*Disclaimer* Gundam is copyrighted by Bandai Co. and what I use in here I don't legally own. It should not be used for profit and/or make pots of gold appear.

Chapter 4- Self-worth and recognition

Alex slowly let his head rest on the pillow of the bed and saw himself in a crib. He looked around as he tried to figure where he was. "Where am I?" A man grabbed him out of the crib and threw him away. His fear drove him to try and grab the man but he was out of reach. Alex plummeted into the darkness and couldn't see any way to get out. Alex opened his eyes and saw an alarm as it sounded off.



"What's going on?"

He glanced down at his watch and realized he had been asleep for the past ten hours. "It has been ten hours? How could I have slept that much? What about that dream... On second thought, I probably shouldn't mention it." He got up while he composed himself and calmly walked to the door.

"Hey guard. Anything the matter?"

"I have no idea." A videophone sounded nearby, and the guard went over and picked it up. Alex only saw the figure in the video is Lady Une. The two of them had a relatively short conversation but it seemed to be urgent. The guard walked back to the door and opened it. "Lady Une wants to see you personally."

"For what?" Alex was shocked by that he might have to talk to one of the head officials of the Preventors face to face.

"We kind of have a crisis."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, several platoons of Leos desperately fought off an offensive force of Taurus mobile suits. The Leos concentrated their fire on one of the Taurus and managed to take it down, yet the Taurus continued to take out Leo after Leo until only two platoons remained. In the main communications room, a screen showed the total damage taken and enemy strengths. Alex stumbled into the room as the guard escorted him.

"Considering the current situation. We have to launch a counter-offensive against them. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Against who?"

"Them," Lady Une pointed to the screen when a Leo exploded. "We will be requiring your assistance for this counter-offensive."

"Wait, I thought you people don't trust me," Alex stared at Lady Une like he might be thrown to the slaughter for no reason.

"We don't, but we have no choice. Duo is the only one close enough to help, but he won't be able to make it until fifteen minutes from now. By then, our base will be leveled." Lady Une stated bluntly. "Along with you."

Alex gulped. "Ok... I'll help, but I need my mobile suit to do it."

"It is in the south docking bay."

Alex began to leave for his mobile suit, but Lady Une interrupted him.

"Remember, you're on a colony. One mistake could kill everyone." Alex nodded in agreement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The remaining Leos continued to fire on the Tauruses with no success, and finally one of the pilots saw one of the Taurus' eyes flicker. It only meant one thing.

"Dang it, they are dolls. There must be a leader around here, then."

A jet of gatling gun bullets flew past a Taurus and destroyed several of the Leos. A Serpent appeared behind the Taurus, and Mota was the pilot.

"These guys are nothing, but wimps," Mota thought. He glided his right hand through his blonde hair. "Level the base."

Icedig finally appeared from the south docking bay and joined up with some of the remaining Leos behind a hangar. Icedig crouched down while it leaned against the hangar.

"Are you guys ok?" Alex kept an eye on his radar.

"Could be better."

"These Tauruses are dolls, and our radar has picked up what appears to be a Serpent on the battlefield, as well," another pilot stated as he tried to calm down from the shock received from his head being bashed around.

"A Serpent?"

"Yes, they first appeared during the incident of AC-196."

"They know so much, yet I know so little," Alex thought.

A Taurus flew over the hangar and fired several shots at the group. Icedig activated its shoulder thrusters and flew back to avoid the shots as though it was an instinct. When Icedig stopped in its tracks, Alex realized that he had left the Leos in the path of the shots and saw the remaining Leos explode along with the hanger.

"They we men... Yet they die so easily..." Alex's mind thought back to the day Rio had died. "Everybody dies so easily... why does it have to be that way?... I don't understand...." Alex's thoughts began to turn to hate and his heart began to race. Alex's right arm quivered a little bit while he held the controls, "I'll make them pay!"

Icedig ignited its beam saber and jetted toward the Taurus that destroyed the men. In a blink of an eye, Icedig sliced the Taurus in half and it exploded. Several more Taurus mobile suits attacked Icedig. Mota watched the fight from the safety of the Serpent.

"That mobile suit, could it be?" Mota opened a communication link to some unknown figure. "I have something to report. Jukodo successfully made a degeneration of our best mobile suit design. I guess he wanted 235 to protect himself from... us. That's why my five men didn't come back. I'll keep relaying more info from my cameras." Mota closed the communication link. Mota knew that the game had just gotten more dangerous, though he didn't by how much.

A Taurus fired randomly at Icedig, but Icedig used its shoulder thrusters and several other thrusters on its back and feet to dodge the beam of energy easily. Icedig then unignited its beam saber; didn't put it away, though, and pulled out its gundanium sabre. It sliced another Taurus in half with an upward attack. It continued its merciless attack and tore apart Taurus after Taurus. Icedig looked around for any other Taurus, but saw only the Serpent left. Alex's anger began to cool down but hadn't subsided.

"Impressive, I never imagined that 235 could even take down that many Taurus with little or no training. Incredible he might even be better than his brother, 236." Mota thought. "I can't wait to see what he is like when he is at his best...." Mota had a smile appear at his next thought.

"You killed so many, don't expect any mercy from me," Alex yelled after he had opened a communication link and closed it.

Icedig descended rapidly toward the Serpent, and the Serpent fired its gatling guns toward Icedig. The hail of bullets tore through Icedig's armor, and Icedig crash landed face first into the ground. Icedig left a huge scar in the ground that became visible once the dust settled from the impact.

"Dang, those bullets packed more of a punch than I thought..." Alex rubbed the back of his head and let out a big sigh. "I forgot this mobile suit doesn't have gundanium armor, but I still have to take him down."

"Pathetic," Mota shook his head in disappointment.

Icedig rolled to its left and stood up. It thrusted to the right, and dodged another hail of bullets from the Serpent. Icedig charged the Serpent with its gundanium sabre in the right hand and a beam saber in the other hand. The Serpent saw this in time, but was unable to prevent the gatling gun held on its left arm from being sliced in half by the gundanium sabre. Icedig moved too slowly at this point; the Serpent moved its right arm and pulled the trigger and blew away the right arm of Icedig. The left arm of Icedig reached around to the back of the Serpent and the gatling gun stopped its fury. The beam saber pierced through the armor of the Serpent easily, and cut most power off temporarily. Icedig unignited its beam saber. It let go of the Serpent and the Serpent collapsed to the ground. Alex looked at the Serpent through his screen and breathed a sigh of relief.

"I have done my job. The base is safe now," Alex wiped the sweat from his forehead and realized that his breathing rate is quite hard. He did what Rio had told him to do in cases like this; he simply put his hand in front of him and concentrated on the hand alone. Alex had always wondered why this technique worked, but he did it anyway. His breath came back to a normal pace.

Still in his cockpit, Mota looked at his dead screen, "I must admit that was nice, but why hasn't he finished me?"

Icedig then backed off from the Serpent, and began to walk back to the base with its back turned to the Serpent. Alex knew that the Preventors would want to interrogate this man, and he had no problem with it. He had a smile as Icedig walked away.

"I won't be left here like a beaten dog," the Serpent regained power. It got up and pointed its last gatling gun at Icedig. "If you really are 235, why do you have a heart? Jukodo must have made him soft. Oh well, if he won't show his true self, then he is expendable!"

The Serpent began to warm up its gatling gun with each turn of the gun, and it got closer to open fire velocity. The glow of the primer explosion shined in the barrels of the gatling gun.

"Die."

The gatling begins to fire its bullets at Icedig. Just as the bullets begin to leave the barrels, the Serpent flies into two halves and explodes. Icedig turns around to saw a huge cloud of smoke coming from where the Serpent was. This sight shocks Alex, because he thought he had left the man to live not to die. A beam scythe appears through the smoke, and when the smoke clears Deathscythe Hell stands with its beam scythe in hand.

"Yo Alex. You ought to be more careful." Duo said this in his normal carefree way.

"I was careful," Alex snapped back.

"Then why did you have your back to him?" Duo looked at Alex strangely and saw Alex was mad about something.

"I thought it wasn't necessary to take his life," Alex leaned forward and let a big sigh.

"Even though he could have wiped you out easily?"

"Yes," Alex replied back after a few moments, once he had calmed down.

Icedig continued toward the base with Deathscythe Hell shortly behind.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In a dark conference room, a screen of the battle was shown through the eyes of the Serpent.

"We believe that the pilot of this mobile suit," a man said as Icedig was shown bigger on the screen, "is our missing test subject 235. What is also apparent is that this mobile suit is a downgrade of the mobile suit we are currently working on."

"What does that mean? Do you think that Jukodo would try to stop our plans by having our own people fight each other?" another man said.

"It does appear to be that. But, we are so close to achieving our goal. We can't afford to have one man interfere with it."

"So you think that we should ignore this threat or do you wish to bring it under control?" a third man commented.

"235 was our highest scorer on the brain test and every other test except for physical strength. We can't afford to have to fight him."

"I understand," the third man replied.

"By what means though?" the second man commented.

"Don't worry, I will take care of that," a fourth man stated.

A door opposite of the first man opened with a teenager hidden in the light of the door. He was about 6'0" and wore a space suit. His brown hair glittered in the light, but his emerald eyes weren't apparent in the darkness. He walked in with curiosity and anticipation on his mind. "Is it... true? Have you found my brother?"

"You mean have we located 235? Yes, we have 236 or should I say Niou."

"I can't wait to see him," Niou said. "We have so much to catch up on. I wish Jukodo had never done what he did... breaking up our family."

"If you don't mind Niou. Please let us be," one of the other men said.

Niou walked out of the room and left the four men in there. The men seemed a little irritated at the disturbance, but brushed it off.

"Its settled then?"

"Affirmative," the other men said in unison.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, Alex and Duo watched as Icedig was held up for repair work. Alex was in awe of the machinery that the Preventors had, and the machinery that he helped save. This stuff must have cost a fortune, if he had to buy this stuff, and he wasn't about to argue. A worker came up to Alex and interrupted his wandering mind.

"Mr. Cros, the right arm has been recovered, but it will take a few days to fix it. We haven't seen a mobile suit with this type of configuration before. I mean this design is far different than the Gundams or any regular mobile suit for that matter."

"You can thank my brother for that. Anyway, there shouldn't be a problem with the repairs taking that long. Its not like I'm in a rush."

"Fortunately for you, the Preventors are paying for this repair work," Duo whispered in Alex's right ear. "It would take major bucks to fix that thing otherwise."

"Yep, a good deed gets a good ending," Alex smiled at the thought, but shuddered on the inside at the thought of the payments for the equipment. He then realizes something. "Hmm…. I have nothing to do for a few days. Is there anything I can do for the next couple of days around here?"

"I have an idea," Duo had a big smirk on his face and proceeded to drag Alex away.

"Where are we going...."