PART 2
Partner or Lover Chapter 11: Plans for a New Leader

Ernn Laties softly touched back down into the goddess hanger in G.O.A. and let Teela out. The blue haired girl wordlessly walked back over to the control panel and set the correct modifications on her Ingrid so that it could recharge.

Pushing her shimmering blue hair away from her eyes, she swiftly walked down the halls of G.O.A., her destination already set in her mind.

Teela turned the corner sharply and just barely managed to avoid a head on collision with a small youngster. Obviously, it was the boy's first year on G.O.A. since he had a completely bewildered look on his face. Teela growled in annoyance as she saw more children rush out from their various places and prevented her access to the rest of the hallway. She waited patiently for the others to clear the hallway and she continued on her way.

Once she got to her pre-planned destination, she knocked twice on the metal door in front of her and it opened with a silent 'whoosh'. She quietly walked in, not wanting to grab any unwanted attention.

"Is your evaluation complete?" Teela asked promptly. She saw the man in front of her nod. "Who, if I may enquire, is it?" she pressed.

"You have all the right to enquire," the man in front of her answered back. He paused for effect and before he could go further, Teela interrupted him again.

"You're beating the bush. Just tell me who it is."

She heard the man sigh. "It's very close. I still need to examine them for a few more weeks. Give me about a month's time. That should be long enough."

Teela pressed her lips into a thin line, anger evident on her flawless face. "You know time is running out. Why ask for an extra month?" She did not wait for a response to her question. "Forget it. I'll come back for your answer in a month's time." Deciding to change the subject, she asked, "How is he?"

"He is fine. A burden if you ask me. Has no self-control at all. He's trying to keep something from me. I can see it in his eyes every time he looks at me." The man let out a short laugh that sounded more like a grunt and continued. "He can hide nothing from me. Doesn't he know that by now? I am favoring him more than anyone else, right now," he added, looking up at Teela for her reaction, but her face was stoic.

"Really now? That is interesting. I thought you hated him," Teela responded.

"Hated? It is such a strong word. I would prefer you not using it when describing him or I. A disagreement between the two of us is more of how I would have described it," the man countered, a small smile on his face.

"So," he started, trying to change the subject. "What, if I may ask, are you doing tomorrow night?" the man asked, a sly smile on his face.

Teela growled and rolled her eyes. "Grow up, old man. I, unlike you, have a life and it does not include you," she snapped. The man chuckled.

"Calm down. I was joking. Of course, you wouldn't know what joking meant even if it came up and bit you in the ass. Which, by the way, is very nice."

Teela glared at him, gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Can we get back on topic?"

"Oh, I thought we were done," the man replied, surprise evident in his voice. "I needed an extra month, and you gave me the time. Don't worry, I'll try to make up my mind before then, but if you want everything to go as planned, then please give me another month," he pleaded.

Teela nodded. "Fine then. If we are done with business here, then I shall be on my way." With that said, the blue- haired pilot swiftly turned around and walked out the room without glancing back, her blue hair swaying behind her. She headed over to the chambers assigned to her for her stay on G.O.A.

When she entered the deep blue colored room, she saw Erts sitting on her bed, a small smile playing on his face.

"What are you smiling about Erts?" she asked nonchalantly. She walked to the bathroom while picking a uniform out from her closet. Closing the bathroom door, she heard his reply.

"I saw him today," Erts said, looking very pleased with himself, but of course Teela could not see his expression so she just had to make do with the sound of his voice.

"Who? Enna?" Teela asked, her voice muffled by the rustling of clothing.

"Yes. I asked him how he was, and apparently he's gotten himself a girlfriend," Erts said, chuckling.

"WHAT?" Teela screeched out as she yanked the door open to see if Erts was telling the truth. Erts heard her scream and turned to look at the bathroom. Lucky for him, he got a whole eye full since Teela was only half dressed. The top half of her uniform was unbuttoned, and the bottom half was hanging limply in her hands. He could clearly see the midnight blue undergarments that she wore. He immediately gulped, tore his eyes away from her body, and coughed slightly- to give Teela an indication that she was underdressed- all the while his face turning redder by the second.

Realizing the kind of state she was in, Teela had the decency to blush and close the door. Behind the door, Erts could hear more clothes moving and heard her muffled question, "Are you sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure. I could most definitely feel it radiating off of him in waves. It was overwhelming, to tell you the truth," Erts whispered towards the end.

"Interesting to say the least," Teela said, walking out of the bathroom, her pilot uniform in her hand. The uniform she was currently wearing was similar to her pilot suit but this was not as tight as the other one, and gave her a little more room to move in. "Who's the lucky girl?"

"What makes you think it is a girl?" Erts said, smiling.

Teela shot him a 'do-you-think-I'm-dumb' look and said, "You said it yourself that he has a girlfriend."

"Oh yea," he said, grinning sheepishly. "It's Kizna," he added.

"Kizna Towryk? His repairer?" she asked incredulously. "Are you positive? Does he even know what will happen to him if they find out about this? Does he know what Azuma will do about this?" She kept firing questions at Erts while she paced back and forth in front of him.

"Teela, calm down. This is not like you. What happened to the quiet and cold bitch that I knew?" Teela shot him a dirty look and he tried to rephrase what he just said. "Ok, ok, so you're not a bitch. I just wanted to see your reaction," Erts said, chuckling a bit. "But what happened to the calm and collected exterior that you always have?" he asked, as he stood up from where he was, and walked in front of Teela, preventing her from going any further.

Teela looked up from the ground and said, "Enna better find a way out of this because if they find out about him and Towryk, he's going to get kicked off, and whether we like it or not, he is probably the best candidate to take my place as the pilot of the white goddess. But we'll see. We still have a month's time to find the perfect candidate," she said, a hint of sarcasm evident in her voice.

She turned around and walked over to the door. It 'swooshed' open and before she walked out, without turning around she said, "Erts, you'd better talk to Enna about this," while waving her hands in the air to emphasize her point. Without any further conversation, she left for the mess hall, intent on going in, getting her food, and coming back out before anyone else caught sight of her.

While making her way to the mess hall, she found Rioroute walking along side her trying to make some small talk. She sighed in frustration and tried to walk faster, trying to place some distance between herself and the overly cheerful pilot. When he wouldn't leave her alone, she let out a groan of annoyance and let him chatter away until they arrived at the mess hall.

"Listen Rioroute, I have got to run. I'll talk to you some other time," Teela said quickly. She saw a hurt look on his face, but it quickly disappeared when he caught sight of Gareas over at another table. As the other pilot headed over to his friend, Teela made her way to the kitchens to grab some food and then head back to her goddess to make some operational changes. Once she had some food in her possession, she walked out of the mess hall. But before she left, she caught a glimpse of candidate 88 walking in with Erts by his side. A small smile lit her face, and then she disappeared into the halls.

----

As Erts walked in, with Zero by his side, he saw a black haired repairer run over to him and pull him into a tight embrace. Erts' eyes widened when he realized who it was. "Rome! It's great to see you! How are you?" he exclaimed as he hugged the girl back. She pulled away a bit and answered back. He smiled and then said, "Well, how about you sit with us today?" He looked over at Zero for some sign of acknowledgement and Zero nodded in agreement.

"Ok, I will do that!" Rome said, walking over to the quickly forming line to get her dinner. Zero and Erts decided to wait until the line got shorter before getting their food. Zero showed his friend the table and they sat down.

"So, how have you been Zero?" Erts asked. He knew it was useless to ask because he could just feel how Zero was. But he felt that it was necessary to ask anyways.

"I'm fine. Azuma's still grilling us, now more than ever. I beat Hiead down to pulp recently," Zero blurted out, a wide grin on his face.

"Really?" Erts could feel a happiness radiating from his friend, and he was happy for him, but he did not exactly know the full reason for his happiness. "Enlighten me," Erts commanded with a smile.

"I shall gladly do so," Zero replied with a grin as he divulged to Erts every single detail as to how he beat Hiead. Everything from when he arrived in the control room, to beating Hiead because he could move faster than him. By the time he finished his story, the dinner line was exceptionally short, Zero's friends were heading over to the table where Erts and himself were settled at.

Erts looked over at Zero's friends and saw Kizna carrying two trays. He figured she must have brought Enna his dinner and felt he just had to make a comment on that. "Aww, how cute. Your girlfriend is bringing you dinner," he said as he looked over at Zero for his reaction.

Zero laughed.

A few seconds later, his laughter seized and he turned to Erts, eyes wide. "Ho- …" Zero just settled for playing it dumb. "Whom and what are you talking about?"

Erts just gave him a shrewd look. "Who do you think I'm talking about? Zero even you know that I know what I am talking about. Don't play dumb."

"Ok, ok. But how did you know?" Zero asked. Erts raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah…" was all Zero could say in response. By this time, the rest of the candidates and repairers, including Rome, seated themselves at the table and Zero's and Erts' dinners were placed in front of them.

No one thankfully brought up Zero and Kizna's relationship, and they all knew they had to be careful with Rome and everyone else still in the mess hall. 'I guess my friends are more responsible than I thought,' Zero thought, a smile on his face.

Today, Hiead was sitting at the table with the rest of the candidates, but off in a corner, secluded from everyone else. He kept one eye on Ikhny the whole time though.

Ikhny could feel Hiead's eyes on her and she turned her head to look at him, and shot him a questioning glance. He was sitting diagonally from her, a few seats beside Zero. He shook his head, his silver locks falling into his eyes. He took a slender hand, brushed his hair back, and gave her a small smile and a wink, making sure that no one else was looking their way. Ikhny felt the heat rise to her face and she quickly turned away, resuming the conversation she was in middle of with Kizna. Unbeknown to her, Hiead's face lit up with a tiny smile, a tiny, genuine smile, upon seeing her blush.

"So Erts, how is the job of piloting an Ingrid?" Zero asked after he swallowed a whole mouthful of what he called 'slop'.

"It's alright, not too eventful as you might think it is."

"Really?" Clay asked as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Erts nodded. "Besides the extra capabilities installed into the Ingrid, they are mainly set up just like the pro- ings. And we only get to use them for battling victim. It's not like we can use them for practice or anything."

"Oh," Zero said. He did not know that the Ingrids had the basic set up of a pro-ing.

"The pro- ings are like miniature Ingrids Zero. The Ingrids are just severely modified. And with a spirit, or a soul if you want to call it, inside the Ingrid, called the goddess, that's one more thing that makes it vary from a pro- ing, but if you look at the roots of a goddess, its pretty much just like a pro- ing," Clay explained, looking over at Erts every now and then for conformation. Erts nodded his head once Clay was done explaining.

"Right you are Clay," he said at the end.

"Oh," Zero said once again, a disappointed look on his face. Erts felt Zero's disappointment and felt bad about it. It was after all, him, who told Zero about the goddess' true roots. At least if he did not mention it, Zero would still be thrilled about becoming a pilot. But now, with this knowledge, he wouldn't feel any different if he controlled a goddess or a pro-ing.

"How would you feel if I showed you my Ingrid?" Erts asked Zero.

Zero looked up and gave him a tentative glance. "You sure about that? I thought you weren't supposed to do that."

Erts shrugged. "I think I can make a few exceptions… so, what do you say? I can take you sometime in the evening after dinner. I'll be here all week, have some things to catch up on, but any day in the evening should be fine…" Erts concluded, running his schedule through his head once before confirming that his evenings are indeed free.

"Awesome!" Zero exclaimed, gaining the attention of the rest of the people at his table and a few others. He grinned sheepishly and turned back to Clay and Erts, continuing to voice his excitement to them.

----

Once over with dinner, the group of eleven, with Hiead trailing behind them at a safe distance, headed out from the mess hall and over to the recreation room to catch up with each other and talk about the past few months.

Roose pressed a button on the panel beside the recreation room door and it flashed green as the door opened. As he walked in, he saw a few other repairers he had never seen before over in a corner doing their own thing. So he led the group over to the other side of the rec. room, Hiead sitting far away so that he would not be noticed but at the same time, he could hear every word of what the others were saying.

Sitting down on the soft replica of soil, Erts started off the conversation by retelling his experiences of piloting a goddess.

"Truth be told, I was scared out there at one time. The first time I went out to fight the victim, I was scared out of my mind that something might happen to me, or to any one of the other pilots," Erts confessed a little while later.

Hiead, sitting in a secluded corner, smirked. 'Ha! Wimp… I bet with the kind of power that the goddesses contain, with all five of them working together it wouldn't take long at all to destroy those filthy creatures.' His red eyes narrowed as he watched each candidate, including Erts, closely, examining their every move...

----

Kizna got out of bed with a yawn as she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. She glanced at the clock. 'Great… another day with the pro-ings,' she thought grudgingly while walking over to the showers. She peeled all her clothes off her body carefully, and stepped into the shower, allowing the warm, glistening water to run over her body. It is not that she did not care for the pro-ing training that the candidates had to go through, but it was starting to get quite monotonous after a while.

After soaping her body clean, Kizna stepped out of the showers and grabbed a towel off the rack; wrapping it around her wet body. She walked back into the room, got some fresh clothes from her bedside, walked back into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she came back with a fresh look. She folded her pajamas and put them with the rest of her clothes and walked out of the room. 'I need a place to think…' She started off in the direction of the recreation room but caught sight of two people leading that way. She scrunched up her face into an expression of wonder and tiptoed after the two strangers who took no notice of the pink haired repairer.

The two people turned the corner and walked into the recreation room. Kizna looked around to make sure no one was watching her and slipped through the doors before they closed. Slipping into a far corner where she could not be seen, she watched the two take a seat on a near by bench and talk in silent whispers. She could only catch bits and pieces of their conversation but she stored them in memory so that she could examine them at another time.

"… candidates need to be on their guard now more than ever."

"… Victim are getting smarter…" At this, Kizna's eyes widened. 'Does this mean that they can find a way into G.O.A. if they wanted to?' she thought as a shiver went down her spine.

"… wait another month… new pilot for white god…"

"… keep your eyes out for Rei," the female of the group said. After she finished talking, she stood up and walked out of the room, leaving the man alone to his thoughts. After ten minutes of waiting and watching, Kizna saw the man stretch, then get onto his feet and walk out of the recreation room. She came out of the darkened corner and almost jumped out of her skin when she felt a soft hand clamp down on her shoulder. She whipped around, her pink hair violently slashing the other person's face.

When Kizna finally turned around, she saw the boy who was behind her cover his face with both hands so she could not see who he was… but by the silver hair that he possessed, she knew it was Hiead. She heard him grumbled something under his breath.

"Oh Hiead! Don't do that! Are you ok?" she asked after reprimanding him for his actions.

He huffed out, "Yea, I'm fine," as he glared at her.

"What are you doing here anyways?" Kizna asked, raising an eyebrow at the candidate.

"I came here to get away from that bumbling idiot you call a boyfriend. I saw you spying on those two who walked in here earlier and decided to find out what you were up to."

Kizna flushed as she realized someone caught her spying on someone. "I- Uhhh… I was going to come here just to think about things, but I saw those two walking over here, so I decided to follow them…" Kizna stared at the ground, waiting for his reply.

"So what where they talking about?" Hiead asked, curiosity filling his red eyes. Kizna's eyes widened.

"You want to know what they were talking about?" Hiead nodded.

"Why do you look so surprised? I should be the one that is surprised because one doesn't see a repairer like you sneaking around eavesdropping on other people's conversations…" Hiead explained.

Kizna gave him a short glare and then explained what she could hear. "I couldn't hear much from where I was standing, but they were talking about the Victim getting smarter and having to look for a new pilot and something about a boy named Rei?" She turned to Hiead and asked, "Do you know who Rei is?" Hiead shook his head. Apparently Zero did not tell them everything about his past… not yet at least.

----

The others were awake in due time, all of them meeting up once again in the pro- ing battle room just before Azuma came storming into the room with a furious look on his face. "Ok, all of you in your places. We have no time to waste," Azuma said promptly, barking orders at everyone. Too scared to disobey, everyone else but Hiead and Zero scrambled to their places; the two boys took their own sweet time to get things done with calm looks plastered on their faces… Hiead had a cold look and Zero with a slightly confused expression.

Once in their battle suits and in their pro-ings, Kizna heard the battle room door open and turned around to see who it was. Her eyes landed on two tall teenagers, one whom she knew personally and the other whom she knew from pictures and rumors. Once they entered the room, two more boys followed them, these two she easily recognized. Their repairers were right beside them. One was Force Wartllium, also known as candidate 01, and the other was Aracd Narocke, also known as candidate 04, both boys a part of the best candidates in line to be the next Goddess pilots if they are lucky.

Azuma cleared his throat and grabbed a head set with a small microphone attached to it off a table near by and placed it on his head. He spoke loud and clear. "I would like you to meet Erts Virny Cocteau, Gareas-Elidd, Force Wartllium, and Aracd Narocke. But of course you know three out of the four gentlemen here today. Gareas and Erts are here to observe the battle and Force and Aracd will be your opponents for today. Now, you boys suit up, and let the games begin. May the best pilot win…" Azuma ended with a little ironic smirk on his face. The other two repairers went to their designated locations and went through the well-known routine of adjusting the settings on a pro-ing before a battle starts.

Gareas leaned into the boy standing beside him and whispered, "Whom are you rooting for?" Erts looked over and glanced at the green haired man. "You know," Gareas continued, without bothering to wait for Erts' answer. "That brown haired kid, Enna is it? Well, the only reason I met him was because he was in Eeva- Leena." Gareas shook his head. "It's a wonder how he even got in there in the first place."

Erts smiled. 'I just hope the white goddess is willing enough to allow Zero to pilot her. Or we just might have a new leader…we will see…' Erts turned his attention to the battle field and watched as the battle commenced.

Force stepped onto the field, surveying each of the other pilots from inside his pro-ing. His eyes caught that of Hiead's and locked his gaze on him. 'Well, it looks like I found my target,' he thought with a smirk.

"Looks like Force has found his opponent," Force's repairer muttered to herself. But Kizna's very sharp cat ears picked it up and her wondering gaze swiveled over to the other girl.

"What do you mean by that?" Kizna asked, curiosity seeping into her voice as she spoke.

"Well, usually, once Force sets his mind on something, he never lets it wander. He always finishes what he starts," the girl ends with a smirk. "Watch," she says, pointing at the screen.

Force is seen trying to stare a hole into Hiead's head. Then all of a sudden, Force takes off at the unsuspecting boy, catching him by surprise. Hiead is sent flying in the air and ends up landing on top of Zero, both of them sprawled out on the ground in front of them.

Zero lets out a moan and says, "Next time you plan on landing on me Hiead, give me some sort of warning." Hiead just 'humph's and gets off the chocolate haired boy. He walks back over to his opponent and takes out his rifle and points it at Force's head.

Force lets out a cold, sharp laugh. "You think that's going to scare me away? Come on. I'm one of the best candidates to be picked to drive an Ingrid. You are nothing," Force finished as he pulled out his power blade and cut Hiead's rifle in half, cutting is clean down the center. The two halves slipped out of Hiead's hand and landed with a loud 'thump' on the ground. Hiead stared at his weapon with eyes wide open. He heard a faint scream from somewhere but could not make out what it was saying as the blood that was pounding in his ears made it very hard to focus on anything.

"HIEAD! Move, you idiot!" Zero screamed as he picked himself off the ground and ran at the form of Hiead. As Force's blade came down on Hiead's pro-ing, Zero threw himself at the silver haired boy, and pushed him off to the side, both of them just barely missing the swing of the blade that would have cut them cleanly in half.

"Zero, try to be a little more careful next time," Kizna berated. Zero nodded absentmindedly since most of his mind was focused on dodging Force's attacks.

Force saw something coming from behind him and he abruptly stopped attacking Zero, turned around, and started attacking the person behind him.

Hiead tried to attack from behind, seeing if he could attack and take Force by surprise, but it seemed like Force was smarter than he looked. Hiead saw him turn around and fly right at him, his blade ready to attack. Hiead stopped in mid run, put up his defense field and waited. There was not much else he could do.

"Ikhny, transfer all power to the defense field," Hiead commanded. A second after Ikhny had completed her task; Force brought the blade down onto Hiead, sparks flying off in all directions. Hiead felt the pressure of the power blade even with his defense field at the maximum level. He pushed back onto the blade, hoping to knock Force off balance but it did not work in Hiead's favor.

Zero heard a slight 'yelp' coming from the other boys and looked over his shoulder to see what was going on. He saw Clay sprawled out on the floor on his stomach. 'Looks like it was too much for him.' Roose was clutching his arm like he was in pain and was hiding from Aracd, or so it seemed. Yamagi, on the other hand, had a power blade in one hand and his beam rifle in the other, firing away at Aracd. Aracd had his defense field up, but Zero could see it shimmering, meaning that his field is going to give away soon.

Yamagi was soon out of ammunition and could not continue using his beam rifle. So he threw it onto the ground next to him and ran at Aracd, trying to get a clean cut at the older boy. Once in swinging distance, Yamagi pulled his arm back and got ready to swing his blade, but was not fast enough. Aracd dropped his defense field, took out his rifle and fired two shots right into the pro-ing's chest, making Yamagi stumble back in surprise. Still caught in that surprised state, Aracd took advantage of that and attacked with his blade, just enough so that Yamagi was disabled for the rest of the fight.

Zero snapped out of his trance and whispered to Kizna, "Hey, tell Wreka to cut off all nerve impulses to the pro- ing, because it looks like Roose is in pretty bad shape. He's hiding right over there," Zero said, pointing to the huddled figure. Aracd caught sight of Roose soon after and stalked over towards him. "Kizna, hurry! Otherwise it will just be Hiead and I," Zero whispered frantically to his repairer.

Kizna turned to Wreka and conveyed the message. After Wreka made the necessary adjustments, Roose thanked his repairer and got back onto his feet. He tried to put up a good fight, but apparently, it was not good enough because Aracd could take him down easily. He then turned his attention onto Zero, trying to stare him down.

Zero could see the pro- ings chest moving up and down at an unusually fast rate. 'Must be tired out. Well, maybe I can use that to my advantage,' he thought, formulating a plan in his head as he watched Aracd's every move very carefully.

Soon, using Aracd's fatigue factor to his advantage, Zero found himself standing over the now disabled pro- ing of Aracd's. Zero took in a few deep gulps of air, trying to make his heart beat slow down. He felt a drop or two of sweat roll down the side of his head, and used his hand to hastily wipe it away. He turned his head back over to see how Hiead was fairing. Zero could see that Hiead was not going to hold up much longer and went to his side.

Letting out a scream, Zero flew at Force's pro-ing, and as he did so, his hair turned a light greenish color. With all the strength he could muster up, Zero crashed into the pro-ing that was on top of Hiead's, giving the silver haired boy enough time to get back up onto his feet. Zero picked himself up off the ground, his hair still indicating he had an EX reaction, and ran back over to Hiead.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Hiead barked out, roughly pushing Zero away. But that small move was enough to send Hiead back down onto his knees. Zero grasped the other boy by the shoulders and hauled him back up onto his feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zero saw Force coming back to attack them. Pulling back from Hiead, Zero took out his power blade and ran at the other boy. He asked Kizna to reroute his energy to his defense field when he saw Force take out his rifle and attack him from a distance. No harm came to Zero and once he was in swinging range, he quickly asked Kizna to reroute his energy this time to his blade and then swung the blade down.

Force lifted his rifle in defense, not having enough time to put his field up. The rifle was enough to prevent him from getting cut in half, but was not enough to prevent Force's rifle from being snapped in two. Dropping the rifle, Force decided to go for the old fashioned way and attacked Zero with his hands and feet. Both of them soon found themselves rolling on the ground, acting as if they were fighting over a piece of fresh meat.

Hiead on the other hand was too tired to do anything else and just stood in place as he watched the scene unfold before his eyes. He collapsed back onto his knees, his legs, too weak to hold out any longer.

Zero kept throwing punches at Force's face, but at the same time, blocked the same amount of punches that were thrown at him. He felt a fist connect with his jaw, and his head was sent flying in the other direction. It almost felt as if his head was going to snap off. Pushing the blue haired boy off him, Zero rolled on top of him and started to throw punch after punch in his face, not letting him take a breather.

After what seemed like forever, Zero stopped to take a break, but was caught by surprise when Force took advantage of the respite given to him and kicked Zero off of him. He took out his blade and went for Zero's chest, but seeing this, Zero moved out of the way. Unfortunately, he did not see the blade quick enough because it ended up slicing the pro-ing's right arm off. Zero grinded his teeth in pain, now allowing Force the pleasure of hearing him scream in pain. Zero brushed back a bluish- green tendril from his face and quickly decided what his next move was going to be.

Force glanced at Hiead and saw him panting heavily, trying all he could to prevent himself from fainting. 'Ha. I'll take him out now, so I won't have to worry about him later,' Force thought as he quickly finished off Hiead. Turning his attention back to Zero, he saw the boy fly at him. Force got his power blade ready, tightening his fists around the blade until his knuckles turned white. Zero activated his defense field and ran head on into Force.

Force let out a grunt as Zero's head collided with his chest and both boys were sent onto the ground, both breathing heavily. Trying to get up, Zero only managed to lift himself up an inch or two off the ground but then collapsed back onto the form of Force. Again, the older of the two was too exhausted to move another muscle, and with Zero's weigh added on top of him, was too tired to push the boy off, so he left him stay there. He felt his muscles relax, and was surprised to see that he did not have the strength at all to lift any of his body parts. 'I guess I underestimated the little guy,' Force thought with a smirk. 'It seems like I'll have competition this time.'

Zero felt his hair turn back to the chocolate brown color Kizna adored, and felt his eyelids pulling down on him. He closed his eyes for a brief second, or so he thought. By the time he opened his eyes again, he was back inside, all cleaned up, a cheerful Kizna waiting to greet him. He blinked a few times and turned to Kizna with a questioning glance. A dark haired girl walked up to the pink haired repairer and tapped her on the shoulder.

Kizna turned around and smiled at Force's repairer.

"Guess I was wrong about Enna," she said, giving an apologetic smile.

"It was ok," Kizna replied, shaking the girl's hand. She turned back to Zero and said, "Great job. It ended as a tie between you and Force. Both of you fell at the same time."

"Oh," Zero said in a slightly disappointed tone.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Kizna asked. "You're not upset because you didn't win are you? Hey, you took out two of the elite candidates there are on G.O.A., Zero. You should be very proud of yourself." Zero just nodded and continued to stare at the ground. "And you know what?" she asked, stepping closer to him. "I think you're the first underclassmen to beat them in a pro-ing battle," Kizna added in a whisper.

Zero's eyes widened and he glanced up at her. "Really?" She nodded. "Cool," he replied, grinning. Kizna smiled and gave him a light hug, then stepped back from him.

Erts walked up to Zero, gave him a firm handshake and said, "That was a very well fought battle Zero. Keep up the great work. Maybe I can battle you sometime, just for old times sake."

Zero nodded and said, "That would be awesome." He looked over Erts shoulder and saw a tall green- haired man standing behind him.

"Hello. I'm Gareas," the green haired man introduced. Zero shook his hand and smiled.

"So it was you're goddess I fell into," Zero mused, a small smile lighting his face.

Gareas grumbled under his breath and changed the topic. "Great battle out there. Kept me on my toes… you'll become a great pilot one day Zero," Gareas said, giving a small nod. He turned around walked back over to Azuma when he heard the instructor call his name. Zero stared at his retreating figure with a satisfactory feeling in his heart.

----

Teela rushed down the halls with a slight feeling of dread hanging heavily over her shoulders. 'I hope he knows what he is doing,' she thought as she turned the corner and entered a darkened room.

Author's note: Please R&R! Chapter 12 should be coming out in about two weeks at the latest. (Around the 25th of June)