Previously:

Ryder managed to excape an potentially deadly confrontation with Zash and Taka with only

minor injuries. He had reached the first of the Ronin class Gundams but did he survive the self

destruct system he had triggered by entering the secret passage. Meanwhile Miho and Kyo had had

bad luck by running into a soldier and even worse luck being trapped right in the path of a massive

firewall-it doesn't look good for any of them...

Episode Six: Foreshadow of 'Misery'

It had been hours and Avi felt that she had looked everywhere for Ryder, it was like he had just

disappeared without a trace. The sun was beginning to set and her feet ached from running around all

day. With a huff she decided to head to the old downtown district of the city, if she didn't find him by

the time she got home, then he obviously didn't want to be found. Her useually brown boots were

black and grey from all the soot and dust she had walked through looking in old buildings for Ryder,

she made a mental note to make him get her a new pair of boots, for these one's were ruined now. As

Avi walked down the crumbled and broken old main highway, she felt slightly nervous, it was so quiet

and she felt like she was the last person on Earth. The strange feeling melted away to anger, she kicked

a broken piece of cement and growled at how unfair it all was. This city, no matter how dull it had

been, had been a home to not only her and her friends, but thousands of others and now it was

nothing more then a ghost town. She had never told anyone else, but Avi would never forgive the

Nexis Union for what they had done and would make them pay no matter what. She had a secret

vow to make any Nexis soldier feel the pain they constantly pile onto the innocent people of the

Earth. Avi growled and slammed her foot into a wall, causing it to crumble and fall back-she began

to cough uncontrollably as dirt flew in the air all around her. As she continued on, she decided that if

she ever found herself at the controls at any Mobile suit she would use it against the Nexis Union.

Lost in thoughts of her fantasy of single handedly bringing the Nexis Union to it's Knee's she didn't

even feel the air's temperature rapidly dropping and her thin clothing no longer able to block out the

weather. She stopped briefly at an old intersection where the local super food store had been, she

zipped up her blue sweater and looked around. She thought she heard someone following her, but

there was no one around, not even the rubble seemed to be making noise. she shrugged it off as her

being paranoid about the past happenings and went to cross the road when suddenly a large black

truck pulled infront of her, blocking her path. She skidded to a stop as she reconized the truck as the

same type as the one her friends and her had excaped in.

'Shit...'

She growled, and got ready to make a mad dash for it, however no soldiers came rushing out with

their guns drawn. after inspecting the truck for a few minutes, Avi decided to try and carry on as if

it ment nothing. She passed the truck, constantly expecting to be shot or grabbed by some blood

thirsty Nexis soldier. She had almost reached the other side of the road when she heard the door of

the truck swing open and someone come chasing after her. Her first instinct was to run, but the more

bolder and angery part of her told her stay put and confront the enemy. She spun around, fists balled,

to face the person coming at her. It was a boy no older then her, with brilliant red hair, he was

wearing a blue Nexis uniform-this made her glare turn from a 'piss off' to a 'I hate you' glare- the boy

was unaware of the meaning of the change of expression on the girl's face. Avi took note of a pistol

around the boy's waist and calculated how close he would have to be for her to grab it from him

successfully.

'What the Hell do you want?'

She demanded, getting straight to the matter instead of playing dumb which would ultimately annoy the

boy and lower her chances of getting out of this unscythed. The boy momentarily looked stunned by

the aggression of the girl, but regained his composure just as quickly as he had lost it.

'You're to come with me. Under arrest for the theift of Military property and preaching a major sacurity

block.'

He replied just as dark as Avi, his dark green eyes looked her over with contempt.

'I don't know about any damn Theift and security breach...'

she hissed, which wasn't a total lie as they didn't steal the truck, they borrowed without permission.

'Don't give me lies, now come with me peacefully and you won't get hurt.'

the boy continued, moving foreward to grab Avi by the arm, he assumed that she was unarmed. She

pulled away and smirked darkly, gaining a frown from the boy.

'I'll go peacefully the day Hell freezes over!'

she retarted, seeing that the boy was within reach and was unbalanced as he was reaching for her again.

Avi lunged foreward, her shoulder hit the boy in the chest and he fell back winded, and as he fell

She grabbed the pistol from it's holster and aimed it right at the stunned boy.

'Ah ha!'

she shouted truimphedly, the boy fell to one knee and lowered his head in a surrendering way-Avi

grinned widely feeling better for what she was doing. she stepped foreward, but the boy grabbed a

handfull of dirt and threw it in Avi's eyes. She yelped in pain and tried to back away, but it was too

late the boy was already back on his feet and with one swift move hit her in the back of the neck. Avi

collapsed to the ground, knocked out and unable to defend herself from any harm that may await her.

Jack Robbins picked up his pistol from the hands of the girl, he had managed to knock her out with

one swift but not leathal chop from his hand to the base of her neck. He bent over and struggled

slightly as he slung the girl over one shoulder and began to carry her to his truck, when a second

Nexis Truck pulled up beside his. Out stepped the commanding officer, Zash, accompanied by two

foot soldiers.

'Commander...'

Jack nodded unable to salute while holding the captive.

'Is this one of those pesky kids that escaped our mountain base?'

'Yessir! She gave me some trouble so I had no other choice but to knock her out. Thanks to

Lt. Zetsume's description I was able to find her.'

Jack replied, handing avi over to the two soldiers to deal with.

'very well.I want you to accompany these two men back to the base. She'll be on the next ship to

space. make sure of it.'

'As you wish.'

Zash nodded and turned to take the truck that Jack had been driving when he noticed that Jack was

still standing on the street.

'Soldier-is there a problem?'

'I know it's not my place to question my superiors, but why are we sending her to space?'

Zash smirked slightly, he could see a bit of himself when he was younger in Jack, his eyes saddened

to think that another youth had been sacrificed in the name of war.

'We're sending her there so that the proper punishment can be delt to her. we lack the tools or

authority to do much at this point in time.'

He replied as he hopped into the first truck and spun it around to drive back up the large hill. Jack

watched until he was gone before he jumped into the back of the second truck and looked down at

the girl.

'What does this war matter to you? why'd you ever get involved?'

he asked her, knowing full well he wouldn't get a response and it was more of a question to himself

then to the prisoner.

Miho opened her eyes when she realized that she hadn't been burnt to a toasty crisp-she looked

over at Kyo, He was looking just as confused. The heat was unbareable, but the wall of fire seemed

to have split and gone around them instead of right into them, it seemed impossible. Miho looked in

the direction the fire had come from only to see a large bluish silver object standing metres away,

shielding them from being scortched to death. Slowly both Miho and Kyo looked up to see the object

was a Gundam-while they were shielded, the Gundam was taking the full brunt force of the fire wave.

Though it was doing near to no damage, Miho couldn't help but feel bad-that they had needed the

help of the Gundam.

'What's going on?'

Kyo mouthed at Miho as they couldn't hear each other over the defening roar of the flames-Miho

shrugged as she tried to make sense of it.

'I don't get it, who's piloting that thing?'

she wondered, still staring at the machine in awe and admiration. All the fire was blown out by a huge

gust of wind that came from the Gundam as it moved, looking down at them.

'Are you two alright?'

came a familiar voice, but it had been broadcasted from inside the Gundam and was slightly distorted.

The cockpit opened and the two saw who the pilot was-Ryder sat in the chair and gave them a

quick salute as he smirked down at them.

'RYDER?'

Miho cried, thankful to see him alive and well as she had been so worried that he had gone and gotten

himself killed. Kyo waved up at Ryder, he had a large smile of relief on his face as he too had been

worried about the fate of his friend.

'Good to see you again!'

he called out, but was sure that Ryder hadn't been able to hear him. Suddenly there's a loud explosion

and Ryder's Gundam is jerked foreward-he frowns as he looks over his screens to see all was not

well. He shut the cockpit door and turned the Gundam back towards the remaining flame, he held a

sheild infront of him as a burrage of bullets bounced off and exploded around him.

'We've got to get out of here, for Ryder and our own safety!'

Kyo yelled as he dashed to grab Miho and began to pull her towards what appeared to be a safe

place to hide for now-this time she gave him no trouble as she too had been thinking the same thing.

Once Ryder knew for sure that his two friends were a good distance away, he lowered his shield

and lept into the air-avoiding the wave of bullets by millimetres. He was still new with the controls of

the Gudam but he had managed to figure out the basic controls, something he was forced to do with

the mysterious threat after him.

Miho watched as Ryder dodged bullets from what could only be discribed as a ghost as they

couldn't see where the bullets were coming from. It seemed that whatever was attacking Ryder was

invisible and yet even he seemed to not be able to get a lock on the enemy. She wondered if Ryder

had figured out that luring the enemy into the smoke from the fire would help him a little. Sure

enough Ryder vanished in a massive wall of white smoke.

'Wonder if it's the same Gundam from earlier...'

Kyo thought allowd,a point well taken. the Gundam they had seen earlier could obviously become

invisible and surely it's speed outranked any others by far-if this was what Ryder was dealing with,

then he might not be able to win this battle.

'Kyo, why'd you have to go and mension that?'

'What?'

Kyo looked at Miho as if he wasn't sure if he had done something wrong,Miho just shook her head

and returned to watching the fight.

The smoke was a good cover, but Ryder also was at a disadvantage, only relying on the rador

screen-which was clear and this was unnerving as he knew that his enemy was lurking just out of

view. He felt every nerve in his body spazism as he waited like a sitting duck for the enemy to make

the first move. That's when he sensed more then saw an object come shooting through the smoke

towards him. He deflected it with his shield and with his free hand shot off a good three dozen rounds

in the direction the object had come from. The smoke was thinning and he could see that he had

clearly missed his mark.

'Dammit!'

He growled and scanned the area-he was possitive that he was fighting and elite pilot in what could

only possibly be a Gundam made for surprise attacks. Behind him! Ryder spun around only to have

a large black object body slam into him. He stumbled but quickly managed to catch himself before

falling back. however, during his brief distraction the enemy bombarded him with a combination of

bullets and the wall of fire. Out of the flames he saw it coming like a slow motion movie, it was the

black Gundam holding a large scythe which was aimed to make a leathal blow. It moved swiftly and

as it swung the weapon back Ryder knew that it looked hopeless-the Gundam brought the scythe

down without an ounce of hesitation.

'RYDER!'

Miho cried as she saw Ryder's hopeless situation just before the wind blew a wall of smoke over the

two fighting giants and obstracting her view. Kyo had to hold her back from leaving the safe spot and

getting herself killed.

'Miho-stop!'

'No-let me go!'

she struggled as she tried to get out of Kyo's grip. A large explosion made them both cover their

eyes and were blown back by the shock wave. It felt as if one of the Gundams had been detroyed or

severly damaged.

'Oh-God-No...RYDER!"

Miho cried again but was drowned out by the noise of things collapsing around them, she crawled to

her feet, Kyo still had a hold on her arm though she wasn't in any position to move very fast. The

two of them looked over to see the smoke being blown away to reveal nothing left but a smauldering

crator and no sign of either Gundam...

Next Episode

The Nexis Union sets up to send their latest weapon to their space base, on this shipment

is also a few prisoners who have done crimes so horrendous that the only the council can give

them proper punishment-among these people is Avi. However, the launch looks like it's going to

have a few set backs as the Earth Forces make a desperate attack to stop the weapon from leaving

Earth's orbit. It appears that there's only One mobile suit strong enough to hold off the Earth

forces, even in it's highly damaged condition...

Episode Seven: A Ghost Emerges...