Disclaimer: Mobile Fighter G Gundam is owned by Bandai and Sunrise. I just write about it in my spare time.
On the Dark Side
Chapter 5: Outrage! Rain Fights Back!
Well, this was unexpected. That's what the stranger thought to himself as he watched the carnage from afar.
He witnessed from his drones' video feed that the Dark Gundam managed to capture Rain and repair itself. No doubt it was about to form another colony. That was alright, he could work with that. He could just fly off somewhere safe, wait for the Gundam to finish growing, and gather as many DG Cells from it as he needed. Besides, it would quickly find itself fighting the Neo Japanese military; it probably wouldn't even know he was there!
He called back his drones, and prepared to fly off. While most of them obeyed and flew to his side, three of the Busshi in the field stayed put. That was odd, why weren't they listening? He tried sending the command again, but they still refused to budge. Their video and audio feeds began to fill with static, too. The last transmission he received from them was that they had identified the Dark Gundam as a hostile party before he lost their signals altogether.
Dammit! It had to do with his broken DG Cells, didn't it? They must be losing power. Well, three Busshi wasn't a big loss. He could always go infect some other mobile suits later. For now, he had to get out of here.
Rain found herself in a very familiar, very unwanted situation. Green cables of varying thickness had tied her feet to the floor of the Dark Gundam's cockpit, and tied both her arms straight out behind her. There wasn't a lot of light in here, but there was just enough to see the silver liquid seeping out of the cables that bound her wrists and ankles. She could feel the cool fluid slowly covering her hands, feet, forearms, and shins.
She felt a sudden icy sting on the nape of her neck as a thin cable connected itself to the base of her skull and spine. Her head ached and her body went cold as an invisible presence began to probe her mind. The Dark Gundam was trying to feed itself off of her emotions and thoughts again.
Once again, we are one, that voice echoed in her head.
This couldn't be happening! It was just like that moment a month and a half ago when Major Ulube captured her and forced her to become the Dark Gundam's core unit the first time. Since Ulube was long gone, fate had decided to play dirty and drop her right into the Dark Gundam's path again by means she still didn't understand. Now here she was, back in the monster's body, being turned into its core unit again. No doubt those military officers had already contacted Domon about this, but would he make it in time? Could this thing even be stopped when it had an entire planet to absorb? She never felt so terrified, so...
ANGRY.
No, she wasn't going to let this happen again! She wasn't going to just sit by and let the Dark Gundam do whatever it wanted! In her rage, Rain managed to summon the strength to rip some of the cords binding her arms with one good yank. She was then able to reach the liquid metal crawling up her arms and start tearing it off of her. Thankfully, it hadn't hardened yet; she could still move her fingers, and the slime easily peeled off. The cable on her neck started wriggling, confused by the sudden burst of emotion.
Her efforts to break free were interrupted when Gundam suddenly pitched forward. She let out a surprised squeal, but the cables tying her down broke her fall. Fancy that, they actually did something good for once!
Stop doing that, the Gundam's silent voice ordered.
"Stop doing what? You mean this?" Rain mocked it as she reached down and peeled some of the silver off of her leg.
The Gundam responded by stumbling again, causing her to jostle around a bit. It felt like the thing was having difficulty standing up. She felt it slowly get back on its feet, swaying unsteadily.
The cockpit was suddenly filled with bright light, and Rain was forced to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she saw that the Dark Gundam had turned on its panoramic screen. Three Busshi were outside, pointing their beam rifles at them. Because all Busshi looked the same, she couldn't tell whether they were with the man who tried to save her, or that other guy.
There are three hostile units outside, the Gundam explained. If you do not cooperate, we may both be terminated.
"Yeah? If you want me to cooperate, you'll first stop trying to kill every human you see!" Rain barked at it. "Stop covering me in goo would be a close second!"
These units are unmanned drones, not humans. And the polyalloy coating is necessary for accurate core unit interface.
"I don't care! It's not like I want to be your core uni-"
Rain's rant was cut short when one of the Busshi suddenly opened fire, hitting the Dark Gundam in the shoulder. The Gundam was knocked backward, but its extra large legs and feet kept it from falling over. Rain was shaken up again, but the cables continued to hold her in place.
Because she was connected to the Gundam, however, she felt pain in her shoulder from the shot. That was enough to feed her fury even more. She glared daggers at the Busshi on screen and balled her metal-coated hand into a fist. The Dark Gundam followed suit.
"Do you mind?!" she roared at the Busshi that had taken the shot. "I'm trying to yell at my Gundam here!"
Without a second thought, Rain raised her fist and swung at the offending mobile suit with all of her might. The Dark Gundam did the same, swinging its huge fist right at the Busshi's head. The smaller mobile suit attempted to dodge out of the way, but the Dark Gundam was too close and too big. It ended up punching through the Busshi's midsection instead. The cockpit was torn open, revealing that it was, in fact, a drone.
Your Gundam, now am I? the Dark Gundam suddenly said. It sounded vaguely amused.
"Shut up!" Rain snapped.
The two remaining Busshi drones backed off a few yards and opened fire. Rain's eyes flared as her anger and frustration rose to unprecedented levels. As her temper boiled over, the Dark Gundam began to modify its cockpit. The silver coating stopped at Rain's elbows and knees. The cables let go of her wrists and ankles so that she could move more freely. They then wrapped themselves around her chest and midsection like a safety harness.
Still in a rage blind enough not to question her situation too much, Rain mentally ordered the Dark Gundam to chase after and punish the two pests. It folded its legs into its lower face and flew after them, its vulcan guns blazing. She was surprised that this thing was pretty easy to handle. Last time she was forced into its cockpit, it was mostly on auto pilot; its actions were calculated by her reactions to Domon's presence. This was the first time she controlled it directly and consciously. She expected its massive size, bizarre weapons, and dangerous AI would make the whole experience awkward and difficult, but oddly enough, it wasn't. In fact, it didn't feel that much different from piloting the Shining or Rising Gundams.
The Busshi were annoyingly good at dodging, flying around her shots rather easily. To make things worse, they were also annoyingly accurate; they always managed to land a direct hit somewhere on the Dark Gundam's body, even though she tried her best to avoid them. The pain she felt from the impacts just made her angrier and more determined to destroy the drones. She wasn't too concerned about the Gundam; it could regenerate pretty fast.
It also had good boosters on its mobile armor mode, as she was rapidly closing in to the much more agile mobile suits. Since shooting at them didn't seem to work, Rain planned on just grabbing them and ripping them limb from limb. But just as they were within arm's reach, they suddenly split up.
Frustrated, Rain chased after the one she felt was closer to her. She tried shooting at the ground ahead of it to force it to slow down. It worked - sort of. The Busshi flew around the shots, but it still had to slow down in the process. But it was just enough so that it was in grabbing distance again. Rain readied both arms, just in case it tried to slip through her fingers.
It didn't try to dodge. Instead, it flipped around and fired a fully charged beam directly at the cockpit. Rain let out a scream. It was too close, and her Gundam was too big to get out of the way!
Fortunately for her, the Gundam's massive arms sprang to life and covered its chest, blocking the beam. The Dark Gundam's AI managed to take over when she panicked. Its arms were badly charred from the shot, but nothing it couldn't repair. Still acting on its own, it ripped the beam rifle right out of the Busshi's hands, and snapped the cord connecting the gun to its generator.
Rain was shaken, but managed to regain her composure a second later. Her rage quickly built itself back up when she thought about how that drone just tried to kill her, and she took control of the second pair of arms. She didn't even know how she did it; she just gave the mental command, and the extra limbs started obeying. But now was not the time to stop and figure it out. She fired both hand-mounted beam cannons at the Busshi, making sure that one of the hands fired a few seconds after the first one did. As expected, the enemy mobile suit jumped out of the way of her first beam, only to land right in the path of the second. It was smelted down into scrap.
As satisfying as that felt, there was no time to admire her handiwork. There was one last drone on the loose, and she needed to find out where it flew off to. As luck would have it, she didn't have to do any searching. A beam shot struck the Dark Gundam right in the back, meaning it was directly behind them. The blast hurt like hell and nearly knocked her off her feet, but she was far too infuriated to care.
"Did you just cheapshot me?!" Rain screamed as she turned around to face the last Busshi.
It cannot answer you, the Gundam remarked as it turned with her.
Rain ignored its quip and she made the legs unfold, switching out of mobile armor mode. She stomped toward the irritating Busshi, who was busy charging its beam rifle. She knew it couldn't be intimidated, but she didn't care; these huge legs and feet were great for angry stomping. She clenched her hand into a tight fist, and circuitry patterns began to glow on the silver coating.
"Do you want to know what I do to people who cheapshot me?" Rain growled in the most threatening voice she could muster as she stomped right up to the drone.
I told you before, it cannot answer you, the Dark Gundam scoffed as its hand began to glow an ominous shade of purple.
Rain ignored it again as she raised her glowing hand and lunged forward. Why she knew how to execute this next move, she wasn't sure. Part of it was probably from when she helped Domon do a Shining Finger way back in Shinjuku. But the rest...she just seemed to know.
"DARKNESS FINGER!"
The Dark Gundam lunged at the Busshi with its glowing hand. At the same time, the enemy mobile suit fired its beam cannon right at its extended arm. However, the Dark Gundam's hand passed right through the beam, shattered the rifle, and grabbed the Busshi's head in a death grip. There was a small explosion, and the drone's lifeless body fell to the ground without its head.
"I...I did it!" Rain said to herself. With the last drone gone, her anger subsided and she began to relax - as much as she could possibly relax inside the Dark Gundam, anyway. She closed her eyes and rubbed her flushed face with her silver-coated hands. The metal gel was cold, but its coolness was welcome this time. This was certainly a rough day.
Meanwhile, the Dark Gundam began acting on its own again, tossing aside the Busshi's head and analyzing its body.
It seems this drone was being controlled by DG Cells, Rain heard it musing. However, they appear to be damaged. I cannot connect to them, therefore I cannot find out who was controlling them. I can attempt to repair them, but I do not have enough time.
"Enough...time?" Rain opened her eyes and saw the wrecked, decapitated Busshi in the Dark Gundam's hands. Reality quickly began to crash down on her and she let out a scream.
"Oh my God, what did I do?!" she cried. "Did...did I do all that?!"
You destroyed three hostile mobile suits, the Dark Gundam answered. And yes, you did.
"This is horrible! What if there was people in there?!" Rain covered her face with both hands.
I informed you beforehand that these mobile suits were unmanned.
"I-I know that, but what if-?!" Rain argued. "And aren't those military mobile suits? Oh God, what if they arrest me?!"
These units were all hijacked off of a base earlier today. Military officials will most likely hold either the hijacker or myself responsible for their destruction rather than you.
Rain didn't find much relief in that answer. She kept staring at the remains of that Busshi and thinking about how viciously she brutalized it. How she practically punched the first one in half and melted the second one down with beam cannons. Yes, they attacked her first - one of them even tried to kill her. But this level of ruthlessness was just...not her. She had completely lost control; it was like she was someone else!
Wait...maybe she was someone else. She was inside the Dark Gundam after all.
"You made me do this!" she accused it.
Me? I did nothing, it replied.
"Don't lie to me!" she shouted. "I know how you use your DG Cells to make humans go crazy and destroy things!"
I am incapable of fabricating falsified data that would not be instantly recognized by most humans as untrue. And I did not have to use any DG Cells to influence you into destroying these mobile suits; you did it all yourself. The Gundam's emotions were much more muted than a human's, but Rain could sense it was getting annoyed at her.
"I don't believe you!" she roared, her anger rising again. "I couldn't have done this myself! It's just...not possible!"
You do not have to believe me if you do not wish to, the fiendish Gundam said, but you may feel free to stay angry at me as long as you want. We have much to do.
"We have...? What does that mea-!" Rain was cut off when new cables shot out of the walls of the cockpit and ensnared her wrists and ankles. Her harness tightened and stiffened, locking her in place. The metal coating began traveling up her limbs again, and at a much faster rate.
Reinforcements are on en route to this location. We must establish a new colony with strong defenses, the Dark Gundam explained. Among these reinforcements is your romantic partner, Domon Kasshu. Therefore, we must ensure that all important structures are fireproof so he cannot destroy them. It is a lot of work in a short amount of time, but as long as you stay outraged, my calculations say it is possible. Your anger is much more useful than your despair.
Rain felt herself beginning to panic again. She needed to do something, and fast! But what? The Dark Gundam had reinforced her bonds, making it almost impossible to move. Even if she could move, the coating was moving up her body faster than she could ever hope to pick it off!
Just when everything seemed hopeless, Rain felt something move in her vest pocket. That's right, the syringe of anti-nanomachines! In all of the chaos, she almost forgot about it! But could she reach it in time?
She pulled as hard as she could against the cables, struggling to get her closest hand to reach her pocket. As if it knew what she was doing, the cables resisted. Then they began to fight back, trying to pull her arm behind her. Meanwhile, the silver had covered both her shoulders and was moving along her chest. If she didn't act fast, the syringe would be covered up by the metal sludge.
Rain summoned every last ounce of strength she had and gave the cables a tremendous yank. The cables finally snapped or yielded, but not before giving her a bunch of rope burns and cuts. She fumbled around in her pocket just as the liquid metal began to slide up her chest. She managed to fish the syringe out just as the ooze engulfed her vest.
As she carefully took off the cap, she felt her fingers begin to stiffen. The metal shell was already beginning to harden around her. Acting fast, she stabbed the needle into one of the larger cables of her harness and pushed down on the plunger.
Rain could hear the anti-nanomachines making soft humming and clicking noises. However, nothing seemed to be happening. Her heart sank. They didn't work, did they? Suddenly, the cables around her chest began to darken before falling apart. All of her restraints loosened at once as they began to writhe in agony. The silver stopped in its tracks right underneath her jawline and chin, as well as stopped solidifying around her hands and feet.
She wasted no time slipping out of her ropes. While it was great to see that Dr. Kasshu's nanomachines worked, she still needed to figure out a way to get out of the cockpit. She wasn't sure how she did it last time; Domon just told her he loved her and the next thing she knew, she was shooting out of it like a rocket! This time it wasn't so simple.
Her train of thought was suddenly derailed, however, by a sharp, burning pain in her chest. She realized that this was coming from the Dark Gundam itself; she must still be connected to it somehow. She felt something wriggling against her neck and instantly remembered the wire on the back of her head. Her fingers were still a little stiff from the metal coating, but she managed to pull the last pesky wire off of her, severing the connection. The pain in her chest quickly faded away.
There was no time to relax, however, as the Dark Gundam turned off its panoramic screen, plunging the cockpit into darkness. Rain was forced to grab on to some of the wriggling wires as the giant mech toppled forward. There was an ear-splitting thud as it hit the ground, and both Rain and rotting cables fell to the "floor," which was now the chestplates. Daylight poured into the cockpit as the plates began to open in order to purge the infected cables. Thinking quickly, Rain grabbed onto one of the plates so that she wouldn't be sent tumbling to her doom; it was a high drop, after all! Once the chestplate she was dangling from was fully extended, she let go and tried to land on her feet. She almost succeeded. Despite her best efforts, it was still a long fall, and she felt pain shoot up one of her ankles. At the very least, it was probably sprained; she really hoped it wasn't broken.
Above her the Dark Gundam was on its hands and knees, trembling. It had replaced its faceplate and was groaning through it. It was amazing how it shrugged off all those beam shots, but Dr. Kasshu's anti-nanomachines completely incapacitated it. They must be completely disrupting its systems as well as dissolving its DG Cells. But Rain also remembered Dr. Kasshu saying that those nanites only had a limited power supply. Without wasting another second, she picked herself up off the ground and ran as fast as she possibly could away from the vile Gundam. Her ankle throbbed in protest, and her feet felt very stiff from where the coating had hardened, but she kept going anyway. She had to get away from that thing.
Off in the distance in front of her, the survivors of the Busshi firefight were waving to her from the cover of some trees. She waved back and began to run in their direction, hoping they could help her. But just when things were beginning to look up, she suddenly felt cold and heard the Dark Gundam's voice in her head again.
Very clever...but not clever enough!
All of her joints locked up at once as the silver surrounding her instantly became solid. She dropped to the ground, unable to move.
"HELP!" she screamed as she wriggled as furiously as she could, trying to break free of her metal prison. Unfortunately, she couldn't remember how to get this stuff off of her. Last time, it shattered when she realized Domon loved her. But Domon wasn't here now, and thinking about him didn't seem to be helping. Where was he, anyway? Weren't they keeping him on standby in case the Dark Gundam got loose? Why wasn't he here yet?!
"We've gotcha, ma'am!" she heard a man's voice say behind her. Two military mobile suit pilots ran over and picked Rain off the ground - one lifted her up from under the arms, and the other lifted her by the legs. They began to carry her over to their comrades by the trees.
Rain caught a glimpse of the Dark Gundam over the shoulders of the pilot that was carrying her legs. It was no longer trembling, but it wasn't moving, either. But it didn't need to, as uninfected cables spilled out of its still open chest. They crawled along the ground, and headed after them.
"Look out!" Rain screamed. She wanted to point in the direction of the cables, but she still couldn't move. The pilots spotted the creeping wires anyway, and cursed out loud as they tried to run faster. Unfortunately, the cables seemed to be faster than them.
Suddenly, they all heard somebody shouting in the distance. The pilots stopped running and both ducked while placing her on the ground. Before Rain could wonder what they were doing, a beam shot across the sky. It struck the Dark Gundam in the shoulder, making it roar in anger and fall over on its side. Rain craned her head around, trying to find the source of the beam; luckily enough, the shell around her neck was still flexible. Behind them, the other pilots had salvaged the beam cannon off of one of their wrecked Busshi along with its generator and were firing it manually. Thanks to the distraction, the cables stopped moving for a minute; it managed to buy them some time.
The two pilots picked her up again and charged across the field. But just as they were only a few yards away from their friends, the one that was carrying Rain's legs suddenly tumbled to the ground, taking her with him. The horrid machine had redoubled its efforts to recapture Rain, and was making its cables grow as fast as it possibly could without a core unit. Said cables had caught up to them and managed to grab the one pilot by his leg. It threw him aside as the other wires continued crawling after her. The Gundam's main body had already recovered from the beam shot and was now slowly crawling toward them all by dragging itself along the ground again.
Seeing their friends in danger, the rest of the space fleet ran out into the field and started firing at the cables with their human-sized laser rifles. Meanwhile, the pilot who still had a hold on Rain continued to try to get her to safety. Back by the trees, the remaining officers were trying to charge up another beam cannon shot, but it seemed to be taking its sweet time.
Sadly, it was all for naught as the tentacles easily swatted the opposition away or tied them up to keep them from attacking. Then the wires lunged forward and grabbed both Rain and the pilot that was trying to get her to safety. She flopped around as hard as she could in a last ditch effort to break the metal around her, but the shell refused to even dent. The cables picked her up off the ground by her legs and midsection to stop her from thrashing.
"NO! Let go of me!" she screamed at it, trying her best to squirm out of its clutches. She didn't want to just sit by and let this thing drag her back into its body, but what was she going to do? She couldn't move at all, and she was out of options.
I really wish you had not done that, she heard the Dark Gundam scolding as it closed in on her. You wasted a lot of time by trying to escape. Now we will have to retreat and find some other place to build a new col-
The mechanical monster was interrupted when another Gundam flew down from the sky. A Gundam with distinctive wings and two sets of horns. One Rain was very happy to see.
"ERUPTING, BURNING SLASH!"
The Burning Gundam tore through all the cables on the ground with a flaming beam saber. Domon had made sure to cut the wires at a good distance away from Rain and her rescuers so that they wouldn't accidentally get burned. With their connections severed, the tentacles lost their grip on everyone and were easily discarded. Meanwhile, the Dark Gundam seemingly lost power and collapsed face down. Rain wasn't falling for it, however; it was probably playing dead now that Domon was here.
Right on Domon's heels were the reinforcements. They consisted of a very large fleet of heavily-armed Nobusshi and a dozen fighter ships. Another cargo ship was also among their number. Once they saw that the Dark Gundam was neutralized, the ships quickly began to deploy energy nets around it. The multitude of Nobusshi started landing all over the field and secured the area as well as the nets around their quarry. A few of them stopped to extinguish any flames the Burning Gundam set when it cut the cables. Some of the fleet flew off in the direction of the downed cargo ship, probably off to help the crew and try to recover the wreckage. Finally, a few mobile suits began flying far off into the distance, searching for that mysterious person who was controlling those drones.
Several paramedic ships also arrived alongside the fleet. Their crews immediately started taking in the surviving pilots of the earlier shootout. Two paramedics wearing Hazmat suits walked up to the still immobile Rain and helped hoist her up onto a stretcher.
"Rain! Where are you?! Are you okay?!" Domon shouted over his loudspeaker.
Rain was hoping that the metal shell would shatter once her boyfriend arrived on the scene, but sadly, it didn't. It did, however, crack a little at one of her shoulders. After vigorously rolling that shoulder, she managed to chip away at it enough to raise the arm and give him an awkward wave.
"Over here, Domon!" she called. "I'm okay!"
"Rain!" Domon cried when he spotted her. "Oh, I'm so glad you're alright! They told me that the Dark Gundam grabbed you again!" The Burning Gundam turned toward the demonic machine in question, who was completely wrapped up in the energy nets and being dragged toward the fresh cargo ship. "And speaking of which..."
Domon marched his Gundam right up to the captured devil and the team of Nobusshi that were hauling it. The Burning Gundam's wings spread out, creating a circular rainbow, and his right hand began to burn a furious shade of red.
"Alright, everybody outta the way!" Domon barked raising his glowing hand. "I'm gonna take care of this once and for all!"
The Nobusshi quickly blocked him. A few more that weren't in charge of carrying the Dark Gundam stepped over and surrounded Domon just in case things got ugly.
"I'm sorry, but we can't let you do that, Mr. Kasshu," one of the Nobusshi pilots said. "We have our orders. The Dark Gundam has been neutralized, so we must return to base with it for containment."
"Yeah? And I had my orders, too!" Domon roared back. "I was told that if the Dark Gundam ever got loose, I was to destroy it! And that's exactly what it did!"
"Yes, but you already knocked offline," the rather patient pilot continued. "There's no need to destroy it now. We need to take it back to base where we can ensure it won't get loose again. Then we'll dispose of it."
"No, we need to dispose of it right now!" Domon shouted. "Look, it managed to grab Rain again! What's it gonna take for you guys to get it?! Does it need to form another colony?!"
As Domon continued to argue with the military officials, Rain's stretcher was wheeled into the nearest paramedic ship. As the ship flew her up and away from the field, EMTs clad in Hazmat suits carefully chipped away at her silver coating with surgical mallets. They started with her joints first, so she could at least move around. She let them know about her injured foot, and they worked on freeing that next. Whenever they were able to break off a piece of the shell, they immediately put it in a tub of some sort of corrosive solution. Strong acid maybe? The metal was probably crawling with DG Cells, meaning she would later have to undergo rigorous decontamination just like she did a month and a half ago. She was not looking forward to that.
She sighed. She really hoped today's events would convince the government that the Dark Gundam should just be destroyed immediately, but she doubted it. Even if by some miracle they did decide to dismantle it...would they be able to? She just witnessed it make a complete comeback from what looked like certain destruction. What if her fears were right, and it was completely indestructible now?
And even though the monster had been contained, was she actually safe? She still had no idea how she wound up in that field in the first place. Had the Dark Gundam hypnotized her through those hallucinations? How was it doing that, and could it do it again? She knew that awful thing was neither "neutralized" nor "offline." It was simply lying in wait for its next opportunity.
It wasn't over. There was no such thing as "over."
Well, that was quite an ordeal!
From a group of foothills several kilometers away from the field, the stranger had watched the chaos using his Busshi's long range camera. It wasn't the best seat in the house, but he could still see the Dark Gundam destroying his rogue drones from here. He also watched it as it suddenly went down, though he couldn't see why it did. He then watched as the Burning Gundam arrived along with reinforcements.
He sneered to himself. Domon Kasshu. So he survived, did he? The stranger had been knocked out (offline?) during his last confrontation with Domon, so he did not get to see how the previous battle against the Dark Gundam played out. Since he was here and seemingly unscathed, it was safe to assume he won that match.
Well, this wasn't good; he couldn't have Domon around. Maybe he wasn't a problem right now, but the stranger knew that they would cross paths eventually. And when they did, he knew Domon would do everything in his power to stop him. He needed to find a way to get the Gundam Fighter out of the picture while he was still unaware of his presence. But how?
Confront Domon directly? He wasn't sure if that was a good idea. Yes, the Gundam Fighter wasn't nearly as invincible outside of his mobile suit, but he was still a force to be reckoned with. He did not receive that Shuffle Alliance crest for nothing. In addition, the stranger was not able to repair his DG Cells like he wanted to. He found a few cells on the hands of the Busshi that had grabbed that loose arm, but those cells weren't in much better shape than his current ones. And now that the Dark Gundam had been recaptured, his chances of fully repairing himself were next to nothing.
On the other hand, he did have his ace in the hole. If he were to ambush Domon, and use his ZERO system to predict all of his moves...
He was snapped out of his reverie by something coming up on his radar. A group of mobile suits were scouting the area and were heading in his direction. He would have to worry about Domon later; right now, he needed to get out of here.
With that, the stranger and his drones flew off, taking cover among the foothills in order to stay off the scouts' radar. He needed to find a secure location where he and his squad could hide - and where he could readjust all of his plans in peace.
