A/N: Thank you to TheEvilAshleyness for the review...I'm now updating on a regular schedule…hehe. As promised, here's chapter six. There's one more chapter to go, and it has a mini epilogue. Thanks for reading.

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Awakening

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Odin dazed into the blank space ahead of him. Zero had a firm grip on both his mind and body. The com-link to the cockpit came to life, "Odin, are you alright in there?"

"Don't listen to her, she's just a pawn. You take orders from me." His voice mocked back at him.

"Odin?"

The syllables drifted to his ears. "I'm fine, Lyra." The past few seconds were a whirlwind for him. Zero's cloned voice of him still rang in his mind, but he couldn't anything about it. It was a game that he couldn't win, no matter how hard he tried. "What's the next test?"

His eagerness to complete the battery of tests didn't surprise her at all, "You'll see in time." She pushed a button on the dashboard, and the ceiling retracted. Before long, missiles fired from hidden crevices in the walls of the testing zone. Odin heard the incoming attack through the cockpit's warning system, and quickly guided the mecha through the barrage. He tried out the counter-attack measures to evade the heat sensor missiles. A blinding light engulfed the field, as he outgunned the slippery targets.

"It looks like the fourth of July out there," one of her co-workers tried to shield his eyes from the blasts.

"It'll be over soon, I just want to see what was damaged from the previous fight." Smoke wisped off to the ceiling, and Odin managed to keep his cool about the small test. "I think that'll be it for today." The timer on her computer showed that it lasted for a mere hour.

Zero crept back into his mind, "Remember she's just a pawn in this little game of ours."

Odin tried to brush the voice away as he strained to speak, "I'm heading out now." He felt his eyes twitch for no apparent reason.

A small spike crept onto his brainwave pattern that Lyra noticed. "Okay, get some rest now." Her eyes focused back at his physiological scans that were being printed out. There were two spikes that she couldn't account for. She bit on her lower lip lightly, as her eyes went back to the giant mecha. Could it be coming to life? Her intuition was warning her.

The air in her office sent chills up and down her spine. She never felt this way before, while working on this project. Of all the test subjects used, Heero had unlocked a secret to this machine that she created based from Dr. J's notes. Her hand lingered on the phone. She debated of whether to call her superior to let him know about this. "Why do I have a bad feeling all of a sudden?" The butterflies in her stomach created a storm within her. Her hand unconsciously began dialing the digits to his office.

"Mr. Graves, sir?" Her voice quivered.

"Lyra," he placed the folder from the conference down. In it, there were plans to build more colonies modeled after Andromeda. "What's the update? He asked his senior scientist.

"It's something about the system…there's something wrong."

"I don't know where you're going with this." He shied away from her allegations, pretending to only listen.

"I can't explain it, but Odin doesn't seem himself. He's a little too perfect on the battlefield."

He impatiently tapped with a pen his hands, "I think that can be a great sign."

"I think the system has a mind of it's own." The words rolled out from her tongue. It was a hypothesis, but something that she noticed in Odin was telling her she was on the right track.

"I think you need some vacation time, Lyra. Being stuck in the basement of a research facility all day, can have its negative drawbacks."

She can tell he was trying to lighten her mind slightly, "There's just something here that doesn't add up."

"Hopefully its just nerves then."

"It might just be that," she glanced up at the clock. "I'll continue to update you."

"Alright then," he closed the connection and resumed his task of looking through his plan for more colonies. In his mind, he prided himself that he had the ultimate weapon to bring down nations to their knees. "The end is coming soon."

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"Here's the info you wanted," Wufei peered into the screen.

"That wasn't so bad was it?" She looked up from the paper.

"You should have brought the scanner, woman." His usual personality showed up in his voice.

"You need to do some work anyhow." Her eyes scanned through the documents he sent her, "You sure it's a one story building?"

"I'm not a fact checker." He scoffed at her.

"I might just have to do some investigating myself then. Why would he be so interested in a small building in the first place?" One of her braids fell across her shoulders, as she leaned towards the passenger seat for some more files. "Looks like I'll be home late again."

"Figures that much, woman."

"You know where I'll be," she smiled at him. "I think you should go out on recon next time."

"Just be careful." His softer side emerged for one moment.

"I will, see ya soon."

Wufei shut down the screen and looked over his shoulders. He could tell that Duo and Josh overheard their conversation. Lucky for him, his katana was next to him. "There's nothing to see. I suggest you two focus on the work in front of you." The blade slipped back into its protective sheath. The sound of the blade scraping against the sheath made them rethink twice of their eavesdropping.

Before long, the doors to their secret office opened. "What's the progress?" Their commanding officer stepped in with a grim look on her face. The threat of this new weapon posed a dangerous threat to all of them.

"The same as usual," Duo muttered from his screen.

"Sally is infiltrating a warehouse now. She won't be back for another day." Wufei's voice remained steady.

Josh informed his superior, "Trowa has finished setting the sensors."

"Very well then, it may seem we have one quiet night for sure." Her statement was truly false when the doors opened again. Everyone's eyes looked at the person that entered. "Relena?" Shock crept on the commander.

"Hello there, everyone," her voice was raspy and dry. Quatre stood behind her, as he was wheeling her.

"She refused to stay in her room," the blonde kept a stern gaze on her, "but the doctor gave her the go ahead...seeing that the fresh air may do her some good."

"You shouldn't be here, Relena." Une didn't know what to make of this situation. "You should be resting."

"I need to be here," her voice rose in anger. "I know what's going on. Quatre informed me of everything." The only signs of the blast were seen on her hands. The white gauze reflected the soft fluorescent lights above.

"Very well then. The minute I see you stressing yourself, I'm pulling you out." Une glared at her.

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Odin tossed and turned in his single sized bed. The sheets twisted about his ankles, as Zero pried his way through his captive's mind. "Leave me alone," he muttered out loud.

Sleep was becoming an elusive friend to the former Wing Zero pilot, as he continued to toss about.

A light feeling glazed over his eyes, and he felt the weight of his eyelids finally obeying gravity. Before long, he was in a deep sleep. A feeling he so desperately wanted. The image of a woman danced in his mind. Waves of honey golden hair swept across her shoulders and shined against her pale white skin. "I've seen you before." The girl didn't stop when he relayed those words to her. "Wait…stop." He felt his entire body freeze.

"What do you think you are doing, Odin?" Zero had immobilized him from running after the apparition. "She's a distraction."

"It's not true," he screamed with his willpower. "I've seen her before." All of a sudden, his surroundings were plunged into darkness. Sparks of lightning flashed about him.

"I have total control over your body. Mind and soul." Zero's voice boomed even louder. He felt his right-hand moved to his back pocket, and it brandished a small black pistol. Out of nowhere, the young girl appeared in a white sundress. Her back was turned away from him. He wanted to scream for her to move away, but not a single sound escaped from his dried lips. The bullet escaped from the barrel, and ran in a straight line. He tried closing his eyes, but the dark orbs were fixated upon the sight ahead of him.

"Let me go!" His command went unheard in his mind. A splash of crimson ran down her chest. The white fabric absorbed the liquid as if it was water. The bullet had hit its mark, as she turned to look at her murderer.

"You will become the Perfect Soldier once again." Zero enclosed his grasp on his captive. He finally drove the man that once fought against him to his breaking point. The nightmare had climaxed.

Prussian eyes stared into the ceiling of the darken room. The dark blue orbs had lost the vivacity of life. They just stared at the barren walls, shadows blended with one another in his trance. Heero finally lost the control of his body. Zero was finally pulsing through his veins and lifeline. The man mechanically rose from his bed, and kicked the linens towards the floor. He shuffled towards the desk, and pulled out a gun. Automatically, he checked the barrel to see if it was properly loaded. "It's time for some hunting." A smirk appeared on his face.

Lyra sat in her office until about midnight. Her conversation with Graves didn't settle the unnerving feelings that she still had. Something bad was going to happen, and she felt it in her bones. She wished one of her staffers had stayed late with her, but they all left around nine. Her eyes wandered back to Odin's printout of his brainwave pattern. The two abnormal spikes jumped out of the page, screaming at her to reevaluate them.

She pulled the papers back into his medical file, not wanting to look at them anymore. Her laptop hummed in the deafening silence, as she ran the final diagnostics on her Gundam. A door in the hallway creaked. "I wonder who could that be?" In this ungodly hour, only mice stirred in the hallways. Next to her, she grabbed the upper right drawer and pulled out a stun gun. A weapon she hardly used, but her hand wrapped its fingers around it for security. I knew I should have brought a pistol instead.

Her eyes glanced over to the monitors that sat on a nearby counter. There weren't any breaches in security. "I must be getting too paranoid," she cursed under her breath, and banged her head against the metallic desk.

"I think you are too," Odin had sneaked into the room without her hearing his footsteps. His prey shot her head back up immediately upon hearing his voice.

"What are you doing here?" She concealed the weapon under her desk.

His voice seemed different to her. "I was just out for a midnight snack."

"The cafeteria is in the other side."

"I know." He clicked the safety off his gun. Lyra brandished her own weapon, and shot the laser at him. The beam aimed at his chest, but he continued to stand. "Now now, that's not a way to greet a friend."

"What happened to Odin?" She realized she was dealing with the system after all.

"Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Lost in the recesses of his own mind." The system taunted her back in a monotone fashion.

"That would explain his personality change in just a few hours."

"Smart girl." The man fired a bullet, knocking the defenseless woman's gun to the ground. She dropped to her knees as a bullet grazed above her head. A look of annoyance appeared on the youth's face, "You're just avoiding the inevitable."

"I rather keep myself alive." She yelled back at him. Her hand tried to grab the taser, but was met with gunfire.

"Well…well…Zero I see that you're up and about." The familiar voice was distant.

Her eyes widened in shock, "Graves."

"And why is Lyra on the floor?" The politician looked at his senior scientist.

"You were behind this…all along," her breathing was rapid after trying to retrieve her useless weapon.

"I tweaked the OS myself…I can play dumb at times." A smug look of deceit escaped from his face. "I managed to have Zero take over a human's mind."

"Bastard…you used me all this time in this game." Her mind was screaming for her to get up and to face the demons in front of her.

The older man went up and grabbed the gun from Zero. "Say goodnight, Lyra." A cloud of smoke escaped from the barrel. A red pool slowly seeped through the grooves in the tiles, where her body fell onto the ground. "Let's go Zero." The vessel obeyed the man's orders.

Outside, Sally looked curiously at the worn down structure. She heard a gun firing off somewhere in the vicinity, but she couldn't find a plausible area to enter. Everything in front of her was locked. There weren't any windows that she could squeeze through.

"There has to be a way in," her hand shifted around the main entrance, hoping that it would trigger some hidden sensor. "Where is it?" She raised her hand even higher and hit a rough groove. "Jackpot."

The gated doors slowly creaked open, and revealed a ransacked area. Boxes of cardboard were strewn on the floor, and rats darted to and fro on their midnight raids. Out of the corner of her eye, a stairwell was visible. Before any more possible movements, she raised her watch in front of her. A small beam emitted from the device, and the watch's face revealed several motion sensors. The Preventer pushed another button on her watch, and an electromagnetic beam knocked each one of the targets out of commission.

She quickly entered the stairwell and repeated the same protocol, making sure she wouldn't be spotted. A wave of fresh air hit her face when she made it the ground level. She followed the breeze until she met another door. Carefully, she lifted the latch and peered through the other side. The hallway lights were on dim, but she managed to give a quick run through for any possible targets. It was dead silence. She leaned her back against the wall, and kept both of her eyes ahead of her. If the enemy was there, she didn't want to be cornered on all four sides.

She continually looked behind her, but there was no one. A pair of doors led into another hallway. How long is this going to last? A light was still on at the end of the hallway. Quickly, she darted in that direction. On instinct, she placed her gun in front of the room and peered in. On the floor, a young woman remained motionless. Her blood had pooled around her, as her eyes stared to nowhere. The color had faded to death's shade. Sally sidestepped the victim, and placed her hands over the girl's eyelids. For whatever reason, there was more to the scene that she suspected. The doctor ran over to her desk and looked to see what clues she may have left. One manila file caught her attention, and she gasped at the name. "It can't be."

A hiss coming from the main hangar boomed in her ears. She looked over her shoulders, and out of the darkness, the Gundam emerged. She finally faced the attacker of Andromeda in the flesh. The motion of the mecha was jerky. "He can't be flying it."

"You're right." Odin had returned to the scene of the crime.

"Heero."

The name sounded foreign to him, "You're mistaken." He cocked his gun, ready to shoot at his second target.

"What happened to you?" She tried to reason with him.

"Why don't you look at the file?"

Sally reached for the papers, and made one glance down a series of paragraphs. She didn't want to lose a second with him. Any more time spared might cost her, her life. "Zero," she whispered.

"Correct."

She quickly shot at the window and jumped through the enclosure. A barrage of bullets came from behind her. In that room, she had to face another opponent. Graves saw her from the cockpit and recognized immediately that she was working for the Preventers. He sent an assault with small ammunition, tearing away at the walls above her. Ten feet away, there was her sole getaway. But, it was ten feet where one in a dozen bullets may kill her. She shoved the idea to the back of her mind. Without any more hesitation, she made a break for it. Yellow flickers flashed behind her, as she felt one metal object pierce through her. She stumbled to the ground, but regained her stance and eyed her salvation. "Damn, Wufei won't like this." She bit back the pain. Her hands reached out for the circular knob, and another bullet made its mark. Heero was behind her that's how she knew, but with the last bit of her sanity, she yanked at the door. She made several attempts to grasp the brass knob, but it slipped through her hands as the blood spread on the surface. Without thinking, she tore a piece of her shirt and used it to grasp the knob in one more attempt, and a wisp of cold air finally met her face. On the other side of her salvation, she jammed the door, hoping the bulletproof barrier would buy her some time. But with Zero controlling Heero, it would only be a matter of minutes.

A flight of stairs loomed ahead of her. The day just keeps getting worse. No matter how much distance she placed between him and her, her blood trail would lead him to her. She steadied herself on the banister, ignoring the waves of pain resonating from her right hand and lower back. Down below, thumps rang in the halls. The weight of her legs was getting heavier, and her eyesight periodically faded in out. With the last bit of her strength, she managed to trudge up the last arduous step. She crawled through the doorframe, and she was in the room that began this midnight venture. Only this time, she found herself on the opposite side of the room. She sighed her head in defeat and dragged herself to the other side. It was getting useless. Her vision now began to fail from the massive blood loss. She pulled her right hand and managed to get her index finger to hit one more button on her watch. "We have a problem," a coughing fit took over her weakened condition. The recorder kept taking in her fading voice, "Heero is alive…alias Odin, but…Zero is back." Her right hand moved down to her abdomen. The blood from her right hand mixed with the blood from the area. The dim light revealed the crimson ooze, and she couldn't do anything about it. "I'm sorry, Wufei."

Down below, Odin finally broke through the seal and scanned the frequent droplets. He barged through the upper level, and with his keen sight he found her. The deceitful moonlight had revealed the darkened trail. She leaned against the far northern wall with her head slumped towards her chest. He kicked at her body, and the soulless body leaned over to a side. A smatter of blood was smeared against the wall in the wake of his movement. "Hn…perfect."

"Odin, come back here." Graves called out to his new weapon from the Gundam. The machine stood out from the quiet sanctuary.

"Coming." He opened the barrel of his gun. A small smile graced his lips. In the darkness, one stray ray caught the metallic sheen of his last bullet.

TBC