Chapter 1: The Beginning

The metal floor vibrated beneath the young assassin as he dropped into the spacecraft that would take him to his target. The ship was gigantic, but there was only one small cockpit near its nose, filled with many buttons and other controls. Flare, as the 20-year-old was codenamed by his employers, was very cocky about this mission. He had heard of the large number of professional soldiers that would be guarding General Kilik, but he knew that they wouldn't be a problem. After all, he had been taught in the arts of martial arts, marksmanship, and electronics since he was a small child, and spent much of his spare time working out. And, for as far back as he could remember, he had been trained in the use of another deadly tool of war: Mobile Suits.

He maneuvered the ship out of its dock, set it on course, and switched the command to auto pilot. He knew he had a long trip ahead, so he pulled a mirror out of a lone compartment on the side of his chair so that he could stare at his own reflection to pass the time. He gazed at himself for a moment before running his hand through his hair.

His hair was dark blonde, and it was draped stiffly over his right eye. His lightly tanned skin was nearly perfect, except for a lone scar that crossed over his left eye. He put the mirror away as he looked down at his body. He wore tight-fitting, light blue jeans, with a plain white T-shirt that was firm around his muscles.

He checked the flight's status on the screen in front of him. "Almost there," he spoke to himself in a confident tone. Indeed, after looking up out of the window and into the stars, he could plainly see space colony P-0103, the current position of his target. He didn't notice any mobile suits from his current position, but he knew from experience that they were probably hidden from sight.

Flare inputted a series of letters and numbers into the keyboard to his right, spelling out "ZERO GUNDAM." Almost instantly the ship released a Mobile Suit into space, taking the cockpit with it, which was attached to Gundam itself. The remnants of the ship disappeared under its mechanical camouflage so that it could safely be used for the return trip from the colony.

Zero Gundam was Flare's giant fighting machine. Its design resembled that of a human's body, and the cockpit was in the middle of the chest, where the heart would be on a human. The gundam was dark blue with spots of blood red covering each of the knees, elbows, backhands, and the head. It had green eyes, a gold V on its forehead, and a staff on its back similar to a lightsaber.

Flare flipped a switch on his left to turn on his heat-seeking radar. The giant screen in front of him flashed green then went blank. Surprisingly, his radar seemed to have detected nothing. Normally, with a VIP traveling to a colony, there would multiple mobile suits under camouflage at the entrance. He was beginning to becomesuspicious…

Flare switched his gundam into stealth mode and silently approached the colony. When he got about 100 meters from it, there was an enormous explosion on his right. He turned to look, and the face of a mobile suit stared at him with a beam cannon in hand. He didn't recognize the model, which was odd, because he had studied mobile suits for years. He did notice one thing, however: its movements didn't seem to be human…

Then, as if it came from nowhere, a voice boomed into his ears. "This is our new model of mobile suit. It is run by a computer with capabilities far superior to that of any human pilot, including yourself. That is why you aren't needed anymore. So instead of killing you directly, we are testing our new toy on you. Good luck…" he finished with a chuckle.

Flare was stricken with more anger than he had ever felt before, but he suppressed the feeling with his cocky attitude. "You think you can kill a pro like me with a mere computer?" he laughed. "Well think again!" He whipped out his staff and charged at the suit. It jumped up, and fired a shot at Flare as he went under it. Flare turned around and deflected the beam with his staff." He then twirled it around over his head and thrusted it at the suit's head.

Then, without any warning at all, the suit self-destructed, disinigrating most of Flare's gundam, leaving nothing but his cockpit and himself lying unconscious in it, floating aimlessly in space.