linking a Fold to the underground prison."
"Excellent." Kiron replied, and he followed Miliardo to the place in which the people of Hell were to be freed. He watched with a cynical smile as the first denizens of Hell stepped into the light of Eden, covering their eyes as they slowly adjusted to the brightness of Eden after a lifetime in complete darkness.
Kiron was indeed very pleased, "These people are going to look for a new existence on the surface. They will help me build a new Eden… and I shall be their god!"
Next Time…
Kiron unveils his plan to bring Eden back to prominence. Meanwhile, Aelan begins the process to rebuild, and to bring together a force to take back his home. Also, Miliardo discovers that Kiron’s plot is one that will not bring peace to anyone.
Coming in Episode 10: Miliardo’s Folly